Bank Watch ...

[Aurora]

The Guardian - 29/07/12

RBS faces huge fine over Libor scandal, says Stephen Hester

Chief executive of RBS speaks out on rate-rigging scandal and technology meltdown.

Article continues ...

[Aurora]

The Observer - 29/07/12

British clients of an HSBC-owned private Swiss bank that is the focus of a major HM Revenue & Customs investigation are alleged to have evaded tax by an amount likely to exceed £200m, the Observer has learned.

The potential scale of the tax loss will heighten pressure on trade minister Lord Green, who was chairman of HSBC's private banking division during the period the HMRC is investigating. He is already facing questions from MPs about the bank's links to Mexican drug cartels and terrorists that came to light this month in a devastating US Senate investigation. Emails released as part of that investigation showed Green was twice warned about compliance failures and allegations that huge sums were laundered by Mexican drug gangs through a subsidiary of HSBC.

Article continues ...

[emordnilap]

The upside of default

the financial industry has done a superb job of convincing people that what they do is important to the rest of us.

[raspberry-blower]

LIBOR Lies and Derivatives

Still, the underlying idea for LIBOR was always: "by the bankers, for the bankers". And if anyone involved in setting up LIBOR back in the day now wishes to claim that they had no idea that allowing banks to make up the rates which they borrowed at out of thin air, might have led to manipulation, that would insult everyone's intelligence including yours and mine. The problem is that in today's climate, this doesn't keep them from making precisely such claims. And that is very much part of a trend. It has increasingly become acceptable for bankers and politicians alike to deny anything flat out and see what happens, knowing their friends have their backs.

[Little John]

LIBOR Lies and Derivatives

Still, the underlying idea for LIBOR was always: "by the bankers, for the bankers". And if anyone involved in setting up LIBOR back in the day now wishes to claim that they had no idea that allowing banks to make up the rates which they borrowed at out of thin air, might have led to manipulation, that would insult everyone's intelligence including yours and mine. The problem is that in today's climate, this doesn't keep them from making precisely such claims. And that is very much part of a trend. It has increasingly become acceptable for bankers and politicians alike to deny anything flat out and see what happens, knowing their friends have their backs.

The "resolution" of the LIBOR scandal (which will probably never be completed) will show us once again that we have a choice to make between either saving the banks or saving our economies and societies. We can't do both. But in all honesty, I doubt that the prospect of such a choice is real. It looks to me like the choice has long since been made by a succession of unrepresentative representatives we elected with our empty votes, and who have left us with a runaway crossover between Frankenstein and the Sorcerer's Apprentice. I wasn't kidding when I said the other day that if you want your vote to count, you'll have to get out into the streets to do so.

The LIBOR affair is one in a series of things laid bare by the ongoing financial crisis that will inevitably, at one point or another, force us to confront the moral bankruptcy that has come to control our societies.

blood

That's the only thing that will change anything

[emordnilap]

Here's a short article by one of the Beria crowd. I quite like the bitter tone, I have to say.

[UndercoverElephant]

Here's a short article by one of the Beria crowd. I quite like the bitter tone, I have to say.

Yeah, I like that too. He is just pointing out the basic fact underlying all of this: the world has actually been run by the banks for the whole of the period since WWII. And before then for a very long time too, probably.

I think he's probably right about what is going to happen, too. We're heading for a hyperinflationary depression. The downward pressure we've already seen on wages and prices is massively deflationary, but it is just storing up tension. It's like the string of a longbow being pulled back - prices are falling slowly, but with immense pressure building up as the real economy is being destroyed and money is printed to keep the thing from collapsing. Eventually something will break, and the arrow will be let loose as inflation.

[Little John]

Here's a short article by one of the Beria crowd. I quite like the bitter tone, I have to say.

Yeah, I like that too. He is just pointing out the basic fact underlying all of this: the world has actually been run by the banks for the whole of the period since WWII. And before then for a very long time too, probably.

I think he's probably right about what is going to happen, too. We're heading for a hyperinflationary depression. The downward pressure we've already seen on wages and prices is massively deflationary, but it is just storing up tension. It's like the string of a longbow being pulled back - prices are falling slowly, but with immense pressure building up as the real economy is being destroyed and money is printed to keep the thing from collapsing. Eventually something will break, and the arrow will be let loose as inflation.

I agree, but it's going to be a horrifying kind of inflation. One that involves prices being driven up by bank money in an environment where the average citizen has got bugger all in his pocket and has no chance of obtaining credit. The banks will end up owning absolutely everything and the rest of us will be paying them for the privilege of access to the things we need to survive. Let's face it, it's already pretty much like that already. But, what is coming is the final culmination of that process. To add insult to injury the biggest price rises will be in the hard and essential commodities since they are, relatively speaking, invulnerable to demand destruction.

Either they will have to keep the people quelled by force or something is going to give.....

[acman]

Fully agree with Steve, talking a lot of sense there, as someone else has said, all that 'QE money', if that got out of the banking system into money supply, it would be frightening. People at work think I'm a 'doom & gloomer', as I suspect most people on here would be regarded as, but now even those I work with are begining to realize, something is very wrong. They are noticing that their grocery bill is growing, but their not buying as much.
Regards Alan

[SleeperService]

Yeah, I like that too. He is just pointing out the basic fact underlying all of this: the world has actually been run by the banks for the whole of the period since WWII. And before then for a very long time too, probably.

The banks took over at the start of WW1 in France, Germany, the USA and England. Effectively all those countries abandoned the gold standard and switched to paper money so they could afford a war. If they hadn't the troops WOULD have been home by Christmas as all combatants would have run out of money.

Anything to keep BAU going...

[Aurora]

BBC Business News - 01/08/12

Banks and other lenders can start borrowing cheap money from Wednesday under the new Funding for Lending scheme.

The Bank of England will lend money at below-market rates to banks, and monitor their progress in lending the cash out to firms and households.

Some lenders have already slashed the cost of their long-term, fixed rate deals.

The programme effectively replaces the current National Loan Guarantee Scheme.

But the lower borrowing costs are so far are only benefiting people with large deposits.

Aaron Strutt, at mortgage brokers Trinity Financial, said: "Most deals attractive to first-time buyers, such as those at 90% or 95% loan-to-value, have not changed yet."

Article continues ...

[SleeperService]

At the beginning of August 1927 the New York Federal Reserve cut the interest rate by 0.5% to 3.5%. This action directly precipitated the Wall Street Crash in October 1929.

Today we've seen the ECB make another woolly statement about what they may do. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19096371

I'm pretty sure that this is the point of no return now. In 1927 TPTB dropped the ball as they didn't want to pop the Wall Street bubble. In August 2012 they drop the ball by not wanting to pop the Euro bubble. The only uncertain element now is when it pops. Are we all ready for a ride?

[JavaScriptDonkey]

At the beginning of August 1927 the New York Federal Reserve cut the interest rate by 0.5% to 3.5%. This action directly precipitated the Wall Street Crash in October 1929.

I thought it was a bubble of buying investment bonds on credit followed by an inevitable dip in prices that created panic among the investors that started the Wall Street Crash.

[SleeperService]

At the beginning of August 1927 the New York Federal Reserve cut the interest rate by 0.5% to 3.5%. This action directly precipitated the Wall Street Crash in October 1929.

I thought it was a bubble of buying investment bonds on credit followed by an inevitable dip in prices that created panic among the investors that started the Wall Street Crash.

There had been several dips in the market prior to October 1929. Each time the market recovered but the recovering shares represented a narrower portion of the market. On the day the market peaked 20% or so of companies had already fallen back and fewer than 20 companies peaked on the last day.

The interest rate cut brought the last flush of money into the market at a time when all the shares were well above any realistic valuation and most of the major players had already liquidated their positions. Joe Kennedy was among the last to hold out. It was the last gasp of air that burst the balloon. What happened is linked to why it happened. IMHO the ECB have just pricked the Euro bubble, it would take something quite extraordinary to prevent the collapse now.

The first bank to fail was the Bank of the United States which saw it's end run started by a single person who tried to cash in his investor bonds. The bank tried to talk him out of it, failed to do so but managed to convince the customer that theycouldn't pay and so the financial collapse started as word of mouth spread the story and the queues formed....

[SleeperService]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19107542

I think more like detached from reality

However, he also said further problems at the banks may be discovered

Pray, do tell Sir......note the plurals.
*gets popcorn and settles down*