ICELAND JAILS BANKERS, ETC.

Iceland is a tiny country. It sits in the far reaches of the north Atlantic somewhere east of Canada. Its clock/days different. Because of its location, 24 hour days of sunshine or darkness are common. Population 320,000.

Iceland suffered the same banking disasters as the United States. Iceland had its 2008 where the banks brought the economy down.

Iceland dealt with the problem different from the United States. Iceland showed it had brass testicles.

Iceland’s banks needed a bailout. The people said no. An emphatic no! It was a David/Goliath situation. As in biblical times, David won.

The people in effect created a new government, adopted a new constitution, and arrested, prosecuted and jailed bankers and politicians. None of the too big to fail and too big to prosecute crap for them.

At the same time, Iceland created a Special Prosecutor to investigate banking crime in connection with or in the wake of its banking crisis. The list of bankers and government officials jailed is endless. Proof in many of the cases revealed the bankers enjoyed playboy lifestyles, mistresses and all.

Iceland’s economy took three years to improve.Following 2011, the  percentage of unemployed dropped dramatically. Loans were available to Main Street and ordinary people.

Banks are and have been whores throughout history. For whatever reasons, governments have not been able to control bankers. Bankers have made money for themselves in gigantic numbers during certain periods. Most recently, the early 2000s through 2008 in Iceland. The early 2000s to today in the United States. Banks are still screwing the American people. The reason simple. The U.S. did not take the bankers in hand and kick them in the ass as Iceland did. Iceland’s finances continue to improve at the same time that  the U.S.’s remain the same. In the U.S., bankers incomes are the highest ever and continue to rise. Whereas, people’s incomes remain stagnant.

Iceland and the U.S. are now facing another banking problem. That of central banks. The Federal Reserve System in the U.S.

Central banks allocate money to those entities actually in the banking business. A purpose of central banks is to protect depositors. In the 1970s, Congress changed Federal Reserve laws to spell out the purpose of the Federal Reserve. To effectively promote…..the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates. Also to…..regulate responsibility over many consumer credit protection laws.

The Federal Reserve has failed dismally in its responsibilities. The organization overwhelmingly does everything to protect and aid banks to the detriment of the American people.

Iceland has a similar problem. Their central banking system still leans the way of banks. A strong movement is underway to change the money allocation responsibility of Iceland’s central bank to the government. Makes sense. The government creates money. It should bear responsibility for who gets it. It is expected Iceland will make the move in the near future.

In the U.S., there are isolated voices to debunk the Federal System and give the allocating power to the government. Whether successful is highly doubtful. The banks, their money, their lobbyists and their attorneys, are geared up to oppose such a change.

The U.S.has not changed its banking laws as radically as Iceland. Until the U.S.does, bankers will continue becoming richer by day and the people poorer.

Dodd-Frank became law in 2010. The new law contained many provisions favorable to the American people. Laws were changed so greedy bankers could not practice certain of their evil ways again.

One provision had to do with deposits insured against loss. Somehow the banks had utilized the old law to have many of their 2008 losses guaranteed by the government. Taxpayer dollars were used to make the banks whole.

Derivative trading, securitized debt and non performing loans were guaranteed 100 percent by the government. The government paid off these guarantees with taxpayer dollars.

Dodd-Frank said no more! A victory for the American people. It lasted only four years. In December 2014, it lost its way. The old game returned. The government would insure and otherwise guarantee the speculative games/investments the banks were engaged in. It has been described as heads the bankers win, tails the taxpayers lose.

How did Congress and the President permit this regression so soon? The budget battle was in play in December 2014. No budget, the government would shut down. The budget was $1.1 trillion.

Republicans required their pound of flesh. Rollback the Dodd-Frank provision re; no taxpayer guarantees in certain areas. Many Democratic legislators and the President himself gave in to get the budget passed and keep the government running.

I do not like what happened. It is politics, however. It also represents one of the rare moments of a negotiated result.

A problem specific to the U.S. regarding banks involves the use of money in a less than palatable sense. Banks are so big they can buy the political process. And they have.

Little Iceland did what big United States could not/would not do. Iceland took the bull by the horns and did everything necessary to correct its banking problems. The U.S. did not. The people were buffaloed into the thinking the government had.

The American people remain in a precarious position with regard to banks. The solution is to do what Iceland did. Roll over the banks, force them to do what is right. I doubt such will occur. Our elected officials are too receptive and too dependent when it comes to banker contributions and perks.

Government by the people, for the people, continues to erode away.

BANK STORIES

Banks are pigs. They have an insatiable desire to make more and more money for themselves to the detriment of those they service. Whose money they hold, work with, and profit from.

Recent occurrences bear out the propensity of banks to overindulge for personal benefit while forgetting the people they were organized to service.

Chase Bank. One of America's oldest banking institutions. Due to numerous mergers the past decade, the bank today is JP Morgan Chase Bank doing business as Chase.

Although U.S. taxpayers bailed Chase and other banks out for their own wrongdoing in 2008 and saved their asses, the banks have not been thankful. To this day, the American people await Chase and other banks return to loaning monies to Main Street rather than Wall Street. 

The banks have survived and are making more money than ever. Major bank CEO's are being paid $20-40 million a year bonuses. Part of the one percent.

Chase announced recently that effective August 1, Chase is going to charge depositors a fee for holding their money. You got it. Savings and checking accounts will be charged a fee payable to the bank. Chase feels it is entitled to something for holding people's monies. The same monies banks invest overnight to a 20 percent profit for themselves and pay depositors 1.5 per cent a year on their deposits.

The fee will be $.25 per $100 deposited. It will add up to millions if not billions of dollars a year.

Pigs might be too gentle a description. They are whores! They will provide any service for a fee.

The next situation is even better. More difficult to believe than the $.25 charge scenario.

There has been a successful move in recent years in certain European and Asian nations by banks. If money in a savings or checking account lies dormant for a specified number of years, the account is deemed inactive and the bank removes the money. The money no longer belongs to the depositor.

Australia did it last year for the first time. The banks grabbed $360 million from dormant accounts.

There is an additional twist. States are permitted to create and apply the dormant account theory based on state law. Each State must pass its own law as California and Georgia have done.  California and Georgia were delighted to pass such legislation. Why not? The money does not stay with the bank. It goes directly to the State. The State thereafter can use the monies to help pay its own debts, finance under funded state pension funds, etc.

The dormant account rule applies to safety deposit boxes, also. No activity and the box is emptied. Cash, jewelry, bonds, etc.

The pigs prevail again. However, this time for the benefit of State governments.

It is one hand washes the other. The banks need federal and state laws to permit them to steal legally from depositors. Along the way, why not do the States a favor and grab some money for them.

Note that what one bank does today, others will do tomorrow. The same with State banking laws.

Which brings us to offshore banking accounts. There are trillions of dollars held in offshore banking accounts by American corporations or corporations doing business in the United States. They sit there because the corporations do not wish to pay U.S. taxes on the money. Taxes which we sorely need to pay down debt and provide for our people.

Recognize that many Congress persons want to cut, alter or eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The same Congress persons who voted to permit corporate America to enjoy the benefit of tax free off shore accounts.

It does not make sense to me. 

Now to the point of this tirade re offshore accounts. 

Putin announced last week that many Russian businesses are burying their money in offshore accounts to avoid Russian taxes. He said it was time to do something about it.

I believe Putin will. If he moves with the same speed he has re Crimea and gas outlets in North Korea, South Korea and China, he will have the problem resolved in my opinion by year's end. Of course, Putin has an advantage. He rules/governs a totalitarian state. He's the boss, he calls the shots. Russia's legislative body is controlled by Putin. 

I am eager to see how Putin handles his off shore problem. We might learn something from it.

I wonder if we will ever reach the point where the people run the government again. It seems to me Congress is beholden to the corporations and the corporations own Congress. Government of the people, by the people and for the people is yesterday's news. What will it take to return us to those days?

OUR ENEMY THE BANKS

Lets talk about banks. Nationally and internationally.

 

They have become too big. Too big to control. Eventually they will totally dominate and/or destroy society as we know it. Unless reigned in.

 

Recall the mortgage foreclosure crisis of 2008-9. People put out of their homes.

 

The crisis in the first instance was caused by the banks themselves.They got greedy. The banks were loaning money without credit checks. They were loaning money at more than the value of the property. The banks wanted to get as many homes on their mortgage books as they could and then turn them over to another entity almost immediately who in turn bundled them and started trading them. Just like stocks. A major insurance company even insured the transactions. Everyone was eating big!

 

Most banks lied and cheated about many aspects of the mortgaging and foreclosure process. The insurance aspect following foreclosure was fraught with fraud. Involved also were improper file reviews and kick backs. In addition to other machinations.

 

If the entity who loans the money is not paid, that entity goes under as well as the person who borrowed the money. That is the normal way. Not with the banks, however.

 

We were told the banks were too big to fail. The national and international economies would fall if the major banks took a hit.

 

So the United States bailed the banks out. Big bailout dollars. Taxpayer dollars.  As a result thereof, the banks survived. They invested the bailout dollars rather than loan the monies to the American public. The banks made tons of profit. Bank CEOs began to receive any where from $10 million to $40 million in bonus'. At the same time that the American people were experiencing the worst depression since 1929.

 

No bank or banking official was ever arrested, indicted, charged, or brought to trial, for any of the criminal misdeeds involved.

 

From too big to fail to too big to prosecute. Then and now.

 

Recall the very recent HSBC scandal. HSBC is a British bank. One of the largest in the world. The bank has many offices in the United States. The U.S. bank got itself involved in money laundering. Primarily drug cartel dollars from Mexico and Columbia. Illegal. Nevertheless, HSBC did it. Involved was $200 trillion. Many times more than our national debt. HSBC received a monthly profit in the area of $1.9 billion.

 

The United States government caught them. HSBC was investigated upside down and inside out for its involvement. The investigation was conducted at the highest level of government. Attorney General Holderfield spearheaded the investigation.

 

A deferred prosecution agreement was entered into between HSBC and the United States. HSBC admitted its wrongdoing. Agreed to pay one month's profit of $1.9 billion as a penalty. And promised to sin no more.

 

Attorney General Holderfield took the position that the national and international ramifications of criminal charges would hurt the world economy. He suggested the matter was too complicated because of the size of the banks to proceed beyond the deferred prosecution agreement. In effect, HSBC was too big to prosecute.

 

Now comes Cyprus. Cyprus has been front page news the past two weeks.

 

The problem confronting Cyprus has to do with the euro, the euro bank, the European Central Bank, and many other banks. Cyprus owes money to the euro nation bank. It cannot meet its payments. The euro bank says pay up. The alternative for Cyprus is bankruptcy. Imagine, a country going bankrupt!

 

Involved is some $12 billion. Cyprus says help. We need a bailout. The euro bank says ok. BUT Cyprus must come up with the first $7.5 billion.

 

Cyprus did not have the money and could not come up with it. The euro nation and bank arrived at a solution. They wanted Cyprus to levy/tax all bank deposits in Cyprus a certain percentage. Cyprus was told just take the money out. In effect, screw the depositors.

 

This insane idea by the euro bank was subject to Cyprus' legislature approving it. Good luck! The people were in the streets immediately protesting! The legislature voted no with not one positive vote being registered.

 

The problem still exists. Cyprus banks have been closed a week already. They are scheduled to open next Tuesday (this past Tuesday) assuming some arrangement is made regarding grabbing the money from depositors' bank accounts. The percentage is being discussed. The only banking service available to Cypriots presently are the ATM machines.They are still being loaded with cash. People are standing in long lines to take their money out at the rate of 500 euros a day.

 

Grabbing the bank accounts is the euro nation and euro bank's way to get paid. Perhaps the only way.

 

Bankers in the last 20 years have become bad people. They have acquired too much power. They have become a world unto themselves. More powerful in many instances than even the United States.

 

Banks have historically been frowned upon. Christ threw the money changers out of the temple. Shakespeare wrote of Shylock.

 

If, and it is a huge if, the banks have their way with Cyprus and depositors' accounts, the calamity will spread. If permitted in one place, it can be done every where. It would not surprise me in due course to see American banks do it to their depositors for one reason or another.

 

Therein lies the danger. Taking money from a depositor's account will become a spreading cancer. American banks are saying never in the United States. I do not believe them. 

 

Let me share the thoughts of some famous persons regarding banks. The quotes speak for themselves.

 

Thomas Jefferson said, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless." Jefferson also said, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."

 

John Adams was of the opinion that "...banks have done more injury to religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they have done or ever will do good."

 

Finally, Lord Action crystallized that which faces us: "The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks."

 

Be vigilant, my friends.