How California can Create its own Credit: Own a Bank!

Max Keiser: Poverty and Food Shortage is Caused by the Banking System

Taxman Can Use Database of ID Cards to Track our Spending Habits and Bank Accounts

Personal data gathered for the controversial ID cards scheme will be made available to the taxman.
HM Revenue and Customs officials will be able to trawl through a person's financial transactions for hints of any undeclared earnings or bank accounts.
The revelation last night renewed fury about the £5.5billion ID cards project.

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Now British Banks Jump On The Big Brother Bandwagon

Credit and debit cardholders are being told by banks to notify them of their holiday destinations and foreign travel plans or face having their accounts frozen in moves to combat fraud.'

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Banks ‘Need Extra £110bn Of Public Money To Start Lending Again’

High street banks could require another £110 billion in taxpayers’ money to shore up their finances if they are to resume normal lending to consumers and businesses, a leading think-tank says today.
The warning that the banks could need three times as much in public support as the £37 billion already pumped into them will fuel speculation that the Treasury may yet resort to wholesale nationalisation of the banking industry.

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Banks Exploit Legal Loophole To Seize Homes

Banks and credit card companies are exploiting obscure legal powers to seize the homes of thousands of people who cannot pay their credit card bills.
In some cases, people owing as little as £1,000 have been served with charging orders – the legal instrument enabling a creditor to order the sale of a property.

The practice has emerged days after Yvette Cooper, chief secretary to the Treasury, called on banks to do more to allow people to keep their homes.

According to the Ministry of Justice, 97,026 charging orders were granted by courts in England and Wales last year, a tenfold increase since 2000.

They allow financial institutions to order the sale of a property to pay off unsecured debts on credit cards, personal loans, store cards and car finance. Some will have been used only to threaten the debtor, or to levy a surcharge on the mortgage to recoup the debts.
Nationwide, the building society, and Northern Rock, which was nationalised earlier this year, are among the most aggressive in using the court orders.

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The Rising Titans of a New World Banking Order

A NEW world banking order is taking shape. Many proud, independent financial institutions with century-old legacies are being bought out. With a crisis made in the US and with its roots in Wall Street, the standalone investment banking model seems dead. Only Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are likely to survive, but not before engineering some form of tie-up with a commercial bank.

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Banks Hoarding Cash To Pay For Derivatives Liabilities

Tomorrow, the auction for Lehman's credit default swaps will be held, and the final result will probably be that that holders of credit default swaps will have to pay around $360 billion dollars That's for Lehman alone. Derivatives exposure due to other failed businesses is even higher.
This is why Wall Street firms and banks have been hoarding cash. As the Financial Times wrote on October 7th:
Banks are hoarding cash in expectation of pay-outs on up to $400bn (£230bn) of defaulted credit derivatives linked to Lehman Brothers and other institutions, according to analysts and -dealers.

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Money and the Crisis of Civilization

Suppose you give me a million dollars with the instructions, "Invest this profitably, and I'll pay you well." I'm a sharp dresser -- why not? So I go out onto the street and hand out stacks of bills to random passers-by. Ten thousand dollars each. In return, each scribbles out an IOU for $20,000, payable in five years. I come back to you and say, "Look at these IOUs! I have generated a 20% annual return on your investment." You are very pleased, and pay me an enormous commission.
Now I've got a big stack of IOUs, so I use these "assets" as collateral to borrow even more money, which I lend out to even more people, or sell them to others like myself who do the same. I also buy insurance to cover me in case the borrowers default -- and I pay for it with those self-same IOUs! Round and round it goes, each new loan becoming somebody's asset on which to borrow yet more money. We all rake in huge commissions and bonuses, as the total face value of all the assets we've created from that initial million dollars is now fifty times that.

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Bailout by Stealth

While the public is distracted by the "bailout bill" and its rejection, trillions are pumped in to keep financial balloon inflated

The media is falling all over itself to report on every minutiae of the so-called Wall Street "bailout bill" and its rejection by Congress yesterday (just a few of the thousands of examples can be seen here and here and here and here). And why not? The media's breathless coverage of the bill has produced a furious backlash by the public and hysteria on Wall Street in a self-justifying feedback loop that makes the media attention seem merited.

The startling truth which the controlled corporate media is not reporting, however, is that a bailout is actually taking place right now, completely out of the public spotlight. This program has already pumped trillions of dollars into Wall Street (compared to the mere $700 billion proposed in the legislation that the media is focusing on) to help prop up the faltering investment banks and promises to pump in even more, every dime of it to the detriment of the taxpayer though the public will have no stake in its success. Why, then, is this program not being talked about in the media?

Slipping under the radar last week amidst the hullabaloo in Washington over the bailout bill was this story noting that in the past week alone, the Federal Reserve had pumped an astonishing $188 billion per day into the system in the form of emergency credit. This means that in just four days, the Fed injected as much money into the system as the entire $700 billion bailout proposal. After the proposal was rejected, the Fed responded by immediately announcing it would pour another $630 billion into the global financial system.

The Federal Reserve, of course, is America's central bank and although the above story conjures the reassuring image of a national bank lending out some of its vast reserves to help Wall Street weather the storm, the fact is that the Federal Reserve is not Federal and has doubtful reserves. In fact, the trillions of dollars that have been lent to the banks in the last few weeks were created out of nothing by the privately-owned Federal Reserve. When the Federal Reserve "lends" money to a bank through repurchase agreements (repos), credit auction or other method, it is not actually lending out money from its vaults. It is simply creating the money it "lends" out as electronic credits created in the recipient banks account. It is literally money out of thin air.

That the general public is on the hook for this money created out of nothing is not an exaggeration. It is paid for in a dimly-understood mechanism often known as the "inflation tax."
Inflation is nothing more than an indication that the ratio of money to products that can be purchased with that money has been increased. Since the overall number of dollars has gone up without any corresponding increase in economic production (as happens when the Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air), the value of each individual dollar goes down. That means that the value of the money in each individuals' bank account (not to mention their pension and social security dividends) can be reduced simply by the flick of a pen of a Federal Reserve paper-pusher. (Unless of course that individual just happens to be a billionaire investment mogul or a Vice President who can divest themselves of U.S. dollars in time for this inflation not to affect them.)
This is sometimes known as an inflation tax because its overall effect is the same as if the government came in and took that value out of the individuals' bank account.

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The Trap - Behind the Curtain

All the financial markets are showing green lights, joyous profits! Have real profits returned to the world markets! NO, this is a response to the proclamation, underwritten yesterday by the central banks with $247 billion: What an insignificant amount to pay to guarantee tens of trillions in illegal profits down the road. Yet apparently the gullible, determined-to-believe-followers have apparently taken the bait!

This is a trap of global proportions designed to complete the shell game over 'the ownership society's' claims on everything that matters, to them. What's at stake is the future of everyone who works, all pension funds, and any remaining idea of retirement after the public has been irrevocably chained to a bailout plan that has no limits!
"US government policy has encouraged recklessness - most recently by taking extraordinary measures to privatize gains while socializing losses. As part of the agenda of its so-called ownership society (excepting ownership of responsibility by powerful bankers and insurers who fail) the govt. even sought to privatize public obligations - recall the Bush proposal to privatize social security. So why not play fast and loose if the rules are heads I win tails you lose?" (1)

Read more Then Get off Your Ass And Do Something...

The Illuminati Are Making a Killing on This Crisis

The price tag for bailing out the US financial system may exceed $1.3 trillion dollars.

The purchase price for the mortgage lenders, Bear Stearns and AIG is over $300 billion. Now the assumption of the bad loans held by the banks may cost an additional trillion dollars. If the US Treasury created its own money, this might be bearable. But last I heard the system of money creation has not changed. I'm not an economist but it seems that the Fed is making a killing on our banking woes. The Fed is creating this "money" out of thin air and using it to buy US Treasury Notes and Bonds. The Treasury (i.e. US taxpayer) are on the hook for these securities plus interest. So while it looks like the Fed is riding to our rescue, in fact it is doing a very brisk business. And the US is falling so far into "debt" that political independence is a thing of the past. The central bankers appear to be trying to fend off a Depression. Perhaps they want to postpone the financial breakdown for reasons of their own. As a friend said, "I guess they want their shit bomb to explode after the election." If we see the Treasury as merely a front for the Fed, then the country seems to be increasingly owned by a foreign central banking cartel. They will own all those houses at bargain prices. A form of Communism (i.e. state ownership) is being created in response to a manufactured crisis. Formally the assets whill be owned by the state, but who controls the state?

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Fears Of Further Financial Casualties Abound

Fears that further financial casualties were inevitable abounded on Wall Street this morning as shares in Morgan Stanley appeared to be in freefall and the US Government reportedly asked big banks to put together a rescue buyout of Washington Mutual.
Shares in US investment bank Morgan Stanley were down by 40.63 per cent this morning at $17.04 while its larger rival Goldman Sachs fell by 21.9 per cent, even after both reported better-than-expected earnings yesterday. The cost of protecting Morgan Stanley and Goldman’s debt also spiked.
The US Government has asked big banks, including HSBC, to put together a rescue buyout of Washington Mutual, the American lender, according to a report.
The banks involved include Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC but the report in the New York Post said that no deal talks were being held between the banks and WaMu.

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Lloyds TSB Confirm HBOS Takeover Talks

Lloyds TSB and troubled mortgage bank HBOS were said to be close to announcing a deal to create a new savings and mortgage giant.
The latest twist in a dramatic week for world financial markets halted a further damaging slide in shares at HBOS.
According to the BBC the two firms are in "advanced talks" over a combination that would create a group with a market value of around £30 billion and more than £300 billion of deposits

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MASTERS OF UNIVERSE FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY

'By the power of Greyskull, I'm overexposed in sub-prime securities!'

THE masters of the universe were last night forced to relinquish control of their infinite creation and put all their personal items in a cardboard box.

The gigantic, all-powerful superbeings, to whom you are mere pawns on a chess board, handed their ID badges to security along with the little card that operates the snack machine on the second floor.

After a final day of juggling planets like tangerines, the invincible emperors of finance stole as many staplers as they could carry before getting the bus home.

Todd Logan, a master of the universe since 1997, said: "Do I get to keep my cell phone? You want that back too? Okay, can I at least keep the simcard so I don't have to change numbers?"

Logan said any universe that allowed a colossus like himself to sit around in his underpants all day eating cheese products and watching Crime Scene: Navy Crime did not deserve to exist.

"Since when does the free market apply to banks? I thought it was just for sandwich shops and major international airlines."Now I'll have to go to the store and buy tinned food and cleaning products.

Who is going to moisturise my elbows? Who is going to sponge my ass?"

He added: "Avert your gaze mortals. I am your GOD!"

The Daily Mash

Lehmans To File For Bankruptcy

Stocks and the U.S. dollar tumbled on Monday as Lehman Brothers was expected to file for bankruptcy, leading to grave uncertainties about other banks and shaken confidence in the financial system, and sending safe-haven Treasury debt and gold prices soaring.
U.S. stock market futures were down more than 3 percent, pointing to sharply lower open, while major European markets were set for falls of between 2 and 3.2 percent, according to one financial spread-betting firm.
The dollar plunged 2 percent against the yen, on track for its biggest daily fall in more than six years, as U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers looked set on a path to bankruptcy in a massive blow to investors' willingness to take risks

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HSBC boss admits huge bonuses paid to City bankers helped cause credit crunch

Huge bonuses paid to City bankers have contributed to the credit crunch, the chairman of HSBC has admitted.
Stephen Green said he 'quite agreed' that the rewards of £14billion in 2006/07 for London's financial institutions were excessive and contributed to the current 'painful' downturn Britain now faces.
Mr Green himself is said to have earned £1.25million - plus a £1.75 million bonus - last year.
And HSBC's annual report revealed that the five best-paid people at the bank earned total bonuses of £24.5million in 2007.
It is the first time one of the world's leading banking figures has said remuneration in the banking industry was a factor in causing the current financial problems.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Green, 59, indicated that one of the causes of the credit crunch was the number of staff who were paid too much for deals that went wrong, costing banks a fortune.

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How obscene is that! At a time when banks are foreclosing on their customers, dropping credit interest payments to save money and charging customers the earth for going overdrawn.

I recently went overdrawn by 20p yes 20 pence and was charged the total sum of £63 for the privilege!!

HSBC to stop paying interest on current accounts in bid to save £7million a year

Britain's biggest bank is to stop paying interest on current accounts in a bid to save millions of pounds a year.
Six million HSBC customers have been told that they will no longer receive interest on their current accounts from December.
It will save the bank around £7million a year, and follows a similar move from subsidiary First Direct and rival Barclays.
Industry experts predict other high street banks will follow as profits are squeezed through the credit crunch.
The current account market has become a fierce battleground for banks.
They threatened the end of free banking after being forced to pay out millions of pounds to customers who reclaimed charges imposed for accidentally slipping overdrawn.

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Well, they did only make £5.2 BILLION profit in the first 6 months of this year. Poor things !

Banks 'Use Credit Crunch to Milk Borrowers of £3bn'

Banks were accused of 'milking' nearly £3billion extra cash from homeowners and blaming the credit crunch.
High Street lenders have made the money by raising their mortgage rates and fees over the past year, even though interest rate cuts have made it cheaper for some of them to borrow money.
A new study calculates that the country's five biggest banks - Halifax, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland - are raking in £2.8billion more from mortgage borrowers compared to last year.

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