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Paul Merrell

Profiting from Your Thirst as Global Elite Rush to Control Water Worldwide :: The Marke... - 0 views

  • A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” --- the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires --- are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace. Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world. The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:
  • Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land. It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.
  • In 2008, Goldman Sachs called water “the petroleum for the next century” and those investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom will reap huge rewards, during its annual “Top Five Risks” conference. Water is a U.S.$425 billion industry, and a calamitous water shortage could be a more serious threat to humanity in the 21st century than food and energy shortages, according to Goldman Sachs’s conference panel. Goldman Sachs has convened numerous conferences and also published lengthy, insightful analyses of water and other critical sectors (food, energy). Goldman Sachs is positioning itself to gobble up water utilities, water engineering companies, and water resources worldwide. Since 2006, Goldman Sachs has become one of the largest infrastructure investment fund managers and has amassed a $10 billion capital for infrastructure, including water.
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  • Citigroup’s top economist Willem Buitler said in 2011 that the water market will soon be hotter the oil market (for example, see this and this): “Water as an asset class will, in my view, become eventually the single most important physical-commodity based asset class, dwarfing oil, copper, agricultural commodities and precious metals.” In its recent 2012 Water Investment Conference, Citigroup has identified top 10 trends in the water sector, as follows:
  • Specifically, a lucrative opportunity in water is in hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), as it generates massive demand for water and water services. Each oil well developed requires 3 to 5 million gallons of water, and 80% of this water cannot be reused because it’s three to 10 times saltier than seawater. Citigroup recommends water-rights owners sell water to fracking companies instead of to farmers because water for fracking can be sold for as much as $3,000 per acre-foot instead of only $50 per acre/foot to farmers.
  • One of the world’s largest banks, JPMorgan Chase has aggressively pursued water and infrastructure worldwide. In October 2007, it beat out rivals Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to buy U.K.’s water utility Southern Water with partners Swiss-based UBS and Australia’s Challenger Infrastructure Fund. This banking empire is controlled by the Rockefeller family; the family patriarch David Rockefeller is a member of the elite and secretive Bilderberg Group, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission.
  • Barclays PLC is a U.K.-based major global financial services provider operating in all over the world with roots in London since 1690; it operates through its subsidiary Barclays Bank PLC and its investment bank called Barclays Capital. Barclays Bank’s unit Barclays Global Investors manages an exchange-traded fund (ETF) called iShares S&P Global Water, which is listed on the London Stock Exchanges and can be purchased like any ordinary share through a broker. Touting the iShares S&P Global Water as offering “a broad based exposure to shares of the world’s largest water companies, including water utilities and water equipment stocks” of water companies around the world, this fund as of March 31, 2007 was valued at U.S.$33.8 million.
  • Deutsche Bank is one of the major players in the water sector worldwide. Its Deutsche Bank Advisors have identified water as a part of the climate investment strategies. In its presentation, “Global Warming: Implications for Investors,” they have identified the four following major areas for water investment: § Distribution and management: (1) Supply and recycling, (2) water distribution and sewage, (3) water management and engineering. § Water purification: (1) Sewage purification, (2) disinfection, (3) desalination, (4) monitoring. § Water efficiency (demand): (1) Home installation, (2) gray-water recycling, (3) water meters. § Water and nutrition: (1) Irrigation, (2) bottled water.
  • Moreover, Deutsche Bank has channeled €6 billion (U.S.$8.55 billion) into climate change funds, which will target companies with products that cut greenhouse gases or help people adapt to a warmer world, in sectors from agriculture to power and construction (Reuters, October 18, 2007). In addition to SCM, Deutsche Bank also has the RREEF Infrastructure, part of RREEF Alternative Investments, headquartered in New York with main hubs in Sydney, Singapore, and London. RREEF Infrastructure has more than €6.7 billion in assets under management. One of its main targets is utilities, including electricity networks, water-treatment or distribution operations, and natural-gas networks. In October 2007, RREEF partnered with Goldman Sachs, GE, Prudential, and Babcok & Brown Ltd. to bid unsuccessfully for U.K.’s water utility Southern Water. § Crediting the boom in European infrastructure investment, the RREEF fund by August 2007 had raised €2 billion (U.S.$2.8 billion); Europe’s infrastructure market is valued at between U.S.$4 trillion to U.S.$6 trillion (DowJones Financial News Online, August 7, 2007). § Bulgaria --- Deutsche Bank Bulgaria is planning to participate in large infrastructure projects, including public-private partnership projects in water and sewage worth up to €1 billion (Sofia Echo Media, February 26, 2008). § Middle East --- Along with Ithmaar Bank B.S.C. (an private-equity investment bank in Bahrain), Deutsche Bank co-managed a U.S.$2 billion Shari'a-compliant Infrastructure and Growth Capital Fund and plans to target U.S.$630 billion in regional infrastructure.
  • In my 2008 article, I overlooked the astonishingly large land purchases (298,840 acres, to be exact) by the Bush family in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, while on a trip to Paraguay for the United Nation’s children’s group UNICEF, Jenna Bush (daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush) reportedly bought 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay). This land is said to be near the 200,000 acres purchased by her grandfather, George H.W. Bush, in 2005. The lands purchased by the Bush family sit over not only South America’s largest aquifer --- but the world’s as well --- Acuifero Guaraní, which runs beneath Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This aquifer is larger than Texas and California combined. Online political magazine Counterpunch quoted Argentinean pacifist Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the winner of 1981 Nobel Peace Prize, who “warned that the real war will be fought not for oil, but for water, and recalled that Acuifero Guaraní is one of the largest underground water reserves in South America….”
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     Like the land rush for Arctic lands soon to be bared of ice by global warming, banksters are also moving to capitalize on looming water shortages, aided by IMF privatization loan conditions the the dwindling of potable water supplies globally via pollution, deforestation, and aquifer depletion. All trace to the common problem over human overpopulation of the planet.  
Paul Merrell

Western Sponsors Liable for Kiev Basket Case | nsnbc international - 0 views

  • The Kiev ultra rightwing regime that Washington and Brussels railroaded into power in February this year, in an illegal coup d’état, has compounded fiscal bankruptcy with a seventh-month criminal war on the ethnic Russian population of the eastern Donbass regions, prompting up to a million refugees to stream across the border with Russia. Earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that Ukraine will need to find an additional $19 billion to avoid bankruptcy if the Kiev regime continues with its military operations in the east of the country. That is on top of the $17 billion that the IMF has already committed to Kiev following the CIA-backed coup against the elected government of President Victor Yanukovych. The legality and delivery of those IMF funds are questionable given the Washington-based institute’s own prohibition on funding states that are engaged in war.
  • This is the context for why Russia was obliged to put Ukraine on a prepayment basis over gas purchases back in June. At a trilateral negotiation in Brussels on September 26, the parties appeared to reach an agreement on a winter package of gas supply to Ukraine from Russia to cover the months of October to March inclusively, which would be based on a prepayment scheme. The payment rate agreed to was $385 per 1,000 cubic metres of natural gas. Granted, that payment rate is a lot more than what Moscow was previously supplying the Yanukovych government. But that was on a preferential basis to an ally. Given that the Kiev regime ousted this ally of Moscow and has shown unprecedented hostility towards Russia ever since the coup in February it is not unreasonable that Russian state-owned Gazprom has raised the price of its gas to $385, and especially because that figure is the average price paid by all European countries for Russian gas.
  • The fact is that Ukraine owes Russia $5.3 billion in unpaid gas bills going back several years. As Western consumer societies might just appreciate, if a customer does not make good on outstanding credit for a service or goods, then the supplier of that service is entitled by law to with-hold further delivery.
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  • «We are ready to pay in advance but the advance payment mechanism has not yet been squared,» the Kiev energy minister told media. Hmmm, payment mechanism has not yet been squared? That hardly sounds like an ironclad commitment to honour contracts with Russia and to make long overdue amends to outstanding debt. It sounds rather like more of the same shenanigans that typifies this warmongering junta. Russia’s energy minister Alexandr Novak is therefore not only entitled, but is merely exercising a modicum of sanity, to insist that Kiev presents a definitive source of funds by the next trilateral meeting scheduled to take place on October 29. To any reasonable person, Russia’s insistence on Kiev providing proof of ability and willingness to pay for the next delivery of natural gas is not an act of «intimidation» but rather is a basic and wholly justified reservation on the part of Moscow to make sure that it is indeed paid for a strategically vital export. One can only imagine how the US or EU would react if they were being dictated to by a hostile jumped-up regime.
  • The depth of Kiev’s insolvency is probably even worse than the IMF’s own dire forecast. Sergei Glazyev, an economic advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, earlier this month reckoned that Ukraine will need at least $100 billion to stabilise its economy. He says that the Kiev regime won’t be able to meet its international obligations even if all the promised financial aid from the US and the European Union is delivered, which is doubtful. «Default is inevitable,» Glazyev concludes. In this context of extreme credit unworthiness, it is not surprising therefore that Russia is insisting that the Kiev regime make prepayments for the further purchase of natural gas. Ukraine will require some 18 billion cubic metres of the fuel to see it through the bitter winter months – and all of it from Russia.
  • The September 26 agreement also stipulated that Kiev would pay off its $5.3 billion debt to Russia in roughly two equal tranches amounting to a total of $3.1 billion by the end of this year, with the first payment at the end of this month. However, on October 13, the Kiev-appointed energy minister Yuriy Prodan announced an about-turn by declaring that the regime would not be making any prepayment, and that money would be forthcoming only after delivery of Russian gas. Such a truculent attitude is by no means the first time that Kiev has vacillated on commitments, not just over gas, but also in the realm of political negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the violence in the eastern regions. In a word, the Western-backed regime in Kiev has shown itself to be unreliable to say the least, if not downright unscrupulous. That conclusion is not based on random delinquent behaviour but rather on a systematic pattern since the regime seized power. Then this week at the latest trilateral talks in Brussels, Kiev’s Prodan once again swivelled position and is now appearing to say that the regime will make good on the arrangement of prepayments.
  • What’s more, Russia’s adamant stance on gas prepayments is all the more warranted because the Western sponsors of the Kiev regime have so far shown little inclination to help it deal with its looming energy crisis.
  • Last week, Kiev put a request to the European Commission for a loan of $2.6 billion. But all that the EC would say is that it is considering the request. Yet, on the basis of no money, the EU’s energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger this week says that he expects a gas deal to be signed on October 29 between Russia and Ukraine under the auspices of Brussels. Washington is even more circumspect than Brussels on the matter of providing hard cash to Kiev, as opposed to lots of hot-air promises of nebulous aid. One gets the feeling that the Western sponsors know full well that this regime is a basket case. Nevertheless, these Western sponsors are liable for the basket case that they created. Russia is thus dead right to be sceptical and to insist: show us the colour of your money. If not, then the Western-aspiring regime should be ready to abide by its Western consumer-market principles. No money, no delivery – unless your Western daddy bails you out, which is not looking likely so far. If Ukraine comes off the rails with an energy crisis this winter, the responsibility lies with the reckless regime-hijackers in Washington and Brussels. They created this wreck, they should pay for it – not the government of Russia, which has shown incredible forbearance in spite of gratuitous insults, provocation and insolence.
Gary Edwards

EconoMonitor : Great Leap Forward » BERNANKE'S OBFUSCATION CONTINUES: The Fed... - 0 views

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    Excellent summary of how deep the hole the Federal Reserve has dug for Americans.  Walks us from the 2008 crisis to the Levy Economics Institute $29.616 Trillion Bankster Bailout.  Incredibly well written commentary. excerpt: Bernanke argues we should look only at the lending at a peak instant of time. Think about it this way. A half dozen drunken sailors are at the bar, and the bartender refills their shot glasses with whiskey each time a drink is taken. At any instant, the bar-keep has committed only six ounces of booze. That is a useful measure of whiskey outstanding. But it is not useful for telling us how much the drunks drank. Bernanke would like us to believe that if the Fed newly lent a trillion bucks every day for 3 years to all our drunken bankers that we should total that as only a trillion greenbacks committed. Yes, that provides some useful information but it does not really measure the necessary intervention by the Fed into financial markets to save Wall Street. And that leads to the final way to measure the Fed's commitments to propping up our drunks on Wall Street: add up every single damned loan, guarantee and asset purchase the Fed made to benefit banks, banksters, real Housewives on Wall Street, fraudsters, and their cousins, aunts and uncles. This gives us the cumulative Fed commitments. The final important consideration is to separate "normal" Fed actions from the "extraordinary" or "emergency" interventions undertaken because of the crisis. That is easier than it sounds. After the crisis began, the Fed created a large alphabet soup of special facilities designed to deal with the crisis. We can thus take each facility and calculate the three measures of the Fed's commitments for each, then sum up for all the special facilities. And that is precisely what Nicola Matthews and James Felkerson have done. They are PhD students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, working on a Ford Foundation grant under my direction, titl
Paul Merrell

Wells Fargo Fined Over Secret Sales Policy to Open Fake Customer Accounts - nsnbc inter... - 0 views

  • The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has fined Wells Fargo for $100 million based on fraudulent customer account practices. An additional $85 million is to be paid to the city of Los Angeles in California, along with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
  • Last year Wells Fargo was sued by employees (current and former) and customers all across the nation for setting up “unwanted accounts, unwarranted fees”. According to the lawsuit, this was “the largest California-based bank violated state and federal laws by misusing confidential information and failing to notify customers when personal information was breached.” Using “aggressive tactics” to coerce new customers, Wells Fargo made it “difficult to correct the mistakes” made by Wells Fargo and return fees to customers because of “high-pressure sales culture set unrealistic quotas, spurring employees to engage in fraudulent conduct to keep their jobs and boost the company’s profits.” Over the course of an extended period of time, “Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses.” There were 1.5 million accounts opened without the authorization of customers and 500,000 credit cards accounts to boot. Wells Fargo has consistently blames “a few rogue employees. Five hundred employees were terminated, according to a Wells Fargo spokesperson. There was no mention of rescinding of bonuses paid to those employees, and there is no clear evidence that executive’s payouts totaling $155 million for “performance based compensation” for 2012 through 2013 was returned to the bank.
  • Those bonuses were administered based on the fraudulent accounts opened without customer approval. In a statement, Wells Fargo expressed belated regret and a sudden desire to “take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request.” The training that caused this problem in the first place was a cross-selling strategy called “Going For Gr-Eight” which is a brochure for employees to push banking products onto households of existing customers to increase fee potential and overall profitability. Wells Fargo “staffers, fearing disciplinary action from managers, begged friends and family members to open ghost accounts” and forged signatures “and falsified phone numbers” of customers who did not want to open an account. This practice drove Wells Fargo’s financial success with an estimated “26% of the company’s revenue was from fee income, including those from credit and debit card accounts, trusts and investments.” The bank not only stole money from customers but “also damage their credit scores” and put some into collections to garner fees “for unauthorized accounts went unpaid”. In case of a complaining customer, Wells Fargo would “sandbag” their customers; meaning “failing to open accounts when requested by customers, and instead accumulating a number of account applications to be opened at a later date.”
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  • Another devious tactic Wells Fargo employed was “bundling” or “incorrectly informing customers that certain products are available only in packages with other products such as additional accounts, insurance, annuities, and retirement plans.” This is not an isolated incident. Wells Fargo has fired 5,300 employees for this same “illegal behavior”. Beyond this questionable business practice, Wells Fargo was previously recognized by the CFPB for misapplying student loan payments in order to increase fee income. In this case, Wells Fargo was fined $3.6 million and forced to pay $410,000 to student loan borrowers for restitution.
Paul Merrell

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit - Bloomberg - 0 views

  • Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.
  • Three years after taxpayers rescued some of the biggest U.S. lenders, regulators are grappling with how to protect FDIC- insured bank accounts from risks generated by investment-banking operations. Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms. “The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”
  • Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Bank of America’s long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3.
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  • The Moody’s downgrade spurred some of Merrill’s partners to ask that contracts be moved to the retail unit, which has a higher credit rating, according to people familiar with the transactions. Transferring derivatives also can help the parent company minimize the collateral it must post on contracts and the potential costs to terminate trades after Moody’s decision, said a person familiar with the matter. Bank of America estimated in an August regulatory filing that a two-level downgrade by all ratings companies would have required that it post $3.3 billion in additional collateral and termination payments, based on over-the-counter derivatives and other trading agreements as of June 30. The figure doesn’t include possible collateral payments due to “variable interest entities,” which the firm is evaluating, it said in the filing.
  • Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates. Dodd-Frank Rules Keeping such deals separate from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including last year’s Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street regulation. The legislation gave the FDIC, which liquidates failing banks, expanded powers to dismantle large financial institutions in danger of failing. The agency can borrow from the Treasury Department to finance the biggest lenders’ operations to stem bank runs. It’s required to recoup taxpayer money used during the resolution process through fees on the largest firms.
  • Bank of America’s holding company -- the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit -- held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according to data compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades. That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
  • Moving derivatives contracts between units of a bank holding company is limited under Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act, which is designed to prevent a lender’s affiliates from benefiting from its federal subsidy and to protect the bank from excessive risk originating at the non-bank affiliate, said Saule T. Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. “Congress doesn’t want a bank’s FDIC insurance and access to the Fed discount window to somehow benefit an affiliate, so they created a firewall,” Omarova said. The discount window has been open to banks as the lender of last resort since 1914. As a general rule, as long as transactions involve high- quality assets and don’t exceed certain quantitative limitations, they should be allowed under the Federal Reserve Act, Omarova said.
  • In 2009, the Fed granted Section 23A exemptions to the banking arms of Ally Financial Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Fifth Third Bancorp, ING Groep NV, General Electric Co., Northern Trust Corp., CIT Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others, according to letters posted on the Fed’s website. The central bank terminated exemptions last year for retail-banking units of JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Deutsche Bank AG. The Fed also ended an exemption for Bank of America in March 2010 and in September of that year approved a new one. Section 23A “is among the most important tools that U.S. bank regulators have to protect the safety and soundness of U.S. banks,” Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, told Congress in March 2008.
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    So according to Bloomberg, JPMorgan's commercial bank was the recipient of 99 percent of JPMorgan's $79 trillion (face value of derivatives) in bad bets. So adding JPMorgan's $78 trillion or so to the $75 trillion in bad bets Bank of America unloaded on its FDIC insured subsidiary, we arrive at $153 trillion in bad bets moved by two investment banks alone under the FDIC umbrella. Meanwhile, FDIC has authority under Dodd-Frank to liquidate these insolvent banks but doesn't, despite several successful lawsuits to recover the value of toxic derivatives that they sold to smaller banks that failed (which implies that FDIC could tell JPMorgan and BoA's investment banksters that they've got to pay off the toxic assets they transferred to their commercial banks, rather than diluting the insurance for normal depositors. Problem: the two big investment banks don't have sufficient assets to absorb those losses, so the too-politically-connected-to-fail factor kicks in. Note that I have not done any legal research in regard to these issues and am basing these observations on what has been stated about legal requirements in various media articles.
Paul Merrell

Syria wants to join Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union - prime minister - RT Business - 0 views

  • The Syrian Prime Minister Wael Halqi has said joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will allow Damascus easier economic and trade cooperation with friendly nations. Russia and Belarus are also discussing a new loan to Syria. READ MORE: Thailand to apply for free trade zone with EEU by 2016 - minister "Negotiations with Russia on joining the Eurasian Union and customs-free zone are being held. We see this as a benefit and strengthening the relations with friendly states, which will facilitate economic and trade cooperation with them," said Halqi in an interview with RIA Novosti Tuesday.According to the prime minister, Russia and Syria have signed a number of contracts for the construction of gas processing plants, irrigation facilities and power stations. In 2013, an agreement was signed for Russian companies to develop oil fields on the Syrian coast. The first phase is worth $88 million and will last for five years.The countries are also discussing the expanding of loans to Damascus."Negotiations with Russia and Belarus on the provision of new lines of credit continue. It will help to meet the needs of production, create new opportunities for the development of the internal market and economic process," said the prime minister.
  • He expressed the hope that Russia would help the Syrian government "to cope with the brutal attacks, including the unjust economic sanctions imposed by the West."Halqi said that credits between Iran and Syria have already been implemented. The two countries have signed and implemented two lines of credit, of which $3.6 billion Tehran has allocated for projects related to oil and $1 billion for the delivery of humanitarian aid, including food, medicines, hospital equipment and components for power plants.The prime minister said that Syria appreciates all the efforts made by the Russian leadership to maintain the policy and economy of Syria during the years of crisis, and specifically thanked Moscow for donating 100,000 tons of wheat as humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.
Paul Merrell

How Much Is Donald Trump Worth? An Examination Of The Evidence | ThinkProgress - 0 views

  • How much money does Donald Trump actually have? Trump’s image as a savvy, deal-making, and, most importantly, fabulously wealthy businessman isn’t just about his personal brand. He’s made it a key selling point for his presidential campaign as he’s run to be the Republican Party’s nominee. “I’m really rich,” he assured voters as he launched his run for president. That message was intended to convey not only that he doesn’t “need anybody’s money” to fuel his campaign but also that he will help create wealth for everyone. “We’re going to make America wealthy again,” he’s promised his supporters. “I will give you everything.” He pledges to Make America Great Again, but also explained that “you have to be wealthy in order to be great, I’m sorry to say.” Yet the nominee has also refused to release his tax returns, which would tell the public exactly how much money he has. He’s maintained that he’s worth more than $10 billion. But he’s also become known for a slippery relationship with the truth, and there’s a pile of evidence to indicate that he may be worth a lot less than that. (Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign responded to a request for comment on this evidence or on whether he will be releasing his tax returns.)
  • It’s difficult to get a handle on the more than 500 businesses Trump owns, plus other potential investments and sources of wealth, without him disclosing them himself. Even then, much of the valuation rests on what import one gives to the Trump brand itself and how to adequately assess the worth of his various real estate holdings. Financial media outlets have estimated what they think the mogul is worth, but none have ever come close to backing Trump’s claim of $10 billion. When Bloomberg ran a tally this week of all of his major assets, including stock holdings and the value of properties like golf courses and luxury towers, it came up with $3 billion. Forbes, after interviews with 80 sources and a piece by piece look at Trump’s empire, concluded $4.5 billion. The Bloomberg analysis, however, relies at least in part on statements Trump himself made in financial disclosure forms, while Forbes has always had to rely on information given by the Trump Organization — and Forbes has admitted that Trump consistently pushes for a higher valuation. Fortune also caught him conflating revenue and income in his campaign filing reports and thereby significantly inflating how much income he says he has. In other places, Trump has submitted information on forms that would revise his wealth significantly downward. As Crain’s reported in March, Trump got a break in his latest property tax bill for Trump Tower in New York City that is only available to married couples who have an annual income of $500,000 or less.
  • The trend of publicly boasting about his money and then privately swearing that his assets are worth less goes pretty far back. In 1988, Trump a told Forbes that his personal residences were worth $50 million, but he said in sworn statements that they were in fact a net liability because the debt load was more than they were worth. In 1989, while Trump insisted that he was worth between $4 and $5 billion, Forbes obtained records he had submitted to a government body that his assets were only worth $1.5 billion. In 2005, a bank evaluated his net worth to be $788 million when underwriting a construction loan for some of his real estate projects — a time when Trump claimed his worth was more like $3.6 billion. lost the lawsuit.)
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    Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are starting to look awfully good. "If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates." -- Jay Leno.
Paul Merrell

Why Aren't Big Bankers in Jail? - FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting - 0 views

  • The man in charge of a bank that engaged in massive mortgage fraud chatted with a corporate media host (CNBC Squawk on the Street, 7/12/13) about the fact that virtually none of those who enriched themselves while eviscerating the life savings of many blameless people, derailing the US economy along the way, have faced criminal prosecution
  • Granted, Cramer is no one's idea of a serious interrogator of the financial system (FAIR Blog, 3/13/09). But much journalism on the question of criminal prosecution of industry leaders amounts to similar apologia. While there have been substantive inquiries into the wrongdoing of investment banks and auditors, those calling for jail time are often dismissed as irrational, driven by "blood lust" (Washington Post, 9/12/13), "anger" (Chicago Tribune, 11/30/13) or "vengeance" (Washington Post, 11/18/13).
  • We're told such calls come from the margins: That no "financial industry types" have been jailed is "a recurring theme among Occupy Wall Street protesters and some Democratic politicians" (Christian Science Monitor, 10/11/11) or "the Occupy Wall Street crowd" (New York Times, 3/1/13). People who believe bankers should go to jail are deflecting blame—from the people: "The real scandal," explained the Washington Post's Charles Lane ("Banks Aren't the Bad Guys," 11/18/13), was "Americans' shared, erroneous belief in ever-rising housing prices and corresponding mania to profit from them." And maybe they need to move on: "This all happened a really long time ago. What-ever happened to the statute of limitations?" the Washington Post (11/19/13) asked itself in a recent Q&A.
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  • What the soft-headed among us don't recognize, evidently, is that "blowing up your company isn't necessarily a crime," as the Christian Science Monitor (10/11/11) put it. "America doesn't criminalize bad business decisions," wrote the Washington Post (9/12/13). Or, from Businessweek (5/12/11): "In the American legal system, people who merely act badly or unwisely do not do time." But some have no trouble pointing to actual crimes in the crisis. "Issuing a mortgage that is known to be based on false information and then selling it in the secondary market is fraud and punishable by time in jail," economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 9/13/13) noted, citing the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. "Packaging loans into mortgage backed securities that an investment bank has good reason to believe are based on false information is also fraud and punishable by time in jail." Former federal bailout inspector Neil Barofsky agrees we're not talking about a perhaps lamentable but inactionable "culture." Asked by NPR (7/26/13) about the no-actual-crime "narrative," Barofsky answered: "No. I think that there was a tremendous amount of fraud."
  • Certainly the problem extends beyond the actions of a few bigwigs. But people who say jailing industry executives should be the sole response exist only in pundits' minds. William Black, who advocates prison for industry executives (Moyers & Company, 9/17/13), pointed to structural reasons for a lack of prosecutions, including regulatory agencies' abandonment of key functions since the 1980s' Savings & Loan scandal. "When the regulators ceased making criminal referrals—which had nothing to with an end of crime, obviously; it just had to do with a refusal to be involved in the prosecutorial effort anymore—they doomed us to a disaster where we would not succeed." Others say revolving-door relationships between banks and their government watchdogs contribute to settlements that are too generous to serve as deterrents (LittleSis, 10/23/13). Even the historic $13 billion JP Morgan settlement winds up being less than meets the eye, as much of the fine is tax-deductible, $4 billion of it is part of an earlier settlement and much of the rest will take the form of mortgage relief that will help the bank in the long run (Salon, 11/20/13).
  •  
    Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting weighs in on mainstream media's reluctance to call for banksters to be issued horizontal striped suits, noting that the excuses used ignore that there are real victims and that real crimes were comitted. 
Gary Edwards

The Sides Are Forming For The Coming Civil War. | Militia News - 1 views

  • America is in the choosing sides phase of the coming civil war. To use a college recruiting phrase, it is accurate to state that the letters of intent to join one side or another have mostly been signed and the commitments offered. However, there is one big uncommitted piece, but very soon the sides will be drawn.
  • The Chess Pieces of Civil War What is going on today in America all about choosing sides. There are clear lines being formed in the United States. The recruiting pool consists of the Department of Homeland Security, the American military, local law enforcement, the Russian troops pouring into the United States, the trickle of Chinese troops coming into the country through Hawaii and, of course, the poor, the middle class and elite. This is the recruiting pool which will form the chess pieces of the coming American Civil War. Even if all parties in this country wanted the country to continue, even in its present mortally wounded state, it would be foolish to believe that it could continue for much longer.
  • Barring a false flag event, US martial law will have a trigger event, which will lead to martial law, that will be financial and it will naturally occur as we are already on a collision course with destiny.
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  • The net result of these staggering numbers can only end one way, and that is with a financial collapse, followed by a bank holiday, rioting in the streets and the full roll out of martial law. These financial numbers guarantee that the party cannot continue much longer. Since America, in her present form, cannot continue much longer without experiencing a cataclysmic shift, we would be wise to realize what resources are going to be the impetus for civil war. When you play the board game, Monopoly, the properties on Boardwalk are among the most coveted. It is no different in real life. The biggest prize of the coming conflict is real estate. Homes, office buildings and shopping malls are the most coveted prize. The MERS mortgage fraud continues unabated as millions of homes have been confiscated through mortgage fraud. When the dollar is worthless and is awaiting its replacement (e.g. the Amero or the Worldo), real estate will be more valuable than gold.
  • Other big game that is being hunted by both sides in the coming civil war will be bank accounts, which must be looted before the dormant computer digits we call money can be converted into hard assets. That is why my advice is, and has been, convert your cash into tangible assets which can enhance your survivability in the upcoming crash.
  • Also, your pensions, your 401K’s and your various entitlement programs are also at risk as evidenced by Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew’s “borrowing” from various Federal retirement accounts in order to increase the debt ceiling fight that will resurface in Congress, again, early next year.
  • Again, my advice is to convert your assets in tangible items which will aid in getting you through some very dark days coming up in the near future.
  • Before the cognitive dissonance crowd rears their ugly heads and accuses me of fear mongering, ask yourself what the elite did prior to the crash of the economy in 1929. For example, Joseph Kennedy took his money out of the stock market the day BEFORE it crashed. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Westinghouse, et al., all took their money out just prior to the crash, leaving the ignorant masses unaware of what was coming. Don’t make the same mistake.
  • I have news for you, there are Federal officials in every town, city and county in America. If one violates HR 347, they will be immediately arrested and charged with a felony.
  • The NDAA constitutes another big fence being built around the people in which all due process will soon be gone. The NDAA will allow the administration the “legal” right to secretly remove any burgeoning leadership of citizen opposition forces.
  • There are three paramount numbers that every American should be paying attention to and they are (1) national deficit ($17 trillion dollars), (2) the unfunded liabilities debt ($238 trillion dollars), and (3) the derivatives/futures debt (one quadrillion dollars which is 16 times the entire wealth of the planet.
  • In short, this spells the potential enslavement of the American people.
  • For those of you who still have your blinders on, research the NDAA and EO 13603 and then when you realize that I am correct in my interpretation, ask yourself one question; If the powers that be were not going to seize every important asset, then why would the government give itself the power to do just that?
  • And while you are at it, remember the Clean Water Act gives the EPA to control all private property as well as the precious resources of all water. And then of course, the FDA and the conflicts with local farmers is escalating.
  • And if this is not enough to convince the sheep of this country that the storm clouds are overhead, then take a look at HR 347 which outlaws protesting and takes away the First Amendment. This unconstitutional legislation makes it illegal to criticize the President and the government, as a whole, in the presence of Federal officials.
  • The second provision which will allow this country to quickly transition to martial law is Executive Order (EO) 13603 which allows the President to take control over any resource, property and even human labor within the United States. This EO gives the President unlimited authority including the ability to initiate a civilian draft as well as a military draft.
  • I just saw the Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire, and this is eerily similar to what I saw in the movies in that the people are being provoked to revolution.
  • in the TV show, Revolution, the most evil entity in the series is the re-emergence of the United States government and the heroes of the show are rebelling against the abuse.
  • It seems like everywhere we turn in the media, the people are being encouraged to rise up now and challenge authority. I am sure the establishment would rather confront a small group of dissidents and squelch the rebellion now, before the numbers can become significant and overwhelming to the establishment and this theme is being carried out in the media.
  • The final action will consist of gun confiscation and one side of the coming conflict is attempting to position themselves to do that in the near future and that would be the DHS, the Russians and the Chinese.
  • I cannot think of another legitimate reason which would describe why they are here.
  •  
    While I'd be the first to agree that the degree of fiscal mismanagement of this nation's economy is beyond insane and have to admit that I see very little to admire in Barack Obama's presidency, the meme about Executive Order 13603 authorizing confiscation of any property and enslavement of the American public needs to be put to rest. See http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2012.html#13603 E.O. 13603 is not much more than an updating of similar executive orders issued by prior presidents beginning with Dwight Eisenhower. In fact, in skimming it a few minutes ago, I didn't see anything drastically different from some of the prior related orders. E.g., it reflects that a bunch of agencies that were formerly either independent or under other departments are now under the newish Department of Homeland Security, whose Secretary now gets the authority formerly delegated to other department and agency heads. If blame must be cast, it belongs on the Congress that enacted the Defense Production Act of 1950, 50 U.S.C. 2061, et seq. The executive order does no more than obey that Act's instructions. For example there is a section authorizing pre-emption of manufacturing capacity of critical industries over any existing civilian contracts in the event of a national emergency, but that language is in the statute as well. But that power hasn't had much traction since Harry Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry to break a nationwide strike. The Supreme Court swatted down that effort as an abuse of a power that would be lawful in a true emergency, like another major. But even that semi-radical "survival" power is ameliorated by other provisions of the statute and the order that authorize loan guarantees for companies' construction and maintenance of critical productive capacity. Much of that has been implemented over the years as outright grants. So for example, many chemical manufacturing plants were built with Defense Production Act funds, with
Gary Edwards

The Federal Reserve is a privately owned Corporation « orwelliania - 0 views

  •  
    Incredible.  Watch your breathing rate as you read this.  Otherwise you might pass out. excerpt: Who actually owns the Federal Reserve Central Banks? The ownership of the 12 Central banks, a very well kept secret, has been revealed: Rothschild Bank of London Warburg Bank of Hamburg Rothschild Bank of Berlin Lehman Brothers of New York Lazard Brothers of Paris Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy Goldman, Sachs of New York Warburg Bank of Amsterdam Chase Manhattan Bank of New York (Reference 14, P. 13, Reference 12, P. 152) These bankers are connected to London Banking Houses which ultimately control the FED. When England lost the Revolutionary War with America (our forefathers were fighting their own government), they planned to control us by controlling our banking system, the printing of our money, and our debt (Reference 4, 22). The individuals listed below owned banks which in turn owned shares in the FED. The banks listed below have significant control over the New York FED District, which controls the other 11 FED Districts. These banks also are partly foreign owned and control the New York FED District Bank. (Reference 22) First National Bank of New York James Stillman National City Bank, New York Mary W. Harnman National Bank of Commerce, New York A.D. Jiullard Hanover National Bank, New York Jacob Schiff Chase National Bank, New York Thomas F. Ryan Paul Warburg William Rockefeller Levi P. Morton M.T. Pyne George F. Baker Percy Pyne Mrs. G.F. St. George J.W. Sterling Katherine St. George H.P. Davidson J.P. Morgan (Equitable Life/Mutual Life) Edith Brevour T. Baker (Reference 4 for above, Reference 22 has details, P. 92, 93, 96, 179) How did it happen? After previous attempts to push the Federal Reserve Act through Congress, a group of bankers funded and staffed Woodrow Wilson's campaign for President. He had committed to sign this act. In 1913, a Senator, Nelson Aldrich, maternal grandfather to the Rockefell
Paul Merrell

Financial frauds had a friend in Holder | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

  • Eric Holder was U.S. attorney general at a time when the world desperately needed the nation’s chief law enforcement officer to hold accountable the elite bankers who oversaw the epidemic of fraud that drove the 2008 global financial crisis and triggered the Great Recession. After nearly six years in office, Holder announced on Sept. 25 that he plans to step down, without having brought to justice even one of the executives responsible for the crisis. His tenure represents the worst strategic failure against elite white-collar crime in the history of the Department of Justice (DOJ).  In both the U.S. savings and loan debacle of the late 1980s and the Enron-era accounting frauds of the early 2000s, there were more than 1,000 successful felony convictions in cases designated as major by the DOJ. In both those fraud epidemics, federal prosecutors prioritized the top executives of the corporations responsible. This context makes Holder’s failure to prosecute — much less convict — the elite bank frauds that caused this far larger crisis all the more damning.
  • In addition to the failure to prosecute the leaders of those massive frauds, Holder’s dismal record includes 1) failing to prosecute the elite bankers who led the largest (by several orders of magnitude) price-rigging cartel in history — the LIBOR scandal, in which the world’s largest banks conspired to rig the reported interest rates at which the banks were willing to lend to one another, which affected prices on over $300 trillion in transactions; 2) failing to prosecute the massive foreclosure frauds (robo-signing), in which bank employees perjured themselves by signing more than 100,000 false affidavits in order to deceive the authorities that they had a right to foreclose on homes; 3) failing to prosecute the bid-rigging cartels of bond issuances in order to raise the costs to U.S. cities, counties and states of borrowing money in order to increase banks’ illegal profits; 4) failing to prosecute money laundering by HSBC for the murderous Sinaloa and Norte del Valle drug cartels; 5)  failing to prosecute the senior bank officers of Standard Chartered who helped fund of terrorists and nations that support terrorism; and 6) failing to prosecute the controlling officers of Credit Suisse who for decades helped wealthy Americans unlawfully evade U.S. taxes and then obstructed investigations by the DOJ and Internal Revenue Service for many years.  
  • the CEOs knew that they could trade off a slightly larger fine in return for complete immunity for themselves and other officers who might otherwise be flipped by federal prosecutors to testify against more senior officers. The fines, of course, would be paid not by the CEOs but by the banks they ran. Indeed, one of the lesser-known aspects of the crisis is that the DOJ almost never sued a banker (as opposed to a bank) and virtually never sought to claw back bankers’ fraud proceeds. It is telling that, as even Holder admitted last week, “A corporation may enter a guilty plea and still see its stock price rise the next day.”
Paul Merrell

China to Hand Argentina US$1 billion in Currency Swap | News | teleSUR - 0 views

  • Argentina's central bank head Juan Carlos Fabrega met with Chinese officials on Sunday to nut out the details of a currency swap that could relieve pressure on Buenos Aires. The deal is part of a US$11 billion Chinese loan secured by the Argentine government in July. The first billion dollar delivery of Chinese yuan is expected to be handed to Argentina by the end of the year, according to newspaper La Nacion. Argentina could use the yuan to buff up its international reserves, by Chinese goods or convert the cash to dollars. The Latin American nation's foreign currency reserves are currently sitting at a seven year low. Argentina is locked in a bitter dispute with a handful of U.S. investment funds, who have refused to accept a controversial bond swap offered by Beunos Aires following Argentina's 2002 default.
  • “During the meeting, the head of the People's Bank of China conveyed to Fabrega his country's support to Argentina in its dispute with bondholders in a New York Court,” Argentina's central bank stated, according to Reuters. Last Thursday, Argentina's senate passed a bill circumventing a U.S. court order for the country to pay the so-called vulture funds US1.3 billion, plus interest. The Argentine government has described the U.S ruling as “imperialist,” and accused the funds of speculation. On Tuesday, Argentina is set to push for a new international regulatory framework for the handling of sovereign debt disputes at the United Nations. The move has the backing of the G77 group, including China.
Paul Merrell

Ukraine Signals It Needs Cash Fast as Capital Controls Tightened - Bloomberg Business - 0 views

  • (Bloomberg) -- Help can’t come fast enough for Ukraine. Conditions are deteriorating so quickly that the International Monetary Fund’s $17.5 billion bailout, pledged less than two weeks ago, may no longer be sufficient. While Ukraine waits for the IMF loan, central bank Governor Valeriya Gontareva is tightening the amount of foreign currencies available to importers and banning banks from lending money for clients to buy currencies other than the hryvnia. More restrictions may follow as the country’s economy contracts amid a deadly conflict with pro-Russian rebels in the country’s east, Gontareva said Monday.
  • With its foreign reserves dropping 61 percent to $6.4 billion in the four months through January, the “cupboard is basically bare,” said Timothy Ash, Standard Bank Group Plc’s London-based chief economist for emerging markets. The hryvnia has fallen 71 percent against the dollar over the past year. Despite the IMF pledge, Ukraine hasn’t received a major injection of cash since a $1.4 billion IMF disbursement on Sept. 3, the lender’s website shows. Lawmakers in Kiev have yet to pass amendments to the budget needed to allow the new IMF program to begin. Disbursements could start a few weeks after the fund’s board approves the facility, which may take place this week or next, according to Ukraine’s Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko.
  • Ukraine’s $2.6 billion of 9.25 percent bonds due in July 2017, the sovereign’s benchmark security for foreign investors, fell 0.07 cent to a record 41.47 cents on the dollar by 11:30 a.m. in Kiev, taking its eight-day decline to 15 cents. The hryvnia weakened to an all-time low 32 per dollar, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “The way things are going, the central bank may need to declare a moratorium on money leaving the country, perhaps through an interruption in debt servicing as Argentina did,” Richard Segal, head of emerging-markets credit strategy at Jefferies International Ltd. in London, said by phone Monday.
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  • Ukraine’s debt is poised to extend declines as investors are underestimating losses in the country’s planned debt reorganization, analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said on Friday in separate reports. “Ukraine is bankrupt and the only reason the bonds are trading at 40-45 is because of IMF involvement,” Dmitri Barinov, a money manager who oversees $2.6 billion of emerging-market bonds at Union Investment Privatfonds GmbH in Frankfurt, said by e-mail on Monday. “Ukraine has neither the possibility nor the willingness to pay its debt, but will be forced to restructure under IMF conditions.” The hryvnia’s 51 percent depreciation against the dollar this year, following a 48 percent drop in 2014, is driving up the prices of imports and energy, while making external debt payments more difficult for Ukraine. Gontereva yielded control of the currency earlier this month, allowing it to weaken in an IMF-backed move which helped eliminate an unofficial street market for currency transactions. “The National Bank of Ukraine has few options, with the West still dragging its feet over financial support,” Ash, the chief emerging-markets economist at Standard Bank in London, said by e-mail.
Paul Merrell

HSBC faces £70bn capital hole, warn Hong Kong analysts - Yahoo Finance UK - 0 views

  • Research firm Forensic Asia calculates that HSBC has overstated the value of the assets on its balance sheet by more than £50bnHSBC could have overstated its assets by more than £50bn and ultimately need a capital injection of close to £70bn before the end of this decade, according to an incendiary report published by a Hong Kong-based research firm . Forensic Asia on Tuesday began its coverage of Britain’s largest banking group with a ‘sell’ recommendation, warning the lender had between $63.6bn (£38.7bn) and $92.3bn of “questionable assets” on its balance sheet, ranging from loan loss reserves and accrued interest to deferred tax assets, defined benefit pension schemes and opaque Level 3 assets. The broker’s note is written by two of its senior analysts, Thomas Monaco and Andrew Haskins . Mr Monaco is a former senior bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and previously worked as a fund manager at FrontPoint Partners, the hedge fund that spotted the US subprime bubble. As well as this, he has also spent a decade as a banks analyst at various leading investment banks. Mr Haskins previously worked at HSBC for 15 years, mainly as a telecoms analyst, and also co-ran Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ’s Hong Kong-based research team.
  • In the report, the analysts apply what they describe as a “moderate stress test” to the balance sheets of HSBC’s major subsidiaries. From this analysis they conclude that even using a low-end estimate, the assets of the bank’s Hong Kong division, for instance, are overstated by about $15bn, while those of its UK subsidiary could be overvalued by $17bn. Taking the analysis further, the report sets out the impact of incoming Basel III capital rules and says HSBC could be required at a minimum to raise close to $60bn in new capital by 2019 and potentially as much as $111bn. “In our view, HSBC has not made the necessary adjustments, during the quantitative easing reprieve. Rather, it has allowed legacy problems to linger as new ones in emerging markets gather pace. The result has been extreme earnings overstatement, causing HSBC to become one of the largest practitioners of capital forebearance globally. This charade appears to be ending, given how few earnings levers remain besides selling off core elements of the franchise and the stringencies of Basel III compliance,” wrote Forensic Asia.
  • The broker adds: “While having stated capital ratios well above peer averages is all well and good, HSBC’s stated capital ratios would appear to be nothing more than a mirage if our analysis is correct.” Even under current capital rules, Forensic Asia estimates that its valuations of HSBC’s group and subsidiary balance sheets suggests the bank has a current capital shortfall of $45.1bn. The report adds the workings do not include probable litigation costs linked to various claims on the bank, which they see coming in at no less than $10bn. HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank by market capitalisation and total assets, is also reckoned to be the UK’s best capitalised major lender, with a tier 1 ratio of 12.8pc, well above the minimum required by the Prudential (Frankfurt: PRU.F - news) Regulation Authority
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  • Most analysts rate HSBC shares a 'buy', arguing the bank has plenty of excess capital. Deutsche Bank (Xetra: DBK.DE - news) reckons the lender has $500bn in excess deposits and liquidity and will benefit strongly when interest rates rise. Simon Maughan, head of research at OTAS Technologies, told CNBC : “If we look at the credit market and implied volatility on HSBS shares, it’s significantly less than the European bank average—whether it’s equity, credit or option markets, they’re not concerned by this story. “What Tom [Thomas Monaco] is saying is HSBC has surplus capital but under his stress test environment, that disappears—well, that’s kind of what surplus capital is there for in the first place. “Secondly he’s saying they haven’t used the period of QE to dispose of legacy assets. It’s precisely because of HSBC’s capital strength that they made the decision to hold onto those legacy assets and get a better price for them when they matured ... I don’t think that it’s something major shareholders, certainly the ones we speak to, are concerned about.” HSBC declined to comment.
Paul Merrell

Risky Business » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names - 0 views

  • Last week, the country’s biggest mortgage lenders scored a couple of key victories that will allow them to ease lending standards, crank out more toxic assets, and inflate another housing bubble.  Here’s what’s going on. On Monday,  the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Mel Watt, announced that Fannie and Freddie would slash the minimum down-payment requirement on mortgages from 5 percent to 3 percent while making loans more available to people with spotty credit. If this all sounds hauntingly familiar, it should. It was less than 7 years ago that shoddy lending practices blew up the financial system precipitating the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Now Watt wants to repeat that catastrophe by pumping up another credit bubble.
  • Here’s the story from the Washington Post: “When it comes to taking out a mortgage, two factors can stand in the way: the price of the mortgage,…and the borrower’s credit profile.” On Monday, the head of the agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac outlined … how he plans to make it easier for borrowers on both fronts. Mel Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, did not give exact timing on the initiatives. But most of them are designed to encourage the industry to extend mortgages to a broader swath of borrowers.
  • Here’s what Watt said about his plans in a speech at the Mortgage Bankers Association annual convention in Las Vegas: Saving enough money for a downpayment is often cited as the toughest hurdle for first-time buyers in particular. Watt said that Fannie and Freddie are working to develop “sensible and responsible” guidelines that will allow them to buy mortgages with down payments as low as 3 percent, instead of the 5 percent minimum that both institutions currently require.”
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  • It might be worth noting at this point that Watt’s political history casts doubt on his real objectives.   According to Open Secrets, among the Top 20 contributors to Watt’s 2009-2010 campaign were Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup Inc., Bank of New York Mellon, American bankers Association, US Bancorp, and The National Association of Realtors. (“Top 20 Contributors, 2009-2010“, Open Secrets)
Paul Merrell

US sues 16 banks for rigging Libor rate - Americas - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has sued 16 big banks that set a key global interest rate, accusing them of fraud and conspiring to keep the rate low to enrich themselves. The banks, which include Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase in the US, are among the world's largest. The FDIC says it is seeking to recover losses suffered from the rate manipulation by 10 US banks that failed during the financial crisis and were taken over by the agency. The civil lawsuit was filed on Friday in federal court in Manhattan, the Associated Press reported. The banks rigged the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, from August 2007 to at least mid-2011, the FDIC alleged. The Libor affects trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including mortgages, bonds and consumer loans. A British banking trade group sets the Libor every morning after the 16 international banks submit estimates of what it costs them to borrow. The FDIC also sued that trade group, the British Bankers' Association.
  • By submitting false estimates of their borrowing costs used to calculate Libor, the 16 banks "fraudulently and collusively suppressed [the Libor rate], and they did so to their advantage," the FDIC said in the suit.
  • Four of the banks - Britain's Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, Switzerland's biggest bank UBS and Rabobank of the Netherlands - have previously paid a total of about $3.6bn to settle US and European regulators' charges of rigging the Libor. The banks signed agreements with the US Justice Department that allow them to avoid criminal prosecution if they meet certain conditions. Under a change announced last July, the London-based company that owns the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext, will take over supervising the setting of Libor from the British Bankers' Association. The changeover is scheduled to be completed by early next year.
Gary Edwards

Jim Douglass: A Letter to the American People (and Myself in Particular) On the Unspeak... - 0 views

  • “But if they’re not [authentic], then you have something of a magnitude beyond common experience that would reflect so devastatingly on our society as a whole and its corruptibility that you don’t know how to deal with it.”[4]
  • Since I began researching the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and John and Robert Kennedy, I have been shocked by the obvious signature that is written across all four of them. It is the signature of what President Eisenhower identified as the military-industrial complex of our government.[6] We can read that signature at once in Dallas in the identity of the scapegoat Lee Harvey Oswald.
  • When Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in Dallas after the assassination, he was carrying a Department of Defense ID card that is routinely issued to U.S. intelligence agents abroad. The FBI later obliterated the card by “testing” it but writer Mary La Fontaine discovered a copy of it in l992 in a Dallas Police Department photo. Oswald had been a radar operator for the CIA’s U-2 spy plane while he was a Marine stationed at Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan. The Atsugi base served as the CIA’s center for its Far East operations. His fellow Marines David Bucknell and James Botelho said that when Oswald “defected” to the Soviet Union, he did so under the direction of U.S. intelligence.[8] The professed traitor Oswald was given a U.S.-government loan to assist his return from the USSR. When he settled in Dallas, his closest friend and mentor was longtime U.S. intelligence operative George DeMohrenschildt.
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  • Fidel Castro recognized “CIA” written all over Lee Harvey Oswald and the press releases on him that were being sent around the world within minutes of the assassination. The whole Dallas set-up was obvious to someone as familiar with CIA assassination plots as Fidel Castro was.
  • The more one investigates the assassination of John Kennedy, the more one becomes immersed in the depths of U.S. intelligence. The American intelligence community was the sea around Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, and the host of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and gun runners with whom Oswald and Ruby worked closely.
  • By the Fall of l963 John Kennedy had also decided to withdraw from Vietnam.[14] Robert McNamara in his memoir In Retrospect[15] has described the contentious October 2, l963, National Security Council meeting at which Kennedy decided, against the arguments of most of his advisors: to withdraw all U.S. forces from Vietnam by the end of l965; to withdraw l,000 U.S. troops by the end of l963; to announce this policy publicly “to set it in concrete,” which Press Secretary Pierre Salinger did at a press conference when the meeting was over.[16]
  • After JFK’s assassination, his withdrawal policy was quietly voided.[18] In light of the future consequences of Dallas, it was not only John Kennedy who was crucified on November 22, l963, but 58,000 other Americans and over three million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.
  • Clifton Baird was a Louisville, Kentucky, police officer in l965 when he was asked to help kill Martin Luther King. On September l8, l965, Baird gave a ride home in his car to fellow Louisville officer Arlie Blair after their 3-ll pm shift. Baird parked his car in Blair’s driveway, and the two men talked. Alarmed at what Blair was saying, Clifton Baird secretly turned on a microphone hidden under his seat that was connected to a recorder in a rear speaker. What Baird taped was an offer to engage in a conspiracy to kill Dr. King. He later shared the information with author William F. Pepper who included it in his book on the King assassination Orders to Kill.[32] Blair told Baird that an organization he belonged to was willing to pay $500,000 for the death of King. Would Baird be willing to participate? Baird said he definitely would not. He urged Blair to stay away from it, too.
  • The next day at a Louisville police station, Clifton Baird saw Arlie Blair conferring with a group of police officers and FBI agents. The FBI agents had, over a period of sixteen years or more, developed a close relationship with members of the Louisville police force.
  • On September 20, l965, Baird taped a second car conversation with Blair. Blair again brought up the $500,000 bounty for King, which Baird had now connected with the FBI.
  • Myron Billett was another witness to the truth. By undergoing a conversion in his own life, Myron Billett was able to reveal that in January l968 FBI and CIA agents offered a New York Mafia leader a $l million contract to kill Martin Luther King.
  • After Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, Sam Giancana gave Myron Billett $30,000 and told him to start running: They both knew too much and were going to be killed. Giancana was in fact murdered in his Chicago home in June l975, just before he was scheduled to testify before the Church Committee concerning assassination plots. His killing took the form of a symbolic warning to other possible assassination witnesses. Giancana was shot seven times in a circle around his mouth.
  • In his Canadian Broadcasting Corporation lectures at the end of l967 (later published as The Trumpet of Conscience[39]), King’s vision went beyond even these overwhelming concerns. He saw the next step as a global nonviolent movement using escalating acts of massive civil disobedience to disrupt the entire international order and block economic and political exploitation across borders.
Paul Merrell

Another Global Financial Crisis in the Making | Global Research - 0 views

  • The Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements has stated that the current policies of central banks and monetary authorities could lead to another financial crisis, potentially bigger than that of 2008. The warning is contained in the latest annual report of the bank, sometimes referred to as the central bankers’ bank, issued yesterday. The report expressed concerns that the present low-interest rate regime, initiated to try to overcome the effects of the 2008 crash, has pushed financial markets to new highs while lowering the rate premium for many risky loans. The BIS noted that markets had been “exuberant over the past year,” particularly in advanced economies. They were “dancing mainly to the tune of central bank decisions,” with volatility reaching historical lows and “market participants … hardly pricing in any risks.”
  • “Overall, it is hard to avoid the sense of a puzzling disconnect between the markets’ buoyancy and underlying economic developments globally,” the bank stated. The “disconnect” is most clearly expressed in the United States, where the Federal Reserve’s policy of pumping trillions of dollars into financial markets has seen stock market indexes reach record highs, while the underlying economy stagnates and reverses. Last week, it was revealed that the US economy contracted almost 3 percent in the first quarter of 2014, but stock markets climbed even further in the belief that the on-going stagnation would lead to the provision of still more ultra-cheap money. The BIS noted that despite an increase in economic growth, the world economy had not shaken off its dependence on monetary stimulus. Regardless of the euphoria in financial markets, investment remained “weak.” On a global scale, the total debt of private non-financial sectors had risen by 30 percent since the global financial crisis, pushing up the ratio of this debt to global output. Moreover, a concentration on short-term growth figures ran the risk of ignoring the long-term dangers created by present monetary policies.
Paul Merrell

China Steps In as World's New Bank - Bloomberg View - 0 views

  • Thanks to China, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund, Jim Yong Kim of the World Bank and Takehiko Nakao of the Asian Development Bank may no longer have much meaningful work to do. Beijing's move to bail out Russia, on top of its recent aid for Venezuela and Argentina, signals the death of the post-war Bretton Woods world. It’s also marks the beginning of the end for America's linchpin role in the global economy and Japan's influence in Asia. What is China's new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank if not an ADB killer? If Japan, ADB's main benefactor, won't share the presidency with Asian peers, Beijing will just use its deep pockets to overpower it. Lagarde's and Kim’s shops also are looking at a future in which crisis-wracked governments call Beijing before Washington. 
  • China stepping up its role as lender of last resort upends an economic development game that's been decades in the making. The IMF, World Bank and ADB are bloated, change-adverse institutions.  When Ukraine received a $17 billion IMF-led bailout this year it was about shoring up a geopolitically important economy, not geopolitical blackmail. Chinese President Xi Jinping's government doesn't care about upgrading economies, the health of tax regimes or central bank reserves. It cares about loyalty. The quid pro quo: For our generous assistance we expect your full support on everything from Taiwan to territorial disputes to deadening the West’s pesky focus on human rights.
  • This may sound hyperbolic; Russia, Argentina and Venezuela are already at odds with the U.S. and its allies. But what about Europe? In 2011 and 2012, it looked to Beijing to save euro bond markets through massive purchases. Expect more of this dynamic in 2015 should fresh turmoil hit the euro zone, at which time Beijing will expect European leaders to pull their diplomatic punches. What happens if the Federal Reserve’s tapering slams economies from India to Indonesia and governments look to China for help? Why would Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam bother with the IMF’s conditions when China writes big checks with few strings attached? Beijing’s $24 billion currency swap program to help Russia is a sign of things to come. Russia, it's often said, is too nuclear to fail. As Moscow weathers the worst crisis since the 1998 default, it’s tempting to view China as a good global citizen. But Beijing is just enabling President Vladimir Putin, who’s now under zero pressure to diversify his economy away from oil. The same goes for China’s $2.3 billion currency swap with Argentina and its $4 billion loan to Venezuela. In the Chinese century, bad behavior has its rewards.
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    Note that this article is in a Bloomberg publication. Is economic reality beginning to dent the MSM propaganda on Wall Street?
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