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Greek Banks On Verge Of Total Collapse: Bank Run Surges “Massively” As Depositors Yank €700 Million Today Alone
Greek Banks On Verge Of Total Collapse: Bank Run Surges “Massively” As Depositors Yank €700 Million Today Alone
While the Greek government believes it may have won the battle, if not the war with Europe, the reality is that every additional day in which Athens does not have a funding backstop, be it the ECB (or the BRIC bank), is a day which brings the local banking system to total collapse.
As a reminder, Greek banks already depends on the ECB for some €80.7 billion in Emergency Liquidity Assistance which was about 60% of total deposits in the Greek financial system as of April 30. In other words, they are woefully insolvent and only the day to day generosity of the ECB prevents a roughly 40% forced “bail in” deposit haircut a la Cyprus.
The problem is that a Greek deposit number as of a month and a half ago is hopefully inaccurate. It is also the biggest problem for Greece, which has been desperate to prevent an all out panic among those who still have money in the banking system.
Things got dangerously close to the edge last Friday (as noted before) when things for Greece suddenly looked very bleak ahead of this week’s IMF payment and politicians were forced to turn on the Hope Theory to the max, promising a deal with Europe had never been closer.
It wasn’t, and instead Greece admitted its sovereign coffers are totally empty this week when it “bundled” its modest €345 million payment to the IMF along with others, for a lump €1.5 billion payment, which may well never happen.
And the bigger problem for Greece is that after testing yesterday the faith and resolve of its depositors (not to mention the Troika, aka the Creditors) and found lacking, said depositors no longer believe in the full faith (ignore credit) of the Greek banking system.It may have been the Greek government’s final test.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Did These Former Fed Members Admit Mathematically, Logically, & In Reality: “It’s Over”?
Why Did These Former Fed Members Admit Mathematically, Logically, & In Reality: “It’s Over”?
In the ironically titled “Paying For The Past” presentation, none other than Dick Fisher, Al Greenspan, and Larry Lindsey appear to have crossed the Rubicon of denial, lies, and deception to the dark-side of accepting reality. As Bill Holter asks, why exactly would these former Federal Reservists hint that, mathematically, logically, intuitively and in real life, IT’S OVER! Do they now realize what the crazy gold bugs have been saying all along is true and the day of reckoning is very close at hand. They must be trying to get “out in front” of what is coming so they’re on the record for historical and “legacy” purposes. Nothing else makes any sense.
As Bill Holter details…I could only chuckle after watching the interview because my entire writing can now consist of “yeah, what they said!”. Rather than write an entire article on this, I believe it might be better to let you watch what I was going to write, and we can move on to the “motives” of these three telling “mostly” the truth. If you watch this interview, please keep in mind this one question “…and the alternative is”?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Bernanke & Greenspan Have Destroyed America” Schiff & Maloney Warn “People Don’t Realize What Is Coming”
“Bernanke & Greenspan Have Destroyed America” Schiff & Maloney Warn “People Don’t Realize What Is Coming”
Ali and Frazier, Laurel and Hardy, Mayweather and Pacquiao, Liesman and Santelli, and now Schiff and Maloney. Peter and Mike join clash of the titan-like to discuss their investment strategies and expose the charts the government doesn’t want you to seeas “people like Bernanke are taken seriously still and the people that did predict [the crisis] are dismissed as lunatics half the time.” The wide-reaching conversation covers everything from gold and stocks to The Fed and The Dollar – Bernanke “took the coward’s way out because all he did was exacerbate the problems to postpone the day of reckoning.” The air is coming out of the bubble, they warn, “Bernanke and Greenspan have absolutely destroyed America. People don’t realize what is coming…”
Full transcript below:
Mike: I was in Puerto Rico a little while back and Peter Schiff invited me over to his house and we were just amazed at how we are exactly on the same page when it comes to everything economically. And so he just made a trip out to California near my offices and we decided we’d get together and discuss some of this stuff. So on your travels Peter lately you were just at a show you were speaking. Where were you at?
Peter: I was in Las Vegas. It’s great to see you again Mike. I was speaking to a very main stream audience of hedge fund managers at an annual conference there. And what was very interesting is even though the audience was, as I said, very main stream, and I was on a panel with a lot of very high profile, main stream individuals, the only person that really got applause was me.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article or view the interview…
Tyranny: It Pisses Me Off
Tyranny: It Pisses Me Off
Tyranny is not a wholly definable condition. There are many forms of tyranny and many levels of control that exist in any one society at any given time. In fact, the most despicable forms of tyranny are often the most subtle; the kinds of tyranny in which the oppressed are deluded into thinking that because they have “choices”, that necessarily makes them “free”. Tyranny at it’s very core is not always the removal of choice, but the filtering of choice – the erasure of options leaving only choices most beneficial to the system and its controllers.
The choice may be between freedom and security, individual opinion and societal coherency, personal principle or collective indulgeance, catastrophic war or disaster multiplied by complacency, terrorism or surveillance, economic manipulation or financial Armageddon. We are presented with these so called choices everyday and they are about to become even more of a bane in our regular lives. But these are often engineered options that do not represent reality. We are led to believe that only one path or the other can be taken; that there is no honorable way, only the lesser of two evils. I am done with false choices and the lesser of two evils. I prefer to create my own options.
Beyond method lies motivation; and tyranny begins where the best of intentions end. Every despotic action by government and collectivists today, from the NDAA, to the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, to mass electronic surveillance, to drones in our skies, to political correctness and social justice warrior tirades; all are given rationalization through “noble intentions”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Looking for Some Answers
Looking for Some Answers
A few months back John Michael Greer, over at the Archdruid Report, wrote an essay about how we might begin to tackle the huge mental and emotional burden of dealing with collapse. It was noted that, for the most part, the majority of people simply don’t want to think about or discuss the way in which we humans are accelerating towards an ecological brick wall and would instead prefer to either lose themselves in fantasy worlds of their own or others’ making. Thus, many people like to lose themselves in video games, TV series and dreams of cornucopian splendour where we will all shortly be living the good life, just as British PM David Cameron announced yesterday (if we vote for him). Surrounding yourself with people who think just like you do and only exposing yourself to information sources that bolster your hoped-for belief that ‘things are going okay’ and ‘the experts are in charge’ adds some comforting texture to this fantasy.
Since I stopped playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was about 13 I’ve not been particularly interested in fantasy worlds. For me, reality is where it’s at. But reality sometimes hurts, and so when reality does actually bite, there are two ways of dealing with it. The first is to anaesthetise yourself so that it doesn’t hurt as much – either by way of the above-mentioned mental escape avenues, or by literally anaesthetising your brain and nervous system with alcohol and drugs. Unfortunately for society as a whole, most people end up choosing the latter option, and we see spiralling problems of addiction, domestic violence, depression and many other ills as a result.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Truth? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Truth
Truth? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Truth
In the previous posting, The Grand Manipulation, I again wrote about the false reality that government manipulation of information and control over explanations creates for Americans and others who have subordinated themselves to Washington.
Consider the “war on terror.” According to a Nobel economist and a Harvard University budget expert, Washington’s 14 years of war on terror has cost Americans a minimum of $6 trillion. That’s 6,000 billion dollars. This sum, together with the current PayRoll tax revenues is enough to keep Social Security and Medicare in the black for years to come. Without the vast sum wasted on the war on terror, Republicans would not have an excuse to be trying to cut Social Security and Medicare for budget reasons and to privatize the old age pensions and health care of people, thus turning Medicare and Social Security pensions into fee income for Wall Street.
Combatting terrorism is the excuse for squandering a minimum of $6,000 billion dollars.
What were the terrorist events that serve as a basis for this expenditure?
There are five: 9/11, the London transport system bombings, the Spanish train bombing, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the French Charlie Hebdo rifle attack.
In other words, 5 events in 14 years.
The loss of life in all these events combined is minuscule compared to the loss of life in the war on terror. Even the deaths of our own soldiers is greater. Washington’s wars against terror have caused more deaths of Americans than the alleged terrorist events themselves.
But were they terrorist events?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Fox News Creates Its Own Insane Reality
Every once in a while a Fox personality says something so outlandish he shocks himself. Such was the case when Fox Business host Charles Payne got amped up over Michael Moore’s American Sniper criticism and unleashed a bizarre reading of America’s overseas military efforts. “We have saved the planet,” he shouted at the camera, to the visible discomfort of his cohosts, “and if we go away as America’s policeman, it will be hell to pay.”
The statement was outrage click-gold, but its virality obscured a crucial quality: even a market-drunk paleocapitalist like Payne doesn’t actually believe the American-produced quagmire in Iraq was the real-world equivalent of the Avengers.
Payne’s outburst followed a solid week of escalating rhetoric against Moore, Seth Rogen and other critics of the film. Fox hosts first mounted defenses of Chris Kyle, then of snipers, then of the military, and finally of the Iraq debacle. By the time Payne was plied with Moore’s quote, the network had made the saintliness of the U.S.’s war effort a precondition of Kyle’s defense. Though it sounded outlandish to the rest of us, it was actually just Payne walking that sentiment one step further.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
TRANSCENDING THE CONTROL SYSTEM: YOU ARE NOT A NUMBER
TRANSCENDING THE CONTROL SYSTEM: YOU ARE NOT A NUMBER
If you are not shaping your own reality, then someone else is doing it for you.
The Control System serves up the default reality configuration for those who do not determine their own. There is no neutrality. Each individual has a prescribed belief system downloaded into their head via repeated containment encoding* that emanates from parenting, schooling, sociological trends, organized religion and the mainstream media. The ultra-saturation of this mass hypnosis is so pervasive and well established that most people no longer wish to think for themselves, preferring instead to slip into the anesthetizing pre-packaged reality they have grown to venerate.
For those who have chosen a path of awakening, the study of esoteric knowledge and the transcendent journey itself automatically formulates a deprogramming procedure to remove Control System sludge from one’s personal world view. An enema for the mind. As the transparent absurdity of the old hierarchical systems is perceived, a dynamic gnosis of the sacred and sovereign nature of one’s own being starts to resonate new harmonic insights and deeper universal connections. All part of the natural progress of the soul. In stark contrast, for the other 7 billion sleepers on the planet, ever deeper and more elaborate unreality indoctrination is conjured upon them to constrain any sense of selfhood.
The manufactured scarcity of resources like clean drinking water, nutritious food and proper shelter makes survival a fulltime occupation for many. In these conditions, considerations of personal growth or self-actualization are remote, low-priority concepts at best. Even for those residing in rich nations, a coordinated barrage of industrialization, religion, government and sensual distraction continues to successfully lay down the blue print of how one should live a synthetic life. Either way, with disempowered spirits and blunted minds, the psychic, emotional and kinetic energies of the masses are rerouted into the Control System machine, making the natural process of personal awakening not only highly improbable, but distinctly unappealing. The psychology of ‘previous investment’ firmly anchors people into the consumer plantation paradigm, having been addicted to it all their lives, pouring emotional and financial resources into its very heart. To pull the plug on such a profound relationship is unthinkable. Thus, many will fiercely defend their right to dwell within the Matrix.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“I’d Like to Change the World, but I Don’t Know How So I’ll Leave it Up to You”
“I’d Like to Change the World, but I Don’t Know How So I’ll Leave it Up to You”
What a great lyric that is from the late 60′s, early 70′s English band ’10 Years After’. I believe this describes that uneasy feeling of discontent that sits deep in the stomach, beneath the day to day exteriors, of so many people today. The world is like a black hole in that it seems to be getting smaller and smaller as the years go by but also heavier and heavier with each passing day.
When I was a teenager and my friends and I were taking reality obscuring substances, one of my buddies (this means you Nichol) would stop us at certain points throughout the night for a reality check. This was just a few moments where we’d all gather our senses to make sure the world was still right and then we’d venture back into obscurity. I feel that reality is an old world term. There is no reality anymore. With advances in technology came unending possibilities of if you can dream it ‘they’ can make it so. The ubiquitous flow of information ensures that the truth is always available but never known with certainty. It means there is no such thing as a reality check. It’s like that dream inside a dream inside a dream. Which reality is real anymore? How deep does the rabbit hole go?
We are raised with pretty standard ideals of what the world is meant to be but these ideals seem to take place only in the movies. It must be incredibly difficult for our young people to reconcile the two worlds, I know it is for me. That which they learn as a child and that which they find has replaced it as a young adult. Our ‘leaders’ our despicable arrogant and egotistical fools who pretend we elect them because we don’t see them for what they are. But we elect them because we feel we have no choice. We know what we want the world to be. We know what it should look and feel like. And we know it is not the world in which we live today. “I know I’d like to change the world but I don’t know how and so I’ll leave it up to you”. And so we continue to move forward down this path each step uneasy as though something ungood is lurking just around the next corner.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
HEAD IN THE SAND, ASS IN THE SKY
HEAD IN THE SAND, ASS IN THE SKY
There are far too many people that refuse to question or investigate the world around them with a clear, logical and rational mind. They don’t want to know. Most of them are gripped by fear of knowing the truth. They would prefer to listen to what their authorities tell them, no matter how absurd it is, rather than question or expose the deceptions that are presented to them as facts. Wouldn’t you want to know if someone is lying to you?
Take, for example, the collapse of the World Trade Center, on Sept. 11, 2001. To this day, many people refuse to look at the piles of evidence pointing to the truth. They believe whatever the mass media and the government tell them. Such people are seriously programmed to believe whatever the authorities tell them without question. Many have been sufficiently programmed to become angry whenever the subject is brought up, and ridicule those that try to expose the deception. People have become so deeply programmed, that they can’t even acknowledge the chemtrails that hover above their heads daily. That is serious denial. Don’t you think that something is seriously wrong with this picture?
You would think that if the government, the politicians, the banks and the corporations are not only corrupt, but are also robbing the people blind and poisoning them with chemically tainted food, fluoride and vaccines; well, wouldn’t you want to know about it? Don’t you want to know why or what they are spraying over our heads? What kind of person would rather pretend that it’s not happening? This is major denial. It is completely devoid of any rationality. What they are ignoring has the power to crush them, yet somehow they believe that if they just pretend that everything is fine, then there’s nothing to worry about.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak Oil: What Does Any Of This Mean? – Peak Oil Matters
Peak Oil: What Does Any Of This Mean? – Peak Oil Matters.
Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize (for his book The Quest) has earned him a fair amount of street cred, judging by how often his opinions are solicited on the state of fossil fuel supply and production. I haven’t read the book, but I’d be lying if I said that anyone worthy of a Pulitzer Prize doesn’t merit a measure of respect regardless of what one thinks of her or his opinions or ideologies.
When Cornucopians have run out of the few partial- or pseudo-facts they rely upon as the foundation for the magnificent spin they place on finite resources and reality, after a while the lines blur between plausible and “huh?” It would appear that major literary rewards does not make one immune to that assessment, nor elevate them to a position where they are not obliged to resort to the same puffery and light-on-facts commentary so prevalent in our public discourse on peak oil and climate change, among other issues of considerable impact.
Earlier this year, we were treated to the observations below by Mr. Yergin in aninterview conducted by McKinsey. My comments follow in [ ].
To his credit—and at least from my observations in reading a dozen or so articles of his over the past few years—he does have a broader perspective on how we must meet our energy needs in the future.
But like too many of his peers, the unwillingness to address not just specifics, but acknowledge the limitations and legitimate concerns of fossil fuel production (which he must certainly understand) winds up doing more of a disservice to the public than anything else. If presumed experts are telling only part of the story, what’s the point?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Markets and reality disconnected » The Cobden Centre
Markets and reality disconnected » The Cobden Centre.
The behaviour of financial markets these days is frankly divorced from reality, with value-investing banished.
Markets have become distorted by Rumsfeld-knowns such as interest rate policy and “market guidance”, and Rumsfeld-unknowns such as undeclared market intervention by the authorities. On top of these distortions there is remote investing by computers programmed with algorithms and high-frequency traders, unable to make human value-assessments.
Take just one instance of possible “market guidance” that occurred this week. On Thursday 16th October, James Dullard of the St Louis Fed hinted that QE might be extended. In the ensuing four trading sessions the Dow rallied over 5%. Was this comment sparked by signs of slowing economic growth, or by a desire to buoy up sliding equity markets? Then there is the vested interest of keeping government funding costs low, which raises the question whether or not exceptionally low bond yields, particularly in the Eurozone, are by design or accidental.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
