May 08

- Godfrey Bloom of UKIP: Central Bankers Should be Arraigned as “War Criminals” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 7, 2013):

Coming off the heels of a fantastic performance in recent local elections, the UKIP under the leadership of Nigel Farage continues to make waves in both the UK and the Continent itself. In this case, I refer to a recent powerful performance at the European Parliament courtesy of Godfrey Bloom (UKIP), member of the European Parliament.

For many years, I have stated that Ben Bernanke was and is committing crimes against humanity, and would one day stand trial much like the war criminals at Nuremberg. It appears I am no longer alone in echoing such sentiments, as Mr. Bloom has just done so before the European Parliament.

I once said that Nigel Farage is Category 5 political hurricane.  That hurricane has landed.

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May 06

- Bank Of Ireland Doubles Mortgage Rates, Homeowners Fear More To Come (ZeroHedge, May 2, 2013):

With the Bank of England cutting its wholesale interest (bank) rate to historic lows and now the ECB slashing 50bps off its key rate (as well as remonstrating on the reduction in fragmentation across European nations), it is perhaps perplexing (or simply too obvious) that a bank would raise its mortgage rates. As the Daily Mail reports, government-owned Bank of Ireland (BOI) doubled mortgage rates for 13,500 customers in the UK leaving homeowners with huge increases in their monthly payments. The bank, exploiting small print in the legacy mortgage contracts, will hike the interest cost for 1-in-14 homeowners from 2.25% to 4.99% (raising the spread over the bank rate on these loans from 1.75% to 4.49%). Anger is rife as customers complain “it’s all very frustrating,” adding that they thought this was a ‘tracker’ mortgage but BOI defends their massive rate hike on increased funding costs and the need to maintain higher levels of capital. The disconnect between wholesale gorging provided by the Central Bank and wholesale gouging of the real economy grows ever wider it seems.

Via The Daily Mail,

Thousands of homeowners are facing a huge increase in their mortgage repayments after the Bank of Ireland doubled rates overnight.

will affect some 13,500 UK customers,

Continue reading »

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May 04


YouTube Added: 29.04.2013

Commentary:

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. … This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”
- Alan Greenspan

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
- John Maynard Keynes

Quantitative easing = printing money = creating money out of thin air = increasing the money supply = inflation = hidden tax on monetary assets = theft!

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Apr 21

- The Secret World Of Gold (ZeroHedge, April 21, 2013):

In a wide-ranging look at the history and present of the barbarous relic, CBC’s Ann-Marie MacDonald has gathered many perspectives (pro and con) on gold. The following documentary moves from historical shipwrecks to Nazi ‘death gold’ and England’s war chest to recent years where widespread economic uncertainty has given the yellow metal a “new lustre in the world of high finance.” Valued for its permanence, beauty and scarcity, people will lie, cheat, steal and kill in the name of gold; and the clip provides color on many of the market manipulations of the last few years. As MacDonald says, whether it’s a few gold coins or gold bars stored in one of the many vaults around the world, many investors are taking a shine to gold. But there’s not a lot of it. It is said that, even melted down, there would not be enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Some claim that much of the gold held by the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve and Fort Knox is gone – that for every 100 ounces of gold traded, there exists only one ounce of real, physical gold. So, where is the gold – and who really owns it?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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Apr 06

- Bank Of England Admits “Stocks Don’t Reflect Economic Reality” (ZeroHedge, April 5, 2013):

The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (BoEFPC) warns there is “evidence of the re-emergence of… behavior in financial markets not seen since before the financial crisis,” citing the increased issuance of synthetic products and added that banks have “little margin for error against a backdrop of low growth in the advanced economies,” despite what we are told about their ‘fortress balance sheets. Bloomberg Businessweek adds that the BoE were careful not to scare the public, they add, events currently “did not appear indicative of widespread exuberance in markets. But developments would need to be monitored closely.” This following the Fed’s warnings of ‘froth’ in the credit markets suggests central bans are considerably more concerned at blowing bubbles than they want to admit in public. ECB’s Weber recently commented that he feared, “the recent rally in financial markets could be a misleading signal,” which appears confirmed by the BoEFPC noting that equity performance since mid-2012, “in part reflected exceptionally accommodative monetary policies by many central banks… But market sentiment may be taking too rosy a view of the underlying stresses.”

Via Bloomberg BusinessWeek,

The Bank of England said rising equity markets don’t reflect the underlying economic situation and warned that investors may be underestimating risks in the financial system.

Gains by equities since mid-2012 “in part reflected exceptionally accommodative monetary policies by many central banks,” the BOE’s Financial Policy Committee said today in London in the minutes of its March 19 meeting. “It was also consistent with a perception among some contacts that the most significant downside risks had attenuated. But market sentiment may be taking too rosy a view of the underlying stresses.”

Continue reading »

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Mar 28

- It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors (Web Of Debt, by Ellen Brown March 28, 2013):

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.

New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed in my last article here, indicating that this isn’t just an emergency measure for troubled Eurozone countries. New Zealand’s Voxy reported on March 19th:

The National Government [is] pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts . . . .

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.

Can They Do That?

Continue reading »

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Mar 27


YouTube Added: 19.03.2013

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Mar 21


YouTube Added: 21.03.2013

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Mar 12

- Mark-To-Market Manipulation Hides $90 Billion Losses For UK Banks (ZeroHedge, March 12, 2013):

Some have attributed the resurrection of the financial markets (or more appropriately the banks) from the March 2009 lows to the IASB/FASB changes to factual to fantasy accounting. The Telegraph reports today that from PIRC’s and the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee that while banker bonuses continue to rise (for now), ‘hidden’ losses among UK banks could total GBP60 Billion (USD 90 Billion). HSBC topped the list with GBP10.4 Billion in bad debts that have yet to be written off and while the ‘accounting’ bodies are suggesting they will address criticism of this farce, as one analyst notes, they “can still make unprofitable lending appear profitable.” Regulators expect to hear plans from lenders on how they intend to fill these holes before the end of the month to coincide either with the FPC’s meeting on March 19 or a statement scheduled for March 27. While outright recaps are unlikely, banks are expected to
restructure and set out plans to raise their capital levels over the next
couple of years. More fantasy…

Via The Telegraph,

PIRC has calculated the amount of bad debts the banks may have to write off in coming years but have yet to subtract from profits, together with other items such as deferred bonuses not booked.

HSBC, which is the biggest bank by assets, was shown to have £10.4bn of hidden losses, the Royal Bank of Scotland has £9.4bn, and Barclays has £7.3bn. Lloyds Banking Group has £2.5bn and Standard Chartered £2.2bn. Together the undeclared losses total £31.8bn. Continue reading »

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Feb 22

- Farewell AAA: Moody’s Downgrades The UK From AAA To Aa1 (ZeroHedge, Feb 22, 2013):

Just the headline for now:

  • MOODY’S DOWNGRADES UK’S GOVERNMENT BOND RATING TO Aa1 FROM AAA

Someone must have clued Moody’s on the fact that the UK is about to have its very own Goldman banker, which means consolidated debt/GDP will soon need four digits. In other news, every lawyer in the UK is now celebrating because come Monday Moody’s will be sued to smithereens.

Cable not happy as it tests 31 month lows…

Full report below: Continue reading »

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