The Looming Collapse of European Banking

The banking system of Europe is at the edge of the abyss. A brief story by The Telegraph revealed this last week. The original was almost immediately deleted. A new version was substituted.

Will the U.S. Break Up?

The larger and more complex a system, the more likely it is to break down. Something like a simple pendulum with few moving parts could last many years. But very large, complicated things like the Large Hadron Collider break down much more quickly.

America now has some 300 million people, 50 states, and more federal, state and local agencies than anyone can possibly list. It is hard to govern such a large, complex and populous system when anything goes seriously wrong.

And a lot is going wrong right now.

The Destructive World of “Troubled Assets”: Paulson shoots another arrow into the heart of the Economy

The announcement in the last few days of a deal reached between the U.S. Treasury and the moribund insurance giant, A.I.G. provides a very lucid insight in to the nefarious and destructive world of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, otherwise known as T.A.R.P..Not only have A.I.G. received $152 billion to date and subsequently reported a third quarter loss of $25 billion, now they are to be cleared of their obligation on $53 billion worth of toxic credit default swaps. U.S. taxpayers are now on the hook for $205 billion courtesy of an institution which played in the Wall St. casino that passes for a “Financial Sector” and lost. Under the “Free market” system, so expounded upon by Government and Wall St. alike, A.I.G should be in chapter 11. Bailing out A.I.G and other failing institutions does absolutely nothing to address the fundamental issues at hand.

Every Trick in the Book

“Conditions have deteriorated on a scale and with a speed that no one could have predicted just a few months ago. Market conditions of unprecedented strength are roiling the world’s financial markets. The global economy is either in, or close to, recession and 2009 is not likely to be a year of great recovery.” Brett White, chief executive officer of CB Richard Ellis, LA Times

November 29, 2008 – Without any public debate or authorization from Congress, the Federal Reserve has embarked on the most radical financial intervention in history. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is trying to avert another Great Depression by flooding the financial system with liquidity in an attempt to mitigate the effects of tightening credit and a sharp decline in consumer spending.

It’s a depression

WASHINGTON – Few prominent economists will say it, but to me it looks and feels like we are in another Great Depression or a reasonable facsimile.

The current meltdown is dubbed a “financial crisis.” But a rose by any other name would still inflict the same hardship and suffering on most people and businesses.

LaRouche: Paulson Willing to Sink All U.S. Banks

November 26, 2008 (LPAC) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is willing to follow the British scenario and sink all U.S. banks, Lyndon LaRouche said today.

Instead of following British orders, Paulson should take his medicine, and declare the whole system in bankruptcy– reorganization in bankruptcy, not more bailouts. He may be a Christian Scientist, but this time he has got to take his medicine, LaRouche said.

Cost Of Bailout Hits $8.5 Trillion

Total sum represents 60 per cent of GDP

The total cost of funds committed to the bailout in its various guises has now hit $8.5 trillion dollars, up from $7.7 trillion in just two days after the federal government committed an additional $800 billion to two new loan programs on Tuesday.

Colossal Financial Collapse

The Truth behind the Citigroup Bank “Nationalization”

On Friday November 21, the world came within a hair’s breadth of the most colossal financial collapse in history according to bankers on the inside of events with whom we have contact. The trigger was the bank which only two years ago was America’s largest, Citigroup. The size of the US Government de facto nationalization of the $2 trillion banking institution is an indication of shocks yet to come in other major US and perhaps European banks thought to be ‘too big to fail.’

END THE FED – The next step is now

http://endthefed.us

U.S. Is Said to Be Urging New Mergers in Banking

WASHINGTON — In a step that could accelerate a shakeout of the nation’s banks, the Treasury Department hopes to spur a new round of mergers by steering some of the money in its $250 billion rescue package to banks that are willing to buy weaker rivals, according to government officials.

Dow Jones Bloodbath Mirroring 1929 Rout

A comparison of the current Wall Street crash with the events of 1929 shows that the Dow has at least another 27 per cent drop below the bailout bounce before it bottoms out, despite another rout yesterday after which the Dow had lost over 700 points.

“In 1929 we saw a two day rally of almost 19 per cent followed by a decline of 6 per cent and finally from the recovery high we lost 27 per cent,” Edward Loef from Theodoor Gilissen Bankiers told CNBC this morning.

Rescue for the Few, Debt Slavery for the Many

We are now entering the financial End Time. Bailout “Plan A” (buy the junk mortgages) has failed, “Plan B” (buy ersatz stocks in the banks to recapitalize them without wiping out current mismanagers) is fizzling, and the debts still can’t be paid. That is the reality Wall Street avoids confronting. “First they ignore you, then they denounce you, and then they say that they knew what you were saying all the time,” said Gandhi. The same might be said of today’s overhang of debts in excess of the economy’s ability to pay. First the policy makers pretend that they can be paid, then they denounce the pessimists as spreading panic, and then they say that of course students have been taught for four thousand years now how the “magic of compound interest” keeps on doubling and redoubling debts faster than the economy can squeeze out an economic surplus to pay.

Video: One World Government – New World Order – One World Currency – Glenn Beck

I cant stand the idea that most all of the people on earth get to vote, and yet.. We collectively get a One World Government out of this Bailout?

Was that the plan all along?… Of course it was.. There are no accidents, or unforeseen events in global politics. It is all planned far in advance.(wrh.com)

Worst week for global markets since 1929

World stock markets plummeted Friday, ending a week that saw the biggest collapse in share values since 1929. The looming threat of a world depression provided the backdrop for a meeting of finance ministers from the G7 industrialized countries, who gathered in Washington for emergency talks with US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Run On The System: Black Friday

Stock markets across the world are in a state of hysteria. The tidal wave of sell-offs, which began when Henry Paulson announced the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout plan for the sinking banking system, has swelled into a global tsunami racing round the globe. Shares fell sharply across Europe and Asia for the fifth straight day following a 679 drop on the Dow Jones. Nearly $900 billion was wiped off the value of U.S. equities in just one trading day. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, the “fear index”, soared to a record 64. Credit markets remain frozen. Libor, the London interbank offered rate, nudged up slightly on Thursday night, signaling even greater resistance to lending between the banks. Until there is relief in the credit markets, stocks will continue to slide. But trust has vanished. The 50 basis points rate cut that was coordinated with foreign central banks has had no effect. The market is being driven by fear and pessimism.

“To the Bunkers!”: Central banks slash rates in emergency “midnight” meeting

08/10/08 “ICH’ — – -Stocks fell sharply across Europe and Asia last night following another down day on Wall Street where the Dow Jones lost 508 points and the S&P 500 slipped below the 1,000 mark for the first time since 2003. Japan’s benchmark index, the Nikkei, lost nearly 10 percent while shares in London at one point slumped more than 7 percent. Trading was suspended in Indonesia and Russia where stocks fell 10 percent each on opening.

According to Bloomberg News: “The Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada and Sweden’s Riksbank cut interest rates in an emergency coordinated bid to ease the economic effects of the financial crisis.”

Video: Bush Declares Military Rule and Overthrows U.S.

You Saw It Here First; Economic Crash, Banker Stick-Up Predicted Long Ago

While mainstream corporate media lied to Americans claiming economy was strong, we were warning about a “global crash” and a faux solution of “predatory globalism” nearly two years in advance

Video: Goldman Sachs Bribed Senate To Pass Bailout Bill

How much bribe money does it take to transfer $700 Billion taxpayer dollars to Wall Street’s elite?

GOLDMAN SACHS CONTRIBUTIONS:
Obama, Barack (D-IL) $691,930
Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) $468,200
Romney, Mitt (R) $229,675
McCain, John (R-AZ) $208,395
Himes, Jim (D-CT) $114,748
Giuliani, Rudolph W (R) $111,750
Dodd, Christopher J (D-CT) $105,400
Edwards, John (D) $66,450
Specter, Arlen (R-PA) $47,600
Emanuel, Rahm (D-IL) $32,950
Reed, Jack (D-RI) $30,100

How much money did your Represenative get from Big Bankers to look the other way and pass a bill that the American people clearly do not want?

Thursday is D-Day – Thursday’s auction for Lehman’s credit default swaps (CDS)

Forget the stock market gyrations. Forget Bernanke and Paulson’s ineffective, unconstitutional schemes.

Thursday’s auction for Lehman’s credit default swaps (CDS) is much more important.

Why?

Well, if banks are reassured by the CDS auction, it could do more to free up frozen capital than all of the Fed and Treasury’s ill-conceived plans put together.

MSM: Fed to Purchase U.S. Commercial Paper to Ease Crunch

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve will create a special fund to buy U.S. commercial paper, seeking to unblock the financing tool that drives everyday commerce for American businesses.

The Treasury will make a deposit with the Fed’s New York district bank to help set up the new unit. The central bank will also lend to the program at policy makers’ target rate for overnight loans between banks, the central bank said in a statement released in Washington. Fed officials said they intend to set up the fund soon, while declining to specify a date.

Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal

The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.

We are on our own. And don’t expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some of them were Republican.

“This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by phone from Cleveland. “It is a direct attack on the American people’s ability to be able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods. This single vote will define the careers of everyone. We are back to taxation without representation, to markets that are openly rigged.”

It’s America that’s bankrupt

The toxic mortgage-debt paper is only a cover. The real story under the covers of the history book written since the Great Depression is about the investment bankers and their allies who have returned with a vengeance to totally bankrupt America and its financial system with their greed, which created the present subprime debt and recently raised the national debt ceiling to $11 trillion and change.

French Premier Francois Fillon: We’re on “the edge of the abyss”

06/10/08 ‘”ICH” — – Years from today, when the current financial crisis is over, historians are likely to agree that it would have been far better if the Bush administration had declared a state of emergency earlier in the process so that the necessary steps could have taken to avoid a complete financial meltdown. The media could have been used to bring the American people up to date on market-related developments and educated in the bizarre language of structured finance. Knowledge is power; and power can prevent panic.

Now we’re in a terrible fix. People are scared and removing their money from the banks and money markets which is intensifying the freeze in the credit markets and driving stocks into the ground like a tent stake. Meanwhile, our leaders are “caught in the headlights”, still believing they can “finesse” their way through the biggest economic cataclysm since the Great Depression. It’s madness.

Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy

On this date, October 3, 2008, the American people were betrayed by those whom they had elected to represent them. The members of Congress who voted for the Wall Street “bailout” violated their oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution” … “that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same” … “and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: …”

U.S. Ships 800 Billion “AMEROS” to China; prepares to De-Monetize U.S. Dollar

The US Secretary of the Treasury has informed the China Development Bank that the US has shipped $800 Billion of a new currency called the Amero, which is to be based upon the merging of the economies of The United States, Mexico and Canada into what is termed as The North American Union.

The current American debt obligation to China, currently based on the US Dollar, is now estimated to be the staggering sum of $2.5 Trillion, and which this new Amero will be exchanged for $400 Billion of this debt as the current American currency is set to be devalued by 50 percent before the end of the year.

Not One Dime!

For nearly a year, we have been asking ourselves why the investors and foreign banks that bought up hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from US investment banks have not taken legal action against these same banks or initiated a boycott of US financial products to prevent more people from getting ripped off?

Now we know the answer. It’s because, behind the scenes, Henry Paulson and Co. were working out a deal to dump the whole trillion dollar mess on the US taxpayer. That’s what this whole $700 billion boondoggle is all about; wiping out the massive debts that were generated in the biggest incident of fraud in history. Rep Brad Sherman explained it like this last night to Larry Kudlow:

The Great Bank Robbery of 2008

The Paulson bailout failed in the House. If it isn’t a death blow to the plan, it should be. This is not an economic plan: it is a heist.

It will go down as The Great Bank Robbery of 2008.

The economics behind it are nonsense, but we are naïve if we spend much time even considering the “arguments” for it. This is a money and power grab, pure and simple.

No Bailout for Wall Street – Chuck Baldwin

At the time of this writing, the U.S. House and Senate are poised to pass a $700 billion bailout to Wall Street. At the behest of President George W. Bush, the U.S. taxpayers are going to be on the hook for what can only be referred to as the biggest fraud in U.S. history.

Bailout Can’t Hide It – The United States Is Broke

26/09/08 “Day Publishing” — – Even leading Republicans in Congress, including presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, recoiled from Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson’s proposal to take absolute power over $700 billion to be borrowed by the federal government and used to purchase every sort of bad debt without ever having to answer for it – not to the courts, not to regulatory agencies, and only occasionally and incidentally to Congress itself.

The bad-debt bailout would be the biggest government patronage program in history and would amount to declaring martial law over the U.S. financial system and economy.

Bank Borrowing From Fed Already Exceeded Bailout Total in Last Week $700 billion figure means nothing

U.S. banks borrowed $188 billion per day on average in the latest week from the Federal Reserve, meaning that the Fed loaned out more money than the Treasury’s proposed bailout in just one week, still barely managing to keep the economy afloat.

Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday the total amount banks borrowed nearly quadrupled the previous record of $47.97 billion per day notched just the week before, Reuters reports.

$188 billion per day on average over the course of five days means that the total amount borrowed from the Fed in the week ending the 24th September stood at $940 billion – a figure that easily eclipses the proposed $700 billion bailout.

Video: Democracy Now – Fight Bush, Fight the Bailout!!

As Bush Admin Pushes $700B for Wall Street, Ralph Nader Asks, “Why Is There Need for a Bailout?”

As the Bush administration intensifies its pressure for Congress to quickly approve a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, we get reaction from Independent presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Nader calls Democratic claims of White House concessions wish fulfillment and says the bailout might not be needed in the first place.

Pt: 1 of 3

Illuminati Bankers Are Making A Killing On This Crisis

The price tag for bailing out the US financial system may exceed $1.3 trillion dollars.

The purchase price for the mortgage lenders, Bear Stearns and AIG is over $300 billion. Now the assumption of the bad loans held by the banks may cost an additional trillion dollars.

Financial Meltdown: The Financial Edifice of U.S. Imperialism is in Danger of Crumbling

The events of the last ten days on Wall Street represent a new and more destabilizing phase of the turmoil gripping financial institutions and markets in the U.S. A financial crisis has been unfolding for more than a year. It is now the most serious financial crisis of U.S. capitalism since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And it is by no means contained or under control.

Action Alert – You MUST reject the Paulson/Bernanke plan

Action Alert

Congress.org
Capitol Hill Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

“Dear Senator/Representative:

You MUST reject the Paulson/Bernanke plan for bailing out and propping up reckless banks at taxpayer expense.  This is madness to ask us, the taxpayers, to cover the liabilities of Wall Street. We are tired of being fleeced.  If you vote to support this plan, I will do everything in my power to remove you from office before you can give away any more of our money to failed businessmen.

Video: Are We Witnessing the Shock Doctrine in Effect?

Naomi Klein on the phone with ‘The Young Turks’

Video: This is a Financial Controlled Demolition – Like 9/11

Afshin Rattansi in Tehran talks to Max Keiser in Paris about the end of Wall Street, dollars and toilet paper – and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs no longer being investment banks.

Paulson’s former firm to be among largest beneficiaries of bailout: bank

It certainly pays to be Treasury Secretary if your former firm is a brokerage house, a new study says.

Goldman Sachs Group — formerly run by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and Morgan Stanley, stand to be among the biggest beneficiaries of a $700 billion US bailout.

Full-Spectrum Breakdown

On Friday morning, Senator Christopher Dodd, the head of the Senate Banking Committee, was interviewed on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Dodd revealed that just hours earlier at an emergency meeting convened by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, lawmakers were told that “We’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system.” Dodd added somberly, that in his three decades of serving in public office, he had “never heard language like this.”