It was recently reported that the European Union would be lifting its oil embargo on Syria, in an effort to help fund what it calls “rebels” operating there. In the Associated Press article, “EU lifts Syria oil embargo to bolster rebels,” it states:
The European Union on Monday lifted its oil embargo on Syria to provide more economic support to the forces fighting to oust PresidentBashar Assad’s regime.
The decision will allow for crude exports from rebel-held territory, the import of oil and gas production technology, and investments in the Syrian oil industry, the EU said in a statement.
On paper, the E.U.’s idea seemed straightforward. Without an embargo, European companies can now legally begin importing barrels of oil directly from rebel groups, which have seized several oil fields in recent months, mostly around the eastern area of Deir Ezzor. That would provide the opposition with its first reliable source of income since the revolt erupted in Feb. 2011, and in theory hasten the downfall of Bashar Assad’s regime, by giving rebels the means to run skeletal local governments and consolidate their control. As part of the decision, the E.U. ministers also agreed to export technical equipment, insure the rebels’ shipments of oil and invest in the rebel oil businesses. Before the war, Syria earned about $3.6 billion a year exporting oil and gas to Europe, with its biggest customers in Germany and Italy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Syria’s main oilfields are in the eastern provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hassakeh, which both border Iraq.
Just as in Libya, the West is wasting no time in despoiling Syria’s resources, with the pillaging beginning long before the war even reaches a definitive conclusion. But in addition to the overt looting of Syria’s resources, there is an added complication.TIME also reports:
Still, analysts warn that the plan is deeply flawed—and in fact, that the E.U.’s decision could intensify the violence in Syria, by setting up a deadly competition for control of a resource that has languished amid two years of grinding civil war.
And indeed, this “deadly competition” has already been taking place, as Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra front in Syria has been overrunning civilian populations, government positions, and local militias alike across Syria’s oil-rich region. In fact, TIME’s itself admits that:
Complicating the issue is the fact that several of the rebel-held oil fields are believed to be under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra, which has declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda.
TIME concedes that “several” oil fields are held by Al Qaeda, however, other reports across the Western media indicate most, if not all “rebel-held oil fields” are under Al Qaeda’s control.
In the New York Times article, “Islamist Rebels Create Dilemma on Syria Policy,” not only is it admitted that, “nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of,” but it specifically mentions the oil fields the EU seeks to plunder:
Elsewhere, they [al-Nusra] have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.
Additionally:
In the oil-rich provinces of Deir al-Zour and Hasaka, Nusra fighters have seized government oil fields, putting some under the control of tribal militias and running others themselves.
Islamist rebels are clashing with tribesmen in eastern Syria as struggles over the region’s oil facilities break out in the power vacuum left by civil war, activists said on Saturday.
One dispute over a stolen oil truck in the town of Masrib in the province of Deir al-Zor, which borders Iraq, set off a battle between tribesmen and fighters from the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda linked rebel group, which left 37 killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The fighting, which started in late March and lasted 10 days, was part of a new pattern of conflict between tribal groups and the Nusra Front, said a report from the Observatory, a British-based group which opposes Syria’s government and draws information from a network of activists in the country.
The Reuters article had forewarned:
The incentive for disputes over lucrative resources may be increased by plans by the European Union to lift an embargo on Syrian oil, which would make it easier to sell.
The EU said this week it wants to allow Syria’s opposition to sell crude in an effort to tilt the balance of power towards the rebels, who are outgunned by Assad’s fighter planes and long range missiles.
In other words, the EU’s announcement while lining the pockets of big-oil, is sowing increased chaos, violence, and death across oil-rich regions of Syria, compounding an already catastrophic humanitarian disaster of the West’s own creation. It is also clear that Al Qaeda’s al-Nusra front is the opposition the EU plans to buy the oil from, as there are no other “opposition” groups across the country to speak of according even to the New York Times, and more specifically, none besides al-Nusra holding significant ground in Syria’s oil fields.
The EU is openly preparing to do business directly with Al Qaeda, in a direct bid to bolster their control over territory they now occupy, and to overthrow the secular government of Syria in an unprecedented sectarian bloodbath. While many may claim the EU’s policy is merely yet another manifestation of the corruption and incompetence that are hallmarks of the failed supranational bloc, it was revealed as early as 2007 that the West sought to intentionally arm and fund sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda, to overthrow the Syrian government in just such a sectarian bloodbath.
To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Clearly then, it is no accident that Al Qaeda has the weapons and cash to dominate the so-called “opposition,” nor a mystery as to how they’ve managed to seize much of Syria’s oil fields. It is also no accident that these very terrorists now stand to gain immensely by selling stolen oil to the European Union, in a bid to further increase their strength, capabilities, and reach, in an otherwise so-far unsuccessful bid to overthrow the Syrian government.
The EU and their US and British allies, now have yet another deep scar that will permanently disfigure their reputation, legitimacy, and international standing ad infinitum. For the people of the West, it is imperative that they identify the corporate-financier interests truly driving this conspiracy against the Syrian people and bothboycott and permanently replace these interests. If not, they will inevitably, and in many cases already are, turning their attention, exploitation, and rackets inward onto their own.
Tony Cartalucci is the writer and editor at Land Destroyer
The EU’s food safety agency challenged its doubters on Monday, making available all the scientific information used to clear a genetically modified corn which a French researcher had linked to cancer.
The European Food Safety Authority said that “given the level of public interest … (it would) make all data on genetically modified (GM) maize NK603 publicly available on its website.”
While EFSA had previously provided such information on request, “any member of the public or scientific community will now be able to examine and utilize the full data sets used in this risk assessment,” it said in a statement.
Following the anti-Monsanto activism launched by nations like France and Hungary, Poland has announced that it will launch a complete ban on growing Monsanto’s genetically modified strain MON810.
The announcement, made by Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki, sets yet another international standard against Monsanto’s genetically modified creations. In addition to being linked to a plethora health ailments, Sawicki says that the pollen originating from this GM strain may actually be devastating the already dwindling bee population.
“The decree is in the works. It introduces a complete ban on the MON810 strain of maize in Poland,” Sawicki stated to the press.
Similar opposition to Monsanto occurred on March 9th, when 7 European countries blocked a proposal by the Danish EU presidency which would permit the cultivation of genetically modified plants on the entire continent. It was France, who in February, lead the charge against GMOs by asking the European Commission to suspend authorization to Monsanto’s genetically modified corn. What’s more, the country settled a landmark case in favor of the people over Monsanto, finding the biotech giant guilty of chemical poisoning.
In a ruling given by a court in Lyon (southeast France), grain grower Paul Francois stated that Monsanto failed to provide proper warnings on the Lasso weedkiller product label which resulted in neurological problems such as memory loss and headaches. The court ordered an expert opinion to determine the sum of the damages, and to verify the link between Lasso and the reported illnesses. The result was a guilty charge, paving the way for further legal action on behalf of injured farmers.
Since 1996, the agricultural branch of the French social security system has gathered about 200 alerts per year regarding sickness related to pesticides. However only 47 cases were even recognized in the past 10 years.
Nations are continually taking a stand against Monsanto, with nations like Hungary destroying 1000 acres of GM maize and India slamming Monsanto with ‘biopiracy‘ charges.
CNN reports that “world powers” – corrupt states belonging to the Arab League and ultimately members of the European Union – are “mapping out a plan to deliver humanitarian aid” in Syria under the banner of “Friends of Syria.”
On Thursday, Secretary of State Clinton gave her blessing to a move to arm the Syrian opposition. CNN attempted to soften the deadly impact of Clinton’s move to initiate a fresh round of terror and murder by stating that “the opposition will find willing sources to supply them with munitions to counter the Syrian government onslaught blamed for thousands of deaths.”
“There will be increasingly capable opposition forces,” Clinton hinted. “They will from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves as well as begin offensive measures.”
The latest “Arab Spring” effort to impose a new political order in Syria arrives after months of corporate media coverage portraying the al-Assad regime as murderous while ignoring reports of CIA and NATO snipers killing civilians.
An Arab League report issued earlier this month revealed that the Free Syria Army and other “armed opposition groups” are currently engaged in killing civilians and police and conducting terrorist attacks targeting innocent civilians.
Former FBI interpreter and whistle blower Sibel Edmunds, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, and a handful of others have reported on the U.S.-NATO-CIA campaign to undermine al-Assad and violently depose his regime, but this information had been routinely ignored by the establishment media.
An advance draft of the Friends of Syria plan calls for al-Assad to agree to an immediate cease-fire or face a “yet-to-be mentioned response” from the “world community.” It recognizes the Syrian National Council as a “credible representative of the Syrian people.”
In January, Haitham Maleh, a founding member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council, called for murdering Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, his British wife and three children.
Greece is teetering on the edge of bankrupcy, the future of bailed-out Portugal is uncertain and the single currency itself could be in trouble. The ranks of people writing off the Eurozone and even the European project itself are only swelling in number. So, perhaps that’s why the message for a United Europe is being pushed on an all new platform – the classroom.
- Thirty businesses have started using old currency - Spain estimated to have saved 1.7bn euros in pesetas - Jobless rate in Villamayor de Santiago above national average – with a third out of work
A Spanish town is looking to the past to safeguard the future of its ailing economy by reintroducing the peseta.
Fed up with the failing euro, rebellious locals in Villamayor de Santiago have reverted to using the old currency, which was phased out a decade ago.
Around 30 shops in the historic town, 75 miles south-east of Madrid, started accepting pesetas last month after urging customers to dig out any old notes and coins they had forgotten about.
… ‘We thought that if people had a hunt around for their old pesetas, then why shouldn’t we accept them as legal currency?
Events over the last several days reveal that the United States and Israel plan to conduct a false flag terror event to be blamed on Iran. The event will likely occur within the next six months and will result in an attack on Iran prior to the November election.
Obama’s intelligence chief, James Clapper (center), warned of Iranian terror attacks inside the United States.
Intelligence in U.S. and Israel Warn of Domestic Terror Attack
Officialdom in the United States and Israel have issued a warning about an Iranian “threat stream” against Israeli “soft targets” in America.
The warning arrives several days after Obama’s intelligence boss James Clapper said Iran may strike inside the United States,
“We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase… on both our guarded sites and ‘soft’ sites,” states a letter sent out by the head of security for the Israeli Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States.
Guarded sites are Israeli government facilities like embassies while soft sites are Jewish synagogues, schools, and community centers.
Yoram Cohen, the head of Israel’s security service Shin Bet, said recently that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad in response to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.
In January it was reported Mossad was behind the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan.
“The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point,” a nameless official told ABC News, “in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil.”
Cohen linked the alleged threat to the discredited plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in October. A court document in the case revealed that the FBI and the DEA concocted the plot as a sting operation and used failed used car salesman and alcoholic Mansour Arbabsiar as a patsy. Arbabsiar, who is from Iran, thought he was participating in a drug deal.
Despite the fallacious nature of the plot, intelligence officials used it to hype the specter of Iranian terrorism that will likely result in a false flag operation used as a pretext to invade Iran.
“In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation in threats against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world,” an intelligence document cited by ABC News states. It warns that demonstrations against Israel “could potentially turn violent at local synagogues, restaurants, the Israeli Embassy and other Israeli sites.”
The Israeli bulletin also provides an excuse for the TSA to step-up intrusive pat-downs and demand travelers be subjected to dangerous naked body scanners at airports across the United States.
“According to our evaluation there is a possibility that the forged passports will be used in order to pass as Israeli citizens at the security checks in Israel and around the world. Israeli security authorities may consider an Israeli citizenship as a [criterion] to proceed with a more lenient security check in secure sites such as airports, etc.,” the bulletin explains.
The latest warning arrives two weeks after the Turkish newspaper Zaman reported that a cell of the Quds Unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard planned to attack U.S. embassy in Ankara and other targets across Turkey.
Fast Moving Timeline for War
The latest development follows a number of events over the past few weeks that point toward a concerted attack by Israel and then the United States on Iran:
• DEBKAfile reported earlier in the week that the United States will have 100,000 troops in the region by March. “Pentagon has been quietly massing troops and armaments on two islands located just south of the Strait of Hormuz, and within easy striking distance of Iran,” Mac Slavo wrote on January 31.
• On Friday, the establishment media reported that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June,” according to the Washington Post. The timeline is predicated on Iran entering an Israeli contrived “zone of immunity” in its unsubstantiated effort to build a nuclear bomb.
• Iran has issued a number of threats in response to punitive oil and economic sanctions devised by the United States and Europe. On Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a nationally televised speech that his country will retaliate if Western nations impose crippling oil sanctions. In January, in response to European Union foreign ministers deciding to impose an oil embargo on the country, Iran vowed to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
• Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey admitted on January 9 that Iran has the ability to close off the strategic shipping lane linking the Gulf of Oman with the Persian Gulf. He said doing so would constitute a “red line.”
• In December, in response to Sec. Def. Panetta’s not ruling out an attack, Iran announced it would hold a military exercise in the Persian Gulf. The 10 day exercise, dubbed “Velayat-e 90,” demonstrated that Iran has the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. further exacerbated the situation by sending the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis through the Strait of Hormuz while Iran was conducting its war game.
• Russia and China have indicated that an attack on Iran would constitute an attack on their national security. “Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” said Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former envoy to NATO, in mid-January.
War President: Re-electing Obama
In November, DEBKAfile said Obama will use war as a re-election tool. “President Barack Obama went on line to America’s senior allies, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with notice of his plan to attack Iran no later than September-October 2012 – unless Tehran halted its nuclear weaponization programs,” the neocon-connected subscriber-only publication predicted.
“Obama’s announcement was not perceived as a general directive to US allies, but a guideline to blow the dust off the contingency plans for a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities which stayed locked in bottom drawers for three years,” states the report, adding that “Obama’s announcement spurred Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Israel into girding their navies, air forces, ballistic units and anti-missile defense systems for the challenges ahead.”
Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague said in January his country has not ruled out military action against Iran. Britain had dispatched its “most formidable warship HMS Daring” to the Persian Gulf region prior to Hague’s remarks.
In 2010, as Obama’s job rating began its descent into the abyss, former Clintonite and Democrat operative Mark Penn said Obama needs a domestic terror attack to regain his popularity. In July of that year, another former Clintonite, Robert Shapiro, said the only thing can preserve the Obama presidency is war.
“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” said Shapiro, writing for the Financial Times. “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”
The late Washington Post columnist David Broder was more succinct. “With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve,” he wrote in late 2010.
Tensions will undoubtedly rise if there is a terror attack inside the United States, either against an Israeli target or American one.
It would provide an airtight excuse to unleash the awesome power of the U.S. military against Iran and cast Obama in the adulatory light all “war presidents” receive as the masses fall in line and wave their flags and cheer on “our boys” as they decimate another country and engage in yet another bloody massacre of innocents.
Today, the European Union and 22 member states signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced. They have now joined the US and seven other nations that signed the treaty last October.
Anti-ACTA protest video: Thousands march in Poland
This signing ceremony merely formalized the EU’s adoption of ACTA last month, during a completely unrelated meeting on agriculture and fisheries, reports TechDirt.
Though initiated by the US, Japan is the official depository of the treaty.
Removal of the Three Strikes clause, in which users accused of three counts of piracy would be barred from the internet, paved the way for the EU to adopt ACTA last month.
Both ACTA and TPP were developed without public input and outside international trade groups, like the World Trade Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Leaked cables published by WikiLeaks in 2009 exposed early drafts of ACTA, resulting in a firestorm of controversy. Those cables, coupled with later releases, showed that ACTA negotiationsbegan in 2006 and were controversial even to participating states. An historical summary of the treaty’s progress through December can be found here.
ACTA Violates Magna Carta and US Constitution
Like PIPA and SOPA, two domestic internet censorship bills that prompted major websites to blacken their name or website in a Jan. 18th protest, ACTA allows accusers of copyright infringement to bypass judicial review. Lack of “due process” makes these bills and ACTA unconstitutional and violates the Magna Carta, a charter signed in 1215 on which most Western law is based, including the US Constitution. It is often cited as the most important legal document in the history of democracy.
(The USA PATRIOT Acts, Obama’s assassination program, and the National Defense Authorization Act that allows indefinite detention are among many recent laws passed in the US which directly breach the Magna Carta.)
“The Constitution states only one command twice,” explains Peter Strauss of Cornell University Law School, further elaborating:
The Fifth Amendment says to the federal government that no one shall be ‘deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.’ The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, uses the same eleven words, called the Due Process Clause, to describe a legal obligation of all states. These words have as their central promise an assurance that all levels of American government must operate within the law (‘legality’) and provide fair procedures.
Not only due process, but US adoption of ACTA also violates Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that the president “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.”
The Senate never voted on ACTA.
During the Jan. 18 internet blackout, Darrell Issa (R-CA) introduced OPEN, (H.R. 3782, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act). Heather Callaghanpoints out that even though OPEN targets foreign-based websites,
[T]he bill’s wording is wide open to pursue American sites. Just one example: when describing an infringing site, it starts with those ‘that are accessed through a non-domestic domain name,’ but continues in section (8)(A)(ii) for any site that ‘conducts business directed to residents of the United States.’
As this slew of internet censorship bills and treaties make their way into law, “the United States fell 27 places on the Reporters Without Borders tenth annual Press Freedom Index of 2011 to 47th overall,” reports Activist Post.
Today’s signatories included the EU, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Last October, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and the United States signed ACTA.
Though involved in early ACTA negotiations, Switzerland and Mexico have not yet ratified it. However, “Since the agreement remains open to signature until May 2013, it is possible that other states may make a move to join it as well,” said Maira Sutton of EFF.
Rady Ananda is an investigative reporter and researcher in the areas of health, environment, politics, and civil liberties. Her two websites, Food Freedom and COTO Report are essential reading.
Alex talks with the Deputy Leader of the UK Independence Party and Member of the European Parliament, Paul Nuttall, about the current state of the European Union and other related issues.
Iran has reacted angrily to an agreement by European Union foreign ministers to impose an oil embargo on the country.
Following the agreement reached on Monday, Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Ismail Kowsari, deputy head of Iran’s influential committee on national security, said the strait “would definitely be closed if the sale of Iranian oil is violated in any way.”
A fifth of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Tehran will not grin and bear it when its interests are undermined,” said lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi, according to Press TV. Boroujerdi is a lawmaker who heads the national security and foreign policy committee in Tehran.
Another lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, said Iran has a “right” to shut down Hormuz. Falahatpisheh is a senior member of Iran’s Majlis, or Iranian parliament.
Ali Falahaian, a former intelligence minister, said Iran should stop all its crude exports “so that oil prices would go up and the Europeans’ sanctions would collapse.”
Iran first issued warnings about closing down the Strait of Hormuz in December. “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz,” said Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi.
Admiral Habibollah Sayyari told Iran’s state-run Press TV that closing down the strait would be “very easy for Iranian naval forces,” but said “such a decision should be made by top establishment leaders.”
It now appears Iran’s leaders are a step closer to considering that option as the EU and the United States impose an embargo and punitive sanctions.
Benchmark crude for March delivery moved up about a dollar to trade 90 cents higher at $99.23 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, according to the Associated Press.
Earlier this month, Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke told senators the cartel has no intention of bailing out European banks. Bernanke told lawmakers that “he doesn’t have the intention or the authority” to bail out countries or banks.
Former Fed official Gerald O’Driscoll says Federal Reserve is covertly bailing out Europe.
Now we learn that the Fed is indeed in the business of bailing out European banks. It is secretly using a “temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement” with the ECB and the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan.
“The Fed’s latest actions in cooperating with foreign central banks to undertake liquidity swaps of dollars for foreign currencies is another reason why Congress needs enhanced power to oversee and audit the Fed,” writes Ron Paul. “Under current law Congress cannot examine these types of agreements. Those who would argue that auditing the Fed or these agreements with central banks harms the Fed’s independence should reevaluate the Fed’s supposed independence when the Fed bails out Europe so soon after President Obama promised US assistance in resolving the Euro crisis.”
The Fed has a reputation for secrecy. Bloomberg News sued the cartel to obtain information on its emergency programs during the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. Bloomberg, however, excluded foreign-currency liquidity swaps because names of commercial banks that borrowed under the program were disclosed to the public.
The latest action by the Fed reveals that fiat money created out of thin air is the problem. “Fiat money caused this European crisis and the financial crisis before it. More fiat money is not the cure. The global fiat currency system has proven itself a failure, we need real monetary reform. We need sound money,” Ron Paul concludes.
Bernanke refuses to tell the American people where the money went:
BOB ADELMANN New American
Friday, December 9, 2011
In his candid appraisal of the letter from Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to the European Union meeting that starts Friday in Brussels, Dan Murphy makes clear that this summit will be different from the previous 20: This one is determined to override national sovereignty to save the euro. The core of the letter is the offer of the fatal alternative to the euro zone nations: Either give up essential sovereign control over your budgets to the EU, or destroy the euro.
The “Merkozy” letter said,
The current crisis has uncovered the deficiencies in the construction of the [European Monetary Union] mercilessly. We need to remedy those deficiencies…. We need more binding and more ambitious rules and commitments for the Euro area Member States. They should reflect that sharing a single currency means sharing responsibility for the Euro area as a whole. The building blocks of the new Stability and Growth Union are: A strengthened institutional architecture. Euro area governance needs to be substantially reinforced.
The problem, until now, has been the virtual impossibility of amending unanimously the various treaties under which the EU currently operates. With the clock ticking amid increasingly nervous financial markets, there is no time for that nicety. And so a way has been found: doing an end run around the process by using a little-known clause in the Schengen treaty to speed up implementation of the “strengthened institutional architecture” that is needed.
In a speech on Thursday in Marseille, Sarkozy expanded on just what the new agreement would require, along with guarded references to how it might be enforced. He said, “Never has [a united] Europe been so necessary. Never has it been in so much danger…. Never has the risk of a disintegration of Europe been so great. Europe is facing an extraordinarily dangerous situation.” What is needed, he said, is the ability to enforce budgetary discipline by penalizing those countries that overspend under the new rules.
In their joint letter, Merkel and Sarkozy’s proposed plan would
Give the European Commission the power to impose penalties on nations that run excessive budget deficits (above 3% of GDP);
Require each member to amend their state constitutions to require a balanced budget;
Require each state to pay to the EU corporate taxes and financial transactions fees to pay for such enforcement; and
Force any future bailouts that might be required to be paid for by taxpayers while protecting private banks and investors from losses (such as just happened in Greece).
In the event, however, that such a plan isn’t adopted over the weekend in Brussels, there is a more draconian plan going to be offered by Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, called the “fiscal compact,” which doesn’t need approval by any parliaments or citizens at all. It will just be imposed from the top down. Said Sarkozy, “This is our duty. We have no other choice.”
Van Rompuy’s “fiscal compact” would strip away voting rights from EU members who are out of compliance, enforced by the executive arm of the EU. Sarkozy was opaque on whether such “enforcements” would involve military action or invasion of the offending countries, or just the forced removal of the recalcitrant elected officials who were dragging their heels on various austerity measures to be imposed to bring them back into compliance. But it is clear that the rhetoric in Brussels is being ramped up as the financial uncertainties in the markets escalate.
As Samuel Gregg, writing in the Acton Commentarynoted,
The euro was always essentially about the use of an economic tool to realize a political grand design: European unification. Major backers of the common currency back in the 1990s, such as Jacques Delors and Helmut Kohl, never hid the fact that this was their ultimate ambition…. [It now appears that] much of Europe’s political class seems willing to go to almost any lengths to save the euro — including … [going] beyond the bounds permitted by EU treaty law and national constitutions.
As Murphy noted, “The call for bracing, immediate change should lead to a fascinating day [as] European leaders gather in Brussels.”
Imagine you are Ben Bernanke, or on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The time frame is July and August of 2011 and the price of gold is on a tear. Commodities inflation has been persistent and is breaking out everywhere. Your prediction that inflation “is contained” and is a “temporary phenomena” are beginning to look absurd. What do you do?
Simple. Hint that QE3, the primary drive of inflation, is coming and then fail to deliver at the September FOMC meeting. That takes care of the price of gold and the gold stocks. Ah, but those pesky commodities speculators keep making money and trading against what you want the markets to do. So what is to be done there? Hey Jon Corzine, how about you tank the largest broker for the small commodities punters in the world, and we let them twist in the wind? That will serve them right. Teach them to bet against the government approved scenario.
Think it did not happen? Well think again. All of the pieces fit. It sure is convenient that all those commodities speculators are now out of the box. Also, who will want to speculate on commodities in the future given customer funds are no longer protected. Furthermore, commodities speculators are not a very “All American” group. From the authorities point of view they can say: screw them, who will feel sympathy? Hell, James Bullard, Fed Governor, in an interview on CNBC yesterday said the MF Global collapse proves that the system works. Yes it does Jim, for you. Personally, I have $90,000 at MF Global and I would like to have my honestly earned money returned. Unfortunately, the odds of that happening any time soon seem slim. In part because when MF Global entered bankruptcy the judge appointed a Trustee whose law firm has done substantial work for JP Morgan, a deeply interested party. We will probably never find out what happened here. But for those of us whose eyes are open the results speak for themselves.
This whole mess stinks to high heaven. I am with Gerald Celente, if the largest commodity broker in America can go bankrupt and nothing is done, then where can you put your money and expect it to be safe? I, for one, do not accept that Jon Corzine is stupid enough to lever up MF Global 40:1 and use the proceeds and customer money to bet on European sovereign debt. This was a hit, pure and simple. That is why there is no resolution to the problem, and it is just another example of the deeply corrupt US political/financial axis. It may take money away from a bunch of commodities speculators, and it may cool down the perceived inflation, but it is just another hole in the dike which is The US Financial System. A dike whose life can probably now be measured in months, not years.
Från vad jag har hört så ligger nu siffran på försvunna pengar på 3 miljarder dollar!
(3 Billion Dollars)
Och ja det var stulet ur privata kunders "bankfack".
The European Union called Wednesday for sweeping new powers to override national budgets and decide when governments should be placed under the wardenship of Brussels technocrats.
We have long mocked and ridiculed the Fed for being the ultimate ponzi instrument: after all, why worry, when your central bank will buy up almost three trillion in US paper in about 2 years (a very comforting fact for US politicians who never have to fear that those trillions in new porkbills, pardon fiscal stimulus programs, may end up without funding). Well, as it turns out those wily veteran bankers from across the Atlantic have just one upped America yet again.
According to the Telegraph, the abysmal, and barely successful, 3 EUR billion issuance of EFSF bonds (which was originally supposed to be 10 EUR billion, on its very very gradual climb to 1 EUR trillion) had one more very curious feature to it, aside from confirming that it is Dead On Arrival as expected. It turns out that in addition to being the most convoluted and complex creation ever conceived by JPM which is advising Europe on coming up with structured finance products that are so complex nobody will ask any questions and will automatically assume someone else has done the homework, it is also the quintessential ponzi instrument.
The Telegraph reports that the already reduced 3 EUR billion “target was only met after the EFSF resorted to buying up several hundred million euros worth of the bonds.” You read that right: in its first bond issuance since its transformation to the European Bank/Soveriegn Bailout Swiss Army Knife, the EFSF not only failed to raise a minimum token amount, but also had to… buy its own bonds.
We can assume that the money the EFSF needed to fund said purchase came from the money growing tree, as at last check the ECB was still not funding the EFSF with crisp, new zEURq.PK equivalent binary 1s and 0s. But at least we all know what happens when the global ponzi goes full retard.
More on this surreal story which will be promptly buried in the barrage of Monday headlines because an international advisor to Goldman Sachs is now in charge of Italy.
Sources said the EFSF had spent more than € 100m buying up its own bonds to help it achieve its funding target after the banks leading the deal were only able to find about €2.7bn of outside demand for the debt.
The revelation will be seen as a major failure and a worrying sign of future buyers strike after EFSF officials and their bankers had spent recent weeks travelling the world attempting to persuade key investors, including China’s national wealth fund and Japanese government funds, to buy its bonds.
And just in case one monetization vertical was not enough, Europe used, well, all the other ones it could:
Other European Union funds are also understood to have supported the EFSF’s bond sale. The failure of the EFSF will increase pressure on the European Central Bank to effectively become the lender of last resort for the eurozone, a move it has strongly resisted.
At a private breakfast organised by PI Capital last week, Mark Hoban, the Treasury minister, said: “What it doesn’t do is provide the next stage of the solution, which is how do you stop this from happening again?” he said.
The move, by the European Investment Bank, will cause more disquiet among non-eurozone EU members who have become concerned about their growing exposure to the cost of rescuing the currency bloc.
The explanation, for anyone whose brain just exploded, is that despite the marionette rotation at the top, the math of Europe is still not only absolutely hopeless, not to mention meaningless, but somehow just got even worse, because take away the magical powers of modern finance to be one with the ponzi, and Europe would have already imploded.
It also means that our earlier observation that the EFSF is an AA+ equivalent credit instrument has to be revised: pro formaing out the ponzi, means it is at best AA if not A, and most likely D if one takes away all the magic bells and Keynesian whistles, unicorns and other end of the western financial world loopholes that modern finance is forced to resort to every single day to mask the fact that every country in the developed world is now 100% bankrupt.
Här är ett perfekt exempel på varför Grekland inte kommer att räddas.
Förre biträdande ECB-chefen Lucas Papademos blir Greklands nya premiärminister, enligt ett uttalande från presidentkansliet.
Lucas Papademos, 64, har arbetat som chefsekonom vid Greklands centralbank under åtta år, från 1994 till 2002. Han övervakade bland annat Greklands inträde i eurozonen år 2000.
Så han missade alltså att goldman hjälpte Grekland att sätta upp två olika sorters skatteböcker. En laglig och en olaglig. En som säger att Grekland inte klara inträdesprovet till EU och en som säger att dem klarar inträdesprovet.
Kan någon lista ut varför det inte kommer bli bättre i Grekland om man anlitar samma "brottsling(ar)" att lösa problemet som skapade problemet?
Och om dem löser problemet vad var meningen med att skapa problemet från början, alltså vem tjänar på det?
In Alien Takeover: The End of Humanity, Alex Jones runs down the threat facing humanity as an out of control power elite attempt to manipulate and dominate the very genetic building blocks of life on planet earth. In the video, Alex compares the effort to an alien invasion like the one portrayed in John Carpenter’s classic 1982 horror film ‘The Thing.‘
As Aaron Dykes notes in his review of the 15 minute video, in the real world, aggressive genetically-modified species are destroying naturally-occurring species while inflicting harm on those who consume GMO foods – specifically: widespread infertility, organ failure, cancer and mutations, as demonstrated repeatedly in lab animal studies.
In addition to a control freak effort to patent and thus legally own and monopolize the genetic structure of all life on the planet, the GMO monster is also being used to enhance and extend the lives of a small elite at the expense of the rest of humanity and indeed of all life on a global scale.
As Dykes notes, if we do not stop the elite’s “Thing” now, it may soon be too late to turn back. “It is vital we recognize this amorphous danger for what it is– the annihilation of our species and those with which we co-inhabit. We don’t have any more time to waste,” he writes.
Those who believe the European crisis is over are mistaken. The dislocation will continue as their economies slow and political, social and economic events converge into further crisis. The most glaring problem is the banks only taking a 50% loss on Greek bonds. The loss should have been 75% or even 80%. There is absolutely no way Greece can overcome that burden in a slowing European economy and an enraged population. They are still striking and demonstrating and they will continue even under a new government.
Some of the best economists in the world have been saying for almost as long as we have been saying that the weaker and smaller countries have to leave the euro at least temporarily. In our eyes that really means permanently. If Italy falls out it will take France with it and the euro edifice will fall. Very quickly it will be found that Greece cannot and will not recover. It is one thing to set recovery in motion in good times, but it is another to attempt to do so under austerity. These politicians in Europe have been self-serving. They are quickly going to find what they have done is not going to work. Greece should have never been saved, as we said from the beginning. They will need more and more money just to exist and you cannot have perpetual funding. Then you have the overriding social factor. It is simply impossible and once Greece goes, the other 5 will have to cut loose as well. Again, it will be called temporary, but their exists will be permanent. It simply cannot be any other way. Political hot air is not going to change anything. We have no details and bankers who refuse to face the music, and what is attempted to be achieved is impossible.
The concept of a tighter union with a new constitution won’t work either. We can go back to 1991 when these issues came forth and we stated the Europeans are doing this backwards. You need a strong constitution first, only nations involved that can meet the criteria of public debt of 3% GDP. Smaller nations cannot be allowed to falsify their balance sheets and above all you cannot use one interest rate for all. Just about everything that has been done has been done incorrectly. Unfortunately, the US and world economy hang in the balance as well. This euro, European and UK problem is not going to go away. By February it will again be front page news. There is an 80% chance that Greece will leave the euro in the next six months.
If Ireland and Portugal do not receive equal treatment, followed by Belgium, Spain and Italy, then they will all be forced to leave the euro. If you think for one minute that these nations can stand more than a year or two of austerity you are mistaken. The whole approach is wrong. They should all be allowed to leave the euro. The only reason Greece has been temporarily saved is to keep Greece in the euro. These one-worlders cannot bear to see their dream of world government fail. It has already failed. Do you really think Germans are going to give up their sovereignty? Wait for the next German election. You are going to see a house cleaning in the Bundestag that will be staggering. The German people are outraged at what these politicians have done to them. If anything the move in the EU’s strongest economy will be away from further consolidation, not toward it.
The magic number to keep the euro from collapsing over the next two years is $6 trillion that solvent European countries do not have, and using derivatives in place of cash is a prescription for disaster. Debt may be addressed, but the core economic and financial problems that were responsible for these problems are still not being addressed. That is a glaring lack of economic progress. Where is the capital needed for growth? Countries in the EU are going to have to increase money and credit and suffer the incumbent inflation; that is if they can even raise those funds and rollover old debt. Either that or China will lend $3 to $500 billion and we don’t think they are willing to do that. If China prints the money to lend, the value of the yuan will fall, the Chinese will take more market share and there will be more inflation. Their goods sold to Europe, the US and elsewhere will rise in cost as well. The Chinese will have to use cash euros or sell euro bonds. Such moves could be really upsetting to China. If aid comes it will be in much smaller amounts.
This past week the swaps association said the failure on 50% of Greek debt does not constitute failure, because it was voluntary, so the NYC legacy banks do not have to pay up on their derivative bet. That could all change, because Fitch says it does constitute default. We will now have to await the decisions of S&P and Moody’s.
What Europe has done is pull a page from US bailouts, which reduce debt starting in a few years, which would extend over 10 or 20 years. It reminds us of the two sets of books banks are currently keeping. They intend to write off bad debt over 50 years, like it really didn’t exist. This plan allows further current increases in debt over the short term. That is no solution at all. Again, it only throws the debt and service into a future that could include deflationary depression. Recovery is not a given.
Fitch has really opened a large can of worms in calling a 50% debt default a payable derivative event. We are talking about hundreds of billions of CD’s, credit default swaps OTC derivatives, which just happens to be an unregulated market. Our view is Fitch is correct and the ISDA, the derivatives information agency is wrong. What isn’t made an issue of is that banks have been asked to raise $150 billion they are offside on this issue. We projected this number long ago. The official number is $3.7 billion, which is laughable. About a month ago the players admitted to $75 billion, so we are making progress toward truth and reality. We wonder what the French bankers are saying, who bought the insurance? If NYC banks do not pay off the ECB will have to create the $150 billion and lend it to the banks in France, so they can survive. Could this be a renege? We think so, and that would ultimately allow citizens of the EU to pay the debt. These bankers are crafty buggers they are.
We also question why banks are writing off 50% of their debt and the sovereigns are not. Isn’t this strange? Why are they not writing off 50%? Could it be that if they did they would be insolvent? Could it be to deceive their taxpaying citizens and pop the question several years from now? Could this be they are just trying to extend the timeline into the future? Time has a way of revealing everything. Incidentally, none of that Greek debt will probably ever be paid off. It should also be noted that of the $140 billion lent by the IMF, US taxpayers are on the hook for about 30%, or $42 billion. We are sure that will make Americans very happy.
The difference between $516 billion allocated by EU members, half of which comes from Germany, and $1.4 trillion will come from the sale of bonds by the EFSF, the European Financial Stabilization Fund. The question is who is going to buy this tranche of some $900 billion in bonds? Nations will receive greater taxes from a phantom recovery and buy the bonds. How can this be when those economies barely have even GDP growth? All this in the midst of austerity. We do not get it. We must be missing something. Does Italy really believe that raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 is going to bring any real immediate relief? As you can see the case is terminal.
The whole plan is absurd, stupid and unworkable. These problems are going to last for years as Europe, the UK and US wallow in negative growth and eventually in deflationary depression.
Greece will collapse; it is only a question of when. The ECB will continue to create money and credit, just as the US and UK are doing.
It won’t take long for investors to figure out they have been bamboozled again. They will flee stock markets probably just after the Fed’s latest QE 3 is announced. Some will buy US Treasuries and lose about 10% of their purchasing power annually. Some will flee to commodities and many will use the flight to quality to purchase gold and silver coins, bullion and shares. Modes of investments are going to change dramatically, so you had best participate, or you may end up losing most of your wealth.
What you are witnessing is financial chicanery at its best. Wait until the citizens of Europe discover they are going to have to pay all these bills, just so they can be enslaved in a one-world government. They are not going to be happy.
We always tend to be ahead of the curve and the crowd. This time the time frame for discovery may be very short, because once investors understand what we have written here they will want to get out. Gold, silver and commodities will rise for different reasons, along with the flight to quality. Incidentally, this time the gold and silver mining shares will soar.
Reflecting back on our comments the second Greek bailout does not solve the EMU’s fundamental problem, which is the 30% competitiveness gap between the northern and southern countries and Germany’s giant-EMU trade surplus at the expense of the south. Unless a way can be found to rectify that there cannot be a recovery. The south has been forced into austerity, which limits their chances of being competitive. As we pointed out over and over again the end product will be a deflationary spiral and eventually deflationary depression. What the IMF and EU members are imposing on the six countries is very destructive.
A fiscal union would perhaps work, but that means the end of individual country sovereignty, which would eventually lead to authoritarianism, which would not like to see. The entire union is unnatural and should be ended. It has been a failure and just leave it at that.
All this program is going to do is buy time. It is not a long-term solution. Current debt holders are going to be incensed, as they will be forced in before sovereigns, but will banks really take a 50% haircut? We don’t really know. Is this really a fig leaf, a wholly inadequate alternative to the ECB, which cannot provide endless liquidity?
This rescue effort is really too dependent on high-risk deals, such as what caused this crisis. Four times leverage is outrageous. In the end the European public could get caught holding the bag.
At the same time we are seeing monetary contraction in Portugal, which mirrors that of Greece as it spiraled out of control. Bank deposits are off 21% over the past six months and that could well be a precursor of a weak economy and monetary trouble.
Another question that arises is due to the treatment accorded to NYC legacy, money center banks. Will those using credit default swaps continue to do so. There is a default and because it was voluntary the derivative writers do not have to pay off. Give us a break. It looks like contract law no longer exists.
In very late breaking news we find something we warned about is happening. The German High Court, the Bundesgerichtshof, has issued an express order that the nine-member committee dealing with dispersing the rescue funds is not allowed to do so. The plug has been pulled on the EU and German politicians on money releases. If the Germans and the EU are lucky they’ll have a constitutional decision by Christmas. We predicted this would happen.
Uncertainty revolves around the deal reached with Greek bondholders to face a 50% haircut on the face value of their bonds. This has not been negotiated as yet.
At the same time France needs to raise $11.2 billion to keep its AAA rating. Sarkozy says 2012 GDP growth will be about 1%, about the same as Germany, but no one mentions it would be -2% with inflation.
Switzerland’s State Secretariat for International Financial Matters said the Swiss were interested in investing in a special investment vehicle proposed by the euro zone bailout fund, but we see a real fight brewing. The Swiss People’s Party, which was against franc devaluation and the sale of Swiss gold, will be after this move by the Swiss government. They do not want closer ties to the EU.
This past summer we warned that European banks would have to increase their reserve position to 9%, because both the BIS and IMF said it was absolutely necessary. You might call the EU’s laxity of not forcing Greece to implement its austerity agreement as part of a socialist mindset. There was no way to move Greece into line. For not living up to their commitment they could have cut Greece off, because then they would default and leave the euro. Thus, they continued to fund Greece. The truth is they have to do so irrespective of what Greece does or doesn’t do.
The heart of the problem was banking incompetence followed by sovereign stupidity. Banks and solvent sovereigns never should have made the loans in the first place. All the greedy bankers, politicians and bureaucrats could think of was the euro zone and the euro being the template for one-world government. The interconnectivity of banks within nations with banks of other nations is the lynchpin that will eventually take all of them down. It’s caused by central control such as that embodied in the European Central Bank. The bottom line is if a state like Greece, partially defaults, then the banks within Greece default as well because these banks are holding large amounts of federal bonds and loans. Thus, the edifice collapses. This relationship exists all over Europe and as we are seeing six countries are in trouble and if the European economy continues to slip into recession or depression other countries will join the six. In addition in many countries supervision is all but non-existent. A perfect example of such a relationship was with France, Belgium, and the Dexia bank, which they created. As a result the taxpayers of Belgium and France have acquired all the bad assets of Dexia.
Adding to such problems is that usually half of the debt of any country is held by foreign banks and sovereigns, which means failure becomes contagion. France’s holding of 8.5% of GDP of debt from these six countries will eventually cause France to lose its AAA rating. If that is the case we venture to ask how can France be party to a commitment to bail out Greece or anyone else? They simply cannot and they are the number 2 player. You would think French citizens would elect someone who was not involved in such stupidities, such as Marine LePen of the National Party. The banks and business interests, such as the Rothschilds, couldn’t have that – could they? If France financially fails we could see 1789 all over again. This sovereign debt is widely held by other nations including the US, UK and Japan. European banks have controlled European society for a long, long time and they are the catalyst for the new world order.
We hear over and over again there will be recovery, we will grow our way out of it. That won’t be possible for Europe, the UK and the US. The number of young people who do the largest part of consumer spending in their 20s and 30s today have a hard time making ends meet, never mind spending. On top of that many are unemployed and may be for some time to come. If you have noticed unemployment has risen or stayed the same in the regions we have spoken of. Accumulation has only occurred among the upper-middle class and the wealthy. This also means borrowing has fallen and the ability to access loans and capital are limited, because so many prime age borrowers do not qualify.
One of the reasons Germany does as well as it does is because they have an abundancy of inexpensive capital available for loans and credit, which allows expansion, creates jobs and brings profits. The cost of labor is low or in the form of growing productivity and people pay their bills.
One interest rate fits all became a disaster. The weak participants borrowed at 4% instead of 8% and the result was an orgy of spending that ended up in today’s insolvencies. We said 12 years ago this would destroy the euro zone and it has. These low rates also allowed a massive influx of imports into the six problem countries, which caused major balance of trade deficits. This also brought about borrowing in foreign currencies, which turned into a nightmare, particularly in Eastern Europe.
European banking and politics are very closely intertwined. In other words the banks overtly run these countries. The same is true in the UK, but in the US it has been subtler due to ignorance of how the banking system works and that has been deliberate. In Europe the stress test used 5% as a guideline, instead of the normal 10%. This shows you the power and control banking has over EU government making the margin for error extremely thin. Considering the exposure cash reserves were increased to 9%. This means capital has to be raised and that is not easy in today’s recessionary environment. Two-thirds of European banks are currently under 9%. The worst exposed are RBS, Deutsche Bank, Unicredit, Bank Paribas, Barclays and Societ General. Hundreds of billions of euros are needed and the question is where will they come from? In addition how many banks are shuffling assets between trading, deposit, and banking sectors, such as Dexia had been doing until they had to be taken over by the French and Belgium governments? The banks need $270 billion that is readily available. If funds are not available then that means governments will have to supply the capital from out of thin air, which is very inflationary.
The EFSF, the European Financial Stability Facility, which was set up to aid Greece, Ireland and Portugal, now aids banks and European governments, such as the Fed does. An EFSF if allowed to dispense $1.4 trillion based on a $900 billion derivative structure would take months to move into action. Then there is the question will the German High court allow leveraging. We do not think so. The Court had already told the Bundestage you cannot do that, but they did it anyway.
As we can say is stay tuned for the next episode in this saga. It could end up taking down the entire world’s financial system.
As the G20 meet today in Nice, you can bet that the embattled Greek PM George Papandreou will be getting ‘the hair-dryer treatment’ from Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Sarkozy.
Back in Athens, Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek finance minister and the PM’s likely successor – was hospitalised on Tuesday suffering from the mother of all stomach ulcers.
Only a few days ago the markets cheered and Merkel fawned the press as Europe agreed to a rescue package for Athens. But Greece’s PM threw a major spanner into the works right after with his shock announcement to allow the Greek people a referendum on whether or not to accept this latest hard-fought Euro debt deal.
If the referendum goes ahead, and the people reject certain Euro-IMF-debt slavery, then Greece will default on their toxic debt to the mega banks. This also means that Greece will leave the EU and also return to its native currency- the Drachma.
But it might not even happen that way… Papandreou‘s government is still embroiled in a battle for survival, with a new vote of confidence scheduled for this Friday. If there is a vote of no confidence, then the Greek government will effectively collapse on the spot – and hence, no referendum vote can take place.
If that happens they will have a new election in 23 days, but if no majority wins, and unless there is a viable coalition gov’t without Papandreou - then no coalition agreement will be in place, and they will have yet another election. This process could roll over and over…
MILITARY COUP
If the government is in danger of collapse, then Greece could be looking at a genuine military coup d’etat.
This theory has gained credence since Athens announced a wild reshuffle, sacking its military leaders in every branch of the forces on Tuesday. The defence ministry confirmed that Greece’s state security council replaced the heads of the general staff, the army, navy and air force, and discharged a scores of army and navy officers.
Greece is no stranger to the military coup, only forty-odd years earlier it was ruled rule by a series of right-wing military juntas starting on 21 April 1967, and ending in July 1974.
Why are the Greek political establishment already freaking out over the prospects of a military coup, enough to sack half the brass?
As the anti-austerity protests have gained steam in recent weeks, members of the police and the army have naturally gravitated over to the people’s side of things, a recipe for disaster in a banker-controlled bureaucracy who is expected to maintain law and order while the country is essentially held down and financially raped by northern European banks.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported today:
That raised speculation about the possibility of a military coup in Greece, an outcome said to have been deemed possible in a secret assessment by the CIA.
Greek-Cypriot Nobel economics laureate Professor Christopher Pissarides, of the London School of Economics, said: ‘Before 1974, when politicians were arguing and fighting, the military came in and said, “Come on now, let’s stop, there’s military rule until you sort it out”.
‘Since 1974, of course, democracy has worked, but it’s worrying when you have news about armed officers being replaced right in the middle of an economic crisis.’
The military may in fact be wanting to save their country from Greece’s ‘creditors’, who are demanding that Greece pass crippling austerity measures before they pile on more loans, circa $152 billion in bailout loans from other Eurozone central banks and the IMF.
The IMF have an impressive record- throughout history they are able to turn any country into a permanent third world resident, or developing nation. The international bankers will offer neo-liberal shock therapy where everything will be cut out of society, and the middle classes will flee for a better life somewhere else. Their record speaks for itself.
Greeks also recognize that their nationalsovereignty is at stake- will they be ruled by banks in Northern Europe or will they be ruled by themselves?
A TOXIC BANK SYSTEM
Despite what banking apologists and Europhiles will tell you, a Greek default is not the end of the world, nor is it the end of Europe. Similar defaults with countries like Ecuador and Iceland have taken place without collapsing the world economy. For the banks however, a default means they won’t be getting those giant bonus, and less Ferraris, Lamborghinis and yachts will be sold in 2012, and less money will be spent on escort services in the City.
In terms of the European single currency however, if Greece goes down, Europe goes down, and therefore the globalist toxic banking business goes down.
The main problem that most Euro leaders and the mob at the G20 will not mention is that Greece and everyone else are linked together by a toxic anchor and chain known as the Credit Default Swap (CDS). It is these toxic products that eventually sabotage any real working solution that the army pseudo-geniuses will come up with at meetings like the G20.
Yet, there is still no talk of eliminating toxic products like the CDS.
In this way, the CDS (where bankers are able to insure their gambling losses) is contagious, or what pundits like Max Keiser refer to as “the financial equivalent of herpes“, a virus that can only be treated and not cured. It is these type of dodgy gambling tools that motivate the predatory lenders like Goldman Sachs who routinely target countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and the rest.
In the end, banks are after one thing: liquidity. Greece may be forced to sell its assets on the cheap through hock and forced privatization. As the bankers acquire new assets, through their toxic toys, they are then able to create more money- multiply their money, all out of this new liquidity.
If Greece and the rest of us are to survive these financial high crimes, we must break free of all the “There Is No Alternative” (TINA)-type scenarios society is constantly force-fed.
The US was fed the same TINA pill before the first banker bailouts in 2008, Obama and McCain did the bankers’ PR for them and Congress passed it. And Goldman Sachs got a lot richer.
We need to start asking the right questions, and call the banks out on their tools which should be flat-out abolished. Otherwise, we will just keep going round in circles of looting and raping by the banks.
No matter what they tell you, no matter how much they scream at you- don’t swallow the TINA.
We are getting so close to a financial collapse in Europe that you can almost hear the debt bubbles popping. All across the western world, governments and major banks are rapidly becoming insolvent. So far, the powers that be are keeping all of the balls in the air by throwing around lots of bailout money. But now the political will for more bailouts is drying up and the number of troubled entities seems to grow by the day. Right now the western world is facing a debt crisis that is absolutely unprecedented in world history. Europe has had a tremendously difficult time just trying to keep Greece afloat, and several much larger European countries are now on the verge of a major financial crisis. In addition, there is a growing number of very large financial institutions all over the western world that are also rapidly approaching a day of reckoning. The global financial system is a sea or red ink, and when we get to the point where there are hundreds of ships going under how is it going to be possible to bail all of them out? The quotes that you are about to read show that quite a few top financial and political insiders know that things cannot hold together much longer and that a horrific economic crisis is coming. We built the global financial system on a foundation of debt, leverage and risk and now this house of cards that we have created is about to come tumbling down.
A lot of people in politics and in the financial world know what is about to happen. Once in a while they will even be quite candid about it with the media.
As I have written about previously, Europe is on the verge of a financial collapse. If things go really badly, things could totally fall apart in a few weeks. But more likely it will be a few more months until the juggling act ends.
Right now, the banking system in Europe is coming apart at the seams. Because the global financial system is so interconnected today, when major European banks start to fail it is going to have a cascading effect across the United States and Asia as well.
The financial crisis of 2008 plunged us into the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
The next financial crisis could potentially hit the world even harder.
The following are 12 shocking quotes from insiders that are warning about the horrific economic crisis that is almost here….
#1George Soros: “Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation.”
#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: “These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy.”
#3Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy’s largest bank): “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”
#4Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany’s Institute for Public Finance: “The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable.”
#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: “I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine.”
#6Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics: “At this point, our base case is that Greece will default within weeks.”
#7 Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil: “Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world’s base currency?”
#8 International Labour Organization director general Juan Somavia recently stated that total unemployment could “increase by some 20m to a total of 40m in G20 countries” by the end of 2012.
#9Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman: “It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels.”
#10Alastair Newton, a strategist for Nomura Securities in London: “We believe that we are just about to enter a critical period for the eurozone and that the threat of some sort of break-up between now and year-end is greater than it has been at any time since the start of the crisis”
#11Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: “It’s over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken.”
#12Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI: “When I call a recession…that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it’s not going to stop.”
*****
In my opinion, the epicenter of the “next wave” of the financial collapse is going to be in Europe. But that does not mean that the United States is going to be okay. The reality is that the United States never recovered from the last recession and there are already a lot of signs that we are getting ready to enter another major recession. A major financial collapse in Europe would just accelerate our plunge into a new economic crisis.
If you want to read something that will really freak you out, you should check out what Dr. Philippa Malmgren is saying. Dr. Philippa Malmgren is the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management. She is also a former member of the Bush economic team. You can find her bio right here.
Malmgren is claiming that Germany is seriously considering bringing back the Deutschmark. In fact, she claims that Germany is very busy printing new currency up. In a list of things that we could see happen over the next few months, she included the following….
“The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up.”
This is quite a claim for someone to be making. You would think that someone that used to work in the White House would not make such a claim unless it was based on something solid.
If Germany did decide to leave the euro, you would see an implosion of the euro that would be truly historic.
But as I have written about previously, it should not surprise anyone that theend of the euro is being talked about because the euro simply does not work.
The only way that the euro would have had a chance of working is if all of the governments using the euro would have kept debt levels very low.
Unfortunately, the financial systems of the western world are designed to push governments into high levels of debt.
The truth is that the euro was doomed from the very beginning.
Now we are approaching a day of reckoning. We have been living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, but the bubble is ending. There are several ways that the powers that be could handle this, but all of them will lead to greater financial instability.
In the end, we will see that the debt-fueled prosperity that the western world has been enjoying for decades was just an illusion.
Debt is a very cruel master. It will almost always bring more pain and suffering than you anticipated.
It is easy to get into debt, but it can be very difficult to get out of debt.
There is no way that the western world can unwind this debt spiral easily.
The only way that another massive economic crisis can be put off for even a little while would be for the powers that be to “kick the can down the road” a little farther by creating even more debt.
But in the end, you can never solve a debt problem with more debt.
The next several years are going to be an incredibly clear illustration of why debt is bad.
When the dominoes start to fall, we are going to witness a financial avalanche which is going to destroy the finances of millions of people.
You might want to try to get out of the way while you still can.
It is, of course, an artificial deadline. It coincides with the G20 meeting in Cannes. Beyond that, there is not significance to six weeks. What it does do is to concentrate minds. And that was probably its purpose.
However, the past 18 months have been littered with meetings and summits to rescue the euro. Many have come with the billing that they are "crunch" gatherings. Communiques are issued that pacify the markets for days, until the small print is read. And then the realisation dawns that the big question has not been answered.
What happens if a big nation like Italy gets into difficulty? If it is too big to bail out - which currently it is - what impact will that have on Europe's banks? Will the eurozone break up in chaos and imperil what is left of the global recovery? So markets fret. So politicians and officials pledge to use "overwhelming force" to fix the problem.
Emerging from the IMF meeting in Washington is the broad outline of the latest plan. It broadly accepts that Greece will default. What it aims to do is to protect Europe's banks from the fall-out and to build up defences around Italy.
So, in the weeks ahead Europe's banks will be re-capitalised - though we don't know by how much. There will be huge efforts to boost the size of the EFSF - the main bailout fund. The EFSF already has been given extra powers and those are currently being debated by national parliaments. Its fire-power has been raised to 440bn euros (£380bn). The suggestion is that the fund needs to grow to 2 trillion euros.
How this will be done is not clear. But the mood is to pick up on an idea initially floated by the US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner. At a meeting in Wroclaw he called for the existing fund to be leveraged so that it would be four or five times greater. How would this be done? No-one is sure, but the EFSF could act like a bank and draw on funds from the ECB.
So the proposed deal is re-capitalise the banks, expand the EFSF so it could protect even Italy, and prepare for a Greek default.
It is easy to sketch out such a scenario on headed hotel notepaper in Washington - and then there is politics, and reality.
Greece - a country only in name
Firstly, there is Greece. It finds itself pursuing a policy that almost no-one believes in. It is dishing out new austerity plans in the hope it will be given another bailout cheque next month. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos is increasingly seen as whistling on the deck whilst the passengers are making their escape. At the weekend he said "Greece is never going to default because that would be a catastrophe for the eurozone."
But, all around him, plans are being laid. The markets have already factored in a Greek default. Some 60% of the Greek people now expect a default. Built in to the new plan is the expectation that Greek debt will be cut by between 50% and 60%, so as to protect the eurozone.
So why, if default is in the offing, should the Greek people go along with the latest austerity plans? A poll suggests that already 48% of Greeks are unable to meet their extra tax burden. Yes, Greece will get the next tranche of the bailout money - 8bn euros - but that is only to buy time.
Greece remains dangerously unstable. "There is no doubt that we are living in wartime conditions," said Apostolos Tamvakakis, the CEO of the Greek National Bank.
The much repeated statement by Mr Venizelos that "Greece is and will always be a euro area member state" is so often repeated that it sounds desperate. The likelihood is that it will remain in the eurozone because of the difficulties of leaving. But it is increasingly a country only in name; its sovereignty has been traded away and its future will be decided by outsiders.
Dissent in Germany
Secondly, there is Germany. The EFSF bailout fund cannot be expanded without German approval. They are wary of giving the ECB more power. Even the German president has warned that there are risks to democracy in doing that. One of the attractions of the modern German state is its focus on the consequences for democracy.
This Thursday the Bundestag will vote on the extra powers for the EFSF agreed on 21 July. The expanded fund will raise German financial guarantees to 211bn euros.
The legislation will be passed. But that isn't the problem. For Angela Merkel the vote will test her authority. If she has to rely on the opposition for the votes she will be damaged and it could even lead to early elections. She needs 311 votes. Her coalition has 330 but she has rebels and they may still embarrass her.
If Angela Merkel comes through this test she may find herself having to tell the German people why more German treasure has to be deployed to defend the euro. She has already said that defending the single currency is a German national interest. The problem is the growing divide between the political class - the elite - and the people. The political class remains firmly committed to the European project. The public has become wary. More than 70% of the people are against further bailouts. If this latest plan is to fly, they will have to be won round.
It will be a long and difficult six weeks. The Americans, the British and a whole slew of commentators are using shock and awe to try to force the eurozone essentially to stand behind the debts of all its nations. It is a massive step with huge implications. The public - as so often happens in Europe - are spectators.
1861: President Abraham Lincoln (16th President of the United States from 1860 till his assassination in 1865) approaches the Rothschilds to try to obtain loans to support the ongoing American civil war.
The Rothschilds agree provided Lincoln allows them a Charter for another United States central bank and are prepared to pay 24% to 36% interest on all monies loaned.
Lincoln was very angry about this high level of interest and so he printed his own debt free money and informed the public that this was now legal tender for both public and private debts.
1876: Otto von Bismarck states,
“The division of the United States into two federations of equal force was decided long before the civil war by the high financial power of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economical and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world.
The voice of the Rothschilds predominated. They foresaw the tremendous booty if they could substitute two feeble democracies, indebted to the financiers, to the vigorous Republic, confident and self-providing. Therefore they started their emissaries in order to exploit the question of slavery and thus dig an abyss between the two parts of the Republic.”
1881: President James A. Garfield (The 20th President of the United States who lasted only 100 Days) states two weeks before he was assassinated,
“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”
Edmond James de Rothschild has a son Maurice de Rothschild.
1891: The British Labour Leader makes the following statement on the subject of the Rothschilds,
“This blood-sucking crew has been the cause of untold mischief and misery in Europe during the present century, and has piled up its prodigious wealth chiefly through fomenting wars between States which ought never to have quarrelled.
Whenever there is trouble in Europe, wherever rumours of war circulate and men’s minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity you may be sure that a hook-nosed Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbance.”
Comments like this worry the Rothschilds and towards the end of the 1800’s they purchase Reuters news agency so they can have some control of the media.
1913: The Rothschilds set up the Anti Defamation League (ADL) in the United States designed to brand as, “anti-Semitic,” anyone who questions or challenges the Global Elite.
Strangely enough, the same year that they do this they also set up their last and current central bank in America, the Federal Reserve. Congressman Charles Lindbergh stated following the passing of the Federal Reserve Act on December 23,
“The Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this Bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized.......The greatest crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.”
It is important to note that the Federal Reserve is a private company, it is neither Federal nor does it have any Reserve. It is conservatively estimated that profits exceed $150 billion per year and the Federal Reserve has never once in its history published accounts.
1914: The Rothschilds have control of the three European news agencies, Wolff (est. 1849) in Germany, Reuters (est. 1851) in England, and Havas (est. 1835) in France.
The Rothschilds use Wolff to manipulate the German people into a fervour for war. From now on the Rothschilds are rarely reported in the media, because they own the media.
1918: The Rothschilds order the execution by the Bolsheviks they control, of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family in Russia. This is the Rothschilds revenge for Tsar Alexander II siding with President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.
It is extremely important for them to slaughter the entire family including women and children in order to show the world, this is what happens if you ever attempt to cross the Rothschilds.
1919: N. M. Rothschild & Sons’ are given a permanent role to fix the world’s daily gold price. This takes place in the City of London offices, daily at 1100 hours, in the same room until 2004.
1934: Swiss banking secrecy laws are reformed and it becomes an offence resulting in imprisonment for any bank employee to violate bank secrecy. This is all in preparation for the Rothschild engineered Second World War in which as usual they will fund both sides.
1963: On June 4th President John F. Kennedy (the 35th President of the United States 1961 – 1963) signs Executive Order 11110 which returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Rosthchilds owned Federal Reserve.
Less than 6 months later on November 22nd, president Kennedy is assassinated by the Rothschilds for the same reason as they assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, he wanted to print American money for the American people, as oppose to for the benefit of a money grabbing war mongering foreign elite. This Executive Order 11110, is rescinded by President Lyndon Baines Johnson (the 36th President of the United States 1963 to 1969) on Air Force One from Dallas to Washington, the same day as President Kennedy was assassinated.
Edmond de Rothschild establishes La Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild (LCF), in Switzerland as a venture capital house. This later develops into an investment bank and asset management company with many affiliates. He also marries his wife Nadine and they have a son, Benjamin de Rothschild.
1973: In his book, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Gary Allen states,
“One major reason for the historical blackout on the role of the international bankers in political history is the Rothschilds were Jewish…
….The Jewish members of the conspiracy have used an organisation called The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an instrument to try and convince everyone that any mention of the Rothschilds and their allies is an attack on all Jews.
In this way they have stifled almost all honest scholarship on international bankers and made the subject taboo within universities. Any individual or book exploring this subject is immediately attacked by hundreds of ADL communities all over the country. The ADL has never let the truth or logic interfere with its highly professional smear jobs…
….Actually, nobody has a right to be more angry at the Rothschild clique than their fellow Jews…
….The Rothschild empire helped finance Adolf Hitler.”
N. M. Rothschild & Sons British Newfoundland Corporation, Churchill Falls project in Newfoundland, Canada, is completed. N. M. Rothschild & Sons also create a new asset management part of the company which traded worldwide. This eventually became, Rothschild Private Management Limited.
Edmond de Rothschild, a great-grandson of Jacob (James) Mayer Rothschild, bought the cru bourgeois estate of Château Clarke in Bordeaux.
1980: The global phenomenon of privatisation starts. The Rothschilds are behind this from the very beginning in order to seize control of all publicly owned assets worldwide.
2001: On September 11th the attack on the World Trade Center is orchestrated by Britain, America and Israel under the orders of the Rothschilds as a pretext for removing the liberty of people worldwide in exchange for security, just as they did with the Reichstag fire in Germany where the citizens were lied to in order to give up liberty for security.
They also will use the attacks to gain control of the few nations in the world who don’t allow Rothschild central banks and so less than one month after these attacks, US forces attack Afghanistan, one of only 7 nations in the world who don’t have a Rothschild controlled central bank.
One week prior to the WTC attack, the Zim Shipping Company moves out of its offices in the WTC, breaking its lease and costing the company $50,000. No reason has ever been given, but Zim Shipping Company is half owned by the State of Israel (The Rothschilds).
2003: The United States invade Iraq which is now one of six nations left in the world who don’t have a Rothschild controlled central bank.
2005: On 7 July the London Underground Network is bombed. Israel’s Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu is in London on the morning of the attacks in order to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the underground station where one of the blasts occurred, but stayed in his hotel room instead after he had been informed by Israeli intelligence officials attacks were expected. There are now only 5 nations on the world left without a Rothschild controlled central bank: Iran; North Korea; Sudan; Cuba; and Libya.
Despite a report from the World Gold Council showing that demand for the precious metal has subsided, gold soared to a new record high today on the back of another stock market plunge and an announcement from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that the country’s gold mining industry would be nationalized.
Gold touched a new record high of around $1827 dollars an ounce as the Dow Jones plunged by 500 points in early trading.
Gold soared to new heights even in the face of a World Gold Council report that said demand was down 37% year on year.
However, the report noted that there was “increasing acceptance of higher price levels” globally, which explained a modest 3% fall in recycling gold on the supply side.
Although today’s new high for gold is obviously being driven by a flight to safety as the stock market crumbles, Hugo Chavez’s announcement last night that he was to nationalize the country’s gold mining industry undoubtedly has had an impact on today’s trading.
Chavez likened the people that control the gold industry to “the mafia,” stating, “We can’t keep allowing them to take it away,” as he made public plans to withdraw $11B in gold reserves from U.S. and European banks, including 99 tonnes held with the Bank of England and other reserves held by J.P. Morgan Chase, Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered, France’s BNP Paribas and Canada’s Bank of Nova Scotia.
Of the country’s 365.8 tonnes of gold, 211 tonnes is believed to be held abroad.
“At the time of these disturbances, it’s preferable to recover our assets, in this case the gold, and have it here in the vaults,” Venezuelan Central Bank president Nelson Merentes said, adding that it would be re-invested in more stable economies like China, Russia and Brazil.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the move was part of a plan to create a “new international monetary system” as an alternative to the crisis-hit dollar reserve structure that currently governs the financial world.
Chavez’ decision to pull gold reserves out of the United States and Europe is only going to increase concerns about lack of mine supply, which is already set to fall by around 5.1 per cent this year. This will ensure gold sails through the $2000 barrier sooner rather than later.
As the George Washington Blog notes, “Nationalizing Venezuela’s gold means less gold available in the free market, and the scramble for physical gold to make good on Venezuela’s recall demand could challenge the 100-to-1 leverage levels of paper gold derivatives to physical gold.”
Under threat of arrest by the International Court and imminent invasion by the United States, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi on Friday warned Europe he will attack “homes, offices, families” unless NATO stops bombing his country.
Gaddafi made the threat after NATO stepped up its bombing campaign in western Libya, an area still largely under the control of the Libyan government.
“We can treat you in a similar way,” said Gaddafi, referring to the airstrikes. “We advise you to retreat before you face a catastrophe. I advise you to ground your planes … and to hold discussions with the Libyan people,” he said, according to the Tripoli Post.
According to the Libyan newspaper, NATO bombed targets in the capital as Gaddafi delivered his speech via telephone to thousands of supporters gathered in Green Square. The bombs fell in an area near Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al-Azziziyah.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Clinton said Gaddafi’s threat to respond in kind will not deter the NATO effort to overthrow his regime. “Instead of issuing threats, he should be putting the wellbeing and interests of his own people first. He should step down from power,” she said, adding, “We need to see this through.”
In March, British PM David Cameron said Gaddafi should be killed or Europe would face retaliation. “We should be clear about where our interests lie. In this country in particular we know what Colonel Gaddafi is capable of, and we should not forget his support for the biggest terrorist atrocity on British soil,” Cameron said, referring to Lockerbie.
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 went down in Lockerbie, Scotland. The downing of the aircraft was at first blamed on the Syrians and the Iranians, but blame eventually settled on Libya and Gaddafi. Evidence that the terrorist bombing was the result of a drug turf war between the DIA and the CIA has been ignored by the corporate media and dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the government.
In 2003, as part of an effort to improve diplomatic relations with the United States, Libya formally admitted responsibility for the bombing that killed 243 passengers and 16 crew members.
The Bilderberg Group’s plan to rescue the eurozone and preserve future plans for a global currency is in tatters, as the Greek debt crisis spirals out of control and the return of national currencies to replace the euro becomes a real possibility.
Bilderberg were successful in achieving their objective of saving the single currency from collapse following last year’s conference in Spain, but their efforts this year appear to be in vain, with economic analysts increasingly predicting the demise of the euro and a return to national monetary sovereignty.
Writing in the Financial Times, economist Nouriel Roubini predicts that the eurozone is heading for a break up, forecasting a return to national currencies and the death of the euro following a period of five years.
“The way to restore competitiveness and growth for members on the periphery, said Roubini, would be to abandon the euro, restore their national currencies, and “achieve a massive nominal and real depreciation.” While some may doubt the prospect of countries abandoning the euro, such as scenario “may not be so far-fetched five years from now, especially if some of the periphery economies stagnate.”
The European Central Bank’s exposure to struggling European economies could send the ECB into bankruptcy, especially if Greece defaults on its debt which many see as a likely scenario. According to ratings agency Moody’s, “Greece is 50% likely to default on or restructure its debts in the next five years.”
As the official Bilderberg Meetings website reported last week, one of the key topics of discussion at this year’s conference in St. Moritz was, “The Euro and Challenges for the European Union,” a typically euphemistic title that serves to downplay the reality of the fact that these were no less than crisis talks aimed at salvaging the great European Project that Bilderberg itself formulated in the 1950′s. Indeed, Bilderberg-chairman Étienne Davignon bragged last year that the single currency was a brainchild of Bilderberg.
The real tone of the discussion at this year’s meeting in St. Moritiz can be better judged by another FT piece written by Bilderberg attendee and Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff, who revealed how elitists are deeply concerned that a “eurozone collapse” will derail the wider agenda for multi-regional currencies and eventually a global currency.
“The euro experiment has also brought us to a crossroads in the whole international monetary system,” he wrote. “Will our grandchildren inherit a world with a huge number of national currencies, or a very small number of multi-country currencies?”
Veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker, whose moles inside the conference routinely relay accurate information, also told the Alex Jones Show, “They’re afraid of the Euro going down and afraid the Euro will simply disappear,” which is probably why Angela Merkel was summoned to the elite confab. As the eurozone’s strongest economy, the fate of the single currency rests largely on Germany.
The fact that the Bilderberg Group’s best efforts to rescue the eurozone and the single currency appear to be failing suggests that increased awareness of their motives, brought about by the tireless work of the dedicated activists who had Bilderberg running scared at last week’s conference in St. Moritz, is making it harder and harder for the globalists to push through their agenda unopposed, which can only be a good thing for freedom and national sovereignty in the long run.
The European Union had earlier tried to impose an asset freeze and a visa ban on Syrian President Bashar Assad and nine other members of his regime, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told the media.
Valero said the sanctions will target companies and banks. He did not elaborate on a timetable.
EU foreign ministers will meet next week to figure out how to impose the sanctions. Companies on the hit list will get a chance to argue their case in a private meeting with EU bureaucrats.
Earlier in the week we reported that US Special Forces units based at Fort Hood, Texas, were told to prepare for deployment to Libya no later than July. The information was revealed by a caller on the Alex Jones Show.
In September or October, heavy armored units of the First Cavalry Division, currently located in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other components of the US III Corps, will be sent in.
Webster Tarpley cites sources that say Special Forces have been in Libya working with NATO airstrike supported rebels since February.
A source at US Central Command (CENTCOM) also told the Alex Jones Show that the Pentagon is preparing for new wars in the region.
“The Obama administration is thus on a collision course with the Congress over the War Powers Act, which requires legislative approval of the Libyan war by June 20. If Obama continues to bomb Libya beyond next Monday, or compounds his air assault with a ground invasion, he will be impeachment bait,” Tarpley wrote on June 15.
“Obama has justified his commitment of American forces under a United Nations mandate, unconcerned by his own admission with the will of Congress,” Aaron Dykes wrote on June 15 for Infowars.com. “Now, with significant overlap in reports, we can confirm an apparent decision by Obama to support wider war and a longer-term involvement in Libya.”
“US warships are being moved towards the Mediterranean coast of Syria, precisely in line with forecasts that the Bilderberg Group intended to launch a massive new war in the Middle East, with Syria being its prime target,” Paul Joseph Watson warned on Thursday.
In the video below, Alex Jones explains how the international banking cartel is using Obama and the military to start World War III. “We are right now in the beginning stages of world war three. If this situation escalates, it can result in the worst world war that mankind has ever suffered,” Infowars.com reported.
Italian politician, member of the Northern League, and member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Mario Borghezio, was beaten and arrested by Bilderberg Security yesterday as he attempted to enter the meeting and protest its secretive globalist agenda. He was reportedly accompanied by other EU members.
Remarkably, Borghezio’s maltreatment went unreported in the United States. This would be analogous to the beating of a member of Congress going unreported by the media.
The Italian media reported last night that Borghezio attempted to enter the Bilderberg meeting now underway at the Hotel Sourvette in St. Moritz and his treatment by security resulted in a bloody nose. The Italian politician told JulieNews he plans to press charges against Bilderberg security.
“I have been assisted by the Swiss police, but the treatment suffered by the security of the meeting was brutal,” he said.
Borghezio said he opposes Bilderberg because it makes important decisions without popular control. “It is clear that the Bildergberg Club is a secret society,” had added.
Live in Europe? Get your herbs while they last. New rules put forth by the European Union (EU) will ban the sale of certain herbal remedies that have been used for centuries.
Traditional herbs such a St. John’s Wort or Echinacea must now meet strict licensing guidelines in order to be sold, while other lesser-known herbs that haven’t been “traditionally” used in the last 30 years won’t even make the cut to reach consumer shelves. Only those products that have been “assessed” by the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will be available for purchase. The real kicker? Even approved products will only be recommended for minor ailments such as the common cold, which means that product labeling may no longer be allowed to convey the potent health benefits of widely-used herbal remedies.
According the the EU, the laws were put in place to protect consumers from the “damaging” effects of traditional herbal remedies. The subtext of that statement, of course, is that herbal remedies can sometimes have dangerous interactions when taken with prescription drugs. Used alone, however, herbal supplements rarely pose a problem. With so many people taking prescription drugs, it’s clear that the EU’s move to ban herbal products is a monopolistic attack on the alternative health movement. While they can’t admit the dangerous and deadly side effects of manufactured drugs, they can shift the blame to herbs.
Richard Woodfield, MHRA head of herbal medicine policy, claims that the new regulations empower the consumer: “The current signs are that the [herbal remedy] market will be lively and competitive. The key difference for consumers is that in the future they will be in the driving seat and able to make an informed choice when they wish to use these medicines.”
Banning widely-used natural substances that may help cure or prevent illness promotes “informed” choices?
Paul Gimson, director of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in Wales, also claims that herbal remedies may not be safe because they have not been put through clinical trials in the same way drugs are tested. Isn’t this a tad obvious, however, since drug companies would never even consider testing or promoting a natural herb as a medicinal cure? Clearly, herbal remedies are not widely used because doctors or health care professionals recommend them. They are used because people know they work.
The most disturbing part? These regulations point to a movement toward complete restriction of herbal products and the idea that pharmaceutical companies may someday have patents on herbal remedies. Consider a possible scenario: A woman who has been taking Chasteberry supplements to regulate a gynecological condition may now need a prescription for it. She goes to her doctor and, instead of giving her the herb, he recommends a drug. She can no longer buy Chasteberry supplements unless she scours the Internet in search of a reputable company that sells safe herbal products. As we all know, these companies can be hard to find.
Not only do these laws threaten the livelihood of nutritionists, herbalists and holistic healthcare providers across Europe, but they put consumers in a lose-lose situation: go without herbal remedies or run the risk of purchasing them online.
Vicky Perks, clinical nutritionist at The Health Diva and health food store, Beanfreaks, notes that the regulations are “poorly thought out” and are driven by money: “Licensing is just a way of generating extra money for the government. It costs €50,000 to license one product.”
Herbal products still on shelves will be for sale until their expiration dates. Stock up while you can.
Varför har EU en president och hur blir vi av med den aktuelt ovalda presidenten? Han "tjänar" ju mer än obama. Om man nu kan säga att vara president är ett arbete...
Jag ska lägga upp en artikel från "the rolling stones" med arnold(här).
Alex Jones addresses the cynical, pre-planned announcement by the EU to officially launch ground forces in Libya, a policy set in place since late February / early March when U.S. and British originally deployed special forces. Despite the marching drums of escalating war, the Western powers are still trumpeting that operations in Libya are limited to humanitarian action.
Obama & co. started the bombings in Libya with a U.N. resolution and a supposed “no fly zone.” It was supposed to be a humanitarian crisis and not a war, then a “kinetic” military action and not a war. The West said from day one that there would never be ground forces used; but now that it’s official policy, Orwellian terms are used to mask its reality. This latest deception is all part of the imperial world government’s new favorite tool of revolution- one that amounts to first backing rebels, then following with a UN or NATO backed ground force and plenty of propaganda.
This invasions and acts of war & aggression will not stop until we speak out against it. The New World Order is intent on swallowing up rogue nations with independent central banks; it is intent on rolling back sovereignty and reigning-in even first world nations with debt and economic ruin. For the U.S, this is only worsened by an overstretched military now engaged in three ground “wars” and a free falling dollar.
That our politicians are unbearable hypocrites without borders is no secret. After all, Gaddafi himself was among Europe’s best arms clients for a long time having to recycle billions of petrodollars into something tangible. It is these very same politicians (wink wink Bunga Bunga) that are now blasting him, and offering their airbases to launch offensive campaigns from.
One person who however never misses an opportunity to expose each and every form of hypocrisy is Nigel Farage who takes Gollum-lookalike and European Council president Herman van Rompuy to the toolshed and anihilates him for his sycophantic attempts to appear larger than life by pandering to none other than now uber-despised dictator Colonel Gaddafi. And naturally he does it in his own very inimitable and always highly entertaining and humiliating style. We can’t wait to see what haiku the Gollumite will tweet out in response…
EU head Van Rompuy holding hands with Col. Gaddafi in Dec. 2010
Självklart så ska vi inte ha lobbyister eller PR-byråer i något politiskt parti.
Ett politiskt parti ska representeras av folkets röster, inte röster från lobbyister!
Lobbyister skriver extremt många lagar och regler. Kolla bara på EU...
Låt er inte luras. Egyptens regering kan lika lätt igen stänga ner twitter eller vilken annan tjänst dem vill. Dem har fortfarande samma internet 2 som världen vill uppgradera till.
Någon som minns att det skulle bli lättare å resa innom europa om man är med i EU?
Det var ju ett av skälen till att man skulle gå med i unionen.
Nu vill tydligen EU dra in stödet till Sverige vilket är ganska konstigt. Sverige är det landet i EU som är sämst på att ta ut EU bidrag. In short: Vi tar inte ut EU bidrag till 100% och vi betalar en fin peng för att få vara i EU och anta deras regler och regleringar.
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Obama’s intelligence chief, James Clapper (center), warned of 
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