Infinite Unknown

- Fed clears China’s first US bank takeover (AFP, May 9, 2012):

The United States on Wednesday opened its banking market to ICBC, China’s biggest bank, for the first time clearing a takeover of a US bank by a Chinese state-controlled company.

Just days after high-level US-China economic talks in Beijing, the Federal Reserve approved an application from Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to buy a majority stake in the US subsidiary of Bank of East Asia.

The transaction will make ICBC the first Chinese state-controlled bank to acquire retail bank branches in the United States.

ICBC has been the most aggressive of China’s “big four” banks in expanding overseas.

According to the Fed the bank has total assets of roughly $2.5 trillion.

It will buy up to 80 percent of the US unit of the Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia, which operates 13 branches in New York and California.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, China, Dictatorship, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, ICBC, New World Order

- S&P Opens The Pandora’s Box: The Wall Of Refi Worry Is $46,000,000,000,000 Tall (ZeroHedge, May 10, 2012):

In what S&P calls a ‘Perfect Storm’, the next four years will see a minimum of $30 trillion in companies’ refinancing needs related to maturing bonds and loans and further they expect $13-$16 trillion more debt will be required to finance growth. With bond portfolios over-stuffed with corporate debt (since angst over sovereign risk has skewed asset allocation away from that cohort) the rating agency is concerned that ongoing bank deleveraging, these huge debt re-funding requirements, and the diminishment of central banks and governments to do anything about it leave serious problems with a credit overhang so large. Critically, especially as we hear calls for ‘growth’ plans from Europe, is the increasing likelihood that, as Reuters reports, this will potentially influence corporate credit quality and “alter the fragile equilibrium that currently exists in the global corporate credit landscape”. While S&P expect the refinancing needs may well be met “This global wall of nonfinancial corporate debt will potentially compound the credit rationing that may occur as banks seek to restructure their balance sheets, and bond and equity investors reassess their risk-return thresholds” which “raises the downside risk in global markets” as an inability to finance growth may well be the catalyst for another risk flare. “Governments and central banks have less fiscal and monetary flexibility to prevent serious problems emanating from future market disturbances. A perfect storm scenario would likely cause financing disruptions even for borrowers that are not highly leveraged.”

Of course the size of this massive refinancing wall dwarfs the recent discussion of how much of Europe’s financial system’s equity market cap is nothing but vaporware – since we note that 30% of this $30 trillion is for European financials and corporations.

Tags: Banking, Bonds, Corporations, Debt, Economy, Global News, Standard & Poor's

- The “World’s Largest Prop Trading Desk” Just Went Bust (ZeroHedge, May 10, 2012):

A month ago we warned that JPM’s CIO office is nothing short of the world’s largest prop trading desk. Not only were we right, but what just transpired is just shy of our worst possible prediction. At the end of the day, the real question is why did JPM put in so much money at risk in a prop trade because we can dispense with the bullshit that his was a hedge, right? Simple: because it knew with 100% certainty that if things turn out very, very badly, that the taxpayer, via the Fed, would come to its rescue. Luckily, things turned out only 80% bad. Although it is not over yet: if credit spreads soar, assuming at $200 million DV01, and a 100 bps move, JPM could suffer a $20 billion loss when all is said and done. But hey: at least “net” is not “gross” and we know, just know, that the SEC will get involved and make sure something like this never happens again.

As for what we said before, we will just repost the whole thing as we were, once again, right.

From April13: Why JPM’s “Chief Investment Office” Is The World’s Largest Prop Trading Desk: Fact And Fiction

For the fiction, we go to JPM’s conference call transcript where we had the following disclosures. Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Economy, Global News, JPMorgan, U.S.

YouTube Added: 04.05.2012

Tags: Banking, Barack Obama, Economy, Global News, Government, Max Keiser, Obama administration, Politics, Society, U.S., Unemployment

- Greek Stocks Plummet To 20-Year Lows (ZeroHedge, May 8, 2012):

The Athens Stock Exchange broad index of Greek stocks just dropped to its lowest level since 1992. It is now around 90% lower than its 1999 and 2007 peak levels. The index of Greek banking stocks is rumbling along the lowest levels on record down over 97% from its 2007 highs. Where is the Greek Whitney Tilson (or Dick Bove) when they need him?

ASE Index at 20 year lows…

and Greek banking index at record lows down 97% from its 2007 highs…

Charts: Bloomberg

Tags: Banking, Collapse, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News, Greece, Stock Market

YouTube Added: 24.02.2012

Tags: Banking, Barack Obama, Bonds, China, Debt, Dollar, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Ron Paul, Society, U.S.

YouTube Added: 26.04.2012

In case the YouTube video ‘disappears’:

Books from Jim Marrs @Amazon.com:

- The Trillion-Dollar Conspiracy: How the New World Order, Man-Made Diseases, and Zombie Banks Are Destroying America

- The Terror Conspiracy Revisited: What Really Happened On 9/11, And Why We’re Still Paying The Price

- The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America

- Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

Tags: 1984, 9/11, Afghanistan, Agriculture, Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Big Brother, Big Pharma, Bonds, Bush administration, Corporate Media, Debt, DHS, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economy, Farmers, Fascism, Fast and Furious, Fed, Federal Reserve, FEMA, FEMA Camps, Fluor, Fluoridation, Fluoride, George Bush, George H. W. Bush, George Orwell, Gestapo, Government, Homeland Security, Iraq, Jim Marrs, JPMorgan, Martial Law, Medicaid, Medicare, Mexico, Military, Mind-Control, Nazi Germany, Nazis, New World Order, Obama administration, Osama Bin Laden, Pharmaceutical Industry, Police State, Politics, Quantitative Easing, Ron Paul, Social Security, Standard & Poor's, Terrorism, Terrorists, U.S., War, WTC

Related info:

- Europe’s Scariest Chart Just Got Scarier

This is not a recession. This is the Greatest Depression.

- Spanish unemployment hits record 5.64 million (BBC News, April 27, 2012):

Spanish unemployment has hit a new record high, official figures have shown.

The number of unemployed people reached 5,639,500 at the end of March, with the unemployment rate hitting 24.4%, the national statistics agency said.

The figures came hours after rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Spanish sovereign debt.

Official figures due out on Monday are expected to confirm that Spain has fallen back into recession.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Bonds, Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News, Government, Politics, Spain, Standard & Poor's, Unemployment

Related info::

- Obama Regime Seizes Family Farms Bank Accounts

- DHS Buys Enough Ammo To Wage Seven-Year War Against The American People

- America: A Government Totally Out Of Control (Video)

- US Government Plans To Destroy 4 Clean Energy Hydro Dams In Top Condition At The Klamath River That Supply Electricity To 70,000 Residents In The Area (Video)

- Obama Regime Seizes Control Over All Food, Farms, Livestock, Farm Equipment, Fertilizer And Food Production Across America Per Executive Order

Flashback:

- Former governor Jesse Ventura Conspiracy Theory: Police State (And FEMA Concentration Camps) – Full Length Video

- USDA: No strategic grain reserves … they sold them!

James Wesley Rawles is a former US Army intelligence officer who, for the last two decades, has authored bestselling books and top blogs on preparedness.

YouTube Added: 17.04.2012

@Amazon.com:

- Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse:

- Strategic Relocation – North American Guide to Safe Places:

Tags: 1984, Banking, Barack Obama, Collapse, Debt, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economy, Energy, Fascism, Global News, Government, James Wesley Rawles, Meltdown, Military, New World Order, Obama administration, Politics, Preparedness, Ron Paul, Society, U.S.

- Germany Folding? Europe’s Insolvent Banks To Get Direct Funding From ESM (ZeroHedge, April 26, 2012):

We start today’s story of the day by pointing out that Deutsche Bank – easily Europe’s most critical financial institution – reported results that were far worse than expected, following a decline in equity and debt trading revenues of 23% and 8%, but primarily due to Europe simply “not being fixed yet” despite what its various politicians tell us. And if DB is still impaired, then something else will have to give. Next, we go to none other than Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid, who in his daily Morning Reid piece, reminds the world that with austerity still the primary driver in a double dipping Europe (luckily… at least for now, because no matter how many economists repeat the dogmatic mantra, more debt will never fix an excess debt problem, and in reality austerity is the wrong word – the right one is deleveraging) to wit: “an unconditional ECB is probably what Europe needs now given the austerity drive.” However, as German taxpayers who will never fall for unconditional money printing by the ECB (at least someone remembers the Weimar case), the ECB will likely have to keep coming up with creative solutions. Which bring us to the story du jour brought by Suddeutsche Zeitung, according to which the ECB and countries that use the euro are working on an initiative to allow cash-strapped banks direct access to funding from the European Stability Mechanism. As a reminder, both Germany and the ECB have been against this kind of direct uncollateralized, unsterilized injections, so this move is likely a precursor to even more pervasive easing by the European central bank, with the only question being how many headlines of denials by Schauble will hit the tape before this plan is approved. And if all eyes are again back on the ECB, does it mean that the recent distraction face by the IMF can now be forgotten, and more importantly, if the ECB is once again prepping to reliquify, just how bad are things again in Europe? And what happens if this time around the plan to fix a solvency problem with more electronic 1s and 0s does not work?

Here is Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid redirecting attention back to where it was all throughout the summer and fall of 2011, until the new Goldman-based head of the ECB relented days after his appointment: Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Belgium, Ben Bernanke, Bonds, Czech Republic, Debt, Deutsche Bank, ECB, Economy, ESM, EU, Euro, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, Finland, France, GDP, Germany, Global News, Greece, IMF, Ireland, Italy, Politics, Portugal, Society, Spain