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Gary Edwards

A New Reserve Currency to Challenge the Dollar | Veterans Today - 0 views

www.veteranstoday.com/...ng-on-in-the-straits-of-hormuz

Banksters GOLD David-Malone Oil Islamic-Wars

shared by Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 13 Jan 12
     
    Author David Malone digs into world events, suggesting that all the saber rattling over Iran and nuclear weapons is really about GOLD!   He argues that the dollar is rapidly being replaced as the world's "settlement" currency.  As a function, "settlement" is different than "reserve", but since WWII and the Basel Conference, the USA Dollar has been both the currency of "reserve" and settlement".  That is now changing, and fast! David further suggests that the Iraqi wars with Saddam Hussein were also about his use of the Euro to "settle" oil purchases.  It could also be argued that Muamma Gaddafi in Lybia was removed because he was organizing all of Africa to "settle" oil and other commodity purchases in GOLD, and not the USA Dollar. Are the Islamic wars really about oil?  Or are they about how oil purchases are "settled"? David further argues that Russia, India, China and Japan are actively pursuing a GOLD based settlement currency agreement series where the Chinese Yuan plays a central role.  Interestingly, all of these countries have cut agreements with Iran.  Which seems to have triggered the December 2011 Obama response banning any banks, both private and government controlled, from dealings with Iran.   It's increasingly looking like it's not the Iranian nuclear weapons program that is upsetting to Obama and his Bankster buddies.  It's the rapid replacement of the worthless paper USA dollar as a settlement currency. One of the interesting points the venerable "Veterans Today" news sight is making is that our military is being used to forcefully prop up an inflationary Bankster Dollar, and force oil producing countries into accepting that inflated Bankster Dollar as payment.  The one thing the International Bankster Cartel doesn't want is for the trade of important commodities, especially energy, to be paid for in GOLD instead of the worthless paper they control. excerpt: I think the stand-off with Iran in the Straits of Hormuz over sanctions is a
Paul Merrell

Banks fined over $5 billion for rigging global currency markets | Toronto Star - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...g-global-currency-markets.html

banksters fraud litigation criminal-convictions

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • A group of global banks will pay more than $5 billion U.S. in penalties and plead guilty to rigging the world’s currency market, the first time in more than two decades that major players in the financial industry have admitted to criminal wrongdoing. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays and The Royal Bank of Scotland conspired with one another to fix rates on U.S. dollars and euros traded in the huge global market for currencies, according to a resolution announced Wednesday between the banks and the U.S. Department of Justice. A group of currency traders, who called themselves “The Cartel,” allegedly shared customer orders through chat rooms and used that information to profit at the expense of their clients. The resolution is complex and involves multiple regulators in the U.S. and overseas.
  • The four banks will pay a combined $2.5 billion in criminal penalties to the DOJ for criminal manipulation of currency rates between December 2007 and January 2013, according to the agreement. The Federal Reserve is slapping them with an additional $1.6 billion in fines, as the banks’ chief regulator. Finally, British bank Barclays is paying an additional $1.3 billion to British and U.S. regulators for its role in the scheme. Another bank, Switzerland’s UBS, has agreed to plead guilty to manipulating key interest rates and will pay a separate criminal penalty of $203 million.
  • It is rare to see a bank plead guilty to wrongdoing. Even in the aftermath of the financial crisis, most financial companies reached “non-prosecution agreements” or “deferred prosecution agreements” with regulators, agreeing to pay billions in fines but not admitting any guilt. If any guilt were found, it was usually one of the bank’s subsidiaries or divisions — not the bank holding company.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Big banks overall have already been fined billions of dollars for their role in the housing bubble and subsequent financial crisis. But even so, the latest penalties are big. Including a separate agreement with the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday and another announced last year, the group of banks will pay nearly $9 billion in fines for manipulating the $5.3 trillion global currency market. Unlike the stock and bond markets, currencies trade nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The market pauses two times a day, a moment known as “the fix.” Traders in the cartel allegedly shared client orders with rivals ahead of the “fix”, pumping up currency rates to make profits. Global companies, who do business in multiple currencies, rely on their banks to give them the closest thing to an official exchange rate each day. The banks are supposed to be looking out for them instead of conspiring to get even bigger profits by using customers’ orders against them. Travelers who regularly exchange currencies also need to get a fair price for their euros or dollars.
  • The number of traders who participated in the criminal activity was small. JPMorgan, in a statement, said the one trader involved has been fired. Citi said it fired nine employees involved. The agreement between the banks and the DOJ is subject to court approval. If approved, all five banks have agreed to three years of corporate probation overseen by a court. The banks will also help prosecutors with their investigations into individual criminal activity related to the currency market rigging. In 2012, HSBC avoided a legal battle that could further savage its reputation and undermine confidence in the global banking system by agreeing to pay $1.9 billion to settle a U.S. money-laundering probe. Another British bank, Standard Chartered, signed an agreement with New York regulators to settle a money-laundering investigation involving Iran with a $340 million payment. In 2014, the Bank of America reached a record $17 billion settlement to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis
Paul Merrell

Are The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Centra... - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...d-private-central-banking.html

banksters dollar reserve currrencies Libya Iran Africa Gadafhi

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Why is the U.S. targeting Iran’s central bank? Well, multi-billionaire Hugo Salinas Price told King World News: What happened to Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a gold dinar. And as I noted in August: Ellen Brown argues in the Asia Times that there were even deeper reasons for the war than gold, oil or middle eastern regime change. Brown argues that Libya – like Iraq under Hussein – challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks: Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland.
  • The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.” According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. *** And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:
  • One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned … Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
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  • Adding credence to the theory about why Gadhafi had to be overthrown, as The New American reported in March, was the rebels’ odd decision to create a central bank to replace Gadhafi’s state-owned monetary authority. The decision was broadcast to the world in the early weeks of the conflict. In a statement describing a March 19 meeting, the rebel council announced, among other things, the creation of a new oil company. And more importantly: “Designation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.” The creation of a new central bank, even more so than the new national oil regime, left analysts scratching their heads. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” noted Robert Wenzel in an analysis for the Economic Policy Journal. “This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences,” he added. Wenzel also noted that the uprising looked like a “major oil and money play, with the true disaffected rebels being used as puppets and cover” while the transfer of control over money and oil supplies takes place.
  • Similar scenarios involving the global monetary system — based on the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency, backed by the fact that oil is traded in American money — have also been associated with other targets of the U.S. government. Some analysts even say a pattern is developing. Iran, for example, is one of the few nations left in the world with a state-owned central bank. And Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein, once armed by the U.S. government to make war on Iran, was threatening to start selling oil in currencies other than the dollar just prior to the Bush administration’s “regime change” mission. While most of the establishment press in America has been silent on the issue of Gadhafi’s gold dinar scheme, in Russia, China, and the global alternative media, the theory has exploded in popularity.
  • Posted on January 13, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog The Reason for the Wars in the Middle East and North Africa:  Dollars The Middle Eastern and North African wars – planned 20 years ago – don’t necessarily have much to do with fighting terrorism. See this,  this and this. They are, in reality, about oil. And protecting Israel (and read the section entitled “Securing the Realm” here). But as AFP reports today, there is another major motivation for the expanding wars: The latest round of American sanctions are aimed at shutting down Iran’s central bank, a senior US official said Thursday, spelling out that intention directly for the first time. “We do need to close down the Central Bank of Iran (CBI),” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity, while adding that the United States is moving quickly to implement the sanctions, signed into law last month. *** Foreign central banks that deal with the Iranian central bank on oil transactions could also face similar restrictions under the new law, which has sparked fears of damage to US ties with nations like Russia and China. “If a correspondent bank of a US bank wants to do business with us and they’re doing business with CBI or other designated Iranian banks… then they’re going to get in trouble with us,” the US official said.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Jun 14
     
    I only highlighted snippets. Lots more and lots of links. 
Gary Edwards

Gold Forecaster - Gold is back as money! The BIS 382 tonne Gold Swap - Good or Bad for ... - 0 views

news.goldseek.com/...1278723600.php

gold Gold-currency gold-swaps BIS

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 10 - Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Jul 10
     
    What is significant about this or these transactions is that gold is being used in international settlements after so many decades of being sidelined in the monetary system!   The transaction itself confirms that gold is being used in international settlements, which is a dynamic confirmation of gold's return to the monetary system.   A "Swap" might be the first desperate step in such a transaction with the swapping bank hoping to repay the foreign exchange, but should it fail, the B.I.S . would have to decide either to keep the gold on its books or to sell it.   Again, keeping it on its books is part confirmation that gold is active again on the monetary system, a big boost by itself! Gold is back and alive in the monetary system!   What appears to have really happened is that one nation or more needed foreign exchange to counter some shortfall in its accounts and raised these funds as a short-term liquidity measure, believing that it would be able to return the currency and receive its gold back.   The gold would then be returned at the conclusion of the swap period in return for the currencies swapped.   If it fails to return these funds to the BIS, then the BIS could discreetly place the gold with another central bank, should it not want to keep the gold.   If it did so, the BIS would simply report its disposal of the gold, the originating central bank would report the drop in its gold reserves and the gold buying bank would report its increase in the reserves.     This puts the transaction into an entirely different category.   It seems that one or more of the developed world's central bank's credit is not good enough for other governmental institutions.   If word got out as to which this country is, then the financial markets would go into quite a spin, shaking the global financial system to its core.   No wonder the B.I.S. is keeping such a low profile!
Paul Merrell

The fix is in: how banks allegedly rigged the US$5.3 trillion foreign exchange market |... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...illion-foreign-exchange-market

banksters fraud litigation settlements currency-exchange

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Suppose you’re in the supermarket shopping for groceries. While you’re strolling the aisle with your cart, a shadowy figure looms over your shoulder and changes the prices on the items you want to buy before you get a chance to pick them up. As you reach for some vine tomatoes, you notice the price just jumped 20 cents. When you select some brie from among the cheeses, you witness the number on the sticker change right before your eyes. Ditto when you look for your favorite brand of granola.
  • This is the essence of what regulators learned might be happening in the foreign exchange market, where US$5.3 trillion of dollars, euros and yen are traded every day. In June 2013, Bloomberg reported that traders at some of the world’s biggest banks worked to manipulate key currency rates, racking up profits and costing investors – including your retirement fund – hundreds of millions of dollars globally. They are accused of placing their own transactions ahead of trades requested by clients – known as front-running – which was the reason prices kept changing as people tried to make their own trades, like in the shopping analogy above. They bought euros or dollars, driving up the rate, and then profited by selling to other investors at a higher level.
  • This week six of the currency-dealers being investigated – including JP Morgan, Citigroup and HSBC – agreed to pay a total of US$4.3 billion to regulators in the US, UK and Switzerland to resolve the allegations. The deal is likely only the first in a series of settlements and other penalties that will emerge from the ongoing investigations. The investors most concerned with the alleged manipulation are funds that invest internationally, such as hedge funds, the endowments of charitable or cultural institutions and insurance companies. But it also includes the mutual funds in which many of your 401K or IRA assets are likely invested.
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  • When institutions like these need to buy or sell assets across borders, they call a dealer at one of the big banks, which provides what is basically a wholesale version of the cambio currency kiosks you see at the airport. The dealer quotes a buying price and a selling price, and the fund chooses whether to buy or sell. In addition to trading with customers, the dealers trade among themselves, sometimes to manage their inventory and sometimes hoping to make money by taking speculative positions for a few minutes or even seconds. And that’s how we arrive at the scandal. Every day at 4pm in London, the market sets special “fixing” exchange rates that are used to value the funds’ international investments. The fixing price is set in a simple way: it’s just the average of all prices paid among dealing banks during the 30 seconds before and after the clock strikes 4. Many international fund managers prefer to trade currencies at exactly the fixing price because it’s simpler and smarter to trade at the same price used to value your portfolio. To make these transactions happen, international funds often place large orders with dealers at major banks before the fix.
  • Suppose, for example, a pension fund with major investments in Europe knows it will receive a lot of new IRA money on November 30, when many US employees get paid. And suppose the fund plans to invest €100 million of that in European stocks. At 3:30pm that day the fund might instruct its bank to purchase €100 million at the fixing price. With this kind of advance order, the bank could book its own trades before the fund does, buying the euros it will later sell to the investor.
  • The banks – or more accurately, specific dealers at specific banks – are accused of manipulating the fixing prices based on their knowledge of advance customer orders. In a nutshell, the accusation is that dealers from different banks got together before the fix and compared notes in chat rooms. Most currency trading is handled by 10 or so mega banks, so if just a few of them compared notes, they would have a good sense of whether the exchange rate would rise or fall during the fixing interval that day. The shadowy figure looking over your shoulder at the supermarket to see what you’re going to buy next is like the banks comparing their customer orders before the fix. To finish the supermarket analogy, we need to know how and why the dealing banks could raise the fixing rate to the disadvantage of international pension and mutual funds. Suppose once again that many customers have placed big orders to buy euros at the fix, and the banks figure the euro-dollar exchange rate will rise during the window. This would give them an incentive to buy a lot of euros before it’s set (remember the golden rule of trading: buy low, sell high).
Paul Merrell

Digital currencies could 'challenge sovereignty' - RTÉ News - 0 views

www.rte.ie/...628314-bitcoin

banksters bitcoin digital-currencies Ireland

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • A senior Central Bank official has warned that virtual and digital currencies have the potential to challenge the sovereignty of states. Gareth Murphy was this afternoon addressing Bitfin 2014, a conference on digital money in Dublin. Mr Murphy said rivals to national legal tender pose challenges to central banks' ability to influence the price of credit for the whole economy. He also warned that there would be a substantial threat to the country's finances if more and more transactions for goods and services disappear from the tax net through the use of digital currencies. Mr Murphy cautioned that a loss of consumer confidence in currencies can cause uncertainty, which in turn can lead to a drop in economic activity. The Central Bank has consistently said that it does not recognise and therefore does not regulate digital currencies such as Bitcoin in this country.
  • Mr Murphy, who is Director of Markets Supervision at the Central Bank, said it was well-documented that virtual currencies could provide an alternative channel for people to purchase goods and services using the proceeds for crime. In such scenarios, he added, the application of current anti-money laundering regulations will be tested. Mr Murphy warned that any failure of the payments and settlement infrastructure or "financial plumbing" in Ireland, would have a severe impact on consumer confidence and economic activity in the country. He also cautioned that virtual currencies pose a new challenge to central banks' control over the important functions of monetary and exchange rate policy. Their more widespread use would also make it more difficult for statistical agencies to gather data on economic activity, which are used by governments to steer the economy.
Gary Edwards

How can Obama say the economy is getting better? | Western Free Press - 0 views

www.westernfreepress.com/...-the-economy-is-getting-better

Banksters Economy Great-Recession Obammunism

shared by Gary Edwards on 20 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 20 Feb 12
     
    Devastating charts comparing the percentage of Americans in the work force from January 2000 through February 2012.  The most interesting numbers show that the recession began in December of 2007, and ended in June of 2009 - yet it is after that June 2009 date that the % of Americans in the workforce begins to drop like a rock!  This is after the Obmaulous stimulous $1.2 Trillion, the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartels secret $16.1 Trillion, and, the magnificent cash-for-clunkers crap. Meanwhile, back in la la land, Obama thinks the problem is that we all need free contraceptives, free abortions and free sex-change coverage in our health insurance.  The Obama Spend-Borrow-Bail train has left the station.  Next stop?  War with Iran.  More powerful a phony narrative than contraceptives, abortions, and fear of a conservative repubican praying in the White House.  Besides, those bastards are refusing to use the dollar as the settlement currency for their oil sales!  Time to put them in the dirt along with that rogues gallery of tyrants who also defied the Federal Reserve International Bankster Cartel, demanding settlement currencies measured in GOLD instead of paper dollars; gallery includes notables such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and the Shah of Iran. Nothing like the Marines and the Seventh Fleet being unleashed to turn around the dismal poll numbers stubbornly connected to the even more dismal disaster known throughout the hinterland of bitter clingers as the economic truth. excerpt: Is President Obama relying on the Bureau of Labor statistics to manipulate the unemployment numbers to make them look better than they are? The real rate is probably more like 11.5%, and we have seen analyses that indicate that unemployment hasn't actually fallen at all under Obama: So what is going on here? The big problem is that people are giving up. Obama and the Democrats' job-killing regulations and climate of uncertainty are stifling innovation and inv
Paul Merrell

Russia's Petro-Ruble Challenges US Dollar Hegemony. China Seeks Development of Eurasian... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5377086

war & peace Ukraine U.S.-foreign-policy sanctions banksters Russia China Germany New-Silk-Road

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Apr 14 - No Cached
  •  Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners – no longer in dollars – see Voice of Russia Russia’s trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the ‘petro-dollar’ as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars – December 2013) – leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement. Added to this is the declaration today by Russia’s Press TV – China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where “New Areas” of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China’s Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China’s poorest regions.
  • Curiously, western media have so far been oblivious to both events. It seems like a desire to extending the falsehood of our western illusion and arrogance – as long as the silence will bear. Germany, the economic driver of Europe – the world’s fourth largest economy (US$ 3.6 trillion GDP) – on the western end of the new trading axis, will be like a giant magnet, attracting other European trading partners of Germany’s to the New Silk Road. What looks like a future gain for Russia and China, also bringing about security and stability, would be a lethal loss for Washington. In addition, the BRICS are preparing to launch a new currency – composed by a basket of their local currencies – to be used for international trading, as well as for a new reserve currency, replacing the rather worthless debt ridden dollar – a welcome feat for the world. Along with the new BRICS(A) currency will come a new international payment settlement system, replacing the SWIFT and IBAN exchanges, thereby breaking the hegemony of the infamous privately owned currency and gold manipulator, the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) in Basle, Switzerland – also called the central bank of all central banks.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Apr 14
     
    Will Obama rethink his push for sanctions against and military encirclement of Russia? One would suspect that the banksters will soon be pushing him to do so.
Paul Merrell

By "Punishing" France, The US Just Accelerated The Demise Of The Dollar | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...st-accelerated-demise-dollar-0

de-dollarization France reserve currrencies China remnibi

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Not even we anticipated this particular "unintended consequence" as a result of the US multi-billion dollar fine on BNP (which France took very much to heart). Moments ago, in a lengthy interview given to French magazine Investir, none other than the governor of the French National Bank Christian Noyer and member of the ECB's governing board, said this stunner at the very end, via Bloomberg: NOYER: BNP CASE WILL ENCOURAGE ‘DIVERSIFICATION’ FROM DOLLAR Here is the full google translated segment:
  • Q. Doesn't the role of the dollar as an international currency create systemic risk?   Noyer: Beyond [the BNP] case, increased legal risks from the application of U.S. rules to all dollar transactions around the world will encourage a diversification from the dollar. BNP Paribas was the occasion for many observers to remember that there has been a number of sanctions and that there would certainly be others in the future. A movement to diversify the currencies used in international trade is inevitable. Trade between Europe and China does not need to use the dollar and may be read and fully paid in euros or renminbi. Walking towards a multipolar world is the natural monetary policy, since there are several major economic and monetary powerful ensembles. China has decided to develop the renminbi as a settlement currency. The Bank of France was behind the popular ECB-PBOC swap and we have just concluded a memorandum on the creation of a system of offshore renminbi clearing in Paris. We have very strong cooperation with the PBOC in this field. But these changes take time. We must not forget that it took decades after the United States became the world's largest economy for the dollar to replace the British pound as the first international currency. But the phenomenon of U.S. rules expanding to all USD-denominated transactions around the world can have an accelerating effect. In other words, the head of the French central bank, and ECB member, Christian Noyer, just issued a direct threat to the world's reserve currency (for now), the US Dollar.
  • Putting this whole episode in context: in an attempt to punish France for proceeding with the delivery of the Mistral amphibious warship to Russia, the US "punishes" BNP with a failed attempt at blackmail (recall that as Putin revealed, the BNP penalty was a used as a carrot to disincenticize France from concluding the Mistral transaction: had Hollande scrapped the deal, BNP would likely be slammed with a far lower fine, if any). Said blackmail attempt backfires horribly when as a result, the head of the French central bank makes it clear that not only is the US Dollar's reserve currency status not sacrosanct, but "the world" will now actively seek to avoid USD-transactions in order to escape the tentacle of global "pax Americana." And, the biggest irony of all is that in "punishing" France for dealing with Russia, that core country of the Eurasian alliance of Russia and China, the US merely accelerated the gravitation of France (and all of Europe) precisely toward Eurasia, toward a multi-polar (sorry fanatic believers in a one world SDR-based currency) and away from the greenback.
Paul Merrell

Germany to open first Euro-Zone Yuan / Renminbi Settlement Hub | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...e-yuan-renminbi-settlement-hub

de-dollarization yuan Germany settlement currency

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Germany has become the euro-zone’s first hub for international settlements in Chinese yuan, using the renminbi. More than ten German regional and international banks, including AG, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank AG, as well as Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen Girozentrale opened accounts at Bank of China in Frankfurt to facilitate the settlements in Chinese yuan. Charges are being kept low by not involving any dollar conversion.
  • Yuan clearing in Frankfurt “will increase the share of German SMEs using the renminbi for their trade with China to well over the current 10 percent”, reported Bloomberg. Frankfurt thus becomes the first western European center to afford and conduct transactions in yuan. Leading German and European economists and bankers commented on the development, saying that it has become apparent that the yuan has developed or will fast be developing into an international investment currency. There is a general consensus among economists that China’s approach with the renminbi and China’s loss of direct control over the value of the yuan have played a large role in that development. Similar agreements with China have been signed by Hong Kong, Taipai, Singapore, Seoul and London. Thailand, Malaysia, and other Asian countries are increasingly encouraging their traders and investors to study the use of the yuan, the renminbi, and the other opportunities China afforded by opening its economy for foreign businesses.
  • Another step in this development taken by China was the establishment of the Shanghai – Hong Kong Stock Connect which established a cross-trading mechanism and which allows investors access to the largest stock markets on the Chinese mainland and vice versa. Earlier this year the IMF reported that China has become the world leading economy with regard to e.g. purchasing power parity, and that describing the United States as the world’s no.1 economy was a misrepresentation.
Paul Merrell

From Energy War to Currency War: America's Attack on the Russian Ruble | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5421554

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Russia China de-dollarization blowback

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Putin announced that Russia has cancelled the South Stream project on December 1, 2014. Instead the South Stream pipeline project has been replaced by a natural gas pipeline that goes across the Black Sea to Turkey from the Russian Federation’s South Federal District. This alternative pipeline has been popularly billed the «Turk Stream» and partners Russian energy giant Gazprom with Turkey’s Botas. Moreover, Gazprom will start giving Turkey discounts in the purchase of Russian natural gas that will increase with the intensification of Russo-Turkish cooperation. The natural gas deal between Ankara and Moscow creates a win-win situation for both the Turkish and Russian sides. Not only will Ankara get a discount on energy supplies, but Turk Stream gives the Turkish government what it has wanted and desired for years. The Turk Stream pipeline will make Turkey an important energy corridor and transit point, complete with transit revenues. In this case Turkey becomes the corridor between energy supplier Russia and European Union and non-EU energy customers in southeastern Europe. Ankara will gain some leverage over the European Union and have an extra negotiating card with the EU too, because the EU will have to deal with it as an energy broker.
  • For its part, Russia has reduced the risks that it faced in building the South Stream by cancelling the project. Moscow could have wasted resources and time building the South Stream to see the project sanctioned or obstructed in the Balkans by Washington and Brussels. If the European Union really wants Russian natural gas then the Turk Stream pipeline can be expanded from Turkey to Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and other European countries that want to be integrated into the energy project. The cancellation of South Stream also means that there will be one less alternative energy corridor from Russia to the European Union for some time. This has positive implications for a settlement in Ukraine, which is an important transit route for Russian natural gas to the European Union. As a means of securing the flow of natural gas across Ukrainian territory from Russia, the European Union will be more prone to push the authorities in Kiev to end the conflict in East Ukraine.
  • From the perspective of Russian Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, the US is waging its multi-spectrum war against Russia to ultimately challenge Moscow’s Chinese partners. In an insightful interview, Glazyev explained the following points to the Ukrainian journalist Alyona Berezovskaya — working for a Rossiya Segodnya subsidiary focusing on information involving Ukraine — about the basis for US hostility towards Russia: the bankruptcy of the US, its decline in competitiveness on global markets, and Washington’s inability to ultimately save its financial system by servicing its foreign debt or getting enough investments to establish some sort of innovative economic breakthrough are the reasons why Washington has been going after the Russian Federation. [13] In Glazyev’s own words, the US wants «a new world war». [14] The US needs conflict and confrontation, in other words. This is what the crisis in Ukraine is nurturing in Europe. Sergey Glazyev reiterates the same points months down the road on September 23, 2014 in an article he authors for the magazine Russia in Global Affairs, which is sponsored by the Russian International Affairs Council — a think-tank founded by the Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Ministry of Education 2010 — and the US journal Foreign Affairs — which is the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relation in the US. In his article, Glazyev adds that the war Washington is inciting against Russia in Europe may ultimately benefit the Chinese, because the struggle being waged will weaken the US, Russia, and the European Union to the advantage of China. [15] The point of explaining all this is to explain that Russia wants a balanced strategic partnership with China. Glazyev himself even told Berezovskaya in their interview that Russia wants a mutually beneficial relationship with China that does reduce it to becoming a subordinate to Beijing. [16]
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  • It is because of the importance of Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties that Ankara has had an understanding with both Russia and Iran not to let politics and their differences over the Syrian crisis get in the way of their economic ties and business relationships while Washington has tried to disrupt Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties like it has disrupted trade ties between Russia and the EU. [9] Ankara, however, realizes that if it lets politics disrupt its economic ties with Iran and Russia that Turkey itself will become weakened and lose whatever independence it enjoys Masterfully announcing the Russian move while in Ankara, Putin also took the opportunity to ensure that there would be heated conversation inside the EU. Some would call this rubbing salt on the wounds. Knowing that profit and opportunity costs would create internal debate within Bulgaria and the EU, Putin rhetorically asked if Bulgaria was going to be economically compensated by the European Commission for the loss.
  • It is clear that Russian business and trade ties have been redirected to the People’s Republic of China and East Asia. On the occasion of the Sino-Russian mega natural gas deal, this author pointed out that this was not as much a Russian countermove to US economic pressure as it was really a long-term Russian strategy that seeks an increase in trade and ties with East Asia. [10] Vladimir Putin himself also corroborated this standpoint during the December 18 press conference mentioned earlier when he dismissed — like this author — the notion that the so-called «Russian turn to the East» was mainly the result of the crisis in Ukraine. In President Putin’s own words, the process of increasing business ties with the Chinese and East Asia «stems from the global economic processes, because the East – that is, the Asia-Pacific Region – shows faster growth than the rest of the world». [11] If this is not convincing enough that the turn towards East Asia was already in the works for Russia, then Putin makes it categorically clear as he proceeds talking at the December 18 press conference. In reference to the Sino-Russian gas deal and other Russian projects in East Asia, Putin explained the following: «The projects we are working on were planned long ago, even before the most recent problems occurred in the global or Russian economy. We are simply implementing our long-time plans». [12]
  • According to Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, Washington is «trying to destroy and weaken Russia, causing it to fragment, as they need this territory and want to establish control over this entire space». [18] «We have offered cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok, whereas they need control to maintain their geopolitical leadership in a competition with China,» he has explained, pointing out that the US wants lordship and is not interested in cooperation. [19] Alluding to former US top diplomat Madeline Albright’s sentiments that Russia was unfairly endowed with vast territory and resources, Putin also spoke along similar lines at his December 18 press conference, explaining how the US wanted to divide Russia and control the abundant natural resources in Russian territory. It is of little wonder that in 2014 a record number of Russian citizens have negative attitudes about relations between their country and the United States. A survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center has shown that of 39% of Russian respondents viewed relations with the US as «mostly bad» and 27% as «very bad». [20] This means 66% of Russian respondents have negative views about relations with Washington. This is an inference of the entire Russian population’s views. Moreover, this is the highest rise in negative perceptions about the US since 2008 when the US supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi’s war against Russia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia; 40% viewed them as «mostly bad» and 25% of Russians viewed relations as «very bad» and at the time. [21]
  • In more ways than one the Turk Stream pipeline can be viewed as a reconfigured of the failed Nabucco natural gas pipeline. Not only will Turk Stream court Turkey and give Moscow leverage against the European Union, instead of reducing Russian influence as Nabucco was originally intended to do, the new pipeline to Turkey also coaxes Ankara to align its economic and strategic interests with those of Russian interests. This is why, when addressing Nabucco and the rivalries for establishing alternate energy corridors, this author pointed out in 2007 that «the creation of these energy corridors and networks is like a two-edged sword. These geo-strategic fulcrums or energy pivots can also switch their directions of leverage. The integration of infrastructure also leads towards economic integration». [8] The creation of Turk Stream and the strengthening of Russo-Turkish ties may even help placate the gory conflict in Syria. If Iranian natural gas is integrated into the mainframe of Turk Stream through another energy corridor entering Anatolia from Iranian territory, then Turkish interests would be even more tightly aligned with both Moscow and Tehran. Turkey will save itself from the defeats of its neo-Ottoman policies and be able to withdraw from the Syrian crisis. This will allow Ankara to politically realign itself with two of its most important trading partners, Iran and Russia.
  • Whatever Washington’s intentions are, every step that the US takes to target Russia economically will eventually hurt the US economy too. It is also highly unlikely that the policy mandarins in Beijing are unaware of what the US may try to be doing. The Chinese are aware that ultimately it is China and not Russia that is the target of the United States.
  • The United States is waging a fully fledged economic war against the Russian Federations and its national economy. Ultimately, all Russians are collectively the target. The economic sanctions are nothing more than economic warfare. If the crisis in Ukraine did not happen, another pretext would have been found for assaulting Russia. Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser even told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the ultimate objectives of the US economic sanctions against Russia are to make the Russian population so miserable and desperate that they would eventually demand that the Kremlin surrender to the US and bring about «political change». «Political change» can mean many things, but what it most probably implies here is regime change in Moscow. In fact, the aims of the US do not even appear to be geared at coercing the Russian government to change its foreign policy, but to incite regime change in Moscow and to cripple the Russian Federation entirely through the instigation of internal divisions. This is why maps of a divided Russia are being circulated by Radio Free Europe. [17]
  • Without question, the US wants to disrupt the strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow. Moscow’s strategic long-term planning and Sino-Russian cooperation has provided the Russia Federation with an important degree of economic and strategic insulation from the economic warfare being waged against the Russian national economy. Washington, however, may also be trying to entice the Chinese to overplay their hand as Russia is economically attacked. In this context, the price drops in the energy market may also be geared at creating friction between Beijing and Moscow. In part, the manipulation of the energy market and the price drops could seek to weaken and erode Sino-Russian relations by coaxing the Chinese into taking steps that would tarnish their excellent ties with their Russian partners. The currency war against the Russian ruble may also be geared towards this too. In other words, Washington may be hoping that China becomes greedy and shortsighted enough to make an attempt to take advantage of the price drop in energy prices in the devaluation of the Russian ruble.
  • Russia can address the economic warfare being directed against its national economy and society as a form of «economic terrorism». If Russia’s banks and financial institutions are weakened with the aim of creating financial collapse in the Russian Federation, Moscow can introduce fiscal measures to help its banks and financial sector that could create economic shockwaves in the European Union and North America. Speaking in hypothetical terms, Russia has lots of options for a financial defensive or counter-offensive that can be compared to its scorched earth policies against Western European invaders during the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War. If Russian banks and institutions default and do not pay or delay payment of their derivative debts and justify it on the basis of the economic warfare and economic terrorism, there would be a financial shock and tsunami that would vertebrate from the European Union to North America. This scenario has some parallels to the steps that Argentina is taken to sidestep the vulture funds.
  • The currency war eventually will rebound on Washington and Wall Street. The energy war will also reverse directions. Already, the Kremlin has made it clear that it and a coalition of other countries will de-claw the US in the currency market through a response that will neutralize US financial manipulation and the petro-dollar. In the words of Sergey Glazyev, Moscow is thinking of a «systemic and comprehensive» response «aimed at exposing and ending US political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining US military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency». [22] His solution includes the creation of «a coalition of sound forces advocating stability — in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty». [23] The coming century will not be the «American Century» as the neo-conservatives in Washington think. It will be a «Eurasian Century». Washington has taken on more than it can handle, this may be why the US government has announced an end to its sanctions regime against Cuba and why the US is trying to rekindle trade ties with Iran. Despite this, the architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. This is what the Kremlin and Putin’s presidential spokesman and press secretary Dmitry Peskov mean when they impart—as Peskov stated to Rossiya-24 in a December 17, 2014 interview — that the year 2014 has finally led to «a paradigm shift in the international system».
Paul Merrell

Russia, China agree on more trade currency swaps to bypass dollar - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...032-currency-swap-russia-china

banksters de-dollarization Russia China

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  • The Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed on a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments. “The draft document between the Central Bank of Russia and the People’s Bank of China on national currency swaps has been agreed by the parties,” and is at the stage of formal approval procedures, ITAR-TASS quotes the Russian regulator’s office on Thursday. The Russian Central Bank is not giving precise details on the size of the currency swaps, nor when it will be launched. It says this will depend on demand.
  • According to the bank, the agreement will serve as an additional instrument for ensuring international financial stability. Also, it will offer the possibility to obtain liquidity in critical situations. “The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China,” the Russian regulator said. Currently, over 75 percent of payments in Russia-China trade settlements are made in US dollars, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
Paul Merrell

Common currency: a forex scandal that epitomises the blindness in the banking crisis | ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...mises-blindness-banking-crisis

banksters forex fines HBS CitiBank JPMorgan HSBC RBS Barclays

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  • The biggest open secret in the financial world has been confirmed. Regulators in the UK, the US and Switzerland have announced massive fines for some of the world’s largest banks for a manipulation of global currency markets that in its callous ubiquity says so much about the banking behaviours that sparked the global financial crisis. Fines levied by the UK regulator add up to £1.1 billion. The US regulator announced fines of $1.4 billion. Banks hit by these fines include UBS, Citi, JP Morgan, HSBC and RBS. Barclays is yet to come to a settlement on the back of the investigations.
  • The probe uncovered individuals traders within large banks who were working together in trading clubs which had names you would expect from the “ruthless narcissists” on BBC TV show, The Apprentice. These included “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream”. These clubs worked together to influence the WM Reuters 4pm fix – essentially the official number used to fix currency rates. It shapes everything from how much we pay for currency when we go overseas to how much our pension fund pays when it wants to buy into an offshore investment. This is one of the core numbers in global finance.
  • So, it sounds important, but why should we actually care? Well global currency markets are worth over £5 trillion a day. They are the world’s biggest financial market. More than 40% of the trade takes place in London, and more than half of this trade is dominated by just four players: Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Barclays. A small percentage of the trade relates to buying actual things (such as a shipment of coffee or oil). Most of it is either purely speculative or part of the process buying other speculative financial instruments. According to one piece in the Financial Times, there are really only a hundred or so people who really matter in this market. About 30 of them have been either placed on gardening leave or have been fired from their position in the last year.
Gary Edwards

States negotiating immunity for banks over foreclosures - 0 views

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MERS financial-collapse Banksters Mortgage-fraud Liar-Loans Undocumented-mortgages

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  • Gary Edwards on 22 Jul 11
     
    Thanks to Marbux.  Seems like nothing will stop the Banksters from seizing it all.  I think i've previously posted that when i was with Virtual Realty (VRi), we were forever trying to crack into the MERS electronic database.  Wow did the Banksters screw this one up.  Now only their corrupt sycophants in Congress and the Coursts can save them.  Not even the lap dog media will touch this. excerpt: A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks. State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial. REUTERS REPORT PROMPTS LETTER Reuters reported Monday that major banks and other loan servicers have continued to file questionable documents in foreclosure cases. These include false mortgage assignments, and promissory notes with suspect or missing "endorsements," which prove ownership. The Reuters report also showed continued "robo-signing," in which lenders' employees or outside contractors churn out reams of documents without fully understanding their content. The report turned up several cases involving individuals who were publicly identified as robo-signers months ago. Reuters found that such activity has continued even after 14 major mortgage lenders signed settlements with federal bank regulators promising to halt such practices and give remediation to some homeowners who were harmed. In response to these disclosures, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Housing, Trans
Paul Merrell

The Cartel: How BP Got Insider Tips Through a Secret Chat Room - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...tips-from-banks-to-client.html

banksters currency-exhange BP Citigroup Barclays UBS-Group Cartel

shared by Paul Merrell on 31 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Copies of messages sent to BP traders over the course of a year were provided to Bloomberg News by a person with access to the online conversations. The person, who redacted the names of banks sending the messages and dates of conversations, said they came from firms whose senior foreign-exchange traders belonged to a chat room called “The Cartel” that was set up by Usher and included dealers at JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc. (C), Barclays Plc and UBS Group AG. (UBSN) The information offered an insight into currency moves minutes, sometimes hours before they happened. The messages could drag the U.K.’s biggest energy company into a scandal that has enveloped 11 banks and led to more than 30 traders from London to Singapore losing or being suspended from their jobs. Last month six banks were fined $4.3 billion for passing along information about their clients and working together to rig foreign-exchange markets.
  • While there’s no evidence that any BP traders were members of the Cartel, Usher participated in at least one chat room with White, according to a person who has examined conversations that included both men. It couldn’t be determined from the messages reviewed by Bloomberg News who sent the information to BP or whether BP employees acted on any of the tips.
  • In the clubby, lightly regulated world of foreign exchange, traders passed around tips to their circle of trusted contacts like candy. The victims: mutual-fund investors, pensioners and day traders who took the other side of a transaction at a lower price than they would have if they had the same information. “The authorities have made it clear in the enforcement notices accompanying the recent fines that irrespective of whether specific markets are regulated, banks cannot have pockets of business where traders behave as if they’re dealing in the Wild West,” said Janine Alexander, a partner at law firm Collyer Bristow LLP in London who specializes in financial-services litigation. “Banks have a responsibility to preserve market integrity, and traders must consider the effect of their behavior on clients and the market as a whole.”
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  • The settlements the banks reached with regulators reveal that in the minutes before 4 p.m. the traders would meet on chat rooms to discuss their positions and how they planned to execute them. Sometimes they also agreed to work together to push exchange rates around to boost their profits –- something they called “double-teaming.”
  • The four banks in the Cartel controlled about 45 percent of the global spot-currency market, according to a survey by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc, so information about their plans was valuable. Some days they worked together to push around the 4 p.m. fix, settlements with the banks show.
  • The party came to an end in October 2013, when regulators around the world announced they were investigating allegations of abuses in the currency market. The four members of the Cartel have left their firms, and JPMorgan, Citigroup and UBS were among banks fined in November. Individuals could face criminal charges when the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office conclude their own investigations.
Paul Merrell

"Thank God This Is Happening": Russia Says Time Has Come To Ditch The Dollar | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...ays-time-has-come-ditch-dollar

war & peace economic-warfare de-dollarization Russia Turkey Iran China

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  • With the US unveiling a new set of sanctions against Russia on Friday, Moscow said it would definitely respond to Washington’s latest sanctions and, in particular, it is accelerating efforts to abandon the American currency in trade transactions, said Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. "The time has come when we need to go from words to actions, and get rid of the dollar as a means of mutual settlements, and look for other alternatives," he said in an interview with International Affairs magazine, quoted by RT. "Thank God, this is happening, and we will speed up this work,” Ryabkov said, explaining the move would come in addition to other “retaliatory measures” as a response to a growing list of US sanctions. Previously, Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said that a growing number of countries are interested in replacing the dollar as a medium in global oil trades and other transactions. “There is a common understanding that we need to move towards the use of national currencies in our settlements. There is a need for this, as well as the wish of the parties,” Novak said.
  • According to the minister, it concerns both Turkey and Iran, with more countries likely to join the growing dedollarization wave. “We are considering an option of payment in national currencies with them. This requires certain adjustments in the financial, economic, and banking sectors” to accomplish. Last week, we reported that the Kremlin was interested in trading with Ankara using the Russian ruble and the Turkish lira. India has also vowed to pay for Iranian oil in rupees. Meanwhile, the world’s second-largest economy and Washington's trade war nemesis, China, has been taking steps to challenge the greenback's dominance with the launch of an oil futures contract backed by Chinese currency, the petro-yuan. China and Iran have already agreed to stop using the dollar in global trade as China has ramped up purchases of Iranian oil in defiance of US sanctions.
Paul Merrell

"De-Dollarization" Continues - China Starts Direct Trade With UK | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...s-china-starts-direct-trade-uk

de-dollarization China renminbi British-pound banksters Fed economic-warfare

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • Following the initial de-dollarization meeting, there has been a slew of anti-dollar moves around the world (including Gazprom's shift of 90% of its clients to non-dollar payments). However, on the heels of the "anti-dollar alliance" discussions yesterday, DW reports that China would start direct trade between the renminbi and the British pound on Thursday. China's Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) confirmed Sterling and yuan would be directly swapped without using the US dollar as an intermediary.   Via DW, China's Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) said Wednesday the Asian nation would start direct trade between the renminbi and the British pound on Thursday.   Sterling and yuan would be directly swapped without using the US dollar as an intermediary, the trade platform noted.   "The move will promote the bilateral trade and investment between China and the United Kingdom and facilitate the use of renminbi and pound in the cross-border trade settlement," CFETS commented.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jun 14
     
    "Following the initial de-dollarization meeting, there has been a slew of anti-dollar moves around the world (including Gazprom's shift of 90% of its clients to non-dollar payments). However, on the heels of the "anti-dollar alliance" discussions yesterday, DW reports that China would start direct trade between the renminbi and the British pound on Thursday. China's Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) confirmed Sterling and yuan would be directly swapped without using the US dollar as an intermediary.   Via DW, China's Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS) said Wednesday the Asian nation would start direct trade between the renminbi and the British pound on Thursday.   Sterling and yuan would be directly swapped without using the US dollar as an intermediary, the trade platform noted.   "The move will promote the bilateral trade and investment between China and the United Kingdom and facilitate the use of renminbi and pound in the cross-border trade settlement," CFETS commented.   China has long had direct currency trade with the US and has recently added Japan's yen, the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars, Russia's ruble and the Malaysian ringgit to its options.   Wednesday's announcement came during a visit to the UK by China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang and after the signing of various bilateral business contracts.   Britain for its part has been looking to make London a European hub for overseas yuan trading in competition with Frankfurt and Paris. China's central bank announced Wednesday that a subsidiary of China Construction Bank had been chosen to undertake yuan clearing business in London. Still - there's always Iraq to trade USDs with..."
Paul Merrell

US Presses Turkey to Stop Using Gold in Trade With Iran -- News from Antiwar.com - 0 views

news.antiwar.com/...-using-gold-in-trade-with-iran

war & peace settlement currency gold standard Turkey Iran

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • US sanctions against Iran are turning into a major humanitarian problem. causing major hardship for average Iranians and medicine shortages in hospitals. Each week the US imposes more sanctions on commerce, forcing Iranians to find new ways to keep vital goods flowing.
  • So late last week, hopeful to keep getting paid for natural gas exports to major trading partner Turkey and facing banking sanctions that make any trade in any government currency all but impossible, Iran started trading in gold with Turkey. Since gold is a physical currency and not a paper money, the US can’t really do anything about it. At least that’s what Iran and Turkey think. The US State Department is pretty sure they can, however, and is threatening Turkey over possible “sanctionable transactions.”
  • Energy Minister Taner Yildiz, fresh off his unsuccessful attempted visit to Iraqi Kurdistan, shrugged off the threat insisting that the US can’t sanction trades of gold for natural gas and that Turkey is just going to keep doing it no matter how much the US complains. The trade is several billion dollars, making gold an ideal means of exchange. Average Iranians dealing in smaller transactions don’t have this luxury, but they’re not giving up either, moving toward virtual currency Bitcoin. Since transaction in Bitcoin aren’t even hypothetically trackable, this makes them entirely unsanctionable. This is only an option for smaller deals, however, as the sum of all Bitcoins is far short of what would be needed for major international commerce.
Paul Merrell

The Dying Dollar -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org - 0 views

www.paulcraigroberts.org/...ying-dollar-paul-craig-roberts

financial-collapse China U.S. reserve currrencies yuan dollar settlement currency

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Since 2006, the US dollar has experienced a one-quarter to one-third drop in value to the Chinese yuan, depending on the choice of base.   Now China is going to let the dollar decline further in value.  China also says it is considering undermining the petrodollar by pricing oil futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange in yuan. This on top of the growing avoidance of the dollar to settle trade imbalances means that the dollar’s role as reserve currency is coming to an end, which means the termination of the US as financial bully and financial imperialist.  This blow to the dollar in addition to the blows delivered by jobs offshoring and the uncovered bets in the gambling casino created by financial deregulation means that the US economy as we knew it is coming to an end. The US economy is already in shambles, with bond and stock markets propped up by massive and historically unprecedented Fed money printing pouring liquidity into financial asset prices.  This month at the IMF annual conference, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said that to achieve full employment in the US economy would require negative real interest rates.  Negative real interest rates could only be achieved by eliminating cash, moving to digital money that can only be kept in banks, and penalizing people for saving. The future is developing precisely as I have been predicting. As the dollar enters its death throes, the lawless Federal Reserve and the Wall Street criminals will increase their shorting of gold in the paper futures market, thereby driving the remnants of the West’s gold into Asian hands.
  • The People’s Bank of China said the country does not benefit any more from increases in its foreign-currency holdings, adding to signs policymakers will rein in dollar purchases that limit the yuan’s appreciation. “It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 13
     
    By Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Merrell

Bail-In and the Financial Stability Board: The Global Bankers' Coup | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...lity-board-global-bankers-coup

banksters G20 Financial-Stability-Board must-read

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  • Ellen H. Brown (WoD) : On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out, that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the biggest banks. And if the G20’s new “bail-in” rules are formalized, depositors and pensioners could be on the hook. The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last last article entitled “New G20 Rules: Cyprus-style Bail-ins to Hit Depositors AND Pensioners.” They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable?
  • Those questions were addressed in an article I wrote in June 2009, two months after the FSB was formed, titled “Big Brother in Basel: BIS Financial Stability Board Undermines National Sovereignty.” It linked the strange boot shape of the BIS to a line from Orwell’s 1984: “a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” The concerns raised there seem to be materializing, so I’m republishing the bulk of that article here. We need to be paying attention, lest the bail-in juggernaut steamroll over us unchallenged. The Shadowy Financial Stability Board Alarm bells went off in April 2009, when the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was linked to the new Financial Stability Board (FSB) signed onto by the G20 leaders in London. The FSB was an expansion of the older Financial Stability Forum (FSF) set up in 1999 to serve in a merely advisory capacity by the G7 (a group of finance ministers formed from the seven major industrialized nations). The chair of the FSF was the General Manager of the BIS. The new FSB was expanded to include all G20 members (19 nations plus the EU).
  • Formally called the “Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors,” the G20 was, like the G7, originally set up as a forum merely for cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the international financial system. What set off alarms was that the new Financial Stability Board had real teeth, imposing “obligations” and “commitments” on its members; and this feat was pulled off without legislative formalities, skirting the usual exacting requirements for treaties. It was all done in hasty response to an “emergency.” Problem-reaction-solution was the slippery slope of coups. Buried on page 83 of an 89-page Report on Financial Regulatory Reform issued by the US Obama administration was a recommendation that the FSB strengthen and institutionalize its mandate to promote global financial stability. It sounded like a worthy goal, but there was a disturbing lack of detail. What was the FSB’s mandate, what were its expanded powers, and who was in charge? An article in The London Guardian addressed those issues in question and answer format:
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  • For three centuries, private international banking interests have brought governments in line by blocking them from issuing their own currencies and requiring them to borrow banker-issued “banknotes” instead. Political colonialism is now a thing of the past, but under the new FSB guidelines, nations could still be held in feudalistic subservience to foreign masters. Consider this scenario: the new FSB rules precipitate a massive global depression due to contraction of the money supply. XYZ country wakes up to the fact that all of this is unnecessary – that it could be creating its own money, freeing itself from the debt trap, rather than borrowing from bankers who create money on computer screens and charge interest for the privilege of borrowing it. But this realization comes too late: the boot descends and XYZ is crushed into line. National sovereignty has been abdicated to a private committee, with no say by the voters. Marilyn Barnewall, dubbed by Forbes Magazine the “dean of American private banking,” wrote in an April 2009 article titled “What Happened to American Sovereignty at G-20?”: It seems the world’s bankers have executed a bloodless coup and now represent all of the people in the world. . . . President Obama agreed at the G20 meeting in London to create an international board with authority to intervene in U.S. corporations by dictating executive compensation and approving or disapproving business management decisions.  Under the new Financial Stability Board, the United States has only one vote. In other words, the group will be largely controlled by European central bankers. My guess is, they will represent themselves, not you and not me and certainly not America.
  • Are these commitments legally binding? Adoption of the FSB was never voted on by the public, either individually or through their legislators. The G20 Summit has been called “a New Bretton Woods,” referring to agreements entered into in 1944 establishing new rules for international trade. But Bretton Woods was put in place by Congressional Executive Agreement, requiring a majority vote of the legislature; and it more properly should have been done by treaty, requiring a two-thirds vote of the Senate, since it was an international agreement binding on the nation. “Bail-in” is not the law yet, but the G20 governments will be called upon to adopt the FSB’s resolution measures when the proposal is finalized after taking comments in 2015. The authority of the G20 has been challenged, but mainly over whether important countries were left out of the mix. The omitted countries may prove to be the lucky ones, having avoided the FSB’s net.
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