Infinite Unknown

- 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 »

Tags: Bank of England, Banking, Barclays, Economy, Global News, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, RBS, Standard Chartered, U.K.

- Mainstream Media Finally Awakens to the Fact that Big Banks Are Criminal Enterprises (ZeroHedge, Dec 16, 2012)

Tags: Bank of England, Banking, Barack Obama, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Department of Justice, Economy, Global News, Government, Great Depression, HSBC, Joseph Stiglitz, Lloyds TSB, Matt Taibbi, Mexico, Neil Barofsky, Obama administration, Politics, U.S., Wachovia, Wells Fargo

- Lloyds online fraud chief admits £2.4m fraud (Guardian, Aug 7, 2012):

A former Lloyds bank boss in charge of online security has admitted a £2.4m fraud.

Jessica Harper took the money over a four-year period while working as head of fraud and security for digital banking at Lloyds Banking Group.

Harper stood in the dock at Southwark crown court, in London, and admitted a single charge of fraud by abuse of position by submitting false invoices to claim payments totalling £2,463,750.

She also admitted a single charge of transferring criminal property, the money, which she had defrauded from her employers.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Economy, Fraud, Global News, Lloyds TSB, Society

See also:

- Home Secretary Theresa May: We’ll Stop Migrants If Euro Collapses – UK Government Draws Up Plans For Emergency Immigration In The Event Of Financial Collapse

The chief executive of the multi-billion pound Lloyd’s of London has publicly admitted that the world’s leading insurance market is prepared for a collapse in the single currency and has reduced its exposure “as much as possible” to the crisis-ridden continent.

Richard Ward said Lloyd’s of London could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses

- Lloyd’s of London preparing for euro collapse (Telegraph, May 27, 2012):

Richard Ward said the London market had put in place a contingency plan to switch euro underwriting to multi-currency settlement if Greece abandoned the euro.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph he also revealed that Lloyd’s could have to take writedowns on its £58.9bn investment portfolio if the eurozone collapses.

Europe accounts for 18pc of Lloyd’s £23.5bn of gross written premiums, mostly in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The market also has a fledgling operation in Poland.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Collapse, Economy, Global News, Lloyds TSB, U.K.

The 1318 transnational corporations that form the core of the economy. Superconnected companies are red, very connected companies are yellow. The size of the dot represents revenue (Image: PLoS One)

- Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world (New Scientist, Oct. 19, 2011):

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The study’s assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted by New Scientist say it is a unique effort to untangle control in the global economy. Pushing the analysis further, they say, could help to identify ways of making global capitalism more stable.

The idea that a few bankers control a large chunk of the global economy might not seem like news to New York’s Occupy Wall Street movement and protesters elsewhere (see photo). But the study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power. It combines the mathematics long used to model natural systems with comprehensive corporate data to map ownership among the world’s transnational corporations (TNCs).

“Reality is so complex, we must move away from dogma, whether it’s conspiracy theories or free-market,” says James Glattfelder. “Our analysis is reality-based.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Allianz, AXA, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Corporations, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Economy, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, JPMorgan, Lloyds TSB, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Science, Societe Generale, Society, UBS, Unicredit

- Europe’s ‘Lehman Moment’ Looms as Greek Debt Unravels Markets: Euro Credit (Bloomberg, Jun 16, 2011):

The European Union’s failure to contain the Greek debt crisis is sending fresh shockwaves through currencies, money markets, equities and derivatives.

The euro lost more than 2 percent against the dollar in the past two days and the cost of protecting corporate bonds soared to the highest level since January, with credit-default swaps anticipating about a 78 percent chance that Greece won’t pay its debts. Equities declined around the world, while a measure of fear in fixed-income markets jumped the most since November.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News, Government, Greece, Lloyds TSB, Politics, Society

Maybe the headline should read:

‘Tories plan to bribe voters, by selling bank shares to the taxpayers, that they already own’

The government bought the shares with taxpayers money and now the Tories plan to sell those bank shares back to the taxpayers, who already own them?!

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!

What is the alternative?:

- Gordon Brown Praises New World Order (19 Feb 2010)

Doomed!

George Osborne

(The Sunday Times) — THE Tories are planning a bank shares bonanza for millions of families as they fight to save their lead in the polls, which has slumped to just 6%.

Cheap shares would be offered to small investors when the government’s £70 billion stake in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group is sold, George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said last night.

The “people’s bonus” plan comes as a Sunday Times/YouGov survey today reveals that the Tories’ lead over Labour has slipped to the narrowest gap in more than a year.

The poll, the first in a series of weekly surveys which will be conducted between now and the general election, puts the Conservatives on 39%, down one point on January’s figure, and Labour on 33%, up two. The Liberal Democrats drop one point to 17%. Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Government, Lloyds TSB, Politics, RBS, U.K.

Every family in the country is now facing a tax liability of £4,350 to prop up Britain’s banking system after Alistair Darling announced the biggest bail-out in history.

The Government is injecting a further £30bn into Lloyds and RBS.

The Chancellor confirmed that the Government would pump an extra £25.5 billion into Royal Bank of Scotland, and declared that it was the only way to keep the business alive.

Taxpayers have poured a total of £53.5 billion into RBS, including the £20 billion part-nationalisation last year and another £8 billion that was set aside as insurance against further trouble in the future.

In total, the Government has put £74 billion of taxpayers’ money into the banks, including RBS, Lloyds and HBOS, since the start of the financial crisis last year.

The Conservatives claimed the latest bail-out equated to an extra tax liability of £2,000 for every one of the 17 million families in the country. This comes on top of the £2,350 to which every household is already exposed as a result of previous attempts to prop up the financial system.

Continue reading »

Tags: Alistair Darling, Bailout, Banking, Economy, Government, Lloyds TSB, Politics, RBS, U.K.

Hedge funds are staking hundreds of millions of pounds on Lloyds Banking Group shares falling, amid fears the market is being too optimistic about the imminent European competition ruling and the bank’s planned rights issue.

Traders have borrowed an estimated £1.5bn of shares, amounting to 50pc of the stock available to borrow, according to figures from Data Explorers. Dealers say some of the stock on loan has already been used to place “short positions”, while other borrowed shares are being held in preparation to short the stock as soon as Lloyds announces its rights issue.

Shares in Lloyds have dropped 10pc this week following the decision by the European Commission to break up ING, the Dutch financial services giant. In order to gain approval from European competition authorities for the state-backed bail-out it received during the financial crisis, ING is selling its insurance business, which is thought to be worth up to £14bn. Shares in ING fell nearly 20pc on the news of the sale.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Economy, Hedge Funds, ING, Lloyds TSB, Stock Market

Short-selling in Lloyds Banking Group doubled last week in a sign that traders and hedge funds expect shares in the 43.5pc state-owned bank to collapse when it launches a £25bn fund-raising in order to escape the Government’s asset protection scheme.

Stock-lending, a key indicator of short-selling, doubled to 3.5pc of Lloyds’ total share capital in just four days last week, according to Data Explorers, as concern mounts about the bank’s ability to raise £25bn through a combination of debt for equity swaps, assets sales and a rights issue of up to £11bn.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the Government are understood to have expressed grave concern that Lloyds may not be able to raise enough cash to extradite itself from the scheme.

The Treasury and the FSA were last night holding emergency talks about an escape plan, which has yet to be given the green light by either body.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Lloyds TSB, Stock Market, U.K.