Other than gas ovens, one of the most efficient ways of destroying a nation and killing off its population is to induce skyrocketing youth unemployment. It destroys the future potential of the productive economy. It leads to soaring drug addiction, worsening health conditions, and explosive criminal activity, including epidemics of deranged homicides/suicides. It is the perfect circumstance for terrorist recruitment. And above all, it leads to the rampant cultural pessimism which has always been fascism’s breeding ground, and the underpinning of any successful depopulation policy — such as that promoted by the British Empire from Thomas Malthus, to Bertrand Russell, to Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth themselves.
[1] In Europe today, youth unemployment (ages 16-24) has surpassed 50% of the labor force in both Greece and Spain — two of the leading victims of the policies dictated by the infamous Troika (the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund). In fact, the youth unemployment rate has overall more than doubled in Cyprus and the five so-called PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) between 2008 and 2012. For example, Greece’s youth unemployment had more than doubled, from 22.1% in 2008 to 55.3% at the end of 2012. Spain’s had also doubled, from 24.6% in 2008 to 53.2% at the end of 2012 (and further soared to 57% in the first quarter of 2013). Ireland’s had more than doubled, from 13.3% to 30.4%. This is the period of the British Empire’s “solution” to the 2008 financial meltdown: hyperinflationary bailouts for their banks, coupled with fascist austerity for the population, as enforced by puppets such as Barack Obama, Tony Blair, and the like.
Maps comparing European youth unemployment in 2008 and 2012, present an even more sensuous picture. [2] [3] In 2008, “only” six European nations had youth unemployment rates of 20% or greater: Spain, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. None was higher than 25%. But by the end of 2012, the number of nations with youth unemployment above 20% had tripled, to 19. Of these, four had youth unemployment rates between 30-40% (Portugal, Italy, Slovakia, Ireland); and three exceeded 40% youth workforce unemployed (Greece, Spain, Croatia).
The tide of economic fascism is clearly, once again, sweeping Europe.
But the United States has fared no better. America on Barack Obama’s watch has seen the real youth unemployment rate soar by nearly 50%, from an estimated 23.8% in 2008, to 34.6% in the first quarter of 2013. (We have calculated real unemployment by taking notoriously- understated official unemployment, plus forced-to-work-parttime, plus discouraged/left-the-workforce). [4] [5] Back in 2008, there were “only” three states with real youth unemployment rates of 30% or higher: Michigan (34%), Rhode Island (31%), and California (30%). But by the first quarter of 2013, the tide of despair had spread to 60% of the states of the union: 30 states plus the District of Columbia had real youth unemployment rates of 30% or higher. Of these, five exceed 40% (Nevada 42.6%; Illinois 41.7%, Mississippi 41.2%, California 41.2%, and North Carolina 40.4%); and another 11 have rates in the range of 35-40%.
Should we not do as Franklin Roosevelt did, and stop the tide of fascism with Glass-Steagall and related economic policy measures… before it is too late?
It took just one day and a visit to Berlin for newly installed Italian prime minister Enrico Letta’s pledges to shift from policies of austerity to economic growth to be exposed as a mixture of false promises, evasions and flat-out lies.
Letta, of the Democratic Party (PD), heads a grand coalition that includes media mogul Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty (PdL). It was formed at the behest of President Giorgio Napolitano, an ageing Stalinist, aiming to continue the savage austerity measures imposed by the previous unelected technocratic administration of Mario Monti.
Achieving this is no easy task, given the extraordinary crisis facing Italian capitalism.
Italy’s national debt will rise to 130.4 percent of gross domestic product this year, despite the austerity measures imposed. Since 2008, its gross domestic product has shrunk by 5 percent and industrial output has declined by a quarter. The Bank of Italy’s latest financial stability report shows that 7.2 percent of all corporate loans are now in arrears, led by the building industry, and a further deterioration is taking place.
Even if Italy could continue borrowing at 4 percent interest rates, its economy would need to grow by 5 percent for its debts not to rise. Instead, the economy will in fact shrink by 1.3 percent this year, by the government’s own calculations, and borrowing costs will rise.
More important still, the ruling class and the political elite must contend with massive anger in the working class over growing hardship and rising unemployment, which stands at 11.6 percent and affects one third of young people. This anger has found little organised expression as yet, because Italy’s trade unions are suppressing opposition to the employers and government austerity programmes. But this situation cannot be sustained indefinitely, especially amid a sharp deterioration in the economic fortunes of European capitalism.
A stark expression of social misery that is developing in Italy was provided by the shooting of two police officers, one seriously wounded, by Luigi Preiti, 49, motivated by anger at the loss of his job and the ending of his marriage.
In parliament Monday, the nominal left lower house speaker, Laura Boldrini, warned, “There’s a social emergency that needs answers and our politicians have to start giving them.”
But Letta, whose party is already in a shambles, could only offer a speech filled with contradictory promises—pledging to honour Italy’s promises to the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to impose cuts, while stimulating the economy and coming to the aid of the most beleaguered.
“We will die of fiscal consolidation alone, growth policies cannot wait any longer,” he declared, adding that Italy’s €2 trillion debt “weighs heavily” on ordinary Italians. As a result, Europe was suffering from “a crisis of legitimacy.”
The political class must respond to growing anti-establishment sentiment, he warned.
Letta pledged to reduce taxes on workers and young people to stimulate economic growth, to work with Italy’s unions to bring down unemployment, and to champion a “welfare system which is more universal, more focused on young people and women, extending it to those who are not covered, especially temporary workers.”
However, when it came to concrete measures, Letta offered little. Instead of abandoning the widely unpopular housing tax, in line with a PdL campaign pledge, it will be suspended in June and reviewed. Only plans to increase Italy’s VAT rate by 1 percent to 22 percent were abandoned.
Abandoning the housing tax will cost €8 billion in state revenues , and not collecting it in June will leave a €2 billion shortfall. Letta made no attempt to show how doing this was compatible with the dec l aration by his foreign minister Emma Bonino that Italy cannot change the fiscal commitments made with the EU and IMF for this year.
“Italy cannot re-negotiate the 2.9 percent,” Emma Bonino told reporters in parliament. This implies that Letta was pinning his hopes on renegotiating terms of debt repayments as demanded Monday by Berlusconi and echoed by PD industry minister Flavio Zanonato.
Such demands offer nothing for working people. According to Zanonato, they centre on suggestions to “pursue a credible economic policy to maintain its reputation in Europe and keep the spread between Italian and German bond yields low”, while excluding investment spending from the European Stability Pact.
For his part, the minister of economy and finance, the former deputy governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabrizio Saccomanni, spoke of restructuring the state budget and cutting public spending—indicating that the axe will merely fall elsewhere.
Even prior to Letta’s departure for Berlin for discussions with German chancellor Angela Merkel, the rating agency Standard & Poor’s gave a negative verdict on Letta’s pledges to restore growth. Echoing Moody’s, it kept Italy’s sovereign debt rating at “BBB+”—just two notches above junk grade and with a negative outlook.
Things only got worse for Letta later that day. At a joint press conference with Merkel, Letta spoke cryptically of the need to reach a synthesis between reform and growth measures and of Europe, showing “the same determination to pursue growth as it does to maintain sound public finances.”
But Merkel gave him short shrift, stating that she saw no contradiction between budgetary discipline and the goal of economic growth.
“For us in Germany, budgetary consolidation and growth are not at cross-purposes but have to go hand in hand to lead to greater competitiveness and therefore more jobs,” she said. “We want to ensure Europe emerges from this crisis stronger than it went into it. As part of that, every country must do its part.”
Her caveat that “Italy has taken considerable steps in this regard” only indicates that further steps are considered necessary.
“Growth allows solid finances, solid financing creates the prerequisites for growth,” she added. “But it is important that we don’t see growth as something where we spend public money, but where companies feel able to invest and create jobs. That’s why we need structural reforms and less bureaucracy.”
Letta responded with a promise to honour all reform commitments of the previous Monti government and pledged to fill the €8 billion funding gap left by abandoning the housing tax—i.e., by pledging further austerity measures.
Letta met with French president François Hollande in Paris yesterday, before departing for Brussels for talks with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. But whatever additional rhetoric emerges from discussions with these ostensibly more sympathetic ears, nothing can be expected by working people in Italy or the rest of Europe from any section of the bourgeoisie to alleviate the terrible social hardship they face.
The Letta government as well as governments in other countries hardest hit by the debt crisis, such as Greece and Spain, may ask for some leeway from the German government. However, they all agree that the working class must continue to foot the bill for the crisis. Moreover, in the name of “restructuring”, they offer as an alternative to an exclusive emphasis on budget cuts measures to step up the rate of exploitation of the working class through speed-ups, wage cuts, rationalisations and privatising of public assets.
Such calls for a shift in strategy—which would amount only to inflicting pain and austerity through other means—have repeatedly foundered on the conflicting national interests of the European powers.
While suicides out of desperation had long been a tragic, if recurring, staple in depressionary Europe, so far popular anger had been directed at within, with few if any murderous outbursts targeted at other people, and certainly not at politicians (or financiers). This obviously has been a critical aspect of the current economic collapse in Europe – one needs but recall that it was a political assassination that sparked World War I in Sarajevo, and indirectly, via the Weimar collapse of Germany, set the stage for World War II, leading to the death of tens of millions around the globe. Today we came close. As the AP reports, during today’s swearing in ceremony of Italy’s new pseudo-technocrat yet anti-austerity government which has the blessings of Berlusconi, an “unemployed Italian gunman shot and seriously wounded two policemen Sunday in a square outside the premier’s office in Rome, but he “wanted to shoot politicians,” Rome prosecutor Pierfilippo Laviani said.
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“Shots rang out in Chigi Square near a busy shopping and strolling area shortly after 11:30 a.m. just as Italy’s new government — Premier Enrico Letta and his new ministers — were taking their oaths at the Quirinal presidential office, about a half-mile away. The suspected gunman, dressed in a dark business suit, was immediately grabbed by other police in the square, wrestled to the ground and taken away. Laviani, who later questioned the alleged assailant, said the man “wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn’t reach any, he shot the Carabinieri” police. Laviani added that the man “confessed everything,” but didn’t appear mentally unbalanced.”
The shooting “was the tragic gesture of an unemployed man,” Interior Minister Angelino Alfano also told reporters after briefing Letta and his new Cabinet about the attack.
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Alfano said the alleged gunman — 49-year-old Luigi Preiti — wanted to kill himself after the shooting but ran out of bullets. He said six shots were fired.
Italian media reports said the assailant was from southern Calabria and had lived for several years in northern Italy before moving back to Calabria after his marriage fell apart.
Sky TG24 TV quoted the man’s brother as saying the alleged attacker had lost his job in a construction firm and was upset over marital problems.
This time only innocent policemen were shot. What about next time? Surely the socio-economic situation of the assailant is not in any way unique in Italy or any other depressionary European countries, of which there are many. And it doesn’t take much for any one person, hope crushed and money gone, to go so far beyond the metaphorical ledge, that they are willing to die but not before taking some politicians with them.
More :
A woman passing by during the shooting was also slightly injured, Rome’s mayor said. It was unclear if she was grazed by a bullet or hurt in the panic sparked by the gunfire.
It was not immediately clear if the shooting outside the Chigi Palace, which houses the premier’s office and other government offices, was timed to coincide with the swearing-in ceremony. But tensions have been running high in Italy following inconclusive elections in February that left the country mired in political deadlock amid a deep recession.
The 46-year-old Letta nailed down a coalition deal only a day ago between two bitter political enemies — his center-left forces and the conservative bloc of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Reporters inside the Chigi Palace press office heard the shots and raced outside. An AP television producer saw the two wounded Carabinieri officers in the square outside the palace. One of them lay on the pavement with blood pouring out of his neck.
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Security was immediately stepped up near key venues in the Italian capital, but Alfano said authorities were not worried about related attacks.
“The general situation of public order is not causing any worry,” he said. “Our initial investigation indicates the incident is due to an isolated gesture, although further investigations are being carried out.”
Doctors at Rome’s Umberto I Polyclinic said the more seriously injured of the two police officers was a 50-year-old brigadier. They told reporters that a bullet had entered the right side of the officer’s neck, damaged his spinal column and was lodged near his shoulder.
The doctors said it wasn’t yet known if the spinal column injury had caused any paralysis.
The other victim was a 30-year-old officer who was shot in the leg and had suffered a fracture, hospital officials said.
Preiti was taken to another Rome hospital. News reports said a protective collar was seen around the man’s neck.
An aide to Foreign Minister Emma Bonino told reporters at the presidential palace that the new Cabinet members were kept briefly inside for security reasons until it was clear there was no immediate danger.
The new Cabinet ministers were seen smiling in a group photo as news of the shooting broke and it was apparent they weren’t immediately aware of the attack.
“The news arrived after the swearing-in,” said Dario Franceschini, one of the new ministers. `’Premier Letta is following the situation.”
Metal fencing closes off Chigi Square, which flanks Via del Corso, one of Rome’s most popular streets with strollers. The public can cross the square by showing identification, and sometimes people can cross it without being stopped. It was unclear if the assailant had asked permission to enter the square.
Rome was jammed Sunday with tourists and residents enjoying a warm sunny morning on the last day of a four-day weekend.
All of this goes back to the bigger picture: for now the myth of the solvent welfare state, both in Europe and the US, has been successful at keeping the broader population within acceptable limits of docility, with only occasional bursts of murderous rage, either accompanied by terrorist intentions or not. Yet as every passing day demonstrates to the public that just like the stock market and the global economy, so too the welfare net is one big ponzi which is just as insolvent as every other aspect of the “developed” west, how long before political assassination attempts either in Rome, or everywhere else where a demoralized public just sees no other way out, become the norm?
And how many policemen will be taken down as they protect a regime which has no other mathematical option but to fail?
Finally, as noted earlier, it was a political assassination that set off the WWI dominoes some 100 years ago.
Will this time not be any different either as history once again repeats itself?
The formation of a Grand Coalition in Italy, centred on Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party and Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, shows the degree to which the global financial oligarchy dominates political life.
The official description of this government as a coalition of the “left” and “right” only highlights the fact that such terms, used to describe the establishment parties, have been stripped of any serious meaning. The new government is an austerity regime, installed in defiance of the clearly expressed wishes of the electorate and acting solely in the interests of a parasitic layer of the super-rich.
This is a government imposed on the Italian working class just as surely as the former European Union Commissioner Mario Monti’s technocratic administration installed in November 2011. All of Italy’s parties are committed to serving the same social interests.
The manner in which this government was installed, as a result of secret talks and sordid manoeuvres carried out behind the backs of the people, testifies to the evisceration of all democratic norms and the ever clearer emergence of a dictatorship of finance capital, barely concealed behind the threadbare trappings of parliamentary procedure.
Letta, whose uncle Gianni is Berlusconi’s chief political aide, has brought in Berlusconi’s legal fixer Angelino Alfano as both deputy prime minister and interior minister—in large measure to ensure that the media mogul continues to evade prosecution.
The key position at the economic ministry will be occupied by unelected Bank of Italy Director General Fabrizio Saccomanni. He is a living promise to the banks and speculators that there will be no retreat from policies that have ruined the lives of millions.
The new foreign minister is former European Commissioner Emma Bonino of the libertarian Italian Radicals, a staunch advocate of the “free market”, privatisation of state assets, including health care, and low taxes on the rich.
Monti’s allies are heavily represented. Mario Mauro of Monti’s Civic Choice takes the defence ministry. Anna Maria Cancellieri, a former police official who served as Monti’s interior minister, has the justice portfolio. The labour ministry goes to yet another unelected figure, Enrico Giovannini, head of the statistics agency ISTAT.
The media speaks of Letta having broken two months of stalemate, referring to the unprincipled haggling over positions since the February 24-25 general election, which saw 55 percent of the electorate vote for parties criticizing austerity and the European Union. In the election, the slate headed by Monti received only 10 percent of the vote. What Letta has, in fact, achieved is to bring together the main parties responsible for two years of brutal austerity behind a programme for its continuation.
All those seeking an alternative to the policies of austerity have been brought face-to-face with the absence of any such alternative within the Italian political establishment. The Democrats are a product of the breakup of the Communist Party of Italy, once the largest Stalinist party in Western Europe. The Stalinists and ex-Stalinists have now emerged as the linchpin of bourgeois rule in Italy and the chief party of government. They preside over an overtly right-wing organization dominated by figures from the Christian Democrats such as Letta, while the rival Stalinist faction Communist Refoundation has all but collapsed due to its own history of rotten manoeuvres.
This leaves Beppe Grillo’s 5-Star movement, which received 25 percent of the vote in February, able to dominate opposition to the new government. However, the conservatism of Grillo’s political and economic agenda is barely concealed by the bluster of his rhetoric.
He speaks of the process leading to the latest government, including the extraordinary reappointment of the 87-year-old Stalinist Giorgio Napolitano as president for a second seven-year term, as equivalent to a “coup d’état.” He describes his movement as equivalent to the French Revolution without the guillotine. However, his denunciations of corruption and nepotism are entirely compatible with the demands of sections of the Italian and global financial aristocracy.
Grillo said more than he intended when he joked to Germany’s Bild, “I’d like honest, competent and professional people in the right positions. In this respect, I would be glad about a German invasion of Italy.”
The savage cuts demanded by the EU and the International Monetary Fund have proved to be as disastrous for Italy as for Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. The business lobby Confindustria has described austerity as having caused “devastating damage, comparable with a war,” leaving Italy facing a “full credit emergency.”
More than 31,000 companies folded in the first quarter of this year. Italy’s economy has shrunk by 6.9 percent since 2007 and contracted by fully 2.4 percent last year. Public debt has actually risen from 121 percent to 127 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and is set to increase yet further as a second Italian and European recession looms.
The social impact has been brutal. Unemployment is at 11.6 percent, and among the young it is 37.8 percent—rising to more than 50 percent in Naples and other more deprived southern regions.
The experience of the Italian working class is common to that of their brothers and sisters in Europe and internationally. Workers have unambiguously expressed opposition to policies that have plunged millions into grinding poverty and unemployment, only to have technocratic or right-wing governments imposed upon them to ensure that the assault on their living standards continues.
No one advances a program of progressive social reform, let alone the sweeping economic and social measures required to reverse the worsening crisis. The ruling class has all manner of organisations ensuring that its agenda is carried out to the letter—the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the innumerable identikit governments that, no matter what their nominal coloration, do exactly as they are instructed by the super-rich.
What do workers have? Trade unions that sabotage every expression of opposition and serve as de facto arms of the corporations and the state. And old and degenerate “labour” and “social democratic” parties that are indistinguishable from the conservative right.
For their part, the pseudo-left groups such as Sinistra Critica in Italy, SYRIZA in Greece, the Left Bloc in Portugal et al. make their token protests against austerity while pledging their support for the EU and channelling dissent behind the trade unions.
The defence of social and democratic rights demands nothing less than the reorganization of the economy and of society through the formation of workers’ governments and the United Socialist States of Europe. The major corporations and banks must be taken over and placed under democratic control. Production must be organised according to the needs of society, and not the accumulation of profit and obscene wealth by a few.
The task now at hand is to build a new revolutionary leadership, the International Committee of the Fourth International, to politically prepare a working class counteroffensive and give voice to rising popular discontent against a rotten political establishment and the failed social order it defends.
This is likely to be the biggest financial story of the month, a story that’s bigger than Cyprus, and a story that you’re not going to see in American mainstream media – not by a long shot. Let’s take this from the top, for BoomBustBloggers were warned weeks in advanced. On Wednesday, 27 March 2013 I published EU Bank Depositors: Your Mattress Is Starting To Look Awfully Attractive – Bank Risk, Reward & Compensation wherein I explained that the situation of extreme loss faced by Cyprus bank depositors, savers and bondholders will not be a unique story – as excerpted:
The deposit accounts that you were getting just a few hundred basis points for have developed:
The little app below calculates what return you should expect to receive to take on the risk of a potential 40% haircut. The second tab offers what recent Cyprus bank rates were. Do you see a disparity???
Now, the “Overbanked” article was posted back in 2010. That’s right, I warned about the two Irish banks listed in the chart above THREE YEARS ago, You’ve had plenty of time to mover your money out! Speaking of those Irish banks, I warned the Irish again a few weeks ago as well – with specificity - in Global Banking Crisis – How & Why YOU Will Get “Cyprus’d” As This Bank Scrambled For Capital!!! Here, I focused on Anglo Irish, already nationalized and being wound down. I warned that there will be unhappy returns, if there would be any, just like Cyprus – as excerpted:
First Off Let’s Make Bank Collapse Real…
To begin with, let’s make this Cyprus thing real, by showing a live example of what happens when to a real small business that had the gall to bank with Laikie Bank, from the Bitcoin forum I excerpt a post that puts things into perspective, re: bank account confiscation:
Anglo Irish Bank/IBRC bondholders will actually get some of their money back!
As if on cue, a day after my expose on Anglo Irish Bank and its shenanigans (see Global Banking Crisis – How & Why YOU Will Get “Cyprus’d” As This Bank Scrambled For Capital!!!), The Irish Business Post announces senior bondholders will get wiped out. That’s right, a 100% loss! Zilch! Zero! Nada! Now, that’s investing. That’s getting “Cyprus’d”, plus some!!! From Businesspost.ie: IBRC senior bondholders to be burned
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Of course, the story doesn’t end with the bondholders. Exactly as anticipated in the articles mentioned above, and as published in the Irish mainstream media over the weekend…
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As you can see, this is actually MUCH WORSE than the deal the Cypriots got. These Irish pensioners are facing a total wipeout – 100% LOSS!!!
If you’re not disenfranchised, yet, hold on… It get’s worse, much worse. The Irish Examiner published this today…
The ECB has gagged the Government from releasing any information in relation to the liquidation of the former Anglo Irish bank, IBRC. A senior official in the Department of Finance told the Irish Examiner they were under strict instructions from the ECB not to release any details to the public. “What they [ECB] have said from an early stage is that if there is any release, at all, then all negotiations are off. They do not want to discuss this in any forum, other than that of a member state and the ECB council,” he said. The department has received about 16 freedom of information requests in relation to the IBRC liquidation and is now considering adopting a policy position that would allow it to refuse all applications for the release of information.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said the decision to liquidate IBRC was one of the biggest ever made by the State and he was concerned certain firms may have used insider information to secure payments. “The minister has refused several requests from me for information pertaining to the weeks and months before the event, specifically concerning whether certain sources in the know used confidential information to fast-track invoices in anticipation of liquidation.
So there you have it. Unless you’ve been hearing a lot about Irish bank collapse lately, it seems if you don’t hear it from Reggie Middleton and BoomBustBlog, you’re probably not going to hear it at all – so says the powers that be.
It’s not just Anglo Irish Bank, either. I’ve warned about several other Irish banks. Here’s another one I feel likely to give Irish savers a nasty surprise…
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You see, the banks can get away with this fleecing because the common person doesn’t get a hold of my information and analysis very often, at least not until it’s too late. But…… Guess what happened in the Irish mainstream media over the weekend, in the Irish Sun, the most popular rag on the most popular day….
Subscribers, can download ALL documents supporting shenanigans by these banks (click here to subscribe):
WHAT SHOULD THE UNITED STATES DO IF ONE OF THE BIGGEST BANKS IN IRELAND BLATANTLY DEFRAUDED U.S. INVESTORS?
By Reggie Middleton
Since I’m not a securities attorney, let’s get a basic understanding of where I’m basing my allegation – after all, I could definitely be wrong as a layman. From Wikipedia:
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of securities laws.[1] Offers of risky investment opportunities to unsophisticated investors who are unable to evaluate risk adequately and cannot afford loss of capital is a central problem.[2][3]
Securities fraud can also include outright theft from investors (embezzlement by stockbrokers), stock manipulation, misstatements on a public company’s financial reports, and lying to corporate auditors.
Characteristics of victims and perpetrators
Any investor can become a victim, but persons aged fifty years or older are most often victimized, whether as direct purchasers in securities or indirect purchasers through pension funds. Not only do investors lose but so can creditors, taxing authorities, and employees.
Potential perpetrators of securities fraud within a publicly traded firm include any dishonest official within the company who has access to the payroll or financial reports that can be manipulated to:
overstate assets
overstate revenues
understate costs
understate liabilities
Enron Corporation[27] exemplifies all four tendencies, and its failure demonstrates the extreme dangers of a culture of corruption within a publicly traded corporation. The rarity of such spectacular failures of a corporation from securities fraud attests to the general reliability of most executives and boards of large corporations.
So, with that layman’s understanding of what securities fraud is (along with my emphasis added), let’s move on.
The Bank of Ireland
In the 2008 Annual Accounts (Irish version of Annual Report) of Bank of Ireland (see attached, page 178) it states the bank gave a first floating charge in favor of the Central Bank of Ireland (an arm of the European Central Bank) and the Financial Services Authority of Ireland over the Banks ‘right, title, interest, benefit, present and future, in and to certain segregated securities listed in an Eligible Securities schedule.’
Fact: The BoI 2008 Irish accounts (~annual report) refer to the charges in their Disclosure Section (see attached page from 2008 accounts) where they describe the charge as being over ‘certain segregated securities.’
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I ILLUSTRATE HOW THE IRISH BANKING CANCER SPREADS TO THE UK TAXPAYER AND METASTASIZES THROUGH U.S. MARKETS
By Reggie Middleton
US retail investors and financial media tend to be a little… well… US-centric. They tend to ignore a lot of international happenings even though these events can, and often do, have a direct impact on the immediate US financial situation. I have ranted, raved, preached and prognosticated on the interconnectedness, and the inherent risks therein, of the global banking system. From my highly analytical ravings on Bear Stearns (pre-bust Is this the Breaking of the Bear?) to my more free form rants on Lehman (pre-bust Is Lehman really a lemming in disguise?), I think I have proven that being the lone voice in the investment wilderness is not necessarily an indicator of that voice being wrong. See Who is Reggie Middleton? for more on that topic. For now, let’s continue where we left off in “Ireland, You May Very Well Be Bust & I Make No Apologies For What I’m About To Show You” wherein I’m about to clearly demonstrate how contagion easily traipsed through geographic borders from Ireland to the UK to the US, and how this big bank seemingly omitted the evidence of such.
Note to professional and institutional subscribers: Please download the supporting documents for this report from BoomBustBlog’s subscription archive and depository – Ulster Bank/RBS Supporting Charge Documents. This file contains several hundred pages of documentation to support the assertions and allegations contained in this report (click here to subscribe).
Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd, has charges registered (see Supporting Charge Documents) with the Irish Companies Registration Office (CRO). The bank gave a first floating charge in favour of the Central Bank of Ireland (an arm of the European Central Bank) and the Financial Services Authority of Ireland encompassing “all its right, title, interest and benefit, present and future, in and to each of the securities of such a class or description as may from time to time be designated by the European Central Bank as eligible for sale and/or purchase, as the case may be, by the Bank under its standard form for the time being of Master Repurchase Agreement, which specification may be made by reference to particular classes of repurchase transactions, and which are included in the schedule of Eligible Securities provided to the Bank from time to time.”.
These charges were registered with the CRO on 15th February 2008, yet there is no mention whatsoever of these charges in the Banks 2008 Annual Accounts (see attached).
Ulster Bank is a 100% Owned Subsidiary of the UK (now taxpayer owned) Institution – The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
This affects US investors as well and this piece should be well read by anyone in the US, UK or Ireland who has lost money investing in RBS/Ulster Bank Group.
rbs share price history
In 2008, RBS traded ADR’s in the U.S. under the symbol .NYSE:RBS. These ADR’s were traded OTC. This gives the SEC jurisdiction over the companies US securities.
What happened behind closed doors?
Ulster Bank gave a first floating charge in favor of the Central Bank of Ireland (an arm of the European Central Bank) and the Financial Services Authority of Ireland. U.S. investors would have had to rely on the contents of The Royal Bank of Scotland’s 2008 Annual Accounts which apparently (in my opinion) concealed the existence of the CRO registered charges to the Bank of Ireland.
Ulster Bank RBS charge doc 2 Page 1Ulster Bank RBS charge doc 2 Page 1 copyUlster Bank RBS charge doc Page 1Ulster Bank RBS charge Doc to Pfizer International Bank Page 1
I also attach charge documents that Ulster Bank entered into with Pfizer International Bank. I cannot find these charges in any disclosures.
If you look at the attached charge documents from Ulster Bank to the Central Bank you will see that the wording is different when compared to the charge documents of the other Irish Banks. It specifically states that a first floating charge was created by the Deed of Floating Charge over Eligible Securities for Liabilities Arising in Target2-Ireland. Having said that I can see no mention of these charges in the Annual Accounts for 2008. On page 72 (28) of the Annual Accounts it gives the only details that I can find of charges registered. It states that A registered charge exists over the assets of the Group, securing all borrowings and other obligations in whatever form that relate to the Group’s use of the Euroclear system, that are outstanding to Morgan Guaranty Brussels and to any other office of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York. This looks as if it could be a double encumbrance of certain assets for the charge to the Central Bank of Ireland features very similar, all-encompassing language for Ulster Bank, which is a fully owned subsidiary of RBS. Although I’m not an international banking attorney, my layman’s eye sees double counting of collateral barring a clause that somehow excludes that covered by the charge over Ulster Bank.
There are also two charge documents for Ulster Bank to Pfizer International Bank. One is for 2009 and the other for 2010. I can see no mention of these in the 2009 and 2010 Annual Accounts.
These charge documents are also not apparent in the recent bank ‘stress testing’ conducted by the European Banking Authority, at least not in the summary results that the EBA have made available, reference RBS Stress Test.
I cannot see how the charge documents are disclosed in the RBS annual accounts (annual report). I see it mentions that the Bank provides collateral in the form of securities in repurchase agreements (footnote page 41). On page 60 it states the Group engages in securitization transactions of its residential loans which are generally transferred to a special purpose entity. This likely relates to the cashflows and not the principal. The charge documents relate to the principal (the actual loan). The registered charge (page 72) exists over the assets of the Group, securing all borrowings and other obligations whatsoever that relate to the Group’s use of the Euroclear system (privately owned by J.P.Morgan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euroclear).
The charge documents are not covered in the Ulster Bank Annual Accounts or the SEC Group RBS Annual Report. I think that this is a serious misrepresentation of the Accounts/Annual Report. The charge is a floating charge over Secured Obligations (Repo Agreements) which means all present and future liabilities of Ulster Bank (100% owned by RBS). As stated Target2 is only a payment system. The true reasons for the charge increasingly appear to be that of emergency funding, for it also appears as if Ulster Bank was bust. This information should have been included in the SEC Group RBS Annual Report, especially when ADR’s were being traded.
RBS Stress Tests
The afore-linked copy of the RBS Stress Test results do not make it possible to determine whether the charge documents were included in the Stress Test, however it is worth pointing out that the charges do not appear in the annual accounts, so one could assume that they were not included in the stress test. The information is based on data supplied by each bank, via its respective national supervisor. Accuracy of this data is primarily the responsibility of the participating bank and national supervisor. This information has been provided to the EBA in accordance with Article 35 of EU Regulation 1093/2010. The EBA bears no responsibility for errors/discrepancies that may arise in the tables.
A Short Traipse Through Recent History & The Expense That Ultimately Befalls The UK Taxpayer
In 2007 Ireland had significant cross border exposure to UK and US banks through derivatives and property products. As I warned in 2007, the real estate bubble in the the US/UK popped in 2008, sending pathogenic contagion straight through the Irish banking system. The entire banking system started collapsing. On February 15, 2008, Ireland took extraordinary measures (which we will explore in depth a little later on) to mitigate said collapse, measures that many a layperson would deem misleading, if not fraudulent. RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the largest financial institutions in the countries of Ireland and the UK) was effectively nationalized by the UK and a bad bank was formed to purchase bad debt/products from the Zombie Irish banks in exchange for government bonds, backed by a country that just simply couldn’t afford it.
It was the UK taxpayer that footed the bill for this nationalization – as per Wikipedia:
The bonus payments paid to RBS staff subsequent to the 2008 United Kingdom bank rescue package have led to controversy. Staff bonuses were nearly £1 billion in 2010, even though RBS reported losses of £1.1 billion for 2010. More than 100 senior bank executives were paid in excess of £1 million each in bonuses. Consequently, former CEO Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood in mid-January, and newly appointed CEO Stephen Hester renounced his £1 million bonus after complaints over the bank’s performance.
82 percent of RBS’ shares are now owned by the UK government, which bought RBS stock for £42 billion, representing 50 pence per share. In 2011, the shares were worth 19 pence, representing a taxpayer book loss of £26 billion ($40B). Historically, the RBS stock price went from a high of over 700 pence in early 2007 (taking into account a 3 for 1 stock split that took place later that year) to around 20 pence in late 2011.
… the UK Government (HM Treasury), as of 31 March 2012, holds and manages an 82% stake through UK Financial Investments Limited(UKFI), whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the London Stock Exchange. In addition to its primary share listing on the LSE, the company is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The group is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2009, after the financial collapse, it was briefly the world’s largest company by both assets (£1.9 trillion) and liabilities (£1.8 trillion). In 2012, the UK government announced plans to bid for the rest of the RBS shares that it did not own, as it felt that “while the taxpayer owns over 82pc of the bank following a bailout in 2008, they bear 100pc of the bank’s huge liability risks”.
Part and parcel of the RBS problems was its purchase of Ulster Bank and its exposure to the Irish lending issues!
The app below allows the UK Taxpayer to calculate for themselves exactly what their individual contribution (pro rata) is to the government bailout of RBS.
I’ve taken the liberty of pre-populating the input fields for you, but if you don’t agree with the numbers then by all means insert your own!
Following my warning in February of 2008, Lehman filed bankruptcy in September sending an additional set of contagion shock through Ireland and its banking system, causing Ireland to issues bonds and further indebt itself to save its Zombie banks – again! This time through blanket bank guarantees backed by the full faith of the government.
In September of 2010, a large swath of said government guarantees for the banks were about to expire. Reference this excerpt from the book “Zombie Banks: How Broken Banks and Debtor Nations Are Crippling the Global Economy”:
In September 2010, some of Ireland’s government guarantees for bank debts were about to expire, which put U.S. Treasury officials on edge. If the guarantee wasn’t renewed, the banks would likely default on their bonds, triggering the next event in line: a slew of credit default swap (CDS) contracts on Irish banks’ debt. U.S. Treasury officials had reason to worry – the names backing those contracts were the largest U .S. banks, and they could end up paying billions in case of default. Any more weight on U.S. banks could be a tipping point to collapse. Treasury officials made inquiries to their counterparts at the Irish finance ministry asking about the course of action the country was planning to take and indicated their concern about possible default and its CDS repercussions. A year after having issued blanket guarantees on the banks’ liabilities the Irish government once again didn’t dare let the bank fail. Instead it ended up asking for financial assistance from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IIMF): the country had been pushed to the brink of collapse.
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Litigation
201294 r01o 09CV00300 Page 01rbs litigation
Indications of capital shortfalls in the Ulster Bank arrangement:
ULSTER BANK’S parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), injected as much as £4 billion (€4.7 billion) into Ulster Bank last year, bringing its total investment in its Irish subsidiary to £10 billion (€11.8 billion) since 2008.
If you have believe that the information above actually identifies a gross misrepresentation of fact, omission or outright fraud, simply contact the SEC and let them know that Reggie Middleton suggested they look into it. You can actually use this form to convey my message.
And for those blokes in the UK, I suggest you drop a note to the Financial Conduct Authority. You can reach them via this link, tell them Reggie Middleton sent you. This was excerpted from their website (emphasis added):
We intervene when firms:
treat consumers unfairly
behave in ways that risk the integrity of the market
We supervise firms differently depending on their size and the nature of their business. This includes:
continuous conduct assessment for large firms and regular assessment for smaller firms
monitoring products and other issues to ensure firms play fair and don’t compromise consumer interests
responding quickly and decisively to events or problems that threaten the integrity of the industry
ensuring firms compensate consumers when necessary
Well, straight from the horse’s mouth. Have at ‘em. They should do the right thing, and EU media should pick up on this as well. You don”t want your 2,000+ pound/euro bank bailout investment to be handled solely by a blogger from NYC, do you?
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THE EUROPEAN HOMELAND SECURITY STATE. EUROPEAN UNION ANTI-TERROR DRILLS AND FEAR CAMPAIGNS
European Union Coordinated Counter Terrorism Exercise in Dublin
By R. Teichmann | Global Research
The events of 9/11 in the US not only led to the attack on several sovereign nations but the government under George W. Bush established the so called “Homeland Security” and proceeded to implement plans to curtail civil rights. First the “Patriot Act” was passed, then the “Natinal Defence Authrorisation Act”.
The combination of these acts and presidential “Executive Orders” transformed the American society. Where previously at least some basic rights existed a basicly lawless society was created. The territory of the USA has been declared a battleground. Americans can now be killed on US soil without trial or due process. They can be held indefinitely without charge or without ever knowing why. The inalienable rights believed to be guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution have proved to be illusions.
All of this was made possible by creating fear among the population through permanent media propaganda about a terrorist threat. Americans and people in the “western world” were and are made to believe that in order to have security and live in peace they have to give up their liberty. They were made to believe that it is not the foreign policy of their own governments that creates terrorism but enemies envying their freedom and prosperity.
Is Europe and Ireland now heading down the same road? In an article published last week the journal.ie reported (emphasis added):
A NUMBER OF gardaí took part in a European Union Coordinated Counter Terrorism Exercise in Dublin this afternoon.
The operation included a simulated hostage rescue scenario that required sea-based, land-based and airborne elements.
Three other police forces from European jurisdictions attended the exercise at the ESB Generating Station at Pigeon House Road in Dublin 4.
Photo credit: Leon Farrell/ Photocall Ireland; source
The fear-based propaganda did not catch on so much in Europe where large portions of the populace do not believe in the goods of fighting wars for corporate interests in various regions of the world. The desire for peace after the experiences of 2 devastating world wars has been used cleverly to bring about the Europe we see today. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU was an attempt to keep the myth that Europe was build to maintain the peace alive a little longer.
In reality western Europe, later the EU, was always dominated by the interests of the USA. During the cold war it was the beachhead against the USSR and after its breakdown it became the tool to expand the sphere of US/NATO domination to the nations of eastern Europe which just won their freedom. Since World War 2 western Europe followed in the foootsteps of the US in all major questions of war and peace. In one way or another European nations were involved actively in all recent US/NATO led wars.
While recently Europe is engaging more actively in warfare (Libya, Mali) the economic situation inside the EU is anything but stable and the political situation is becoming more and more unstable as people across the EU begin to question the direction in which the EU is going. The currency system is on life support, unemployment is generally rising, people across the EU become slowly but surely disillusioned about the “European Project”. It is in those times when external threats come in handy to deflect attention away from the problems and to create fear. This is the context in which the recent EU-wide anti terrorist drill on the 17th and 18th of April took place. It was led by the Atlas Network.
Planned in 1996 the “Atlas Network” was officially created in 2001 using the pretext of the 9/11 events. It is a network of specialist units of national police forces of all 27 European member states. It works under the supervision and is financed by the “Directorate General of Home Affairs” of the EU Commission. Neither the EU Commision nor the “Directorate” are democratically elected entities. As these units are answerable not to national goverments but to the “Directorate” they are removed from democratic control and thus morph into kind of “Federal Special Police”. The participation of foreign police units in the excercise in Dublin demonstrates that under this network these units can dispatched everywhere in the EU.
Interestingly it is the Boston Marathon Bombing which provides the pretext for holding the EU wide drills. Here is the Press Release of the EU Commission:
European Commission
Press release
Brussels, 17 April 2013
The ATLAS Network prepares for the biggest anti-terrorism exercise at EU level
On April 17 and 18, 2013, the EU Member States anti-terrorist police forces are uniting as part of the European sponsored ATLAS Network, which carries out the most complex preparation and crises response simulation so far at European level. The simulation involves simultaneous terrorist attacks in 9 different EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Romania).
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström said: “The fight against terrorism is one of the key challenges to our internal security. Terrorism does not recognise borders and maintaining public security is a complex challenge which requires the coordination of our efforts. I believe that the cooperation between police authorities in Europe is more necessary now than ever and I welcome the exercise of the ATLAS network.”
The ATLAS Network contributes to increasing the proficiency and expertise of special intervention units, by establishing common platforms for training and tactics, sharing equipment, and by establishing close cooperation in trans-border areas of Member States, in turn benefitting the public security.
Past terrorist attacks, carried out both by individuals and groups, both abroad and in Europe have shown great sophistication and coordination by the terrorist groups. The 2008 Mumbai coordinated attacks, the Al Qaeda 2012 attacks on the Algerian gas production plant, as well as the recent Boston marathon bombings highlight the need to increase protection against attacks on both critical infrastructures and other public areas in a national and cross-border context. In order to ensure equal protection for all citizens in the EU, the ATLAS Network exchanges best practices and procedures and undertakes joint training exercises. In order to prepare against terrorist attacks, real life simulations of terrorist acts are carried out by Atlas members of the anti-terrorist units from different Member States.
The 2013 practical exercise, named “Common Challenge” simulates terrorist attacks in 9 different EU Member States in different areas of public life. Simulated terrorist targets include attacks on power plants, schools, and several transport modes (shops, busses and trains). Therefore, the Atlas “Common Challenge 2013”, the largest of exercise of this kind, will help practice and draw lessons on how to further strengthen preparation and crises response. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Home Affairs is responsible for the coordination of the simulation exercise, which is carried out jointly with the ATLAS Presidency held by the German Police Special units (GSG9).
The ATLAS Network is an example of the pro-active stance against terrorism and underlines the solidarity and cooperation between European Union Member States as set in Article 222 of the Lisbon Treaty, contributing to ensuring the protection of citizens and public security in EU.
Background
The Atlas Network, created in 2001, is an association consisting of special police units of the 27 EU Member States working on countering terrorism and criminal acts. The Network is financed and supported by the European Commission, Directorate General for Home Affairs. The goal of Atlas Network is to improve cooperation among the police units and to enhance skills by training and exchange of best practices.
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TAKE YOUR MONEY OUT OF THE EUROZONE
by Egon von Greyerz
Matterhorn Asset Management AG / Gold Switzerland
Today the UKIP leader and MEP Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that the Troika (European Commission, ECB and IMF) are common criminals stealing money from people’s bank accounts. He warns depositors to get their money out of the Eurozone. He calls the EU the New Communism having Power without Limits.
This is a powerful speech by Farage. Getting the money out of the Eurozone is of course not enough. Investors must get their money out of the banking system worldwide. See my recent piece “Get Your Assets out of the Banks – NOW”.
The situation in the banking system is critical not only in the EU but also in the USA, Japan and China. The headline in the Financial Times today is “Warning on “out of control” China debt”.
In a bankrupt financial system it is critical to preserve wealth by holding gold outside the system.
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CFR APPLAUDS EUROPEAN UNION’S “REAL SUBVERSION OF SOVEREIGNTY”
U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry was in Brussels, Belgium, on April 22 to meet with European Union officials, including European Commission President Manuel Barroso, and to promote the administration’s new push for congressional approval of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). President Obama is calling upon Congress to provide him with Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “fast-track” to push the TTIP and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact through Congress with little debate and no amendments.
The New American has been following and reporting on the efforts to conclude a TTIP and TPP for many years, throughout the Clinton and Bush administrations. One of the most important objections — though not the only one — regarding both of these efforts is that throughout the various iterations and proposal it is very apparent that the architects and proponents of the agreements are being thoroughly dishonest. They are publicly packaging and promoting the agreements as “trade agreements” when, in fact, they have been designed as evolving projects that will progressively “integrate” the economies and political systems of the signatory nations into a supranational regime modeled along the lines of the European Union.
Dennis Behreandt’s article “Transatlantic Two-Step” of May 10, 2008, during President George W. Bush’s administration, is one of the many articles we have published that details the efforts of globalist elites in organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Transatlantic Policy Network, the Brookings Institution, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and others, to use the battering ram of trade agreements to smuggle political and economic integration schemes that are aimed at destroying national sovereignty.
Recently, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) held a panel discussion at Princeton University entitled “The G20: Prospects and Challenges for Global Governance.” (See video below.) There are many interesting and revealing comments made by the panel participants, but an admission by Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer is especially noteworthy, in that it publicly confirms what critics of the European Union have been saying for decades, but which CFR globalists like Bremmer have usually denied. Bremmer admits that “there’s real subversion of sovereignty by the EU.”
The CFR panel included:
• Nicolas Berggruen, Chairman of the Berggruen Institute on Governance and coauthor of Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East;
• Ian Bremmer, President, Eurasia Group;
• Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations; and
• Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bert G. Kerstetter Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University
Professor Slaughter served as the presider of the CFR panel discussion. The context of the Bremmer quote was a venting of frustration by the panelists over the “ineffectiveness” of the G20 process. Professor Slaughter and Mr. Berggruen particularly argued that the G20 needed to be given actual powers that would enable it to do more to effect global governance. Unfortunately, from the panelists’ viewpoints, national sovereignty and national interests get in the way of this objective. This is where Mr. Bremmer commented (see the video at 18:30 minutes): “The EU is much more significant. There’s real subversion of sovereignty by the EU that works.”
It would appear that the panelists all favored this type of EU-style of sovereignty-subverting “governance.”
Secretary Kerry, of course, is also a member of the CFR, as is our top trade negotiator Michael Froman, a former Citigroup exec (and bailout beneficiary) who is now Assistant to the President of the United States and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and Trans-Pacific Partnership would effect the same kind of “real subversion of sovereignty.”
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EUROPEAN UNION CITES BOSTON ATTACK TO JUSTIFY MAJOR ANTI-TERRORIST OPERATION
By Chris Marsden
24 April 2013
The growing threat to democratic rights internationally was underscored by the fact that, just two days after the Boston bombing, the latter was being cited in a press release of the European Union (EU) Commission to justify a massive continent-wide anti-terrorism operation.
On April 17 and 18, anti-terrorist units of numerous EU member states organised in the ATLAS [Army Tactical Level Advanced Simulation] Network carried out what was described as “the most complex preparation and crises response simulation so far at European level.”
The operation involves simulated and simultaneous terrorist attacks in nine different EU member states—Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and Romania.
Justifying the operation, an EU Commission press release said, “The 2008 Mumbai coordinated attacks, the Al Qaeda 2012 attacks on the Algerian gas production plant, as well as the recent Boston marathon bombings highlight the need to increase protection against attacks on both critical infrastructures and other public areas in a national and cross-border context.”
The exercise, code-named “Common Challenge,” simulated attacks on targets including power plants, schools, shops, busses and trains.
EU Counter Terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, said of the April 17-18 operation, “This initiative is the largest anti-terrorism simulation exercise to take place in Europe, and is being carried out by the special intervention units of several Member States.
The scale of the operation was indicated by the best reported exercise, which took place in Kolarovo, Slovakia, involving police counter-terrorism units from Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, the Slovak Lynx commando and 5th Special Force Regiment.
The scenario for this particular exercise was inspired by the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004. According to Military Photos, “The siege was going on for around 3 hours and there were 335 students and teachers taken as hostages. Several of students were psychically traumatised and had to be medically dismissed from [the] exercise.”
The small report, together with an extensive and important collection of photos, can be seen here.
In Norway, more than 100 officers from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark trained to enter one of the Color Line ferries from police boats and helicopters, according to Aftenposten. Two Swedish police helicopters with snipers escorted during the operation, based on the potential hijacking of the ferry with 210 passengers and a crew of 40.
In Ireland, the Gardaí staged a simulated hostage rescue scenario on the River Liffey and at a decommissioned power station in Dublin, comprised of sea-based, land-based and airborne elements.
According to the Irish Independent, “Heavily armed members of the gardai’s special intervention squad, the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), are gearing up for a key role in preventing a cross-Border terrorist attack during the G8 world leaders’ summit in June.
“The ERU will be deployed in patrolling Border routes into Northern Ireland, including the network of waterways that could be used to launch attacks on politicians and top economists.”
The article explained, “The overall scenario, central to all exercises, deals with the threats posed by a fictional terrorist organisation, the Global Liberation and Revenge Army.”
ERU officers “are equipped with Heckler and Koch MP7 machine guns and Sig Sauer semi-automatic pistols and they also have access to Benelli 12-gauge shotguns and Heckler and Koch 33 rifles.”
The ATLAS Network was created in 2001, consisting of special police units of the 27 EU member states. The ATLAS presidency is held by the German Police Special units (GSG9). Germany played the leading role in the formation of ATLAS after September 11, 2001, but the organisation includes two French units, GIGN for airplane raids and RAID for raids on trains and busses, and Britain’s CO19 for raids in subways.
The implications of the type of operations undertaken under the ATLAS framework are indicated by the presence of Britain’s CO19 unit. Also in 2001, Britain launched Operation Kratos, setting a shoot-to-kill policy for the Metropolitan Police when dealing with suspected suicide bombers.
On July 22, 2005, in the aftermath of the July 7 London bombing, innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by plainclothes officers without warning while he was seated on a train at Stockwell tube station. Officers wrestled him to the ground and fired seven bullets into his head at point blank range.
There is a profound connection between the response of the US police and security services to the Boston bombing and an operation on the scale of that which took place throughout Europe two days later.
For over a decade now, every country has witnessed an assault on democratic rights and the passage of legislation in many cases providing the framework for a police-state regime. What that looks like was shown in Boston as an entire city was placed under lockdown. It was on display in Europe April 17-18 in the form of muscle-flexing by state forces in nine countries.
The choice of Ireland, Italy and Spain, three of the EU countries targeted for savage austerity measures, and impoverished eastern European countries such as Latvia, Slovakia and Romania, indicates the broader considerations animating the ruling class. All legal measures passed in the name of combating terrorism that strengthen the repressive powers of the state are available for use against the rising wave of social and political discontent among millions of workers as a result of the wholesale destruction of jobs and vital welfare provisions now underway.
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PARIS HIT BY PROPERTY FREEZE AS TAXES DETER BUYERS
By Francois de Beaupuy -Bloomberg
April 23, 2013
At least one in four Paris apartments listed by realtor Agence Etoile can’t be sold, even with mortgage rates at record lows, as buyers and sellers fail to agree on price, the company’s director said.
“I have some inventory that’s too expensive and sellers don’t want to lower prices,” Christine Perrissel said in an interview. “Buyers are just much more selective.”
Across France, an economy that’s stalled for two years, joblessness at a 15-year high, property prices near record highs and new taxes have made households reluctant to borrow to buy homes. While Europe’s debt crisis prompted banks to tighten credit, since the start of this year they’ve offered more attractive terms to lure customers and meet lending targets, after borrowing plunged in 2012.
The average home-loan rate fell 0.8 percentage point from a year ago to a record low 3.34 percent in the first two months of the year. Still, new mortgages granted in the 12 months through February slid 27 percent from a year earlier to 98.4 billion euros ($129 billion), according to the Bank of France.
New home sales fell 18 percent in 2012 to 77,900. Existing home sales declined 12 percent to 709,000, with the drop worsening to 22 percent in the year to February. The average housing investment funded with loans represented 3.73 years of the buyer’s income in March, the lowest since January 2010, a study by lender Credit Logement SA and polling firm CSA shows.
Hollande Taxes
The data show that as rates fall, the market still hasn’t fully shaken off the gloom of 2012, when real estate purchases plunged as banks tightened mortgage lending and after former President Nicolas Sarkozy and his successor Francois Hollande, elected in May, added property taxes to cut the country’s deficit.
Hollande, the first Socialist president in France since 1995, has called on those “with the most to show patriotism” in tough times. He’s raised income taxes, those on capital gains from property, as well as wealth and inheritance levies. That prompted Gerard Depardieu, who played Obelix in films about one of France’s most beloved fictional characters, to move to Belgium.
“We’ve had a catastrophic start of the year in January and February with the tax squeeze,” said Marc Julien, founder and chief executive officer of Pierre Invest, a broker specializing in new properties for the Paris region, referring to the property taxes.
Sweetened Terms
March and April saw some improvement as banks and real estate companies offered sweetened terms, he said. Julien, who was at a property trade fair this month, said he’s giving up half his commission to pay for kitchens and waiving transaction fees for each contract signed at the event.
Still, 52 percent of banks said demand for housing loans dropped in March, when some lenders tightened requirements slightly, according to a Bank of France survey published on April 11. Some banks increased margins on the riskiest loans.
“Banks remain cautious in granting loans because of unemployment and the start of a price decline,” said Sandrine Allonier, head of economic studies at online credit broker Meilleurtaux.
French home prices, which surged 163 percent in the past 15 years, have slipped 2.9 percent from a peak in 2011, according to the national statistics office Insee.
Banks are still “competing strongly to lure the best borrowers,” Allonier said, adding that lenders may make it more attractive for such property buyers. “Banks still have room for maneuver and mortgage rates can fall lower,” she said.
More Liquidity
Liquidity at banks was bolstered after the European Central Bank plowed 1 trillion euros into the financial system through cheap three-year loans in December 2011 and February 2012.
The French 10-year government bond yield, a benchmark for home loans, fell to 1.704 percent at 12:57 p.m. in Paris, the lowest since Bloomberg began compiling data on the securities in 1990. The previous record of 1.709 percent was set on April 8, four days after ECB President Mario Draghi said policy makers “stand ready to act” to bolster the region’s flagging economy.
Banks “are making hefty margins at the moment, so they’re asking for more production as funding conditions are even more favorable,” Philippe Taboret, deputy CEO of Cafpi SA, France’s largest mortgage broker, said in an interview. “Each week, we’re hearing ‘we must lend, last year was a bad year.’”
The average term of home loans in March averaged 205 months, about 17 years, up from a seven-year low of 199 months in January, when rules were tightened on tax write-offs for investment properties and interest-free loans for first-time buyers, according to the CSA-Credit Logement study.
Purchasing Power
“Lowering rates and extending durations are ways to provide extra purchasing power,” Cafpi’s Taboret said. Lenders including Caisse d’Epargne and BNP Paribas SA (BNP) “are very willing to lend,” while Societe Generale SA (GLE) is more reticent, he said. Banks are coming up with one-off discount offers, while stopping short of a rate war, he said.
Joelle Rosello, a spokeswoman at Societe Generale, declined to comment. The bank’s lending unit didn’t have a stand at this year’s property fair. Caisse d’Epargne, which is offering 20- year fixed-rate mortgages at 2.95 percent, advertises its policy with a poster asking: “Who says the credit tap is closed?”
Banks are seeking long-term customers through their home loans, Meilleurtaux’s Allonier said. First-time home buyers may make renovations, buy insurance, cars and open up savings accounts, she said.
Best Clients
“The best clients, such as households with annual income over 60,000 euros and 15 percent down payments, can get an extra discount of up to 0.4 points and borrow at 2.7 percent over 20 years, ” Allonier said.
For first-time buyers earning less than 1,800 euros a months, banks “are a bit tougher,” Pierre Invest’s Julien said.
“Banks are now asking for at least a 10 percent down payment, and are unwilling to lend over more than 20 or 25 years, while they used to go over 30 years,” he said.
They’re more willing to lend to safer borrowers, Cafpi’s Taboret said.
“Markets are excluding the most fragile first-time home buyers as subsidies have been trimmed and amid unemployment concerns,” he said. “For good clients, banks won’t hesitate a second to fund even 100 percent of the property value, even over 30 years.”
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PARIS RIOTS AFTER GAY MARRIAGE VOTE
Police fought running battles with protesters in central Paris last night after the French parliament approved legislation authorising same-sex couples to marry and to adopt children.
The vote, which made France the fourteenth country in the world to legalise gay marriage, was hailed by supporters as an epoch-defining commitment to equality. But it sparked fury among opponents.
As protest marches turned violent, stones, bottles and iron bars rained down on riot police units brought in to parliament. They replied by firing teargas at the demonstrators.
Wealthy households would face new taxes on property and other assets under German plans to prop up the struggling eurozone.
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By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard | telegraph.co.uk
Senior advisers to Chancellor Angela Merkel are pushing for better-off households to pay towards the cost of any future bail-outs for the weaker members of the single currency.
The proposals, from members of Germany’s council of economic experts, raise the prospect of taxes being imposed on property in a country like Spain if its government was forced to seek a bail-out.
The council, known as the “Five Wise Men”, is often used to test new policies that are later adopted officially.
The German suggestion is the latest sign that Berlin is intent on imposing even tougher rules on weaker southern euro members in exchange for using its economic might to support their finances.
As well as inflaming tensions between Germany and its smaller southern partners, the suggestion could also mean that Britons with holiday homes are dragged deeper into the eurozone crisis.
Around 400,000 Britons live or own homes in the south of Spain, which is suffering a deep recession that is hampering Madrid’s attempts to balance the public finances and stave off a bail-out.
Senior figures in Germany are now arguing that some richer home owners in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece have so far avoided paying their fair share to rescue the euro, leaving Germany paying too much.
Taxes on property or other assets would mark a significant change in Europe’s approach to funding bail-outs for eurozone members. Until now, the cost of rescue packages for countries like Ireland, Greece and Portugal has fallen largely on people who invest money in either those countries’ bonds or – in the case of Cyprus – bank accounts.
Prof Peter Bofinger, an adviser to Mrs Merkel, said that levies on bank accounts are the wrong way of funding bail-outs, because rich people are able to shift their money out of the country.
“The resourceful rich just move their money to banks in northern Europe and avoid paying,” Prof Bofinger told Der Spiegel, a German magazine.
Instead of taxing cash, European Union governments should in future target property and other, less mobile assets, he said.
“For example, over the next 10 years, the rich should give up a portion of their assets,” Prof Bofinger said. Spain was last year forced to seek international help to prop up its banks. Despite recent signs of progress, some analysts believe the Spanish government itself could also have to seek a bail-out in order to pay its debts.
Spain is suffering from the bursting of a huge property bubble that has left many home owners struggling to sell houses for much less than the price they paid.
A “sovereign rescue” of Spain would dwarf any previous eurozone bail-out package, with Germany again likely to pay the lion’s share.
Mrs Merkel, who seeks re-election later this year, is coming under increasing pressure to drive an even harder bargain in Europe from German voters unhappy at footing the bill for what they see as southern profligacy.
Southern eurozone governments have argued that it is right for Germany to pay more because it is wealthier and because its economy has gained so much from the single currency.
But German economists are now challenging that argument. They say that new figures taking into account property values show that people in many southern countries are actually wealthier than their German counterparts.
Prof Lars Feld, another “wise man”, highlighted a recent study by the European Central Bank, which Germans say show that the people in bailed-out countries are often better-off than those in Germany. Less than half of Germans own their own home, lower than the rate in many southern eurozone members.
The ECB study found that the “median” wealth in Cyprus is €267,000 (£227,600), compared to just €51,000 in Germany.
The median or midpoint level – which strips out the distorting effect of the super-rich – was €183,000 for Spain, €172,000 for Italy, and €102,000 for Greece, and even €75,000 for Portugal.
Average wealth in Cyprus is €671,000, far higher than in the four AAA creditor states: Austria (€265,000), Germany (€195,000), Holland (€170,000), Finland (€161,000).
Prof Feld said the report showed that people in the crisis countries are richer than the Germans. “This shows that Germany has been right to take a tough line of euro rescue loans,” he said.
Alternative für Deutschland, a German eurosceptic party, is putting Mrs Merkel under increasing pressure in her response to the eurozone’s prolonged crisis.
Many members of the new party, which held its first conference on Sunday, want Germany to pull out of the euro and revert to the Deutschmark.
ROME (AP) — Italian police have seized a record (EURO)1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) in cash and property from a single person, a Sicilian alternative energy entrepreneur alleged to have close ties to the Mafia.
Italy’s anti-Mafia investigators said in a statement Wednesday that Vito Nicastri, a 57-year-old native of Alcamo, near Trapani, was placed under surveillance and must remain in Alcamo for three years. He is accused of declaring for tax purposes a fraction of the value of his businesses.
Italian media have dubbed Nicastri the “king of alternative energy” for his vast holdings in wind farms and photovoltaic cell companies.
Police said the seizures include 43 companies; 98 pieces of real estate including buildings, homes, stores and land; 66 bank accounts, credit cards and investment funds.
It appears, given news from Italy today, that European depositors are increasingly coming to the realization that deposits in their local bank are not ‘safe’ places to put their spare cash, but are in fact loans to extremely leveraged businesses. In a somewhat wishy-washy, ‘hide-the-truth’-like statement on Monte dei Paschi’s website, the CEO admits to, “the withdrawal of several billion in deposits.” Of course, the reasons why these depositors withdrew their capital from the oldest bank in the world will never be known though of course he blames it on “reputational damage” from their derivative cheating scandal. Apparently the fact that this happened to come about six week after said scandal and the bank’s third bailout, and that the prior two bailouts did not result in such an outflow of unsecured liabilities (at least not to the public’s knowledge), was lost on the senior management, as was lost that a far greater catalyst may have been the slightly more troubling events in Cyprus in the second half of March. Unsurprisingly, as Reuters notes, the CEO declined to give a forecast on the level of deposits at the end of the first quarter of 2013; no wonder given the bank just doubled its expectations for bad loans and the ‘Cypriot Solution’ dangling over uninsured depositor hordes.
Customers’ deposits at Italian bank Monte dei Paschi fell by “a few billion euros” … the bank said in a document posted on its web site on Saturday.
…
But it has yet to make clear what impact the scandal itself had on its first quarter results.
“The illicit nature of the derivatives trades and their consequence on the bank’s assets exposed the bank to reputational damage that was immediately translated into…the withdrawal of a few billion euros in deposits,” the bank said in a document for shareholders attending its April 29 meeting.
…
But he declined to give a forecast on the level of deposits at the end of the first quarter of 2013 or to indicate the outlook for net interest income and loan loss provisions.
A quick glance at BMPS’ capital structure shows that there isn’t a whole lot (read: almost any) of impairable securities below the unsecured liability (i.e., deposit) level. It is also obvious that when the bad debt impairment begins and depositors start getting whacked at least senior bonds, which should be pari passu, will feel the pain too as per the Diesel-BOOM doctrine, although we doubt this particular case of pain sharing will bring much comfort to any and all uninsured depositors in the oldest bank in the world.
As Pier Luigi Bersani’s attempt to form a government seems doomed to fail, the thieves are getting ready for the Great Italian Robbery.
Commerzbank called for a 15% levy on Italian deposits; Intesa Sanpaolo’s CEO announced a Troika takeover of Italy; Moody’s threatened a downgrading; Grillo: we will be poorer.
1. Jörg Krämer, chief economist of Commerzbank, gave an interview to Handelsblatt on March 15 calling for a 15% levy on Italian private wealth, claiming that Italians are “richer” than Germans and can afford it. He used, among others, statistics published by the Bundesbank showing that average Italian private wealth, at EU164,000, is far more than the German average of EU76,000. These figures, however, include financial wealth as well as property, such as housing real estate. Two-thirds of Italians are homeowners, compared to 44% of Germans. You cannot sell your house to pay a levy on it.
Average Italian income is quite a bit lower: EU19,655 (for comparison, Germany is well over EU30,000). These misleading figures as used by Krämer are being used by a whole array of idiot politicians and economists.
2. Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Enrico Tommaso Cucchiani warned earlier in the week that a Troika regime will be implemented in Italy if the stalemate in the government negotiations takes too long to resolve. “It is clear that if there is no solution … sooner or later there will be an intervention from outside.” Cucchiani said he does not wish for an intervention by such external actors, “who are those commonly called the Troika, i.e., European Union [Commission], European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund.”
3. Moody’s warned yesterday that it could downgrade the Italian debt. Speaking to Reuters, Dietmar Hornung, Italian analyst for Moody’s, said that he is carefully following Bersani’s efforts to form a government. The implication of that statement is that if Bersani fails, Moody’s might downgrade the debt.
The Moody’s warning follows a downgrading to BBB+ by Fitch at the beginning of March.
4. Speaking to Turkish television, Beppe Grillo said that “in the next five years, Italians will be poorer but happy.” Grillo’s statements were posted on the internet, but then Grillo removed them.
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ITALIAN POLITICAL CRISIS SPIRALS DOWNWARD
March 30th, 2013
The Italian crisis is spiraling downward, toward the scenario of protracted ungovernability, financial crisis, and a planned Troika coup. Democratic Party leader Pier Luigi Bersani reported to President Giorgio Napolitano that his attempt failed, but that he did not resign—a novum in the history of the Republic. Napolitano then did not withdraw the mandate from Bersani, but decided to start directly, himself, consultations to verify what possible Parliament support he can have—yet another novum. Napolitano will explore also whether there are numbers for an alternative, his Plan B.
The Italian constitutional system is being slaughtered by a stalemate provoked by parties and leaders who are sticking to their “issue,” and are unable, unwilling, or against rising to defend the national interest.
It is reported that Napolitano’s Plan B is to appoint another technocratic government and to force the PD and PDL parties to support it. Berlusconi has demanded as a condition for that the next State President be by him. Bersani has said that he will never join a coalition with Berlusconi. If Plan B fails, there will be early elections without a new government. Early elections however can be held only after the new State President is elected, in May. This means a scenario of protracted government crisis—exactly what Moody’s has announced will be the trigger for a downgrading.
Beppe Grillo is pushing this scenario, by calling for Parliament to govern without a government (another novum for Italy, but not universally, because that is what happened the first year of the French Revolution).
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EU Bank Capital Confusion, Part 3 – It’s BIG! (professional and institutional subscribers only)
Ulster Bank/RBS Supporting Charge Documents
