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Paul Merrell

The Firesale Begins: Greece Is Selling off Its Assets | The Daily Sheeple - 0 views

www.thedailysheeple.com/es-to-sell-greek-assets_072015

banksters Greece austerity islands Buffet

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • It’s never been more obvious that Greece has been sold out to the banks. Like many countries before, their nation has been scheduled to endure poverty and chaos, followed by a firesale of their assets. The latest evidence of their nation’s capture by the banks, is the selling of their numerous islands to wealthy buyers. American business magnate, one of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffett has reportedly bought the Greek island of Agios Thomas for 15 mln euro, according to the website of the Greek newspaper Proto Thema and became yet another celebrity with his own piece of Greece.
  • If confirmed, this is yet another purchase of a Greek island by a foreign celebrity. Earlier this week Hollywood star Johnny Depp purchased an uninhabited Greek island of Stroggilo for 4.2 mln euro. Of course, the value of these islands is hardly enough to pay down their massive debt, and that’s kind of the point. When the banks own your country, they’re not interested in liberating you from your financial slavery. Before you ever get around to repaying those debts, or defaulting, they’ll use austerity to bring your country to the brink of chaos, and buy up everything for pennies on the dollar, and make a handsome profit as the country recovers on their terms. Prime Minister Tsipras has sold out to these financial interests; and the firesale of all Greek assets, not just their paltry islands, is well on its way.
  • This is how the sovereignty and prosperity of a nation is sucked away by the financial elites of the world. But Greece isn’t the only bank owned nation. The USI (United States Incorporated) has been thoroughly captured by the banking class, and once its usefulness as a war-fighting machine is finished; austerity, riots, and firesales won’t be far behind.
Paul Merrell

61.3% of Greeks voted for Renegotiation of Creditor Deal | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...renegotiation-of-creditor-deal

banksters EU Greece Grexit referendum

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • All votes counted, a total of 61.3% of Greeks voted against the terms of agreement with creditors of Greece; 38% voted in favor of the proposed terms. 62.5% of registered voters participated in the referendum, reports the Greek Interior Ministry. 
  • Donald Tusk, President of the European Council called for an emergency summit of the Eurozone to be held in Brussels on Tuesday July 7, beginning at 18.00 o’clock local time. Tusk’s call for the summit followed previous calls for an emergency summit by Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and EU Parliament President Martin Schulz. The Eurozone foreign ministers are expected to be holding an extraordinary meeting on Monday or early on Tuesday, before the summit.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 15
     
    More analysis, post vote. A clear mandate against deepening austerity and plundering of Greece by oligarchs, despite a last-minute rumor campaign originating in the U.S. business press that Greek bank depositors would lose their savings to a bail-in haircut.   Will the Euro survive?
Paul Merrell

"Guerrilla Warfare Against a Hegemonic Power": The Challenge and Promise of Greece | WEB OF DEBT BLOG - 0 views

ellenbrown.com/...hallenge-and-promise-of-greece

banksters Greece options

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • On July 4, 2015, one day before the national vote on the austerity demands of Greece’s creditors, it was rumored in the Financial Times that Greek banks were preparing to “bail in” (or confiscate) depositor funds to replace the liquidity choked off by the European Central Bank. The response of the Syriza government, to its credit, was “no way.” As reported in Zerohedge, the government was prepared to pursue three “nuclear options” to protect the deposits of the Greek people: nationalize the banks, launch a parallel currency in the form of electronic California-style IOUs, and use the Greek central bank’s printing press to issue euros.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Jul 15
     
    Nationalizing the involvent Greek banks? Would that the U.S. had taken that path in 2008. 
Paul Merrell

Russia Gets Very Serious on De-dollarizing | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...very-serious-on-de-dollarizing

war & peace economic-warfare Russia China yuan gold reserve currrencies

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Russia is about to take another major step towards liberating the Ruble from the Dollar System. Its Finance Ministry just revealed it is considering issuing Russian state debt in Chinese Yuan. That would be an elegant way to decouple from the dependence and blackmail pressures from the US Treasury financial terrorism operations while at the same time strengthening the bonds between China and Russia–Washington’s worst geopolitical nightmare.
  • Russian Deputy Minister of Finance, Sergei Storchak, announced that his ministry is making a careful study of what would be required to issue Russian bonds denominated in Chinese Yuan. The latest news is part of a long-term strategy between Russia and China that goes at the heart of American hegemony—the role of the dollar as the leading world central bank reserve currency. The dollar is used in some 60% of central bank reserves today. The second largest is the Euro. Now clearly China is carefully moving, as the world’s largest trading nation, to create its Renminbi or Chinese Yuan as another major reserve currency. That has huge geopolitical implications. So long as the US dollar is leading reserve currency, the world must de facto buy US dollar Treasury bonds for its reserves. That has allowed Washington to have budget deficits since 1971 when the dollar left the gold exchange standard. In effect, China, Japan, Russia, Germany—all trade surplus countries, finance Washington’s deficits that allow her to make wars around the world. It is a paradox that Russia and China at least, are determined to end as soon as possible.
  • What all this indicates is that Russia and China are carefully planning a long-term strategy of getting out from dependence on the US currency, something that, as the US sanctions last year revealed, make both countries vulnerable to US currency wars of devastating impact. China has just been accepted “in principle” by the Group of 7 finance ministers to have its yuan included in the International Monetary Fund basket of currencies making up IMF Special Drawing Rights. Today only US dollar, Euro and Japanese Yen are included in the basket. Including the yuan would be a huge step towards making the yuan a recognized international reserve currency, and at the same time would weaken the dollar share. China’s foreign reserves consist overwhelmingly of US dollar claims, mainly US Treasury bonds, which is a strategic weakness, because in case of war these can be frozen, as Iran knows too well. It is imperative for China to increase the gold content of the reserves and to diversify the rest into other currencies. China has also agreed with Russia to unify the new Silk Road high-speed rail project with Russia and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union. At the same time Beijing has announced it is creating a huge $16 billion fund to develop gold mines along the rail route linking Russia and China and Central Asia. That suggests plans to greatly build up gold as central bank reserve share. China’s central bank has greatly increased its gold holdings in recent years, though whether it is now greater than the alleged Federal Reserve gold holdings of 8000 tons is not yet public. It is expected China must reveal its gold reserves on being formally accepted into the IMF SDR basket perhaps later this year.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Last year, 2014, Song Xin, president of the China Gold Association stated, “We need to establish our gold bank as soon as possible…It can further help us acquire reserves and give us more say and control in the gold market.” A gold sector fund involving countries along the Silk Road has been set up in northwest China’s Xi’an City this May, led by Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), part of China’s national bank, PBOC. China is the world’s largest gold producer. Among the 65 countries along the routes of the Silk Road Economic Belt, there are numerous Asian countries identified as important reserve bases and consumers of gold. Xinhua reports that 60 countries have invested in the fund, which will facilitate central banks of member states to increase their holdings of gold. Dr. Diedrick Goedhuys, former economic adviser to the Reserve Bank of South Africa in an interview told me, “I want to emphasize the unique quality of gold, when viewed as a financial asset, of being an asset that is no-one’s liability. A treasury bond, for instance, is an asset in my hands, but a liability, or debt to be repaid, in the books of the treasury. Gold is a pure asset. The Chinese gold mining plan is of vast importance. It’s a long-term plan; it may take ten years before it has a significant effect.”
Gary Edwards

Review & Outlook: Palin's Dollar, Zoellick's Gold - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3514904575602231815453378.html

gold gold-currency financial-collapse banksters Federal-Reserve Sara-Palin Zoellick

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Nov 10
     
    a new global monetary regime to reduce currency turmoil and spur growth: "This new system is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and a renminbi that moves toward internalization and then an open capital account," he wrote, in an echo of what we've been saying for some time. And here's Mr. Zoellick's sound-money kicker: "The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today." Mr. Zoellick's last observation will not be news to investors, who have traded gold up to $1,400 an ounce, its highest level in real terms since the 1970s, as a hedge against the risk of future inflation. However, his point will shock many of the world's financial policy makers, who still think of gold as a barbarous relic rather than as an important price signal. Lest they faint in the halls of the International Monetary Fund, we don't think Mr. Zoellick is calling for a return to a full-fledged gold standard. His nonetheless useful point is that a system of global monetary cooperation needs a North Star to judge when it is running off course. The Bretton Woods accord used gold as such a reference until the U.S. failed to heed its discipline in the late 1960s and in 1971 revoked the pledge to sell other central banks gold at $35 an ounce.
Gary Edwards

Dollar's Reign as World's Main Reserve Currency Is Near an End - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3313304576132170181013248.html

Gold gold-reserve-currency Priced-in-Gold WSJ

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Mar 11
     
    The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth has been. Nor is it the volatility of currency rates, as wild as the markets are these days.... Good article but it's missing one glaring fact:  It's entirely possible today to use GOLD as the reserve value, while using fiat currencies as the transaction fluid. Given the rise of smartphones, it's now possible to instantly calculate the VALUE of any item or asset in terms of that currency price / GOLD ration value.  The same holds true for setting contractual (futures) agreements.  Set the agreement in terms of Gold, and on the day the transaction is settled, convert the Gold Value to whatever currency desired.  Easy peasy. In fact, i would argue that for anyone who's not a chump, the World's Reserve Currency is Gold and has been Gold for some time.  Once the chumps get a clue and an iPhone, they too will start thinking in Gold while trading in Gold denominated dollars, yuan or Euro. Note this is quited different than having to endure the impossible hope of another Bretton Woods type BASIL II agreement.  There is no need to agree as long as an Open and Free Internet is up and running, and even chumps can connect their iPhone using apps like "Priced In  Gold"
Gary Edwards

What Is Bitcoin - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/what-is-bitcoin-2011-5

GOLD digital-money

shared by Gary Edwards on 17 May 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 17 May 11
     
    That GOLD! app for iOS and Android is looking pretty good :)  C'mon Tino.  Now is the time.  Link to Priced-in-gold (http://pricedingold.com) excerpt: You may be dreaming of a gold backed dollar, or just everyone carrying around clinking gold coins in their pockets, but a rising community has a different idea. It's called Bitcoin, and it's a peer-to-peer currency that can be used to exchange goods and services online, digital and otherwise, without fees. In order to get Bitcoins, you need to exchange other currencies for Bitcoins (like dollars, euros, or pounds) at places like Mt.Gox. You can also sell goods and services online for Bitcoins. Some examples of Bitcoin stores include online gaming credits, pet wear, and coffee (more examples here). OR, you can create a new 'block,' which is a series of transactions, and you will receive 50 bitcoins. This is very rare, however, and the value of creating a new block will decrease over time. The idea behind Bitcoin is that it is a peer-to-peer exchange system, with an established and predictable rate of currency production. The creation of bitcoins is restricted by an algorithm, so the currency's worth cannot be modified by any actor (banks, central banks, treasuries). Individuals are involved in "mining" for Bitcoins, but it is extremely costly and requires significant computing power. Bitcoins could theoretically act as a store of value in the event of further inflation and devaluation of the U.S. dollar or other currencies.
Gary Edwards

OpEdNews - Article: How the Greek economy and IMF might help banksters -- and defeat Obama next year - 0 views

www.opednews.com/...-Richard-Clark-110927-365.html

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Something else to consider:   our Federal Reserve is heavily invested in those European banks, and has, in a very real sense, 'loaned' them hundreds of billions dollars of our tax money.   And so, if they go, we go.   In other words, American taxpayers will once again be responsible for "taking up the slack."
    • Gary Edwards
      Gary Edwards on 28 Sep 11
       
      The first time ever July 2011 GAO audit of the Federal Reserve has $3.08 TRILLION dollars being transferred to European Banksters in 2009-2010.  The Quantitative Twist Program announced by head Bankster Bernake in early September 2011 has these same Euro Banksters cued up for trillions more.  This cash infusion from American taxpayers bails out the Euro Banksters without solving the soveriegn debt problems that are the real issue.  Imagine if the bailout went to pay off the sovereign debt?  No restructuring of existing loans.  Just a simple $3.08 Trillion @ Ford Corp interest rate of .89%, coupled with a 30% reduction in government and government pension funds.  Why bail out failing Banksters who made bad loans and really bad decisions, when the problem is failing nations?
Gary Edwards

MAULDIN: It's All About The Jobs -- And Gold - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/s-all-the-jobs-and-gold-2011-9

John-Mauldin financial-collapse JOBS Unemployment-U6 gold

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Sep 11
     
    But as I live in the real world, I buy gold, even though I am optimistic we'll get through this rough patch; because I simply don't trust the bas*%*ds who are driving this ship with 100% of my money in dollars, or any fiat currency, for that matter. Gold to me is a neutral currency. While the metal looks good over the last ten years (and I became bullish on it in 2002 in this letter), over the last 32 years it has not had all that much luster. Bonds have been much better as an investment. It is all about timing. If I wanted to buy gold for investment or trading, I would simply buy GLD. (It is an excellent vehicle for traders; however, GLD is not what I think of as insurance.) And if I were buying gold as a trade, I would buy it in terms of the euro or yen, which I think are both going down against the US dollar. For those who want to buy larger sums of gold, there is a program that I like backed/sponsored by the state government of Western Australia, called the Perth Mint. You can buy gold certificates that represent actual bullion in vaults in Perth at reasonable prices. While your gold is stored in Perth, you can take delivery if you want and leave the country with no taxes owed. Or you can sell the gold and get cash. You diversify your country risk, have excellent and safe storage facilities, diversify your currency risk (if, like me, you think of gold as a currency), and have a different asset class than traditional portfolios. You can learn more about the Perth Mint at www.perthmint.com. And one of their dealers is an old friend of mine, Mike Checkan of Asset Strategies International. I have known Mike for about 30 years, and he does what he says and shoots straight. He is well-known in the investment information world, with lots of endorsements. You can learn more about his outfit at www.assetstrategies.com or call them toll-free at (800) 831-0007 in the U.S. and Canada, or direct at (301) 881-8600. You can also email them from their web site. Where to buy
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Venice votes to split from Italy as 89% of the city's residents opt to form a new independent state | Mail Online - 0 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...orm-new-independent-state.html

italy Venice secession

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Venetians have voted overwhelmingly for their own sovereign state in a ‘referendum’ on independence from Italy. Inspired by Scotland’s separatist ambitions, 89 per cent of the residents of the lagoon city and its surrounding area, opted to break away from Italy in an unofficial ballot.The proposed ‘Repubblica Veneta’ would include the five million inhabitants of the Veneto region and could later expand to include parts of Lombardy, Trentino and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
  • The floating city has only been part of Italy for 150 years. The 1000 year–old democratic Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia, was quashed by Napoleon and was subsumed into Italy in 1866. Wealthy Venetians, under mounting financial pressure in the economic crisis, have rallied in their thousands, after growing tired of supporting Italy’s poor and crime ridden Mezzogiorno south, through high taxation.
  • Campaigners say that the Rome government receives around 71 billion euros  each year in tax from Venice - some 21 billion euros less than it gets back in investment and services.Organisers said that 2.36million, 73 per cent, of those eligible to take part voted in the poll, which is not recognised by the Rome government. The ballot also appointed a committee of ten who immediately declared independence from Italy. Venice may now start withholding taxes from Rome. 
Paul Merrell

Bundesbank, PBOC Sign Accord to Make Frankfurt Yuan Hub - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...trade-as-xi-visits-merkel.html

banksters China Frankfurt yuan

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Germany’s Bundesbank and the People’s Bank of China agreed to cooperate in the clearing and settling of payments in renminbi, paving the way for Frankfurt to corner a share of the offshore market. The central banks signed a memorandum of understanding in Berlin today, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Frankfurt-based Bundesbank said in an e-mailed statement. Germany’s financial capital prevailed over Paris and Luxembourg in a euro-area race to win trade in renminbi, which overtook the euro to become the second-most used currency in global trade finance in October, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. The U.K. Treasury said on March 26 that the Bank of England would sign an initial agreement with the PBOC on March 31 to clear and settle yuan transactions in London.
Paul Merrell

EU Showdown: Greece Takes on the Vampire Squid | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ece-takes-on-the-vampire-squid

banksters Greece EU IMF ECB Syriza must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Greece and the troika (the International Monetary Fund, the EU, and the European Central Bank) are in a dangerous game of chicken. The Greeks have been threatened with a “Cyprus-Style prolonged bank holiday” if they “vote wrong.” But they have been bullied for too long and are saying “no more.”
  • A return to the polls was triggered in December, when the Parliament rejected Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ pro-austerity candidate for president. In a general election, now set for January 25th, the EU-skeptic, anti-austerity, leftist Syriza party is likely to prevail. Syriza captured a 3% lead in the polls following mass public discontent over the harsh austerity measures Athens was forced to accept in return for a €240 billion bailout. Austerity has plunged the economy into conditions worse than in the Great Depression. As Professor Bill Black observes, the question is not why the Greek people are rising up to reject the barbarous measures but what took them so long. Ireland was similarly forced into an EU bailout with painful austerity measures attached. A series of letters has recently come to light showing that the Irish government was effectively blackmailed into it, with the threat that the ECB would otherwise cut off liquidity funding to Ireland’s banks. The same sort of threat has been leveled at the Greeks, but this time they are not taking the bait.
  • The veiled threat to the Greek Parliament was in a December memo from investment bank Goldman Sachs – the same bank that was earlier blamed for inducing the Greek crisis. Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi wrote colorfully of it: The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Goodbye Euro? Greece can regain its sovereignty by defaulting on its debt, abandoning the ECB and the euro, and issuing its own national currency (the drachma) through its own central bank. But that would destabilize the eurozone and might end in its breakup. Will the troika take that risk? 2015 is shaping up to be an interesting year. Ellen H. Brown, Web of Debt
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Jan 15
     
    Fun! Greece looks to be about to have an Icelandic moment, defaulting on its debt and leaving the Eurozone. The Syriza party is riding a rising trend in popularity running on a sovereignty and anti-foreign bankster platform. That pleasant odor you're sniffing is the return of the drachma. This one is a must-read.    
Paul Merrell

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

www.bloombergview.com/...na-steps-in-as-worlds-new-bank

war & peace economic-warfare China IMF ADB banksters

shared by Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • Paul Merrell on 29 Dec 14
     
    Note that this article is in a Bloomberg publication. Is economic reality beginning to dent the MSM propaganda on Wall Street?
Paul Merrell

Israel threatens to expel U.N. envoy over Qatar cash for GAZA - Al Arabiya News - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...over-Qatar-cash-for-GAZA-.html

war & peace Gaza Hamas Israel U.N.-envoy-expulsion

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Israel's foreign minister has threatened to expel the U.N.'s special envoy for offering to help transfer Qatari funds to the Gaza Strip, Channel Two television reported. Avigdor Lieberman said Robert Serry, the world body's special envoy on the Middle East peace process, had first tried to convince the Palestinian Authority (PA) to transfer $20 million (14.7 million euros) from Qatar to resolve a pay crisis for Hamas employees in Gaza, the broadcaster reported Saturday. But after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas refused to do so, the rightwing ultra-nationalist Lieberman charged, Serry proposed U.N. help in making the transfer.
  • Israel's foreign minister has threatened to expel the U.N.'s special envoy for offering to help transfer Qatari funds to the Gaza Strip, Channel Two television reported. Avigdor Lieberman said Robert Serry, the world body's special envoy on the Middle East peace process, had first tried to convince the Palestinian Authority (PA) to transfer $20 million (14.7 million euros) from Qatar to resolve a pay crisis for Hamas employees in Gaza, the broadcaster reported Saturday. But after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas refused to do so, the rightwing ultra-nationalist Lieberman charged, Serry proposed U.N. help in making the transfer.
  • Serry rejected the allegations, saying in a statement that the Palestinian authority had approached him "informally" on the matter. "In considering any U.N. role on the issue of payments of salaries in Gaza that has potentially destabilising effects on security in Gaza, I made it clear that we would only be able to be of assistance if acceptable to all stakeholders, including Israel," he added. Israel had been kept informed of all the discussions, he insisted.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Lieberman told AFP he was seeking an "urgent meeting" on Sunday about the row in which Israeli television reported the foreign minister would propose that Serry be declared persona non grata in Israel. "We look upon Robert Serry's behaviour with the utmost seriousness, and strong measures will be imposed," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP. "The foreign ministry issues diplomatic visas and can also withdraw them," he added.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Jul 14
     
    For many years, Israel has taxed Gaza residents, then paid the Gaza government the collected taxes. But Israel began reducing the payments then finally cut it off entirely. Doctors and medical staff in Gaza have had no pay for five months and had been on half-pay for eight months prior to that. Before the rockets began flying, medical supplies and equipment in Gaza were already severely depleted.  Qatar wants to send Gaza $20 million so the Gaza government employees can be paid. Now Israel threatens to expel the special U.N. envoy for the Mideast Peace Process because he offered to transfer the funds.  The Israeli hubris explodes in faux anger. Not a bright move because Gaza and the West Bank are classified as Occupied Territories Israel under the Fourth Geneva Convention. As the occupying power, Israel is required to maintain the elected Gaza government and is responsible for the well being of all Gaza residents. But Israel has been ignoring U.N. decisions including Security Council decisions from the moment the Israeli government was formed in 1948.   Making an enemy of the international human rights officials will prove doubly dumb when Israeli officials are inevitably seated in the dock of the International Criminal Court facing charges for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. Human rights lawyers and judges pull no punches.   
Paul Merrell

Spying in the German Banana Republic | New Eastern Outlook - 0 views

journal-neo.org/...ananovaya-respublika-germaniya

surveillance state CIA-spies Germany BND

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • A German spy employed by Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) was arrested in Berlin in early July 2014. He was charged with handing out the top secret documents to foreign secret services, namely the CIA. A few days later it was announced that  German law enforcement agencies began searching for another US spy that had been stealing information from the The Federal Ministry of Defence.First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/01/21/rus-bananovaya-respublika-germaniya/
  • Paul Merrell on 21 Jan 15
     
    The incident involving a CIA spy uncovered within the BND ranks was perceived by most Europeans as total nonsense: a total of 218 top secret documents were stolen from BND by a 31-year-old employee Marcus R. over a period of two years while he was cooperating with the "friendly" CIA. The White House was paying  "the loyal agent" according to the "banana republic," rates up to and including 25 thousand euros, omitting glass beads and colored feathers. However, according to the German newspaper Bild, the investigation found out this January that this double agent had provided the US intelligence with a list of 3,500 of BND employees, all who are currently working across the world. This can hardly be regarded as an expression of Washington's friendship towards Germany. However, according to the German newspaper Bild, the investigation found out this January that this double agent had provided the US intelligence with a list of 3,500 of BND employees, all who are currently working across the world. This can hardly be regarded as an expression of Washington's friendship towards Germany.
Paul Merrell

U.S. Borrowers Cross the Atlantic to Sell Record Junk Debt - Bloomberg Business - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...ell-record-amount-of-junk-debt

banksters U.S. junk-bonds Europe

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • U.S. borrowers have sold a record amount of junk bonds in Europe this year to take advantage of investor demand for risky assets. VWR Corp., a laboratory products supplier, Huntsman Corp., Infor Inc. and IMS Health Holdings Inc. raised 1.43 billion euros ($1.53 billion) of high-yield debt this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The issuance boosted 2015 sales to 3.28 billion euros, the busiest start to a year since the single currency was introduced in 1999. American companies are capitalizing on demand from investors who’ve seen yields quashed as the European Central Bank purchases bonds as part of its quantitative easing program. Bondholders are taking on more risk as yields on government securities from Austria to Finland turn negative and investment-grade notes pay record-low premiums.
  • “It all revolves around QE and the dynamic that it’s creating, which is forcing people out of low-yielding government paper into higher-yielding assets,” said Stuart Stanley, a London-based high-yield fund manager at Invesco Asset Management Ltd., which manages about $800 billion.
Paul Merrell

The IMF forgives Ukraine's debt to Russia | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

thesaker.is/rgives-ukraines-loan-to-russia

war & peace banksters IMF Ukraine dollar-denominated-debts

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • On December 8, the IMF’s Chief Spokesman Gerry Rice sent a note saying: “The IMF’s Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors. We will provide details on the scope and rationale for this policy change in the next day or so.” Since 1947 when it really started operations, the World Bank has acted as a branch of the U.S. Defense Department, from its first major chairman John J. McCloy through Robert McNamara to Robert Zoellick and neocon Paul Wolfowitz. From the outset, it has promoted U.S. exports – especially farm exports – by steering Third World countries to produce plantation crops rather than feeding their own populations. (They are to import U.S. grain.) But it has felt obliged to wrap its U.S. export promotion and support for the dollar area in an ostensibly internationalist rhetoric, as if what’s good for the United States is good for the world. The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century. In the past, it has been able to take the lead in organizing bailout packages for governments by getting other creditor nations – headed by the United States, Germany and Japan – to participate. The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments. This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.
  • But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). With IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would use the proceeds to step up his nation’s civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the East – the Donbass. That is the region where most IMF exports have been made – mainly to Russia. This market is now lost for the foreseeable future. It may be a long break, because the country is run by the U.S.-backed junta put in place after the right-wing coup of winter 2014. Ukraine has refused to pay not only private-sector bondholders, but the Russian Government as well. This should have blocked Ukraine from receiving further IMF aid. Refusal to pay for Ukrainian military belligerence in its New Cold War against Russia would have been a major step forcing peace, and also forcing a clean-up of the country’s endemic corruption. Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that recently cut off Crimea’s electricity. The only condition on which the IMF insists is continued austerity. Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, has fallen by a third this years, pensions have been slashed (largely as a result of being inflated away), while corruption continues unabated.
  • Despite this the IMF announced its intention to extend new loans to finance Ukraine’s dependency and payoffs to the oligarchs who are in control of its parliament and justice departments to block any real cleanup of corruption. For over half a year there was a semi-public discussion with U.S. Treasury advisors and Cold Warriors about how to stiff Russia on the $3 billion owed by Ukraine to Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. There was some talk of declaring this an “odious debt,” but it was decided that this ploy might backfire against U.S. supported dictatorships. In the end, the IMF simply lent Ukraine the money. By doing so, it announced its new policy: “We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies.” This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit. What should Russia do? For that matter, what should China and other BRICS countries do? The IMF and U.S. neocons have sent the world a message: you don’t have to honor debts to countries outside of the dollar area and its satellites. Why then should these non-dollarized countries remain in the IMF – or the World Bank, for that matter. The IMF move effectively splits the global system in half,between the BRICS and the US-European neoliberalized financial system.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Should Russia withdraw from the IMF? Should other countries? The mirror-image response would be for the new Asian Development Bank to announce that countries that joined the ruble-yuan area did not have to pay US dollar or euro-denominated debts. That is implicitly where the IMF’s break is leading.
Paul Merrell

Are The Middle East Wars Really About Forcing the World Into Dollars and Private Central Banking? Washington's Blog - 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.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 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. 
Paul Merrell

Video: The New Iron Curtain. "The Russian Menace" - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5654840

war & peace Iron-Wall Latvia Lithuania Estonia Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • Latvia is presently building a metal fence, 90 kilometres long and 2.5 metres high, along its frontier with Russia. It will be finished before the end of the year, and will be extended in 2019 along more than 190 kilometres of the frontier, for a planned cost of 17 million Euros. A similar 135 kilometre fence is being built by Lithuania along its frontier with the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. Estonia has announced the impending construction of a wall, also along the frontier with Russia, 110 kilometres long and also 2.5 metres high. Planned cost – more than 70 million Euros, for which the Estonian government intends to ask for finance from the European Union.
  • Paul Merrell on 25 Sep 18
     
    The Iron Wall goes back up. But who is building it this time?
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