Illuminati Warning 2015: A SCARY Preview Of What's To Come

American Bank Bail-Ins Are Beginning

It would appear that your bank is preparing to go on a bank holiday. No, not a vacation, but a holiday. After reading this article, you may find it prudent to check on the liquidity of your bank accounts and investment monies. Why? Because bank bail-ins appear to be commencing.

The Banks Are Not Our Friends

We are all concerned that one day we will attempt to gain access to our money in our bank accounts and and the banks will refuse to honor the request and keep the money. From an anecdotal perspective, it appears that the day that we cannot gain access to our money is now here. There are two instances that I am personally aware of, that the banks are failing to give their customers full access to THEIR money.

Bail-Ins Appear to Be Beginning

On Monday, one man that I personally know recently attempted to transfer a sizable sum of money (i.e. $110,000) from savings to checking to cover a check he had written for a large purchase. He attempted to move the money through online banking, which nobody should ever engage in, and was unsuccessful. He went to the bank and was subsequently told that there was a problem with his account and he could only transfer about 10% of what he intended to transfer from savings to checking. He inquired as to what the problem was and he was told that the branch did not have access to that information, only that he would not be permitted to make this transfer of funds “at this time”. Today, the charge will hit the bank and the check that he wrote is likely to bounce and will have serious ramifications to his credit. He told me that he is returning to his bank, Chase, with his attorney.

In a more serious situation, a man who has direct deposit from his employer to his bank account, has failed to receive his latest check. The money was due to be paid into his account on December 20, 2014. He called his employer’s accounts payable and was told that the credit had posted on the evening of December 19. Yet, the bank has told this desperate man that they have not received his check. The check also included an end of year bonus and as such is sizable (e.g. in excess of $60,000). This means that the bank has had his money for nine days and cannot account for the money. I have advised this Bank of America account holder to contact the FBI and report this as a crime.

Both victims approached me , about a week apart, because they were both aware that I had previously written articles which are highly critical of the banking system with regard to how insolvent they truly are and they hoped I would have some insight as to what they could to gain access to their money. The purpose of this article is to fire a shot across the bow of the banks and let them know that we are raising the alarms of what is going on. Where there are two instances of bank thievery, there are two hundred cases. I am requesting that anyone with knowledge of bankster crimes against their depositors pass along this information to myself and I will attempt to synthesize the information and report on the trend curves in these matters as they are occurring.

By the way, Mac Salvo, reported this same kind of crime last month.

The Ownership of the Banking System Is In Flux

I had a significant conversation that I wish everyone in the nation who has money in a bank could have listened to. I was relating the stories of the two men who cannot gain full access to their accounts, to an individual who holds a significant position within the banking system. I approached my old friend in the hope that he could provide some insight as to what is going on and what these two individuals could do to pry their money loose.

I was informed that some of the banking system is being purchased and the sale of banking assets is happening in a very covert manner and as long as a sale is pending, a bank does not want to see fluctuations in their net worth. He also told me that there are statistical algorithms that banks have been told that they must stay within because it impacts the baseline value of a bank in a sale. At that moment, I experienced an epiphany. I was aware that I had knowledge which matched word-for-word what my friend was telling me.

George Soros Is the Ultimate Economic Hit Man

Just over 20 years ago, international banker George Soros made his most famous investment by shorting the British pound and pocketing a billion dollars in the process.  Following this watershed event, he has become well known for moving money and then betting on stock market crashes. In several instances, Soros has been known to rig various markets to fail for his own gain as well as the gain of the international banking cartel in Basel known as the Bank of International Settlements.

Several months ago, Soros made raised eyebrows by making  a billion dollar stock bet against the S&P 500. At that particular time, Soros proclaimed, through his actions, that there were warning signs of coming S&P 500 troubles which signaled dangerous times ahead for the US economy. Because Glass-Steagall has been repealed, many banks have a direct and indirect presence in the stock market as evidenced by the folly of the credit-swap derivatives market. Going into the final few days of the year, the American Stock Market has an unprecedented bubble which is reminding many of the months leading of the 1929 Stock Market crash.

Disturbingly, Soros has repeatedly demonstrated that he has had both accurate and advanced knowledge of stock market and banking crashes in the past. Subsequently, savvy investors keep a very close eye on his money movements and resulting holdings as Soros is the “Canary in the mine”. He is the world’s ultimate economic hit man and both bankers and politicians watch his every move with fear and apprehension.

According to a 2014 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it was revealed that Soros sold his holdings in Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America. Soros subsequently moved his money and took up new positions in gold and tech stocks associated with Chinese money movement. Soros has moved his money to RF Micro Devices, Nuance Communications, Marvel Technology Group, Nokia Corp., and Cypress Semiconductor. Soros also boosted his stake in Herbalife and took up a new position in Yamana Gold and AuRico Gold, and New Gold Inc. This sent shockwaves among aware investors in the banking and stock market arena.

Soros’ money movements are significant for several reasons. First, he is now betting against both the U.S. Stock Market and now the three major US domestic banks. Second, Soros has obtained a sizable gold portfolio which is something one would want to do if one were expecting, or causing a crash of currency to occur. Finally, and most significantly, Soros is betting against the solvency of the Federal Reserve by running from the three of the major investors (i.e. the three major banks) in the Federal Reserve. This has a lot to do on why the U.S. and Britain practiced for widespread bank failures on November 10th in a drill facilitated by the FDIC. This is also highly significant  because this is occurring at a time when the Federal Reserve gave permission to various Chinese interests (i.e. all controlled by the Chinese military) to purchase sizable positions in American banking which serves to underwrite and partially fund the Federal Reserve.

It is interesting to note that JP Morgan Chase, earlier in 2014, has sold their property located at One Chase Manhattan Plaza skyscraper to Fosun International, a Chinese investment firm, for  the bargain basement price of $725 million. This is only the latest in a series of New Yorkreal estate purchases by Chinese investors for properties formerly reserved for Federal Reserve members. This is a highly significant event that received only a couple of days of attention, but quickly faded from the front pages. In a future article, I will go into more detail how Soros is setting a trap for both the Chinese and the Federal Reserve. For now, let’s suffice it to say that his actions are helping to set the course for World War III because war is something that desperate nations engage in when they have no other financial options. America, China, Russia and their military allies are quickly approaching this moment.

Why It Is Becoming Difficult to Gain Access to Your Bank Account

On November 16, 2014, I covered the fact that the G20 nations passed a joint resolution to get their nation’s central banking system to declare that your bank account was not defined as money. This was done because the G20 central banks are approaching insolvency. This put your assets at the bottom of the list for FDIC compensation in the event a bank failure.

The fact that these two events happened in close proximity to each other is not surprising. However, it is surprising that these two events (i.e. the bank failure drill and the G20 declaration) happened in such close proximity to each other presents clear signs that the banking industry is preparing to hold on to your money in attempt to stave off financial ruin.

Conclusion

It is important to not leave more than an operating amount of money in your bank. How close the banks are to an all-out bank holiday is difficult to predict. However, I believe we are seeing the chest pains of a banking system,  which will culminate in World War III. What you can do to minimize this looming and catastrophic event will be covered in my last article of 2014.

Credit to Common Sense

The Rigging Triangle Exposed: The JPMorgan-British Petroleum-Bank Of England Cartel Full Frontal

The name Dick Usher is familiar to regular readers: he was the head of spot foreign exchange for JPMorgan, and the bank's alleged chief FX market manipulator, who was promptly fired after it was revealed that JPM was the bank coordinating the biggest FX rigging scheme in history, as initially revealed in "Another JPMorganite Busted For "Bandits' Club" Market Manipulation." Subsequent revelations - which would have been impossible without the tremendous reporting of Bloomberg's Liam Vaughan - showed that JPM was not alone: as recent legal actions confirmed, virtually every single bank was also a keen FX rigging participant. 

However, the undisputed ringleader was always America's largest bank, which would make sense: having a virtually unlimited balance sheet, JPM could outlast practically any margin call, and make money while its far smaller peers were closed out of trades... and existence.

But while the past year revealed that FX rigging was a just as pervasive, if not even more profitable industry for banks than the great Libor-fixing scandal (for details see "How To Rig FX Like A Pro "Bandit", And Make Millions In The Process"), the conventional wisdom was that it involved almost exclusively bankers at the largest global banks including JPM, Goldman, Deutsche, Barclays, RBS, HSBC, and UBS.

Now, courtesy of some more brilliant reporting by Vaughan, we can finally link banks with the other two facets of what has emerged to be an unprecedented FX-rigging "triangle" cartel: private sector companies that have no direct banking operations yet who have intimate prop trading exposure, as well as central banks themselves.

By "banks" we, of course, refer to the ringleader itself: JP Morgan, and its former head of spot forex trading in London, Dick Usher. As for the company that benefited from its heretofore secret participation in the biggest FX rigging scandal in history, it is none other than British Petroleum.

We learn about all this thanks to a story that begins with, of all thing, a story about freshwater fishing at a lake in Essex called "Wharf Pool."

As Bloomberg reports, "an hour away by train, in London’s financial district, the lake’s owners ply their trade. Wharf Pool was purchased for about 250,000 pounds ($388,000) in 2012 by Richard Usher, the former JPMorgan Chase & Co. trader at the center of a global investigation into corruption in the foreign-exchange market, and Andrew White, a currency trader at oil company BP Plc. "

The plot thickens: was there more than a passing connection between the head FX trader at JPM and White "who’s known in the market as Tubby, is one of half a dozen spot currency traders working for British Petroleum (BP) in London. He and his colleagues, most of them ex-bankers, decide which firms will carry out their foreign-exchange transactions. That makes them prized clients for banks seeking a slice of the business and a glimpse into potentially market-moving trades. Passing on information was a way to curry favor."

In short, a typical Over The Counter relationship between a banker and a buyside client, one which is largely unregulated and where the bank hopes to be able to frontrun the client's orders by providing the client with confidential market moving information, thus generating more business with the client in the future. In this case, however, the buyside client was not a typical hedge fund, but the FX trading group at one of the world's largest energy companies: a group which trades enormous amounts of FX every single day, both with intent to hedge, and to generate a profit.

The trading unit’s primary role is to manage the firm’s exposure to financial risks, including fluctuations in interest rates and foreign exchange, according to the company’s website. Unlike at most corporations, it also is run as a profit center, which means that in addition to hedging risks, traders can place their own bets on the direction of markets. The company doesn’t break out how much money the treasury unit makes

Basically, BP's energy operations were just a balance sheet funding cover: what its FX traders did in the front office was trade for a profit pure and simple, just like any prop trading desk or hedge fund anywhere else in the world. And it did so in collusion with a small group of market rigging individuals all located at the biggest, market-moving banks around the globe.

A quick reminder on the "Cartel":

The four banks in the Cartel controlled about 45 percent of the global spot-currency market, according to a survey by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc, so information about their plans was valuable. Some days they worked together to push around the 4 p.m. fix, settlements with the banks show.

The Cartel chat room was started by Usher as early as 2009, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Usher had risen quickly to the top of his profession. After joining HBOS Plc in 2001, he was hired by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in 2003 and a year later collected an industry award on his employer’s behalf.... The four members of the chat room ribbed each other like high school buddies. Usher was referred to as Feston because he resembled an overweight version of British chef Heston Blumenthal, according to people who have seen the chats. Matt Gardiner, a UBS trader based in Zurich, was called Fossil because he was a few years older than the others. Rohan Ramchandani, Citigroup’s cricket-loving head of spot trading, was called Ruggy, while Chris Ashton, the last one to join, was dubbed Robocop.

Now we can add BP too, a BP which doesn't even hide the prop-trading nature of its FX "hedging" group, which is located two blocks away from, wait for it, JPMorgan!

The two dozen traders in BP’s treasury trading unit are housed above a Porsche showroom on the second and third floors of the company’s office in Canary Wharf, an area of reclaimed docklands three miles east of the City of London, the historic financial district. The building, two blocks from JPMorgan’s, was completed in 2003 on the cusp of an oil boom. Lights in meeting rooms flick from green to white when someone enters, in keeping with the company’s corporate colors.

And while until today the last sentence would be pure conjecture, thanks to Bloomberg's release of exchanges between JPM and BP revealing the extent to which the "cartel" would stoop in order to make money for its members on a daily, risk-free basis, it is not a fact.

From Bloomberg:

Copies of messages sent to BP traders over the course of a year were provided to Bloomberg News by a person with access to the online conversations. The person, who redacted the names of banks sending the messages and dates of conversations, said they came from firms whose senior foreign-exchange traders belonged to a chat room called “The Cartel” that was set up by Usher and included dealers at JPMorgan, Citigroup Inc., Barclays Plc and UBS Group AG.

The information offered an insight into currency moves minutes, sometimes hours before they happened. The messages could drag the U.K.’s biggest energy company into a scandal that has enveloped 11 banks and led to more than 30 traders from London to Singapore losing or being suspended from their jobs. Last month six banks were fined $4.3 billion for passing along information about their clients and working together to rig foreign-exchange markets.

Presenting BP: collusive, insider trading hedge fund extraordinaire. All comparisons and similarities to Enron are purely coincidental.

With revenue of almost $400 billion last year and operations in about 80 countries, BP trades large quantities of currency each day. Traders at the company regularly received valuable information from counterparts at some of the world’s biggest banks -- including tips about forthcoming trades, details of confidential client business and discussions of stop-losses, the trigger points for a flurry of buying or selling -- according to four traders with direct knowledge of the practice.

Of course, in any non-banana republic, whose regulatory and enforcement divisions were not captured by the same megacorp that is in question here, this would have been the basis for a massive lawsuit, one which would ultimately seek to break apart the company's "profitable" FX trading division from its core energy business. But not in this republic: after all, between one of the world's biggest banks and one of the world's biggest corporations, and a corrupt, crony government it should be clear to everyone by now just who calls the shots.

BP of course is quick to note that it did nothing illegal: after all the last thing the company needs is its own Enron-type scandal, where an ancillary business manages to drag down the entire company. Sure enough it has promptly denied everything:

BP said in a statement that it conducted an internal review after regulators began probing currency markets. “BP’s FX desk has relationships as a customer with 26 relationship banks, including JPMorgan, Citibank and Barclays,” the London-based company said. “BP has a robust framework of compliance requirements and internal controls which are constantly reviewed, and maintains an open dialogue with the appropriate regulators.”

The firm, the third-largest publicly traded company in the U.K., hasn’t been investigated by regulators looking into currency manipulation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chris Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, declined to comment, as did representatives of JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup and UBS.

So how does one explain the joint equity interest in - for example - the little fishing lake ?

“BP’s Code of Conduct includes mandatory requirements for employees to disclose potential conflicts of interests internally,” the company said in response to a question about the commercial relationship between Usher and White through the fishing lake. “Following such disclosure, steps are taken to manage and monitor these appropriately. It is our policy not to comment on individuals.”

In other words, one can't.  Which is how BP likes it. Which is also why Bloomberg was quite cautious with how it phrases BP's involvement into something that could promptly turn out to be Britain's own Enron:

While there’s no evidence that any BP traders were members of the Cartel, Usher participated in at least one chat room with White, according to a person who has examined conversations that included both men. It couldn’t be determined from the messages reviewed by Bloomberg News who sent the information to BP or whether BP employees acted on any of the tips.

They did, and this is how we know: "Traders at BP haven’t been accused of any wrongdoing. Last year, within hours of regulators announcing probes, the chats between BP and the banks were shut down, people with knowledge of the matter said. Soon after, a compliance officer was placed on the desk for the first time, one of them said."

Not exactly something one would do if one was, for lack of a better term, innocent.

And while we hold our breath until UK's justice (don't laugh please) system assigns blame - by which we mean a $19.95 one time settlement with a promise by BP it will never do it again - here is a glimpse at the full extent of just how this rigging took place:

In the clubby, lightly regulated world of foreign exchange, traders passed around tips to their circle of trusted contacts like candy. The victims: mutual-fund investors, pensioners and day traders who took the other side of a transaction at a lower price than they would have if they had the same information.

...

In an undated message seen by Bloomberg News, a trader at a bank told BP he would be buying U.S. dollars against Australian dollars at the WM/Reuters fix at 4 p.m. in London, the one-minute window during which traders around the world exchange billions of dollars of currency on behalf of pension funds and asset managers. The message was received at BP about 30 minutes before the fix. By tipping his hand, the sender was telling BP about a potential fall in the Australian currency

At about 3 p.m. in London on a different afternoon, BP traders were informed that banks were selling dollars against the yen at 4 p.m. In a third message, this one arriving as the oil company’s traders drank their first coffee of the morning, a trader at a bank said he had just sold a quantity of an emerging-market currency, to whom and the price he received.

The settlements the banks reached with regulators reveal that in the minutes before 4 p.m. the traders would meet on chat rooms to discuss their positions and how they planned to execute them. Sometimes they also agreed to work together to push exchange rates around to boost their profits –- something they called “double-teaming.”

All of the above would be, if proven, criminal but in line with expectations: after all when given a carte blanche to do anything they want, humans will do just that, even if it means trample every regulation known to man. In fact, the bigger one's balance sheet, the greater one's percevied (and realized) leeway of sneaking between the legal cracks, facilitated by the number of politicians and regulators that have been coopted and outright purchased courtesy of said big balance sheet.

However, the true punchline is this: "[Usher] joined JPMorgan as head of spot foreign exchange in 2010, where he became a member of the now-defunct Bank of England’s Chief Dealers Sub Group, a collection of about a dozen currency traders and central bank officials who met at restaurants and bank offices to discuss industry developments."

In other words, all of this rigging, all of the FX manipulation, all of the criminal abuse of naive, innocent market participants took place with the Bank of England's own seal of approval. Which, of course, is why the BofE itself had to scapegoat its own sacrificial lamb to avoid any further connection to this criminal cartel - something it did in early November when it fired its Chief FX dealer, Martin Mallett, who on November 12 "was dismissed by the Bank of England yesterday for “serious misconduct relating to failure to adhere to the Bank’s internal policies,” according to a statement by the central bank today."

And just like that all loose ends have been cut off, although if we were Mr. Mallett, we would certainly keep away from loose nail guns, hot tubs or airplanes for the next several months.

In the meantime, after the mandatory pause of 3-6 months, all rigging, all manipulation, and all criminal abuse with blessing from the central bank itself will quietly return, because until the great (and as increasingly more predict, very violent) reset finally comes, nothing can possibly change in a system as corrupt as this one.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Predictions For The New Year 2015

US Congress Puts More Sanctions On Russia.....

What the Palestinian Authority Did Not Tell the UN Security Council

What the Palestinians did not tell the Security Council is that the state they seek to establish is one that does not respect public freedoms, first and foremost freedom of expression. It will be a state where the president or any of his senior officials could order the arrest of anyone who dares to speak out against lack of democracy or reforms.

Nor does the Palestinian Authority want the international community to know that 2014 witnessed the worst assaults on freedoms since its establishment two decades ago.

The Palestinian Authority is trying to send a message that no one is immune to arrest or harassment, even if it is a woman.

Palestinian women have become the latest victims of the Palestinian Authority's assault on freedom of expression in the West Bank.

In the male-dominated Arab culture, an insult from a woman is considered far more offensive than one that comes from a man.

That is the main reason why the Palestinian Authority [PA] has been quick to take action against women who dare to speak out or make critical remarks.

The Palestinians also know that women are more vulnerable than men. By targeting women, the PA is not only trying to intimidate and silence them, but also deter others from speaking out. The PA is hoping to send a message that no one is immune to arrest or harassment, even if it is a woman.




Palestinian Authority riot police clash with protesting women in Hebron, October 2014.

The clampdown coincides with the Palestinian Authority's effort to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution that sets a timeline for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Last week, Jordan submitted to the Security Council a Palestinian-drafted resolution calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by the end of 2017 and a peace deal within a year.

But what the Palestinians did not tell the Security Council is that the state they seek to establish is one that does not respect public freedoms, first and foremost freedom of expression.

This would be a state where people are detained and intimidated for using social media to express their views. It will also be a state where the president or any of his senior officials could order the arrest of anyone who dares to speak out against lack of democracy and reforms.

The draft resolution that was submitted to the Security Council fails to mention the fact that the Palestinian Authority is harassing and persecuting political opponents and critics, including Facebook users.


Credit to http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/

OBAMA WANTS TO MAKE IRAN ‘REGIONAL POWER’

In an interview with National Public Radio published Monday, President Barack Obama offered Iran the prospect of becoming a “regional power” in exchange for a nuclear deal. If the Iranian regime seized the opportunity he was offering, Obama told NPR’s Steve Inskeep, “it would be a very successful regional power that was also abiding by international norms and international rules, and that would be good for everybody.” Obama said that would be good for the U.S., as well as for Iran and the region as a whole.

The offer is not necessarily new. At the beginning of the year, Obama gave an interview to David Remnick of the New Yorker in which he called for a “new equilibrium” in the Middle East–one that would prop up Iran against Israel and the Sunni Arab states. The resulting balance, in Obama’s view, would promote stability and reduce the need for American intervention. U.S. allies in the region are decidedly less optimistic about that vision: both Israel and Saudi Arabia are alarmed at Iran’s aggressive ambitions.

With his offer of “regional power,” however, Obama has decisively rejected “regime change” in Iran. In essence, he is offering to legitimize the regime–even suggesting a U.S. embassy in Tehran is possible–as long as the Iranian regime changes its behavior, or at least its “rhetoric.” That runs against the advice of experts such as Kenneth Pollack–an opponent of war with Iran–who has suggested that holding forth the prospect of long-term regime change may be the only way a diplomatic approach can succeed.

Credit to Breitbart

China and Russia launch financial tools in local currencies

China and Russia have effectively switched to domestic currencies in trading using financial tools as swaps and forwards, as they seek to reduce the influence of the US dollar and foreign exchange risks.

The agreement signed in the end of October comes into force Monday, December 29, and provides a currency swap of CNY150 billion (up to US$25 billion).

The country’s Foreign Exchange Trade System will carry out similar transactions with the Malaysian ringgit and the New Zealand dollar.

From now on yuan swaps are available for 11 currencies on the foreign exchange market.

“China won’t stop yuan globalization or capital account opening because of the volatility in emerging market currencies,” Ju Wang, a senior currency strategist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong told Bloomberg.

China has set up bilateral currency swap lines with more than 20 countries and regions since 2009, including Switzerland, Brazil, Hong Kong, Indonesia and South Korea, Xinhua News reported in July.

A swap is a financial tool to ease transactions by exchanging certain elements of a loan in one currency, like the principal or interest payments into an equivalent loan in another currency.

Currency forward is an obligation of two parties to convert an agreed amount of one currency into another by a certain date at an exchange rate specified at the moment of signing the deal.

Russia and China have long been looking for ways to cut the dollar’s role in international trade. The question is significant for China as 32 percent, or $4 trillion of its foreign exchange reserves are in US bonds, which means there is a vulnerability to fluctuations in the exchange rate.

Credit to RT