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Showing posts with label financial warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label financial warfare. Show all posts

Monday, 20 May 2019

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary)



At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it in a web of offshore islands. Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British jurisdictions and Britain and its dependencies are the largest global players in the world of international finance. 
 
The Spider's Web was written, directed and produced by Michael Oswald, you can sponsor his future films on Liberapay (supports one time donations) and Patreon: https://liberapay.com/IndependentPOV https://www.patreon.com/independentdo... 
 
Share this documentary with your friends, and ask sites to feature it:  
https://twitter.com/spiderswebfilm  
 
 
 
The Spider's Web was substantially inspired by Nicholas Shaxson's book Treasure Islands you can read an extract of it here: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardi... 
 
Translate this documentary here on youtube or contact us for the .srt file 
 
contact@independentpov.org 
 
For those interested to learn more about tax justice and financial secrecy, read about the Tax Justice Network's campaigning and regular blogs - become part of the movement for change and listen to the Tax Justice Network's monthly podcast/radio show the Taxcast https://www.taxjustice.net/taxcast/ 
 
 
Review on Open Democracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/open... 
 
Website: www.spiderswebfilm.com 
 
German Version: https://youtu.be/1ZZR8vBKqwc 
 
Subtitles: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Korean, Hungarian, English, Turkish, Portugese.

Tuesday, 7 May 2019

Money laundering - Why the UK does not prosecute it

"Despite the UK’s rhetoric about wanting a “world-leading reputation for integrity” as a financial centre, it has never prosecuted a single company or bank for money laundering."

True Publica

A study by the CCP Research Foundation – which analyses banks’ so-called ‘conduct costs’ – revealed that the biggest 20 banks worldwide, including the biggest four in Britain, had paid or set aside £264 billion for fines in the five years to 2017. Britain’s biggest banks have paid out £71 billion for misconduct in the decade since the financial crisis. Much of these fines have related to money laundering but they were not prosecuted in the UK.

Lloyds is the bank that has suffered the heaviest penalties with at least £23.4 billion in conduct-related costs and write-offs since 2008.  RBS is second on the list. Its conduct and litigation costs since 2008, including amounts it has earmarked but not yet used, add up to £20.6 billion. The bailed-out bank also agreed to pay £3.6 billion to settle an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) for misselling mortgage-backed securities – the bonds at the heart of the 2008 crisis in America.

RBS and Lloyds were bailed out when the financial crisis broke out to the tune of £45.5 billion and £20.3 billion respectively.

Barclays avoided a UK state bailout – but only by taking £12 billion what looks like illegal emergency funding from the state of Qatar. The Serious Fraud Office is involved.

HSBC has forked out nearly £10 billion in fines and other costs for its conduct since 2008.
In the last few weeks – Standard Chartered, the British bank has been ordered to pay $1.1bn (£842m) by US and UK authorities to settle allegations for breaching sanctions against countries including Iran.

But it doesn’t end there does it – it just keeps on going.

In 2019 alone, leaving aside Standard Chartered, the Financial Conduct Authority has dished out fines to the financial services sector at the rate of more than one a month. In total, to the 9th April, they have fined the industry or people in it collectively to the tune of £272,487,887.

What is interesting here is the missing link. British banks are world leaders in shovelling trillions into tax havens, most of it to evade taxation but a very good chunk of it is pure money laundering. 

Tyrants, despots, mass murderers, terrorists, traffickers – they are just as good a customer as any as far as the banks are concerned. Here, the British government and its toothless Financial Conduct Authority fail in every sense of the word. Money laundering through British tax haven islands and crown dependencies is something the state approves of – hence the lack of fines or punishment dished out for it.

Donald Toon, director at the National Crime Agency, admitted that money laundering in the UK was “a very big problem” and estimated that the amount of money laundered here each year has now risen to a staggering £150 billion. I would think that is on the light side.

Susan Hawley is Policy Director of Corruption Watch. She worked for six years at the Corner House on corruption issues, having previously worked in the policy team at Christian Aid on ethics and corruption issues. Here is her take, (originally published a year ago), on money laundering by British banks.

Read more

Friday, 8 February 2019

Leaked Doc Reveals US Military Use of IMF, World Bank as “Unconventional” Weapons

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News
 

This “U.S. coup manual,” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, serves as a reminder that the so-called “independence” of such financial institutions as The World Bank and IMF is an illusion and that they are among the many “financial weapons” regularly used by the U.S. government to bend countries to its will.

 

WASHINGTON – In a leaked military manual on “unconventional warfare” recently highlighted by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Army states that major global financial institutions — such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — are used as unconventional, financial “weapons in times of conflict up to and including large-scale general war,” as well as in leveraging “the policies and cooperation of state governments.”

The document, officially titled “Field Manual (FM) 3-05.130, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare” and originally written in September 2008, was recently highlighted by WikiLeaks on Twitter in light of recent events in Venezuela as well as the years-long, U.S.-led economic siege of that country through sanctions and other means of economic warfare. Though the document has generated new interest in recent days, it had originally been released by WikiLeaks in December 2008 and has been described as the military’s “regime change handbook.”

Read more

Thursday, 23 February 2017

The Criminalization of Financial Independence

Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds Blog

 

Independent enterprises are a source of political and financial independence--and any independent class is dangerous to the ruling elites.

Just as the "war on drugs" criminalized and destroyed large swaths of African-American and Latino communities, the "war on cash" will further criminalize the few remaining avenues to financial independence and freedom. The introduction of "entitlement" welfare in the 1960s generated a toxic dependency on the state that institutionalized worklessness, a one-two punch that undermined marriage and family in America's working class of all ethnicities.

The "war on drugs" launched in the 1970s turned millions of American males into felons with severely restricted rights and opportunities in mainstream America.

Now we see the same destructive pattern repeating with "disability" being the new "welfare" and "legal" synthetic heroin (oxycotin etc.) being the new street-smack that lays waste to entire communities. Once you're dependent on the state for disability and synthetic smack, you are owned by the government, lock, stock and barrel.

When the temptation to sell your $3 Medicaid prescription for synthetic smack for a quick $1000 becomes too much to resist, bang, you've got a one-way ticket into the Hell of America's criminal "justice" system. Do you see the pattern? Offer the blandishments of "free money" and nearly free synthetic smack, and the vulnerable populace is quickly reduced to a dependent state of worklessness and addiction.

Needless to say, an addicted, ill, workless populace that is herded into the grinder of the criminal justice system isn't going to create any political resistance. They have their hands full just trying to stay alive and avoid being sucked into the voracious maw of the criminalization meat grinder.

Read more

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Government Officials Admit to ECONOMIC False Flag Operations

Washington's Blog

False flag attacks don’t just involve physical deaths and wars

They also involve faked economic events and financial casualties.

For example, two officials of the International Monetary Fund said last month that they needed the threat of an imminent financial catastrophe to force other players into accepting its measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, and – as the Greek government put it (via Bloomberg) – the IMF was “considering a plan to cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe.”

High-level officials also admitted to intentionally destroying their own nations’ economies in order to “justify” structural economic reforms.

For example, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Japanese central bank officials admitted that they kept Japan’s economy in a deflationary crisis to promote “structural reform” which would allow the Japanese economy to be looted by foreign interests. Japanese central bank officials admitted the same thing.

Japan Times noted in 2003:
Official statements by BOJ executives [reveal]: The BOJ can be helpful by not being helpful. The princes recognized that such structural change was so opposed to the special and general interests of most Japanese — citizens, businessmen, bureaucrats and politicians — that it could be achieved only by crippling the economy and preventing its recovery.
Something similar happened in Thailand and the EU.

Indeed, the former head of the Bank of England said  last month that the depression in the EU was more or less a “deliberate” policy choice.

And an economist at insurance giant AIG – and former head of the European Commission’s unit responsible for the European Monetary System and monetary policies – said in 2008 that what European leaders wanted was to create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government.”

Indeed, Greece (more), Italy, Ireland (and here) and other European countries have all lost their national sovereignty to the ECB and the other members of the Troika.

ECB head Mario Draghi said in 2012:
The EU should have the power to police and interfere in member states’ national budgets.

***

“I am certain, if we want to restore confidence in the eurozone, countries will have to transfer part of their sovereignty to the European level.”

***

“Several governments have not yet understood that they lost their national sovereignty long ago. Because they ran up huge debts in the past, they are now dependent on the goodwill of the financial markets.”
Read more
 

Sunday, 22 December 2013

Black Budget: US govt clueless about missing Pentagon $trillions




The  Pentagon has secured a 630 billion dollar budget for next year, even  though it’s failed to even account for the money it’s received since  1996. A whopping 8.5 trillion dollars of taxpayer cash have gone to  defence programmes – none of which has been audited. This black budget  has sparked concerns over potential fraud, as Gayane Chichakyan reports.  

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

JP Morgan in record $13bn settlement with US regulators

Comment: When does a billion dollar fine constitute criminal behaviour of such magnitude that a company should longer be in existence? Welcome to JP Morgan with a 100 year-old history of financial criminality. A classic example of just how broken the system is, where if you pay the right amount then you can get away with anything.

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US bank JP Morgan has agreed to a record $13bn (£8bn) settlement with US regulators for misleading investors during the housing crisis.

It is the largest settlement ever between the US government and a corporation.

The bank acknowledged it made “serious misrepresentations to the public”, but said it did not violate US laws.

“We are pleased to have concluded this extensive agreement,” said JP Morgan boss Jaime Dimon in a statement.

About $4bn of the settlement is to go to homeowners hurt by JP Morgan’s practices.

Read more

See also:  JP Morgan to Pay $4.5 billion over mis-selling


Saturday, 10 September 2011

The Richest 0.1% Have Launched A War On Us – It’s Time To Fight Back And Hold These 400 Billionaires Personally Responsible For Our Economic Crisis



The following post includes adapted excerpts from David DeGraw’s book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” Release Date: 9.28.11

We have endured financial oppression for long enough. In a time of national crisis and shared sacrifice, the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population cannot continue on their merry way, living in obscene wealth and detached from reality, while the majority of the population desperately struggles to make ends meet. We are under attack, and it’s time to fight back.

work over 60 hours a week and still barely make ends meet. Increased costs of living and thousands of dollars in medical bills have made me and my family move three times in the past three years to downsize and cut living expenses. I’m certainly not alone in this dire economic situation, tens of millions of Americans are fighting this daily war to keep their family fed and healthy with a roof over their head. 

In fact, as long as I can keep up this intensive work schedule at my current income level, I’m actually better off than many Americans. Over 46 million Americans are currently relying on food stamps to feed their family, over 50 million can’t afford health care, 62 million have zero or negative net worth and 64% of Americans have less than $1000 saved. As the economic downturn begins to accelerate once again, the majority of the population, which has been struggling for over three years now, is going to be pushed to a breaking point.


Read More


Saturday, 13 August 2011

Meet the Global Financial Elites Controlling $46 Trillion In Wealth


Alternet

The economic elite have at least $46 trillion in wealth – but who are they? We look at the people and the industries picking the pockets of the working class.
The following is an adapted excerpt from David DeGraw’s new report on the financial destruction of the United States. The full report can be read here: Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America.


“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,
the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway


How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90 percent of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.

If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225 percent increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.

Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.

Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076 percent of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009.

The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:




The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than five times within this one year. These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.

In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50 percent of the entire country. The top economic 1 percent of the US population now has a record 40 pecent of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90 percent of the population combined.

Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1 Percent

Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5 percent of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?:

“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.

Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…

In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.

They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….

… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”

To get into the top economic 0.01 percent (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million per year.
If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.

Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses. Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.

If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion. The audacity of it all is stunning.

Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported:

“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….
H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….
Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”

Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from his down year in 2009 by making $72 million in 2010.

Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because peoplewith health insurance plansstill cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75 percent of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people whohave health insurance.

Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks. The biggest five oil companies, while gas prices have been skyrocketing, reaped $36 billion in profit last quarter. These companies also receive an average of $6 billion per year in tax subsidies.

Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us

To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control of our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30 percent of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18 percent.

In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.
The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4 percent in 2009, down from 30.4 percent in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.

Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955.

Corporate tax accounted for 27.3 percent of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9 percent of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3 percent of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3 percent.

Deliberate Systemic Attacks

The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9 percent of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.



World is witnessing financial WWIII


RT


Friday, 22 July 2011

Banks to Pay $25 Billion Bribe For Immunity



State attorneys general are negotiating to give major banks wide immunity over irregularities in handling foreclosures, even as evidence has emerged that banks are continuing to file questionable documents.

A coalition of all 50 states' attorneys general has been negotiating settlements with five of the biggest U.S. banks that would include payment of up to $25 billion in penalties and commitments to follow new rules. In exchange, the banks would get immunity from civil lawsuits by the states, as well as similar guarantees by the Justice Department and Department of Housing and Urban Development, which have participated in the talks.

State and federal officials declined to say if any form of immunity from criminal prosecution also is under discussion. The banks involved in the talks are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, JPMorgan Chase and Ally Financial. [...]


Audit: Fed gave $16 trillion in emergency loans


$16 trillion...This is an unimaginable sum. How much is one trillion dollars? Go HERE. This will give you some idea just how criminally insane all this really is. Most, if not all of the world's problems such as poverty, health care and debt could be solved over night. (Of course, there are other social factors to consider but the principle stands.)

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rawstory.com

The U.S. Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to figures produced by the government's first-ever audit of the central bank.


Last year, the gross domestic product of the entire U.S. economy was $14.5 trillion.

Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) analysis shows.

Additionally, asset swap arrangements were opened with banks in the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Switzerland. Twelve of those arrangements are still ongoing, having been extended through August 2012.

Out of all borrowers, Citigroup received the most financial assistance from the Fed, at $2.5 trillion. Morgan Stanley came in second with $2.04 trillion, followed by Merill Lynch at $1.9 trillion and Bank of America at $1.3 trillion. 


The audit also found that the Fed mostly outsourced its lending operations to the very financial institutions which sparked the crisis to begin with, and that they delegated contracts largely on a no-bid basis. The GAO report recommends new policies that would eliminate such conflicts of interest, and suggests that in the future the Fed should keep better records of their emergency decision-making process.

The Fed agreed to "strongly consider" the recommendations, but as it is not a government-run institution it cannot be forced to do so by lawmakers. The seven-member board of governors and the Fed chairman are, however, appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. 
The audit was conducted on a one-time basis, as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed last year. Fed officials had strongly discouraged lawmakers from ordering the audit, claiming it may serve to undermine confidence in the monetary system.


The full GAO audit results follow, below.

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GAO Fed Investigation



Wednesday, 20 July 2011

Obama Is A Bankster Puppet “Who Brought On The Depression That The Republicans Never Could Have Gotten Away With”

ampedstatus.org

 In a recent interview with Guns and Butter, Michael Hudson summed up the financial war against the American people, with a focus on the key role President Obama is playing:
“He’s going to go down as the man who brought on the depression that the Republicans never could have gotten away with. Only a Democrat posing as a left-winger could support the anti-labor, anti-wage, pro-Wall Street policies that his advisors have been pressing….
The economy’s going under because Wall Street and investors realize that it’s a done deal. That Mr. Obama is going to succeed in pushing the economy much further into a depression. We need the depression in order to cut living standards and labor by 30 percent. We need a depression in order just to lower the wages of America and to have an excuse – of course, a depression is going to make the budget deficit even larger and the solution to the depression has already been written up, just like the invasion of Iraq was all written up before 9/11, the solution is going to be that the government is going to sell off its land, whatever is in the public domain.
The American government is going to look just like Greece and just like Ireland. They’re going to be told, ‘The states can’t pay, there’s no federal revenue to share with Minnesota or Wisconsin or the city of Chicago. They’re going to have to sell off their roads, sell off their streets, sell off their infrastructure, sell off their public utilities, sell off their business. The government will sell whatever it has, the Postal Service, to essentially buyers who will now borrow the money from the banks making a huge new market for banks and investment bankers, in privatizing and cutting up what used to be the public domain and turning it over to the wealthiest 10 percent of the economy. So people realize yes, the class war’s back in business. We’re going into a depression. We’ll buy back all these stocks after they go but meanwhile, the game’s over. Let’s grab what we can and just bail out. And that’s what’s happening now.”
Full Audio Interview:
“Guns, Finance and Butter – Finance Is the New Mode of Warfare” with Dr. Michael Hudson. The jobless recovery; the debt ceiling and default; China; Greece; banks, not countries, receive the bailouts; financial warfare; IMF and EU; European Central Bank; US credit default swaps; US agricultural exports create food dependency; currency devaluation devalues the price of labor; class war of banks against the rest of society.
Listen to interview here (((mp3 audio)))

Saturday, 4 June 2011

The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families



The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP and Chevron Texaco); in tandem with Deutsche Bank, BNP, Barclays and other European old money behemoths. But their monopoly over the global economy does not end at the edge of the oil patch. 

According to company 10K filings to the SEC, the Four Horsemen of Banking are among the top ten stock holders of virtually every Fortune 500 corporation.[1] 

So who then are the stockholders in these money center banks? 

This information is guarded much more closely. My queries to bank regulatory agencies regarding stock ownership in the top 25 US bank holding companies were given Freedom of Information Act status, before being denied on “national security” grounds. This is rather ironic, since many of the bank’s stockholders reside in Europe.....


Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on 9/11 Part II


via WantToKnow.info/

(condensed version)
original version here.

In preparation for their war against Communism, and in the years leading up to the failed – or faux – coup of 1991 which initiated the last days of Gorbachev and the rise of Yeltsin, Bush and a cadre of rogue KGB officials built a complex international network of banks and holding companies that would be used to take over ownership of the Soviet economy. Over 300 of these KGB turncoats who supported this operation would later be re-located to the US in the early 1990s and pensioned. [111] Periodic CIA reports to Congress would review KGB and organized crime complicity in the takeover of Russia by criminal elements, but all mention of the formidable role of the U.S. would be expunged from Congressional oversight and the public record. [112] 

In the first phase of the economic attack on the Soviet Union, George Bush authorized Leo Wanta and others to destabilize the ruble and facilitate the theft of the Soviet/Russian treasury. This would result in draining the Russian treasury of between 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes of gold bullion, ($35 billion at the time). [113] The gold was ‘stolen’ in March of 1991, facilitated by Leo Wanta and signed off by Boris Yeltsin’s right hand man. The majority of the leaked reports from the CIA and FBI suggest the theft of the Russian treasury was a KGB and Communist party operation, but what those reports omitted was the extensive involvement of Boris Yeltsin, the U.S. banking industry and the CIA.

In the second phase, Wanta, George Soros and a group of Bush appointees would begin to destabilize the ruble. There were two major operations: the largest was coordinated by Alan Greenspan and Oliver North, and implemented by Leo Wanta. 

The 9/11 Cover-up and the Black Eagle Trust

With an understanding of the economic war being waged on the Soviet Union, the focus needs to turn to reports that on September 11, 1991, President George Bush was responsible for issuing $240 billion dollars in secretive bonds as a part of this attack on the Russian ruble. There are six lines of evidence from eight sources that suggest this was indeed the case. Many of these instances are corroborated with documents available on the Internet, presented by those making the claims. [174] 

The bonds sat for ten years, like a ticking time bomb. They had to be settled – or cashed in by September 12, 2001. The two firms in the U.S. most likely to be handling them would be Cantor Fitzgerald and Eurobrokers – the two largest government securities firms in the U.S. The federal agency mostly involved in investigating those transactions was the Office of Naval Intelligence. On 9/11, those same three organizations: the two largest government securities brokers and the Office of Naval Intelligence in the US took direct hits.

What happened inside the buildings of the World Trade on September 11 is difficult, but not impossible to discern. The government has put a seal on the testimony gathered by the investigating 911 Commission, and instructed government employees to not speak on the matter or suffer severe penalties, but there are a number of personal testimonies posted on the Internet as to what happened in those buildings that day. 

Careful reconstruction from those testimonies indicates the deliberate destruction of evidence not only by a targeted assault on the buildings, but also by targeted fires and explosions. In the event that either the hijacking failed, or the buildings were not brought down, the evidence would be destroyed by fires. In addition to the investigative evidence being destroyed, the Federal Register reported that the physical securities held by the brokers in their vaults had been destroyed.
What would be even more revealing would be the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission on that day, and in the immediate aftermath. As one of many coincidences on 9/11, the Federal Reserve Bank was operating its information system from its remote back-up site rather than it’s downtown headquarters. The SEC and Federal Reserve system remained unfazed by the attack. All of their systems continued to operate. The two major security trading firms had their trade data backed up on remote systems. Nevertheless, the Commission for the first time invoked its emergency powers under Securities Exchange Act Section 12(k) and issued several orders to ease certain regulatory restrictions temporarily.

The Federal Reserve Suspends the Rules

On the first day of the crisis, the SEC lifted “Rule 15c3-3: Customer Protection – Reserves and Custody of Securities.” Thus GSCC [Government Securities Clearing Corporation] was thus allowed to substitute other securities for the physical securities destroyed during the attack. “…collateral substitutions can and should be made with regard to immediately maturing collateral.” [191] At this point in time, the Federal Reserve and its GSCC had created a settlement environment totally void of controls and reporting – where it could substitute valid, new government securities for the mature, illegal securities, and not have to record where the original bad securities had come from, or where the new securities went – all because the paper for the primary brokers for US securities had been eliminated.

A review of the explanations for the actions of the Federal Reserve after September 11th exposes an amazingly complex web of analysis and speculation. The reports published by the Federal Reserve argue that the Federal Reserve’s actions increasing the monetary supply by over $300 billion were justified to overcome operational difficulties in the financial sector. While impressive as the reports are, what is noted by the casual reader is that all of the Federal Reserve analysis is speculative and suggestive, using phraseology such as “may have,” “likely,” “presumably,” or “should have.” There are few – if any – definitive statements about root cause and the appropriateness of the Federal Reserve response.

While the Fed was reporting outstanding account balances of over $100 billion per day (while not identifying the banks involved), the Wall Street Journal reported that at one point during the week after 9/11, BoNY was publicly reported to be overdue on $100 billion in payments. [198] The Deutschebank, which sat inside the WTC and was totally decimated, reported no such account balance increase, and JP Morgan, the other of only two clearing banks which uses the same traders and communications hub, reported no such increase in its account balance. No one has publicly asked: why is it that these other two banks were not seriously disrupted, while the Bank of New York – which had no structural damage – seemed unable to operate?

Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have ‘conspired’ with key unknown figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities, originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of September 11th through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street Journal as being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.

[As reported on page 12 of a Federal Reserve document] “In the absence of complete information on deliveries into and out of its account at BoNY on September 11, and as a result of its assumption of settlement fails on the starting legs of blind-brokered RPs, GSCC recorded (after the close of business on September 11) $266 billion in transactions that apparently failed to settle.… Continuing connectivity problems prevented GSCC from giving BoNY delivery instructions after the close of business on September 11 and prevented it from acquiring information on activity in its account at BoNY during the day on September 12. Consequently, GSCC recorded $440 billion in settlement fails as of the close of business on September 12.” [201]

What appears to be the case is that the Federal Reserve imbalances reported on three consecutive days in the aftermath were largely concentrated at the Bank of New York, which is reported to represent over 90% of the imbalance, suggesting the Bank had been the recipient of massive fund transfers, and unable to send out transfers. Overall transactions for the day of 9/11 were seemingly down even more significantly than volume, but the transactions that came in after closing were extremely large, averaging in size in packages of $35 million or more. This would be consistent with a hypothesis that $240 billion of securities were being pushed surreptitiously into the money supply.

The Federal Reserve, without providing the detail required to substantiate it’s claims, would have the public believe that there were widespread liquidity issues, when in fact the issues were very concentrated primarily, if not singularly, in the BoNY, which has been the subject of an ongoing major money-laundering investigation for many years. These account balance issues resulted in the defacto expansion of the monetary supply, details of which are no longer reported by the Federal Reserve.
The reported cause of this market malfunction is seemingly suspect. By comparison, the Deutschebank which sat inside the World Trade Center reported no such account balance increase, and JP Morgan, the other of two clearing banks which uses the same traders and communications hub, reported no such increase in account balance. Additionally, while problems were being documented between the BoNY and GCSS, no other institution had those problems.

There is a contention that at the core of the September 11th attack, someone was planning to cover the 1991 issuance of $240 billion in covert securities used to finance the collapse the Soviet Union. The facts surrounding the financial aftermath of September 11 suggest this is not only possible, but that reports describing the aftermath have deliberately been misleading.
  • The US dollar money supply was significantly increased in the aftermath of 9/11;
  • The bank at the core of the illegal money laundering by ex-Soviet criminals was the source of the increased money supply (BoNY);
  • The generally disseminated rationale for BoNY’s operational problems seems to have affected no other bank in a similar manner or magnitude and is inconsistent with reports on the BoNY operations in the aftermath;
  • A key witness who might provide insight to these issues is a statistically aberrant death;
  • The source of the BoNY’s $330 billion increase in assets is cloaked under the privilege of “private banking;”
  • The only alleged “severe” disruption to the financial systems was the Federal Reserves account balance and the securities trading fails – both systems required to hide the laundering of $240 billion in covert securities.
This is not a ‘proof’ that $240 billion was laundered, but it provides probable cause for paying serious attention. 

Conclusion

History has many interpretations, and this report has been just one of many – an interpretation pieced together from the bold admissions and revelations of insiders, whose stories have been ignored and suppressed by the major media organizations. It is an interpretation of history that suggests a few determined men strove to change the world in defense of Western capitalism in ways which they felt needed to be hidden from the public. Whatever emotion or logic that was adequate to cause them to hide their actions from the public was not strong enough to prevent them from committing the acts.

Author’s Note:
This is the condensed version of this story. The author cannot vouch for the accuracy of the source materials, although efforts have been made to validate the consistency of the story line with as many references as possible. There is no single fact or reference that this story is dependent on. The author expects some details to be disputed, and possibly disproved, but contends that the story line will hold true regardless.

Note from Fred: Though I doubt this was the only reason for 9/11, it was likely one of the main motivators. For what may be the most powerful single piece of evidence corroborating this theory, click here to read the Reuters news service article on the massive volume of electronic financial transactions conducted from inside the WTC just before the buildings collapsed. Yet the investigation results are being kept secret.


What you can do:
  • Inform your media and political representatives of the vital information in this article on the Black Eagle Trust. To contact those close to you, click here. Urge them to call for the release of classified documents and videos and to press for a new, impartial investigation of 9/11.
  • Explore the wealth of reliable, verifiable information on 9/11, including several excellent documentaries, in our 9/11 Information Center available here.
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