been saying this for Months, and like I've said, I believe this is part of the real reason for the collapse. Also part of the Money War with China but like I say, better get those Jack Boots ready :0
US lawmaker warns cuts may revive military draft
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Quote:
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A key US lawmaker leading the fight against military spending cuts has warned that dramatic new reductions could force the United States to shift from an all-volunteer military and reinstate the draft.
House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon, a Republican, told Fox News television on Monday that lawmakers "need to understand what it's going to mean to keep an all-volunteer force."
"Do we want to reinstitute the draft? Some of the cuts we're talking about would take over 200,000 out of end strength from our military," McKeon said in remarks also reported in the Washington Post on Tuesday.
The lawmaker said that an August debt-limit deal included $465 billion of defense spending cuts over ten years, and warned that "it'll be over another $500 billion" in automatic cuts to military programs if a new "supercommittee" fails to find $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over ten years in a few weeks.
"We understand that defense has to be on the table, just as everything else is," he said, but draconian cuts to the Pentagon would raise the question of "who's going to have our back the next time we're attacked."
If the "supercommittee" fails to agree on a plan by November 23, and Congress fails to pass it by December 23, that would trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to military spending and a popular health care program come January 2013.
The cuts were designed to be so unpopular with Republicans and Democrats that they would force the 12-member panel to find a compromise, and force the overall congress to back the compromise.
But senior Republicans have been working to fight against new cuts to defense spending as part of the committee's work, warning such reductions could endanger US national security in the face of a rising China and could deepen the US economic downturn by swelling the ranks of unemployed.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2011 12:06 am Post subject:
Another of Naomi Klein's 'Shock Doctrine' moments is brewing here
Cameron & Harper - Bilderbergers
Cameron, Harper sound alarm amid global market panic
kevin carmichael
WASHINGTON— From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Sep. 22, 2011 10:41PM EDT
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his British counterpart, David Cameron, have issued dark warnings that the world is on the verge of another recession – adding their voices to a series of cautions from world leaders about the European debt crisis.
Elite cultist (Illuminati/Luciferian?) Bilderbergers Cameron & Harper pronounce
- another Naomi Klein 'Shock Doctrine' horseman coming soon?
1. UK PM & elite cult member (Bullingdon Club was just the start) David Cameron at UN encouraging Expansionist illegal resource grabs/wars/occupations/invasions - Hitlerian stance
2. Iran's Ahmadinejad preaching peace, civilisation, spiritual enlightenment and explaining who destroyed Bretton Woods in the nicest possible way. As not shown on the UK media due to Zionist mole bullies in our media.
Don't miss this mind-blowingly brilliant speech -
Federal Reserve audit exposes major securities fraud and the embezzlement of $16 trillion.
auditthefedphonebomb.com
An audit of the Federal Reserve has revealed that the privately owned Federal Reserve secretly doled out more than $16 trillion in zero interest loans to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world. The non-partisan, investigative arm of...
http://auditthefedphonebomb.com/bailouts/federal-reserve-audit-exposes -major-securities-fraud-and-the-embezzlement-of-16-trillion-2/ _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
BABELGUM METROPOLIS
THE YES MEN: THE LEGENDARY BBC BHOPAL HOAX
[ 07:00 ]
Excerpt from The Yes Men fix the World. On the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal
gas tragedy, December 2004, Dow spokesperson 'Jude Finiseterra' makes an unexpected announcement on the BBC. In this alternative reality where major corporations do the right thing, Dow Chemical (the present owner of Union Carbide, the company behind the spill), claimed full responsibility for the tragedy and announced a multibillion dollar compensation package. Dow stock prices lost over $2 billion in value in 20 minutes, before the hoax was revealed.
For more Yes Men videos, visit the Yes Men Channel
To share or embed this clip, click on the ‘share’ button above.
"Two of the ballsiest guys I've ever met" - Morgan Spurlock
"Comedic vigilante justice... Media-savvy pie-to-the-face" - USA Today
"Diabolic intelligence" - New York Times
remember they have been present in the NYC demos :0 _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
The BBC would not normally allow such rhetoric and honesty concerning the markets unless it wanted to encourage a lack of confidence in the markets and help bring on a financial collapse by panicking investors.
No talk of markets which could compromise the Rothschild assets and its other investors gets the go-ahead without consent by Evelyn De Rothschild.
What is going on?
Is this what we've all being waiting for or is there a reason for this? Will the second Great Depression happen before the Olympics and if so how long will it take to really hit the working class?
What followed the Great 1930's Depression? WWII.
This might be how they plan to bring on the One World Fascist Dictatorship. Deny the people food and they'll do anything for it. _________________ "The likelihood of one individual being right increases in direct proportion to the intensity to which others are trying to prove him[her] wrong."
- - Harry Segall
"The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves." Lenin 1917
BBC financial expert Alessio Rastani: 'I'm an attention seeker not a trader'
Quote:
He's become the face of the global debt crisis and an internet sensation. The self-styled City trader who stripped away the jargon and bluster of the financial world and summed up our woes in just three minutes. "I go to bed every night dreaming of another recession," Alessio Rastani explained in a BBC interview. "It's an opportunity."
By Jonathan Russell11:50PM BST 27 Sep 2011336 Comments
The soundbites won Mr Rastani instant fame. He became a viral hit and was trending on Twitter. BBC business editor Robert Peston was among the fans. "A must watch if you want to understand the euro crisis and how markets work," he told his army of 82,000 followers on Twitter on Tuesday.
The interview contained such gems as "Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world [and] Goldman Sachs does not care about the rescue package."
But on Tuesday night the BBC was left facing questions about just how qualified Mr Rastani is to speak about the markets.
In the interview Mr Rastani described himself as an independent trader. Elsewhere he claims he's an "investment speaker". Instead of operating from a plush office in Canary Wharf Mr Rastani works and lives with his partner Anita Eader in a £200,000 semi in Bexleyheath, south London. The house, complete with a mortgage from Royal Bank of Scotland, belongs to her not him.
The £200,000 semi in Bexleyheath, south London (far left), where Alessio Rastani lives.
He is a business owner, a 99pc shareholder in public speaking venture Santoro Projects. Its most recent accounts show cash in the bank of £985. After four years trading net assets are £10,048 - in the red.
How a man who has never been authorised by the Financial Services Authority and has no discernible history working for a City institution ended up being interviewed by the BBC remains a mystery.
Stock trader Alessio Rastani: "I'm an attention seeker".
The incongruity led to some commentators speculating Mr Rastani was a professional hoaxer. The BBC denied the allegation: "We've carried out detailed investigations and can't find any evidence to suggest that the interview with Alessio Rastani was a hoax."
However, the BBC declined to comment on what checks, if any, it had done prior to the interview.
Mr Rastani was a little more forthcoming.
"They approached me," he told The Telegraph. "I'm an attention seeker. That is the main reason I speak. That is the reason I agreed to go on the BBC. Trading is a like a hobby. It is not a business. I am a talker. I talk a lot. I love the whole idea of public speaking."
So he's more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn't own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators.
"I agreed to go on because I'm attention seeker," he said on Tuesday. "But I meant every word I said."
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
- Public announcement GEAB N°57 (September 16, 2011) -
GEAB No. 57 is available! Global systemic crisis - Fourth quarter 2011: Implosive fusion of global financial assets
As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 since November 2010, and often repeated up to June 2011, the second half of 2011 has started with a sudden and major relapse of the crisis. Nearly USD 10 trillion of the USD 15 trillion in ghost assets announced in GEAB N°56 have already gone up in smoke. The rest (and probably much more) will vanish in the fourth quarter of 2011, which will be marked by what our team calls "the implosive fusion of global financial assets". It’s the two major global financial centers, Wall Street in New York and the City of London, which will be the "preferred reactors" of this fusion. And, as predicted by LEAP/E2020 for several months, it’s the solution to the public debt problems in some Euroland countries which will enable this reaction to reach critical mass, after which nothing is controllable; but the bulk of the fuel that will drive the reaction and turn it into a real global shock (1) is found in the United States. Since July 2011 we have only started on the process that led to this situation: the worst is ahead of us and very close!
In this issue N°57, we have chosen to address, very directly, the great manipulation organized around the Greek crisis and the Euro (2), whilst describing its direct link with the implosive fusion process of financial assets worldwide. Also in this issue, LEAP/E2020 presents its anticipations for the gold market for the period 2012-2014 as well as its analyses on neo-protectionism which will be introduced from the end of 2012. In addition to our monthly recommendations on Switzerland and the Swiss Franc, currencies, real estate and financial markets, we also present our strategic advice to the G20 leaders less than two months from the G20 summit to be held in Cannes.
US economic output index (1974-2011) (grey shading: recessions;
US economic output index (1974-2011) (grey shading: recessions; broken blue line: recession warning; blue: economic output index and in red, forecast for the 3rd and 4th quarters 2011) - Source: Streetalk/Mauldin, 08/2011
Greek crisis and the Euro: Itemizing the huge manipulation in progress
But let’s come back to Greece and what is beginning to be a "very repetitive old story (3)" which, as we have already explained, returns to the front of the media stage every time Washington and London are in serious difficulties (4). Moreover, coincidentally, the summer has been disastrous for the United States which is now in recession (5), which has seen their credit rating cut (an event deemed unthinkable by all the "experts" only six months ago) and exposed their political system’s state of widespread paralysis (6) to an astonished world, all whilst being incapable of putting any serious measure in place to reduce their deficits (7). At the same time, the United Kingdom is sinking into depression ( with riots of uncommon violence, an austerity policy that fails to control budget deficits (9) whilst plunging the country into an unprecedented social crisis (10), and a ruling coalition that doesn’t even know why it governs together against the backdrop of the scandal of collusion between political leaders and the Murdoch empire. No doubt, in such a context, everything was ripe for a media relaunch of the Greek crisis and its corollary, the end of the Euro!
If LEAP/E2020 had to summarize the "Hollywood style" or "Fox News" (11) scenario, we would have the following synopsis: "While the US iceberg is ramming the Titanic, the crew leads the passengers in search of dangerous Greek terrorists who may have planted bombs on board!" In propaganda terms, it’s a known recipe: it’s a diversion to allow, first of all, the rescue of the passengers one wants to save (the informed elite who know very well that there are no Greek terrorists on board) since everyone can’t be saved; and then, hide the problem’s true nature for as long as possible to avoid a revolt on board (including some of the crew who sincerely believe that there really are bombs on board).
Focusing on the background, we must emphasize that the "promoters" of a Greek crisis presented as a fatal crisis for the Euro have spent their time repeating it for almost two years without any of their forecasts coming to pass in any shape or form (12) (except to continue talking about it). Facts are stubborn: despite the media outcry that should have seen off many economies or currencies (13), the Euro is stable, Euroland has come on in leaps and bounds in terms of integration (14) and is about to break even more spectacular new ground (15), the emerging countries continue to diversify out of US Treasury Bonds and buy Euroland debt, and Greece’s exit from the Euro zone is still completely beyond consideration except in the Anglo-Saxon media articles whose writers generally have no idea of how the EU functions and even less of the strong trends that drive it.
Comparison of economic data Euroland-USA (2010) (State debt, un
Comparison of economic data Euroland-USA (2010) (State debt, unemployment, GDP growth, current account balance) - Source: Spiegel, 07/2011
Now our team can do nothing for those who want to continue to lose money by betting on a Euro collapse (16), Euro-Dollar parity, or Greece’s Euroland exit (17). These same people spent lot of money to protect themselves against the so-called "H1N1global epidemic" that experts, politicians and the media of all kinds "sold" for months to people worldwide and proved to be a huge farce fueled in part by pharmaceutical companies and cliques of experts under their orders (1. The rest, as always, is self-propelled by the lack of thought (19), sensationalism and mainstream media conformity. In the case of Euro-Greek crisis, the scenario is similar, with Wall Street and the City in the role of the pharmaceutical companies (20).
When Wall Street and the City panic before the solutions in the course of forging Euroland
In fact we recall that what terrifies Wall Street and the City are the lessons that Euroland’s leaders and its people have been in the process of learning from these three years of crisis and the ineffective solutions that have been applied. The nature of Euroland creates a unique forum for discussion among the elite and American and British public opinion. And this is what disturbs Wall Street and the City, which is systematically trying to kill this forum, either by trying to plunge it into a panic by announcing the end of the Euro for example; or by reducing it to a waste of time and evidencing Euroland’s ineffectiveness, an inability to resolve the crisis. Which is the limit given the complete paralysis prevailing in Washington!
However, it’s really this discussion forum that allows Eurolanders to move forward on the path to a lasting solution to the current crisis. This discussion forum is an integral part of European construction where opposing views of the methods and solutions confront each other before ultimately agreeing on a compromise (and it’s still the case as the very important decisions taken since May 2010 prove). Thus it broadens the debate to a whole raft of participants, coming from 17 different countries (21), several common institutions, and it roots itself in the discussions of seventeen public opinions. Yet it’s from the clash of ideas that light shines forth: of the brutal clash of ideas, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said 2500 years ago "Some it makes gods, some it makes men, some it makes slaves, some free". But Euroland’s citizens refuse to let this crisis turn them into slaves and that’s why the current debates within Europe are needed and useful. In three years, between 2008 and 2011, they have made two key things possible in the future:
. they relaunched European integration around Euroland and henceforth placed it on a path of accelerated integration. Our team now expects a strong revival of European politics from the end of 2012 (similar to the 1984-1985 period) including a Euroland political integration treaty which will be put to a Euroland-wide referendum by 2015 (22)
. they allowed the gradual emergence of two simple but very strong ideas: saving private banks is of no use to solve the crisis and it is necessary that the markets (that is to say essentially the big Wall Street and City financial operators) fully assume their risks without any further guarantee from the state. Today, these two ideas are at the heart of the Euroland debate, both in public opinion and amongst the elite ... and they gain ground every day. This is what causes fear on Wall Street, in the City, and amongst major private financial operators. This is the wick that has nearly burned down that will trigger the implosive fusion of global financial assets in the fourth quarter (in the prevailing context of the US recession and its inability to reduce its public deficits).
If markets begin to anticipate a 50% drop in Greek and Spanish securities it’s because they really sense the direction which events in Euroland are taking. For LEAP/E2020, there is no doubt that minds are ripe, throughout most of Euroland, for private creditors being asked to pay 50%, or even more, to resolve the future problems of public debt. This is, without doubt, a problem for European banks, but it will be managed to protect depositors. The shareholders themselves will have to take full responsibility: besides it’s really the foundation of capitalism!
Wall Street and the City, and their media intermediaries desperately want this debate not to take place, regardless of whether it’s ended by panic, so that governments should be forced to listen to their "experts" who assure them that the only way is to continue to recapitalize banks, and flood them with liquidity (23) ... as is the case in Washington and London. Two countries where these same financial institutions reign supreme in the government.
Incidentally the battle rages around the ECB as we mentioned in a previous GEAB: the appointment of Mario Draghi, a formerly with Goldman Sachs, the resignation of Jurgend Stark (24), ... arise out of these attempts to put Frankfurt under the same tutelage as London and Washington. But they are doomed from the start by virtue of this open forum, structurally inscribed in European construction, where discussions are fed by the failed policies of 2008 and the growing outbreak of public opinion in the debate. "Chi va piano va sano e va lontano" (25) as the Italians say. This crisis is of historic proportions as we have said since February 2006. The steps to take to get through it as best as possible and come out of it stronger (free men and not slaves to quote Heraclitus) thus require serious and deep discussion (26) ... therefore time. And the time taken by the Eurolanders, is money lost to the markets ... which explains their fears. LEAP/E2020 thinks, of course, that it’s also necessary to act and we have pointed out from May 2010 that the actions taken in Euroland were of a magnitude unprecedented in recent European history. And we believe that we must allow time for the second aid package to Greece to be implemented. For the rest, we know also that the current leaders are mostly "at the limit" and it will be necessary to wait until the mid-2012 to witness a new and powerful boost to Euroland integration (27).
Meanwhile, with 340 billion USD to find for refinancing in 2012 (2, the European and American banks will continue to kill each other while trying to maintain the pre-crisis situation which gave them unlimited central bank support. As for Euroland, they may have a very bad surprise.
Comparison of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve index and US ind
Comparison of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve index and US industrial production (2002-2011) - Sources: Philadelphia Fed, MarketWatch, 08/2011
The fourth quarter 2011 marks the end of two key examples of the world before the crisis
The implosive fusion of the fourth quarter will thus directly result from the encounter between two new realities that contradict two basic conditions of existence of the world before the crisis:
. one, born in Europe, consists of now rejecting the idea that private financial operators, of which Wall Street and the City are the embodiment par excellence, are not fully responsible for the risks they take. Yet for decades, this was the prevailing idea that fueled the tremendous growth of the financial economy: “Heads I win, tails you bail me out”. Even the existence of large Western banks and insurance companies has become intrinsically linked to this certainty. The balance sheets of major players on Wall Street and the City (and of many large Euroland and Japanese banks) are unable to withstand this tremendous paradigm shift (29).
. the other, generated in the United States, is the proven end of the US engine of global growth (30) against a background of the country’s complete political paralysis which, de facto, will end 2011 as Greece ended 2009: the world discovering little by little that the country has a debt it can no longer support, that its creditors are unwilling to lend, and its economy is unable to cope with significant austerity without plunging into a deep depression (31). In some ways, the analogy can be taken further: just as the EU and the banks, from 1982 to 2009, lent freely to Greece ... and without pressing for accounts, over the same period, the world has lent freely to the United States believing its leaders’ promises about the state of the economy and the country’s finances. And in both cases, the money has been wasted in real estate booms with no future, in extravagant crony politics (in the US cronyism is Wall Street, the oil industry, health service providers) and in unproductive military spending. And in both cases, everyone discovers that in a few quarters you can’t fix decades of recklessness.
The politico-financial « perfect storm » of November 2011
So, in November 2011 the United States will brace itself for a politico-financial "perfect storm" that will make the summer problems look like a slight sea breeze. The six elements of the future crisis have already come together (32):
. the "super committee" (33) responsible for deciding budget cuts on which there was no agreement this summer will prove incapable of resolving the tensions between the two parties (34)
. the automatic budget cuts required to be made in the absence of agreement will result in a major political crisis in Washington and increasing tensions, especially with the military and the recipients of social benefits. At the same time, this "automatic function" (a real abdication of decision-making authority by Congress and the United States Presidency) will generate major disturbances in the functioning of the state system.
. the other major rating agencies will join S&P in downgrading the US credit rating and diversification out of US Treasury Bonds will accelerate, in the knowledge that the United States now depends primarily on short-term financing (35).
. the inability of the Fed to do anything but talk and manipulate stock markets or gasoline prices in the United States (36), now makes any last-minute "rescue" impossible.
. over the next three months the US public deficit will increase dramatically as tax revenues are now already in the process of collapsing under the impact of the relapse into recession (37). In other words the increased debt ceiling voted in a few weeks ago will be reached well before the November 2012 elections (3... and this is information that will spread like wildfire in the fourth quarter of 2011 ... reinforcing all investors’ fears to see the United States follow Euroland’s example over Greece and force its creditors to take heavy losses.
. Barack Obama’s new plan in the fight against unemployment will have no significant effect. On the one hand, it’s not up to the challenge and, for this reason, can’t rally the country’s energies; and on the other, it will be cut to pieces by the Republicans who will only keep the tax cuts... The only result of which will be to increase the country's debt even more (39).
The US debt super committee’s connections with Washington
The US debt super committee’s connections with Washington lobbyists - Source: Washington Post, 09/2011
So for LEAP/E2020, it's a combination of all these elements at the end of 2011 that will trigger this major financial shock ... a kind of final shock thrusting the planet out of the world before the crisis for good. But the world after is still to be built because many futures are possible, beginning 2012. As Franck Biancheri anticipated in his book, the period 2012-2016 forms an historical crossroads. One must try not to mistake the path (40)!
----------
Notes:
(1) For now, as we have said for several quarters, the media and financial hysteria surrounding the Greek crisis is primarily in the realm of propaganda and manipulation. To see this, it suffices to note that outside Greece, no Euroland citizen would realize that there is a crisis in Greece if the media didn’t regularly make it the subject of their headlines. Whilst in the United States, the daily ravages of the crisis do not need media coverage to be felt severely by the tens of millions of Americans.
Uploaded by RussiaToday on 16 Oct 2011
Greece remains the epicentre of the EU debt crisis with international creditors still unsure about handing Athens another cash injection. While in meantime, a new survey suggests the debt burden is literally killing Greeks pushing them to drug dependence and even suicide. And the economic crunch is likely to take its toll on citizens of other European states as RT's Daniel Bushell explains.
Fight for the right to work http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/view.m?id=15&cat=society&gid=%2Fso ciety%2F2011%2Foct%2F16%2Ffight-for-right-to-work&type=article
The Guardian, Sun 16 Oct 2011 21.00 BST
The announcement that levels of youth unemployment are all but at the 1 million mark for the first time since the 1990s is a devastating blow (UK's jobless total is highest for 17 years, 13 October). The government's "work academies" programme is just a cosmetic attempt to deal with a catastrophe. It's a rerun on a smaller scale of the dead-end youth training scheme championed by Margaret Thatcher.
We are seeing the destruction of hope for a generation of young people. They find themselves cut off from work and priced out of education through the assault on EMA and spiralling tuition fees. Last year ended with a student revolt. This summer we saw riots in cities as frustration, deep alienation and anger among sections of the young and the dispossessed spilled on to the streets.
The future for young people is grim if the Tories are allowed to continue with their assault on public spending, jobs and services. But as we have seen repeatedly, this generation will not suffer in silence. A week ago many young people took part in UK Uncut's Block the Bridge event in defence of the NHS. At the weekend the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street protests arrived in London with the planned occupation of the Stock Exchange.
One year on from the demonstration at Millbank, students will take to the streets again on 9 November, and millions will strike together on 30 November. This doesn't have to be a rerun of Boys from the Blackstuff. The future isn't decided yet. We are going to fight for our right to education and for our right to work.
Estelle Cooch Right to Work Campaign, Mark Bergfeld Education Activist Network, John McDonnell MP, Ian Hodson BFAWU, Mark Campbell UCU, Linda Burnip DPAC, John James McArdle and Phil Lockwood Black Triangle campaign
• The current level of youth unemployment is not only a national disgrace, but also potentially disabling for other areas of society; particularly the education system, where young people are taught to play by the rules and work hard to ensure a prosperous future – only to find that their qualifications buy them less and less. We should call for the EMA to be reintroduced and for cuts in university places to be reversed; but as your editorial (13 October) also recognises, solutions to youth unemployment will primarily be the result of changing economic policies.
Rising youth unemployment, while seriously exacerbated by the recession, is the result of longer-term structural changes to the economy. The future jobs fund was a small step in the right direction and a recognition that, rather than leaving young people to fend for themselves, jobs had to be created.
We could be much bolder, however, using local authorities to create employment opportunities, ensuring that all those who complete apprenticeships are guaranteed a job and demanding that employers incorporate quotas for young people in recruitment policies. Without a more general "plan B" for the economy, though, the fortunes of young people stand little chance of improving.
Dr Martin Allen
Co-author of Lost Generation? New Strategies for Youth and Education
• It's clear from the unemployment figures that the coalition's prescription for growth isn't working. The government needs to recognise that worklessness is a national problem but a local issue – that's why councils need to have a greater say in how the Work Programme operates. In its current form it is overcentralised and too complex. Workplace, Newham's one-stop employment shop, has seen more than 8,700 residents find work and get equipped with skills to make them more attractive to employers. This proves local authorities can play a crucial role in the fight against worklessness.
Robin Wales
Mayor of Newham
• "Lazy" or "scrounger" are two unfair labels used all too often of the unemployed. But as we write, around 30 unemployed youths are on a 330-mile Jarrow-to-London march. And lazy they certainly are not. As trade unionists we fully support these young marchers' demands, including a massive government scheme to create socially useful jobs. They stand in the proud tradition, laid down by the 200 men who completed this same route in 1936, of fighting for the right to work. That's why we will be joining the final leg of the Youth Fight for Jobs Jarrow March on 5 November in London, starting at noon at Temple Embankment.
Mark Serwotka PCS, Sally Hunt UCU, Bob Crow RMT, Matt Wrack FBU _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2011 11:54 am Post subject:
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Euro crisis is being engineered so that only the Euro-countries will get a fix - and that fix will be at the price of transforming ito part of a fascist European Superstate - leaving all banks outside the Eurozone to collapse - that includes Wall Street and the City Of London.
That fix really will be the devil's pact and I'm glad we're out of it despite the chaos it will wreak here in Britain.
- Public announcement GEAB N°57 (September 16, 2011) -
GEAB No. 57 is available! Global systemic crisis - Fourth quarter 2011: Implosive fusion of global financial assets
As anticipated by LEAP/E2020 since November 2010, and often repeated up to June 2011, the second half of 2011 has started with a sudden and major relapse of the crisis. Nearly USD 10 trillion of the USD 15 trillion in ghost assets announced in GEAB N°56 have already gone up in smoke. The rest (and probably much more) will vanish in the fourth quarter of 2011, which will be marked by what our team calls "the implosive fusion of global financial assets". It’s the two major global financial centers, Wall Street in New York and the City of London, which will be the "preferred reactors" of this fusion. And, as predicted by LEAP/E2020 for several months, it’s the solution to the public debt problems in some Euroland countries which will enable this reaction to reach critical mass, after which nothing is controllable; but the bulk of the fuel that will drive the reaction and turn it into a real global shock (1) is found in the United States. Since July 2011 we have only started on the process that led to this situation: the worst is ahead of us and very close!
In this issue N°57, we have chosen to address, very directly, the great manipulation organized around the Greek crisis and the Euro (2), whilst describing its direct link with the implosive fusion process of financial assets worldwide. Also in this issue, LEAP/E2020 presents its anticipations for the gold market for the period 2012-2014 as well as its analyses on neo-protectionism which will be introduced from the end of 2012. In addition to our monthly recommendations on Switzerland and the Swiss Franc, currencies, real estate and financial markets, we also present our strategic advice to the G20 leaders less than two months from the G20 summit to be held in Cannes.
US economic output index (1974-2011) (grey shading: recessions;
US economic output index (1974-2011) (grey shading: recessions; broken blue line: recession warning; blue: economic output index and in red, forecast for the 3rd and 4th quarters 2011) - Source: Streetalk/Mauldin, 08/2011
Greek crisis and the Euro: Itemizing the huge manipulation in progress
But let’s come back to Greece and what is beginning to be a "very repetitive old story (3)" which, as we have already explained, returns to the front of the media stage every time Washington and London are in serious difficulties (4). Moreover, coincidentally, the summer has been disastrous for the United States which is now in recession (5), which has seen their credit rating cut (an event deemed unthinkable by all the "experts" only six months ago) and exposed their political system’s state of widespread paralysis (6) to an astonished world, all whilst being incapable of putting any serious measure in place to reduce their deficits (7). At the same time, the United Kingdom is sinking into depression ( with riots of uncommon violence, an austerity policy that fails to control budget deficits (9) whilst plunging the country into an unprecedented social crisis (10), and a ruling coalition that doesn’t even know why it governs together against the backdrop of the scandal of collusion between political leaders and the Murdoch empire. No doubt, in such a context, everything was ripe for a media relaunch of the Greek crisis and its corollary, the end of the Euro!
Note this is a corporate strategy paper, humans amount to nothing _________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.
Derivatives are highly volatile financial instruments that are occasionally used to hedge risk, but mostly used for speculation. They are bets upon the value of stocks, bonds, mortgages, other loans, currencies, commodities, volatility of financial indexes, and even weather changes. Many big banks, including Bank of America, issue derivatives because, if they are not triggered, they are highly profitable to the issuer, and result in big bonus payments to the executives who administer them. If they are triggered, of course, the obligations fall upon the corporate entity, not the executives involved. Ultimately, by allowing existing gambling bets to remain in insured retail banks, and endorsing the shift of additional bets into the insured retail division, the obligation falls upon the U.S. taxpayers and dollar-denominated savers.
Even if we net out the notional value of the derivatives involved, down to the net potential obligation, the amount is so large that the United States could not hope to pay it off without a major dollar devaluation, if a major contingency actually occurred and a large part of the derivatives were triggered. But, if such an event ever occurs, Bank of America's derivatives counter-parties will, as usual, be made whole, while the American people suffer. This all has the blessing of the Federal Reserve, which approved the transfer of derivatives from Merrill Lynch to the insured retail unit of BAC before it was done.
Contrary to popular belief, which blames the global financial crisis on subprime borrowers, it was the derivatives, based upon the likelihood that those borrowers would pay their debts, that were the primary catalyst triggering the global economic crisis of 2008. Back then, the derivative obligations of AIG (AIG) imploded the insurer. Under the pressure of fear-mongering from the Federal Reserve and the financial industry, the U.S. government committed hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out AIG's counter-parties, including the biggest banks of Europe and America. Had the government not stepped in, virtually all the banks on Wall Street would have gone bankrupt. A host of European and Asian banks would have followed.
AIG was not FDIC insured. It could have been allowed to fail, and should have been allowed to fail. All the banks on Wall Street that would have failed should have failed. Their speculator counter-parties should have been bankrupted, and their retail depositors should have been made whole. The retail divisions could have been temporarily nationalized and sold off as soon as possible to more prudent management. Had this occurred, America would have experienced a deep but very temporary economic downturn, and, by now, the downturn would be over. But, with derivatives obligations tied intimately with FDIC insured depositary units, the debt will need to be paid by the government, as a matter of law. We will have no legal choice except to default, or pay them off.
In 2008, politicians in Washington D.C., and Trojan horse operatives within the financial organs of our government, bailed out imprudent managements of big casino-banks. Bank executives not only didn't need to go bankrupt, as they should have, but collected huge bonuses. Later, in response to the abuse, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank legislation and the Volcker rule. These were supposed to insure that such bailouts were not needed in the future. Supposedly, this would prevent further abuse of the American taxpayer.
The most recent abuse-event, involving BAC, illustrates the uselessness of such laws. Bank of America NA is FDIC insured, and has the blessing of the Federal Reserve, in spite of such a transaction being prohibited by Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act. Specifically, the section reads in relevant part:
"A member bank and its subsidiaries may engage in a covered transaction with an affiliate only if--
1. in the case of any affiliate, the aggregate amount of covered transactions of the member bank and its subsidiaries will not exceed 10 per centum of the capital stock and surplus of the member bank; and
2. in the case of all affiliates, the aggregate amount of covered transactions of the member bank and its subsidiaries will not exceed 20 per centum of the capital stock and surplus of the member bank ..."
The Federal Reserve is an institution largely controlled by those who are probably the counter-parties to the Merrill Lynch derivatives. No doubt, its approval of the transaction, in spite of the prohibitions of section 23A arise out of a claim that Merrill is not a "bank" as defined under the Act, and, therefore, not an affiliate.
But, the Act also provides that:
For purposes of applying this section and section 23B, and notwithstanding subsection (b)(2) of this section or section 23B(d)(1), a financial subsidiary of a bank--
1. shall be deemed to be an affiliate of the bank; and
2. shall not be deemed to be a subsidiary of the bank.
So, Merrill Lynch is clearly an affiliate of Bank of America, and the Federal Reserve is clearly violating the law by approving this particular transaction. But, here is the kicker. Congress has given ultimate power to the Federal Reserve to ignore its own enabling Act legislation. The law also reads:
The Board may, at its discretion, by regulation or order exempt transactions or relationships from the requirements of this section if it finds such exemptions to be in the public interest
The FDIC opposed the move, but there is nothing the FDIC can do, except file a petition for a writ of mandamus in court, against the Federal Reserve, seeking a declaration that the approval was illegal. But, the FDIC would lose, because Congress has given the Federal Reserve Board ultimate power to do whatever it wishes.
So, the bottom line is this: When something bad happens, and the derivative obligations are triggered, the FDIC will be on the hook, thanks to the Federal Reserve. The counter-parties of Bank of America, both inside America and elsewhere around the world, will be safely bailed out by the full faith and credit of the USA. Meanwhile, the taxpayers and dollar denominated savers will be fleeced again. This latest example of misconduct illustrates the error of allowing a bank-controlled entity, like the Federal Reserve, complete power over the nation's monetary system. The so-called "reforms" enacted by Congress, in the wake of the 2008 crash, have vested more, and not less, power in the Federal Reserve, and supplied us with more, rather than less instability and problems.
This is not an isolated instance. JP Morgan Chase (JPM) is being allowed to house its unstable derivative obligations within its FDIC insured retail banking unit. Other big banks do the same. So long as the Federal Reserve exists and/or other financial regulatory agencies continue to be run by a revolving door staff that moves in and out of industry and government, crony capitalism will be alive and well in America. No amount of Dodd-Frank or Volcker rule legislation will ever protect savers, taxpayers or the American people. Profits will continue to be privatized and losses socialized.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
[quote="TonyGosling"]All the players carefully following the script
Until they all fall in line
Just write of the debt for God sakes!
And re-instate the Usury Laws
They do not want a solution to the debt. They want to cause chaos out of which they will offer an answer. A global currency run by "them" and a global government as a consequence. It doesn't matter to them how many millions die in the process. They have done it all before. The only solution is default like Iceland and tell the banksters to stuff their "debt". Then hope they don't arrange a "liberation" like they did to Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan and.........
Joined: 14 Dec 2005 Posts: 475 Location: North London
Posted: Sat Oct 29, 2011 1:26 pm Post subject: Joining the Euro?
I'm getting less concerned about UK and the European super-state. Not wanting to join it is fine, but what would happen to the UK outside of the EU? The UK is run by the City of London. Outside the EU, the City of London would turn the UK into a fascist state. That is, it wouldn't make any difference being outside the EU. But what's happening now is the Euro leaders are being forced to distance themselves a little from the City of London/Wall Street.
The Anglo-American Establishment is attacking the Euro. Leaders are slightly resisting. THat is, EU leaders are more likely to adopt anti-speculator/City of London policies than the UK.
Also, China has been buying European debt for at least a year. But the media, financial commentators and politicians haven't told you. The reason why there's a panic over Italy and France rather than Spain is because China bought Spanish debt.
But the China move signals a move away from the Anglo-American Establishment on the part of Europe. The EU are now more likely to curb speculators, albeit in a limited way, than the US or the UK. That's because most of them are in the City of London, who, as we should all know, run our politicians.
The whole Euro hair on fire panic was given away by a listener to Radio 4's PM programme last Thursday. He asked why the Euro was always worth £0.87. This was more or less the case in October this year and October last year, according to PM researchers. A city analyst explained that this was because Sterling has been in decline as much as the Euro. Think about that.
Euro crisis ought to mean a weak currency that people sell rather than buy. It's value against other currencies should be declining. The pound, on the other hand, should not be declining as much because the market is confidence about its reduction in government spending. But look at the BBC Business website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/currency/13/11/twelve_m onth.stm
We are told that we are lucky that we are not in the Euro. Yet, according to this measure, we are as weak as the Euro. Yet, there are no financial analysts, no politicians and no media commentators saying so.
Much nonsense is being perpetrated by the financial sector on this subject. They don't want people knowing the real cause of the financial crisis.
Government spending is a serious issue but solving it will not solve our problem. The recent bailout of the European bank, Dexia, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15235915, shows that we are being fed nonsense. We were told that the Greek-Euro crisis was the cause of the bailout. Yet, Greece has not (yet) defaulted. Why would a bank that loaned money to Greece need to be saved if Greece is still paying its debts?
Indeed, according to the FT, Dexia's biggest exposure is to Italy - and its 15-year bonds. Indeed, the Greek economy is actually no bigger than Walmarts. We wouldn't think a global economic depression is set to happen if Walmarts went under. The UK and the US have far worse sovereign debt problems than the EU put together. But making a fuss about the Euro makes the dollar and Sterling look better to investors. The only way the Euro will collapse is if speculators force it to.
I wouldn't say that government debt is unimportant. Government debt in the UK and the US will eventually get us in a mess. But in the UK, we have far more private sector debt that will hit us: £1.4 trn public sector (unofficial) compared to around £3.8 trn private sector and individual. UK GDP is around £1.4 trn.
The real reason of our financial problems is derivatives. Dexia is Europe's biggest derivatives trader. Remember the Ghanaian rogue trader working for UBS? He worked in derivatives. According to the Bank of International Settlements, there are $600 trillion of outstanding, unregulated derivatives. This is 10 times global GDP. It cannot be paid back. Derivatives are useless. They are totally unproductive. We may as well bet trillions on the Gee Gees. They are, mainly, a bet on whether a particular share will go up or down. Yet, most investment and high street banks are into them. Most exposed are RBS and Santander.
Governments are also dependent on these derivatives. They want to get paid back by these banks and they want banks to buy their bonds. UK banks are the only people buying UK bonds. Foreign investors are not interested. THe government arm twists banks into doing this by saying they most hold reserves. The reserves will be held in UK bonds. That is, we bailed them out so that they could spend that money on UK bonds. If the derivatives then fail, then the banks will find it hard to buy our bonds.
What's made matters worse for these banks is that China has told the six biggest Western banks that they will not honour these derivative deals. Basically, they regard derivatives as criminal, they feel they have been conned and they won't pay up.
This is the real reason banks are being downgraded by people like Fitch and Moody's, not the phoney Euro crisis or government debt. If the rogue trader was engaging in crime, he was only doing the job he was paid to do.
But now, the bankers want the taxpayer to bail them out of the ridiculous, criminal investment decisions they’ve made. They want to tell us that we spend too much on education and welfare. So, if they all told the truth, we spend more time trying to put more bankers and politicians in jail.
Another nonsense is how sub-prime caused the recession. This idea simply does not add up.
It seems that way because politicians, the financial sector and the media tell us and some of the first financial products to default was sub-prime. US sub-prime lender, Countrywide, went under in 2007. But it only seems that way.
Wikipedia, under its mortgage market section, sites an AP report that states that the US sub-prime market was valued at $1.3 trillion. Yet, a US government inspector in July 2009 warned people that the total bailout could be $24 trillion, http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/tarp-special-invest igator-says-bailout.html
How does a $1.3 trillion sub-prime market cause possible debts of $24 trillion? Do the maths.
The financial sector is leading us up the garden path. It could lead to a severe global depression.
All the players carefully following the script
Until they all fall in line
Just write of the debt for God sakes!
And re-instate the Usury Laws
They do not want a solution to the debt. They want to cause chaos out of which they will offer an answer. A global currency run by "them" and a global government as a consequence. It doesn't matter to them how many millions die in the process. They have done it all before. The only solution is default like Iceland and tell the banksters to stuff their "debt". Then hope they don't arrange a "liberation" like they did to Libya and Iraq and Afghanistan and.........
The usury Laws include, the regular release of all debts (we the people just not paying it)
Others and I did allot with Bill Still, (he can be a bit quiet about the regular release) on this, and he helped the Icelanders out quite a bit. And so did a visit from Russia when the Canadians tried to bully them.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 10:59 pm Post subject:
The Bankers Want America To Lose World War III
Posted on August 8, 2011
To drive the final nail into the coffin of the bankers we must tell everyone this:
The Bankers Want America To Lose World War III
Drive this point home to everyone in the 911 Truth Movement, to every anti-war activist and to anyone who will listen.
Why? The number of billionaire bankers in the world is miniscule. They only get what they want from our governments because millions of people in government, in the police, in the intelligence services, in the military and in the media go along to maintain their position.
But, what if they saw the world on the brink of economic chaos and World war III? What if they knew Israel did 911 with the help of Zionist traitors inside the American government? That is precisely what Dr Alan Sabrosky, a former Director of Studies at the Army War College, has been telling his former colleagues.
Today the anti-war activist’s very best friend just might be a general or an admiral inside the Pentagon. Look at the Mideast and World War III from the perspective of a professional military officer.
Israel has been threatening to attack Iran in September prior to the UN General Assembly vote on Palestinian statehood. Iran has said they will respond to an Israeli attack by attacking American troops and that they will fire 11,000 missiles and artillery shells in the first minute. They can sink the entire US Persian Gulf fleet in minutes.
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/the-bankers-want-america-to-l ose-world-war-iii/
50,000 American factories were sent overseas while its population was deliberately increased.
30 trillion dollars was stolen from Americans by Israel and Wall Street.
When the dollar collapses, you will have no means of buying munitions yo defend your country.
When the dollar collapses, there will be nationwide food riots, race riots and no cities.
What is your plan? Call in a prayer request to reverend Jim Bob for Jesus to save you?
I do not think God will listen to prayers like these.
John Hagee with Benny Hinn: Praying For War in the Name of Jesus
Irish Journalist Vincent Browne Vs. The ECB: "Explain Why The Irish People Have To Bailout Billionaire Bondholders!"
Video - European Central Bank Press Conference in Ireland - Jan. 19, 2012
This is outstanding. If you're rushed for time, just watch the final 90 seconds. Irish Journalist Vincent Browne shows the ECB how they roll in Eirinn. The ECB's Klaus Masuch gets a well-deserved earful.
In an article titled “Still No End to ‘Too Big to Fail,’” William Greider wrote in The Nation on February 15th:
Financial market cynics have assumed all along that Dodd-Frank did not end "too big to fail" but instead created a charmed circle of protected banks labeled "systemically important" that will not be allowed to fail, no matter how badly they behave.
That may be, but there is one bit of bad behavior that Uncle Sam himself does not have the funds to underwrite: the $32 trillion market in credit default swaps (CDS). Thirty-two trillion dollars is more than twice the U.S. GDP and more than twice the national debt.
CDS are a form of derivative taken out by investors as insurance against default. According to the Comptroller of the Currency, nearly 95% of the banking industry’s total exposure to derivatives contracts is held by the nation’s five largest banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs. The CDS market is unregulated, and there is no requirement that the “insurer” actually have the funds to pay up. CDS are more like bets, and a massive loss at the casino could bring the house down.
It could, at least, unless the casino is rigged. Whether a “credit event” is a “default” triggering a payout is determined by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), and it seems that the ISDA is owned by the world’s largest banks and hedge funds. That means the house determines whether the house has to pay.
The Houses of Morgan, Goldman and the other Big Five are justifiably worried right now, because an “event of default” declared on European sovereign debt could jeopardize their $32 trillion derivatives scheme. According to Rudy Avizius in an article on The Market Oracle (UK) on February 15th, that explains what happened at MF Global, and why the 50% Greek bond write-down was not declared an event of default.
If you paid only 50% of your mortgage every month, these same banks would quickly declare you in default. But the rules are quite different when the banks are the insurers underwriting the deal.
MF Global: Canary in the Coal Mine?
MF Global was a major global financial derivatives broker until it met its unseemly demise on October 30, 2011, when it filed the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy after reporting a “material shortfall” of hundreds of millions of dollars in segregated customer funds. The brokerage used a large number of complex and controversial repurchase agreements, or "repos," for funding and for leveraging profit. Among its losing bets was something described as a wrong-way $6.3 billion trade the brokerage made on its own behalf on bonds of some of Europe’s most indebted nations.
Avizius writes:
[A]n agreement was reached in Europe that investors would have to take a write-down of 50% on Greek Bond debt. Now MF Global was leveraged anywhere from 40 to 1, to 80 to 1 depending on whose figures you believe. Let’s assume that MF Global was leveraged 40 to 1, this means that they could not even absorb a small 3% loss, so when the “haircut” of 50% was agreed to, MF Global was finished. It tried to stem its losses by criminally dipping into segregated client accounts, and we all know how that ended with clients losing their money. . . .
However, MF Global thought that they had risk-free speculation because they had bought these CDS from these big banks to protect themselves in case their bets on European Debt went bad. MF Global should have been protected by its CDS, but since the ISDA would not declare the Greek “credit event” to be a default, MF Global could not cover its losses, causing its collapse.
The house won because it was able to define what “ winning” was. But what happens when Greece or another country simply walks away and refuses to pay? That is hardly a “haircut.” It is a decapitation. The asset is in rigor mortis. By no dictionary definition could it not qualify as a “default.”
That sort of definitive Greek default is thought by some analysts to be quite likely, and to be coming soon. Dr. Irwin Stelzer, a senior fellow and director of Hudson Institute’s economic policy studies group, was quoted in Saturday’s Yorkshire Post (UK) as saying:
It’s only a matter of time before they go bankrupt. They are bankrupt now, it’s only a question of how you recognise it and what you call it.
Certainly they will default . . . maybe as early as March. If I were them I’d get out [of the euro].
The Midas Touch Gone Bad
In an article in The Observer (UK) on February 11th titled “The Mathematical Equation That Caused the Banks to Crash,” Ian Stewart wrote of the Black-Scholes equation that opened up the world of derivatives:
The financial sector called it the Midas Formula and saw it as a recipe for making everything turn to gold. But the markets forgot how the story of King Midas ended.
As Aristotle told this ancient Greek tale, Midas died of hunger as a result of his vain prayer for the golden touch. Today, the Greek people are going hungry to protect a rigged $32 trillion Wall Street casino. Avizius writes:
The money made by selling these derivatives is directly responsible for the huge profits and bonuses we now see on Wall Street. The money masters have reaped obscene profits from this scheme, but now they live in fear that it will all unravel and the gravy train will end. What these banks have done is to leverage the system to such an extreme, that the entire house of cards is threatened by a small country of only 11 million people. Greece could bring the entire world economy down. If a default was declared, the resulting payouts would start a chain reaction that would cause widespread worldwide bank failures, making the Lehman collapse look small by comparison.
Some observers question whether a Greek default would be that bad. According to a comment on Forbes on October 10, 2011:
[T]he gross notional value of Greek CDS contracts as of last week was €54.34 billion, according to the latest report from data repository Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC). DTCC is able to undertake internal netting analysis due to having data on essentially all of the CDS market. And it reported that the net losses would be an order of magnitude lower, with the maximum amount of funds that would move from one bank to another in connection with the settlement of CDS claims in a default being just €2.68 billion, total. If DTCC’s analysis is correct, the CDS market for Greek debt would not much magnify the consequences of a Greek default—unless it stimulated contagion that affected other European countries.
It is the “contagion,” however, that seems to be the concern. Players who have hedged their bets by betting both ways cannot collect on their winning bets; and that means they cannot afford to pay their losing bets, causing other players to also default on their bets. The dominos go down in a cascade of cross-defaults that infects the whole banking industry and jeopardizes the global pyramid scheme. The potential for this sort of nuclear reaction was what prompted billionaire investor Warren Buffett to call derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction.” It is also why the banking system cannot let a major derivatives player—such as Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers—go down. What is in jeopardy is the derivatives scheme itself. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal on January 20th:
Hanging in the balance is the reputation of CDS as an instrument for hedgers and speculators—a $32.4 trillion market as of June last year; the value that may be assigned to sovereign debt, and $2.9 trillion of sovereign CDS, if the protection isn't seen as reliable in eliciting payouts; as well as the impact a messy Greek default could have on the global banking system.
Players in the future may simply refuse to play. When the house is so obviously rigged, the legitimacy of the whole CDS scheme is called into question. As MF Global found out the hard way, there is no such thing as “risk-free speculation” protected with derivatives.
Uploaded by PositiveMoneyUK on 2 Mar 2012
http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/
Paul Moore, former Head of Group Regulatory Risk at Halifax Bank of Scotland, whose claims about risk taking at HBOS led to the resignation of its former boss Sir James Crosby from the UK's financial watchdog, reveals some very interesting insider experiences with the practices of bank lending, sales culture...
He answers some crucial questions:
Do the guys at the top of the banks understand that bank lending creates new money?
Do they consider the impact they have on economy?
Has anything actually changed since the crisis began?
"Incentives are all about sales."
"The Head of Risk himself in retail bank said that they pay no attention whatsoever to risk management."
"The banking crisis drove more than a hundred million people back into poverty, the mortality statistics of people who go into poverty, rise hugely... So, the banking crisis isn't just about becoming poorer, it was about killing people as well."
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Bombastic building project degenerates into a ghost town
In Spain, a huge real estate bubble has burst. The investment remains a blot on the suburbs. Banks stuck with the houses.
Hulking apartment blocks, complete with swimming pools and playgrounds cast their shadows on empty streets, weed-overgrown wasteland and yawning pits. The only bank here in "Manhattan" as the bombastic Sesena construction project is called derisively near Madrid, has been closed for two years. Most of the storefronts on the ground floor are bricked up. Homes for sale abound, at bargain prices.
PHOTO: DAPD / DAPD
Sesena - a suburb of Madrid.
Only 45 minutes drive from the center of the Spanish capital, was to be stamped on the green meadow, a refuge for 30,000 people from the floor. About 13,000 apartments were designed, built, only 5100th Most of them are empty, and thousands of average Spanish citizen who had bought as an investment, they are now trying to strike back with heavy losses.
What was once a bustling suburb of Madrid should be a haven for young families, with the bursting of the housing bubble and the financial and economic crisis to become one of the many disastrous investments. The Spanish countryside is full of such modern ghost towns, the slow decay. In many suburbs are around half-finished apartment blocks, many settlements are not planned on roads and street lights come out.
The number of foreclosures is riot in the crisis . From 2008 to September 2011 there were almost 530 000. Flats and houses fell to the banks, all building projects and land for residential and commercial areas from which is probably nothing more. The new government dismissed the banks recently, this safeguard to 175 billion € estimated real estate risks with another billion. The new rules will cause the banks according to experts, they strike at bargain prices and the prices continue to crash. Since 2008 they have already fallen 22 percent.
In Sesena settlements and other spirits, some banks are already trying to dispose of completed apartments at half the price. This comes at the expense of the many Spaniards who have invested their savings or even borrowing for pension in alleged concrete gold in anticipation of selling it later, or expensive to rent well.
But with a record of 23 percent unemployment and the increasing migration of young people go abroad, there are fewer buyers. In December alone was 25.3 percent less than residential properties sold in the same month last year.
"That's the problem: Who will buy these homes," asked Jose Luis Alvarez Arce, chief of the economics department of the University of Navarra. Official estimated that 687 000 new homes for sale, others put the number at up to 1.6 million. While Spain has a high rate of home ownership, 80 percent of the 47 million people already live in their own homes.
Rent in Spain to fall dramatically
The 33-year-old Juan Carlos Caballero, acquired in 2008 in an apartment with three bedrooms and a terrace Sesena for 185,000 Euros. Earlier, his father had carried away from the boom and bought a similar house at a reasonable Vorkaufspreis. Both were confident that house prices would rise. Now they are sitting on homes in a deserted settlement satellite, which has no pharmacy and no reasonable public transport connections to Madrid and the only pizzeria opens only on three evenings a week.
Caballero, a professional driver rented his apartment two years ago for 750 € a month, now only € 500. Similar homes are offered for 375 €, but he wants more, because of the new furniture and equipment and the immaculate condition. His father, Jesus offers his apartment to 108,000 euros for sale and lose thousands of euros, but he is 67 and the money needed for retirement.
Smaller houses go away for 65.000 €
Smaller homes in the foreclosure Sesena already thrown for 65,000 euros on the market. "Sell or rent today is like winning the lottery," said Juan Carlos Caballero. He is now unemployed, lives with his parents and has to lie down every month 500 to 700 euros of his unemployment benefits for the mortgage and other costs of the apartment.
The mayor of Sesena, Carlos Velasquez, can kick out of a fiasco, but one good thing: now no more speculators snapping the homes in his village. If you buy something today, Velasquez says, "these are people who want to drag and drop the here who live here, and taxes paid. "
_________________ 'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 11:53 pm Post subject:
Ah so now China wants to self-destruct too!
BAD MOVE!
That's how you became an economic powerhouse silly China!
Don't blame your central bank - blame the western banksters
China to end state banks' monopoly
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china-to-end-state-banks-monopoly/93 2923/
Agencies : Beijing, Thu Apr 05 2012, 12:23 hrs
Challenging for the first time the monopoly of the state-owned banks, China has announced plans to broaden the financial sector reforms by allowing private capital financing.
Consensus has emerged among leadership of the ruling Communist Party to let private capital play greater role to reduce, if not break, the state sector's banking monopoly, Premier Wen Jiabao said.
This is the first time China has acknowledged the monopoly of state-owned banks following last month's announcement of a pilot project to reform the financial sector in Wenzhou, an eastern coastal city with a tradition of entrepreneurship.
Wen, who along with President Hu Jintao and other top leaders is set to retire this year, made the remarks while visiting some companies in Fujian province and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, state-run China Daily reported today.
Analysts say the move to open up financial capital was aimed at increasing investment and competition in financial and banking sectors of the world's second largest economy, giving more scope for its currency Yuan to play bigger role.
Economists have long complained about a lack of progress in reform of the state-dominated banking and financial industry and of inadequate service for the country's large number of small and medium-sized enterprises.
"Regarding raising funds for your businesses, I think it has been too easy, quite frankly, for our banks to make profits," Wen told businessmen during his visit to the factories.
He added: "The reason is that a small number of large banks are in a monopolistic position. It is only from them, and nowhere else, that companies get the loans they need. _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
Richard Drayton - guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 May 2012 19.05 BST
While Europe forces yet more privatisation on Greece and Spain under the Orwellian name of "liberalisation", Latin America in 2012 is challenging the orthodox view that private always is better than public. On 1 May Bolivia seized the Spanish company that controlled its electricity grid, just after Argentina, on 14 April, effectively renationalised YPF, its main oil company, expropriating 51% owned by Spanish firm Repsol. Both critics and supporters have understood Cristina Fernández Kirchner's and Evo Morales's actions in terms of energy nationalism and populist demagoguery. But we should see both instead as responses to the failures of privatisation and its toxic connection to complex forms of financial speculation.
Bolivia and Argentina have both shown that private firms were investing less, not more, than their public predecessors were. Morales noted that only $81m had been invested in Bolivia's electricity grid since privatisation in 1997. YPF in the 1990s drilled three times as many exploratory wells in Argentina as it did in the 2000s under Repsol. Argentina's oil and gas output was falling, and new reserves were not being found to replace exploited deposits.
In both cases Spanish multinationals had prioritised the repatriation of dividends over investment. This indirect form of asset stripping was driven by the priorities of bankers in London and New York. Behind the Repsol-YPF affair, in particular, was something very close to the sick capitalism that caused the 2008 crisis: high-yield, high-risk assets, sliced and diced via complex derivatives.
Repsol, like all oil companies, has a double life. On one hand it makes money through producing, transporting, refining, and marketing oil and gas. On the other, it is a proxy for gambling on oil as a commodity and, through derivatives, for speculating on that speculation. Investment banks are similarly divided in their priorities. Sometimes they invest, though more usually they get rich by carrying money they borrow at low interest to places where they get higher yields.
While high yields almost always mean higher risks, there is a fiction of control over these risks through derivatives in particular insurance contracts called "swaps".
In the murky world of derivatives, however, the same bank group may indirectly be guaranteeing its own risks, and the trade in risks becomes bigger than the real investment. The whole pyramid stands so long as there is some real-world thing that pays, in theory, a high and steady yield whether it is subprime mortgages, or a high rent from an oil asset.
Spain privatised Repsol between 1989 and 1997, just at the time when "deregulation" in the US and Britain turned banks from investors into high-rolling gamblers. Repsol grew from a tiny Spanish refining and marketing "downstream" company into the world's 15th largest petroleum company, with operations on every continent. It specialised in deals where Anglo-American companies fear to tread, such as Iran, offshore gas in Venezuela under Chávez, and offshore oil in Cuba, enjoying bumps in its share price and valuation as it nominally acquired access to reserves.
In 1999, Repsol bought its most important international asset, YPF. Over the past decade the main value of YPF as far as Repsol was concerned was not the oil or gas it produced and sold, but its value as collateral on the basis of which debt could be contracted.
YPF, under Repsol, paid extraordinarily high dividends to its foreign owners some 9% in 2011 which it paid for by borrowing. So while YPF debts soared and Argentina's oil went undrilled, Repsol both banked profits and "invested" Argentinian capital elsewhere in its corporate structure. As the rating agency Standard & Poor's commented on 19 April: "Repsol does not guarantee any of the debt at YPF." Madrid got the juice, but the liabilities all fell on Buenos Aires.
High dividends allowed Repsol also to cash out of 25% of its YPF holding by selling it on to the Eshkenazi family, with the capital coming from Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered and Citibank, with banks then making money buying and selling derivative contracts on Repsol and YPF debt.
Spain has threatened Argentina with retaliation, quickly followed by the EU, Britain, and the US. The anger in Madrid and in Brussels is of an old-fashioned kind Argentina is both refusing to hand over its present and future pocket money to Spain and reducing Europe's global assets.
But the fury on the pages of the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal is not ultimately about oil or profits, nor even about the bad precedent it might set for future expropriations elsewhere. Rather, it is provoked by Argentina having interrupted a chain of securitisation anchored in the real world by its oil at one end, but with investment banks in London and New York, the holders of swap and other derivative liabilities on Repsol and YPF debt, at the other.
In nationalising, Argentina showed that a democratic government can stop predatory financiers. And it has not scared away new investors: already Talisman, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Chinese companies are seeking access to Argentina's shale oil reserves, the third largest in the world.
TonyGosling wrote:
Criminal Ruling Class: Financial Oligarchy & How To Stop Them
The US & European Financial Oligarchy Backed By The Military Industrial Complex & How To Stop Them The Time Has Come
Challenge the Market God - Martin Summers - mp3 3.4M
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/08/483706.html
HOW TO STOP THEM
Nationalise Banks
Break The Military Industrial Complex
Withdraw From Afghanistan & Elsewhere
Rebuild Infrastructure
The US & European Financial Oligarchy & How To Stop Them
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Europe Roundtable: ECB in crisis?
This month we take an indepth look at Europe’s financial woes
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with riots of uncommon violence, an austerity policy that fails to control budget deficits (9) whilst plunging the country into an unprecedented social crisis (10), and a ruling coalition that doesn’t even know why it governs together against the backdrop of the scandal of collusion between political leaders and the Murdoch empire. No doubt, in such a context, everything was ripe for a media relaunch of the Greek crisis and its corollary, the end of the Euro!
