Wells Fargo Paid Director’s Son $1.4 Million Last Year

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), the most valuable U.S. bank, paid a board member’s son about $1.4 million last year for his work in a unit responsible for investing deposits.
Scott P. Quigley, 44, received the compensation as a manager in the principal investments group, according to the San Francisco-based lender’s most recent proxy filing. His father, Philip J. Quigley, a Wells Fargo director since 1994, is retiring from the board in April. Scott Quigley declined to comment, and his father didn’t respond to messages seeking comment. The bank declined to make them available.

A Wells Fargo branch in Arlington, Virginia. Photographer: Jeffrey MacMillan/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Wells Fargo & Co. Director Philip J. Quigley was deemed an independent director by the board. For a director to be independent, the board must determine the person has no material relationship with the company, whether it’s direct or indirect. Source: Wells Fargo & Co. via Bloomberg

“It compromises both the executive and the director,” said Nell Minow, a corporate-governance consultant at GMI Ratings who co-founded the Corporate Library, based in Portland, Maine. “If it were me advising the company, I would tell them not to do it under any circumstance.”
The principal investments group, which buys bonds with the bank’s own money and excess customer deposits, has been among Wells Fargo’s most profitable units, said three former employees who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the lender’s behalf. Jobs there are among the most sought- after by personnel seeking transfers, one of the people said.
Wells Fargo said in the proxy that Quigley is one of more than 10,000 employees in the wholesale banking group and that before he joined the firm, in 2006, his father didn’t know he had applied for a job. The bank had 269,200 workers on Dec. 31.

Company ‘Unaware’

“The company was unaware of the family relationship with Mr. Quigley until after the job offer had been made,” Wells Fargo said in the proxy filing.
Quigley, based in Santa Monica, California, has worked under the same manager throughout his career at Wells Fargo, and in 2009 his team moved to a group that was folded into principal investments a year later, said Alan Elias, a company spokesman.
The unit, with about 100 people, has delivered some of the bank’s highest profitability metrics, including return on assets and return on equity, according to a former employee, citing internal presentations.
Wells Fargo fell 0.9 percent to close at $36.98 in New York. The shares climbed 8.2 percent this year, trailing the 9.8 percent advance for the 24-company KBW Bank Index (BKX) (BKX).
Philip Quigley is deemed an independent director by the board, led by Wells Fargo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, 59, according to the the March 14 proxy. For a director to be independent, the board must determine the person has no material relationship with the company, according to guidelines for firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

‘Familial Relationships’

Material ties may include “familial relationships,” according to the NYSE guidelines. “The board should consider the issue not merely from the standpoint of the director, but also from that of persons or organizations with which the director has an affiliation.”
Such relationships make it harder for a director to oversee management, said Charles Elson, director of the University of Delaware’s John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance.
“It raises independence issues for the father,” Elson said. “For the son, it might make it harder to work there.”
In 2010, the board adopted a policy based on a recommendation of the governance committee to “strongly discourage” the hiring of additional immediate family members of directors, according to the proxy. Philip Quigley was the committee’s chairman at the time.

Experience, Talent

Scott Quigley, who asked that questions be directed to public relations staff, “was hired solely for his experience and talent,” Elias said in an e-mail. “His employment has been publicly disclosed on an annual basis for the past six years. The company has a vetting process to identify any potential conflicts or matters to be disclosed involving board members and we remain confident in that process.”
Philip Quigley, the former chairman and CEO of Pacific Telesis Group, a telecommunications firm that split from AT&T Corp. in 1984, received $285,557 in cash, stock and options for his work at Wells Fargo for 2012, according to the proxy.
Scott Quigley’s unit invests in corporate loans on behalf of the company, according to the proxy. It’s part of a business in which the bank purchases high-grade and high-yield corporate debt, municipal securities and other credit-sensitive investments for its balance sheet. The group, which doesn’t deal directly with clients, managed more than $40 billion as recently as last year, according to a former employee.

Favorable Treatment

It’s difficult to evaluate whether a conflict exists without knowing whether the son received favorable treatment, said Jay Lorsch, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied corporate boards and management for 25 years.
“Why would the son of a director being an employee automatically be a conflict?” Lorsch said. “I don’t know. It may be, but you could make the argument on both sides.”
Wells Fargo also employs James Hardin, the brother of director Cynthia Milligan, as a wealth-management adviser and paid him about $227,000 last year, including commissions, the proxy shows. Milligan, who’s also a member of the governance committee, was unaware of her brother’s job discussions with the company and the firm didn’t know they were siblings until after he accepted the position, Wells Fargo said in the filing. Milligan and Hardin didn’t reply to requests for comment.
“These relationships are problematic,” proxy adviser Glass Lewis & Co. said last year in a report. “Key committees of the board should consist solely of independent directors.”

Incentive Compensation

Scott Quigley’s compensation in 2012 included a cash salary and bonus of $983,000, about $294,000 in deferred cash and $126,000 in restricted stock, the proxy shows. In 2011, he got $798,000, including incentive compensation, as well as restricted shares issued in February of that year, according to a separate proxy filing. The restricted stock would have been valued at more than $154,000 at the end of that month.
The bonuses were based on his success boosting revenue at the principal investments group, according to the filings.
Even so, employees at the unit aren’t compensated on a “pay-for-performance” standard, John Shrewsberry, head of the bank’s securities group, which includes principal investments, said in an interview. The range of possible compensation “outcomes for people who take risk is relatively narrow.”

Stock Options

Quigley started at Wells Fargo in February 2006 as a senior research analyst, receiving less than $120,000 that year in a part of the bank that did asset-based lending, according to a separate proxy. During the next four years, his annual pay climbed as high as $829,405 and he also received about 22,000 stock options in that span, other filings show.
Before joining Wells Fargo, Scott Quigley was a senior vice president at Miller Tabak Roberts Securities LLC in high-yield and distressed-debt sales and trading, his profile on LinkedIn Corp.’s website shows. He was a certified public accountant at Deloitte & Touche LLP and an investment-banking associate covering the telecommunications industry at Bear Stearns Cos.
He received an accounting degree in 1991 from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master’s of business administration from the University of Michigan in 1995, the profile shows.
Philip Quigley was Wells Fargo’s lead director from 2009 through 2011. He’s on the governance, audit and credit committees and is stepping down at the annual meeting set for April 23 in Salt Lake City.

Stunning Facts About How the Banking System Really Works … And How It Is Destroying America

Paintings by Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.

Reclaiming the Founding Fathers’ Vision of Prosperity

To understand the core problem in America today, we have to look back to the very founding of our country.
The Founding Fathers fought for liberty and justice. But they also fought for a sound economy and freedom from the tyranny of big banks:
“[It was] the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament which has caused in the colonies hatred of the English and . . . the Revolutionary War.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
- John Adams
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
- John Adams
“If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied”.
— Thomas Jefferson
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the Government, to whom it properly belongs.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“The Founding Fathers of this great land had no difficulty whatsoever understanding the agenda of bankers, and they frequently referred to them and their kind as, quote, ‘friends of paper money. They hated the Bank of England, in particular, and felt that even were we successful in winning our independence from England and King George, we could never truly be a nation of freemen, unless we had an honest money system. ”
-Peter Kershaw, author of the 1994 booklet “Economic Solutions”
Indeed, everyone knows that the American colonists revolted largely because of taxation without representation and related forms of oppression by the British. See this and this. But – according to Benjamin Franklin and others in the thick of the action – a little-known factor was actually the main reason for the revolution.
To give some background on the issue, when Benjamin Franklin went to London in 1764, this is what he observed:

When he arrived, he was surprised to find rampant unemployment and poverty among the British working classes… Franklin was then asked how the American colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor houses. He reportedly replied:
“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”
In 1764, the Bank of England used its influence on Parliament to get a Currency Act passed that made it illegal for any of the colonies to print their own money. The colonists were forced to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold. Anyone lacking in those precious metals had to borrow them at interest from the banks.
Only a year later, Franklin said, the streets of the colonies were filled with unemployed beggars, just as they were in England. The money supply had suddenly been reduced by half, leaving insufficient funds to pay for the goods and services these workers could have provided. He maintained that it was “the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament which has caused in the colonies hatred of the English and . . . the Revolutionary War.” This, he said, was the real reason for the Revolution: “the colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction.”

(for more on the Currency Act, see this.)
Alexander Hamilton echoed similar sentiments:

Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary, said that paper money had composed three-fourths of the total money supply before the American Revolution. When the colonists could not issue their own currency, the money supply had suddenly shrunk, leaving widespread unemployment, hunger and poverty in its wake. Unlike the Great Depression of the 1930s, people in the 1770s were keenly aware of who was responsible for their distress.

As historian Alexander Del Mar wrote in 1895:

[T]he creation and circulation of bills of credit by revolutionary assemblies…coming as they did upon the heels of the strenuous efforts made by the Crown to suppress paper money in America [were] acts of defiance so contemptuous and insulting to the Crown that forgiveness was thereafter impossible . . . [T]here was but one course for the crown to pursue and that was to suppress and punish these acts of rebellion…Thus the Bills of Credit of this era, which ignorance and prejudice have attempted to belittle into the mere instruments of a reckless financial policy were really the standards of the Revolution. they were more than this: they were the Revolution itself!

And British historian John Twells said the same thing:

The British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins … Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies . . . discontent became desperation, and reached a point . . . when human nature rises up and asserts itself.

In fact, the Americans ignored the British ban on American currency, and:

“Succeeded in financing a war against a major power, with virtually no ‘hard’ currency of their own, without taxing the people.”

Indeed, the first act of the New Continental Congress was to issue its own paper scrip, popularly called the Continental.
Franklin and Thomas Paine later praised the local currency as a “corner stone” of the Revolution. And Franklin consistently wrote that the American ability to create its own credit led to prosperity, as it allowed the creation of ample credit, with low interest rates to borrowers, and no interest to pay to private or foreign bankers .

Not Ancient History … One of the Most Vital Issues of Today

Is this just ancient history?
No.
The ability for America and the 50 states to create its own credit has largely been lost to private bankers. The lion’s share of new credit creation is done by private banks, so – instead of being able to itself create money without owing interest – the government owes unfathomable trillions in interest to private banks.

Read this background to understand how money is really created in our crazy current banking system. And read this and this to learn why we are paying trillions of dollars to the big banks in unnecessary interest costs.

America may have won the Revolutionary War, but it has since lost one of the main things it fought for: the freedom to create its own credit instead of having to beg for credit from private banks at a usurious cost.

No More Federal than Federal Express

While many Americans assume that the Federal Reserve is a federal agency, the Fed itself admits that the 12 Federal Reserve banks are private. See this, this, this and this.
Indeed, the money-center banks in New York control the New York Fed, the most powerful Fed bank. Until recently, Jamie Dimon – the head of JP Morgan Chase – was a Director of the New York Fed. Everyone knows that the Fed is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption.
The long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee (Charles McFadden) said on June 10, 1932:

Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies ….

And congressman Dennis Kucinich said:

The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express!

The Fed Is Owned By – And Is Enabling – The Worst Behavior of the Big Banks

Most people now realize that the big banks have become little more than criminal enterprises.
No wonder a stunning list of economists, financial experts and bankers are calling for them to be broken up.
But the Federal Reserve is enabling the banks. Indeed, the giant banks and the Fed are part of a malignant, symbiotic relationship.
Specifically:

The corrupt, giant banks would never have gotten so big and powerful on their own. In a free market, the leaner banks with sounder business models would be growing, while the giants who made reckless speculative gambles would have gone bust. See this, this and this.
It is the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Congress who have repeatedly bailed out the big banks, ensured they make money at taxpayer expense, exempted them from standard accounting practices and the criminal and fraud laws which govern the little guy, encouraged insane amounts of leverage, and enabled the too big to fail banks – through “moral hazard” – to become even more reckless.
Indeed, the government made them big in the first place. As I noted in 2009:

As MIT economics professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson points out today, the official White House position is that:

(1) The government created the mega-giants, and they are not the product of free market competition

***

(3) Giant banks are good for the economy

***
The [corrupt, captured government "regulators"] and the giant banks are part of a single malignant, symbiotic relationship.

Indeed, the Fed and their big bank owners form a crony capitalist cartel that is destroying the economy for most Americans. The Fed has been bailing out the giant banks while shafting the little guy.
Fed boss Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving bailout money were healthy, when they were not. They were insolvent. By choosing the big banks over the little guy, the Fed is dooming both.
No wonder many top economists say that we should end – or strip most of the powers from – the Federal Reserve.
Even long-time Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan says that we should end the Fed.

A Better Alternative

Conservative and liberal economists both point out that the big banks are already state-sponsored institutions … so the government should create a little competition through public banking.
State-owned public banks – like North Dakota has – would take the power away from the big banks, and give it back to the people … as the Founding Fathers intended.
Even a 12-year old sees the wisdom of public banking.
And see this.

Police restrain crowd from taking food after supermarket eviction

wistv.com - Columbia, South Carolina |

AUGUSTA, GA (WFXG) - Law enforcement officials pushed back hundreds of people who were crowding around a large pile of merchandise outside an Augusta grocery store Tuesday afternoon.
But the goods sitting in the parking lot of the Laney Supermarket didn't make into anyone's hands.
Instead, the food people hoped to take home was tossed into the trash.
"People have children out here that are hungry, thirsty, could be anything. Why throw it away when you could be issuing it out?" asked Robertstine Lambert.
The Marshal of Richmond County, Steve Smith, says the food wasn't theirs to give away, so they had to trash it.
"We don't have authority to take possession of the property; we just have to make sure that it's handled, disposed of by law," Smith, said.
SunTrust Bank in Atlanta owns the property and they're sending the merchandise to the landfill after evicting the Chois, the owners of the grocery store.
The Chois didn't want to speak on camera but they say they were kicked out by the bank because they owe them thousands of dollars.
They say they offered the food to a church, but members didn't show up to claim it.
That's when word that store products were abandoned spread through the community.
About 300 people came to take merchandise home, but they were held back by law enforcement.  
"These are brand new items; we saw the potential for a riot was extremely high," said Sheriff Richard Roundtree.
Jennifer Santiago was forced to leave empty handed and she says trashing the merchandise is truly a waste.
"For them to do this is a low blow. A lot of people are sad, a lot of people aren't going to have food to put on their table; this is ridiculous," she said.
The Chois say they were notified by the bank on Friday that they would be evicted on Tuesday.
They say they didn't move out earlier because they wanted to work up to the last minute.

WATCH: Pissed Off Family Forecloses On Bank Of America

Since Moynihan says BofA does God's work.
Instead of Bank of America foreclosing on some Florida homeowner, the homeowners had sheriff's deputies foreclose on the bank.  It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn't owe a dime on their home.  The couple said they paid cash for the house.  The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn't owe Bank of America anything on the house.  In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay.
A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners', Maurenn Nyergers and her husband.
So, how did it end with bank being foreclosed on?  After more than 5 months of the judge's ruling, the bank still hadn't paid the legal fees, and the homeowner's attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He seized the bank's assets.
Continue reading...

UPDATE - Jon Stewart did a segment on this story:

• Jon Stewart - The Forecloser

Earlier today:

Moynihan: We're Doing God's Work At Bank Of America

Post analysis of Dow 30 firms shows declining tax burden as a share of profits

Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati-based company behind Pampers diapers and Tide detergent, reported a federal tax burden in 1969 that was 40 percent of its total profits, a typical rate in those days.
More than four decades later, P&G is a very different company, with operations that span the globe. It also reports paying a very different portion of its profits in federal taxes: 15 percent.

Graphic

Most of the companies in the Dow 30 have lower tax expenses over the years.

Related content:

An expected rewrite of the tax code has Washington’s influence industry ready to protect client interests.

The world’s biggest maker of consumer products isn’t the only one. Most of the 30 companies listed on the country’s most famous stock index, the Dow Jones industrial average, have seen a dramatically smaller percentage of their profits go to U.S. coffers over time, even as their share prices have driven the Dow to an all-time high.
A Washington Post analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ, a research firm, found that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, companies listed on the current Dow 30 routinely cited U.S. federal tax expenses that were 25 to 50 percent of their worldwide profits. Now, most are reporting less than half that share.
The reason is not simply a few loopholes tucked deep in the tax code. It’s far bigger: the slow but steady transformation of the American multinational after years of globalization. Companies now have an unprecedented ability to move their capital around the world, and the corporate tax code has not kept up with the changes.
Just the opposite, in fact. Experts say the U.S. code has encouraged companies to shift their income overseas, where it is more lightly taxed by the U.S. government. Many firms, in turn, have discovered that just as they can move their manufacturing to other parts of the world, so, too, can they shift their income to far-flung tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
The result is lower revenue here that could pay for infrastructure, education and other services that support domestic growth — and that make life easier for U.S. firms.
As momentum builds for President Obama and Congress to overhaul the corporate tax code, this steep decline in tax expenses as a share of profits is a critical factor in the debate. And increased globalization has made the task of fixing the tax code much more difficult than the country’s last overhaul, in 1986.
Executives have complained for years that their firms face the highest tax burden in the world, citing the United States’ 35 percent top corporate tax rate as the highest among developed economies.
P&G chief executive Bob McDonald was among 20 business executives — including other leaders of Dow 30 companies such as General Electric’s Jeffrey Immelt and Wal-Mart’s Michael Duke — who met with Obama in November to discuss the country’s fiscal issues, including the tax code.
The country needs to “make our tax system more competitive and . . . reduce the corporate tax rate,” P&G said in a statement ahead of the meeting.
Many companies argue that fixing the tax code would help improve economic growth, but that calculus has become more complicated as the interests of U.S. multinationals appear less neatly tethered to the interests of this country. This phenomenon has become especially clear during the economic recovery, with firms booking record profits while many American families still struggle with the wreckage from the Great Recession.

Why Leave Extra Money In A Bank? The FDIC Has Just $33 Billion To Insure More Than $10.8 Trillion In Deposits. You Are Lending To A Bank With ZERO Interest If You Are A Depositor

Money manager Peter Schiff says, “Cyprus is a wake-up call for everybody who has a bank deposit. . . . When you are depositor, you are in fact . . . lending your money to the bank.”  Schiff predicts, “There’s no question . . . banks will fail.  The question is will government do the right thing and allow depositors to lose money.  Or, do the wrong thing and bailout depositors by printing a bunch of money which, in the long run, means deposits will lose even more value.” ….
http://usawatchdog.com/why-leave-extra-money-in-a-bank-peter-schiff/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsaWatchdog+%28Greg+Hunter%E2%80%99s+USAWatchdog%29

Finally, banks raise money from depositors. Depositors get the lowest rate of interest, which is the tradeoff for having the strongest position in case of bankruptcy. In addition to not suffering any losses until all other classes of capital are zeroed out, depositors also enjoy a government guarantee today, at least up to a certain amount (€100,000 in the case of Cyprus)—so long as the government can pay. It is important to note that while the government maintains the fiction of a “fund” to cover such losses, in a bank crisis the losses are imposed on the taxpayers. Today in the US, for example, the FDIC has a tiny reserve to cover an enormous deposit base.




In the modern world, government bonds are the key security in the financial system. They are defined as the “risk free asset” by theory and regulatory practice. They are used as collateral for numerous other credit transactions. And banks hold them as core assets. Let’s focus on that. A bank borrows from depositors and buys a government bond (and not entirely by choice). There are two problems with this.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-27/cyprus-forced-bailout-deal

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/peter-schiff-why-leave-extra-money-in-a-bank-the-fdic-has-just-33-billion-to-insure-more-than-10-8-trillion-in-deposits-you-are-lending-to-a-bank-with-zero-interest-if-you-are-a-depositor/#tiT5Yqdw9JgrHIsW.99

We Are All Being Robbed On A Major Scale!

Excellent documentary about the shady world of tax free havens and money routes.

The Global Elite Are Very Clearly Telling Us That They Plan To Raid Our Bank Accounts

By Michael

Don’t be surprised when the global elite confiscate money from your bank account one day.  They are already very clearly telling you that they are going to do it.  Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem is the president of the Eurogroup – an organization of eurozone finance ministers that was instrumental in putting together the Cyprus “deal” – and he has said publicly that what has just happened in Cyprus will serve as a blueprint for future bank bailouts.  What that means is that when the chips are down, they are going to come after YOUR money.  So why should anyone put a large amount of money in the bank at this point?  Perhaps you can make one or two percent on your money if you shop around for a really good deal, but there is also a chance that 40 percent (or more) of your money will be confiscated if the bank fails.  And considering the fact that there are vast numbers of banks all over the United States and Europe that are teetering on the verge of insolvency, why would anyone want to take such a risk?  What the global elite have done is that they have messed around with the fundamental trust that people have in the banking system.  In order for any financial system to work, people must have faith in the safety and security of that financial system.  People put their money in the bank because they think that it will be safe there.  If you take away that feeling of safety, you jeopardize the entire system.
So exactly how did the big banks in Cyprus get into so much trouble?  Well, they have been doing exactly what hundreds of other large banks all over the U.S. and Europe have been doing.  They have been gambling with our money.  In particular, the big banks in Cyprus made huge bets on Greek sovereign debt which ended up failing.
But what happened in Cyprus is just the tip of the iceberg.  All over the planet major financial institutions are being incredibly reckless with client money.  They are leveraged to the hilt and they have transformed the global financial system into a gigantic casino.
If they win on their bets, they become fabulously wealthy.
If they lose on their bets, they know that the politicians won’t let the banks fail.  They know that they will get bailed out one way or another.
And who pays?
We do.
Either our tax dollars are used to fund a government-sponsored bailout, or as we have just witnessed in Cyprus, money is directly confiscated from our bank accounts.
And then the game begins again.
People need to understand that the precedent that has just been set in Cyprus is a game changer.
The next time that a major bank fails in Greece or Italy or Spain (or in the United States for that matter), the precedent that has been set in Cyprus will be looked to as a “template” for how to handle the situation.
Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem has even publicly admitted that what just happened in Cyprus will serve as a model for future bank bailouts.  Just check out what he said a few days ago…

“If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?’. If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders”

Dijsselbloem insists that this will cause people “to think about the risks” before they put their money somewhere…

“It will force all financial institutions, as well as investors, to think about the risks they are taking on because they will now have to realise that it may also hurt them. The risks might come towards them.”

Well, as depositors in Cyprus just found out, there is a risk that you could lose 40 percent (and that is the best case scenario) of your money if you put it in the bank.
Why would anyone want to take that risk – especially in a nation that is already experiencing very serious financial troubles such as Greece, Italy or Spain?
As if that was not enough, Dijsselbloem later went in front of the Dutch parliament and publicly defended a wealth tax like the one that was just imposed in Cyprus.
Dijsselbloem is being widely criticized, and rightfully so.  But at least he is being more honest that many other politicians.  His predecessor as the head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, once said that “you have to lie” to the people in order to keep the financial markets calm…

Mr. Dijsselbloem’s style contrasts with that of his predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister, who spoke in a low mumble at news conferences and was expert at sidestepping questions. Mr. Juncker once even advocated lying as a way to prevent financial markets from panicking—as they did Monday after Mr. Dijsselbloem’s comments.
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie,” Mr. Juncker said in April 2011. “If you have pre-indicated possible decisions, you are feeding speculation in the financial markets.”

But Dijsselbloem is certainly not the only one among the global elite that is admitting what is coming next.  Just check out what Joerg Kraemer, the chief economist at Commerzbank, recently told Handelsblatt about what he believes should be done in Italy…

“A tax rate of 15 percent on financial assets would probably be enough to push the Italian government debt to below the critical level of 100 percent of gross domestic product”

Yikes!
And as I wrote about the other day, the Finance Minister of New Zealand is proposing that bank account holders in his nation should be required to “take a haircut” if any banks in his nation fail.
They are telling us what they plan to do.
They are telling us that they plan to raid all of our bank accounts when the global financial system fails.
And calling it a “haircut” does not change the fact of what it really is.  The truth is that when they confiscate money from our bank accounts it is outright theft.  Just check out what the Daily Mail had to say about the situation in Cyprus…

People who rob old ladies in the street, or hold up security vans, are branded as thieves. Yet when Germany presides over a heist of billions of pounds from private savers’ Cyprus bank accounts, to ‘save the euro’ for the hundredth time, this is claimed as high statesmanship.
It is nothing of the sort. The deal to secure a €10?billion German bailout of the bankrupt Mediterranean island is one of the nastiest and most immoral political acts of modern times.
It has struck fear into the hearts of hundreds of millions of European citizens, because it establishes a dire precedent.

And when you cause paralysis in the banking system, a once thriving economy can freeze up almost overnight.  The following is an excerpt from a report from someone that is actually living over in Cyprus…

As it stands now, nowhere in Cyprus accepts credit or debit cards anymore for fear of not being paid, it is CASH ONLY. Businesses have stopped functioning because they cannot pay employees OR pay for the stock they receive because the banks are closed. If the banks remain closed, the economy will be destroyed and STOP COMPLETELY. Looting, robberies and theft are already on the rise. If the banks open now, there will be a massive run on the bank, and the banks will FAIL loosing all of its deposits, also causing an economic crash. TONIGHT there are demonstrations at most street corners and especially at the parliament building (just 2 miles from me).
Many are thinking that the ECB and EU are allowing Cyprus to fail as a test ground for new financial standards.
Just wanted all you guys to know the real story of whats going on here. Prayers are appreciated (although this is very interesting to watch) many of my local friends have lots of money in the banks.

Would similar things happen in the United States if there was a major banking crisis someday?
That is something to think about.
In any event, the problems in the rest of Europe continue to get even worse…
-The stock market in Greece is crashing.  It is down by more than 10 percent over the past two days.
-The stock markets in Italy and Spain are experiencing huge declines as well.  Banking stocks are being hit particularly hard.
-The Bank of Spain says that the Spanish economy will sink even deeper into recession this year.
-The latest numbers from the Spanish government show that Spain’s debt problem is rapidly getting worse…

“The central government’s interest bill surged 15 percent last year to 26 billion euros, while tax receipts slumped 21 percent. The cost of servicing debt represented 30 percent of the taxes collected at the end of December, up from 20 percent a year earlier.”

-The euro took quite a tumble on Thursday and the euro will likely continue to decline steadily in the weeks and months to come.
For a very long time I have been warning that the next major wave of the economic collapse is going to originate in Europe.
Hopefully people are starting to see what I am talking about.
As this point, the major banks in Europe are leveraged about 26 to 1, and that is close to the kind of leverage that Lehman Brothers had when it finally collapsed.  As a whole, European banks are drowning in debt, they are taking risks that are almost incomprehensible and now faith in those banks has been greatly undermined by what has happened in Cyprus.
Anyone that cannot see a crisis coming in Europe simply does not understand the financial world.  A moment of reckoning is rapidly approaching for Europe.  The following is from a recent article by Graham Summers…

At the end of the day, the reason Europe hasn’t been fixed is because CAPITAL SIMPLY ISN’T THERE. Europe and its alleged backstops are out of money. This includes Germany, the ECB and the mega-bailout funds such as the ESM.
Germany has already committed to bailouts that equal 5% of its GDP. The single largest transfer payment ever made by one country to another was the Marshall Plan in which the US transferred an amount equal to 5% of its GDP. Germany WILL NOT exceed this. So don’t count on more money from Germany.
The ECB is chock full of garbage debts which have been pledged as collateral for loans. If anyone of significance defaults in Europe, the ECB is insolvent. Sure it can print more money, but once the BIG collateral call hits, money printing is useless because the amount of money the ECB would have to print would implode the system.
And then of course there are the mega bailout funds such as the ESM. The only problem here is that Spain and Italy make up 30% of the ESM’s supposed “funding.” That’s right, nearly one third of the mega-bailout fund’s capital will come from countries that are bankrupt themselves.
What could go wrong?

Right now, close to half of all money that is on deposit at banks in Europe is uninsured.  As people move that uninsured money out of the banks, the amount of money that will be required to “fix the banks” will go up even higher.
It would be wise to try to avoid the big banks at this point – especially those with very large exposure to derivatives.  Any financial institution that uses customer money to make reckless bets is not to be trusted.
If you can find a small local bank or credit union to do business with you will probably be better off.
And don’t think that this kind of thing can never happen in the United States.
One of the key players that was pushing the idea of a “wealth tax” in Cyprus was the IMF.  And everyone knows that the IMF is heavily dominated by the United States.  In fact, the headquarters of the IMF is located right in the heart of Washington D.C. not too far from the White House.  When I worked in D.C. I would walk by the IMF headquarters quite a bit.
So if the United States thought that confiscating money from bank accounts was a great idea in Cyprus, why wouldn’t they implement such a thing here under similar circumstances?
The global elite are telling us what they plan to do, and the game has dramatically changed.
Move your money while you still can.
Unfortunately, it is already too late for the people of Cyprus.

Moynihan: We're Doing God's Work At Bank Of America

Holy shite.  Moynihan makes the Blankfein mistake.
Preview for tonight's Charlie Rose.  Watch the first 30 seconds and then skip to 1:25 where he discusses the bailout.

"I believe we have an obligation to help everybody.  Help people who need help.  You know it comes from some of the Judeo-Christian training, and going to Notre Dame, you know all that kind of stuff."

"Banks are big because we reflect the economy."
---
March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan discusses restructuring the firm's balance sheet, shifting focus from acquisitions to being "only about organic growth" and working with mortgage customers to reduce foreclosures.
What a supreme douchebag considering how BofA destroys lives.

Cyprus Personal Bank Account Raids - Eurozone Chief Suggests More Could Come!

shar.es/dWoNQ  via @sharethis

BOA Is Calling Me On The Phone Asking Me To Sign Up For A Checking Account!

I haven’t banked there in years! I had a joint checking account with my mother there in HIGH SCHOOL and I closed it years ago. They still have my information.
So I go down to a branch office to tell them in person I am not interested and to stop emailing and calling. I never liked the bank due to their fees. They charge you to talk to a teller, they charge you to cash checks, they had no overdraft protection when I was with them, etc…
While standing in line I notice a woman with a check board asking people if they have accounts with BOA and if not, would they like to sign up. She hassles me with questions. I say I’m not interested and I am here to tell you that.
I get to the window and I tell the lady that I am being called and hassled about opening an account with BOA. I tell her to please remove me from all the call sheets. She apologies for any inconvenience they have caused. I point to the woman shaking down people in line and ask the teller about it. The woman says:
“We are trying to sign up as many people as we can”
Why would they need to do this? To generate revenue from any source possible, mostly from people they can milk. Then this morning I read this (from March 9th):
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/03/05/the-invisible-hole-in-bank-of-americas-balance-she.aspx

Anonymous

Eurozone Bank Crisis is Back on; Now Depositors are Robbed in Spain

Before It’s News – by muckracker 1
Significant contagion has appeared in the first 24 hours after the Cyprus bank crisis “resolution,” with the forced bankruptcy of a large Spanish bank inclusive of a partial wipeout of depositors, and the pounding of bank stocks on the markets of Spain and Italy. Trading in bank stocks had to be halted multiple times in both countries to slow the plunge, and a downgrade of Italian sovereign credit by ratings agencies appears imminent. The euro currency also fell sharply, including — ironically — against the Russian ruble.  
Already overnight yesterday, there were commentaries by leading figures such as former ECB chief economist Juergen Stark and major dailies such as the Irish Independent and London’s Guardian, that the Cyprus bank bailout was not large enough, the shutdown of number-two Cyprus Popular Bank, or Laiki, would be followed by number-one Bank of Cyprus and a collapse of the Cypriot economy. But the contagion is turning out not to be “contained” to Cyprus, as Ben Bernanke once famously forecast of the U.S. mortgage meltdown.
A significant trigger was a very damaging admission by the President of the so-called Eurogroup, Netherlands Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Reuters’ headline of the interview with Dijsselbloem, “Cyprus a Template for the EU,” was a warning to bank depositors Europe-wide that their deposits could and would be lost in any bank that became a target for “resolution.”
Dijsselbloem said, “What we’ve done last night is what I call pushing back the risks. If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalize yourself?’ If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalizing the bank — and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”
Even as Dijsselbloem spoke there was a forced bank failure in Spain in which depositors lost their money. The Wall Street Journal reported today that of the banks effectively nationalized under the government lending agency FROB 18 months ago, a big one (Bankia) and a small one (Catalunya) are being bankrupted and taken over by FROB, apparently with a EU40 billion bailout loan from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). This was ordered by European Commission after FROB failed in an attempt to sell Catalunya. The FROB will effectively own all the stock in the restructured banks, with the existing stockholders and junior bondholders losing 99.5% of their investments.
But in the Bankia case the stockholders include large numbers of depositors, conned into buying Bankia stock with their deposits in 2011-12, and now losing those deposits. This was precisely the widespread bank practice exposed in the United States in 1933 by the famous “Pecora hearings” in the Senate Banking Committee, and then prohibited under the Glass-Steagall Act.  SEE VIDEO
http://beforeitsnews.com/banksters/2013/03/eu-highway-robbery-and-haircuts-going-international-depositors-in-spain-getting-robbed-2432838.html

French unemployment rate nears 1997 record high

http://www.france24.com/en/20130326-french-unemployment-rate-nears-1997-record-high-economy

The number of unemployed people in France rose to 3.187 million in February, the labour ministry announced Tuesday, nearly reaching a record high set in January 1997.

By News Wires (text)

 

The number of unemployed in France rose by 18,400 in February to 3.187 million, the labour ministry said Tuesday, a level just shy of a record reached in 1997.
Unemployment in the eurozone's second largest economy hit its modern day record of 3.195 million in January 1997.
It is a major challenge for Socialist President Francois Hollande, who has pledged to curb the unemployment rate from the current level of more than 10 percent to a single-digit figure by December.
The rise in February represents a 0.6 percent month-on-month increase and a 10.8 percent rise annually. The ministry said workers over 50 were the worst hit.
(AFP)

EU to Bank Depositors in Other Member States: You Could Be Next

The fascist Borg collective is through effing around.
Via: Telegraph:
Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe’s single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.
The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.
The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, announced that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.
“If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?’,” he said.
“If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”

Bank Forecloses On Elderly Woman Over $49 in Unpaid Taxes

And the taxes were actually paid...

Joe Wright
Activist Post

There are some stories that are so over the top as an example of the brazen disregard for human dignity that they defy imagination. But, we know that truth is stranger than fiction . . . and this latest event is certainly proof of that.

Foreclosure fraud has become institutionalized within a corrupt banking structure; it began at the top with banks such as BoA and has trickled down into nearly every community. For example, one couple had their home in Tampa foreclosed on even after they had paid off the full amount in cash. Countless others have been victims of mortgage payment modification schemes.

However, the predatory nature of what is happening to 75-year-old Aron Ezilla Ridge in Travis County, Texas might in fact be what one news outlet is calling "The Saddest Story You Have Ever Heard." This story involves a mortgage company, but it also has a scary link to property taxes that should raise questions about the very nature of home ownership.

Back in 2010, at the peak of "Foreclosure-Gate," a few members of the banking consortium went on record to deny their responsibility for creating a system that might have given mortgage holders a raw deal:

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, whose bank is implicated in the scandal, said this week in a conference call that there have been no accidental evictions. “We’re not evicting people who deserve to stay in their house,” the multimillionaire banker declared. 

“If you didn’t pay your mortgage, you shouldn’t be in your house. Period,” Walter Todd of the investment advisory firm Greenwood Capital Associates, told Reuters. 

“Everyone’s responsible for following the law. If we all don’t have to pay our mortgage, should we just stop paying taxes, too?” said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisers. (Source)

Interestingly enough, even if you follow the law (and pay your taxes) as the above paragons of ethics assert, apparently your home can still be taken by sleight of hand and/or bureaucratic ineptitude. Such is the case with elderly and infirm Aron Ezilla Ridge, who is debilitated in a variety of ways as Courthouse News reports:

Ridge is partly blind, has diabetes, congestive heart failure and had surgery for colon cancer several years ago. 

"She needs a wheelchair to leave her home and is largely housebound at this point in her life," the complaint states. "She can read but her reading level is approximately at the 6th grade level and her ability to read is, of course, further limited by her failing eyesight."

Regardless, she had paid off her mortgage 20 years ago, but needed repairs for which she did not have the immediate cash. She entered into an agreement for a "reverse mortgage" of $39,000 with a nationwide mortgage lender called James B. Nutter & Co.

A reverse mortgage is geared toward those who are 62 years and older, and essentially serves as a revolving credit line with title still held by the homeowner rather than with the lender as it would for a typical mortgage. Instead of the borrower making payments, the lender pays the borrower with the promise that the loan is to be paid at the time of death or sale.

It hasn't been so cut-and-dried for Ms. Ridge who is now the plaintiff in a case against James B. Nutter & Co. after payment of her property taxes came into question.

Ridge says she was told by the Travis County Tax Assessor's office in 2000 that she did not need to pay property taxes because the value of her home was below homestead and senior exemption caps. 

But she received a property tax bill in 2011 for $20.31. She says she was able to drive to the assessor's office and pay the taxes in full and on time. 

In April 2012, the assessor's office informed her that her home was valued at $60,743 and that her taxes were estimated at $46.87, according to the complaint. 

Ridge says she did not receive a tax bill, but later received a receipt stating that $49 in taxes were paid in late 2012. 

"She assumed that the receipt meant she was again exempt from property taxes," the complaint states. "She did not call the tax office to see why she had received a receipt without having received a bill."

This confusion, which has every indication that it was created by an outside party, gave an opening for Nutter & Co. to pounce via the "acceleration clause."

In January this year, Nutter's attorneys told Ridge her reverse mortgage had been accelerated, and that she had to pay off the entire loan "or the lender would exercise its right to enforce the lien on her home." 

Ms. Ridge's home officially went into foreclosure Jan. 30th, 2013.

Unbeknownst to many older homeowners who take out reverse mortgages (especially those who have a 6th-grade reading level), an acceleration clause is there to ensure immediate payment. However, it is supposed to only be triggered upon the sale of the home, or death. Nutter & Co. are invoking this due to supposedly unpaid taxes. Ironically, Financial Web defines this clause in the following way:

At that point, the proceeds from the sale of the house, or the life insurance policy will have to pay for the remaining balance on the reverse mortgage. Many lenders also have an acceleration that is tied to fraud as well. (emphasis added) [Source]

The wording of Ms. Ridge's exact contract would have to be examined, but it seems way outside the normal, ethical boundaries to invoke an accelerated payment due to unpaid property taxes . . . and even that fact is in question. This certainly appears to be one of those contracts "tied to fraud" that is mentioned above.

"The only property to which the application could possibly refer were the taxes for 2012 - which were not due until January 31, 2013. Yet defendant intended to enforce its right to foreclose on Ms. Ridge's home because she had not paid $49.00, which at the time the application was filed, was not due yet."

It's hard to imagine this situation getting any more convoluted . . . but it does. Not only is the lender looking for immediate payment of the original loan of $39,000, the company seeks that amount, plus interest, fees, and subsequent attorney's fees that total more than the actual appraised value of her home. In essence, she couldn't even sell the home (or die) to pay off what is being demanded.

 Ms. Ridge has signed on with an attorney who appears to be taking this very seriously and is going on the offensive in just about every way possible. Courthouse News lists the following that is being sought on her behalf:

. . . actual and punitive damages, an injunction and declaratory relief for wrongful foreclosure, breach of contract, negligence, real estate fraud, unjust enrichment, attempted conversion and violations of the Unfair Debt Collection Act and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

Let's hope this sad story has a happier ending. We'll keep you posted. Please use the comment section below to tell us if you, or someone you know has been faced with a similar predatory lender.

Rick Santelli Speaks To The Nature of Government Programs 'It's All About Incentives'

shar.es/dWbmf  via @sharethis

Bank Manager Verifies Cash Withdrawal Limits & Reduced Hours Coming To US Banks Within 60 Days

Gentlemen:
Just received a call from a highly agitated bank manager who stated that within 60 days, banks will be greatly reducing their hours, days of operation, amount of withdrawals and a requirement to fill out "paperwork" if the amount is questioned by bank officials. Unless the form is completed, money will not be disbursed. What really irritated this manager is that after hearing our statements on the air, and receiving years of assurance that our positions and contacts were so much bravo sierra, now he hears from corporate people that it is apparently true after all. He said, "screw them, grab the money while you can." The parameters given were banks open two days a week for four to five hours with below minimum staffs, increased security and greatly reduced amounts of actual cash in the vault. Amount of withdrawal will be held to $500-2000 per day per customer account--not customer. So my account could only have either my wife or I withdraw, not both. That level could change at ANY time. There is no plan (at least known) for automatic confiscation from accounts--yet, and he said that the banks hold the "ownership" authority and final disposition of any items found in safety deposit boxes. (surprise, surprise!) Withholding mortgage payments could result in expedited (30) day foreclosures and 15 day Sheriff's locks on your front door.
The Federal Reserve could and will initiate other more draconian restrictions on all aspects of "private" banking and access to any property held by banks. It could include forfeiture of your primary (paid for) residence if your summer cottage has a mortgage and you fail to pony up to keeping it current or any forthcoming restrictions on your accounts.
Clearly, the only option is to close accounts or only keep funds that can be paid instantly to keep electric, water, or other critical accounts paid. Cash will be drying up---so, unless people hold precious metals, bullets (the new currency) or medicines, etc., you are screwed. Barter will be king. As the Colonel said yesterday, "the universe is contracting into the black hole. There is no way to escape its pull." (Political/economic/social order black hole) Received at 1545 hours
20 March 2013
The Lawman

http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=33&d=325

State Worker Gets $400k+ Salary For Life

shar.es/dW3Mo  via @sharethis

If Alan Greenspan Wants To 'End The Fed', Times Must Be Changing

For a long time, gold standard advocates in the United States have had differing viewpoints about whether a new gold standard system might take place with existing institutions, such as the Federal Reserve, or whether it would take place with new institutions, and the Federal Reserve would in effect be disbanded or rendered irrelevant.
During the 1980s or 1990s, it seemed politically impossible to even consider a situation in which the existing monetary plumbing would be torn out and replaced with some “free banking system” or other such solution. The Fed, under Greenspan and Volcker, seemed to have a pretty good handle on things. The economy was doing well and people were enjoying a Great Bull Market in both stocks and bonds. This was not the time when you throw everything overboard for some goofy new idea.

Instead, the notion then was that the Fed was, in effect, mimicking a gold standard anyway. The end effect of Volcker and Greenspan’s management was that the value of the dollar was stable vs. gold around $350/oz. during those decades. The argument was that this goal could be achieved in a far better way by simply linking the dollar’s value to gold directly, as was the case with the $35/oz. Bretton Woods parity of the 1950s and 1960s.
As Alan Greenspan said during his last talk before the House Financial Affairs Committee in July 2005:

“And, indeed, since the late ’70s, central bankers generally have behaved as though we were on the gold standard.”

Ridiculous? In July 2005, the value of the dollar vs. gold averaged $424/oz. In August 1987, when Greenspan arrived at the Fed, it averaged $450/oz. Point-to-point, over the eighteen years of Greenspan’s tenure, the result was just as if the U.S. was on a gold standard system. The problem was all the volatility and uncertainty in between. We just wanted Greenspan and the Fed to “behave as though we were on a gold standard” a little more rigorously.
Also, the gold standard advocates of the 1980s and 1990s were a pretty kooky bunch, pounding the table for all kinds of “100% pure gold standard system” notions that were honestly rather laughable, and unusable in practice. What they called a “gold standard” did not resemble any actual gold standard system in use in the previous two centuries. Among a more sober and sophisticated crowd, these people got the attention they deserved, namely: zero.
Today, however, the situation is different. The Federal Reserve seems to be ambling along a well-trod path to rampant currency debauchment. Historically, the currency manager in these situations is indeed replaced, whether the Reichsbank of 1920s Germany (replaced by the Rentenbank) or the U.S. Federal government-issued Continental Dollar, replaced by a free banking system and, in fact, a new Federal government.
Also, gold standard advocates these days seem to have outgrown some of their more imaginative (read: stupid) notions of past decades. I think more progress needs to be made here, but most proposals I see today are actually quite sensible at their core.
Let’s see what Alan Greenspan has been saying recently:

“We have at this particular stage a fiat money which is essentially money printed by a government and it’s usually a central bank which is authorized to do so. Some mechanism has got to be in place that restricts the amount of money which is produced, either a gold standard or a currency board, because unless you do that all of history suggest that inflation will take hold with very deleterious effects on economic activity… There are numbers of us, myself included, who strongly believe that we did very well in the 1870 to 1914 period with an international gold standard.”

In the same January 2011 interview, Greenspan apparently wondered out loud if we even require a central bank!
When Alan Greenspan starts to talk about “End the Fed,” things are changing.
Even those who thought that keeping the Fed was the politically most appropriate path would have probably concurred that a more ideal solution would be to replace it. Any country has potential problems with a monopoly currency issuer, and the Fed was a highly suspect institution from its inception in 1913.
Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island is an excellent account of how the Fed came into being. The fact that this 1994 book is, today, the #2 bestselling book in Amazon.com‘s Banks and Banking category, the #2 bestselling book in the Economic Policy and Development category, and the #4 bestselling book in the Economic Policy category, shows why crowds start chanting “End the Fed” wherever Ron Paul turns up, with no prompting from him.
In recent years, any attentive watcher has noticed that the Fed has been working rather closely with certain “Too Big to Fail” banks, in ways that are not necessarily in the public’s best interest. The fact that the Fed is likely heavily influenced by a certain well-known European banking family — a criticism that president Andrew Jackson applied to its predecessor the Second Bank of the United States, just before he killed it — is all the more reason to eliminate its influence in U.S. affairs.
As a member of the “keep the Fed” camp in prior years, it seems to me now that we will most likely come to that point, in not too many years, where replacing the Fed will be the best and even the easiest path.
We are not there yet. First, the Federal Reserve, and similar institutions worldwide, will have to make enough egregious mistakes that the public’s desire to expel them becomes unstoppable. This would be unpleasant, but as even mainstream Wall Street types conclude that the Fed is probably “locked in” to continuing debt monetization for the forseeable future, that now seems like a more and more probable outcome.
Besides, it’s plain embarrassing for Alan Greenspan to be out ahead of me on this issue.
End the Fed.

BRICS plan development bank to rival World Bank

Leaders of world's emerging economies gather in South Africa to discuss proposal to challenge World Bank and IMF domination.

World Bulletin/News Desk

The BRICS, the group of fast-growing emerging markets, meets for the first time on African soil in the South African city of Durban. At their fifth summit, they are to discuss the setup of a development bank to overhaul the global financial system.
BRICS emerging powers sought a deal on setting up a development bank that would rival Western-backed institutions, trying to iron out significant differences ahead of a leaders' summit in Durban.
The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and hosts South Africa are racing to elaborate on proposals for an infrastructure-focused lender that would challenge seven decades of dominance by the World Bank.
The umbrella theme for the two-day summit is called “BRICS and Africa - Partnership for integration and Industrialization."
Economic data shows that the grouping of Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa now account for 25 percent of global GDP and 40 percent of the world's population.
The major outcome of this year’s summit is expected to be the announcement of the formation of the BRICS Development Bank (BDB). Originally proposed as an institution at last year’s New Delhi summit, the organization’s “strategic goal is to transform the aging international financial architecture,” Mikhail Margelov, President Putin’s envoy to Africa was quoted by Bloomberg.
If the leaders succeed it would be the first time since the inaugural BRICS summit four years ago that the group matches rhetorical demands for a more equitable global order with concrete steps.
That would send a loud message to the US and European nations that the current global balance of power is unworkable.
Diplomats say it could start with $10bn seed money from each country, but the exact role of the bank is up for debate, according to Al Jazeera.
China, Brazil sign deal to trade in own currencies
Meanwhile, BRICS members China and Brazil agreed on Tuesday to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the U.S. dollar zone.
The agreement, due to last three years and signed hours before the start of a BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, marked a step by the two largest economies of the emerging powers group to make real changes to global trade flows long dominated by the United States and Europe.
"Our interest is not to establish new relations with China, but to expand relations to be used in the case of turbulence in financial markets," Brazilian Central Bank Governor Alexandre Tombini told reporters after the signing.
Trade between the two countries totalled around $75 billion in 2012. Brazilian officials have said they hope to have the trade and currency deal operating in the second half of 2013.
At the summit, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are widely expected to endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool. They are also due to discuss trade and investment relations with Africa.

Fluffer Lackeys, High Rent Boys and Dead, very Dead Children.

Dog Poet Transmitting.......

May your noses always be cold and wet.

There are two ways to look at what's happening in the world economic theater. One perspective is that the bloated Banker Fiends are so suffused with arrogance that they are behaving like ravenous pigs, who just had a big meal tend to act, when the prospect of another big meal, looms in some distant, or nearby, trough. Or, preferably, they are running scared and hoping that snarling up everyone else's economic access, along with Homeland Security going bullet crazy, they will have the necessary time frame to escape to some rattlesnake bolthole, where they can feast on their stolen swag and possibly on each other, further down the road.

One thing is obvious, nothing we are being told is true or more than half of the story. The Crass Media says one thing, the alternative speculators say something else but... where was I? What is apparent to me intuitively is that different factions of evil swine are making war on each other. For instance, the declaration of taking a certain percentage of funds from those with over a hundred thousand in the bank is telling. There's all kinds of nasty shit going on in the background cause the vile , vile vampires of Rothschild and otherwise ilk, are being powerfully motivated and manipulated by the one meant to bring them down, who coincidentally is the one they serve. This was all choreographed some while ago but they are only getting hipped to it now...

...Just like our being hipped to dimensional shifts, since that is where our interests lie, they are being hipped to their manifest destiny, where they get to dance with Mr. Ugly at the Overlook Hotel. There are some deserving vermin about, who have been stinking up the joint for centuries. This includes the Central Bankers, the Satanists; both of these first two are mutually inclusive and the fluffer lackeys in official positions whose job is to get them hard before they do you. This latter group includes people like Bwak! Obama, Biden, gay blackmail victim, Lindsey Graham, John Kerry, the Clintons ...and across the pond, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and all the high rent boys, who like to dress up in black and crimson robes, with ceremonial daggers and cut the hearts out of prepubescent children, in the hopes that those invisible demons, who drink the atmosphere of the gushing blood, will favor them with one material tidbit or another.

There are many tales told about soldiers seeing ghouls and other half visible things, feeding upon the dead, in the aftermath of great battles. There is a great power in blood, whether it is what happens when the blood of a martyr hits the Earth, or when beasts without conscience perform their evil deeds in homage to the dark side. Make no mistake, so many of the twisted things you hear about those creatures like Lord Mandelson and others being engaged in, is only a portion of the story. The kind of things going on in rural country retreats, by the dark of the moon, that involve politicians, religious figures and high ranking law enforcement are the sort of thing you might see in X-rated versions of Tales from the Crypt.

The thing that has to be understood about Kali Yuga is that it is a time when every excess is permitted for the purpose of demonstration. As Hassan I-Sabbah was wont to say, “nothing is real, everything is permitted”. We don't have to so engage, nor do we have to close our eyes and shuffle by in fear and cowardice, concerning what manner of harm these twisted freaks can visit upon us. I'm going to insert two quotes from 'the good book' here, “Greater is that which is in you than that which is in the world” and also, to paraphrase, “If the divine is for me, who can be against me”? What makes us vulnerable; forget the concept of an overseeing grand authority for the moment, is when we become divided from ourselves. This puts you at cross purposes with your best interest and causes you to be easily manipulated by those who mean you harm. They either carrot and stick you, or they toss a cover-slip of fear over your shoulders. You are supposed to be in the driver's seat, not being dragged behind the car. You are supposed to be sitting on the throne of your own being, not cast out of the castle and wandering like an itinerant amnesiac in search of an answer and an explanation. We are high born beings with limitless potential, not drudges in a chain gang, sharing in the collective delusion that evil psychopaths have some kind of license to rule and abuse us.

Generally, except in extraordinary times, the general population cannot be brought to a state of awareness, concerning what is under discussion here. Ergo, those blessed, as the result of good karma, with some degree of awakened awareness, must seek each other out and find collective shelter, at some remove, from the radical transformations that are fast approaching in the death of the age. The writing on the wall is enhanced by events, occurring 'off the wall'. The force of exposure is sweeping across the landscape.

There are disturbing trends on the horizon that will shortly become epidemic. Food and fuel are two levers that are to be employed by the fading powers. They well know that their biggest threat comes from an aroused and angry populace. They've got two courses under consideration; eliminate a good part of the population or so effectively confuse and distract them that they run around in circles and go after each other. That's always worked in the past. Too bad this isn't the past as it was but the present as it is. I'm suffused with an unflagging optimism. I can't state in bold, bullet points why that is. It's operative but not visible, much like a watch face that conceals the gears that keeps the time. Of course they do make watches that don't have a face, just the hands moving over the gears turning. I don't have that kind of watch but, 'I'm not into time' anyway. Being into time means doing time, with or without bars on the window.

The information war is heating up. Exposes are winging their way across the screen. Exhortations are on the move. Permanent residents in the Kingdom of Dumbass, with plastic Jesus welded into their foreheads, as if they were some kind of contemporary unicorn from a fractured fairytale, are not likely to get much clarity at this point but... you never know. However, their waking up to their state would almost certainly ignite a chain letter of spontaneous heart attacks. Seeing things as they are can often prove fatal to those so heavily invested in seeing things as they are not. What do I know? Could well be it all turns out entirely different. You got financial and political tsunamis and you got real tsunamis. You got financial and political earthquakes and you got real earthquakes. You got economic and political flaming comets and you got real flaming comets. Maybe we get one or the other or maybe we get both.

The consideration is not what's coming, or what may be coming but, more so, where you are standing when it arrives. That is predicated on what is resident in your heart and mind because those are the attractors that are responsible for environment. We've all heard the sayings that everything is inside you. What doesn't get said often enough is; if everything is inside you then you can control everything outside you from within. The world outside is an expression of the world inside. Like the premise behind, 'as a man thinketh'. The sands of time are resonant with quotes that continue to ring across the span of history and they continue to ring because they are true ...but they mean no more to most of us than do the words etched into the arches of our hallowed institutions. We see the words but they are just words. Occasionally they flare up in the hearts of flag waving, weekend patriots, who distort their meaning, having been spoon fed the usual lies from their Zionist masters, whom they celebrate as the chosen offspring of the divine, which all results in a comic, ironic mockery of the truth because those they celebrate are the offspring of Satan and what this implies is that that is who they worship too. This accounts for all the prosperity evangelists and the enormous amount of money bilked out of those too stupid to see through the charade. Welcome to Scamalot.

You can't get sucked into anything unless you want some part of what is sucking you in. That's why they say, “You can't cheat an honest man”. Everything that happens to us has something to do with the way we see things and the value we put on them. Everything that populates our world has the identity we conferred upon it. We really do live in a world of our own creation. Once again the power of “I don't know” rears its useful head. The process of unknowing things that you formerly knew, sets you free of the mislabeling confinements you locked yourself up in. We are all prisoners of what we think we know. The fact is that we don't know anything and if we can get ourselves to the point where understanding that makes sense to us, we can be put into the position where what things actually are reveal themselves to us through a simple act of focused concentration. We let things speak to us rather than talking at them. Ancient and indigenous cultures understood and understand this and it accounts for the way they go about things. That way of doing things is distinctly different from the usual windshield awareness experienced at Metrosexual Central.

The key to grasping the composition of illusion, lies in understanding the sex force and the way our perceptions of it are managed by those who seek to control us. It's an interesting exercise to take some time and look at everything that happens and exists as some permutation of the sex force and that the majority of these are aberrations and perversions of it, given the time frame we occupy. People tell me Kali Yuga is over. I have only to walk down the street to confirm to myself that it is not over. It might be ending and we may only be in the thundering echo of its passage but it's still here and you've got your head buried in a sand-hill of wishful thinking, if you imagine otherwise. It will end though and nothing says some of us can't start living in the coming age right now, if our heads and hearts are in the right place.

End Transmission........