Iranian President Wants Jerusalem Liberated ‘From the Yoke of Israel’

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “wishes” for Jerusalem to be liberated “from the yoke of Israel,” according to state-run media reports.

Rouhani expressed his desire during a meeting with Palestinian Parliament Speaker Salim Zanoun, who has been in Tehran for meetings with top officials.

“One of the wishes of the Iranian nation is liberation of the Holy Quds,” the Islamic name for Jerusalem, Rouhani was quoted as saying in the meeting by Iran’s Fars News Agency.

Rouhani went on to express hope that “the Palestinian nation and the entire Muslim world will find a serious solution to this occupation through unity and integrity.”

Zanoun in a separate meeting with Iranian leaders celebrated Iran as a “true supporter of the Palestinians.”

Credi to Washington Free Beacon

Russian Official Accuses US of Hypocrisy Over Syria

MOSCOW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) – The United States’ public rhetoric about the need to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad does not match its statements in private, Russia's top diplomat said Thursday.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a press conference in Baghdad that in closed-door conversations the US had agreed with Russia – Damascus's main ally – that the main danger in Syria is not the actions of Assad, but the rise of terrorism.

Some of the armed opposition groups battling the Syrian government have links to international radical Islamic organizations.

The US and its allies, who have supported the opposition during the three-year conflict, have repeatedly blamed the harsh crackdown by the Assad regime for the rising death toll in the war-torn country and called for the Syrian leader to step down to facilitate the formation of a transitional government and a cessation of hostilities.

On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russia of pouring fuel on the fire by supplying the Assad regime with arms and aid.

Moscow insists that the violence is the outcome of domestic terrorism and that Russian arms shipments are only fulfilling existing contracts.

The acrimonious comments came just days after an international peace conference brokered by the two countries failed to produce any compromise between the entrenched sides of the conflict.

Over 130,000 people have been killed and around 7 million displaced as a result of the ongoing civil war, according to UN estimates.

Credit to RIA Novosti

The Polar Vortex is back.

Just when you thought you were safe - the Polar Vortex is back.

The Midwest and North East are thawing out after being covered with more than a foot of snow over the past week, but forecasters have warned it won't be for long as another cold front is on its way.

The wintry storm is expected to slam the Midwest this weekend, bringing ferocious winds and freezing temperatures as low as 35 degrees below normal.

After rattling the Midwest, it will stretch into the South and East at the start of next week, according to Weather Underground.




Snow escape: A 6 to 10 day forecast shows a swathe of cold temperatures expected to hit the country next week - with the Midwest, South and East expected to get temperatures colder than normal

A six-to-ten-day forecast from NOAA also reveals a terrifying swathe of cold temperatures starting in the Midwest on Tuesday and stretching south and to the coast - where the mercury is expected to plummet to temperatures below average, while a higher than average amount of rain is also due.

'Temperatures 20°F below normal will likely invade the Upper Midwest on Sunday, and gradually spread southeastwards during the week,' Dr Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground said.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563877/Its-Polar-Vortex-set-return-weekend.html#ixzz2ttJG4zbu

The loss of the only other Middle East leader ready to publicly decry President Obama’s policies on Iran and Syria

The live wire of the Saudi royal house’s drive against President Barack Obama’s détente with Tehran has been dropped. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s National Security Adviser and Intelligence Director, has not been seen for more than a month. He was reported by DEBKAfile’s US and Saudi sources Wednesday, Feb. 19, to have been removed from the tight policy-making circle in Riyadh.

For Israel’s Binyamin Netanyahu, this counts significantly as the loss of the only other Middle East leader ready to publicly decry President Obama’s policies on Iran and Syria as promoting the negative forces in the region and damaging to America’s own interests.

As recently as Tuesday, Netanyahu declared: “I would like to tell the world today that Iran has changed neither its aggressive policy nor its brutal character... Iran continues to support the Assad regime which is slaughtering its own people.”

Prince Bandar was widely reported in the Middle East to be in secret ties with Israeli intelligence on Saudi and Israeli moves against Iran. Tehran claimed more than once that he had paid clandestine visits to Tel Aviv. Those ties, such as they were, may be presumed to have been discontinued following his removal.

There has been no official word from Riyadh disclosing any change in Bandar’s status. Our sources report that the prince, a long-serving ambassador to the United States, vanished off Saudi and Middle East radar screens in mid-January, shortly before he was scheduled to visit Washington to arrange President Obama’s forthcoming trip to Riyadh in the last week of March.

Bandar never arrived in Washington and no one in Riyadh was ready to answer questions about his whereabouts. US sources were more forthcoming - although less complimentary. In some reports he was dismissed as “hotheaded” or “erratic.”

The Saudi intelligence chief crossed the Americans by supplying weapons and money to Syrian rebels belonging to Islamist militias – though not al Qaeda. He was the driving force behind the formation of the Islamic Front coalition, which last month beat the Free Syrian Army backed by Washington into the ground.
Some Gulf sources say he is paying the price for the kingdom’s failure in Syria. Bandar promised King Abdullah thatg he would take care of getting rid of Bashar Assad. He not only fell down on this task, but he generated a clash between the Obama administration and the Saudi throne on the Syrian issue, say those sources.

The most striking evidence of his comedown came from his absence from the secret conclave held recently by Middle East intelligence chiefs to coordinate their positions on Syrian with Washington.

Instead of Prince Bandar, his seat was taken by his leading adversary on Syria, the Saudi Interior Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

Prince Mohammed is a favorite at the White House and a close friend of Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director John Brennan.

The Saudi interior minister, by taking Bandar’s place at this important forum, may also be stepping into his shoes as intelligence chief – albeit without the formality of an official notice from Riyadh.




Credit to DEBKAfile

Twelve Dates Which Led to the Destruction of America

Recently, I have been seeing allegations of fear monger, doom and gloom, etc., being thrown about as writers and broadcasters who dare to identify the threats facing the American people. Some people have gone so far as to engage in abject denial (e.g. cognitive dissonance) so they can continue to hide within their self-protected enclaves of mindless entertainment as a means to perpetuate self-deception.

The reality is that the people who use the term “doom and gloom” to describe the writers who describe the events which are shaking our nation to its core, you are guilty of one of two things. Either you are incredibly ignorant about the events swirling around you or have you possess a lack personal courage because you do not have the guts to stand up to tyranny when it is in your face.

Some present the term “doom and gloom” as if it is a recent phenomenon made up by a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists to profit from rallying the American people to fight against some imaginary enemy that poses no real  threat. Selling fear is the most common allegation.

The doom and gloom facing this country is not a recent, pop phenomenon. These events have been decades in the making for it is hard to slay a nation as great as America once was. It took several generations for the globalists to destroy the foundations of this country.

There was a time that this country could have still saved itself. We could have occupied the “Bastards from Basel” and laid waste to any power that would have opposed our Republic and what it stood for. When did America cross that threshold and when did the US begin to crumble as an empire?

The Dirty Dozen

There are 12 key dates that Americas can point to in terms of pinpointing when America began to crumble:

1. The year 1913 is an important year because it marked the year that the banksters totally gained control over our economy through the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. This culminated in the bankers, through Franklin Roosevelt removing America from the gold standard and marked the ushering in of controlling America through debt management.

2. In 1944, at the Bretton Woods Agreement Conference, the United States totally surrendered its sovereignty to the forces of the Rothschild/Rockefeller banking forces by forcing the nations of the world to accept the dictates of the centralized banking system.

3. In 1947, the NSA and CIA became operational and marked the birth of the national police state surveillance grid. The CIA, an outgrowth of the WWII spy organization, the OSS, became a permanent structure in the American landscape. Today, the CIA is a private corporation which operates as a prostitute for global banking interests as they do not represent the United States.

4. In 1948, we witnessed the creation of the United Nations on land donated by the Rockefeller family. This marked the beginning  of the end of political sovereignty in the United States. Mark my words, when the gun confiscation troops come to your home, they will be UN blue-helmeted troops operating under the authority of the UN Small Arms Treaty, which John Kerry recently and unconstitutionally signed without the required approval of the Senate. Certainly, the creation of ICELEI and Agenda 21 has UN origins and this cancer upon America, has its roots in the United Nations.

5. The 1960 election was primarily determined by the images on television as the underdog, the charismatic JFK, defeated the favorite, Richard Nixon. Since that time, many Americans have been conditioned to ignore the encroachment of tyranny because of television and the subsequent propagandizing of this medium of communication.

6. The outlawing of prayer in the classroom in 1962 was a key date with regard to the loss of moral authority in our country. Although Congress and the Supreme Court begin each session with a prayer,our children were taught that secular authority reigned supreme over God’s word. In the five decades since America cross this threshold, what has happened to the moral integrity of this country?

7. In 1968, the United States became a nation that imported more than it exported as Congress allowed corporations, with impunity, to relocate overseas for reasons of cheap labor and monopolistic price-fixing. This trend continued through the free trade agreements until, today, we have a mere 14% left of what was once our proud American manufacturing base.

8. On September 11, 2001, the national police state surveillance grid reached maturity. This event created, under the guise of national security, the American Stasi, The Department of Homeland Security. It has also created the Patriot Acts in which every communication that we engage in is monitored, but only for our own protection of course. This event also gave license to blue-uniformed, pot-bellied perverts to commit sexual assault upon the American traveling public through the creation of the TSA. It also gave rise to the prominence of FEMA to control every resource, every asset and even our freedom.

9. In 2008, this nation elected Obama to the presidency despite serious questions regarding his true nationality, his stunning lack of political experience and his decided lack of devotion to the Constitutional ideals emanating from the days of his “community activism” and his subsequent mentoring and support from former Weathermen Underground leaders, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorne. Can anyone name even one thing that this President has accomplished on behalf of the American people? Please just name one thing?…….  That is what I thought.

10. In 2010, America committed economic suicide through the passage and eventual administration of Obamacare. Obamacare will not only lead to the premature deaths of millions of Americans through the denial of medical service in deference to corporate profits, it will eventually lead to the economic death of the nation through the destruction of small business, the backbone of America, through mandated medical care coverage for employees of small businesses. This set into motion that our biggest employer, small business, was going to fail in large numbers.

11. In 2011, the United States blew up the United States Constitution when Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA obliterated all civil liberties because this marked the day that our government became the Gestapo, the Stasi and the KGB all rolled into one organization. Any government that can imprison and indefinitely detain its citizens without due process of law is an unmasked dictatorship which has genocidal intentions waiting in the wings.

12. The twelfth and final date, from 1870- present, contains the date that Rockefeller’s Standard Oil set into motion the creation of the American corporatocracy in which corporations, not citizens run the government of the United States.

A Simple Fix

The American people could have stopped the tyranny in its tracks if they would have done one thing. And that one thing would have been to outlaw every campaign contribution and lobbying efforts by the corporations which turned our elected representatives into a pack of hedonistic whores. This idea is simple but would have proven effective, if we would have had the moral courage to enforce this concept.

Conclusion

To those that accuse myself and my brethren of fear mongering and promoting doom and gloom, it should be obvious that the destruction of this country has been in the works for a lot longer than anyone of us has been writing and broadcasting. To these people, I say please step aside and let the real men and women of this country do their job, which is to wake up enough people so we can at least attempt to oppose the imposition of the New World Order.

In the next part of this series, I am going to cover the threats to our way of life and existence on a micro level as the effects of these 12 dates have come home to roost in the dismantling of our daily lives.

Credit to Common Sense

Missing Military-Industrial-Complex Money

James Hall
Activist Post

When Major General Smedley Butler made his case, "War is a Racket" he did not pull any punches.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! That is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it.
The business of military procurement has multiplied since his fateful revelations.

Not satisfied with fair profits or feasible competition, the practices of the defense corporatists illustrate one aspect of waste, graft and systemic bribery. William D. Hartung describes the consolidation and expanse of a select group of companies in the paper, The Military-Industrial Complex Revisited: Shifting Patterns of Military Contracting in the Post-9/11 Period

Many of the same companies that benefited from increased Pentagon and war spending were top contractors for other security related agencies. For example, Lockheed Martin was not only the top contractor for the Pentagon, but it also ranked number one at the Department of Energy; number eight at the Department of Homeland Security (Boeing was number one); number two at the State Department; and number three at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Contracts let by these agencies were only a fraction of the levels awarded by the Pentagon, but they were significant nonetheless. For example, the Department of Homeland Security issued $13.4 billion in contracts in FY2008, NASA $15.9 billion, the State Department $5.5 billion, and the Department of Energy $24.6 billion.

This dramatic growth in budgets is even more significant, when viewed in the context of world expenditures of other counties. Leaving aside the relative merits of the dangers and risk of external threats, the gigantic enterprise of fostering the biggest military apparatus in history has made select factions rich at the expense of the many.

Jonathan Turley in "Pentagon Plugs: New Study Finds Pentagon Has Hidden Trillions In Missing Money And Equipment," references an example on how the overall avoidance of financial accountability, outright fraud and intentional concealment operates.

A new report has detailed how the military has cooked the books to hide trillions, that’s right trillions, in missing money and equipment. The military calls them "plugs," a curious term for fraud. These are knowingly fake figures used to hide the fact that there is no accurate record of the money.

The plugs are generally the work of the office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon’s main accounting agency. Required to complete an audit, the staff simply faked the numbers.Reuter’s reports on a "Special Report: The Pentagon's doctored ledgers conceal epic waste."

Over the past 10 years, the Defense Department has signed contracts for the provision of more than $3 trillion in goods and services. How much of that money is wasted in overpayments to contractors, or was never spent and never remitted to the Treasury, is a mystery. That's because of a massive backlog of "closeouts" - audits meant to ensure that a contract was fulfilled and the money ended up in the right place.Now trillions are sums that are unimaginable The Department of the Treasury acknowledges that U.S. gold reserves (if you believe their figures) total $11,041,059,958.16 as of their Current Report: January 31, 2014.

An eleven billion dollars equivalent is a mere drop in the bucket to the monies allocated to the military and homeland security. Taxpayers are regularly deceived about the costs. Congress is kept in the dark about black programs. And the war racket keeps funneling and siphoning off unknown sums to accounts that only a super computer can track.


Corporatocracy: How the Corporate Welfare State Divides and Conquers is a video by James Corbett that provides an insightful analysis which establishes a surreal account how the oligarchy operates. The financial shenanigans of corporatists contribute to the interlocking directorates, which run the money pit that keeps the empire operating.

A rational reform of a depraved money laundering arrangement is impossible without a fundamental repudiation of the internationalist foreign policy doctrines that permeates the State Department. Funding advanced technological warfare platforms that are unheard of to even congressional oversight is profoundly unconstitutional.

When such practices become routine, the economic incentives breed crooked abuses. The obligations for responsible public policy are methodically destroyed, when transparency is eliminated.

Washington's Blog provides several useful sources that document the extent of the problem in "$8.5 TRILLION In Taxpayer Money Doled Out By Congress To The Pentagon Since 1996 … Has NEVER Been Accounted For" and sums up with a bleak assessment.

The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China’s economic output last year.Evidently, the elites that benefit from bilking appropriations and the board members that steer the defense contractors want the con to continue. For all the money directed towards maintaining the war machine, our actual security become less secure.

Banks launder ill-gotten gain, as prevailing practice, in the normal course of business because the arm merchants are protected players in the trade. The reprehensible circle that the dogs of war unleash the cash flow from their illicit drug sales, through arms sales, allows for the smooth transfer of hidden blood money into number accounts.

Such an organized system of mutual payoffs greases the ever growing industry of fear and destruction. All the missing money is buried in the unknown cashes of subterranean tyranny. Creating false flag threats allows for imaginary scourges to be new enemies. Protection from such manufactured foes is the real business of the military-industrial-complex.

So, when more details surface about the lost and unaccounted military funding money, it is just part of the price of keeping you safe.


Credit to Activist Post

The Chinese Dominoes Are About To Fall: Complete List Of Upcoming Trust Defaults

As has been widely reported on these pages in the past month, after a near-reality experience almost claimed the first material Chinese shadow banking default, the Chinese government and central bank did what they do best: a mysterious "white knight" emerged out of nowhere, and bailed out the Credit Equals Gold #1 Trust. A few days later, we reported that China Development Bank lent 2 billion yuan to coal company Shanxi Liansheng, which owes almost 30b yuan to lenders including banks, trusts and asset management firms. And while we know how "difficult" it was for China to do the wrong thing and encourage moral hazard, despite repeated assurances by one after another PBOC director that this time the central bank means business, we have good news: these two narrowly averted Trust defaults are just the beginning - it is all downhill from here.

As Bank of America reports in an analysis by David Cui, the Trust defaults are about to get hot and heavy. To wit:

We believe that during April to July the market may see many trust products threatening to default, especially those related to coal mines. By our estimate, the first real default most likely could happen in May with a Sichuan lead/zinc trust product worth Rmb140mn. This is because the product is relatively small (so the government may use it as a test case), the underlying asset is not attractive (so little chance of 3rd parties taking it over) and we also have heard very little on parties involved trying to work things out. Whether this will trigger an avalanche of future trust defaults remains to be seen and this presents a key risk to the market in our opinion.

... it’s still possible that many of the upcoming cases in Apr-July may get worked out one way or the other. Nevertheless, as we believe that many of the underlying assets of the trust products are insolvent, it’s a matter of time that many products will ultimately default, in our view. Various bail-outs will only delay the inevitable.

From BofA's David Cui

12 potential defaults reported by the media

Table 1 summarizes the information on the 12 major potential defaults in the trust industry that have been reported by the media. Most of them are coal mine related and heavily concentrated in one area, Shanxi Province. So far it seems to us that most of them may get extended upon the due date. The only exception over the next few months appears to be a product issued by China Credit Trust for a lead and zinc miner in Sichuan, Nonggeshan. Even without any major default over the next few months, the process of debt restructuring can be messy and weigh heavily on market sentiment.

19 Feb 2014, Rmb109mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Jilin Trust

• Details: This Rmb109mn tranche is part of a six-tranche trust product worth a total of Rmb973mn arranged by Jilin Trust for Liansheng, a Shanxi coal miner. The other five tranches have matured since 2H 2013 and remain overdue.
• Potential outcome: Repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Liansheng is undergoing a debt restructuring coordinated by the Shanxi provincial government. 1) The provincial government plans to help out involved financial institutions to ensure the region’s access to ongoing financing. According to people close to the situation, the implicit guarantee practice will most likely continue with the Liansheng’s case. 2) Trust companies may have to follow banks to help the miner out. Banks have agreed to extend their mid/long term loans by three years. Top 3 banks have total debts of Rmb10.6bn to Liansheng; top 3 trust lenders, Rmb3.7bn.

(Shanghai Securities News, 2/11; Economic Information, 2/13)

21 Feb 2014, Rmb500mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Shanxi Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the Jilin Trust case.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)

07 Mar 2014, Rmb664mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Changan Trust

• Details: Other than the Rmb664mn product to mature on Mar 7, Changan Trust arranged another two products for Liansheng, totaling Rmb536mn which matured in Nov 2013. Both products remain overdue.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)

31 Mar 2014, Rmb196mn borrowed by Magic Property & arranged by CITIC Trust

• Details: invested in an office building in Chongqing. The Chongqing developer ran into financial problems in mid-2013. CITIC Trust tried to auction the collateral but failed to do so because the developer has sold the collateral and also mortgaged it to a few other lenders.
• Potential outcome: The developer and the trust company may share the repayment.
• Reasons: 1) When CITIC Trust sold the product, it did not specify the underlying investment project. 2) The local government has intervened, fearing social unrest. A local buyer of a unit in the office building committed suicide as he/she could not obtain the title to the property due to the title dispute between the trust and the developer.

(Source: Financial Planning Weekly, 3/6/2013; Guangzhou Daily, 4/6/2013, Boxun, 5/10/2013)

14 May 2014, Rmb1.5bn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by China Jiangxi International Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other three Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)

30 May 2014, Rmb140mn borrowed by Nonggeshan & arranged by China Credit Trust

• Details: invested in a lead and zinc mine in Sichuan.
• Potential outcome: Likely to default.
• Reasons: 1) Compared to coal mines of Zhenfu and Liansheng, the lead and zinc mine is a much less attractive asset: it is located in the mountains over 5,000 meters in altitude, inaccessible for 6 months of the year due to weather conditions, with low lead/zinc content; 2) According to an unnamed regulator, the central government is comfortable with trust defaults in the range of Rmb100-200mn.

(Source: 21st Century Business Herald, 31/7/2012; Caiing, 1/27)

25 Jul 2014, Rmb1.3bn borrowed by Xinbeifang & arranged by China Credit Trust

• Details: Xinbeifang is another Shanxi coal miner.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Xinbeifang is negotiating with an SOE to sell some of its coal mine assets.

(Source: China Securities Journal, 1/15)

27 Jul 2014, Rmb319mn borrowed by Hongsheng & arranged by Huarong Trust

• Details: Hongsheng is a Shanxi coal miner. Huarong sold another trust product for it which will mature in 4 September 2014, worth Rmb63mn.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Hongsheng may have assets to secure more financing. It issued these two trust products to replace another trust product that matured in Q3 2012. The owner also issued other trust products using his personal property assets as collateral and raised Rmb1.2bn.

(21st Century Business Herald, 20/12/2013)

7 Sept 2014: Rmb400mn borrowed by Zengdai & arranged by CCB Trust

• Details: 1) The proceeds of the product were invested in financial markets. 2) Its 1st tranche, worth Rmb400mn, matured in Mar 2013 with a 38% loss vs. an expected return of 20-30%. Investors agreed to extend the maturity of the product to Sept 2014. 3) Its 2nd tranche, worth Rmb359mn, matured in June 2013 with a 31% loss vs. an expected return of 20-30%. Investors agreed to extend the maturity of the 2nd tranche to Dec 2014.
• Potential outcome: The trust company and the investment company may share the losses.
• Reasons: 1) The investment company refused to repay investors in full at the original due date so the trust company may have to chip in; 2) By Jan 2014, the 1st tranche reported a narrower loss of 24%, and the 2nd tranche, also a narrower loss of 13%; 3) Zengdai may pay on behalf of its investment company for reputation’s sake.

(Source: Securities Daily, 9/7/2013; CCB Trust)

20 Nov 2014, Rmb600mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by China Jiangxi Int'l Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)

23 Dec2014: Rmb1.1bn borrowed by Xiaoyi Dewei & arranged by China Resources Trust

• Details: Xiaoyi Dewei is a Shanxi coal miner. The trust product originally matured in Dec 2013 but repayment was extended to Dec 2014.
• Potential outcome: Likely to default.
• Reason: Both the miner and the trust company refused to repay investors in full at the original due date. There has been no reporting on asset sales by Xiaoyi Dewei.

(Source: Financial Planning Weekly, 11 Nov 2013)

15 Jan 2015, Rmb1.2bn borrowed by Hongsheng’s owner & arranged by Minmetals Trust

• Details: the collateral is the Shanxi coal miner’s personal property assets.
• Potential outcome: May be replaced by a new trust product.
• Reason: Same as the July 2014 Rmb319mn trust product issued by Huarong Trust.

(21st Century Business Herald, 20/12/2013)

2Q/3Q 2014 – the next peak maturing period for collective trusts

We consider the trust market the most vulnerable part of the major financing channels for companies, i.e. loan, corporate bond and trust. The quality of the borrowers in the trust market tends to among the lowest. Within the trust market, collective trust products, i.e. those sold to more than one investor, tend to be risker than single trust products, i.e. those sold to a single investor. This is because investors in single trust products tend to be more substantial in resources, thus most likely more sophisticated in their risk control.

The Wind database lists close to 12,000 collective trust products, worth Rmb1.34tr, which cover roughly half of the collective trust market (Rmb2.72tr as of the end of 2013). It has reasonably good quality data series on the issuing dates and amounts raised. However, data on maturing dates are sporadic. We estimate that the average duration of the trust products is around 2 years. Based on this assumption and the issuing dates, we have mapped out a rough maturing profile of the collective trust market. As we can see from Chart 1, 2Q and 3Q this year will be the next peak maturing period for this market.

Coal mine trusts maturity schedule

We went through the offering documents of the top 200 collective trust products by size (the smallest being Rmb400mn), worth some Rmb145bn in total. They represent roughly 10% of the trust products in the Wind database and 5% of the overall collective trust market. We identified the industries of the issuers, the regions where their businesses are located and the maturity dates of the products. Table 2 summarizes the results.

We believe that coal mine trusts are the most likely to default over the coming months because 1) coal price has dropped sharply in recent quarters; 2) most of the issuers are private enterprises; and 3) they tend to be from provinces whose governments rely heavily on resources related income, e.g., Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. On the other hand, the property market has been reasonably buoyant in recent times while LGFVs generally have access to re-financing until the implicit guarantee is removed (a whole different topic worthy another report later). Based on the maturing schedule of the top 200 collective trust products, we expect more noise about coal mine trust defaults around Apr, June and July (Chart 2).

Table 3 lists the coal mine trust products that are in our study.

For the trust market, we only have data on approximately half of the collective trust market, which in turn, accounts for about a quarter of the overall trust market. So essentially, we only covered about 1/8 of the total trust market with our analysis. Single trusts are less risky than collective trusts. Nevertheless, if the solvency issue is a systemic problem as we expect, many single trusts will ultimately default by our assessment.

Our analysis has largely zoomed in on coal mine trusts because they represent the clear and present danger given how depressed the coal market has been. However, property related trusts may come under increasing pressure as we sense that the property market may be turning south in small cities. As a result, some of those related products may threaten to default reasonably soon. Then we have the big unknown – LGFV trusts. Whether and when they may default is largely a political decision in our opinion.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Ukraine & WW3

Ukraine graphic video: Dozens dead, many injured in brutal Kiev clashes