Stacy Summary: I didn’t seek these headlines out, they found me! The headlines are just filled with the same old stuff of the past hundreds or thousands of years! The more stuff happens, the more stuff stays the same. What else are you reading??
The scale of credit rot in the Russian banking system exposed by Fitch Ratings this week is truly staggering. The report is yet another cold douche to those betting that the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) can pull us out of our mess.
Updates:
Stacy: Remember that U3 only captures those who haven’t fallen off the unemployment rolls after the 9 months one is allowed on. U6 is the broader measure that was used before Clinton and is better to use if you want to compare this Depression to the 1930′s. The U6 number must now be at about 20% is now over 20%. Wait for a new band called U6 to be the new UB-40.
Tags: hunger · missouri138 Comments
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/silver/t24_ag_en_usoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_euoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_caoz_2.gif)
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_bpoz_2.gif)
Its nice to come up with these remedys to a collapsing economy world wide. But in truth the whole thing has been set up to fail. And the powers that be want it to fail so they can set up thier world wide new economy system. Very probably where you have a card or numbe or chip and you have so many digits on it that account for you. The future.
Looks like thats the plan though. Complete control of the population. Or whats left of it. Good plan if your trying to create a world that your the king or god of.
Is this list gonna get longer?
http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pender/detail?entry_id=42927
3.75 percent interest annual: banks get a nice tidy profit…wonder if Arnie has some friends in banking?
Stacy,
This should get Max fairly apoplectic
Sweden cuts deposit rates to -0.25%
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/sweden-cuts-deposit-rate-to-negative-25.html
@Adam Gibson
Didn’t Japan try that?
Punishing savers by leaching their savings with negative interest rates (above and beyond any service charges)
the clear message there is SPEND, BITCH!!!!
That doesn’t shock me though,
since Sweden has a horribly charitable WELFARE system
(the Swedes, according to my Finnish contact are whining about all the immigrants of African/middle-eastern extraction INVADING their country)
Remember
Scandinavians whine about the most trivial things
It’s part of their culture…
In Finland,
they cry about the discovery of DOG SHIT at the side of the road after the snow melts…
And Norway?
who cares about them…
according to tin-foil hat tweakers, they’re all spawned from the tribes of DAN (and another one)…
along with Denmark and Britain
@Giuseppe
Yes, I tried to get the details on the Riksbank decision, and I had exactly the same thought – this seems to be almost identical (numerically) to what Japan tried a few years back. It should still send Max into a rage though, which was my intention!
More mainstream condescension, but an article on the Audit the Fed Bill on Rueters…
http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS313090701920090702
@Adam Gibson
I can’t see Max raging over that…
not enough areolas
and bermuda triangles…
never mind Santa’s Uvula…
peace out,
I need to get to sleep for some Shitt,y Friday, Low-volume, work the Market-makers trading on the TSX
(If I’m lucky that is….)
maybe I’ll read the intro to A SPLENDID EXCHANGE
ciao ciao
hyvaa paivaa
(am I #102 ???? is that record???)
good morning
it’s 6:30 AM here in Paris
what have I missed?
update on the 134 billion us bonds
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=15648&size=
@Rain Man
5.30……London Time ….what you gonna talk to Alex Jones about have you decided….High frequency Trading…Ghosts in the machine…Who are the real revolutionarys….does Washington decide,
Anyhows have a good day….Stacy too…cue WB’s music and…That’s All Y’all
Investigate bernie madoff….but he just made me part of the family……
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070104223.html
from:boing boing.
Long but interesting Inside AIG Story; Unwinding at AIG Prompts Pasciucco to Ponder Systemic Failure http://tinyurl.com/klxg6v
Ponzi scheme losses tax deductable!
http://www.smartmoney.com/personal-finance/taxes/tax-breaks-for-ponzi-scheme-victims/
from: boing boing.
Some fun articles:
- Hotel loan defaults double in US as recession curbs travel:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=acgd9We.1TEY
- No way out: Treasury and the price of TARP warrants:
http://baselinescenario.com/2009/06/29/no-way-out-treasury-and-the-price-of-tarp-warrants/#more-4207
- “Rogue banker” blamed for oil spike:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e0ae2b2a-66f7-11de-925f-00144feabdc0.html
@Adam Gibson @Giuseppe – you see? Max is literally in a blind rage and therefore does not see your taunting of him with such scandalous stories as negative interest rates in Sweden. I hear him babbling . . . “areola . . . triangle . . . bermuda areolas. . . schving schving”
HIGHLIGHTS FROM ARTICLE: http://tinyurl.com/nrjp3t
The mission: unwind AIGFP’s portfolio of 44,000 often complex, long-dated derivatives with a notional value of $2 trillion,
Paris-based Societe Generale got $16.5 billion in collateral and other payments from late 2007 through 2008; New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. received $14 billion; Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG, $8.5 billion; and Merrill Lynch & Co., $6.2 billion.
The payments were triggered by the credit-rating downgrades of AIG and declines in the market value of the assets protected by the swaps. The most volatile of those assets were collateralized-debt obligations, or CDOs, which are agglomerations of subprime mortgages and other debt that are divided up and sliced into tranches, each of which has a different risk and income stream.
“There was no reason to pay the contracts in full,” says Janet Tavakoli, founder of Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc. in Chicago and author of “Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street” (Wiley, 2009). “We’ve run roughshod over the interests of the American taxpayer; we’ve bailed out the Wall Street creditors; we’ve used AIG as a huge slush fund.”
“They didn’t understand the meaning of risk management.”
That left derivatives with a notional value of some $1.8 trillion for Pasciucco to deal with at year-end.
The report that Pasciucco brandishes shows that the value of the derivatives still to be unwound had fallen 16.7 percent to $1.5 trillion as of May 12.
The blowup happened only because AIG couldn’t come up with the collateral on fewer than 200 CDO swaps
One of Pasciucco’s priorities when he took over was to get out of a $7 billion derivatives business called power reverse duals, or PRDs. These were essentially bets against the consensus view on the yen’s strength versus the U.S. dollar. The derivatives are extremely long dated, expiring 30 years or more in the future. The PRDs were costing tens of millions of dollars a year to hedge, which is done by constantly adjusting a variety of offsetting put options, call options and futures.
Greenberg agreed to the setup with a key condition: that Sosin and his crew do nothing to imperil AIG’s AAA credit rating, according to Sosin. They didn’t, taking care to minimize risk, according to Sosin and former colleagues. All trades were hedged. The average counterparty was rated AA. Any bond falling below BBB was immediately sold.
In addition to interest-rate swaps, the firm wrote currency swaps — which let a buyer insure against volatility in the foreign exchange market — and moved into equity derivatives, which are instruments tied to the price of an underlying stock or index. AIGFP helped finance its operations by selling guaranteed investment contracts, or GICs, which provide municipalities a place to park cash in exchange for a guaranteed return.
One of Pasciucco’s priorities when he took over was to get out of a $7 billion derivatives business called power reverse duals, or PRDs. These were essentially bets against the consensus view on the yen’s strength versus the U.S. dollar. The derivatives are extremely long dated, expiring 30 years or more in the future. The PRDs were costing tens of millions of dollars a year to hedge, which is done by constantly adjusting a variety of offsetting put options, call options and futures.
In 1998, Savage and Cassano oversaw AIGFP’s first foray into CDSs. The swaps it sold are sometimes referred to as regulatory capital trades because they’re designed to reduce a bank’s obligation to hold capital against its loans, according to AIG’s 2008 annual report. By buying credit insurance on those loans, banks could reduce their capital requirements, the report says.
The first AIGFP CDSs were sold to European banks through AIG’s Banque AIG subsidiary in Paris. Greenberg deemed them sufficiently safe that he considered it unnecessary to hedge them, according to his congressional testimony. By Sept. 30, 2008, AIG had $250 billion in net notional CDS exposure to such loans, and has had no material losses on them, Pasciucco says.
AIG’s potential CDO exposure rose to $40 billion under Greenberg.
they were mostly unhedged, and by the time the subprime crisis began to gather steam in 2007, it would have been prohibitively expensive to hedge them, the employees say.
The swaps’ terms required AIG to post billions of dollars of collateral if its credit rating was cut.
“The people at AIG were basically the laughingstocks of derivatives desks around the country,
some of the people who wrote those swaps had campaigned to start shorting the subprime mortgage market as early as 2006, only to be overruled by Cassano, Pasciucco says.
Dealers also agreed to make public all derivative trades in the CDS market by July 17.
Maybe we’re all missing the point ?
When you see what seems to be all the BLATANT corruption and destruction of our financial system , it is really almost UN-believable; except it’s fact.
Remember the missing Pentagon Trillions in 1999 & 2000 ? … that was “forgotten” quickly now wasn’t it !
You hear about seed-banks, FEMA camps and coffins, and Obama says nothing about such “rumours”.
Then there’s Biden’s BIG warning “in 6 months, mark my words” etc. etc.
Keepig my feet-on-the-ground, I agree 100% with everyone here that the US Finiancial System is one massive Ponzi-scheme .
OTOH … maybe there’s a “bigger cause” behind it all ?
e.g.
# does planet-X really exist ?
# were those “missing” Trillions used for preparations ?
We have …
# 2012 – planet-X
#2029 – meteor pass, returning in 2036 maybe too closely?
Thoughts ?
Good morning all.
@Phil
I know the place your at cause I’ve bin there and somtimes it gets to me too. That is a good sign that you are in the know and that makes you very angry.
But to reach out to other people who are not yet in the know we are writing and blogging and making great TV and Radio shows like Max & Stacy, Alex Jones, Bob Chapman. Peter Schif and others.
Somtimes we’ve gott take a step back from the helicopter view cause otherwise people don’t understand us at all so we gotta be patient with them and start at a level they can comprihend instaed of bouncing them back for the horror truth which we know it is.
I’ve been studying the planet X-story but havn’t found conclusive evidence yet. There are a lot of amateur astronomers out there and they didn’t see anything, it’s being asked again cause I have spoken to one of them. I do know that NASA is bussy, as we speak, classifying all incoming metorites and their potential danger but if we find a dangerous one we can’t do anything about it so knowing or not knowing the result is the same.
What is more actual worrying is the LACK OF SUNSPOTS which didn’t happen for more than a hundred years. Ouer track record of sunspots goes back before the Industrial revolution. Those who keep an eye on the sun say this is the quietest sun in almost a century. So, what does this all mean? http://tinyurl.com/cnkmlv You didn’t know this? Well thank your and mine mainsteam media again.
There are some scientist who take about changing magma streams inside the Earth. There are scientist talking about sudden explosion of sunspots causing a lot of radiation.
They are planning to detonate a bomb on the moon. The large Hadron Collider in Bern tries to find stranglets – small black holes. Matters which are in our reach which planet X isn’t even if it existed we can do nothing about it. Can go on for houers here but getting pretty off topic and we elaborate later on.
Hopefully this was somewhat of a help.
@Giuseppe – well Sweden has a good reason to whine about immigrants, you would be surprised by the huge ghettos there is and people there are not all that friendly. It is a shame because we all should have immigration but when it turns out like that it’s not good at all.
anutha regular with immigration issues wow….quite common for this site, does it come free with ‘illumination’…Damn if anymore own up to being Reagan/Thatcher or bnp supporters we may need a breakaway/splinter group we could call you ‘The MK Ultras’ get you some uniforms or am I going too far…maybe just little lapel badges.
@ all,
Many thanks for coming back to me on the Hemp oil. I think ispice is right, the only way to get it is to grow the cannabis and then remove the oil as per the phoenixTears website. The reason being that actual hemp oil (not hemp SEED oil) is illegal. I can’t help thinking that its illegality has something to do with the fact that it is an incredible cure for many illnesses (not really surprising given that it is a natural plant that grows in abundance through much of the world – mother nature put it there for some reason). Clearly, it would be a huge threat to the profit-making schemes of the pharmaceutical industry.
Anyway I was hoping I could buy some rather than buying the plants and growing it at home, you’d think someone, somewhere on the internet would be selling this even if it is illegal but I guess not. Anyway, thanks again.
@Mr Supergeek – yes, I have noticed across most finance blogs a growing number of this kind of stuff in the comments section; but you also see it in the real world news from Italy where the Roma are being violently chased out to the far right wins in Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands; to the recent anti-immigrant violence in Northern Ireland and the two relatively unreported white supremacist planned attacks thwarted in UK . . . this sort of response obviously favors politicians and bankers who run things as it is not only ugly and therefore unsympathetic but it perpetuates the situation of the peasants killing each other rather than changing the system; as I have said before freedom to move should be allowed for humans if for capital and, again, to mention the book I am reading, The History of Trade, most of history was this way. Individuals were free to move from location to location and trade along the way (mind you, there was massive, insane risk in any long distance travel at that time). And not to say that there weren’t crazed killings of outsiders any time a plague or some sort of societal meltdown took place.
@Mr Supergeek – jepp, you are going too far! its like alcohol, a drink or two could be a rather good experience, but whole barrel in one belly in a short time…well… I let your mind go from there.
the unemployment in the inner city among young black males must be somewhere around 30 percent by now. If not more.
I might add, however, that I am watching the Ken Burns series, The West. And, despite the portrayals of Indians being violent, the Native American Indians were rather welcoming to the new immigrants. It is only later that there was so much conflict and even then it was like a tribal group of 200 versus an army of 600.
And, as if on cue, Italy passes law today allowing citizen patrols to keep out illegal immigrants:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8132084.stm
and . . .
@S.herbert
Yeah…(I’ve seen red indians only twice in england aboriginees even less moaris quite a few of I use this as an indicator of how efficient the racism in a country has been)
Freedom of travel is an issue but it would be nice if people could make a better life without tavelling half way around the world and being an ‘economic refugee’
Sometimes it seems between the lines people are saying ‘why don’t they send us any rich immigrants happy ones who arent just here for quick money ‘
all these illuminated people with immigration problems should get a grip and realise who the real victims of the bankers and western domination really are…and always have been…the underclass of slaves that do most of the low paid jobs when nobody else will…every big capitalist country needs a turnover of fresh willing slaves to continue operating…
@Mr. Supergeek
I don’t have a problem with immigration…
Come to Canada…
we have plenty of room UP NORTH…
although our welfare system isn’t as good as Sweden’s
And you’ll likely have some problems with the frost-bite and Wild-life, but it’s all good…
RE:Italy’s shiny new Anti-illegal immigration law
Italy has a problem with the “boat-people”
so to see Berlusconi’s Coalition gov’t (note that LEGA NORD is instrumental there) passing a bill against it, is no surprise…
Back in the winter, when I was there,
L’Unita (a communist/Socialist newspaper)
had an article detailing where and how the illegal immigrants would enter Europe…
Italy is one of the main gateways…
apparently it costs the EU 5000Euros per person to send these poor unfortunate souls BACK to their countries of origin…
and that seems to cause some people to get upset…
If Italy is sprouting new “Camice Nera” squads
it’s probably coming from the Forza Nuova political group….
they are the Neo-Fascists, and even though they claim to not be racist, their actions and propaganda would suggest otherwise…
@Mr Supergeek – immigration is a good thing, when people come for the reason of better work, economic, opportunity and so on. People seeking asylum is also welcome, if the nation has the capacity to take care of the real troubled ones that need to flee their own country to a safe haven. In large most immigrants blend inn perfectly and with some time they contribute back to the country as well. On the other side, there are ghettos of people unwilling to adapt to their new country, learn the language and so on, famously in the extreme case of Malmö, the same pattern is to be seen in many cities. I don’t care too much about that. It is a subject that should be talked about, I feel like you Mr Supergeek closes an eye to the situation ignoring it as best as you can while trying to discredit others that do talk about it (sarcastic illuminated people crap). One does not have to be an extreme right wing person to have an opinion or to express a feeling about this. Be realistic, as Gerald Celente always says: I look at the things for the way they are, not the way I want them to be. (the quote is just to make me look smart ha-ha)
@GD
Cheers for the invite ‘come to canada’ now that might be the funniest thing you’ve ever written…….of course you aint got any problems with immigration….frikkin canada for gawds sake…virtually one way traffic my canadian friends would live in remotest parts of scotland, australia/nz anywhere it seems just not canada….which probably will work in your favour one day soon and you will have the last laugh…but for now…ha, ha..canada.what streets that on…peace
@Palantíri
Look that’s the second time I’ve spelt your name correctly…..cool huh.
I made an obsevation about a general trend, I was a little bit sarcastic well…no duh…hardly political opression, so please don’t be hypersensitive or paranoid, talk about whatever you like, have an opinion never hold back, please don’t feel persecuted…….unless you that is you enjoy feeling that way in which case carry on….but c’mon even you must see the humour in the fact that a lot of the ‘illuminated’regulars who comment on this site openly admit to being unhappy or angry about the way society/the world is heading, see themselves as outsiders or would like to live outside or above the staus quo or even develop new strategies for a alternative better future…fine good for Y’All…But what immigrants are supposed to be happy citizens want to join in adapt and accept something we are leaving behind and like to spend hours dismantling complaining about or trying to repair….I think mankinds problems and malaise/ illness call it what you like runs a lot deeper than what country you find yourself in, don’t mistake symptons with the illness and that applys to nationals and immigrants.
Peace,Love and Power
@Mr Supergeek – I may have mistaken you general trend observation to be some more addressed to my post, I am sorry for that.
@sharon
Cannabis is an amzing plant no two ways about it, more like several ways. The seed is often touted as being, “The most nutritionally complete food source on the planet.” Its fibre is the longest most used fibre in our history. The wiki lays it out better
Its medicine is as you have researched, very powerfull, with wide application, curing/preventing cancer at the pinnacle.
Aquiring some high quality cannabis is the difficult aspect, growing it can take too long in many major medicinal cases.
Im not sure what to suggest, the internet imo is not a good place to find any. If you have any friends or family that indulge, I would suggest asking them for help.
Welcome to the world of the insanity that is prohibition.
I guess another bonus to GB’s offer to others to come to come to Canada. We just celebrated Cannabis Day here, we’ve replaced our Countries birthday for our unofficial plant.
peace
@ ispice,
Thanks for that, I will ask around to see if I can get any.
Cannabis day in Canada? Brilliant. I thought about moving to Canada and that’s made me think again. Problem is getting a visa as I understand they’re quite strict.
In Re: A ‘cold douche’ to those betting on Brics?
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, when the state owned the country’s only bank, over two thousand banks have sprung up, and more than 95 percent of them are believed to be owned by, or at least controlled by, Russian organized criminal groups.
Professionally trained and highly qualified former KGB agents have become Russia’s most capable drug traffickers and laundrymen.
Russia boasts to having one of the lowest bank robbery rates in the world, but the contract-killing rate has soared: Mostly legitimate bankers and prominent businessmen, as organized crime usurped legitimate money.
Between 1992 & 95, Swiss authorities admitted that at least $54 billion had been deposited into Swiss Banks by Russia. Much Russian money was laundered into financial vehicles such as tax-exempt Italian bearer bonds; and into other world banks.
In summary, Russian banks are solely run for the benefit of criminal enterprise; and, legitimate International Russian businesses have largely opted out of that system. So Russian banking balance sheets have less to do with the over all health of International Russian enterprise than you may think. In fact, Inter-Bric trading is very much alive and well. For instance, unlike their Euro-American criminal counterparts who attenuate fuel supply, the Russians have developed new refineries, and currently opening up a great deal of Inter-Bric fuel trade.
Moreover, the Brazilians have a clever economic man, Guido Mantega, who was a party to the authoring of the terms & conditions of TARP. Even his daughter here in NYC is working to supply their banks with some extremely advanced world currency trading software.
Clearly the masters of the Amero-European race have managed to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Meanwhile, Bric has many resources, including people power, upon which it relies; and, it has learned from the mistakes of others. The future of these two groups is as utterly divergent as it is obvious.
@sharon
Many people here reefer to Canada Day(july1) as Cannabis Day. BBC World recently did a report on Cannada cannabis culture,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCCBLvUsorI
also National Geographic did an show on the subject, Marijuana Nation.
The Union, the business behind getting high. Is another documenary, focusing on BC bud industry.
If you have not watched the Run From the Cure: The Rick Simpson Story. It is a must. Do not pass it up!
Part 1 of 7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjhT9282-Tw
@Tbone
Good post.