Friday, May 18, 2012


18 Signs That The Banking Crisis In Europe Has Just Gone From Bad To Worse

With each passing day, the banking crisis in Europe escalates. European banks are having their credit ratings downgraded in waves, bond yields are soaring and billions of euros are being pulled out of banks all across the eurozone. The situation in Europe is rapidly going from bad to worse. It is almost like watching air being let out of a balloon. The key to any financial system is confidence, and right now confidence in banks in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal is declining at an alarming rate. When things hit the fan in Europe, it is going to be much safer to have your money in Swiss banks or German banks than in Greek banks, Spanish banks or Italian banks. Millions of people in Europe are starting to realize that a “euro” is not necessarily always going to be a “euro” and they are starting to panic. The Greek banking system is already on the verge of total collapse, and at this rate it is only a matter of time before we see some major Spanish and Italian banks start to fail. In fact it has already been announced that the fourth largest bank in Spain, Bankia, will be getting bailed out by the Spanish government. It is only a matter of time before we hear more announcements like this. Right now, events are moving so quickly in Europe that it is hard to keep up with them all. But this is what usually happens in the financial world. When things go well, it tends to happen over an extended period of time. When things fall apart, it tends to happen very rapidly.
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com

 

Ireland And Portugal Resume Their Places Among Europe's Teetering Dominos

While all eyes are focused on Greece (and contagiously Spain), they have forgotten that two far weaker countries still exits - and combined have the power to do as much (if not more) damage than Spain. Portugal and Ireland have moved back into the Red-Zone of risk in Europe's credit markets. Ireland back over 700bps and Portugal back over 1200bps reflects both their idiosyncratic issues (that we have discussed at length) or the systemic issues (which we discussed most recently this morning here). In the case of Portugal, it appears the Dan Loeb trade (we said to fade it) is now being unwound en masse as the reality of the fundamental risks we discussed here seem to be realized. In the case of Ireland, not only is there a rising chance of a 'no' vote at the forthcoming referendum (discussed here) but as Deutsche Bank notes today, via Bloomberg, that Irish banks may face a further $5.1 billion capital call to cover loan losses as "A new, even modest, increase in capital requirements could deter sovereign investor participation and tip the balance in favor of the sovereign requiring a second loan program." Of course the CDS reflect not just the chance of these nations restructuring but also the probability of a EUR devaluation (since the instruments are denominated in USD) but still - we thought Ireland was the template for the success of austerity?

 

And Now Back To Europe, Which Is More Unfixed Than Ever

So stepping aside from the biggest aggregator of private data for a few minutes, and focusing on what actually matters, here is Citigroup telling our European readers who have those fancy multi-colored bills in their wallets, that they are in deep trouble.
To summarize from Citi:
  • There are many scenarios for a Greek exit;  almost all of them are likely to be EUR negative for an extended period
  • Some scenarios could be positive in equilibrium but the run-up to the new equilibrium could be nasty, brutal and long 
  • The positive scenarios for the euro involve aggressive reduction of tail risk; none of these seem likely
  • It is unlikely that central banks busily substitute EUR for USD in their portfolios during periods of intense political uncertainty. 



The Facebook Ardennes: Spot The Syndicate Stick-Save

Remember there is no short-selling - only long-adds and long-exits. Syndicate fall back...26.7mm shares at $38.00, 9mm shares at $39.00, and 42mm at $40.00 - leaves a VWAP (or average price at which everyone is in Facebook) at $40.36 (green arrow) with over $10.5b billion traded so far as over 60% of the float has 'turned-over' this morning.











Today’s Items:

The problem with bank runs is that once they start, they don’t stop.  First in Greece, and now it is spreading… Bankia, the Spanish bank that was part-nationalized, saw customer withdrawals of over 1 billion euros last week.  In addition, the cost of a Greek exit from the euro is placed at over one trillion euros. It is getting worse folks. How long before the euro is in the dustbin of history?

Next…
Lindsey Williams Urgent Message
http://www.youtube.com
Alright everyone, here is what Lindsey Williams is warning us about…
1. After the beginning of the crack in the derivatives market – JP Morgan, then get ready for both currency and trade wars.
2. Get ready for interest rate hikes which the Federal Reserve will announce.
3. Get ready for a bank holiday and be limited on the amount on withdrawals once they open again.
4. Secure your assets and get out of paper before the 200 trillion dollar derivative market collapses.

Next…
Chinese Gold Demand Hits Record
http://www.bbc.co.uk
Even though global demand fell 5% to about 1.098 million tonnes, due to high prices and the selling to pay off debt, China is inching closer and closer to a gold backed currency as they scooped up 255.2 tonnes in the first quarter of 2012. As gold goes down in price, look for strong hands to scoop it up; therefore, keep stacking.

Next…
Herman Cain: We Need a Dollar as Good as Gold
http://online.wsj.com

http://thehill.com
Mr. 9-9-9 tax code Federal Reserve Branch President Herman Cain is a day late and a dollar short when he is now calling for a gold standard. Gee… Don’t we already have someone more credible already saying that? Seriously, this guy should just shut up.

Next…
Florida Passing Score Lowered
http://www.clickorlando.com
Florida’s Board of Education, in an emergency meeting, decided to lower the passing grade for the Florida’s standardized test, the FCAT, after a drastic drop in student passing scores. Preliminary results showed that only 1/3 of the students passed the exam. Unreliable sources claim the new passing criteria for passing this exam is to have a pulse – which will increase the passing rate to 70%.

Next…
10 Telling Studies Done on Homeschooling
http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com
Here are a few…
1. Home-schooled children score about 30 percentile points higher on standardized tests.
2. States with more stringent home-school regulations do not have better test scores.
3. Home-schooled children are, on average, almost one grade level ahead of their peers.
4. More home-schooled children participate in community activities.

Next…
‘Big brother’ Lamp Posts
http://rt.com
New Homeland Security street lights, costing $3,000 apiece, are being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and may mushroom across the country. Armed with a microprocessor that can record video and audio, count people, and has a speaker system to bark orders at people, these things are Big Brother on steroids.


Finally, Please prepare now for the escalating economic and social unrest. Good Day




Precious Metals Market Manipulation?

For many years now, a meme has been floating around that the prices of gold and silver are being manipulated, which is to say suppressed, by various powers of darkness. This is not an unreasonable assertion. After all, the last thing the monetary powers-that-be want is to see is the price of gold skyrocketing. That would serve as an alarm bell, possibly panicking people all over the world, telling them to get out of the dollar. It’s assumed, by those who believe in the theory, that the US Treasury is behind the suppression scheme, in complicity with a half-dozen or so large bullion banks that regularly trade in the metals.
The assertion is bolstered by the fact that governments in general, and the US in particular, are always intervening in all kinds of markets. They try to control the price of wheat and corn with various USDA programs. They manifestly manipulate the price of credit (interest rates), now keeping it as low as possible to stave off financial collapse. And they may well be active, through the so-called Plunge Protection Team, in propping up the stock market.
Read More @ GoldSeek.com




The New World Order Exposed – Part I

Kali Yuga — The Age of Conflict
from CosmiccConvergence:
As we scan the landscape across the entire planet, we see the scars and ravages of CONFLICT. Kali Yuga (aka the Iron Age) is the current age of humankind. Kali Yuga is known as the Age of Conflict. An age when strife and discord and dissension predominate across the land. Kali Yuga is also known as the Age of Quarrel.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anyone that the past five to six millennia of world history are defined by war. Naked wars of aggression, unending battles for scarce natural resources, civil wars, skirmishes around land disputes, inner city drug battlegrounds, etc. etc, etc.
Who among us has not been touched by war? Who among us has not known someone who has been deeply scarred (physically, mentally or emotionally) by the ravages of war?
Is there even a single square inch on this planet that has not been raped, plundered and pillaged?
Read More @ CosmicConvergence.org




(U//LES) FBI Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit Introduction to Sovereign Citizens

from Public Intelligence:
Sovereign citizens believe the government is operating outside of its jurisdiction and generally do not recognize federal, state, or local laws, policies, or governmental regulations. They subscribe to a number of conspiracy theories, including a prevalent theory which states the United States Government (USG) became bankrupt and began using citizens as collateral in trade agreements with foreign governments. They believe secret bank accounts exist at the United States (US) Department of the Treasury. These accounts can be accessed using Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Universal Commercial Code (UCC), and fraudulent financial documents.
Sovereign citizens are known to travel the country conducting training seminars on debt elimination schemes. The seminars focus on obtaining funds from a secret “Strawman” account using legitimate IRS forms, UCC forms, and fraudulent financial documents. Sovereign citizens believe once the documentation is filed, they gain access to their “Strawman” account with the Treasury Department.
Read More @ PublicIntelligence.net




FBI wants a wire-tap-friendly ‘back door’ to all internet providers

by J. D. Heyes, Natural News:
In this Information Age, the government threats to privacy just continue to cascade, as now the FBI wants Internet companies to install “back doors” into their services to allow electronic eavesdropping of users.
Specifically, the FBI wants the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, amended to require Internet platforms such as Facebook, as well as Web-based email programs like Gmail and Yahoo! to build back doors into their systems, so the FBI can access them at will to spy. Presumably other constitutional requirements of eavesdropping – such as the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for law enforcement to secure a warrant “upon probable cause” – would apply, but these days, you just never know. And besides, once the back doors are “installed,” who’s to say they won’t be accessed by prying eyes at will?
Read More @ NaturalNews.com




China Better Have a Plan

from Liberty Blitzkrieg
Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like.
- Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment.  Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.
- Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German dramatist, stage director, and poet
Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.
- Aldous Huxley
Read More @ LibertyBlitzkrieg.com




12 Pictures That Demonstrate How The New World Order Openly Mocks Us

from The American Dream:
If you know what to look for, it quickly becomes obvious that the elite of the world are not even trying to hide their insidious plans for the planet.  They hope to unite the entire globe under their leadership, and they don’t think that we are strong enough or smart enough to stop them.  They openly embed symbols expressing their desire for a one world economic system, a one world religion and a one world government on our buildings, on our monuments and on our money and they think that it is funny that most people have no idea what those symbols mean.  The New World Order openly mocks us and they seem to take pleasure in giving us “clues” about what their plans for humanity are.  In the “global society” that they have planned for us, individual freedoms and liberties will be greatly restricted “for the good of humanity” and they will use the emerging Big Brother police state control grid to monitor and control everything that we do.  It would be a totalitarian regime unlike anything the world has ever seen before.  That is why it is absolutely imperative that we wake people up and get them educated about what the globalists plan to do so that they can resist this growing tyranny.
Read More @ EndOfTheAmericanDream.com




Victims of Operation Fast and Furious

[Ed. Note: Posted on Ed Steer's Gold and Silver Daily under "Funnies", however, it is too true to actually be funny.]





Policing For Profit: “I Absolutely Would Not Believe That This Could Happen In America”

by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:
You may think your biggest threat when carrying any amount of cash over $1000 is a thief or armed robber, but you’d be wrong.
Your most immediate concern is not being robbed by a criminal, but rather, by the very people who are supposed to serve and protect the public.
As one New Jersey man found out when he was on his way to pay for a car he purchased on Ebay, a new heavy handed trend called “policing for profit” is empowering law enforcement officers to ignore fundamental Constitutional safeguards against warrant-less searches.
[Video report follows excerpts]
George Reby was driving down Interstate 40, heading west through Putnam County, when he was stopped for speeding.
A Monterey police officer wanted to know if he was carrying any large amounts of cash.

Read More @ SHTFPlan.com




Global banks see market rally on Greek exit

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph.co.uk:
Bank of America said it expects a “powerful short squeeze” in risk assets as speculative funds unwind positions, led by a rebound in battered bank stocks and Club Med bonds. The euro would surge 10pc to $1.40 against the US dollar after dipping first to $1.20 in the immediate panic.
The benign outcome assumes that the European Central Bank steps in with massive support, backed by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and key central banks along the lines of concerted action in 2008-2009.
Bank of America said EU authorities will pull out the stops to keep Greece in the system as they weigh the full dangers of contagion. Should that fail, it expects a series of dramatic moves.
Read More @ Telegraph.co.uk




JPMorgan unit has $100 billion in risky bonds

By Sam Jones, Tracy Alloway, and Tom Braithwaite Financial Times, London, GATA:
The unit at the centre of JPMorgan Chase’s $2 billion trading loss has built up positions totalling more than $100 billion in asset-backed securities and structured products — the complex, risky bonds at the centre of the financial crisis in 2008.
These holdings are in addition to those in credit derivatives that led to the losses and have mired the bank in regulatory investigations and criticism.
The unit, the chief investment office (CIO), has been the biggest buyer of European mortgage-backed bonds and other complex debt securities such as collateralised loan obligations in all markets for three years, more than a dozen senior traders and credit experts have told the Financial Times.
Read More @ gata.org

 

NUCLEAR NATION – Trailer

from WideHouseDoc:
A documentary about the exile of Futaba’s residents, the region housing the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The day after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011, Futaba locals heard the hydrogen explosion at Reactor Number 1 and were showered with nuclear fallout. In response, the Japanese government designated the whole town as an “exclusion zone” and 1,400 of the town’s residents fled to an abandoned high school 250 kilometers away. The entire community, including the Town Hall office, was moved into the four-story building, making the residents nuclear refugees.




Jump in Gold as France refutes EU pact

by Adrian Ash, Bullion Vault Bullion Street:
London Gold market report
The wholesale market gold price jumped at the start of New York trade on Thursday, cutting the week’s previous 3.3% dive to 5-month lows in half as the Euro fell and Eurozone stock markets slumped once again.
The gold price touched $1558 per ounce before easing $3 lower. Silver did not follow, failing to break this morning’s earlier Dollar high at $27.86 per ounce.
German Bund yields fell to fresh record lows, but Spain had to offer investors in new 3-year debt an annual yield of 4.37%, up from the 2.89% charged at the last comparable sale in April.
The European Central Bank confirmed it has ceased working with some Greek banks because it believes them to be insolvent, while Portugal’s Diario Economico newspaper claimed a joint visit by the ECB, IMF and European Union to assess Lisbon’s €78 billion bail-out will also discuss contigency plans should Greece quit the single currency.
Read More @ BullionStreet.com




We Are Watching The Greek Banking System Die Right In Front Of Our Eyes

from The Economic Collapse Blog:
Money is being pulled out of Greek banks at an alarming rate, and if something dramatic is not done quickly Greek banks are going to start dropping like flies. As I detailed yesterday, people do not want to be stuck with euros in Greek banks when Greece leaves the euro and converts back to the drachma. The fear is that all existing euros in Greek banks would be converted over to drachmas which would then rapidly lose value after the transition. So right now euros are being pulled out of Greek banks at a staggering pace. According to MSNBC, Greeks withdrew $894 million from Greek banks on Monday alone and a similar amount was withdrawn on Tuesday. But this is just an acceleration of a trend that has been going on for a couple of years. It has been reported that approximately a third of all Greek bank deposits were withdrawn between January 2010 and March 2012. So where has all of the cash for these withdrawals been coming from? Well, the European Central Bank has been providing liquidity for Greek banks, but now it has been reported that the ECB is going to stop providing liquidity to some Greek banks. It was not announced which Greek banks are being cut off. For now, the Greek Central Bank will continue to provide euros to those banks, but the Greek Central Bank will not be able to funnel euros into insolvent banks indefinitely
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com




‘Big brother’ lamp posts can hear, see and bark ‘Obey!’ at you

from RT:
America welcomes a new brand of smart street lightning systems: energy-efficient, long-lasting, complete with LED screens to show ads. They can also spy on citizens in a way George Orwell would not have imagined in his worst nightmare.
­With a price tag of $3,000+ apiece, according to an ABC report, the street lights are now being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and may soon mushroom all across the country.
Part of the Intellistreets systems made by the company Illuminating Concepts, they have a number of “homeland security applications” attached.
Read More @ RT.com




Nightmare foretold if Greece heads for euro exit

[Ed. Note: For the solution to this Bankster-caused global horror show we once again advise: LOOK AT ICELAND, LOOK AT ICELAND. DO AS ICELANDERS DO.]
by Harry Papachristou and Giles Elgood, Reuters:
In Athens, the homeless are on the streets in growing numbers, soup kitchens feed twice as many people as a year ago, and the poor are diving into garbage bins in search of scrap they can sell.
Greece is close to breaking point as it struggles with austerity targets set by creditors, but this is just a foretaste of the nightmare of unrest, hunger and even anarchy that could engulf the debt-crippled nation if it is forced out of the euro.
If the exact economic impact of such a move is hard to nail down – newly issued drachmas devalued by up to 70 percent, runaway inflation, a banking meltdown, a collapse in trade – the implications for ordinary Greeks crushed by the debt crisis are even harder to predict.
Without international bailout cash, salaries and pensions would go unpaid and violence, political extremism and uncontrolled emigration could quickly follow.
Read More @ Reuters.com




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