Former FDIC Chair Bair: Bank Bailout Was ‘Overkill’

Moneynews:

The billions of taxpayer dollars spent to bailout big banks was largely unnecessary, according to Sheila Bair, former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairwoman.

In an excerpt from her new book “Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street From Wall Street and Wall Street From Itself,” which was published by Fortune, Bair writes “with the exception of Citi, the commercial banks' capital levels seemed to be adequate.”

“Without government aid some of them might have had to forgo bonuses and take losses for several quarters, but still, it seemed to me that they were strong enough to bumble through,” she writes.

That the U.S. government showered Wall Street with cash during the financial crisis as people were losing their homes and jobs continues to be a hot button issue. Many Americans blame the banks for the crisis and argue that Washington could have and should have done more for the people and less for those who created the problem.

Bair seems to agree and this is not a new position for her.

Last October, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Bair spoke at the National Asian American Coalition conference about her disappointment that so little appears to have been done for the millions of homeowners still in distress.

“I wish I could say things have gotten better, but I don't see that they have. The loan programs are not doing what they need to. Part of the problem is a not very well-functioning mortgage services industry. The resources are not there. The training is not there. The commitment is not there,” the Chronicle quoted her as saying.

Consistent with that sentiment, Bair writes in the book, “We used up resources and political capital that could have been spent on other programs to help more Main Street Americans.”

She admits that there was a lot less information available when the bailout decision was made and that that uncertainty played a factor in how the situation was handled.

Still, she writes, “In retrospect the mammoth assistance to those big institutions seemed like overkill. I never saw a good analysis to back it up.”

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Why We Have No Budget and Why It Can’t Be Balanced

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Technorati Tags: FDIC,financial crisis,bank bailout,watch the other hand,finances,economics,Romney-Ryan,Mitt Romney in 2012. QE3,depression,student loans

Customer Deposits Are Property of the Bank: Close Your Account NOW

By Susanne Posel - heintelhub.com - August 24, 2012 – h/t to MJ

In June of 2012, Eric Bloom, former chief executive, and Charles Mosely, head trader of Sentinel Management Group (SMG) were indicted for stealing $500 million in customer secured funds.

Both Mosely and Bloom were accused of “exposing” customer segregated funds “to a portfolio of highly risky derivatives.”

These customer funds were used to “back up personal investments” which were part of “collateral for a loan from Bank of New York Mellon” (BNYM).

This loan derived from stolen customer monies was “used to purchase millions of dollars worth of high-risk, illiquid securities, including collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, for a trading portfolio that benefited Sentinel’s officers, including Mosley, Bloom and certain Bloom family members.”

Fast forward to August 9th of 2012, and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals (CCA) rules that BNYM can be moved to first in line of creditors over the customers that had their funds stolen by SMG.

When a banking customer deposits their money into their bank account, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SPIC) are in place to protect the customer from fraud or theft.

The ruling from the CCA means that these regulatory systems will not insure customer funds, investments, depositors and retirees who hold accounts in banks.

In fact, the banking institution is now legally allowed to use those customer funds deposited as collateral, payment on debts for loans made, or free use on the stock market to purchase investments as the bank sees fit.

Fred Grede, SMG trustee, explained that brokers are no longer required to keep customer money separate from their own. “It does not bode well for the protection of customer funds.”

Since the ruling gives banks the right to co-mingle customer funds with their own, no crime can be committed for the use of customer deposited monies.

According to Walker Todd , former lawyer for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Cleveland:

“Basically, there is a new 7th Circuit opinion saying that there is no reason to impose a constructive trust on a lender’s takings of customers’ funds from client commodity firms that were used (inappropriately) to secure the firms’ borrowings, as long as the lender can say that it did not know WITH CERTAINTY that customers’ funds were being repledged. Negligence and misappropriation (vs. knowing criminal intent) are now a sufficient excuse for letting the lender keep the money and go to the head of the line for distributions in bankruptcies of the client commodity firms.”

When a customer deposits money into a bank, the bank essentially issues a promise to have those funds available when the customer returns to withdraw the deposited amount.

When the same customer withdraws funds from their account (whether checking or savings) the customer assumes that the bank has enough funds to cover their withdrawal; including the presumption that their monies are separate from the bank’s assets.

Now, those funds are up for grabs by the bank at their discretion without explanation to the customer – nor is the bank obligated to recoup the customer should they “lose” those funds due to bad loans, bankruptcy or stock market loss.

In Texas, Pamela Cobb, manager of Bank of America (BoA), stole an estimated $2 million from customer funds for personal use. Cobb had been taking customer segregated funds since 2002.

Customers have complained of fraudulent charges placed on their accounts that BoA cannot explain. When the customer brings these charges to the in-house fraud department, they are given the run-around until they acquiesce.

Other customers have had their private possessions stolen right out of their safety deposit box held at BoA. The safety deposit box was drilled into and the contents shipped to the BoA corporate holding center in South Carolina.

In 1992 to 2003, Citibank called their theft of customer funds “account sweeping” wherein they stole more than $14 million from customers nationally.

Using computerized credit card processes to remove positive and negative balances from customers, the scheme included double payments or funds paid out on returned purchases that were then attributed back to the customer.

At Chase bank, an anonymous employee opened an account under a customer name (targeting an Alzheimer’s sufferer), complete with a personal debit card.

An estimated $300 per day was withdrawn on the fraudulent account. When family representing the victim alerted Chase, they brushed them off with an internal investigation claim – even as the family sought legal action.

Banking fraud against the elderly has risen of late, since banks realize they can steal massive amounts of cash from their aging customers with little to no repercussions.

The recent ruling on SMG has given the banking industry the legal backing they have been lacking when stealing from their customers.

Our financial institutions have been planning for a financial collapse wherein the US government will not offer assistance.

The resolution plans required by the Federal Reserve Bank, described schemes to have the major domestic banks remain afloat by selling off assets, finding alternative sources of funding, reducing risky measures that make a quick buck. These strategies were to be perfected with “no assumption of extraordinary support from the public sector.”

The mega-banks, through Wall Street, are also acquiring firearms, ammunition and control over private mercenary corporations like DynCorp and ‘Blackwater” as authorized by the Department of Defense (DoD) directive 3025.18 .

DynCorp is a military-based private mercenary contractor that provides (among other services) intelligence training and support, international security, contingency plans and operations. Ninety-six percent of their funding is based on annual revenues from the US federal government.

The international branch of DynCorp has operated as a “police force” even assisting local law enforcement during Hurricane Katrina.

Named as investors for the amassing of gun and ammunition manufacturers are Citibank, BoA, Barclays and Deutsche Bank who are pouring money into Cerebus and Veritas Equity who have taken over private corporations involved in the controlling riot situations.

The Federal Reserve Bank, one of the heads of banking cartels, has their own police force which operates as a protective security for the Fed against the American public.

As part of the Federal Reserve Act signed in 1913, the designation of a Federal Law Enforcement – special police officers that are exclusively regulated by authority of the Fed (whether in uniform or plain clothes.

These specialized police officers (who train with Special Response Teams) can work in tandem with local law enforcement or US federal agencies. These officers are heavily armed with semi-automatic pistols, sub machine guns and assault rifles as well as body armor.

Of recent, when withdrawing cash from an ATM, the daily allotted amount has decreased with some banks, thereby forcing the customer to go into the branch and extract the difference with a teller.

At this point, according to anonymous informants, the customer is taken into a backroom to be questioned as to why they want the cash, what they are purchasing with the cash, why they are not choosing to use a debit card or another form of digital trade to make the purchase. These questions are not only intrusive, they are illegal.

Some anonymous sources have said that banking representatives who conduct the integrations are directed to keep a record of customer responses on an online application that will be sent to the FBI in conjunction with Patriot Act mandates on tracking banking activity.

Customer funds are no longer secure, no longer backed by the FDIC or other insurance corporations, and banks are legally allowed to co-mingled customer money with other funds of the bank. The only safe place for your money is with you.

Now is the time to close your bank account.

Susanne Posel is the Chief Editor of Occupy Corporatism Our alternative news site is dedicated to reporting the news as it actually happens; not as it is spun by the corporate-funded mainstream media. You can find us on our Facebook page.

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• Gauss Virus Targets Banking System May Cause US Financial Collapse
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• Letters From the Underground Mail Bag: Subterranean Labyrinths, Underground Bases, and Hollowed O ... AlienDigest.com

Technorati Tags: DOD,Banks,Big Brother,banksters,money,BoA,New Economic World Order,global elites,NWO,Blackwater,DynCorp,FDIC,Deutsche Bank,Barclays,Cerebus,Veritas Equity,savings,your savings,Citibank,Federal Reserve,private army,SMG,preparedness,BNYM,the FED,banking cartels,International bankers,investors money,survival

American Freedom – Chinese Style?

A Chinese Group Plans To Construct A 200 Acre 

A Chinese group known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan.  Their plan is to construct a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.  Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America.  This "China City" would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States.  Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated incident.  In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years.  There has even been talk of establishing "special economic zones" inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen.  It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products.  Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms.

The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000 people, but big changes are coming their way.  The following is from a recent Dayton Daily News article about this new project....

A group of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for 200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011, according to local officials and property records.

Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new "city" into the existing community in and around Milan.

Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming over from China.  According to the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units "would be marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United States".

In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of Michigan.

Doug Smith, senior vice president for business and community development for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., recently said the following about what the Chinese group plans to do....

"It’s a group that wants to build a China city, starting with housing over there in Milan"

Milan is not far from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which is a very popular destination for Chinese students.  Apparently that is one reason why Milan was chosen.

This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and specifically designed for Chinese.

But isn't this supposed to be America?

Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet.  It still must be approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.

For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of the country.

For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio.  The following is from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011....

Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.

So should we be alarmed that the Chinese are buying up pieces of America?

Well, if they simply wanted to enjoy living in America and wanted to integrate into the wider community that would be one thing.

But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist China inside of U.S. territory.

In a previous article entitled "China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho", I discussed a potential deal that Sinomach (a company controlled by the Chinese government) was exploring with the government of Idaho.  The following is a description of that potential project from an article in the Idaho Statesman....

A Chinese national company is interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport.

There was talk that this "technology zone" would be modeled after the "special economic zones" that have been developed in China.  The city of Shenzhen is perhaps the most famous example of this.

Fortunately that deal appears to have stalled, but other mammoth deals have been moving forward in other parts of the country.

For example, the Chinese have been very busy gobbling up oil and gas fields.  The following is a quote from a local Texas news source about a deal that a company owned by the Chinese government did with Chesapeake Energy down in Texas....

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

You can read more about that particular deal right here.

So is it really a good idea to be allowing the Chinese to buy up our precious energy resources?

The answer to that question is obvious.

Sadly, the examples noted above are not isolated incidents.  The truth is that the Chinese have been snapping up real estate and business assets all over America as a recent Forbes article explained....

According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are “snapping up luxury apartments” and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.

So get ready - the Chinese are buying up U.S. land and they are moving in whether you like it or not.

So what will the long-term consequences be of allowing a communist superpower to buy up large sections of America?

That is a very good question.

Fed clears China's first US bank takeover

Yahoo ^ |Wednesday, May 09, 2012 6:33:39 PM · by GeorgeWashingtonsGhost · 18 replies

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...

 China & the Other Central Banks Are Buying Gold-Ranting Andy Hoffman--09.May.2012

The Financial Survival Network ^ | 05/09/2012 | Kerry Lutz  -  Listen to the Interview Here - http://financialsurvivalnetwork.com/2012/05/the-people-have-spoken/

www.FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com presents: "Ranting" Andy Hoffman gives us the update on the latest precious metals slam down; the reasons to own gold and silver couldn't be stronger. If the prices stay down this low, don't be surprised to witness a major flood of buying. We're also getting into the Indian Wedding Season, which will result in increased demand along with massive sovereign central bank purchases. This is worse than 2008, and banks are blowing up all over Europe. Spain has just bailed out its third largest bank. Who's going to bail out Spain? Greece is planning to reneg on its debt....

World Affairs Brief

Both Republican and Democratic administrations have been supplying the Chinese with high technology weapons systems for years, knowing that they, in turn, are supplying other enemies (Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea) as well. Both Russia and China continue to protest against any US anti-ballistic missile system, even though such systems are purely defensive. It doesn't take a genius to understand that ABM systems only threaten someone who intends to launch ballistic missiles someday.

"The US supplying Chinese with US high tech weapons systems?”

Note: He went into personal details not shown here, of experiences when as a person holding security classification, in U.S. weapons development, how they were ordered to allow Chinese military officers go over the details of secret projects they were working on !!

 Shocking News: China Sells Energy Pills Made From Baby Flesh

Customs officials in South Korea have uncovered a horrifying reality coming from China. Since last August, the Koreans have confiscated over 17,000 "energy pills" that were made from the dried flesh of babies. The rest of the nauseating details can be found HERE.

China is exporting pills made from dried and pulverized human baby flesh. [They are hyped as a medicinal cure-all.] DailyMail 2012 May 7 (Cached)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2140702/South-Korea-customs-officials-thousands-pills-filled-powdered-human-baby-flesh.html#ixzz1uDZvdZaW

 Soy-Crop Bust Spurs China to Drain U.S. Bins: Commodities

 China Has Hacked Our Electric Power Grid: Read About It In Screwed!
By DICK MORRIS  -  Published on DickMorris.com on May 10, 2012

In our new book Screwed!, we report that almost unnoticed and with no threat of retaliation, China has likely hacked into the United States electric grid, potentially giving it the ability to paralyze our economy and our nation by tapping a few keys on a computer. (This is an ad by Dick Morris for his book… but the book is well worth reading.  He covers a lot of important topics in great detail that others are ignoring!)

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bush's anti-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke reports that "in 2009, the control systems for the U.S. electric power grid [were] hacked and secret openings created so that the attacker could get back in with ease.  One expert noted that the hackers "left behind software that could be used to cause disruptions or even shut down the system."

While we cannot confirm that it was China that did the hacking, it is the only country with the technical expertise in hacking to have accomplished it.

What were the hackers after?  Clarke notes that "there is no money to steal on the electrical grid, nor is there any intelligence value that would justify cyber espionage.  The only point to penetrating the grid's controls is to counter American military superiority by threatening to damage the underpinning of the U.S. economy.  Chinese military strategists have written about how in this way a nation like China could gain an equal footing with the militarily superior United States."

Anti-terror watchdogs have long been aware of the danger of an electromagnetic pulse triggered by the explosion of a nuclear device in the atmosphere over the United States.  But by acquiring the ability to enter our grid anytime it wishes and disable it, China has likely acquired the ability to accomplish the same result without exploding a bomb.

Not only has Beijing likely hacked into our grid but, according to authors Brett M. Decker and William C. Triplett II in their excellent book Bowing to Beijing, China has even hacked into the Pentagon computer network "including the one serving [then] Defense Secretary Robert Gates." 

James Lewis, director of the technology and policy program at the Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies called the Chinese hacking "an espionage Pearl Harbor."  Lewis told 60 minutes that China had downloaded vast amounts of information from every major U.S. agency saying that we have lost more information than is stored in the entire Library of Congress through Chinese hacking.

What is the U.S. doing about it? Nothing.  The modern day story of appeasement is not Obama's kowtowing to Muslim extremists as much as his total failure to confront China.

The president and Secretary of State Clinton fret over alienating China for fear that they will stop lending us money.  Romney, who understands these things better than either Obama or Clinton, emphasizes China's vulnerability. "We sell then $50 billion.  They sell us $400 billion.  They want a trade war?  Bring it on!"

The Chinese lend us money because they have to.  They buy dollars to make our currency artificially expensive and theirs' commensurately cheap.  With their currency manipulation, our products are 40% more costly in their markets and theirs' are 40% cheaper in our stores, fueling the imbalance of trade.  Once they own the dollars, what are they going to do with them?  The only safe thing is to buy U.S. Treasury notes, hence they "lend" us money.  If they stopped buying dollars and acquiring an unfair trade advantage over us, we wouldn't need them to keep lending us money, our economy would be thriving.

We cannot sit by complacently and let China rob us blind, hacking our technology, our military secrets, and our power grid.  We need a president who will stand up for America.

To grasp the appalling extent of Chinese hacking and espionage against the U.S. commercial and military sectors, read about it in Screwed!, on sale now!

Technorati Tags: China,Chinese,US bank takeover,watch the other hand,electric power grid,Screwed,invasion,Michigan,the Fed,banking

Pathological Politics – Predatory Partners and Persecuting Patriots

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton - the NoisyRoom

In the notorious tradition of Nixon’s Enemies List, Obama is now openly persecuting patriots at every opportunity. He tries to shame them, taint them, marginalize them and if all that doesn’t work, he sends goons after them and either imprisons them or threatens them with imprisonment. He’s using every agency at his disposal, with a special emphasis on the EPA, FDA, IRS, SEC, ATF and Fish and Wildlife authorities. And he has hired a whole governmental ‘army’ to enforce his dictates and go after his enemies. Welcome to the American Stasi.

We have watched how Obama smears those who would dare to donate to Mitt Romney’s campaign. That should make us want to donate even more, not back down and cower in fear. We all know that Obama is determined to be reelected legally or illegally – he doesn’t care. He just wants to hold on to his power, so he can finish what he started – destroying America with his pathological politics of corruption, greed and evil. If the elections don’t suffice, he’ll invent an emergency to ensure his death grip on the throat of America.

Look at how Gibson Guitars has been treated. They have been raided multiple times, but they can’t defend themselves because in the last three years, this administration won’t say what crime they are charging them with. They are destroying a good and honest company that creates jobs and does business production here in America. Their crime – successful capitalism. Something Obama will not tolerate.

Then there are farmers. The EPA is clamping down on the Amish and others who don’t follow every regulation in an effort to put them out of business and it is working. I hear the stealthy, sly footsteps of Cass Sunstein. Soon, very soon, the government will control all our farmland and food. Then if you step out of line, they’ll just starve you to death. Farming on your own property will be illegal. It’s coming – bet on it. Right now they are seizing farmer’s bank accounts. The FDA is now using the terrorist based “Bank Secrecy Act” as justification to invade, investigate and even confiscate the bank accounts of Americans in the agricultural business.

From The Examiner:

The Bank Secrecy Act that came out of the events of 9/11, which has been expanded during the decade long war on terror, is now being used to criminally attack farmers who choose not to use banks as their sole or primary source for monetary transactions. This is especially relevant after the credit crisis of 2008, where many American[s] began withdrawing money from banks after bank solvency came into question.

This banking law, which allows for the unwarranted confiscation and seizure of funds based solely on perceived impropriety, is one of many new policies created under the Bush and Obama administrations to control the public, and the flow of money in the United States. Beginning in 2013, new capital controls are set to be implemented which will make it extremely difficult to move dollars in and out of the country, and more recently, the Obama administration diverted funds from other departments to hire thousands of IRS agents for the new healthcare system that will also commence in 2013.

Ted Nugent on Regulations

Glenn Beck – We Are All Criminals Now

Now, we turn to Ted Nugent, who has been all over the news as of late. Evidently Obama has had Ted Nugent in his sights for at least two years and probably much longer. Nugent was charged with breaking a law – of which the judge hadn’t even heard – while hunting black bear in Alaska. But you can bet the Feds did and they brought charges hoping to snare Nugent. But that didn’t work out as they intended – Nugent accepted that he ‘unknowingly’ broke the law and the sentence carried the same weight as jaywalking, a misdemeanor offense. They tried to snag him in California and accused him of baiting a deer. A total falsehood and you’d have to be a moron to do it since he was airing the episode on TV. They stormed three of his friends’ homes and then searched a room not covered by the search warrant. They found a set of brass knuckles and told Nugent’s friend they would drop the felony charge if he would help them ‘get’ Nugent. Fortunately Ted has very good friends. But they took all kinds of stuff from their homes.

Now, they have made Nugent slaughter his pigs in Michigan – labeling them as feral. Since when is livestock you keep in a pen ‘feral?’ Obviously they either don’t know or more likely, don’t care what the definition is. They were the wrong color and thus deemed ‘feral’ and Nugent was forced to slaughter them. It’s tempting to draw conclusions about motives related to winning points with the Dearbornistan locals, given that the “reason” for slaughtering the pigs is clearly a pretext; one wonders to oneself, could squeezing pig farmers be calibrated to curry favor with a Muslim community?

He’s also been persecuted for his Oryx in Texas as well. They are harassing him about raising these animals when he brought them back from the brink of extinction. A three legged little one was born and he is not being allowed to put it out of its misery. It will die a slow and painful death. How is that compassion? If he puts it down, it’s a felony.

Someone high up would not allow Nugent to attend a SEAL’s funeral when it was the hero’s final wish. His concerts have been cancelled in several cases as well. The Feds interviewed him over comments he made at an NRA conference recently. He was cleared, but I guess free speech is no longer very ‘free’ in this country. Nugent is a good man – a patriotic man. That’s a lot more than you can say about Obama and his thugs.

This isn’t just about Ted Nugent folks – it’s about each and every one of us. They are coming after the bloggers, the patriots, small businesses, you name it. There is no way we can avoid violating one of these bogus laws. It’s only a matter of time. Obama doesn’t care about the Constitution – it means nothing to him. They are coming and we had better stand together, or we will all hang separately as patriots. The way Nugent is being treated is absolutely disgraceful.

From Kim Strassel at the Wall Street Journal:

He’s targeted insurers, oil firms and Wall Street—letting it be known that those who oppose his policies might face political or legislative retribution. He lectured the Supreme Court for giving companies more free speech and (falsely) accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to bankroll U.S. elections. The White House even ginned up an executive order (yet to be released) to require companies to list political donations as a condition of bidding for government contracts. Companies could bid but lose out for donating to Republicans. Or they could quit donating to the GOP—Mr. Obama’s real aim.

We all know of Obama’s Enemies List, but do you know who his predatory partners are? Along with Communists and radicals, he has a special fondness for the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, he has opened the front door of the White House and has told them to make themselves at home. These are the evil asshats who support and fund Hamas. These are Islamic terrorists of the ilk that carried out 9-11 and Obama embraces them while persecuting American patriots.

Rumors of War III

Obama is not even subtle about it. They have removed all references to radical Islam in federal publications. They allow Shariah Law to be carried out on American soil. Obama’s best friend is the Prime Minister of Turkey who gives him advice on his daughters. You see, it doesn’t matter whether Obama is a Muslim or not, his father was. Obama has Islamic street cred. It even gives him a basis for using Taqiyya against Americans. Obama is actively and aggressively promoting Islam around the planet and especially here at home. The only thing that matches his love of Islam, is his hatred of Israel.

If one is known by who his friends and enemies are, then Obama’s predatory partners and the patriots he persecutes are screaming volumes at us. It’s clear that his campaign of pathological politics and communism is on a set of tracks that leads somewhere we dare not go.

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts

This gives a new meaning to " gov’t. corruption"!!!!

No wonder they didn't want to be Audited..

Audit of the Federal Reserve Reveals $16 Trillion in Secret Bailouts - unelected.org - Click: The Silver Bear Cafe

The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill (HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke(pictured to the right), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning.

What was revealed in the audit was startling:

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious - the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is "only" $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is "only" $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.

"This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else." - Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.

Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and super-corporations like Halloween candy. If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses will eventually plunder the world economy.

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows..

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places

View the 266-page GAO audit of the Federal Reserve(July 21st, 2011): http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation

Source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-696
FULL PDF on GAO server: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
Senator Sander’s Article: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

Source: unelected.org  - Click: The Silver Bear Cafe

(The Motto of the Silver Bear Cafe is: "Serving up a heaping helping of the Truth, with a generous side of Common Sense")

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks?

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America's Next TARP Model
www.thedailyshow.com
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Video:  America’s Next TARP Model – with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret.

Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the "too big to fail" banks between 2007 and 2010. So have you heard about this on the nightly news? Probably not. Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture. The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down. The Federal Reserve has been actively picking "winners" and "losers" in the financial system, and it turns out that the "friends" of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the "winners". This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.

According to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping $16.1 trillion.

That is an astonishing amount of money.

Keep in mind that the GDP of the United States for the entire year of 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars.

The total U.S. national debt is only a bit above 15 trillion dollars right now.

So 16 trillion dollars is an almost inconceivable amount of money.

But some other dollar figures have been thrown around lately regarding these secret Federal Reserve bailouts. Let's take a look at them and see what they mean.

$1.2 Trillion

A recent Bloomberg article made the following statement....

The $1.2 trillion peak on Dec. 5, 2008 -- the combined outstanding balance under the seven programs tallied by Bloomberg -- was almost three times the size of the U.S. federal budget deficit that year and more than the total earnings of all federally insured banks in the U.S. for the decade through 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The $1.2 trillion figure represents the peak outstanding balance on these loans, not the total amount of all the loans. On December 5, 2008 the "too big to fail" banks owed this much money to the Federal Reserve. Many of them could not pay these short-term loans back right away and had to keep rolling them over time after time. Each time a short-term loan got rolled over that represented a new loan.

$7.7 Trillion

Bloomberg is reporting that the Federal Reserve had made a total of $7.77 trillion in financial commitments to the big banks by the end of March 2009....

Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

But as mentioned above, a one-time limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act covered an even broader time period and revealed even more bailout loans.

According to the GAO audit, $16.1 trillion in secret loans were made by the Federal Reserve between December 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010. The following list of firms and the amount of money that they received was taken directly from page 131 of the GAO audit report....

Citigroup - $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC - $868 billion
Bear Sterns - $853 billion
Goldman Sachs - $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion
Deutsche Bank - $354 billion
UBS - $287 billion
Credit Suisse - $262 billion
Lehman Brothers - $183 billion
Bank of Scotland - $181 billion
BNP Paribas - $175 billion
Wells Fargo - $159 billion
Dexia - $159 billion
Wachovia - $142 billion
Dresdner Bank - $135 billion
Societe Generale - $124 billion
"All Other Borrowers" - $2.639 trillion

This report was made available to all the members of Congress, but most of them have been totally silent about it. One of the only members of Congress that has said something has been U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

The following is an excerpt from a statement about this audit that was taken from the official website of Senator Sanders....

"As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world"

So where is everyone else?

Why aren't leading Republicans and leading Democrats crying bloody murder over this report?

This scandal should have been front page news for months when it was revealed.

But it wasn't.

And Guess what?

Not only did the Federal Reserve give 16.1 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free loans to the "too big to fail" banks, the Fed also paid them over 600 million dollars to help run the emergency lending program. According to the GAO, the Federal Reserve shelled out an astounding $659.4 million in "fees" to the very financial institutions which caused the financial crisis in the first place.

In addition, it turns out that trillions of dollars of this bailout money actually went overseas. According to the GAO audit, approximately $3.08 trillion went to foreign banks in Europe and in Asia.

So why were our dollars being used to bail out foreign banks while tens of millions of American families were deeply suffering?

That is a very good question.

Also, it is important to remember that many of these bailout loans were made at below market interest rates, and this enabled many of these financial institutions to rake in huge profits.

According to a recent Bloomberg article, the big banks brought in an estimated $13 billion by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates....

While the Fed’s last-resort lending programs generally charge above-market interest rates to deter routine borrowing, that practice sometimes flipped during the crisis. On Oct. 20, 2008, for example, the central bank agreed to make $113.3 billion of 28-day loans through its Term Auction Facility at a rate of 1.1 percent, according to a press release at the time.

The rate was less than a third of the 3.8 percent that banks were charging each other to make one-month loans on that day. Bank of America and Wachovia Corp. each got $15 billion of the 1.1 percent TAF loans, followed by Royal Bank of Scotland’s RBS Citizens NA unit with $10 billion, Fed data show.

So once the financial crisis was over, were adjustments made to the financial system to make sure that this type of thing would never happen again?

Of course not.

Today, the "too big to fail" banks are larger than ever. The total assets of the six largest U.S. banks increased by 39 percent between September 30, 2006 and September 30, 2011.

So now they are more "too big to fail" than ever.

But this is what happens when we allow unelected central bank bureaucrats to run our financial system.

Most Americans do not realize this, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve is not part of the government. In fact, it is about as "federal" as Federal Express is. The Federal Reserve has admitted that they are a privately owned institution in court many times, and you can see video of a Federal Reserve employee admitting that the Federal Reserve is privately owned right here.

The Federal Reserve is an out of control monster that is throwing around trillions of dollars whenever it wants to. Nobody should be allowed to do this. Nobody should be allowed to give bailouts to banks and corporations without the express permission of the U.S. Congress and the president of the United States.

This is a point that I made in my article yesterday. The Federal Reserve decided this week that it is going to provide "liquidity support" to Europe. If the American people do not like this move, that is just too bad. We do not get a say in the matter.

Are you starting to understand why I keep pushing the idea that it is time to shut down the Federal Reserve?

Please share this information about the secret 16 trillion dollar Federal Reserve bailout with your family and your friends.

If we can get enough people to wake up, perhaps there is still time to change the direction that this country is headed.

From the Economic Collapse Blog

Video: The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loan - Now Do You Understand Occupy Wall Street?

Kucinich bill seeks to end the Federal Reserve:

Kucinich bill seeks to end the Federal Reserve!
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1718844/pg1
Kucinich bill seeks to end the Federal Reserve
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/01/kucinich-bill-seeks-to-end-the-federal-reserve/

Related:

WHAT THE HELL? The U.S. Secretly loaned 7.7 TRILLION To Banks Without Interest. Then Borrowed Back WITH Interest
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1718942/pg1

America's Next TARP Model
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-1-2011/america-s-next-tarp-model

A Bloomberg report reveals that the U.S. government loaned banks $7.7 trillion in secret bailout funds at no interest and then borrowed the money back at interest.
Bloomberg reports 7.7 trillion in loans to big banks and Wall Street
http://reading-sage.blogspot.com/2011/11/bloomberg-reports-77-trillion-in-loans.html?m=1pg1

h/t to Jean Stoner

REVEALED: Nancy Pelosi Blocked Credit Card Reform While Investing Millions in Exclusive Visa Stock

REVEALED: Nancy Pelosi Blocked Credit Card Reform While Investing Millions in Exclusive Visa Stock -  biggovernment.com ^ | Sunday November 13, 2011 | Wynton Hall

Posted on Sunday, November 13, 2011 8:14:43 PM by Bigtigermike

Former Speaker of the House–and current Minority Leader–Nancy Pelosi apparently bought $1 million to $5 million of Visa stock in one of the most sought-after and profitable initial public offerings (IPO) in American history, thwarted serious credit card reform for two years, and then watched her investment skyrocket 203%.

The revelation appears in Throw Them All Out, the new book by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer

Schweizer’s investigation of Pelosi and other members of Congress – from both parties–raises a critical question: should it be legal for lawmakers to buy stocks in companies directly affected by their legislative efforts?

In early 2008, Nancy Pelosi and her real estate developer husband, Paul, were given an opportunity to buy into a Visa IPO. It was a nearly impossible feat–one that average citizens almost certainly could never achieve.

Despite Pelosi’s consistent railing against credit card companies, on March 18, 2008, the Pelosis bought between $1 million and $5 million (politicians do not have to report the exact amounts, only ranges) worth of Visa stock at the IPO price of $44 per share. Two days later, the stock price rocketed to $65 per share, yielding a 50% profit. The Pelosis then bought Visa twice more. By their third purchase on June 4, 2008, Visa was worth $85 per share.

How did Nancy Pelosi snag one of the most coveted initial public offerings in history? The facts are still emerging. Yet according to Schweizer, corporations that wish to build congressional allies will sometimes hand-pick members of Congress to receive IPOs.

Pelosi received her Visa IPO almost two weeks after a potentially damaging piece of legislation for Visa, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, had been introduced in the House.

(Excerpt) Read more at biggovernment.com ...

Throw Them All Out

h/t to Jean Stoner

Related:

Jack Abramoff:  The Lobbyist’s Playbook

BIG BANKS LOSE BILLIONS ON ‘BANK TRANSFER DAY’ – BUT THIS MIGHT BE IN THEIR FAVOR

Bank Transfer Day, the movement that urged bank customers to close their accounts and instead deposit funds in credit unions on or before November 5, led to at least 650,000 new credit union members and a total of $4.5 billion in new deposits, according to the Credit Union National Association.

(Related: New Measure Puts U.S. Poverty Rate at 16 percent)

About 80 percent of credit unions in the U.S. saw an increase in accounts in October, with membership increases of 10,000 or more in 21 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the past month.

California credit unions saw the biggest gains, adding about 90,000 new members and $624 million in new deposits.

Texas came in second, with $326 million in new deposits from 47,000 new members.

Mary Beth King, communications director for the Credit Union Association of New Mexico, said that the association would be sending out surveys to its member institutions to gauge new numbers.

“Regardless of how many people joined credit unions Saturday, there is a big new awareness of credit unions as not-for-profit financial cooperatives owned by their members. That is the credit union difference we’ve worked to let people know about all along,” said King.

However, despite the loss of capital and customers, there are some analysts who argue that “Bank Transfer Day” was actually in the banks’ favor. How? Motley Fool columnist Morgan Housel explains (h/t Christian Science Monitor):

One of the drivers behind [Bank Transfer Day] is people trying to teach banks a lesson. The irony of that is since the financial crisis, and especially over the last three months as there has been a panic about Europe . . . banks have been inundated with cash deposits.

They’ve been seeing a higher inflow of deposits than they can turn into loans.

But how does that translate into “Bank Transfer Day” working in their favor? Apparently, the high inflow of deposits “puts pressure on their margins because banks have to pay [Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.] premiums and overhead costs.”

By removing hundreds of small-time accounts with low balances, they would actually be saving money on their premiums. Housel explains:

. . . in the past banks could earn money [from customers with lower balances] from overdraft fees and debit interchange fees and a lot of that has been scaled down through recent regulations…

People are going to be moving to credit unions, and that’s good for them because they’re going to have lower fees, they’re going to have better service, they’re going to have the feeling that they are investing in their community.

And then the banks are going to be better off because they are getting rid of their least-profitable or not profitable clients.

However, probably most important is the fact that the accounts appear to have had low enough balances that being closed did not turn into a financial nightmare for some banks.

As mentioned earlier on The Blaze, in events where customers panic and withdraw all deposits, the results can be disastrous. But this does not seem to be the case from Saturday’s protest. In fact, “despite news that the financial industry lost roughly 650,000 customers and $4.5 billion in deposits to credit unions because of Bank Transfer Day . . . some of the biggest U.S. banks moved upward today, outperforming the major indices.”

Therefore, because some of the biggest banks are moving upward on the market and that closing some of the accounts could actually save them money, in an odd way it would seem that everyone benefited from “Bank Transfer Day.”

The protesters felt a sense of accomplishment and some banks were able to offload thousands of reportedly low-balance, non-profitable accounts.

[Editor’s note: portions of the above originally appeared on Wall St. Cheat Sheet]

Related:

Be careful. It’s ok if the banks rip you off, but don’t dare say, write, or PAINT anything bad about them…  The Art of Burning Banks - YouTube

Source:  the Blaze

BANK OF AMERICA TO CHARGE $5 MONTH FEE FOR USING DEBIT CARD

NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Bank of America plans to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit card to make purchases. The fee will be rolled out starting early next year.

A number of banks have already either rolled out or are testing such fees. But Bank of America’s announcement carries added weight because it is the largest U.S. bank by deposits.

Anne Pace, a Bank of America Corp. spokeswoman, said Thursday that customers will only be charged the fee if they use their debit cards for purchases in any given month. Customers won’t be charged if they only use their cards at an ATM.

The fee will apply to basic accounts and will be in addition to any existing monthly service fees. For example, one of the bank’s basic accounts charges a $12 monthly fee unless customers meet certain conditions, such as maintaining a minimum average balance of $1,500.

A fee for using debit cards is still a novel concept for many consumers and was unheard of before this year. But there are signs it may soon become an industry norm.

SunTrust, a regional bank based in Atlanta, began charging a $5 debit card fee on its basic checking accounts this summer. Regions Financial, which is based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month.

Chase and Wells Fargo are also testing $3 monthly debit card fees in select markets. Neither bank has said when it will make a final decision on whether to roll out the fee more broadly.

 

“I might use all cash. Or go back to writing checks,” he said.

The debit card fee isn’t the only unwelcome change for checking account customers are seeing either. The banking industry has been raising fees and scaling back on rewards programs as they adjust to new regulations that will limit traditional revenue sources.

Starting Oct. 1, a regulation will cap the fees that banks can collect from merchants whenever customers swipe their debit cards. Those fees generated $19 billion in revenue for banks in 2009, according to the Nilson Report, which tracks the payments industry.

There is no similar cap on the fees that banks can collect from merchants when customers use their credit cards, however. That means banks may increasingly encourage customers to reach for their credit cards, reversing a trend toward debit card usage in the past several years.

An increasing reliance on credit cards would be particularly beneficial for Bank of America, which is a major credit card issuer, notes Bart Narter, a banking analyst with Celent, a consulting firm.

“It’s become a more profitable business, at least in relation to debit cards,” Narter said.

This summer, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that two-thirds of consumers use debit cards more frequently than credit cards. But when asked how they would react if they were charged a $3 monthly debit card fee, 61 percent said they’d find another way to pay.

If the fee were $5, 66 percent said they would also change their payment method.

Bank of America’s debit card fee will be rolled out in stages starting with select states in early 2012. The company would not say which states would be affected first.

Bank of America shares rose 9 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $6.25 in afternoon trading.

h/t to the Blaze

Dodd-Frank: The End Of Free Checking?

On Sat., Oct. 1, new regulations from the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul go into effect on debit cards. Specifically, they impose price controls on “interchange fees,” the fees that banks and credit unions charge to retailers on debit card transactions.

The average interchange fee is about 44 cents. The new rules limit the fees to 21 to 24 cents.

“The costs of processing debit card transactions doesn’t go away because you limit the price,” said John Berlau, director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute. “That shifts the costs to consumers.”

These fees are used by banks to offer free checking and rewards programs. But now those programs may be be coming to an end. Just 45% of noninterest checking accounts are now free, down from 65% last year, according to a recent survey by Bankrate.com. The average monthly fee for those accounts has risen 75% in

the last year to $4.37.

Bank of America (BAC) just announced a $5 monthly fee for debit cards, starting early next year. BofA cited regulatory costs. Wells Fargo (WFC) and Chase (JPM) has experimented with $3 fees in some markets. Earlier in the year, SunTrust (STI) bank ended its debit card reward program.

Berlau notes other consequences:

Much of these costs will be transferred to consumers in terms of loss of free checking and debit card rewards, new charges for using an ATM, and other fee hikes and service cuts. In its rule, the (Federal Reserve) almost invited banks and credit unions to do this, “helpfully” pointing out that “the interchange fee standard would not limit the ability of an issuer to earn revenue from other sources, such as charging fees to cardholders.”

And there may be other nasty surprises, such as job losses. A Wall Street Journal editorial blamed at least part of the 40,000 Bank of America job losses on the loss of revenue due to the Dodd-Frank price controls. And late last week, Texas-based International Bancshares announced that due to the revenue loss from the price controls, it was closing 55 branches in grocery stores and shedding 500 jobs.

Even retailers may not get the full benefit they are expecting. According to one article, debit card processors can charge an additional fee when merchandise is returned, and that fee may not be covered by the regulations. Processors also may charge flat fees on transactions rather than a percentage-based fee, meaning retailers may pay more on small sales. Expect more processors to do that as the regulations take hold.

By David Hogberg   -  Thu., Sept. 29, 2011 11:30 AM ET  -  Capital Hill  -  h/t to Jean Stoner

Related:

The Secret Gov’t Bank That’s Financing More Solyndras

And at the core of this guy’s fiscal policies…

The True Elephant In The Room Appears: Trillions In Commercial And Industrial Loans To Europe's Insolvent Countries

July 18, 2011

With the market's attention over the past year exclusively focused on bank holdings of insolvent European sovereign debt, which as is now well known had been declining for months, many if not all forgot that banks also have credit exposure via far simpler conduits: retail and commercial debt. And as an analysis of the full disclosure in the EBA's second stress test exposes, banks are on the hook for literally trillions in various plain-vanilla commercial and retail loans to individuals and businesses. WSJ's David Enrich summarizes it best: "Friday's test results shed light on another potential problem for Europe's banks: huge piles of residential mortgages, small-business loans, corporate debt and commercial real-estate loans to institutions and individuals from ailing countries. As those economies struggle, the odds of rising defaults grow." Oops.

From the WSJ:

Banks tend to be holding far greater quantities of those commercial and retail loans than they are of sovereign debt, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of disclosures accompanying the stress tests.

This year's stress tests represent the first time there has been a uniform way to measure this exposure. Until now, banks have disclosed their portfolios of loans to customers in troubled countries on a piecemeal basis. That made it virtually impossible to aggregate data across the industry or to compare different institutions.

"The country-by-country exposure [data] is better than any data we've seen before," said Alastair Ryan, a London-based banking analyst with UBS AG. "It's giving me more things to be fearful of," Mr. Ryan added, referring to the disclosures of some banks' large holdings of loans to customers in troubled countries.

After Spanish and Italian banks, France's banks appear to be the most exposed. As of Dec. 31, its four largest banks—BNP Paribas SA, Crédit Agricole SA, BPCE Group and Société Générale SA—were holding a total of nearly €300 billion, or about $425 billion, in loans and other debt issued to institutions and individuals in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the countries that are among Europe's most troubled. That is largely a result of some of the French banks having big retail- and commercial-banking operations in Greece, Italy and Spain.

The French banks' portfolios of commercial and retail loans in those countries dwarf their holdings of sovereign debt.
For example, the four banks have a total of about €51 billion of loans to Spanish customers, according to the Journal's analysis.

Here is how this latest elephant looks like in chart format:

Germany, so far represented as a stalwart of investment prudence (despite its Landsbanken being decimated and on a constant lifeline by the CDO scammery of our own investment banks back in 2005-2006), is among the most impaired:

The dozen German banks that disclosed their stress-test results were exposed to €174 billion of commercial and retail loans to Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish borrowers as of Dec. 31. They are holding an additional €70 billion of sovereign debt issued by those countries, according to SNL.
More than half of the German banks' loan exposures are concentrated in the country's two biggest lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG. Deutsche Bank alone is holding nearly €80 billion of loans in those countries, including €7.5 billion of residential mortgages in Spain. Deutsche, which passed the stress tests with a 6.5% capital ratio under the EBA's worst-case scenario, said Friday that it "feels well prepared" to hit its capital targets.

Naturally, it is no secret that the second Stress Test was nothing but another attempt at redirection:

While the tests did consider the impact of an economic downturn on banks' portfolios of loans and nonsovereign debt in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, many critics complained that the tests were overly benign. For example, the EBA's worst-case scenario for Portugal envisioned an 11.6% unemployment rate this year, rising to 12.9% in 2011. The unemployment rate there is currently 12.4%.
The stress-test figures actually understate some banks' holdings of loans in certain troubled countries. That is because the European Banking Authority required banks to disclose their loan holdings in countries only if they represent more than 5% of the bank's total loan exposures.
As a result, some banks opted not to disclose details of their loan portfolios.

Once again, just like in the case of Spain's LaMancha region lying outright about its deficit, "out of left field" discoveries such as this will keep reappearing until the full kit and caboodle of tens of trillions in impaired exposure finally hits the market. Of course, at that point nothing, not even the Fed's unlimited FX swap lines will do much if anything to help.

Source: Zero Hedge

Get Ready for a 70% Marginal Tax Rate

President Obama has been using the debt-ceiling debate and bipartisan calls for deficit reduction to demand higher taxes. With unemployment stuck at 9.2% and a vigorous economic “recovery” appearing more and more elusive, his timing couldn’t be worse.

The Biggest Bank in France Has Suddenly Cut ATM Card Access to Cash in Half and People are Freaking Out!

http://www.jovanovic.com/blog.htm I just got off the phone with Pierre Jananovic . . . La Banque Postale has lowered the limits on the amounts of cash customers can withdraw per week by 50%. First of all, for you Americans and Brits, the way France works its banking system – customers are limited to how much they can withdraw per week from their accts no matter what the balance. Now what has happened here is that Gold card members – who could take out 3,000 euros a week – are now limited to 1,500 a week. This was sudden, without warning, and people here in France are freaking out. Pierre tells me that its the first clear sign that liquidity in the European banking system is drying up. http://maxkeiser.com/2011/06/07/the-biggest-bank-in-france-has-atm-card-access-to-cash-in-half/ If you remember we warned about this happening  here in the U.S. (sometimes it really stinks to be right!) (Reprint below) And is it a coincidence that this is happening just as the big Bilderberg conference in St. Moritz is closing?    Is An ATM Cash Shortage Coming? Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/08/2010 11:35 -0500 Image: Betsy Fletcher While we have no way to confirm or refute the validity of this statement presented by a supposed ATM business insider on Steve Quayle.com, it does bring up an interesting point regarding how banks may be conserving "petty cash." Of course, if this perspective is true, it validates concerns about bank capitalization, and explains the reason why the FDIC recently expanded insurance on checking accounts from $250,000 to infinity in an attempt to get Americans to put their money in their friendly neighborhood bank. Of course, that this contradicts everything that the Fed Chairman is trying to do by getting Americans to spend (or buy Netflix at a 1,000 P/E) instead of putting the money in the bank, is precisely the reason why Sheila Bair's relationship with Geithner and Bernanke is, shall we say, tenuous. From Steve Quayle (who may or may not have properly attributed the original article on Urban Survival). "George, I work with a business partner in the [region redacted] . We have combined between us 180 ATM machines that we service, Cash Load. In order to do this we NEED to order the money, 20's only from several banks on a weekly basis. This is a considerable amount weekly, 380k plus. Here is the interesting piece that is developing: In the past several weeks 4 of the MAJOR banks have informed us that they can no longer provide us with the cash for our business. Now the problem is that it is OUR money we are taking out! So speaking with bank "personnel" on the side my question was this, what is going on? how come we cannot take OUR money out? Answer: "they" are not authorized to hold, carry or have on hand anymore more than a certain amount of cash on hand! The amount we are getting, even though it is out of our account, they cannot order or have on hand that amount of cash at any time now. I am not talking small banks...large banks [large money center bank in America name redacted] etc...! We can see our ability to keep these machines with available cash is becoming more and more difficult. This has taken place just in the past few weeks. By the way, these banks were willing to lose our full business due to this issue. Trying to work with smaller banks now...we will see how long!" h/t Kyle Ben Bernanke Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ATMs Crash Across The Country After “Bank Holiday” Warning Paul Joseph Watson -  Infowars.com - November 8, 2010 Following rumors of a “bank holiday” that could limit or prevent altogether cash withdrawals later this week, Twitter and other Internet forums were raging yesterday about numerous ATMs across the country that crashed in the early hours of Sunday morning, preventing customers from performing basic transactions. It’s unknown whether the crashes were partly a result of a surge of people trying to withdraw their money in preparation for any feared bank shutdown, or if mere technical glitches were to blame. The fact that the problem affected numerous different banks in different parts of the U.S. would seem to indicate the former. The Orange County Register reported that the problems were “part of a national outage” which prevented people from performing simple transactions such as cashing checks and withdrawing money. “Computer issues” were blamed for similar issues in Phoenix Arizona, while in Birmingham Alabama, Wells Fargo customers’ online banking accounts and ATMs displayed incorrect balances. The banks primarily affected were Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America, but according to blogger Phil Brennan, who studied Twitter feeds and other Internet message boards that were alight with the story, numerous other financial institutions were also affected, including US Bank, Compass, USAA, Suntrust, Fairwinds Credit Union, American Express, BB&T on the East Coast and PNC. “Twitter is going crazy with reports of ATMs and online accounts going down as of 01:00 hours EST of the 7th of November 2010,” writes Brennan. “This is happening to many banks all across America. Some are trying to say that it is a computer glitch to do with the change in Daylight Savings Time, but I will call BS on this as we manage to put our clocks back over here in the UK without knocking out ATMs and online accounts nationally.” Brennan questions whether the outages were the first warning shots in a move to “devalue the dollar,” just days after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sparked an international currency war by announcing that the Fed will buy $600 billion of U.S. government bonds over the next eight months. Any perceived inability of banks to deal with a sudden demand for cash would undoubtedly place in peril the United States’ triple A credit rating and spark a fresh dollar crisis. “In the light of what is going on geopolitically, I am still very suspicious about the reasons for this mass downtime of ATMs and Online Accounts, adds Brennan. “There is still a very distinct possibility that November the 11th will turn into an extended Bank Holiday so I would advise all those who can get their money out of their banks to do so, even if you have to pay your upcoming bills manually.” As we reported last week, the “bank holiday” rumor has reared its ugly head once again, after a story emerged that a pastor was told by one of the managers of a prominent east coast bank that banks would close for an undetermined amount of time, and that when they reopened, “all withdrawals by checks would be limited to $500 per week – no matter what the balance in the account is.” Though the story is still an unconfirmed rumor, banks have been preparing for limiting withdrawals. As we reported back in February, Citigroup sent an advisory to its customers at the start of the year which stated that the bank reserved “the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts.” The advisory stoked fears that financial institutions were preparing for bank runs. Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct (Ad) While we still think this new bank holiday rumor will subside as the previous two did earlier this year and last, in the current economic climate it would be foolish not to keep at least a small amount of your savings in physical cash. The current financial turmoil has been likened with the post 1929 period, during which newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that lasted four days, therefore such a scenario is not without historical precedent. — Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.