Infinite Unknown

- Europe’s EUR500 Billion Quasi-Quantitative Easing (ZeroHedge, June 12, 2013):

Submitted by Mark J. Grant, author of Out of the Box, Five Eurozone countries now have loans for half a trillion Euros.

These members of the Euro currency union are receiving loans from the one of two bailout funds which are financed by the other 12 Eurozone members. On top of that are the emergency loans from the International Monetary fund (IMF) and bilateral loans from the solvent countries to the bankrupt nations. Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Bonds, Cyprus, Debt, Economy, Eurozone, Global News, Government, Greece, IMF, Ireland, Politics, Portugal, Quantitative Easing, Spain

Related info:

- Bilderberg 2013: Full List Of Attendees

- British Taxpayers To Pay ‘MILLIONS’ Towards Secretive BILDERBERG Meeting Security

Conspiracy theorists claim it is a shadow world government. Former leading members tell the Telegraph it was the most useful meeting they ever went to and it was crucial in forming the European Union. Today, the Bilderberg Group meets in Britain.

- Bilderberg Group? No conspiracy, just the most influential group in the world (Telegraph, June 6, 2013):

“The abuse is terrible,” said Peter Mandelson, leading the walking party through the throng of protesters and carrying the group’s uniform orange ski jacket under his arm.

Amid the din, Peer Steinbruck, the former German Finance Minister, pointedly refused to break off his conversation with Thomas Enders, the head of defence giant EADS. Behind him, Eric Schmidt, the Google chairman, picked up the pace along the narrow road and kept his eyes fixed on the Suvretta hotel ahead. Franco Bernabe, the vice chairman of Rothschild Europe, grinned through the chorus of booing and chanting in German down megaphones, before ducking under the police tape and into the safety of the hotel’s grounds.

It was June 2011. Demonstrations were sweeping through the stricken eurozone, China and North Africa. And in tranquil St Moritz, high in the Swiss alps, half a dozen of the most powerful men in the West had taken a break from a weekend of intensive and strictly confidential debate to walk in the woods, when their paths crossed with the protesters who had come from around the world to keep an eye on them.

The gathering was entirely innocent, the walking party would insist. But what were they doing there?

No such encounters will take place in Watford this week, as the Bilderberg, the annual conference for 140 of the world’s most powerful, meet for four days at The Grove, a £300-a-night golf hotel close to the M25. The entire hotel has been booked out, and a high fence erected around the exclusion zone. Armed checkpoints have been set up on local roads, and locals must show their passports to enter their own driveways. The Home Office may foot the bill. A US news site dedicated to uncovering conspiracies had booked a room for last week but were told by phone not to turn up.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Barclays, Bilderberg, Bilderberg 2013, David Petraeus, Deutsche Bank, Economy, EU, Europe, George Osborne, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Government, Henry Kissinger, James Wolfensohn, Josef Ackermann, Klaus Kleinfeld, Luis de Guindos, Mario Monti, Paulo Portas, Peter Mandelson, Peter Sutherland, Peter Thiel, Politics, Portugal, Richard Perle, Robert Rubin, Robert Zoellick, Society, Spain, U.K.

- 18 Signs That Massive Economic Problems Are Erupting All Over The Planet (Economic Collapse, June 2, 2013):

This is no time to be complacent.  Massive economic problems are erupting all over the globe, but most people seem to believe that everything is going to be just fine.  In fact, a whole bunch of recent polls and surveys show that the American people are starting to feel much better about how the U.S. economy is performing.  Unfortunately, the false prosperity that we are currently enjoying is not going to last much longer.  Just look at what is happening in Europe.  The eurozone is now in the midst of the longest recession that it has ever experienced.  Just look at what is happening over in Asia.  Economic growth in India is the lowest that it has been in a decade and the Japanese financial system is beginning to spin wildly out of control.  One of the only places on the entire planet where serious economic problems have not already erupted is in the United States, and that is only because we have “kicked the can down the road” by recklessly printing money and by borrowing money at an unprecedented rate.  Unfortunately, the “sugar high” produced by those foolish measures is starting to wear off.  We are going to experience a massive amount of economic pain along with the rest of the world – it is just a matter of time.

But for the moment, there are a lot of skeptics out there.

For the moment, there are a lot of people that are declaring that the problems of the past have been fixed and that we are heading for incredibly bright economic times ahead.

Unfortunately, those people appear to be purposely ignoring the economic horror that is breaking out all over the globe.

The following are 18 signs that massive economic problems are erupting all over the planet… Continue reading »

Tags: Australia, Ben Bernanke, Collapse, Cyprus, Economy, EU, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, France, Global News, Government, Greece, Italy, Japan, Marc Faber, NYSE, Portugal, Quantitative Easing, Riots, Spain, Stock Market, U.S., Unemployment, Wall Street

- The Full List Of 2013′s Bilderberg Attendees (ZeroHedge, June 3, 2013):

The only thing more ominous for the world than a Hindenburg Omen sighting is a Bilderberg Group meeting. The concentration of politicians and business leaders has meant the organisation, founded at the Bilderberg Hotel near Arnhem in 1954, has faced accusations of secrecy. Meetings take place behind closed doors, with a ban on journalists. We suspect the agenda (how the US and Europe can promote growth, the way ‘big data’ is changing ‘almost everything’, the challenges facing the continent of Africa, and the threat of cyber warfare) has been somewhat re-arranged as market volatility picks up and the status quo begins to quake once again.  The annual gathering of the royalty, statesmen, and business leaders, conspiratorially believed to run the world (snubbing their Illuminati peers and Freemason fellows), will take place this week at the Grove Hotel in London, England.

The Telegraph provides the full list of attendees below – for those autogrpah seekers – including Britain’s George Osborne, US’ Henry Kissinger, Peter Sutherland (the chairman of Goldman Sachs), the Fed’s Kevin Warsh, Jeff Bezos?, Peter Thiel, Italy’s Mario Monti, and Spain’s de Guindos.

Bilderberg delegates in full

• Chairman: Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO, AXA Group
• Paul M. Achleitner, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG
• Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Board, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd
• Marcus Agius, Former Chairman, Barclays plc
• Helen Alexander, Chairman, UBM plc Continue reading »

Tags: Barclays, Bilderberg, Bilderberg 2013, David Petraeus, Deutsche Bank, Economy, George Osborne, Global News, Goldman Sachs, Henry Kissinger, James Wolfensohn, Josef Ackermann, Klaus Kleinfeld, Luis de Guindos, Mario Monti, Paulo Portas, Peter Mandelson, Peter Sutherland, Peter Thiel, Portugal, Richard Perle, Robert Rubin, Robert Zoellick, Society, Spain, U.K.

- 20 Signs That The Next Great Economic Depression Has Already Started In Europe (Economic Collapse, April 29, 2013):

The next Great Depression is already happening – it just hasn’t reached the United States yet.  Things in Europe just continue to get worse and worse, and yet most people in the United States still don’t get it.  All the time I have people ask me when the “economic collapse” is going to happen.  Well, for ages I have been warning that the next major wave of the ongoing economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening.  In fact, both Greece and Spain already have levels of unemployment that are greater than anything the U.S. experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Pay close attention to what is happening over there, because it is coming here too.  You see, the truth is that Europe is a lot like the United States.  We are both drowning in unprecedented levels of debt, and we both have overleveraged banking systems that resemble a house of cards.  The reason why the U.S. does not look like Europe yet is because we have thrown all caution to the wind.  The Federal Reserve is printing money as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government is savagely destroying the future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have by stealing more than 100 million dollars from them every single hour of every single day.  We have gone “all in” on kicking the can down the road even though it means destroying the future of America.  But the alternative scares the living daylights out of our politicians.  When nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy tried to slow down the rate at which their debts were rising, the results were absolutely devastating.  A full-blown economic depression is raging across southern Europe and it is rapidly spreading into northern Europe.  Eventually it will spread to the rest of the globe as well.

The following are 20 signs that the next Great Depression has already started in Europe… Continue reading »

Tags: Bonds, Children, Collapse, Debt, Deutsche Bank, Economy, EU, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, GDP, Global News, Government, Great Depression, Greatest Depression, Greece, Italy, Politics, Portugal, Spain

-The Entire Economy Is a Ponzi Scheme (ZeroHedge, April 13, 2013):

Bill Gross, Nouriel Roubini, Laurence Kotlikoff, Steve Keen, Michel Chossudovsky, the Wall Street Journal and many others say that our entire economy is a Ponzi scheme.

Former Reagan budget director David Stockman just agreed:

YouTube Added: 10.04.2013

So did a top Russian con artist and mathematician.

Even the New York Times’ business page asked, “Was [the] whole economy a Ponzi scheme?”

In fact – as we’ve noted for 4 years (and here and here) – the banking system is entirely insolvent. And so are most countries. The whole notion of one country bailing out another country is a farce at this point. The whole system is insolvent.

As we noted last year: Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Bill Gross, Bonds, Debt, EFSF, ESM, EU, Europe, France, Germany, Global News, Government, Greece, Italy, Joseph Stiglitz, Laurence Kotlikoff, Michel Chossudovsky, Nouriel Roubini, Obama administration, Politics, Portugal, Spain, U.S.

- Portugal Considers Paying Public Workers In Treasury Bills Instead Of Cash (ZeroHedge, April 7, 2013):

As reported late on Friday, just as the market closed, the Portuguese constitutional court decided that several provisions of the country’s 2013 budget were not constitutional. According to the high court, cuts in wages and pensions of public employees were unfair (there’s that word again) because they targeted only the public sector. The court rejected plans to cut one of the 14 paychecks that public workers usually get each year and to slash 6.4% from pensions for retirees.  This coincided with the government warning that the court’s decision would put into question the country’s ability to fulfill its €78 billion international bailout program, which in turn would send bondholders of Portuguese sovereign debt scrambling for the exits as suddenly the country may find itself in the ECB’s “dunce” corner, with Draghi preparing to pull a “Berlusconi” on a government which can’t even whip its judicial branch in line. However, of more immediate concern is how will the government now plug a hole of up to €1.3 billion in its €5.3 billion 2013 budget. A solution has, luckily, presented itself: bypass the unconstitutional provisions by paying government workers not in cash, but in government bills! From the WSJ:

The Portuguese government is considering a plan to pay public workers and pensioners one month of their salary in treasury bills rather than cash after a high court ruled out wage cuts, a person familiar with the situation said Sunday.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bonds, Collapse, Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News, Government, Politics, Portugal

- Betray Your Bank Before Your Bank Betrays You (Bloomberg, March 28, 2013):

What’s a Slovenian with several hundred thousand euros in the bank supposed to do? Spread it out among at least a few different banks, that’s what. Or move the money out of the country, while it’s still possible.

Imagine what must be on the minds of any savvy depositors still left at Nova Kreditna Banka Maribor d.d., now 79 percent- owned by Slovenia’s government. It was one of only four lenders in October that failed the European Banking Authority’s latest capital-adequacy test, a ritual best known for how lax its standards are. One that flunked was Bank of Cyprus Pcl, where uninsured depositors face 40 percent losses as part of the country’s bailout terms. Another was Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl, also known as Laiki Bank, where uninsured deposits will fare far worse and the bank is being shut.

Cypriot banks’ customers were complacent after uninsured deposits went unscathed in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, the first euro-area countries to seek international rescues. Slovenians won’t have that excuse should their country be next.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Collapse, Cyprus, ECB, Economy, EU, Europe, Government, Greece, Ireland, Politics, Portugal, Society, Spain

- EUR Fades As Portugal Admits Cyprus Deal “Sets Precedent” – (UPDATE – Denied) (ZeroHedge, March 26, 2013):

UPDATE: Well that didn’t take long – The Portuguese Finance minister just denied his earlier comments and added that the Cyprus deal is NOT a template for future actions (EURUSD doesn’t believe him).

• *GASPAR SAYS CYPRUS DEAL NOT A `TEMPLATE’ FOR OTHER COUNTRIES

The shambles continues in Europe. This morning we saw a plethora of EU officials explaining how the Cyprus ‘deal’ is a unique, one-of-a-kind debacle helping to talk back #DieselBoom‘s mis-words, only to have their credibility destroyed by the actual transcript and his actual words. Then we get the fact that a new EU-wide bill on deposit bail-ins is introduced… and now the Portuguese finance minister has added to the dysphoria by explaining that, “the Cyprus deal sets Euro precedent on deposit protection,” and we therefore assume on deposit impairment. It seems EURUSD also sees this…

Tags: Banking, Cyprus, Economy, EU, Europe, Global News, Government, Portugal

- For Everyone Shocked By What Just Happened… And Why This Is Just The Beginning (Zerohedge, March 16, 2013)

Tags: Banking, Bonds, Cyprus, Debt, Dictatorship, Economy, EU, Europe, Fascism, France, Germany, Global News, Government, Greece, Ireland, New World Order, Politics, Portugal