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- Talk of a Greek Exit Gets Louder
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom, Part II
- Is Facebook the Rusty Hinge of the Stock Market?
- Fitch Downgrades Japan
- Doug Casey on Taxes and Freedom
- Greeks Run on Banks as Euro-Confidence Wanes
- To the Class of 2012
- Hedge Funds Bail On Euro Now
- Expatriation in the Wake of the Facebook IPO
America Is Close To Falling In The Debt Pit
Euro Crisis: That giant sucking sound is the globalization of debt, and America’s slowly being pulled into the abyss. If we don’t want to become the next Italy, we must first get our own house in order.
The German press is reporting that the Federal Reserve may float loans to the International Monetary Fund to help bail out Greece and other euro zone welfare states on the verge of collapse.
Greece is seeing a dangerous run on its banks. Many Greeks are emptying their savings accounts and hoarding their savings in their homes because they fear the banking system will collapse.
By withdrawing funds, they are forcing banks to scale back on lending, which is only making the recession there worse. The jobless rate in Greece recently shot up to 18%.
So now the idea is to set up a special IMF fund to backstop the euro zone bailout fund in case debt-ridden Spain and Italy fall the way of Greece. The total fund could top $134 billion.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has been dispatched to Europe to discuss the idea — the latest iteration of dozens of failed solutions — with German and other EU leaders.
It’s plain that… Continue reading
The Rest Of Europe Is Facing Either German Domination Or Financial Collapse
It has now become very clear who dominates Europe. As European officials prepare to gather for one of the most important summits in EU history, it has become apparent that either the German plan for a new EU treaty is going to be adopted or there is not going to be a deal at all.
Germany wants to impose strict new fiscal restraints on all of the eurozone nations. This would include a new 3 percent budget deficit rule with automatic sanctions on any violators. The European Court of Justice would be given power to decide whether or not an individual nation was complying with the 3 percent rule or not. A highly controversial new tax on all financial transactions is also being proposed, along with a number of other repressive new regulations that are designed to more tightly integrate Europe. Germany says that if all 27 EU nations are not willing to go along with a new treaty then it is prepared to strike an agreement with just the 17 nations that make up the eurozone. But not everyone is thrilled with what Germany is trying to do. Critics are saying that the German proposals (which are also being… Continue reading
Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fails?
What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret.
Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the “too big to fail” banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the “too big to fail” banks between 2007 and 2010. So have you heard about this on the nightly news? Probably not. Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture. The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down. The Federal Reserve has been actively picking “winners” and “losers” in the financial system, and it turns out that the “friends” of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the “winners”. This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.
According to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping $16.1 trillion.
That is an astonishing amount of money.
Keep in mind that the GDP of the United States for the entire year of 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars.
The total U.S. national debt is only a bit above 15 trillion dollars right now.
So 16 trillion dollars is an almost inconceivable amount of money.
But some other dollar figures have been thrown around lately regarding these secret Federal Reserve bailouts. Let’s take a look at them and see what they mean.
The Fed’s European “Rescue”: Another back-door US Bank / Goldman bailout?
In the wake of chopping its Central Bank swap rates today, the Fed has been called a bunch of names: a hero for slugging the big bailout bat in the ninth inning, and a villain for printing money to help Europe at the expense of the US. Neither depiction is right.
The Fed is merely continuing its unfettered brand of bailout-economics, promoted with heightened intensity recently by President Obama and Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner in the wake of Germany not playing bailout-ball. Recall, a couple years ago, it was a uniquely American brand of BIG bailouts that the Fed adopted in creating $7.7 trillion of bank subsidies that ran the gamut from back-door AIG bailouts (some of which went to US / some to European banks that deal with those same US banks), to the purchasing of mortgage-backed–securities, to near zero-rate loans (for banks).
Similarly, today’s move was also about protecting US banks from losses – self inflicted by dangerous derivatives-chain trades, again with each other, and with European banks.
Before getting into the timing of the Fed’s god-father actions, let’s discuss its two kinds of swaps (jargon alert – a swap is a trade between two parties for some time period – you swap me a sweater for a hat because I’m cold, when I’m warmer, we’ll swap back). The Fed had both of these kinds of swaps set up and ready-to-go in the form of : dollar liquidity swap lines and foreign currency liquidity swap lines. Both are administered through Wall Street’s staunchest ally, and Tim Geithner’s old stomping ground, the New York Fed.
Continue reading
Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns
British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.
As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.
Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.
The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.
A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.
“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.
Recent Foreign and Commonwealth Office instructions to embassies and consulates request contingency planning for extreme scenarios including rioting and social unrest.
Greece has seen several outbreaks of civil disorder as its government struggles with its huge debts. British officials think similar scenes cannot be ruled out in other… Continue reading
Operation Paperclip
The CIA and the Nazis reveals a CIA program known as Operation Paperclip, about how over 4,000 former Nazis went to work for the U.S. government, without the public’s knowledge, to help fight the Soviet Union. Reinhard Gehlen, an intelligence officer for Hitler’s General Staff, was tapped to head the U.S. intelligence program in West Germany to spy on the Russians. At the same time, former Nazi scientists and engineers were welcomed onto American soil. But the extent of these operations is only now becoming clear: In 1998, a law was passed mandating declassification of documents concerning recruitment of former Nazis. THE CIA AND THE NAZIS examines these files to see how far the U.S. went in recruiting its former enemy to fight its new one.
More on Project Paperclip, from Wikipedia: Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II (1939–45). It was executed by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), and in the context of the burgeoning Soviet–American Cold War (1945–91), one purpose of Operation Paperclip was to deny German scientific knowledge and expertise to the USSR and the UK.
