Portugal bankers warn EU to stop ‘playing with fire’

The heads of Portugal’s biggest banks Millenium BCP and Banco Espirito Santo, have called on European leaders to stop “playing with fire” and alarming depositors in Eurozone economies.
The top bankers expressed concern that the treatment of Cyprus
has set a new precedent and as a result nervousness in the region
is reaching dangerous levels.
“Leaders need to moderate their language. This could be very
bad,” Ricardo Espírito Santo Salgado, chief executive of Banco
Espirito Santo, told the Financial Times.
“If someone had designed a plan to hurt the European market, it
would be difficult to think of something better.  You can’t keep
playing with fire,” President of Millenium BCP, Nuno Amado
said, talking about a “Cyprus virus.”
In March Cypriot account holders were told to take a cut on their
savings so that their government could qualify for a bailout
package from the troika of international lenders.

The impact of the shock decision is still being felt in Portugal
and other Eurozone countries, economist Tobias Blattner told RT,
stressing that EU leaders need to come up a concrete plan before
they meet for an EU Summit in June this year.
“There is a very strong consensus that the Cypriot bail-out was
certainly not made in the best way, because it was made in
unpredictable way and I think it clearly rose to the uncertainty
among investors everywhere in euroarea. So there is a strong
consensus there should be a bail-in, which is certainly something
good in a long run but it should be according to clear spelled out
rules and that essence it’s now very important that leaders in
summit in June at the very latest will come out with a very clear
bail-in packing order that uninsured depositors will not be hit in
any restructuring of banks in euroarea in the future.”
This article originally appeared on : RT

The Currency War Is Bullish For Gold

The Currency War Is Bullish For Gold

Jeff Gundlach: “We Are Drowning In Central Banking”

Star bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach says central banks around the world are distorting markets with enormous and ever-increasing quantitative easing programs, which he doesn’t see ending anytime soon.

Ax hovers over food stamp program as costs grow

Getty Images file

A sign in a market window advertises the acceptance of food stamps in New York City.

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News
A heated battle is brewing on Capitol Hill over cuts to the food stamp program, with lawmakers quoting Bible verses at each other and benefits for millions of people hanging in the balance.
Nearly 47 million people – one in seven Americans – rely on food stamps for some or all of their daily sustenance, according to the Department of Agriculture, a number that has grown nearly 70 percent since the financial collapse of 2008.  
The increased enrollment has caused costs to soar from $35 billion in 2007 to $80 billion last year, and now lawmakers in both the House and the Senate are targeting program for cuts even as advocates cry foul.
Legislation making its way through Congress would eliminate billions of dollars in funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps. Last week, a Senate committee approved striking $4.1 billion from the program over 10 years and a House committee backed cuts five times as large.
Those actions set the stage for a congressional showdown not only over how much to slash the program, but also over the role of government in fighting hunger and poverty.
During contentious debate over the Farm Bill, which funds food stamps, in the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., invoked the Book of Matthew as he noted his opposition to the cuts.
“[Jesus] says how you treat the least among us, the least of our brothers, that’s how you treat him,” Vargas, adding that Jesus specifically mentions the importance of feeding the hungry.
Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,” he said.
The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the House version of the farm bill making would throw nearly 2 million people off food stamps, most of whom are working families with children or senior citizens. More than 200,000 kids would lose access to free school lunches, according to the group.
The more modest Senate proposal would cost half a million SNAP recipients $90 each month, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. For a family of four, the current maximum monthly allotment is $668; recipients get less as their income rises. The cuts come on top of the looming expiration of a temporary funding boost the program received in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will also slash recipient benefits.
“It is impossible to impose these types of cuts to SNAP without having the most vulnerable in our society suffer,” said Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy for the center.
Most households that get food stamps include either a child, a person over 60 or someone who is disabled, according to federal data. And all are either poor or low-income:  To be eligible for food assistance, income must not exceed 130 percent of the federal poverty line -- roughly $30,000 annually for a family of four.    

AP

Stacks of paperwork await members of the House Agriculture Committee as they consider the 2013 Farm Bill, which includes cuts to the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program.

As the economy slowly improves, dependence on food stamps has yet to decline. Decreased enrollment in the program typically lags substantially behind economic recovery, and congressional forecasters predict that under current law more people will seek benefits from the program before the rolls go down. Advocates for food stamps argue that many of the jobs created during the recovery have been low-wage, and as result the working poor often qualify for food stamps even though they are employed.
Rachel Sheffield, a policy analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the proposed cuts to the food stamp program are minimal and are part of a much larger issue over how much the government spends on welfare as the country continues to go into debt.
"The approach of the federal government really has been throwing money at the symptoms of poverty rather than addressing the causes of it," said Sheffield. The think tank calls for adjusting spending on SNAP to pre-recession levels, taking into account inflation, and also strengthening the work requirements for able-bodied adults.
Some Republicans believe the expansion of food stamps under President Barack Obama has been an intentional political strategy to win the support of low-income voters, an issue that took prominence during his 2012 re-election campaign.
“It seems to me that the goal of this administration is to expand the rolls of people who are on SNAP benefits, the purpose of which is to expand the dependency class," said Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa.
Advocates for the program say it has helped stave off hunger and deprivation for many families at a time when jobs have been hard to come by.   
James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, is working with food banks and organizations that focus on hunger issues to lobby Congress against slashing food stamp spending. For them, it is not a matter of politics or theories on the role of government, but a matter of getting people the assistance they need.
“People in the field know how much harm these cuts can cause,” said Weill. “Those who actually work with low-income Americans around the country know they can’t provide a sufficient amount of people with the help they need if these cuts take place.”

How The British Banking Industry Became An Organised Crime Enterprise

RINF Alternative News

I know it. You know it. We all know it. It’s the elephant in the room that the subservient cowards in the mainstream media are too afraid to mention; the banking industry is run and controlled by criminals.
Among the growing mountain of evidence that has been gathered over the decades to prove this accusation, a former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad detective has now spoken out.
Speaking on BCFM radio, Rowan Boswell-Davies revealed to host Tony Gosling the depth of criminal activity within the banking industry and the lengths that the government will go to, to conceal the evidence.

Boswell-Davies, who spent 12 years on the force investigating major investment fraud as the City lawlessly regulated itself, received a sinister response when he submitted his evidence of fraud to the Parliamentary Banking Commission.
Listen to the interview as he sheds light this vast criminal conspiracy.
Listen to the Second Hour Here  (Second Hour with Rowan Boswell-Davies)
Or Listen to Both Hours Here (Both Hours)

Interview with lawyer & former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad detective for 12 years Rowan Boswell-Davies who submitted evidence of widespread organised crime in the City of London under US, EU, Australian and British definitions of Organised Crime to the Parliamentary Banking Commission chaired by Andrew Tyrie. This evidence was initially ’lost’ by the Commission and after Rowan contacted Mr Tyrie they found it again.
They have suggested the evidence might have to be ‘redacted’, or blanked out, so Rowan has published it in full for the public to view online. Mr Boswell-Davies believes that unless the authorities institute a series of criminal trials and convictions of ‘blue blood’ City bankers, the ‘Princes of the City’, will continue to defraud the nation, loot and bring about an eventual collapse of the national economy and the pound.
He has identified the ‘Blue Arrow’ trial as the most important city fraud case where the message went out that it was ‘open season’ for city fraudsters, that they would never again be prosecuted. This trial had rattled the ‘self-regulating’ City criminal club and they then knocked back the police and went back to a tame, pre Sir Robert Mark, system of ‘light touch’ regulation by their friends. Rowan explains who should be arrested and put on trial, as well as why and how to do it.

The QE Scam Is Going To End With A Financial Collapse That Will Shake The Financial Foundations Of The World

It is generally well known that the major new york banks and hsbc are naked shorting gold and silver, aka selling contracts that they do not have the gold and silver inventory to deliver on if the buyer asked for delivery.
On the other hand the privately owned central banks of the world are taking delivery of gold and so this puts the lie to bernankes trashing of gold, but of course when doesnt bernanke and the central bankers not lie.
China and the rest of asia are also loading up on gold, they know that the feds house of cards or hologram of QE is headed for catastrophe , the QE scam is going to end with a financial collapse that will shake the financial foundations of the world.
The elite banking cartel privately owned fed is destroying america by debasing the currency and the stock market is going up because the actual value of the dollar is going down.
No nation including the roman empire ever survived debasing its currency, this debasement in every case led to financial collapse.
A nation can withstand the enemy from without , but a nation can never withstand the enemy from within, the fed is an enemy from within.

Gold and Silver Are Manipulated

The Guardian and Telegraph report that gold and silver prices are “fixed” in the same way as interest rates and derivatives – in daily conference calls by the powers-that-be.

Everything Can Be Manipulated through High-Frequency Trading

Traders with high-tech computers can manipulate stocks, bonds, options, currency and commodities. And see this.

Manipulating Numerous Markets In Myriad Ways

The big banks and other giants manipulate numerous markets in myriad ways, for example:

• Engaging in mafia-style big-rigging fraud against local governments. See this, this and this

• Shaving money off of virtually every pension transaction they handled over the course of decades, stealing collectively billions of dollars from pensions worldwide. Details here, here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here and here

• Charging “storage fees” to store gold bullion … without even buying or storing any gold . And raiding allocated gold accounts

Read more at http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/is-every-market-rigged.html

Washington Signals Dollar Deep Concerns — Paul Craig Roberts
If the dollar were not the reserve currency, Washington would not be able to finance its wars or continue to run large trade and budget deficits. Therefore, protecting the exchange value of the dollar is Washington’s prime concern if it is to remain a superpower.
The threats to the dollar are alternative monies–currencies that are not being created in enormous quantities, gold and silver, and Bitcoins, a digital currency.
The Bitcoin threat was eliminated on May 17 when the Gestapo Department of Homeland Security seized Bitcoin’s accounts. The excuse was that Bitcoin had failed to register in keeping with the US Treasury’s anti-money laundering requirements.
Washington has stifled the threat from other currencies by convincing other large currencies to out-print the dollar. Japan has complied, and the European Central Bank, though somewhat constrained by Germany, has entered the printing mode in order to bail out the private banks endangered by the “sovereign debt crisis.”
Read more at http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/05/18/washington-signals-dollar-deep-concerns-paul-craig-roberts/

Everything Is Rigged in Favor of the Rich!!! The Stock Market Doesn’t Need The Economy To Surge, The Distribution Of Income And Wealth Looms Larger, Fed Holds $2 Trillion (And Rising) Of US GDP Hostage. Americans Past Point Of No Return?
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/everything-is-rigged-in-favor-of-the-rich-the-stock-market-doesnt-need-the-economy-to-surge-the-distribution-of-income-and-wealth-looms-larger-fed-holds-2-trillion-and-rising-of-us-gdp-hosta/#WSzWvQTZuwO6UKji.99

 Markets are on a crazy, sugar-fuelled journey
The then chief executive of the US banking giant Citigroup was admitting that growing concerns about sub-prime loans could ultimately shatter what we now know was “irrational exuberance” on global financial markets.
“As long as the music is playing, though, you’ve got to get up and dance,” Prince continued. “And we’re still dancing.”
There’s a “we’re still dancing” mood on global markets today, just as there was six years ago in the run-up to what turned out to be the disastrous market meltdown of September 2008.
Rather than the securitisation of recklessly extended commercial credit providing the music, the beat now comes from “quantitative easing”, courtesy of the world’s leading central banks.
Read more at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/10066060/Markets-are-on-a-crazy-sugar-fuelled-journey.html

ferret

The dollar – and the USA – is toast

Obama has done it. He has brought America down. It only took him just over four years. The Republicans could have stopped him. They didn’t.

How did the nihilistic left succeed in destroying America? Simple. They learned just a little of the capitalism they hate, and they drove your nation into outright bankruptcy.
And here is what the GOP has to say about it: just about nothing.
The once-mighty United States is now the most indebted nation on Earth. In round numbers, here are just some of the vital statistics as the patient dies:
National debt: $17 trillion, or $50,000 per man, woman and child, or $150,000 per taxpayer. Annual federal deficit: $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid/Obama”care”: $1 trillion a year. Social Security: another $1 trillion a year. Defense: two-thirds of a trillion. Unemployment handouts: $2 billion per working day. Debt interest: $1 billion per working day. Federal pensions, ditto.
Now for the big numbers. Your government’s Social Security liability is as big as the national debt: $17 trillion. Its prescription drug liability is $22 trillion. Then there’s the Medicare liability of $86 trillion. Total unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government are $125 trillion.
Net assets for each U.S. citizen are $300,000. The net liability of the U.S. government, shared among its citizens, amounts to almost four times that: $1.1 million a head. And the government’s debt is growing at $1 million every 45 seconds. To cover its annual deficit, it is printing $1 trillion a year of currency that is not backed by any asset whatsoever.
Here is what will happen next. When the crash comes, don’t say you weren’t given fair and clear warning.
First, the dollar will cease – no, make that “is already ceasing” – to be the world’s reserve currency. China, as I have been warning you she would, has realized the dollar is finished. So she is quietly making startling progress with bilateral and multilateral deals to replace the dollar with the yuan as the world’s currency of choice.
Sterling, once the world’s reserve currency, went precisely the same way in 1967 under orders from Moscow, which then largely controlled the governing Socialist Labor party in Britain.
After the Second World War, the Socialist/Communist governments of Attlee and Wilson bankrupted Britain with health-care and welfare programs and nationalization of industries. Inflation rose to 27 percent.
Obama’s copycat policies are different in only one respect. Moscow is no longer calling the shots. International totalitarianism no longer needs direction. Its cruel, hate-filled, destructive mission now advances on autopilot.
Watch some of the straws in the wind. China and Korea have come to a little-noticed agreement that international trade between them will no longer be denominated in U.S. dollars, but in yuan, or Won.
Behind the closed mahogany doors of the world’s finance houses, elaborate and secret preparations are being made for the upheaval and international financial collapse that will follow the deliberate printing-out and consequent implosion of the dollar.
Your GOP representatives should be, but are not, asking the administration to reveal to them the ever-tougher terms on which the Chinese continue – with ever-greater reluctance –to lend money to keep their communist ally in the White House afloat.
Do not believe China cannot afford to let her biggest creditor fail. She can, she will, and she is making careful preparations to do just that.
If you thought the crash of 2008 was bad, think again. The crash that is coming –I cannot put a date on it, but it is not far away now – will be orders of magnitude worse.
So, what should you do to protect yourself and your family? First, get rid of every dollar you have. Dollars are now all but worthless. When the crash comes, they will have no value at all.
In hard times, most financial instruments – currencies, stocks, bonds – are not worth the paper they are printed on. Get rid of them now. Buy silver coins. They will quintuple in price once the crash sets in, and they are small enough to be fungible when the dollar dies.
Buy land, some of it well-wooded, some of it arable, some of it grassland. You will need the timber to power your steam tractor. Gasoline will be a costly rarity. And make sure you can defend yourselves. Starving mobs are no respecters of persons. Do what the Mormons do: Get three months’ supply of imperishable foodstuffs and hide them in the basement.
Absurd though this advice may now seem, there is a real danger that the crash will sudden. If so – perhaps for several months, and even for years – the fabric of civilization, including the food-supply chain, will fail.
It is not my custom to write in millenarian or apocalyptic terms. But the very best that can be said for your current administration is that it simply has no idea what damage it is doing. It is printing money in the vain hope of buying itself time. Yet every fake dollar that comes off the printing-presses makes the problem worse and the solution harder.
At worst, what is now happening to your nation may be deliberate. In that event, your current “president” will go down as history’s greatest villain. In any event, he will go down as history’s greatest incompetent.
Do not believe none of this can happen. Psychiatrists study what they call “normalcy bias.” People expect that everything will carry on and that America is too big to fail. She is not. She has failed. You will pay a heavy price for her failure, unless you act now to defend yourselves against what your government, with the culpable, silent acquiescence of the GOP, is doing to destroy your nation.
Finally, pray. God bless America. It has been nice knowing you. Only when you are gone will the world realize how much it misses you, and – paradoxically – how much it owes you.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/the-dollar-and-the-usa-is-toast/#UIRKUdG1vMAmttSS.99