Screw the Banks and Investment Firms

[can't sit still]

The ECB is fighting back by creating a NEW $ 1 billion worth of Euros;
http://www.forexebookstore.com/2010/05/ ... bt-crisis/
How cool is that? They're going to loan more money to countries that already are unable to pay loans.
440 billion Euros will come from Euro-zone countries. Ummm, I seriously doubt that any EU countries have an extra 440 billion lying around. Germany and France are the 2 most solvent countries. They don't have it. So, it has to be newly printed money.
Because of the resultant currency inflation, the banks and bond buyers are going to demand higher interest. The high interest will make the loans unpayable.

[can't sit still]

"Here's a statistic that I find fascinating. This is just for the top four banks. If you look at nonperforming assets - that's loans that haven't paid over 120 days - the size of that is 1.5 times all of the chargeoffs that banks have incurred since 2005. So you think credit has stabilized, mortgages have stabilized? Non-performs have ballooned so they've more than doubled since the beginning of 2009"
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100510.htm

As I mentioned here before, there are about 6 million foreclosures in the pipeline. That's just residential and doesn't include commercial. 97 % of mortgages are backed by the Feds. Fannie is back at the trough demanding $ 10.2 billion. The FDIC is burning through cash. Fannie will need cash with no end in sight.
Dig deep and give generously

[cowboyangel]

"Here's a statistic that I find fascinating. This is just for the top four banks. If you look at nonperforming assets - that's loans that haven't paid over 120 days - the size of that is 1.5 times all of the chargeoffs that banks have incurred since 2005. So you think credit has stabilized, mortgages have stabilized? Non-performs have ballooned so they've more than doubled since the beginning of 2009"
http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc100510.htm

As I mentioned here before, there are about 6 million foreclosures in the pipeline. That's just residential and doesn't include commercial. 97 % of mortgages are backed by the Feds. Fannie is back at the trough demanding $ 10.2 billion. The FDIC is burning through cash. Fannie will need cash with no end in sight.
Dig deep and give generously :lol:

We live in fantasy land don't we? And to think most people think that this ain't gonna bite us in the ass real hard sooner or later.....

[can't sit still]

Well, Europe followed the American model. GOV printed up zillions of new Euros. They didn't bail out Greece though. They used all the Euros to buy Greek bonds from the big banks. They didn't want the banks to lose anything. The ECB is working like hell to keep all the new money outside of the normal financial system,,, just like the FED.
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/edito ... /0514.html
Things went fairly well after the U.S. bailout of big banks. In the Eurozone, things went well but, for a fairly short time. The Euro bond holders got wise a lot faster. Sure, lots of bad debt was taken from the big banks BUT, the original indebtedness didn't go away. The structural imbalances didn't go away. The financial problems of the Nanny-state didn't go away.
The Mises institute figured that the ECB had bought 3 years,,, as I posted yesterday. If the bond investors did indeed acquire a new found understanding of the permanence of the fiscal problems, it will all blow long before 3 years.
All the big trade unions are calling for big strikes. All the big banks are calling for austerity measures. The pols are scared shitless of riots because it destroys their pretense of legitimacy. The pols are scared shitless of bank failures.
If History is a guide, the pols will try to avoid doing anything that will get them blame. The Euro may very well disintegrate because of their inaction;
http://thedailybell.com/1051/Wheels-Fal ... -Euro.html

The public is well aware that the banks represent the investor class. From one point of view, the tug-a-war is class warfare. This whole new awareness at all levels is going to make things VERY messy. The banks carelessly made bad bets. The investors didn't. The public didn't. Technically, the banks should be liquidated and the assets paid to 1. savers 2. bondholders 3 . creditors.
Worldwide, the banks took stupid risks. Since the banks control GOV, they're making sure that they don't pay the price. Thanks to the internet, this fact is NOT lost on all the plebes who are getting the shaft.
The ECB can't realistically bail out Spain. If there is an appearance of weakness, the investors will short Spain and the game will be over. The FED has been shipping over tons of dollars in currency swaps to help the ECB. Since speculators can create synthetic instruments faster than the ECB can make Euros, the ECB will always be behind the curve.
Even austerity measures won't save Greece. It's doubtful if they'll save Italy or Spain. I expect that there isn't enough tear gas in Christendom to stop all the problems. GB is just about to institute draconian welfare cuts. If London burns to the ground, they will have an opportunity to straighten out the streets.

[cowboyangel]

Even austerity measures won't save Greece. It's doubtful if they'll save Italy or Spain. I expect that there isn't enough tear gas in Christendom to stop all the problems. GB is just about to institute draconian welfare cuts. If London burns to the ground, they will have an opportunity to straighten out the streets




Funny, and you make a tremendously serious point there as you can't sit still......

[can't sit still]

Cowboy,,, I may have missed something?
I already mentioned that the dollar is in fierce battle with the Euro. We don't want competition for status as the reserve currency. The U.S. has just fired a full broadside at the Euro and the EMU.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/am ... or-europe/
The European banks have set things up so that they don't lose anything. The possible new plan has a different outcome.
"In Greece’s case it would require a haircut of 50 per cent or so for foolhardy creditors, ie your bank and mine, your pension fund and mine. "
This is a huge departure from the normal screwing that the populace generally receives. This can be expected to shaft the banks. The EMU has also gone to the extraordinary action of forbidding "naked shorting" on the 10 most important financial institutions. This is a tacit admission that the banks are toast and need protection.
Greece won't be saved. Spain is more defensable.

The big flaw in the Eurozone was that it created a unified currency without creating a mechanism for enforcing monetary policy. It was just " A bridge too far,,, too soon. One only needs to look at history to see why.

", according to the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

"Greece has defaulted or rescheduled its debt five times since gaining independence in 1829, the economists wrote in their paper 'This Time Is Different,' published in 2008 and recently expanded into a book. Spain has the lead in Europe at 13 times since 1476. Germany and France have both done it 8 times, while the UK has never done it since William the Conqueror invaded in 1066.

"Greece has existed in a 'perpetual state of default' since its independence," the Journal concludes, "having spent 50.6% of those years in default or rescheduling, easily tops in Europe. Russia is next highest, with 39.1% of years spent as a bad debtor after defaulting or rescheduling five times.""
From The Daily Reckoning;
"In a worst-case scenario, the ECB will exhaust its cash, credit and credibility trying to save Greece...and will destroy the euro in the process. Best case, the "fix" will persuade a few Wall Street strategists that the "worst of the euro crisis is over" and will suck a few more suckers into the European sovereign debt markets before the situation gets REALLY ugly.

And it will get ugly...one way or another."
The other issue is that the BIS seems to be at war with the IMF for global dominance. There are going to be some big casualties.

[cowboyangel]

I finally met the genius Goddess Ellen Brown at Deep Politics this past week end in Santa Cruz. Try Googling http://noliesradio.org to see if they have it.

She was great and went on about the state bank idea. 7 states are now considering legislation for state banks. Ron Paul's son won too. He too is for ending the fed. Maybe good things can happen?

Yeah Ellen! (I got my book signed too!! What a groopie!)

[can't sit still]

Well, the U.S. is hammering the Euro and it shows;
"s the ECB’s president, Jean-Claude Trichet, despairingly confided to Der Spiegel on Monday, Europe’s economy “is in its most difficult situation since World War II or perhaps even since World War Iâ€

[Trishntek]

So the guy who sells precious metals sent me this message. Please consider his motivation in saying these things, but also realize the stark possibilities he proposes:

"What if the funding shortfalls of the Treasury become so acute that the magnitude of monetization required threatens to collapse the financial system or send interest rates skyward? Could such a possibility lead certain elite powers to decide, under the cover of darkness naturally, that national security calls for an orchestrated take down of the stock market? Accepting this as a possibility depends on one’s beliefs pertaining to several key criteria, namely:
1. The degree of financial duress one believes the U.S. is under
2. The impact continued monetization will have on financial system stability
3. The participation levels for future debt auctions
4. The machinations the powers that be are capable of.
Should one believe the deployment of GRAs (government retirement accounts to replace IRAs and 401ks) are reasonably probable, then the remaining action item in this scenario would be to coax the public into personally assuming the debt the rest of the world was refusing to accept. If the beliefs of many regarding activities conducted by The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (Plunge Protection Team) were sound, could not this same entity be utilized for such theoretical events as those described? The possibility such an initiative might be needed to rescue the Treasury market does add an additional, and considerable, threat to the equity markets.
Lastly, for those who believe very unsavoury things transpire when it comes to power and money, then a substantial sell-off in the equity markets would present a convenient buying opportunity for well-funded international interests at the expense of millions of ordinary investors. Would this not be a natural extension to the play book used throughout the economic crisis, with a slight variant? Instead of socializing the mortgage and derivative losses of bankers upon taxpayers, in this scenario, mountains of unwanted debt would be dumped on a politically powerless citizenry in exchange for their ownership interests in viable revenue generating entities."

[can't sit still]

Oh what a tangled web we weave when at first we practice to deceive.
Trish, the message doesn't appear to me to be very wide in scope. I can't really organize this so, I have to post ideas.
The bond market is FAR more important than the equities market. Don't forget COMEX. They trade $ 3 trillion every day. If you look at the U.S. CAFR statement that I posted near the beginning of this thread, You'll see that GOV owns a huge percentage of the stock of hundreds of companies.
The web permeates everything. If equities fall for whatever reason, it takes a huge chunk out of the holdings of GOV. Same for 401Ks. Many 401Ks are equities-heavy. Pension, retirement and insurance funds are equity-heavy.
Everyone knows that Treasury debt is in a huge bubble and is not payable.
"Greeks need to raise an amount equal to more than 20% of their GDP this year, the US funding requirement is more than 32% -- more than any of Europe's storm toss'd states.". Bill Bonner.
If equities crash, investors will move to developing markets, cash, gold, energy and a few other areas. They're already doing it.
The average maturity date on U.S. notes is 4.4 years. SHORT ! Everybody rolled over into 90 day paper. If equities crash, the bond market will collapse on day 2. Bond buyers know that the productive part of the economy is the only thing that can repay bonds.

There isn't ANY sector of the economy that can be sacrificed without it starting a chain reaction. The U.S.has 5 times the retail space, per person, that France has. Restaurants are down for 26 straight months. Retail and service aren't going to be bringing in the bucks. Industrial capacity utilization is way down. The financial sector is showing great gains but, it's ALL vapor. Agriculture is having problems.
Resources is the only sector that is decent.

The U.S. is attacking the Euro. Evidently, "they" hope to receive all the money that flows out of the Euro zone. It might possible work.
I suspect that state defaults will push it over the edge. The U.S. is a monetary union with 50 members. California is worse off than Greece.
A very tangled web.

[cowboyangel]

We are only at the beginning. Find people to make friends with and form community alliances. We don't have democracy anymore. It's dead. We have corporate totalitarianism on the verge of a great upheaval.

You can't eat gold and you can't drink cash, and forget your home. But you can piss on the banking system by supporting state banks and demanding your state legislators drive it.

[Trishntek]

CSS, here is more of a context to my previous post:

"In the annual report of The White House Task Force on the Middle Class, Joe Biden discussed the possible creation of so-called “Guaranteed Retirement Accountsâ€

[can't sit still]

Trish, SS holds $ 7.4 trillion of non negotiable bonds from Treasury. That doesn't inspire confidence in any new assessment. But, a new assessment is on the way. It's called CLASS. I read a quick number of $ 3.9 trillion. I believe that GOV wants $ 150 to $ 250 every month from every working person;
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/d ... x-increase
Clinton seems to be currently in charge of the delusional arm of GOV. Pelosi is right up there too. The numbers don't add up. There aren't enough tax payers left.
Also GOV, [banks] say that they are going to collect the CLASS money for 5 years before they disburse any of it. That doesn't inspire any CONfidence either.
10% of the banks are in trouble. FDIC is toast. Reportedly 1 in 7 mortgages is in trouble. HUD is going to blow higher than Mac n Mae. They're ALL fucking delusional if they think they can extend-and-pretend long enough to actually start taxing the last penny out of us.

The entire wealth of the U.S. is insufficient to pay off the debts. They can schedule VAT, carbon, health,CLASS and all the rest. It's just a feeble ploy to get bond investors to believe that America can generate enough wealth to repay bonds. We sucked them into investing in Sub-Prime. This is just one more suck

[Trishntek]

If I understand CLASS correctly, it is a separate fund for a program already part of the Health Care Plan. It pertains to in-home healthcare guarantees for the elderly and disabled.

The years of paying without benefit is consistent with the majority of the HC plan. This is rife with pillage and looting. It's not like that or any other HC funding will be put in a piggy bank! They are just another ploy to fund Big Gubmint.

[can't sit still]

GOV is also rolling out another tax on business;
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/21/smallbu ... 99_deluge/
Germany is trying to force the banks to fund the bailout with a transaction tax;
http://tarpley.net/2010/05/19/germany-b ... #more-1519
They have to pay 66% of their taxes to the banks. They want to make it contingent on the banks paying the transaction tax;
http://www.theflucase.com/index.php?opt ... 05&lang=en
Sounds fair to me.

[cowboyangel]

Another brilliant piece by Ellen Brown

California is being screwed by a stupid set of laws and you guessed it, evil greedy rat bastard bankers...and this can change.




Taking Back the Money Power: How Hidden Pools of Government Money Could Help Save the Economy

by Ellen Brown


Global Research, May 22, 2010
Web of Debt - 2010-05-21



For over a decade, accountant Walter Burien has been trying to rouse the public over what he contends is a massive conspiracy and cover-up, involving trillions of dollars squirreled away in funds maintained at every level of government. His numbers may be disputed, but these funds definitely exist, as evidenced by the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) required of every government agency. If they don’t represent a concerted government conspiracy, what are they for? And how can they be harnessed more efficiently to help allay the financial crises of state and local governments?



The Elusive CAFR Money



Burien is a former commodity trading adviser who has spent many years peering into government books. He notes that the government is composed of 54,000 different state, county, and local government entities, including school districts, public authorities, and the like; and that these entities all keep their financial assets in liquid investment funds, bond financing accounts and corporate stock portfolios. The only income that must be reported in government budgets is that from taxes, fines and fees; but the investments of government entities can be found in official annual reports (CAFRs), which must be filed with the federal government by local, county and state governments. These annual reports show that virtually every U.S. city, county, and state has vast amounts of money stashed away in surplus funds. Burien maintains that these slush funds have been kept concealed from taxpayers, even as taxes are being raised and citizens are being told to expect fewer government services.



Burien was originally alerted to this information by Lt. Col. Gerald Klatt, who evidently died in 2004 under mysterious circumstances, adding fuel to claims of conspiracy and cover-up. Klatt was a an Air Force auditor and federal accountant, and it’s not impossible that he may have gotten too close to some military stash being used for nefarious ends. But it is hard to envision how all the municipal governments hording their excess money in separate funds could be complicit in a massive government conspiracy. Still, if that is not what is going on, why such an inefficient use of public monies?



A Simpler Explanation



I got a chance to ask that question in April, when I was invited to speak at a conference of Government Finance Officers in Missouri. The friendly public servants at the conference explained that maintaining large “rainy dayâ€

[can't sit still]

Cowboy, GREAT article. The banks will do anything to keep the states from forming their own bank. Back when Ca issued IOUs, some banks refused to honor them. Those banks had $ 18 million of Ca money on deposit. That would have been a very good time to withdraw the money and move it to a state bank. It didn't happen.
Reportedly, 17 states want to copy the Az immigration law;
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1064411.html#1064411
It would be far more beneficial to , instead concentrate on a state bank charter.

If you look at the history of banking in Canada, they were quite prosperous before they got a central bank. The bankers hounded the legislature for decades until they got the bank. They've had nothing but budget problems since. It would be great if Ca,, and the rest would get off their asses. I'm sure that the lobbyists are working overtime to prevent that.

[can't sit still]

I found an excellent article that illustrates the war between "hot money" and GOV.
"One purveyor of the barbaric anti-welfare state demagogy is Larry Kudlow of CNBC, a former Reagan Treasury official, who on Thursday announced his intention of driving a stake through the heart of the welfare state. In the same breath, the “free-market guyâ€

[cowboyangel]

Thanks Dan for once again saying the magic words..."productive economy".

You're right too regarding austerity measures.....we're kind of experiencing the scout advances of that maneuver already, and try that in the US? Remember the 76 oil embargo and the fist fights and murders at the gas pumps? We are seeing back lash activism too...Arizona's immigration law and Rand Paul in Kentucky. Rand by the way, in spite of the beating he's taking on his civil rights failings, echos the anti-Fed ideas of his dad, Ron Paul. That and Rands openness for an independent 9-11 investigation are enough reason for me to support him. Hope he gets better advisers.

International and national bankers should be shitting in their pants and spending beau coup bucks on private security. Really, if the news reported that they all died in airplane crashes, don't tell me there wouldn't be celebrations around the globe.

[Rabbi Dali Rick]

what?








the rebbi

[can't sit still]

Rabbi, cool cat but he can't reach high enough to smack a banker.
Cowboy, one of the biggest problems is a philosophical one. How can someone rationally destroy an economy just to get rich far beyond any possible need for survival?

[Trishntek]

CSS, that is where you stray, my friend. It is not about money or the environment or healthcare. It is about control,,,, absolute power and control of the world and everything in it, on it and above it.

As assets become more valuable and dollars, euros, etc. become less valuable, it will indeed be the one with the most toys wins.

[can't sit still]

I guess that, that mindset is just too alien to me. I need a bottle in front of me.

[cowboyangel]

it is about control and power and screw democracy and anything else that gets in the way.

[Trishntek]

I guess that, that mindset is just too alien to me. I need a bottle in front of me.

Well come and enjoy some Czech Republic absinthe with me and everything seems a little less hopeless.

[can't sit still]

Thanks Trish. Actually, it was a play on words;
"I guess that, that mindset is just too alien to me. I need a bottle in front of me." Laughing
There is an old song about this;

[can't sit still]

Did y'all watch 'dead puppies" after 'A bottle in front if me" ?
Weiss ratings has proved to be dead-on accurate in their predictions. They give the ratings of 20 banks here. http://www.moneyandmarkets.com/weiss-ra ... 0?FIELD9=2

[can't sit still]

Well Tiny Tim [microencepheletic] Geithner has an interesting quote "European leaders face the difficult challenge of trying to restore sustainability to an unsustainable system."
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nable.html
They're currently voting for austerity measures. This will, of course, shrink the economy and drastically reduce tax revenues that will be needed to repay bonds.
Spanish banks are hitting the skids too. Not too surprising if you consider that unemployment is claimed to be about 26 %.
Default is pretty much 'baked in the cake"
If you have the time, this is a great lecture on Imperial collapses;
http://www.piie.com/events/event_detail ... =152&Media

[can't sit still]

Some of the biggest bond buyers in the world are running away from U.S. GOV paper.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... uGkE&pos=4
Bill Gross at PIMCO is responsible for investing about a $ trillion. He says U.S. bonds are junk. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/ ... y-may.html
These guys are the "smart money". There will be a lot of investors who follow their advice.
Here's an interesting paper from Warren Buffet's father.
"But when you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize known as human liberty"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/howard ... d-standard
Interesting stuff.

[Trishntek]

Some of the biggest bond buyers in the world are running away from U.S. GOV paper.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... uGkE&pos=4
Bill Gross at PIMCO is responsible for investing about a $ trillion. He says U.S. bonds are junk. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/05/ ... y-may.html
These guys are the "smart money". There will be a lot of investors who follow their advice.
Here's an interesting paper from Warren Buffet's father.
"But when you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize known as human liberty"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/howard ... d-standard
Interesting stuff.

Never forget that Roosevelt confiscated gold in 1933. That is why, if you invest in precious metals make sure they were minted before 1933. Those prior years are forbidden from being plundered a second time.

http://www.the-privateer.com/1933-gold- ... ation.html