Tag: banksters

Wikileaks May Shut Down

LONDON – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Monday that financial problems may lead to the closure of the notorious secret-spilling site at the end of this year.

“If WikiLeaks does not find a way to remove this blockade we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the new year,” he said. “If we don’t knock down the blockade we simply will not be able to continue.”

The banksters have succeeded in starving 95% of wikileaks’ funds, and they have stopped posting new leaks, in order to concentrate on fund-raising.

The statement says that in order to ensure survival, WikiLeaks must “aggressively fundraise in order to fight back against this blockade and its proponents.



from here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

WikiLeaks is under attack by the big financial services companies , but there are still ways you can beat them.

Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.

As a result of exposing U.S. embassies from around the world, five major US financial institutions, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Western Union and the Bank of America, have tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks The attack has blocked over 95% of our donations, costing tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. The attack is entirely political. In fact, in the only formal review to occur, the US Treasury found that there were no lawful grounds to add WikiLeaks to financial blockade .

From the wikileaks donation page, here:

http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate

Iceland, Greece, & The Future

Iceland survived by taking over the domestic units of its banks and leaving the foreign creditors to bear losses. An 80 percent slump in the krona against the euro offshore in 2008 sent the trade deficit into surplus within months, while government spending cuts helped rein in the budget. Iceland will post a shortfall of 1.4 percent of gross domestic product next year after 2011’s 2.7 percent deficit, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on May 25.

Instead of bailing out its banks using taxpayer funds like the United States did, Iceland let its bank default.

Some economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, now think that letting the banks default was the right thing to do for Iceland’s economy, and some see it as a model for other debt-stricken European nations.

http://www.businessinsider.com…

Here’s the 5 year view of it’s currency vs the USD:

http://www.xe.com/currencychar…

Pretty good, huh? It’s more or less doubled.

Of course, that’s the key difference, the 500,000 Icelanders have their own currency, the 11, 283,000 million Greeks no longer do. (nor do the 60 million Italians, 46 million in Spain, etc etc) So, with Germany and France controlling the currency, they can’t follow that route.

And, there’s no painless way for these countries to go back to their own currencies–really there may be no way at all to go back, painful or otherwise; they’re probably stuck in the zone, if they were ever to go back to their own currencies, it would only be after the Germans have carried off everything that wasn’t tied down, and most stuff that was too. How would the Parthenon look on the Rhine?

When all is said and done, what we’re watching play out is a bloodless war- perhaps planned a decade or decades ago.

Where the economic powers of France and Germany, etc. (and likely also the UK and maybe US to some extent)  will take the actual assets of the south, leaving those countries poor, with no assets, and in perpetual debt. I suspect that then we’ll see a two tier euro zone-where the borders are no longer so open, but ‘guest worker’ programs will return as the broke and out of work of the south, compete for subsistence wage jobs in the northern zone, or maybe no wages at home. More or less, then, a return to the 1980s.  

All Is Not Quiet In the Halls of the Dead

(Cross-posted at Wild Wild Left)  

A revolution is coming.  Europe is a powder keg and the fuse is burning.  The scenes of fire and fury in the heart of London, the riots in Athens, the mass protests in Ireland and Italy are only a preview of what’s coming next.  I’m not advocating revolution, revolution is a beast no one wants unleashed, but a revolution is coming.  It won’t be requesting permission from high and mighty pundits or media scribblers or presidents or prime ministers or anyone else to come pounding on their doors with a message, a message from the dead, a message from the dying, a message from the abused and betrayed and forgotten, a message written in pain on the parchment of time and stained with the blood of the innocent.  

It’s coming.

Revolution lurks no longer in the halls of the dead, it lingers no more in the rooms of ruin, its coming, it knows the way, it doesn’t need directions, it’s been here before, it marched with Cromwell, it crossed Concord Bridge, it bled at the Bastille, it stormed the Winter Palace of the Tsars, it remembers why, it remembers how, it knows who the guilty are, it knows who the enablers are, it knows where they live, it knows where we all live, and it’s coming.  

Grayson Untangles the Web of Fraud in the ‘Foreclosure Mills’

Citigroup, Ally Sued for Racketeering Over Database

Bloomberg

By Margaret Cronin Fisk and Thom Weidlich – Oct 4, 2010

Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. units were sued by homeowners in Kentucky for allegedly conspiring with Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. to falsely foreclose on loans.

The lawsuit, filed as a civil-racketeering class action on behalf of all Kentucky homeowners facing foreclosure, also names as a defendant Reston, Virginia-based MERS, the company that handles mortgage transfers among member banks. The suit claims that through MERS the banks are foreclosing on homes even when they don’t hold titles to the properties.

[…]

The homeowners claim the defendants filed or caused to be filed mortgages with forged signatures, filed foreclosure actions months before they acquired any legal interest in the properties and falsely claimed to own notes executed with mortgages.

Forgery is No Joke.

Neither is being evicted, by Banks who ‘really don’t own’ your Home.

Citibank fails to prove Mortgage Ownership, in Foreclosure Suit

Thank goodness.  It couldn’t have happen a day too soon.

NBC Nightly News (03-09-09) Tent Cities of Homeless Springing Up In Bad Times



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F94f_Ycsjs

Tent City, USA



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

The Slaves’ Rebellion and Revelation



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How? That was always the question. How might the slaves rebel against their servitude and chains. How do people powerless and oppressed rise up against their Owners who have all manner of control available to them? The Owners had the power over access to food, water, shelter and safety. They had the Law established to protect them from the ambition of slaves to be free. Property was power and only owners could own. Slaves had to rent from the owners with the pittance of their slave wages. It wasn’t called Slavery, as it was a PR problem, so they called it Freedom.

But of course, it was the opposite of freedom. A society of owners and the owned.

Dear rich bastards, what part of “Camel through the eye of a needle” do you not understand?

Yes, I am saying it. It needs to be said.

23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

The Gospel of Mark, chapter 10

Dear BP CEO Tony Hayward, as you ride your Yacht named Bob after receiving your apology from a Texas oil Republican for the inconvenience of being implicated in the deaths of 11 human beings and the worst environmental disaster in US history, I would like to remind you that when Jesus comes back he is going to be VERY, VERY PISSED OFF.

More ranting below the fold

Sausage WIN! Senate votes against Banksters in favor of everyone else!

On a vote to buck the Banksters and help out everybody except our financial wizards, the Senate passed the Dick Durbin Amendment to reform Debit fees with a whopping 64 votes. In even more unlikely anti bankster behavior, 17 GOP Senators voted FOR the bill.

   As of the typing of this article, hell has yet to begun to freeze.

The final vote tally was 64-33.

Voting in favor: 46 Democrats, 17 Republicans and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders [I, VT].

Voting against: 9 Democrats, 23 Republicans and Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman [I, CT].

   Good ole Joey Lieberman. He’s with us on everything but the war and Barack Obama.

   But this is a great win that will benefit everyone who isn’t a MegaBank or n executive or a servant of them, and a win for everyone else, but, as always, politics make strange bedfellows.

More below the fold.

New mortgage trap increases taxpayer risk, if it works!

Feeling distressed about mortgage payments?  The government would like to help.  Just press the little red button.

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Countdown to January 18: Goldman’s Bonus Day UPDATED

January 18 is a week from today.

This is the day when Goldman Sachs officially announces how much loot it’s going to divide between it’s fellow gangmembers.  

It’s expected to be in the 20 BILLION dollar range.   20 BILLION dollars.    The spoils of crime, divided up in the hideout.  

Will Americans just sit back and let this happen?

Will be there any kind of protest there?  

If not, why not?

Honk if you hate Darrell Issa WITH UPDATE

I have always hated Darrell Issa.  I live in California and Darrell Issa is largely the reason that we now have Arnold “will my term ever end?” Schwarzenegger in the governor’s hot tub.   He’s also, quite simply, a scumbag.

But remiscent of the Bush years, when I found myself agreeing more with Pat “I’m also a scumbag” Buchanan, than I did with most “mainstream” Democrats like, well, almost all of them, I now want to pat Scumbag Issa on the back.

Why?

Because he’s come out with this:

Geithner’s Fed tried to keep sweet deal for banks a secret


The controversy surrounding Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s role in the 2008 Wall Street bailouts was ramped up Thursday with the revelation of emails that show the New York Federal Reserve — then run by Geithner — pressured insurance giant AIG to withhold information about payments the company made to its creditors.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) obtained emails between AIG employees showing that the company had planned to disclose in its filings to the SEC that it had paid 100 cents on the dollar to creditors like Goldman Sachs and other banks, but “the New York Fed crossed out the reference,” Bloomberg News reports.

AIG has received $183 billion in taxpayer relief. The news that the New York Fed attempted to keep from the public how that money was spent will likely increase political opposition to Geithner’s appointment as Treasury Secretary.

The Bloomberg.com article is here.


Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps, which were contracts tied to subprime home loans, threatened to swamp the insurer weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.”

Will this become a mainstream story?   Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?  After all, it paints a “Democrat” in a negative light, and it’s being pushed by a Republican.

But we’re talking about Banksters here, and they don’t play by the rules.   They run the place.  

All these people need to be in jail.  

Officials and Experts Warn of Crash-Induced Unrest

Officials and Experts Warn of Crash-Induced Unrest

This is one of those entries where I’m going to basically just send you over to the link so you can check it out for yourself.  The site itself has become a daily must-visit for me, and should be for others interested in what’s really going on.   I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s really really good.  

His entries are so chock-full of links that cutting and pasting what he’s saying is almost pointless, unless you include all the links (and if anyone knows an easy way to do that, I’d love to learn it!).

Anyway for all the Larry Summers MORONS out there who think that sunny days of economic lushness are right around the corner, well, this is something of a buzz-kill.   (the same guy has an awesome piece that just DESTROYS Summers).

Anyway, here’s a sample:


Today, Moody’s warned that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world, that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics, that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, and that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuers”.

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