GE Christenson ~ It’s “Head For The Mattresses” Time For Savers Worldwide

Deviant Investor March 28 2013

Throughout the colorful history of organized crime in the United States, periodic eruptions of inter-gang Mafia violence have dotted the criminal landscape. When turf wars broke out between competing crime families in major cities such as New York and Chicago, the combatants would conduct their warfare from unsavory redoubts such as abandoned warehouses or low-rent hotels and apartments. In such locations, the soldiers would spend their off hours sleeping on rented mattresses until the internecine conflicts had run their course; hence the expression “going to the mattresses.”

Well, there is another turf war going on, a worldwide one, one that threatens the entire economic and political landscape of the planet. It is between all the hard working savers on the planet and the ever greedy criminal bankers and their cohorts in government. The real big canary singing out an extreme danger warning to all traditional savers who wish to entrust their wealth to banks and other paper vehicles – stocks, bonds, etc., is the incredible emergency banking shutdown in the tiny island nation of Cyprus. Granted, Cyprus represents only .02% of the population of the European Union. Yet what is occurring there is the harbinger of great risk to traditional savers on every continent; and equally important, there are many more scary danger signs raising their ugly heads as well.

To recap for a moment, let’s briefly itemize the situation in Cyprus. Cyprus, like just about every other country on the planet, has for decades been politically committed to a socialist based economy. In this scenario, politicians have promised benefits to the various voting classes which have far exceeded their annual tax revenue. This has caused its government to continually accumulate deficits that have resulted in a very large national debt in relation to its GDP. This debt has been collateralized by sovereign bonds sold to and purchased by large banks in Europe and elsewhere. Now this debt has become so large the government of Cyprus can no longer afford to pay even the interest, let alone reduce principal. What happens at this juncture, is that a powerful international banking institution, in this case, the European Central Bank (substitute your favorite lender of last resort – the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank, etc., etc.), has agreed to come to the rescue of the cash strapped government and help it make its current annual debt payment.

Continue reading

Stephen Lendman ~ Cyprus Seeks 11th Hour Deal

Stephen Lendman March 24 2013

When politicians conspire with bankers, ordinary people suffer most. Cypriot crisis conditions continue. One bad plan follows others.

The latest is unprecedented. Cypriot and Eurocrat officials are close to agreement. At issue is levying a one-time 20% tax on Bank of Cyprus deposits over 100,000 euros. Similar amounts in other banks will be assessed 4%.

Cyprus has to raise 5.8 billion euros by Monday. Otherwise emergency ECB funding will end. Eurocrats require it for a 10 billion euro bailout.

On Sunday, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades will meet Eurocrats in Brussels. They have final say.

Cypriot legislators enacted nine related laws. They include non-cash transaction restrictions, freezing check cashing, limiting withdrawals, and converting checking accounts into fixed-term deposits.

Eurocrats demand more. They want their pound of flesh. Eurozone finance ministers scheduled an emergency Sunday evening Brussels meeting. IMF and ECB officials will join them.

Anastasiades will present his latest proposal. They have to agree. Cypriot parliament approval must follow. Events are fast moving. They bode ill for ordinary Cypriots.

Demonstrators protested outside the presidential palace. “Resign! Resign! they shouted. They fear lost jobs and hard times. Force-fed austerity assures it.

Cypriots face a Greek tragedy. Economist Yanis Varoufakis explained. Social conditions are appalling. Austerity “led to a depressed economy and a depressed population.”

No “silver linings” exist. “Even profitable companies go under.” Greek bank guarantees aren’t accepted abroad.

Continue reading

Mike Adams ~ Cyprus Bank Insolvency Crisis Quickly Escalating; May Set Off EU Bankageddon

NaturalNews March 22 2013

Cyprus

As you may have suspected, there’s far more to the Cyprus bank crisis story than meets the eye. It turns out the shutdown of Cypriot banks has caused a large-scale financial shutdown of the Russian government which uses Cyprus banks for most transactions.

On top of that, the EU central bank (ECB) has now issued an ultimatum that threatens to revoke all financial support and crash the Cypriot banks if they can’t come up with 5.8 billion Euros by Monday. Reuters reports:

The European Central Bank, which has kept Cyprus’s banks operating with a liquidity lifeline, said the government had until Monday to get a deal in place, or funds would be cut off – putting not just the Cypriot economy in jeopardy but billions of euros held on the island by foreigners, notably from Russia.

USA Today reports, “If it does not find a way by Monday, the European Central Bank said it will cut off emergency support to the banks, letting them collapse. That would throw the country into financial chaos and, ultimately, cause it to leave the eurozone, with unpredictable consequences for the region.”

Until then, the banks remain closed, and everybody knows the minute they open, every account holder will immediately transfer their money out of the banks, causing a near-instant bank run and a collapse.

Continue reading

Michael Snyder ~ Mass Panic In Cyprus: The Banks Are Collapsing And ATMs Are Running Out Of Money

Economic Collapse Blog March 21 2013

European officials are openly admitting that the two largest banks in Cyprus are “insolvent,” and it is now being reported that Cyprus Popular Bank only has “enough liquidity to cover the next few hours“.  Of course all banks in Cyprus are officially closed until Tuesday at the earliest, but there have been long lines at ATMs all over Cyprus as people scramble to get whatever money they can out of the banks.  Unfortunately, some ATMs appear to be “malfunctioning” and others appear to have already run out of cash.  You can see some photos of huge lines at one ATM in Cyprus right here.  Some businesses are now even refusing to take credit card payments.  This is creating an atmosphere of panic on the streets of Cyprus.  Meanwhile, the EU is holding a gun to the head of the Cyprus financial system.  Either Cyprus meets EU demands by Monday, or liquidity for the banks will be totally cut off and Cyprus will be forced out of the euro.  It is being reported that European officials believe that the “economy is going to tank in Cyprus no matter what“, and that it would be okay to let the financial system of Cyprus crash and burn if politicians in Cyprus are not willing to do what they have been ordered to do.  Apparently European officials are very confident that the situation in Cyprus can be contained and that it will not spread to other European nations.

Unfortunately, European officials are losing sight of the bigger picture.  If the largest banks in Cyprus are allowed to fail, it will be another “Lehman Brothers moment“.  The faith that people have in banks all over Europe will be called into question, and everyone will be wondering what major European banks will be allowed to fail next.

Meanwhile, European officials have already completely shattered confidence in deposit insurance at this point.  Everyone now knows that when there is a major bank failure that depositors will be expected to share in the pain.  Expect to see “bank jogs” all over southern Europe over the coming weeks.

Continue reading

James Hall ~ The Cyprus Great Bank Robbery

BATR March 20 2013

When does banksters’ extortion become outright theft? The latest example and escalation by the placing a levy fee on bank deposits in the tax haven of Cyprus illustrates the bold step of seizing private liquid saving accounts, under the guise of a government tax. The prospects of an all out run on the banking system have jumped tenfold. Essentially, a government is using the power of the state, to steal funds not because of the bankruptcy of a banking institution, but because of a failure of the entire EU financial system. The forbidding precedent of a seizure of individual wealth, by a stroke of a pen, runs contrary to the shrinking confidence in fiduciary trust of cash placed in banking accounts.

The risk of pronounced turmoil in financial markets has just elevated, as the harsh reality of surrendering your economy to the demands of an untenable debt burden dictatorship, is obvious to anyone with a bank account. The savings of a lifetime is now subject to confiscation. The pitiful explanation of Cypriots’ president defends bailout deal, clearly reveals that the globalist financial central bank system is determined to impoverish individual nest eggs.

“President Nicos Anastasiades said Cyprus had little option but to accept the bailout deal, which imposes a levy on the country’s bank deposits – an unprecedented step in the eurozone crisis. Without it, he said, Cyprus’ banking system would have collapsed on Tuesday.

Anastasiades said that’s when the European Central Bank would have stopped providing emergency funding to Cyprus’ troubled banks. Such a collapse would have driven the country to bankruptcy and possibly out of the eurozone, he said.”

Continue reading

Patrick Donahue ~ Cyprus Rejects Deposit Levy in Blow to European Bailout Plan

Zen-Haven March 19 2013

Cyprus’s parliament rejected an unprecedented levy on bank deposits, dealing a blow to European plans to force depositors to shoulder part of the country’s rescue in a standoff that risks renewed tumult in the euro area.

Cypriot legislators in the capital Nicosia voted 36 against to none in favor of the proposal in a show of hands today. There were 19 abstentions. Hammered out by euro-area finance chiefs over the weekend, the deal had sought to raise 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) by drawing funds from Cyprus bank accounts in return for 10 billion euros in international aid.

Stocks dropped and the euro fell to a three-month low against the dollar at the prospect of impasse in Cyprus. European officials including Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem had said that Cyprus must contribute to its own bailout, while stressing that the Cypriot situation is unique. German coalition lawmakers said that Cyprus can expect no aid without meeting the terms.

“Cyprus has rebuffed the outstretched hand” of its partners, Hans Michelbach, a German lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc and the ranking member on parliament’s finance committee, said in an e-mailed statement. The vote is “an act of collective unreason” and “the people of Cyprus must now pay a high price.”

Nicosia Talks

Continue reading

Could Cyprus Take Down The EU Banking System?

ZeroHedge March 19 2013 (Thanks, A.L.)

The EU continues to flounder around as Cyprus, a country whose GDP accounts for just 0.2% of the Europe’s economy, has proven the truth behind all of the “solutions” thrown around by the ECB and EU politicians: that they really don’t have a clue how to fix the problem plaguing Europe.

Why is this?

Because at the end of the day, there is really only one solution to this whole mess: Default… both by the banks and by EU nations as a whole.

What happened to Wall Street in 2008? Banks that were over leveraged (meaning they borrowed far more money than they actually had on hand) went bust because the assets they bought with the borrowed money fell in value to the point that it erased the actual money they had on hand.

Think of it this way, if you borrow $30 for every $1 you actually own, and you invest that $30 in various assets, you only need those assets to fall 3% (0.03 * 30 = 0.9) before you’ve wiped out almost all of your actual money (the $1 you owned and which you borrowed the $30 against).

This is what took down Lehman. And it’s what is taking down Europe today. The entire European banking system is leveraged at 26 to 1. Lehman was 30 to 1, Europe as a whole is only slightly below that,

And where did they invest the $26 in borrowed money?

Continue reading

Mind Vine ~ Bitcoin: The World’s First Cryptographic Commodity

theintelhub.com February 3 2013

One result has repeated itself without fail throughout history. Every fiat currency ever created has dropped to zero and ended in horrible failure for the majority of its users, while benefiting those that destroy it. The reins of this economic self destruct mechanism are carefully tended by the worlds power structure while they position their own assets in such a way to profit from the fire sale as the rest of the world struggles to survive.

This pattern has repeated itself ever since the first cuneiform tablet was forged, just after the abstract concept of money was created. Since that time society relied completely on evolving technology to verify and preserve the institution of money as it was originally intended, and others continually worked to break that system for personal gain. Because this has been an expensive and complicated task in the past, people have always relied on a centralized institution to control the common wealth. This has always left people vulnerable to this central point of control being hijacked and used against the common wealth, until now.

The creation of Bitcoin is a historical landmark in the evolution of money. For the first time in human history there is a system of trade that is not under the control of a centralized system, and is in fact designed to prevent such controls. It also includes a few never before seen features enabling people to use publicly known open source mathematical calculations to ensure that the Bitcoin can only be spent once. A finite number of Bitcoins will be created, and the probability of generating them decreases as new users join the system. These are the key tenets of the Bitcoin system.

Continue reading

Paul Craig Roberts ~ Attack On Sovereignty

Paul Craig Roberts | January 15 2013

Those concerned about “The New World Order” speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American unipolar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.

Washington has demonstrated that it has no respect for its own laws and Constitution, much less any respect for international law and the law and sovereignty of other countries. All that counts is Washington’s will as the pursuit of hegemony moves Washington closer to becoming a world dictator.

The examples are so numerous someone should compile them into a book. During the Reagan administration the long established bank secrecy laws of Switzerland had to bend to Washington’s will. The Clinton administration attacked Serbia, murdered civilians and sent Serbia’s president to be tried as a war criminal for defending his country. The US government engages in widespread spying on Europeans’ emails and telephone calls that is unrelated to terrorism. Julian Assange is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington won’t permit the British government to honor his grant of political asylum. Washington refuses to comply with a writ of habeas corpus from a British count to turn over Yunus Rahmatullah whose detention a British Court of Appeals has ruled to be unlawful. Washington imposes sanctions on other countries and enforces them by cutting sovereign nations that do not comply out of the international payments system.

Continue reading

Ben Fulford (Nov 8 2012) ~ The Pentagon And Agencies Choose Obama, The Chinese Military Stick With Hu

Benjamin Fulford

Barak Obama’s victory in the electronically rigged US presidential election means he will remain the spokesman for the pentagon and the agencies over the next 4 years. These same agencies recently have actively leaked information about Romney’s drug money laundering and other criminal activities in a clear sign of a military industrial complex revolt against the Bush Nazi faction, according to CIA and other sources. The Dragon family also supported Obama because he agreed to go along with their agenda, according to White Dragon Society sources in Indonesia.

A push by libertarians and militia movements to write in Ron Paul, meanwhile, was squashed by higher military ranks because of Paul’s proposal to close US bases world-wide.

However, the biggest losers were the Zionists who were hoping Romney would help them realize their dream of starting World War 3.

In China meanwhile, the old guard kept Hu Jintao in charge of the military to make sure incoming leader Xi Xinping keeps within the consensus of a peaceful rise of China and does not provoke unnecessary macho violent incidents.

The big changes as usual, remain under the surface as a consensus on the shape of the new financial system slowly gels.

Continue reading

Common Dreams Staff ~ Striking Greeks Retake Streets: ‘No To Troika’s Austerity!’

Common Dreams | September 26 2012

‘We Are Bleeding!’ — Hundreds of thousands demonstrate against latest proposed of cuts ~ Common Dreams staff

A molotov cocktail explodes beside riot police officers near Syntagma square during a 24-hour labour strike in Athens September 26, 2012. Flights and trains were suspended, shops pulled down their shutters and hospitals worked on emergency staff on Wednesday in Greece’s first big anti-austerity strike since a coalition government took power in June. (REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)

UPDATE: (2:45 PM EST)

The Guardian’s Helena Smith reports:

Hundreds of thousands of anti-austerity protesters took to the streets of Greece on Wednesday as the country was paralysed by a general strike in the first mass confrontation with Athens’s three-month-old coalition government.

In one of the biggest demonstrations in the capital in recent years, as many as 200,000 marched on the Greek parliament, according to unions in the public and private sector, which called the strike to oppose new wage and pension cuts – the price of further rescue funds from international lenders.

Clashes broke out between riot police and hooded youths hurling rocks and petrol bombs at the finance ministry. The protesters, many shouting: “We can take no more. Out with the EU and IMF,” and said to be part of the crisis-hit country’s vibrant “anti-establishment” movement, then set light to rubbish cans and bus stops, sending plumes of acrid smoke above the capital. TV footage showed demonstrators running for cover in Syntagma Square, seat of the Greek parliament, as noxious fumes filled the air. More than 100 people were detained.

And adds:

Continue reading

Ethan Huff ~ Panic Cash Withdrawals In Spain Drain Banks; Greece-Style Economic Implosion Now Imminent

NaturalNews | September 24 2012

Spain appears poised to become the next Greece in the ongoing European Union (EU) implosion, as Spaniards are withdrawing record amounts of funds from Spanish banks to avoid a potential insolvency situation. According to the New York Times (NYT), the equivalent of $94 billion was withdrawn from Spanish banks in July, an amount that equals seven percent of the country’s overall economic output.

Though stronger overall compared to Greece in terms of economic diversity and debt levels, Spain is undeniably on a downward economic spiral that is sending many of its people and their money to other countries like England, Germany, and Singapore, where economic conditions are much more favorable. Just like in Greece, there is a growing fear among Spaniards that their nation could revert from the euro to its former currency, pesetas, which would greatly devalue their personal wealth.

“The macro situation in Spain is getting worse and worse,” said Julio Vildosola to the NYT. Vildosola, a former senior executive at a large multinational company, recently moved all his money — and is now in the process of moving his entire family — to a small village near Cambridge, England. “There is just too much risk. Spain is going to be next after Greece, and I just don’t want to end up holding devalued pesetas.”

Spaniards pulling out their cash en masse

Continue reading