Thanks to Jean Haines – Laura
Blog Link: The ladies of Iceland saved the day!! Okay, ladies, let’s us all do it NOW!!
The ladies of Iceland saved the day!! Okay, ladies, let’s us all do it NOW!!
Posted on May 27, 2012I remember Drunvalo saying, perhaps on his recent video that it would be the women who would get fed up and stop this craziness – the feminine energy surely would take over. . . SO LET’S DO IT! LET’S DO IT NOW!!
~Jean
Also see Casseroles [Pots and Pans] – Montréal, 24 Mai 2012 – Plus: An Open Letter to the Mainstream English Media (VIDEO!!)
Posted on May 22, 2012
Source: AntiCorruption SocietyTHE LADIES STEPPED UP AND RECOVERED THEIR COUNTRY’S ECONOMY . . . FINALLY
Many folks are still unaware of the astounding events that recently took place in Iceland. The tiny country of Iceland has become a model for all nations across the planet in our collective war against the central banking cabal, or as Max Kaiser has aptly named it: “Banker Occupation”.
Link to missing video: The ladies of Iceland saved the day!! Okay, ladies, let’s us all do it NOW!!The government of Iceland has forgiven the mortgage debt for much of its population. This nation chose a very different way of stopping the crisis from the rest of European countries. It decided to hear the requests of the population and to put politicians and bankers on the bench of the accused three years after their financial excesses would sank one of the most prosperous economies in 2008. Continue reading
Category Archives: Economy
World affairs in business
Lloyd’s of London preparing for euro collapse – Telegraph
The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent.
Richard Ward said Lloyd’s of London could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses.
Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph he also revealed that Lloyd’s could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses.
Europe accounts for 18pc of Lloyd’s £23.5bn of gross written premiums, mostly in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The market also has a fledgling operation in Poland. Continue reading
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It’s payback time: don’t expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks | Business | The Guardian
It’s payback time: don’t expect sympathy – Lagarde to Greeks
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 May 2012 20.04 BST
The IMF has no intention of softening the terms of Greece’s austerity package, says Christine Lagarde. Photograph: Emmanuel Fradin for the Guardian
The International Monetary Fund has ratcheted up the pressure on crisis-hit Greece after its managing director, Christine Lagarde, said she has more sympathy for children deprived of decent schooling in sub-Saharan Africa than for many of those facing poverty in Athens.
In an uncompromising interview with the Guardian, Lagarde insists it is payback time for Greece and makes it clear that the IMF has no intention of softening the terms of the country’s austerity package. Continue reading
BBC News – Bankia shares suspended amid bailout request reports
Bankia shares have fallen 58% since JulyTrading in shares in the Spanish lender Bankia has been suspended in Madrid.
The market regulator CNMV said it was “due to circumstances that may affect the normal share trading”.
Bankia is reported to be due to ask the government for a bailout of more than 15bn euros ($19bn; £12bn) after a board meeting later on Friday.
Bankia, which is Spain’s fourth-largest bank, was part-nationalised two weeks ago because of its problems with bad property debt. Continue reading
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Lord’s Banker ousted: Vatican Bank chief fired in corruption row — RT
Lord’s Banker ousted: Vatican Bank chief fired in corruption row
Published: 25 May, 2012, 12:42
Police stand guard in St-Peter’s square at the Vatican. (AFP Photo / Filippo MONTEFORTE )
TAGS: Scandal, Corruption, Police
The Vatican Bank chief has been dismissed for reportedly leaking documents amid accusations of money laundering. The move comes as the Holy See, embroiled in a chain of financial scandals, is trying to deal with claims of corruption and fraud.
The president of the Vatican Bank Ettore Gotti Tedeschi has been ousted after receiving a unanimous vote of no-confidence from bank overseers.
The economist, who presided over the institution since 2009, is under investigation by Italian magistrates for alleged money laundering. Continue reading
Martha – National debt – Its pernicious effects on the US economy
Thanks to Martha – LauraNational debt – Its pernicious effects on the US economy
The debt problems of US may seem intangible at more than $14 trillion and it is a large number which is difficult to conceptualize. But, if you do not check your debt problems on time, this figure will affect your daily lives to a great extent by forcing you to pay exorbitantly high interest rate on your outstanding debts and thus a slow economy. You may choose suitable free debt consolidation programs to reduce your debt burden. The $14 trillion seems to grow at a staggering speed of $58,000 more every second. Richard DeKaser, the deputy chief economist at The Parthenon Group said that this seems to be truly large and they are talking about 9-10 percent of GDP.
High rate of interest
In the past years, the customers have enjoyed paying low interest rate to the federal government’s advantage. But, according to the experts, the comfort of paying low interest rate will not last for a long time. The US people believe on foreign investment to finance more than 50 percent of its debt. Most experts agree that the investors will carry purchasing U.S. Treasury bonds and they are unlikely to do so on generous terms. Continue reading
Op-Ed: When Will the Good Guys Appear? – by SaS, May 18, 2012 | 2012: What’s the ‘real’ truth?
Thanks to Jean Haines – Laura
Little Family,
Yesterday, our brother Alex and I were having a public chat about current events rapidly developing in the main stream media (I won’t use my more favorite and abrasive term “Lame Stream” media as brother Allen has pointed out that it was coined by Sarah Palin and, well, let’s not go there…good advice is good advice). The U.S. and European banking system is collapsing. We can see this. Now, before you all go out and put on party hats, start blowing those little aggravating horns, and sopping up ice cream and cake, let’s just think about the implications of it all. I’m not talking about the collapse of the Euro or the dollar or the disintegration of the European Union and all that geopolitical stuff. I’m talking about the ever-increasing, ever-accelerating CHANGE that has become apparent to all of us. In my post I commented on the inevitability of the J.P. Morgan’s descent into oblivion—the consequence of an inadequate management paradigm that continually rewarded 3rd density human arrogance, carelessness, and contempt. To this Alex replied with a few technical observations that, after studying them, one would naturally assume a pattern was emerging in the organizational society of the West. That pattern was the motif of systemic failure; the governance regime of the West is quickly becoming the archetype of inadequacy—a flagrant example of what NOT to do—eh? We can see this because the “opposition” has chosen NOT to do it. Continue reading
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Free Energy – A Reality Not a Conspiracy – YouTube
‘An Economy for the 99%’: People’s G8 Demands ‘Robin Hood Tax’ | Common Dreams
Published on Friday, May 18, 2012 by Common Dreams
‘An Economy for the 99%’: People’s G8 Demands ‘Robin Hood Tax’
National Nurses United protest in Chicago in shadow of G8 summit demands: “our voices will be heard.”
See below for livestream and Twitter updates…
Thousands of protesters are in Chicago today for a “People’s G8″ in a call led by National Nurses United (NNU) to demand an economy for the 99% and heal the “financial traumas faced by real people at the hands of Wall Street.”
The NNU had originally planned the protest to coincide with the G8 in Chicago, and kept the plan to rally in Chicago even after the G8 was moved from the city to Camp David.
The NNU derided “the AWOL G8 world leaders, who decided to run off and hide in the woods of rural Maryland [at Camp David] rather than face a disgruntled public in Chicago as originally announced, to determine what they are doing to help average families, not just the banks and Wall Street high rollers, in the midst of a continuing economic gloom.”
Hoping to “heal global economies,” the NNU is calling for a “Robin Hood Tax.” The group states that this is “a small levy of 50 cents or less on $100 of trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives and other financial instruments that could raise up to $350 billion every year in revenue.” Continue reading
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Greek Voters to Face Month of Eurozone ‘Fear-Mongering’ to Swallow Austerity | Common Dreams
Published on Wednesday, May 16, 2012 by Common Dreams
Greek Voters to Face Month of Eurozone ‘Fear-Mongering’ to Swallow Austerity
Markets rattled by possible Greek exit from Euro; June elections may spell end of single currency
Greek voters are in for several tumultuous weeks ahead of next month’s parliamentary elections as the country’s “troika” of creditors – the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF – are sure to ratchet up pressure in hopes they can dissuade Greece from further rejecting austerity policies.
An exit from the Euro may become inevitable for Greece. (AP) Fears of a Greek exit from the Eurozone rose after Tuesday’s announcement that a working government coalition could not be formed and new elections would take place in June. Greeks have been withdrawing hundreds of millions of euros from banks in recent days as the prospect has taken on real possibility. Though the possibility still exists, there has so far been no sign of a run on bank branches in Greece cities.
Despite clamors from the financial markets, The Guardian‘s Simon Jenkins argues that the real ‘calamity’ of a Greek exit is only that it is taking much longer than necessary to realize. An exit from the Eurozone – which Simon calls a ‘state without a government’ – will not be painless for Greece, but will mark the beginning to the end of its current nightmare. Continue reading
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Crushing Defeat for Germany’s Merkel as Voters Reject Austerity | Common Dreams
Published on Sunday, May 13, 2012 by Common Dreams
Crushing Defeat for Germany’s Merkel as Voters Reject Austerity
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservative party suffered a crushing defeat on Sunday in an election in Germany’s most populous state, a result which should embolden the left opposition to step up its criticism of her European ‘austerity’ policies.
The victory of socialist François Hollande in the French presidential election was a repudiation of the austerity policies imposed on the euro zone by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, in collaboration with German chancellor Angela Merkel, who had endorsed Sarkozy in the election. The crushing defeat leaves her vulnerable at a time when a backlash against her insistence on austerity is building across Europe. Recent elections have rejected austerity policies in Greece, France and Italy, severely weakening Chancellor Merkel. Continue reading
$9,000,000,000,000 MISSING From The Federal Reserve!!! – YouTube
Thanks to Frank – Laura
$9,000,000,000,000 MISSING From The Federal Reserve!!! – YouTube.
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Adopt a thrifty life by going green –A feminist and an environmentalist’s view
Thanks to Martha for writing this wonderful article – Laura
Adopt a thrifty life by going green –A feminist and an environmentalist’s view
As the American economy tries hard to recover from the harsh-effects of the global economic recession, the soaring debt crisis is not letting the economy prosper. Though there are many causes that have been projected as the cause of this debt crisis by the financial experts, yet the paralyzed job market and the slumping stock markets are just a few repercussions of the burgeoning debt crisis in America. Experience and reports suggest that the women, especially the single women and the stay-at-home moms are the worst hit by the debt crisis and are desperately looking for ways to rein in their finances by getting help from debt relief agencies. Continue reading
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JP Morgan’s $2 Billion Tumble Renews Call: ‘Break Up the Big Banks’ | Common Dreams
Published on Friday, May 11, 2012 by Common Dreams
JP Morgan’s $2 Billion Tumble Renews Call: ‘Break Up the Big Banks’
Wall Street titan JPMorgan Chase on Thursday admitted that poorly positioned trades cost the bank $2 billion in losses. The news sent stocks of other big banks tumbling and raised the alarm once again over the tenuous nature of the financial system and the role of ‘too big to fail’ banks in the world economy.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, which disclosed a $2 billion trading loss on Thursday, has been a vocal critic of overreaching reforms, denouncing certain rules at a conference last year. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News) Much of the focus since the news broke has been on JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon, one of the staunchest opponents of the so-called ‘Volcker rule’ which would require big banks to keep their risky investment trading separate from their commercial banking divisions.
“This puts egg on our face,” Dimon said.
Asking why average Americans should care about the news, Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi, answers: “because J.P. Morgan Chase is a federally-insured depository institution that has been and will continue to be the recipient of massive amounts of public assistance. If the bank fails, someone will reach into your pocket to pay for the cleanup. So when they gamble like drunken sailors, it’s everyone’s problem.”
“It’s a simple concept: you either get to be a bank, or you get to be a casino. But you can’t be both. If we don’t have rules to enforce that concept, we ought to get some.” –Matt Taibbi
“The debacle at J.P. Morgan Chase reaffirms my view that the largest six banks in this country, including J.P. Morgan Chase, which have assets equivalent to two-thirds of our GDP, must be broken up,” said Senator Bernie Sanders on Friday. “This is important in order to bring more competition into the financial marketplace and to prevent another ‘too-big-to-fail’ bailout. At a time when 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, huge financial institutions should not be involved in ‘making wagers or high-stake bets.’ They should be investing in the productive economy creating jobs and improving our standard of living.”
William K. Black, professor of economics and the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One,” argued today that JP Morgan was making wild speculative gambles and could still be at further risk. “The experience demonstrates the importance of the Volcker rule, the largest banks’ efforts to gut and evade the rule, and the continuing refusal of bank regulators to say ‘no’ to practices of the systemically dangerous institutions or SDIs (the roughly 20 ‘too big to fail’ banks) that are unsafe and unsound.”
Reuter’s columnist David Rohde cited the news as simply more evidence for the need to ‘break up the banks.’ Before the financial crisis in 2008, he writes, “the biggest banks’ holdings amounted to 43 percent of U.S. output. Today, they are roughly twice as large as they were a decade ago relative to the economy.”
And continues: “The result is a half-dozen massive banks that remain so large that their collapse would cripple the U.S. economy and force another government bailout. As a result, the behemoths function as a de facto oligopoly. The sheer size of the banks – and the theoretical government backing that they enjoy – make it impossible for the country’s roughly 20 regional banks and 7,000 community banks to challenge them.”
Dimon admitted on a conference call that part of the reason the losses were so great is that the trading positions weren’t properly monitored. Naked Capitalism‘s Yves Smith argues this “failure of supervision strengthens the case for the Volcker Rule, although [Dimon] also argued the strategy was Volcker rule complaint… Banks that are backstopped by the public should not be taking proprietary trading bets, period. Hedge funds are the format for that sort of activity.”
* * *
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone: Jamie’s Cryin: Dimon, J.P. Morgan Chase Lose $2 Billion
Jamie Dimon speaks during An Evening With the Fortune 500 at the New York Stock Exchange. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Time)
If you’re wondering why you should care if some idiot trader (who apparently has been making $100 million a year at Chase, a company that has been the recipient of at least $390 billion in emergency Fed loans) loses $2 billion for Jamie Dimon, here’s why: because J.P. Morgan Chase is a federally-insured depository institution that has been and will continue to be the recipient of massive amounts of public assistance. If the bank fails, someone will reach into your pocket to pay for the cleanup. So when they gamble like drunken sailors, it’s everyone’s problem.
Activity like this is exactly what the Volcker rule, which effectively banned risky proprietary trading by federally insured institutions, was designed to prevent. It will be argued that this trade was a technically a hedge, and therefore exempt from the Volcker rule. Not only does that explanation sound fishy to me (as Salmon notes, for Iksil’s trade to be a hedge, this would mean Chase had an equally giant and insane short bet on against corporate debt, which seems unlikely), but it’s sort of immaterial anyway: whether or not this bet technically violated the Volcker rule, it definitely violated the spirit of the law. Hedge or no hedge, we don’t want big, federally-insured, too-big-to-fail banks making giant nuclear-powered derivatives bets. [...]
If J.P. Morgan Chase wants to act like a crazed cowboy hedge fund and make wild exacta bets on the derivatives market, they should be welcome to do so. But they shouldn’t get to do it with cheap cash from the Fed’s discount window, and they shouldn’t get to do it with money from the federally-insured bank accounts of teachers, firemen and other such real people. It’s a simple concept: you either get to be a bank, or you get to be a casino. But you can’t be both. If we don’t have rules to enforce that concept, we ought to get some.
* * *
The New York Times: A Shock From JPMorgan Is New Fodder for Reformers
JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss, which was disclosed on Thursday, could give supporters of tighter industry regulation a huge new piece of ammunition as they fight a last-ditch battle with the banks over new federal rules that may redefine how banks do business.
“The enormous loss JPMorgan announced today is just the latest evidence that what banks call ‘hedges’ are often risky bets that so-called ‘too big to fail’ banks have no business making,” said Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who co-wrote the language at the heart of the battle between the financial and government worlds, in a statement. “Today’s announcement is a stark reminder of the need for regulators to establish tough, effective standards.”
The centerpiece of the new regulations, the so-called Volcker Rule, forbids banks from making bets with their own money, and a final version is expected to be issued by federal officials in the coming months. With the financial crisis fading from view, banks have successfully pushed for some exceptions that critics say will allow them to simply make proprietary trades under a different name, in this case for the purposes of hedging and market-making.
The missteps by JPMorgan could highlight that murky line between proprietary trading and hedging. The bank unit responsible for losses takes positions to hedge activities in other parts of the bank.
“This is a crucial moment in the debate,” said Frank Partnoy, a professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego, who has been a longtime supporter of tighter rules for the nation’s banks. “It couldn’t have come at a worse time for JPMorgan Chase. After everything we went through in the financial crisis, the fact that something of this magnitude could happen shows that the reform didn’t do the job.”
* * *
Reuters’ David Rohde: ‘Break Up the Big Banks‘
“Markets have come to believe that what the government did in 2008 and 2009 isn’t a one-time deal,” Kevin Warsh, a former member of the Federal Reserve Bank’s Board of Governors, said in a March television interview with Charlie Rose. They think “that the government will somehow come to the rescue of these big financial firms.”
The result is a half-dozen massive banks that remain so large that their collapse would cripple the U.S. economy and force another government bailout. As a result, the behemoths function as a de facto oligopoly. The sheer size of the banks – and the theoretical government backing that they enjoy – make it impossible for the country’s roughly 20 regional banks and 7,000 community banks to challenge them.
And the country’s biggest banks are getting bigger.
Five U.S. banks – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs – held $8.5 trillion in assets at the end of 2011, equal to 56 percent of the country’s economy, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Five years earlier, before the financial crisis, the biggest banks’ holdings amounted to 43 percent of U.S. output. Today, they are roughly twice as large as they were a decade ago relative to the economy.
The four Federal Reserve presidents – Richard Fisher of Dallas, Esther George of Kansas City, Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond and Charles Plosser of Philadelphia – have expressed concern that such a concentration of assets in the banking industry threatens the financial system.
In a scathing essay published in March the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ 2012 annual report, Harvey Rosenblum, the bank’s head of research, called for the government to break up the country’s largest banks. Rosenblum argued that only smaller banks – not the increased capital requirements, stress tests and other measures in Dodd-Frank – will prevent another crisis.
“A financial system composed of more banks, numerous enough to ensure competition in funding businesses and households but none of them big enough to put the overall economy in jeopardy,” Rosenblum wrote, “will give the United States a better chance of navigating through future financial potholes and precipices.”
The American public, meanwhile, also feels the reforms were not enough. In a Rasmussen poll conducted last month, 48 percent of Americans surveyed said they continue to lack confidence in the stability of the U.S. banking industry. Forty-seven percent said they were somewhat confident in the system.
* * *
Naked Capitalism: Jamie Dimon Misrepresented “London Whale” Risks, Admits to $2+ Billion Loss Plus Risk Management Black Eye
…as Dimon himself volunteered, is that this failure of supervision strengthens the case for the Volcker Rule, although he also argued the strategy was Volcker rule complaint. Ahem, that says a lot about how Volcker’s prescription was translated into regulations. Banks that are backstopped by the public should not be taking proprietary trading bets, period. Hedge funds are the format for that sort of activity. And the idea that it’s too hard to figure out the difference between the two is nonsense. Traders can be required to flatten positions within a specified, short period, say three or four days at most. Although Value at Risk has a lot of shortcomings, it isn’t a bad metric for this sort of thing. Bear Stearns had a similar rule when Ace Greenberg was in charge (and remember Bear was an investment bank and a risk seeking one at that): traders we not allowed to hold positions longer than three weeks. Greenberg monitored them and required them to be closed out.
The real upside is that this may be the first real dent to Dimon’s image. The firm has gotten off scot free for dubious tactics during the Lehman and MF Global failures, and Dimon has taken to bullying central bankers and regulators (I’ve heard of incidents beyond the press reports of him browbeating Bernanke and later his Canadian analogue, Mark Carney). Dimon’s hyperaggression may simply by apparent success stoking an already overly large ego, or it may be the classic “the best defense is a good offense” strategy, of dissuading overly close scrutiny of JP Morgan’s health and practices. We’ll have a better basis for judging as the year progresses, since difficult trading markets will continue to test all the major dealers.
via JP Morgan’s $2 Billion Tumble Renews Call: ‘Break Up the Big Banks’ | Common Dreams.
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Michael Tellinger – Support the Constitutional Court Action Against the BANKS in South Africa
Thanks to Michael Tellinger – Laura
Support the Constitutional Court Action Against the BANKS in South Africa
100,000
1,111
1,111 signers. Let’s reach 100,000
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World Collapse Explained in 3 Minutes – YouTube
Fed clears China’s first US bank takeover – Yahoo! News Canada
By Veronica Smith | AFP – 20 hours ago
- The Federal Reserve announced that three major Chinese banks, including ICBC, have …
The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China’s biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company.
Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia. Continue reading
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NESARA- Restore America – Galactics News: Deep Intel Down The Rabbit Hole 5-09-12
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Deep Intel Down The Rabbit Hole 5-09-12
This another episode in the continued saga of what is really going on behind the curtains, from deep inside intel sources.MASSIVE ARRESTS
There are allegations of rumored Gun battles and arrests ongoing especially in Washington DC. Those being ‘rumored’ now under house arrest (Remove passport, restricted movement, escorted by marshals) as of now are the Bushes, Clintons, Rockefeller, Pelosi, Reid and a Cast of hundreds if not thousands in the political/banking arena. These are ongoing operations under strict security. Continue reading
There are allegations of rumored Gun battles and arrests ongoing especially in Washington DC. Those being ‘rumored’ now under house arrest (Remove passport, restricted movement, escorted by marshals) as of now are the Bushes, Clintons, Rockefeller, Pelosi, Reid and a Cast of hundreds if not thousands in the political/banking arena. These are ongoing operations under strict security. Continue reading
