Banks Runs Feared in Ukraine

“Fears of a bank run in Ukraine are rising, as central bank reserves sink and some 7 percent of bank deposits were lost in just 3 days.

Ukraine’s reserves currently sit at $15 billion, according to the country’s newly appointed central bank governor, Stepan Kubiv. Kubiv said 7 percent of deposits, or 30 billion hryvnias ($3.3 billion), were lost between February 18-20, when the violence in the country reached its zenith and snipers opened fire on protesters.

Goldman Sachs has estimated the country’s foreign currency reserves have declined to $12 – $14 billion….”

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“West Texas Intermediate oil prices climbed to a four-month high above $103 a barrel last week, and Sean Hyman, editor of Newsmax’s Ultimate Wealth Report newsletter and a Moneynews.com contributor, thinks the rally will continue.

Nasty weather in much of the United States and turmoil in oil exporting nations such as Venezuela have helped boost prices. April crude oil futures traded at $101.70 on the Nymex Tuesday morning.

“Oil has been consolidating for several years in a sideways pattern, and I believe that global demand is picking up. That’s going to shoot it through the top of that range,” Hyman tells CNBC. …”

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“The story of former Jefferies MBS trader Jesse Litvak, who is currently on trial in New Haven federal court accused of defrauding investors of $2 million by lying on trades of mortgage-backed securities, is well known to regular readers: it was summarized previously in “We Are Doneski Gorgeous!” – How Bond Trading On Wall Street Really Works. In that article we showed, more than just an isolated case of alleged fraud, that when it comes to OTC trades which do not transact on an exchange but instead take place over the phone between a salesman and a buyer, it is all a game of lies, fraud and misinformation… however one which both it is a game of lies, fraud and misinformation. Today, Mr. Litvak confirmed as much when he said, quoting Bloomberg,  “My lying is part” of making deals, he said, “although I generally consider myself a truthful person.”

And that, in a nutshell is not only Wall Street, but how Wall Street perceives itself: a business in which “truthful people” must resort to lying – even if that means being sued for fraud – to make a living.

More on this story from Bloomberg…..”

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“The stock market is likely to double during the next 10 years and then double again in the 10 years after that, as the economy resumes its historical expansion path, says Ron Baron, CEO of Baron Capital.

“The most important thing to think about right now is that growth of our economy is increasing,” he tells CNBC. “Housing is doing great. Cars are doing great. Energy costs are low. Interest costs are low. Credit is widely available. Deficits are falling.”

The economy grew 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter, although that number is expected to be revised downward.

As for the stock market, “stock prices are valued at the median level they have been for 50 or 100 years, . . . or 15 1/2 times [earnings],” Baron notes. “It doesn’t feel expensive to me with the economy improving the way it is.”

Nominal economic growth, not adjusted for inflation, has averaged 6.6 percent a year since 1960, he adds. And he sees the stock market matching the economy’s growth — “almost 7 percent a year, for a very long period of time, 10 or 20 years.”

A 7 percent annual gain means the market would double in 10 years and then again in 20 years. “So that means 30,000 for the market [Dow Jones Industrial Average] 10 years from now and 60,000 in 20 years,” Baron explains.

“It might sound like a huge number, but that’s what compounding is. It makes small numbers get to be real big. In 1982, the market was 880. And now it’s 16,000.

“The most important thing is that the stock market is a hedge against inflation,” he stresses….”

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“The sudden slide of the Chinese currency over the last week has raised fears that the yuan is nearing levels that could trigger an unwinding of billions of dollars in highly leveraged bets on the currency’s appreciation. Traders and strategists say a portion of the yuan’s recent decline can be attributed to investors looking to get out of trades before losses soar.

Daily trading volume in the yuan has exploded recently, tripling to $120 billion a day since 2010, when China allowed trading in its tightly controlled currency. The yuan is now the ninth-most traded currency in the world, according to the Bank for International Settlements, rising from 17th two years ago.

In the past year, trading in derivatives tied to the currency have soared as investors bet on a continued rise in the yuan. According to Deutsche Bank, approximately $250 billion worth of these derivative contracts were traded in 2013, the first year these products took off. Already in 2014, between $80 billion and $100 billion have been traded, the bank says….”

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“BRUSSELS — European Union economists on Tuesday forecast tepid growth for most of the region through 2015, while warning that lingering debt burdens and the specter of deflation could sabotage the recovery.

The forecasts, published by economists at the European Commission, see a mild recovery over the next two years. The impact of budget austerity, a major drag on growth since the euro-zone debt crisis flared in 2009, is expected to fade this year. Meanwhile, policy overhauls in the euro zone’s weaker economies are starting to bear fruit, helping to boost their export sectors, the commission said.

Growth in the euro area is forecast at 1.2% this year and 1.8% next, after two consecutive years of contraction. That won’t be enough to make much of a dent in euro-zone unemployment, which is seen hovering near record highs of 12% in 2014 and 11.7% in 2015. The commission report forecasts growth in the broader EU—buoyed by strong momentum in the U.K.—at 1.5% this year and 2% next.

But the tepid recovery faces some daunting obstacles. Debt owed by governments, households, businesses and banks remains too high in many of the bloc’s countries, the commission report says. And low inflation in the euro zone, or even the threat of outright deflation, threatens to make the debt problems even worse.

The commission forecasts inflation in the euro zone at 1% this year and 1.3% next, well below the European Central Bank’s target of just under 2%….”

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“MtGox, once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, has gone offline.

Sites tracking trading on the Bitcoin exchange are reporting no trading activity there.

Bitcoin prices were down as much as 14% to $465, a level not seen since mid-November.

Gox had halted withdrawals for more than two weeks amid what it claimed were software issues with its wallets. But  The Bitcoin Foundation has emailed BI a statement about the situation, saying it appears Gox may be insolvent:

“We are shocked to learn about Mt. Gox’s alleged insolvency. While we are unable to comment on whether or not Mt. Gox’s business operations employed operational best practices and reasonable accounting procedures, we can assure the public that the Bitcoin protocol is functioning properly.”

A document unearthed by Bitcoin enthusiast Ryan Selkis that’s been widely circulated estimated at least 744,408 BTC — about 6% of all coins in existence — are now out of circulation. The document asserts the coins have slowly been stolen over the course of several years. In an email to BI, Selkis said he confirmed the authenticity of the document with people close to MtGox. It’s also been cited by the New York Times.

Meanwhile, the leaders of six major Bitcoin organizations have released a statement that points to the end of MtGox as a going concern. They pledge to work together to restore integrity to the Bitocin community. Here is the revised version of an earlier blog item in which they’d characterized Gox as “insolvent.”

Joint Statement Regarding MtGox

Feb 24th, 2014

The purpose of this document is to summarize a joint statement to the Bitcoin community regarding Mt.Gox.

This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt.Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of bitcoin and the digital currency industry. There are hundreds of trustworthy and responsible companies involved in bitcoin. These companies will continue to build the future of money by making bitcoin more secure and easy to use for consumers and merchants.  As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we are seeing today. …”

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It is hard to digest this information as i have no base to judge off of. This is a very intriguing claim that makes me think what is beyond our world of the flesh.

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“Dolores Cannon’s career has spanned over 4 decades, during which she has worked with thousands of clients in regressive hypnotherapy sessions. With over 17 published books on the subject, Dolores Cannon can easily be considered one of the world’s most sought after professionals in the field. Popular subject matter touched upon in her numerous books include: past lives, extra-terrestrials, life on other planets, energy healing, famous historic figures such as Nostradamus and Jesus, abductions, and the list goes on. Each book has the tendency to “bend the reader’s mind like a pretzel,” Dolores explains.

One of her latest books, titled The Three Waves of Volunteers and The New Earth, is an ensemble of regressive hypnotherapy client sessions which narrates a ‘behind the scenes’ look at Earth’s current paradigm shift. During the sessions, Dolores hypnotizes her clients bringing them into the ‘super-conscious’ brainwave state, one of the deepest trances one can experience. Dolores elaborated on her technique in an interview with The Edge:

“I developed my own technique down through the years. It’s not like any other hypnosis technique out there. We are able to contact what I call the greatest force there is, and it’s a source of all knowledge. I found the way to have it come through every single person that I work with, and I’ve worked with thousands of people.”

The results of her technique are astounding to say the least. Through the years Dolores began to notice a correlation among her client sessions, one that bridges the journey of the souls incarnating on the planet at this time.

“When you see thousands and thousands of clients, as I do as a therapist and a counselor, you begin to see a common thread going through many of the cases. Earlier on, it used to be that everybody would go back to a past life and I’d find some of the answers there, and then I’d explore the source of all knowledge to answer all of their questions and do the healing. Just in the last five years or so, I began to see clients who weren’t all going into a past life on Earth. I began to find they had never been on Earth before and that they had come here directly from God, from the Source, from other planets, other dimensions, where they were light beings. That’s the common thread that I have been finding, and that’s where I came up with the theory of the three waves of volunteers.”

Dolores’s theory proposes that a series of souls are traveling from other planets and dimensions to assist Earth at this time. Many of these souls, which are of a higher vibration than the resident Earth souls, are incarnating on the planet for the first time. She affirms that the souls that have spent many lifetimes reincarnating on Earth are stuck in a karmic cycle, repeating the same patterns of mistakes and lessons which is ultimately leading to the destruction of the planet. Thus, there has been a calling for purer souls to come to Earth to cleanse and raise the planet’s vibration.

But now in body, these people don’t have any memory of why they came. “They come in and an amnesia descends on the person, losing the memory of why they are here. But this group has an energy that they have to project. It is a loving energy that will change the mindset here on Earth. It will change history, just them being here.”

Throughout her clients’ journeys, Dolores discovered that Earth is one of the densest planets in the entire universe. A soul that incarnates here is considered brave because life on Earth is a very challenging experience to come into, especially for souls coming from higher realms and planets of a higher vibration. Nevertheless, all of her clients have the same answer when asked about their reason for coming to Earth, they simply “heard the call.”

The Earth is going through a major transformation, one that Dolores’s clients state has never happened before.  For the first time, an entire planet is shifting it’s vibration into a new dimensional frequency. Many souls or groups of souls have experienced a shift like this in the past, (i.e., the Mayans) but never has an entire planet shifted at once. Therefore, Dolores explains, the entire Universe has front row seats to one of the grandest shows ever seen. However, help is needed, because man has polluted the planet with a vibration so dense that it threatens the survival of the planet as a whole. Dolores reveals that if the planet blows itself up, it will reverberate throughout the universe affecting and disturbing all beings. Therefore, the call for help was made, and the souls quickly jumped on the wagon to assist.

In The Three Waves of Volunteers and The New Earth, Dolores elaborates on the three different classes of souls incarnating on Earth:

1. The First Wave: Now in their late 40s to early 60s, these volunteers are disturbed by the violence, anger and hate that they experience on Earth. They have had the hardest time adjusting to life as humans, and many of them try to commit suicide.
2. The Second Wave: Now in their late 20s and 30s, these volunteers are more comfortable in bodies and are said to be beacons or channels of energy who can affect others just by being near them. Their mission of just sharing their energy with others means they don’t have to do anything but just be.
3. The Third Wave: The new children, many of whom are now teenagers, have all the knowledge needed to exist on the planet after the dimensional shift and transformation takes place. Their DNA is more advanced, and the greatest challenge they face is being misunderstood by humans as having a condition (ADHD) that needs to be medicated.

Interestingly, through her many client sessions Dolores has also written extensively on….”

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It has been a great while since i have written a post. I figured most of you have categorized me into your little mental boxes, and for the most part written me off as that “type” of person with those “type” of views. That’s okay as we are all entitled to our opinions, but remember this; a tree that bends in the wind will survive for a very long time. In other words, being inflexible and unable to accept any notion from someone who’s views are opposed to your own belief structure will only allow for no synthesis in the discussion process. Therefore, no change in the real world.

At any rate, i wanted to touch on the subject matter of income inequality and the “demagoguery” of the 1%. To be fair i did just slap the 1% in the face with Immortal Technique, and it is important to state that i do not condone generalization in any way. Poking fun is a way to lighten up the subject matter.

I was watching CNN the other day, while enjoying a cup of joe. The discussion of $FB buying WhatsApp for $19 billion was touted as the benefit of the American dream where a foreigner could go from food stamps in his teenage years to being a gazillionaire in a very short period of time. The deal was used as an excuse to escape the negative connotations  of people becoming incredibly wealthy and subconsciously implying that  being wealthy is all copacetic.

Being and becoming wealthy is in its own right not the issue at hand. What is important is how that wealth is attained. We should never discard ingenuity and business acumen to attain insane amounts of wealth. What we should focus on is the unspoken path to attaining wealth for some people.

You would agree, that attaining wealth through theft, fraud, and or price gouging is unacceptable. But this is precisely what we have in many, not all, but many cases in our society. Lately, i have wondered why something that cost pennies to make is sold for many if not ten’s of dollars. Most will point to a “free market” system and say that the price is based upon supply, demand, and what the market will bear. But is that really the case? I think not when we exploit and pay people a quarter a day to make sneakers. The world is mostly 3rd World born and they are taking notes.

We seem to live in a world where monopolies are all the rage and those monopolies on top of the market place use their wealth to lobby for favorable tax, business, and regulatory conditions. These conditions only serve the few, they actually do away with competition in some instances, and insure that the fraud, theft, and price gouging stays constant. Constant at least for a while.

As an example, during war time as we have witnessed, over the past ten years  we are all too familiar with no bid contracts and watching the military waste oodles of money. Example here , and here. For the record, leasing a vehicle for $40k per year, in some cases $40k per year for 4-7 year minimum contracts, is asinine as they could be bought for that amount of money.

As the saying goes, “the apple does not fall far from the tree,” it is no wonder that when some business leaders and some government officials and or agencies act in a certain way we have individuals running a muck destroying the once respected American reputation.  Yet i digress from the main topic.

I recently posted some videos / articles that display some corporate attitudes and the viability of our economic model. This type of behavior is truly disgusting. More importantly, the issue at hand is that corporations are only beholden to shareholders and maximizing profits. In some cases these attitudes have no regard for humanity, ethics, and what made our country the envy of the world. Given this reality how can we say a corporation is a person? Most persons or citizens are kind, thoughtful, and generous to their fellow citizen. We the people are what makes this country great, but in some cases we the corporation defiles any resemblance to what it means to be human.

It needs to be mentioned that a world fashioned out of a myopic view by the “Bernays effect” and the idea that Darwin’s theories  are a perfect model for our economy is…well a sad result of the dark side of man. Darwin mentions competition and survival of the fittest a few times while he mentions love and community nearly 100 times.

Getting back to the subject one again, the intrinsic value of Gekko’s famous quote “that greed is good” is not inherently bad in and of itself. What becomes unacceptable, is the lengths to which some will go to attain profits through their justified statement.  The problem lies with our fearless leaders both in government and corporate America.

If you want the demagoguery and hatred to disappear then you need to promote a healthy model of business and governing that considers the entire world as your community and brethren. Until then, we will forever remain in a state of “Us and Them” and we will suffer the fate of our disgusting, inhumane, and criminal way of life. This continuance IMO can not and will not end well. If you want to change the future then we must leave the past behind!

On a closing note, i would hate to think that George Carlin could be right. Hopefully, time will prove us not to be a surface annoyance to the planet. I would hope that we survive the wrath of Gaia and ourselves for that matter. Respecting the ideas of the Yin and Yang principle i hope that this article describing the seed of dark blackness is a necessary process to living in the white light.

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLXnuMjx-A8 450 300]

 

 

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Watch part two: http://bit.ly/1gC4Nj3

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“Finance chiefs from the 20 largest economies agreed Sunday to implement policies that will boost world GDP by more than $2 trillion over the coming five years.

Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey, who hosted the Group of 20 meeting in Sydney, said the commitment from the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers was “unprecedented.”

The world economy has sputtered since the 2008 financial crisis and global recession that followed. Progress in returning economic growth to pre-crisis levels has been hampered by austerity policies in Europe, high unemployment in the U.S. and a cooling of China’s torrid expansion.

The centerpiece of the commitment made at the Sydney meeting is to boost the combined gross domestic product of G-20 countries by 2 percent above the levels expected for the next five years, possibly creating tens of millions of new jobs. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the world economy to grow 3.7 percent this year.

The G-20 combines the world’s major industrialized and developing countries from the United States to Saudi Arabia and China, representing about 85 percent of the global economy.

The communique from the meeting said signs of improvement in the global economy are welcome but growth remains below the rates needed to get people back into work and to meet their aspirations.

The G-20 said it would “significantly raise global growth” without overtaxing national finance through measures to promote competition and increase investment, employment and trade.

As an initial step toward achieving the $2 trillion target, each country will present a comprehensive growth strategy to a summit of leaders scheduled for November in the Australian city of Brisbane.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the agreement is significant and crucial to “turning the next page” in the global economic recovery.

“G-20 members have spoken clearly: boosting growth and demand tops the global economic agenda” Lew said in a statement.

Hockey, the Australian treasurer, said there was intensive discussion about the challenges each country faces in boosting investment, particularly in infrastructure. He said there is much that governments can do to boost private investment by having predictable policies and regulations.

On monetary policy, G-20 members said they recognized it needs to remain accommodative for growth in many industrialized countries but should return to normal settings “in due course” depending on the outlook for inflation and GDP…..”

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If banks were so worried over image and bank runs do to criminal activity perhaps they would have a moment of conscience and avoid criminal activity all together. But as usual, the very nature of too big to fail affords them the luxury of too big to jail. With DPAs, NPAs, and tax breaks for paying fines the banks are free to do the crime and pay the fines. In a world of true democracy and the rule of law we would still abide by the old adage of not doing the crime in order not to do the time.

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“Shah Gilani writes: Headline news about banks settling charges for violating rules, regulations, and laws – and announcements of the fines they agree to pay – appears every day…

Rarely – if ever – do they reveal how much money is really being paid or where it’s going…

They also seldom explain what kinds of settlements are reached.

Or how banks negotiate what they’ll actually pay and to whom… or how they negotiate tax deductibility of fines… or how they get “credits” for fines they never pay… or how insurance covers some of it…

This is not one of those stories… this is about what really happens behind the banksters’ doors.

The details are shocking…

These Massive Penalties Are Quieted to Protect “Us”

First of all, some settlements never see the light of day. They can be deemed “confidential” by regulators settling with a miscreant bank.

Why are some settlements confidential? Because bank lawyers argue their clients are exposed to “reputational risk” and details of their “alleged” wrongdoing, which they typically “neither admit nor deny,” could impact the health of the bank. Of course, that could create “systemic risk,” they argue, due to the damage to the public’s perception of trust in their banking institutions.

The FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is one agency that thinks keeping settlements confidential will keep folks from withdrawing money from law-breaking banks. They believe it protects the agency from having to bail out remaining depositors if those banks eventually fail.

Last year, for example, the FDIC, ignoring the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Improvement Act of 1991 that mandates settlements be made public, fined Deutsche Bank $54 million for packaging and selling bad mortgage-backed securities to a failed bank, but no one heard about it.

According to E. Scott Reckard, who reported on the confidential settlement for the Los Angeles Times, “The deal might have made big headlines, given that the bad loans contributed to the largest payout in FDIC history, $13 billion. But the government cut a deal with the bank’s lawyers to keep it quiet: a ‘no press release’ clause that required the FDIC never to mention the deal ‘except in response to a specific inquiry.'”

Also last year, according to the Financial Times, Wells Fargo “quietly settled” with the Federal Housing Finance Agency “for allegedly misleading disclosures on mortgage securities” it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The FT went on to say, “unlike deals with UBS and JPMorgan, Wells’ settlement, which is believed to be worth less than $1 billion, is governed by a confidentiality agreement.”

The Real Reason No One Goes to Jail

Of course, whether their settlements are confidential or not, too-big-to-fail banks have only faced civil charges, for which they have to pay fines. There have been no criminal prosecutions of any banks or banksters. That’s because of the doctrine: too-big-to-fail and too-big-to-jail.

None of the agencies that bring civil actions against the big banks can pursue them criminally. If a bank’s actions are so egregious that they warrant a criminal investigation, the agency passes along their files to the Department of Justice.

But, the DOJ hasn’t pursued any criminal action against any bank or bankster.

Why? Because as Lanny Breuer, who was chief of the Criminal Division of the DOJ from April 2009 to March 2013, explained in a 2012 speech to the New York City Bar Association, “To be clear, the decision of whether to indict a corporation, defer prosecution, or decline altogether is not one that I, or anyone in the Criminal Division, take lightly. We are frequently on the receiving end of presentations from defense counsel, CEOs, and economists who argue that the collateral consequences of an indictment would be devastating for their client. In my conference room, over the years, I have heard sober predictions that a company or bank might fail if we indict, that innocent employees could lose their jobs, that entire industries may be affected, and even that global markets will feel the effects.”

Lanny Breuer left the DOJ last year to return, for a reported $4 million a year, to his old white-collar criminal defense firm Covington & Burling, who represents Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and others. Attorney General Eric Holder is also a Covington alumni.

Besides not being pursued criminally, when banks and banksters are caught breaking laws they are slapped on the wrist and gifted with Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) and Non-Prosecution Agreements (NPAs). These consistently handed out agreements, in the 20 years since their emergence as an alternative to indictments, are, in the words of the Harvard Law School, “a mainstay of the U.S. corporate enforcement regime, with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) leading the way.”

According to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, “These types of agreements have achieved official acceptance as a middle ground between exclusively civil enforcement (or even no enforcement action at all) and a criminal conviction and sentence. DPAs and NPAs allow companies and prosecutors to resolve high-stakes claims of corporate misconduct – often the subject of sizable media attention – through agreements to obey the law, cooperate comprehensively with the government, adopt or enhance rigorous compliance measures, and often pay a hefty monetary penalty.”

You’ll Be Surprised Where the Fine Money Lands

So, how does the DOJ and how do attorneys general, and the SEC and CFTC, and the FHFA and FREC and any and all of the other alphabet soup of regulators overseeing the Lords of the Banking Underworld determine what settlement fines banks have to pay?

They negotiate them, of course, with the banks…..”

 

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