US vs EU, part 3 Germany is being swamped by refugees

Despite wanting 1 million ME Schartzers to
have a Big Fat Permanent Greek vacation,
amongst the Greek Schwartzers,
the Syrians are smarter than the Germans.

The Syrians see that US and UK are largely
responsible for them leaving Syria
and yet those countries are hard to get to.
So, the Syrians see their best hope is
Germany or any other superficially social-
democratic country that will look after them
until they can get on their feet.

If the Syrians hadn't had a plan to get to
the Fatherland, they would have been made
into a political football.
Many EU and non-EU countries are putting
up borders and engaging their armies in a
game of

Kick the Refugees Around

except for Greece, a country that even the

Syrians feel sorry for.

So, it is both ironic and fitting with natural law 

that the refugees have forgiven Greece
and instead pushed the German

government(s) to their limits, logistically and 

financially. 

Such is the price of success in Continental 

Europe during the nascent

the Great Mid East War,

the Great Troika War 

and the Great US/EU war
[what you know as the Refugee Crisis]

checkit: Reuters & Automatic Earth

[Automatic Earth says]
Hope some of that goes toward giving them jobs.
[Reuters]
• German States To Spend At Least €17 Billion On Refugees In 2016 (Reuters)

Germany’s federal states are planning to spend around €17 billion on dealing with the refugee crisis in 2016, newspaper Die Welt said on Tuesday, citing a survey it conducted among their finance ministries. The sum, bigger than the €15.3 billion that the central government planned to allocate to its education and research ministry in 2015, is a measure of the strain that the influx is causing across the country as a whole. Germany is the favoured destination for many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, partly due to the generous benefits that it offers.

The German states have repeatedly complained that they are struggling to cope, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy has caused tensions within her conservative camp. Die Welt said that excluding the small city state of Bremen, which did not provide any details, current plans suggested the states’ combined expenditure would be €16.5 billion. The paper said actual costs would probably be even higher because the regional finance ministries had based their budgets on an estimate from the federal government that 800,000 refugees would come to Germany in 2015. In fact, 965,000 asylum seekers had already arrived by the end of November.
...

US vs EU, part 2- Greece should take 1 million refugees

That's what Wolfgang Goebbels,
I mean, Schauble (Germany Fin Min) said.


The Reuters story (below) is so full of German
bullshit, I don't know where to start.

The Automatic Earth website says that a
Fin Min should not do politics, but since
the Troika controls Greece, and Schauble
is the true head of the Troika, then it is
ALL Schauble's game.

[transl: Varoufakis- Schauble runs Eurogroup]
[http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/12/debt-rattle-december-29-2015/]

Let's give this analysis thing a try-

The 1 million refugees that (will have) landed
on Greece in 2015 should have stayed in
Greece. It's as if Greece invited them.

["don't care for any sex. get me out of feckin Greece!"]



The Schengen rules state that the
country in which a refugee lands
is the place where s/he are to
register. If the refugees were Germans,
then they would have asked to register
right after drying themselves off
after swimming the last 50 metres
to Lesbos.
The last time that we had German
refugees, they were Jews escaping
certain other German politicians and their
genocidal logic. 

It may be that Greece has "welcomed"
1 million refugees when young Greeks
are economic refugees of the Troika,
and have scattered all around the EU and
beyond.

The pre-existing condition here is the
Troika memorandum neo-liberal colonisation
of Greece. Others of you may have thought
that since Greece is broke that the EU needs
to control the country while extracting their
loans. In actuality, Greece is the scapegoat for
Deutschebank's financial problems, of which
Greece's bad loans are only a small part. But,
the German (and EU) public cannot be told that
they're bailing out Deutschebank. So, Greece is
in lock-down, and nobody cares that it's 25%
drop in GDP and 30% unemployment means
that the loans will never be paid.

While Greeks' government employees' wages
have been dropped 40%+, and pensions have
dropped about 50%, the private sector has been
allowed to tear up any collective bargaining
agreements and pay employees whatever they feel
like, Greece is being subjected to the sale of
public and private assets (like banks) at firesale
prices to foreigners, of course. Any protections that
local companies had are being eradicated at the
beck and call of international (tax-avoiding)
corporations.     


I would say, therefore, that it is odd that the Troika
(i.e. Germany) is taking little notice of Greece's
pain, and yet expects Greece to also be swamped 
by refugees that, by international law, Greece would
be required to care for. [Here, I add that even Greeks,
if they are not working, are not allowed free health care]
This would mean that refugees would have more
rights than the locals.

Greece is now quickly entering the Second World
being dragged on their bare butts.

As we know, the Syrian refugees know very well
that Greece is F%^&*ked. So, they get out of their
dinghies and all they can say is "GERMANY!"

It is therefore the KING of ALL IRONIES that
in its attempt to F%^&*k Greece, the Germans
have been swamped by the 1 million "guests" and
their "organised robotic" systems are at breaking
point [see next story].

Added to this is the fact that Germans are beginning
to understand the state that Greece is in, by saying
that "we would like to send the refugees back, but
Greece is no place for humans to live." So, Germans
are (at the same time) saying that Greece should
register refugees and that Greece is not place for
refugees to live. Stupendous. I guess they don't
teach irony in the schools of the Fatherland.

The next point is that a trip from Greece to Germany
has many intermediate stops. It could be excused that
a poor country let the foreigners slip out of their grasp.
But, the Syrians [bless their soles] were determined
to walk to Germany. In so doing, they passed many
other countries, some of which [Slovenia, Crotia,
Hungary, Slovakia, Austria] are EU countries, that
ALSO DID NOT STOP THEM or REGISTER THEM.
So, it's not just Greece that f%^&*ed up, but all those
other countries. It's as if all those countries also said
something like "F^&*ck the Germans. They got most
of our money as well," and sent the Syrians on their way.

So, that's one way that the US has shown the cracks in
the EU between countries. The member countries couldn't
give two shits about any other member country, least of
all Germany. This will help splinter the EU faster than
you can say "stickefinger" [German for "middle-finger salute"]

Next,
The wise Germanae think that Greece cannot control its
external borders [which just happen to be the EU's external
borders]. Only 3 big problems with that
[beyond the economic ones]:
1 water
2 Turkey
3 EU indifference
4 Greece does not control its Treasury [see Troika]

Number 3- the EU has been advised for years that Turkey
is a threat to the EU in many ways and as such should
pay Greece to beef up its borders, or have a permanent
border force paid for by all EU citizens. EU has always
flatly refused this. [maybe that's why Germany is "taking
charge" of this issue. more below]
Number 2- I hope in later stories to prove conclusively
that Turkey is using the refugees to flood Greece and
the EU, as only one of its tactics. It also endangers
air traffic by sending military planes over the invisible
border which is full of Greek tourist islands and their
airports. Turkey also has a Wester-Thrace political
bribery office in Brussels, even though the Treaty of
Versailles states that Turks have no further claims
on "Turks" within Greece.
Number 1- how can you control a water border? The
Law of the Sea would make most of the Aegean a
Greek lake, but the Turks will not allow this law that
most of the world follows to be employed, under
threat of war. So, Greece can only protect what waters
are Greek, but Turkish refugee smugglers benefit
from the international waters in between them and
Greece. This is why a border force is needed. The
boats don't have papers and are usually without
a captain.
Number 4- Varoufakis showed us clearly that the
Troika [since when, I don't know] has the keys to
the safe at the Greek Treasury. The Troika has
also cancelled Greek laws that are designed for
the benefit of Greeks (silly Greeks). The Troika
approves all new laws, or cancels the ones it
doesn't like. So, Greeks cannot make any serious
changes to their country without Schauble's
approval. So, he's being disingenuous, at best.

Next,
I'm worried that the Germans want the EU
(i.e. themselves) to take over Greece's external
borders. I think that this is a creeping imperial
action. The only solution there would be for
the EU to have a backbone and take over this
topic and do something. Not much chance of
that though. So, Germany is now a threat. It
could be a double threat, because it is trying
to keep Turkey sweet to stop the refugee flow.
This could mean that they could "guard"
with their eyes closed, so that Turkey could
be allowed to do anything it wants against
Greece. In this case, Greece's navy [whatever
crap it is] could not react. 

ADMISSION of Greek evil
- I've been hearing that Tsipras is indeed turning
a blind eye to migrant movements and registers
as a bargaining chip with the Troika, to try
to get better terms in the Memorandum. [Fat
F%^&Kin chance of that happening]

ADMISSION of a Good Idea
If the German idea for a common EU army
was truly European, that would limit and
perhaps end NATO's work in the EU. The
US would put a stop to all that talk, very quickly,
truth be told. Indeed, Germany is still occupied
by drunken US soldiers, and so Germany itself
is owned.

Further intrigue:
Germany berates Greece (it's slave) and
wants to "kiss up" with its small Central
European neighbours who have more
experience dealing with the Germans and
are quite prickly as a result. 

More Moronic Islamophobic Implications
Shauble equates migrants with European defence.
In the same sentence! Since migrants, therefore defence.
Something tells me he doesn't like Schwartzers,
especially Muslim ones (and Greek ones).

More Lebensraum
Schauble wants to get involved in the Middle East. Do
you think he'd like to install some peacekeepers? no
Feckin' way. Germany is now helping the French. The French
are always one Charlie or one Kings of Death Metal from
bombing the Mid East. France is also trying to sell armaments
(like UK and US) in the Mid East, and so must put on a show.
So, UN-be-damned. We Europeans have to own the ME. I'm
going to be sick.

check this story of Teutonic ridiculousness below
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-idUSKBN0UA09620151227

German politicians slam Greece over handling of refugee crisis


Reuters

Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and a senior Bavarian politician criticized Greece on Sunday over the way it is managing its role in Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War Two. [WW2 produced lots of Greek refugees too, thanks to you-guessed-it: Costick 67]

Schaeuble, who has clashed repeatedly with Greek officials this year over economic policy, told Bild am Sonntag that Athens has for years ignored the rules that oblige migrants to file for asylum in the European Union country they arrive in first.

He said German courts had decided some time ago that refugees were not being treated humanely in Greece and could therefore not be sent back there.

"The Greeks should not put the blame for their problems only on others, they should also see how they can do better themselves," Schaeuble said.

Greece, a main gateway to Europe for migrants crossing the Aegean sea, has faced criticism from other EU governments who say it has done little to manage the flow of hundreds of thousands of people arriving on its shores.

Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of the southern state of Bavaria, that has taken the brunt of the refugee influx to Germany, criticized the way Greece is securing its external borders.

"What Greece is doing is a farce," Herrmann said in an interview with Die Welt am Sonntag newspaper, adding any that any country that does not meet its obligations to secure its external borders should leave the Schengen zone, where internal border controls have been abolished.

The EU's border agency Frontex has agreed to increase its presence in Greece at the end of the month, while European guards will help Greeks manage their frontier with Macedonia following concern over Athens' commitment to controlling migration.

Herrmann said it was also important to secure the border with Slovenia so that all people entering the Schengen zone from Croatia could be properly registered and potential terrorists spotted.

"If this is not guaranteed within a few weeks, we will have to become active on our own borders," he said.

SOLIDARITY

In contrast to his criticism of Greece, Schaeuble sought to offer to compromise with eastern European countries that have voiced reluctance to accept migrants under EU quotas.

"Solidarity doesn't start by insulting each other," Schaeuble said. "Eastern European states will also have to take in refugees, but fewer than Germany."

The influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, also means that European countries will have to increase spending on defense, he said.

"Ultimately our aim must be a joint European army. The funds that we spend on our 28 national armies could be used far more effectively together," Schaeuble said.

Schaeuble said the Middle East would not become stable without stronger European engagement.

Germany has gradually adopted a more assertive role in global missions. Earlier this month, lawmakers approved a mission in Syria, including sending six Tornado reconnaissance jets, a frigate to help protect a French aircraft carrier, refueling aircraft and 1,200 military personnel.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

US empire vs the EU, part 1

This is a set of theories I'm working on,
having watched the Syria crisis develop.

I will try to show that the US and its
acolytes (who have some of their own goals)
are attacking the EU and parts within it.
I will do my best to prove every step of
the thought process, with some detours along
the way, in successive stories.

the OUTLINE goes like this:

A US UK Turkey  vs  the rest of the EU
US position
-world empire needs to spread
-Euro is a threat to the dollar
-can usually get short-sighted idiot
countries to follow it into war
-wants Kurdish oil 

UK position
-hates a federal Europe
-wants to protect its thieving banks
-wants to sell arms to the Mid East

Turkey position
-knows it will never get in the EU
-wants to think it is a regional power
-one funder of the "I-State"
-buys I-State oil
-has a serious problem balancing
national pride with the Kurdish issue
-has a trigger-happy army
-risks losing Kurdish areas if war spreads
-wants its Turkmen cousins in Syria to gain
autonomy
-fears the US may want to build a Kurdistan


The EU/Brussels/Germany/ECB/Deutschebank position
-a useless union built by imperial French and Germans
-on top of a mercantilist steal/coal cartel
-no intention of being democratic
-run from Brussels, unless Germany has a point
to make
-political decision to have Euro was fatal mistake
-ineffective internal and external politics because
of a power vacuum.
-Federalising may interest the imperialists but
not many of the small countries
-it is in the process of a crypto-federalisation
around Germany's interests (Euro)
-does not realise that it is already disintegrating
-hates Yanis Varoufakis

A The Whole Shooting Match
-the US wants to help destroy the EU
through forcing it through crises.
1 banking : Deutschebank owes US UK banks
2 refugees: below
3 currency: Euro was a disaster waiting to happen

B US pushed for regime change after fall
of Soviet Union
-includes Syria (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan)
-pushed for regime change from 1990s
-funding various parts of civil war
-bombing Syria (with UK)
-Turkey gov has been caught giving arms
to rebels in Syria

C US UK (with Turkey's help) want to
swamp EU with (Muslim) refugees
-from all their invasions (see above)
-others like Saudi are funding parts of this
-Turkey controls the flow to Greece
(and wants to particularly flood Greece)
-this will start EU nationalist economic/racial turmoil
-notice how US empire suffers no turmoil (just
the continental EU)

D Refugees land in Greece and head north
-they want to go to Germany, Sweden, Holland
-Germany wants Greece to take all 1 million
refugees because of Schengen treaty
("refugees register were they land")
-Germany is essentially Greece's
slave master (has bankrupted Greece to
save Deutschebank)

-therefore, refugees do not want to stay in
Greece, (but ironically want to go to German)
and refuse to register in Greece
-this forces the turmoil to the north (while it
seems the Germans wanted to make Greece suffer the
entire flood by itself)
-Greece is feeding and housing refugees and
not complaining about them leaving
-this will destroy EU Schengen (open borders) treaty

E the longer and deeper the war, the more 
permanent the refugees become
-nominally Christian nations will need to
show how Christian they are by helping
the refugees
-Christian countries will need to stamp out
racism
-many nations (Slovakia, Czech Rep, Poland,
Hungary) are refusing to take or are limiting
refugees. There is no EU law which can stop
them doing so. Therefore, EU states will squabble.

F Weak EU will not be able to stop the squabbling
-the EU does not want to intervene in refugee crisis
-this will pit one EU nation against another
-in the context of the Euro, this may splinter
the EU and kill the Euro

G EU will be ruined
- it may take a few years, but I hope to be
around for that

Parallel issues
- De-centralised Iraq means Kurds have oil
-US wants to control Kurdish oil
-US may give Kurds (Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria)
more autonomy
-Turkey, without doing anything, is treading a
fine line between helping US, Saudi and losing
the Eastern 25% of its country to the Kurds.
Unfortunately, Turkey is deeply into the Syria
conflict
-US wants to create a permanent Islamic Civil
War. This is easy since the Sunni governments
have most of the oil (Saudi, Emirates). US
benefits from arms sales and controls the
whole region
-Russia has become involved in a plainly legal manner,
defending the government of Syria, by request
-This could ruin all US empire's plans
-The likelihood of World War goes up exponentially

So, what I have built here is a massive 5-layer
chessboard, with the game already under way

The next stories will fill out my theories as stated above.

California drought + Nestle= severe drought

A new story about how Nestle doesn't
believe that water is a human right. It
has been taking fresh water from the
California public supply, bottling it
and selling it in a state with 25
million people in such a drought
that they're painting their lawns green.

This is boardroom sphincter politics.
In order to trump all your colleagues,
you have to be the most outrageous
asshole in the room. So, you get
ideas like:

Let's steal water during a record drought!

First, we needed Russia Today to
report on somebody catching Nestle
diverting much-needed water (was the
state not interested?)

and then, having Nestle lie about their policy
of limiting the right to water

which is actually their policy as stated by this,
their Chief Operating Asshole

hydrate this: Guardian

Nestlé boss says he wants to bottle more water in California despite drought

CEO Tim Brown refuses to stop sourcing from drought-stricken state
‘Absolutely not … people would buy another brand of bottled water’

Water flows from a pipe connected to a spring on Frazier Mountain in Los Padres National Forest near Frazier Park, California. Water has become a hot political issue in the state.

Rupert Neate in New York
@RupertNeate

Thursday 14 May 2015 17.17 BST

The boss of Nestlé Waters has said the company wants to increase the amount of water it bottles in California despite a devastating drought across the state that has triggered demonstrations at the corporation’s bottling plant.

Tim Brown, chief executive of Nestlé Waters North America, said the company would “absolutely not” stop bottling in California and would actually like to “increase” the amount of ground source water it uses.

Asked in a local radio interview if Nestlé would consider following Starbucks’ lead and stop bottling water in California during the drought, Brown said: “Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.

“The fact is, if I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water,” Brown said in a discussion with a Nasa hydrologist on 89.3 KPCC radio. “People need to hydrate. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others are filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy they are doing it in a healthier way.”

Brown admitted that Nestlé currently wastes about 30% of the 700m gallons of water a year it draws from the ground in California. On Tuesday, the company announced plans to reduce water waste at its bottling plants in Bakersfield and Tulare by 12%.

More than 82,000 people have signed a petition calling on Nestlé to stop bottling from a spring in southern California, and protesters armed with plastic pitchforks have blocked the entrance to a Nestlé plant in Sacramento.

Despite the protests, Brown said: “We feel good about what we’re doing delivering healthy hydrating to people throughout the state of California.”

Starbucks has announced plans to stop sourcing its bottled water from California after embarrassing revelations that its “water conservation” Ethos brand bottled water was sourced from the drought-stricken state.

“It seems hard to imagine, but more than 1bn people on our planet can’t get clean water to drink,” Starbucks says on its website. “Ethos® Water was created to help raise awareness about this terrible crisis and provide children with access to clean water.” Five cents from the sale of each Ethos bottle, which costs about $2, goes towards Starbucks’ Ethos Water Fund supporting water, sanitation and hygiene education programs across the world.

The company said it would move Ethos production to Pennsylvania for the duration of the drought. “We are committed to our mission to be a globally responsible company and to support the people of the state of California as they face this unprecedented drought,” John Kelly, Starbucks’ senior vice-president of global responsibility and public policy, said last week.

Walmart, which also bottles water in California, has refused to move its production out of the state. “The drought in California is very concerning for many of our customers and our associates,” a spokesman said. “We share those concerns and are tracking it closely. Our commitment to sustainability includes efforts to minimize water use in our facilities. We have and continue to work with our suppliers to act responsibly while meeting the needs of customers who count on us across California.”

Sustainability charity Food & Water Watch has called for a moratorium on all water bottling across the state. “It’s the worst drought we’ve seen in a long time, and it’s irresponsible of the state to allow Nestlé to bottle water that’s supposed to be a public resource,” a spokesman said. “We’re calling for a moratorium on bottling water for private profit.”

the Faulty of Basel

I've borrowed this from a recent Keiser Report show
that deals once again with the problems that occur
when banks take over an economy. The tendency
for crises is just one problem.

If banks do what they're supposed to, like
recycling savings into worthy manufacturing
or other types of businesses, in order to aid
economic growth, then all would be well.

If , instead, the banks take on the role of
Centres of Advanced Gambling and
Money Printing, they undermine the proper
economy. There is plenty of proof that this
is going on, and I'm not an economist, but take
it for granted, or check my previous stories.

A major reason for my concern is much of
this happened in post -1929 US and
elsewhere, but cooler heads finally prevailed
after about 7 years, laws changed and then the
war took care of the rest. This time, the bankers
are truly in charge, unless we can do something.

I can however, distill the issue with a few
graphs.
-the FINANCIALISATION tipping point (2007 onward)

[Zerohedge]

This is happening to two countries particularly
today. One is in advanced, past the tipping point
Fin SNAFU- Switzerland
while the UK (the City of London) is starting to
head over the cliff at full speed.
The Swiss and London provide a place to hide
untaxed money, a base for financial crimes
(with no fear of prosecution), providing a great degree of
secrecy directly or through shell companies.
With the rest of the economy faltering, these
countries are stuck relying on their thieving banks
for bribery money (i.e. political contribs),
and some taxation/ employment. 

The 2007/08 crash has led to the government
of the UK supporting, or even owning, major
international banks (Let's not even get into
the crimes those banks are committing, without
anybody going to jail). But, suffice it to say that
banks are robbing all UK citizens in many
hidden ways. For example: zero interest means
there's no financial reason to save, pushing people.
into risky investing just to get a few percentage
points.

STORY 1 Bankers Pushing Countries Off a Cliff

Switzerland tried to slow the death of the rest of
its economy by pegging to the Euro. That looked
like a move that would create safety, but then
the Swiss money men smelled that the ECB
would drop the value of the Euro with
Quantitative Easing. Before that happened,
the Swiss pulled the peg, and the Euro dropped
30% vs the Swiss Franc:
A
Mark O'Byrne
Gold Demand Explodes as Volatility and Fear Stalk Market
Posted on January 20, 2015 by Mark O'Byrne 
Gold Demand Explodes as Volatility and Fear Stalk Market
Although the extent to which the surprise move by the Swiss National Bank last week has damaged financial institutions will not be apparent until the end of the month, it is already clear that enormous damage has been wreaked on many businesses exposed to the foreign exchange markets.
On Thursday the SNB unpegged its currency from the euro without warning. The peg was put in place three years ago during the height of the euro crisis to prevent the Swiss franc from rising too much relative to its EU neighbours and damaging its exports.
The shock move caused the Swiss franc to rally almost 30% against the euro and 28% against the dollar. To maintain the peg, the SNB had been forced to accumulate around €500 billion leaving it very vulnerable to a euro devaluation.
It would seem that the move was not coordinated with the ECB or the Fed and may be endemic of a new low phase in global central bank communications. Many times throughout the financial crisis central banks have coordinated efforts to stabilise market volatility and to manage stimulus programs in concert.
The SNB shock announcement seems to have happened in isolation and could mark the start of a far less accommodative stance by national central banks. This is not surprising as with a strong dollar, the U.S. is able to reduce the costs to foreign markets of its goods and services, thereby producing a massive competitive advantage. Now that the euro is going to start debasing itself too, it is natural that the Swiss also abandon a peg which is about to become indefensible. The question “Who next?” will break ranks. Currency wars and related volatility are now in full swing.
According to Bloomberg, Citigroup, the largest currency dealer globally, lost around $150 million on the move. Deutsche bank also lost $150 million and Barclays are reported to have incurred losses of €100 million.
…
B
Tavakoli Structured Finance, Inc.
The Financial Report
By Janet Tavakoli
Swiss National Bank and Foreign Exchange: Well Played!
Posted January 16, 2015
The Swiss are being Swiss, meaning the Swiss National Bank (SNB), unlike most other Central Bankers, haven’t completely lost their minds. Yesterday, the Swiss National Bank lifted the cap on the franc versus the euro. In other words, SNB decided it was the right time to stop playing rope a dope.
The market reaction was brutal, punishing the Euro and every foreign exchange and options trader on the wrong side of this trade. Some forex trading firms will go under. Foreign exchange trading desks within banks are, of course, part of ongoing unwilling taxpayer largesse.
Misdirection and a Quick Reversal
Recall that on 30 November 2014, the Swiss National Bank issued this formal press release after the gold referendum was voted down:
…

STORY 2 Paying banks to lend

Since the crisis, large banks have been paid off
for their crappy gambling debts and we're
being robbed to pay for it.
Well, then, maybe banks could just start
lending to businesses to help the economy
grow? That would be too easy.
Most Quantitative Easing worldwide, as in the
EU, is only designed to get banks to lend money.
This is despite the fact that these crappy private
banks can actually print money of their own.
It's a bank war

BANKS vs The Rest of Us

STORY 3 European Soviet Union

The tendency for banks to be the friends of our
leaders, elected or not (like Druncker and Druncker)
means that our governments need to
control the whole economy so that nothing
implodes and causes the Depression that
the working and middle classes are slowly going through,
to spread and deepen. That is the very definition
of Fascism (forget the racist overtones).
There are two levers for Fascism
1 centralised political power - Merkel
2 centralised financial power- ECB/ Draghi

[they're going to ruin both the Euro and the EU.
it's already their job to make the Euro's value fall
to aid German exports]

Extreme Fascism is the same as extreme
Communism. They use the same levers to control
the economy and the people of a country or Union.
While Communists do it to make the politburo rich,
fascists do it to make themselves and their rich buddies
even richer. That includes their Central Banks
(notice the Centralisation) which
are all private institutions that look after the bailed-out
banks. These Central Bankers meet in Basel regularly
to figure out what to tell their governments to do.
I leave the last word to

Gorby

Story 4 Gold+man+sacks runs everything BTW

[in German]

This goes way beyond banking. When you see how they 

have their (destructive) charges in very key positions, 

you'll begin to wonder how that could possibly be by

chance, and there's no chance of banking changing 

while those zombies are in their places

[video at 17:00 - your proof]

Gas Americana

or how the US empire controls things.

I believe that people should exchange
perspectives on international politics
so that we can understand the bullshit
the oligarchs' media feeds us.

The media will tell us far too late,
often through documentaries, decades
later, how our leaders screwed us out
of our own future.
They'll say "you wuz robbed,"
but that is of course too late. There
will be continuous attempts to rob
us, not to mention wars that we'll
have to clean up.

We need to know in real time what is
going on.

This is one reason for this article.

Basic point: the US controls a system
of exchange in oil that helps them
control most of the world. But part
of it depends on others playing along,
as with all suit-and-tie mafia agreements.
That is known as the petro-dollar. This
keeps the U$D strong and makes money
for the US that is otherwise hugely in
debt with a bad balance of trade. and
help keep its sick banks afloat.

Russia and China have finally decided
that despite the fact the US owes China
a ton of money, the US (if world keeps
supporting the petro dollar) will use it
to print money and use it to control
Russia and China.

So, Russia and China pulled out of
the petro-dollar system. That means
that they will not buy oil in U$D.
It's as simple as that.
and yet world-changing. They have
upset the post-communist apple cart.
Of course the Russkies have their own
Oil and Gas show

That means that the US will have to
face off against both of them until
they return to the petro-dollar. They
will try to keep them on the edge of
war: Ukraine/Crimea, MH17.
Syria is just one such place:

Russia and China are instead buying
gold and dumping US Treasury debt.
These things will make the US
debt mountain more vulnerable.

I don't know what will stop this
banking nightmare that we are
living in, where saving serious money
is impossible with zero interest.

Certainly it will be a black swan,
something which will have been
unforeseeable to the US.

checkit: Zerohedge

Russia Just Pulled Itself Out Of The Petrodollar

By Tyler Durden's

January 15, 2015 "ICH" - "Zero Hedge" - -  Back in November, before most grasped just how serious the collapse in crude was (and would become, as well as its massive implications), we wrote "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed", because for the first time in almost two decades, energy-exporting countries would pull their "petrodollars" out of world markets in 2015.

This empirical death of Petrodollar followed years of windfalls for oil exporters such as Russia, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. Much of that money found its way into financial markets, helping to boost asset prices and keep the cost of borrowing down, through so-called petrodollar recycling.

We added that in 2014 "the oil producers will effectively import capital amounting to $7.6 billion. By comparison, they exported $60 billion in 2013 and $248 billion in 2012, according to the following graphic based on BNP Paribas calculations."

The problem was compounded by its own positive feedback loop: as the last few weeks vividly demonstrated, plunging oil would lead to a further liquidation in foreign  reserves for the oil exporters who rushed to preserve their currencies, leading to even greater drops in oil as the viable producers rushed to pump out as much crude out of the ground as possible in a scramble to put the weakest producers out of business, and to crush marginal production. Call it Game Theory gone mad and on steroids.

Ironically, when the price of crude started its self-reinforcing plunge, such a death would happen whether the petrodollar participants wanted it, or, as the case may be, were dragged into the abattoir kicking and screaming.

It is the latter that seems to have taken place with the one country that many though initially would do everything in its power to have an amicable departure from the Petrodollar and yet whose divorce from the USD has quickly become a very messy affair, with lots of screaming and the occasional artillery shell.

As Bloomberg reports Russia "may unseal its $88 billion Reserve Fund and convert some of its foreign-currency holdings into rubles, the latest government effort to prop up an economy veering into its worst slump since 2009."

These are dollars which Russia would have otherwise recycled into US denominated assets. Instead, Russia will purchase even more Rubles and use the proceeds for FX and economic stabilization purposes.

"Together with the central bank, we are selling a part of our foreign-currency reserves,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in Moscow today. “We’ll get rubles and place them in deposits for banks, giving liquidity to the economy."

Call it less than amicable divorce, call it what you will: what it is, is Russia violently leaving the ranks of countries that exchange crude for US paper.

More:

    Russia may convert as much as 500 billion rubles from one of the government’s two sovereign wealth funds to support the national currency, Siluanov said, calling the ruble “undervalued.” The Finance Ministry last month started selling foreign currency remaining on the Treasury’s accounts. 

    The entire 500 billion rubles or part of the amount will be converted in January-February through the central bank, according to Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev. The Bank of Russia will determine the timing and method of the operation. 

    The ruble, the world’s second-worst performing currency last year, weakened for a fourth day, losing 1.3 percent to 66.0775 against the dollar by 3:21 p.m. in Moscow. It trimmed a drop of as much as 2 percent after Siluanov’s comments. The ruble’s continued slump this year underscores the fragility of coordinated measures by Russia’s government and central bank that steered the ruble’s rebound from a record-low intraday level of 80.10 on Dec. 16. OAO Gazprom and four other state-controlled exporters were ordered last month to cut foreign-currency holdings by March 1 to levels no higher than they were on Oct. 1. The central bank sought to make it easier for banks to access dollars and euros while raising its key rate to 17 percent, the emergency level it introduced last month to arrest the ruble collapse.

    Today’s announcement “looks ruble-supportive, as together with state-driven selling from exporters it would support FX supply on the market,” Dmitry Polevoy, chief economist for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States at ING Groep NV in Moscow, said by e-mail. “Also, it will be helpful for banks, while there might be some negative effects related to extra money supply and risks of using some of the money on the FX market for short-term speculations.

Bloomberg's dready summary of the US economy is generally spot on, and is to be expected when any nation finally leaves, voluntarily or otherwise, the stranglehold of a global reserve currency. What Bloomberg failed to account for is what happens to the remainder of the Petrodollar world. Here is what we said last time:

    Outside from the domestic economic impact within EMs due to the downward oil price shock, we believe that the implications for financial market liquidity via the reduced recycling of petrodollars should not be underestimated. Because energy exporters do not fully invest their export receipts and effectively ‘save’ a considerable portion of their income, these surplus funds find their way back into bank deposits (fuelling the loan market) as well as into financial markets and other assets. This capital has helped fund debt among importers, helping to boost overall growth as well as other financial markets liquidity conditions.

    [T]his year, we expect that incremental liquidity typically provided by such recycled flows will be markedly reduced, estimating that direct and other capital outflows from energy exporters will have declined by USD253bn YoY. Of course, these economies also receive inward capital, so on a net basis, the additional capital provided externally is much lower. This year, we expect that net capital flows will be negative for EM, representing the first net inflow of capital (USD8bn) for the first time in eighteen years. This compares with USD60bn last year, which itself was down from USD248bn in 2012. At its peak, recycled EM petro dollars amounted to USD511bn back in 2006. The declines seen since 2006 not only reflect the changed global environment, but also the propensity of underlying exporters to begin investing the money domestically rather than save. The implications for financial markets liquidity - not to mention related downward pressure on US Treasury yields – is negative.

Considering the wildly violent moves we have seen so far in the market confirming just how little liquidity is left in the market, and of course, the absolutely collapse in Treasury yields, with the 30 Year just hitting a record low, this prediction has been borne out precisely as expected.

And now, we await to see which other country will follow Russia out of the Petrodollar next, and what impact that will have not only on the world's reserve currency, on US Treasury rates, and on the most financialized commodity as this chart demonstrates...

... but on what is most important to developed world central planners everywhere: asset prices levels, and specifically what happens when the sellers emerge into what is rapidly shaping up as the most illiquid market in history.

more surreal Syrian refugees

I truly sympathise with the plight of the people
of Syria (and every other war zone) because
they have been bombed out of their houses
by a US/UK proxy war by their millions.

These people are not the usual great
unwashed. They had an advanced society
with good education, money and so
they have advanced mobile phones,
and the ability to buy a ride on a
rickety boat to cross from Turkey to Greece.

So far this year 800 000+ of them
have crossed to Greece. Others have
taken different routes, like Italy and Cyprus.

award winning photos by Yiannis Behrakis- Reuters

The EU wants to be seen to care about them
but is in the process of using Turkey, which
is going at Syria and Iraq (mostly against Kurds)
with both barrels blazing, to stop the flow
of refugees. to make the whole thing go away.
They're willing to bribe Turkey with 3 billion
of their worthless currency.

For their part, the Syrians have been
quite industrious. They're willing to
walk, with children in tow, all the way
to Germany.

On the bizarre side, they also have
made some demands that are outlandish.
Greece, the main landing point, is
under economic enslavement conditions
to the Troika, and Syrians know that.
So, they will only accept registering
in Germany or Sweden (or some other
lesser country), but certainly not
Greece, despite being well taken-care-of.
Greece really can't afford them,
anyway, but won't let them starve.
But, in order not to register, they are
avoiding Greek/EU authorities.

In this story, from last year,
a boatload of Syrians who were rescued
by a tourist ship, demanded to be sent
to Italy. Their strategies have shifted
but not their demands.

checkit: AFP

Syrian refugees refuse to disembark in Cyprus after rescue
By AFP 
Refugees who were rescued off the coast of Cyprus line the side of a ship at the port in Limassol on September 25, 2014

Almost 300 mostly Syrian refugees rescued by a cruise liner were refusing Friday to disembark in Cyprus's southern port of Limassol, demanding instead to be taken to Italy, the cruise company said.

A total of 345 migrants, mainly women and children, had been plucked from a boat in trouble off the coast of Cyprus on Thursday by a Salamis Cruise Lines ship, according to the company and Cypriot authorities.

Some 700 paying passengers disembarked from the 157-metre liner, police said, but only 65 of those rescued at sea left the ship.

The others refused to budge, the shipping company said.

"We were supposed to sail at 10:30 tonight (2130 GMT Thursday), unfortunately these people want to negotiate," Kikis Vassiliou, managing director of Salamis Cruise Lines, told reporters. "They want us to send them to Italy."

"We did our outmost to save their lives, to give them food, support and now they want to destroy this company," he added, speaking of several hundred thousands of euros (dollars) in losses.

"There is no responsible person to negotiate and to explain the situation," he bemoaned.

At 4:00 am (0100 GMT) Friday, negotiations were continuing, with doctors, nurses, civil defence and Red Cross workers on hand.

The 65 refugees who willingly left the ship were bussed to the Kokkinotrimithia camp not far from Nicosia.

Meanwhile three hundred Russian passengers, who had been due to continue their cruise to Haifa, Israel, had their journey cancelled and were put up in Limassol hotels.

Earlier, the defence ministry had said the rescue operation had been "completed smoothly and without any injury".

The aid workers said eight of those rescued were suffering from dehydration, while some others had "minor" problems.

One passenger said a refugee had told her they had sailed from Syria and been at sea for three days and that their skipper had abandoned them.

"The captain of their boat made a phone call and a speed boat came and took the captain,? said Chrystalla Eflatsoumis, 66.

Among the refugees were "many pregnant women and 20 babies," she added.

- Early-morning SOS -

The cruise ship had answered a distress signal from a trawler sailing some 50 nautical miles off the Cyprus coast in poor weather conditions, the Cyprus defence ministry said.

The trawler sent out the signal at 6:25 am (0325 GMT) when it was southwest of the tourist hub of Paphos, the government said.

The liner had been en route from the Greek island of Syros to Limassol when it received a call to assist in the rescue operation.

The defence ministry had first said around 300 people, mostly women and children, were on board and needed rescue "because of bad weather conditions in the area".

"The ship probably comes from Syria with civilian refugees," a statement added, but there was no news on the trawler's port of embarkation or when it had sailed.

Cyprus is located about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the shores of war-ravaged Syria.

In August 2012, seven Syrians, including two children, drowned when the boat they were sailing to Cyprus to escape the conflict in their homeland sank off the island's northern coast.

The Mediterranean has been plagued by shipwrecks in recent months involving migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 2,500 people have drowned or been reported lost at sea this year trying to cross the Mediterranean.

In one of the deadliest wrecks on record, a ship carrying some 500 migrants -- including Syrians, Palestinians and Egyptians -- was deliberately sunk by traffickers off Malta earlier this month, leaving just 10 known survivors.

British banks want UK out of EU

There is ever-increasing proof that the UK
government is a protection racket for the
big UK banks.

It seems that the banks come first, and the
other 70 million citizens a distant second.

Here's one example derived from a mistaken
email sent to a sleeping journalist. He had
no idea what the implications of it were.

It indicated almost crystal clearly that UK
banks were behind the push for the Brexit
referendum.
The email showed how they were prepared
to fend of prying questions (that's Orwell-
speak for "lying about subverting democracy").

The big beef that the UK has with the EU is
the desire to collect a mere smidgen of tax
from the banks that are robbing workers
and countries blind, as well as other corporations.

Now, the Brexit gambit may be just a way to
get the EU to back off of taxing the banks, but
I think they'll all be surprised at how much
hatred there is of the EU in the UK. It could
backfire, and the EU/ECB already have a
new centre of banking crime opening in
Ireland, NAMA. The EU could be the
Bloods to London's Crips in a banking crime
turf war.

We already know that since central banks are
almost all private enterprises that protect their
countries' banks, and are thus in charge of
private money printing, any meetings that
the Central Bank chiefs might have is likely
to be subverting democracy.  

checkit: Zerohedge

Bank Of England Accidentally E-mails Top-Secret Brexit Plan To Newspaper

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/23/2015 10:30 -0400

The first rule of “Project Bookend” is that you don’t talk about “Project Bookend.”

In retrospect, maybe the first rule should have been “you don’t accidentally e-mail ‘Project Bookend’ to a news agency”, because as the Guardian reports, one of its editors opened his inbox and was surprised to find a message from the BOE’s Head of Press Jeremy Harrison outlining the UK financial market equivalent of the Manhattan project.

Project Bookend is a secret (or ‘was’ a secret) initiative undertaken by the BOE to study what the fallout might be from a potential ‘Brexit’, but if anyone asked what Sir Jon Cunliffe and a few senior staffers were up to, they were instructed to say that they were busy investigating “a broad range of European economic issues.”

Here’s more from The Guardian:

    Bank of England officials are secretly researching the financial shocks that could hit Britain if there is a vote to leave the European Union in the forthcoming referendum.

    The Bank blew its cover on Friday when it accidentally emailed details of the project – including how the bank intended to fend off any inquiries about its work – direct to the Guardian.

    According to the confidential email, the press and most staff in Threadneedle Street must be kept in the dark about the work underway, which has been dubbed Project Bookend…

    MPs are now likely to ask whether the Bank intended to inform parliament that a major review of Britain’s prospects outside the EU was being undertaken by the institution that acts as the UK’s main financial regulator. Carney is also likely to come under pressure within the Bank to reveal whether there are other undercover projects underway.

    Officials are likely to have kept the project under wraps to avoid entering the highly charged debate around the EU referendum, which has jumped to the top of the political agenda since the Conservatives secured an overall majority. Many business leaders and pro-EU campaigners have warned that “Brexit” would hit British exports and damage the standing of the City of London.

    The email indicates that a small group of senior staff are to examine the effect of a Brexit under the authority of Sir Jon Cunliffe, who as deputy director for financial stability has responsibility for monitoring the risk of another market crash.

    Cunliffe also sits on the board of the City regulator, the Prudential Regulatory Authority.

    The email from Cunliffe’s private secretary to four senior executives, was written on 21 May and forwarded by mistake to a Guardian editor by the Bank’s head of press, Jeremy Harrison.

    It says: “Jon’s proposal, which he has asked me to highlight to you, is that no email is sent to James’s team or more broadly around the Bank about the project.”

    It continues: “James can tell his team that he is working on a short-term project on European economics in International [division] which will last a couple of months. This will be in-depth work on a broad range of European economic issues. Ideally he would then say no more.”

*  *  *

In sum: Mark Carney accidentally pulled a Coeure who intentionally pulled a Yellen.

On the bright side for Carney, it looks like he’s making big strides when it comes to his goal of providing “greater transparency over [the BOE’s] decision-making.”