Utah: inflation fears, distrust of Fed

Utah doubles down on gold laws amid inflation fears, distrust of Fed

Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2011-04-02 04:07. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Matt Whittaker
The Wall Street Journal
Friday, April 1, 2011

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870380630457623705417107016...

NEW YORK -- The gold bugs have settled in Utah.

Populist fears about the Federal Reserve's loose money policy spurred Gov. Gary Herbert last week to sign a law that is already on the books. Utah now explicitly recognizes that gold and silver coins designated legal tender by the federal government are also legal tender in the state.

This redundant exercise in lawmaking aims to keep alive the debate over gold's role in the economy as rising costs for everyday goods hit household budgets. In television commercials and newspaper ads, gold is peddled as a safe investment that is shielded against inflation. Those that advocate for its broader acceptance and believe gold prices will continue to rise—in tandem with inflation—are known as "gold bugs."

When food and energy are excluded, price increases for goods and services have remained muted, although some worry that the rate of overall inflation could elude the Fed's control if the central bank doesn't soon rein in its hyper-accommodative monetary policy.

It is those inflation worries that have supported gold prices, now double what they were 2 1/2 years ago.

Gold futures on Friday settled $11 lower at $1,428.90 an ounce as Fed officials publicly took sides this week, sending conflicting signals about the course of U.S. monetary policy.

The Utah legislation is "a bit of a sideshow," said Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. However, it is "symptomatic of a great deal of distrust about the Federal Reserve. People are getting mad as they see what is happening at the grocery store and the gas station and then hear [Fed Chairman Ben] Bernanke say we're hitting the target."

As both Utah and federal law now stand, anyone can use the American Eagle, for example, at its $50 face value. But no one does, because the yellow metal is the U.S. Mint's most popular one-ounce gold coin is currently worth more than $1,400.

Utah State Rep. Brad Galvez, the Republican who introduced the bill, admits that the law itself doesn't change much, but he says he hopes it lays the groundwork for a more significant shift in the future.

"The intent would be to see where a gold or silver coin is valued at its market value instead of its face value," Mr. Galvez said. "This allows the people of Utah to protect their assets against what we're seeing in inflation and the devaluation of the dollar."

Radical legislation calling for a more mainstream role for precious metals as forms of payment has been brought in Montana, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho and Indiana, but those efforts failed. Georgia legislators introduced a bill in that state's House of Representatives that would require banks that get business from the state to offer deposits and withdrawals in gold and silver coins. The bill, which also would mandate the state conduct payments exclusively in gold and silver, hasn't progressed to the state Senate.

"What's really happening here is that this is the consequence of people becoming more concerned with extreme monetary expansion on the part of the Fed," said Steve Wyatt, a finance professor and chairman of Miami University's Farmer School of Business in Ohio.

The Utah law, set to take effect May 7, requires the state's revenue and tax committee to study the possibility of establishing an alternative form of legal tender, which Mr. Galvez hopes will be the market value of gold and silver coins.

"This would provide an alternative in the event the dollar tanks," said Mr. Galvez, who wants to see coin depositories where customers would deposit their gold and silver and be given a debit card containing dollars equivalent to their value.

The decades-long ban on gold purchases by ordinary Americans was lifted in 1974 following the collapse of the gold standard, so it is a relatively new form of investment.

Bank officials say any moves toward greater acceptance of precious metals in the mainstream financial system would entail logistical hassles.

"We would not support anything that would require us to spend a lot of money to buy the equipment to weigh and measure any of this currency," said Howard Headlee, president of the Utah Bankers Association.

Bullion isn't likely to become a common feature of the U.S. monetary system any time soon, said Jon Nadler, an analyst at Montreal-based Kitco Metals, which buys and sells coins and bars made of precious metals.

If someone were to try to make a typical purchase with an American Eagle, "just picture the face of the clerk in Wal-Mart," Mr. Nadler said.

I Love Dennis Kucinich - By Rothschild

I Love Dennis Kucinich

By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, April 1, 2011

Can I tell you how much I love Dennis Kucinich?

I was almost asleep last night when my wife was flipping through the channels and landed on C-SPAN.

“Dennis Kucinich is on,” she told me.

So I opened my eyes and my ears, and I’m glad I did, because it was one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard.

Kucinich laid it all out.

--The blatant disregard for the Constitution that Obama showed in launching the Libya war.

Said Kucinich: “The critical issue before this nation today is not Libyan democracy, it is American democracy.” He added: the Obama Administration “has thrown caution to the winds and our Constitution to the ground.”

--The dubious claim that this is a humanitarian intervention.

Said Kucinich: “What is humanitarian about providing to one side of a conflict the ability to wage war against the other side of a conflict, which will inevitably trigger a civil war turning Libya into a graveyard?”

--And Obama’s ever-expanding justifications for war.

Said Kucinich:
“In two years we have moved from President Bush’s doctrine of preventive war to President Obama’s assertion of the right to go to war without even the pretext of a threat to our nation.”

Kucinich also noted that the CIA has longstanding ties— going back decades—with the Libyan rebels, suggesting that the CIA may have provoked them into taking up arms, which occasioned the humanitarian crisis that Obama seized upon.

And Kucinich urged us, in this period of great transformations, to transform ourselves: to turn “away from intervention, away from trying to determine the leadership of other nations, away from covert operations to try to manipulate events, and towards a rendezvous with those great principles of self-determination which gave us birth.”

So check out Kucinich’s speech of March 31 for yourself. Google it. Watch it. Read it. Study it. There is more wisdom in it than on any Sunday morning show or cable talk fest or milquetoast editorial in The New York Times.

If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "Walker and Cronies Are Lawless Bastards!."

Follow Matthew Rothschild @mattrothschild on Twitter

Nuovi servizi disponibili per la mafia del credito

Furti d'identità: nuove norme contro le frodi creditizie

Consentire alle società che erogano prestiti di poter verificare i dati sensibili dei propri clienti al fine di prevenire le frodi nel settore creditizio ed in particolare i furti d'identità. E' quanto prevede il nuovo decreto legislativo, approvato dal Consiglio dei Ministri in via definitiva lo scorso 23 marzo. Per contrastare i comportamenti illeciti e, di conseguenza, dare più sicurezza alle società e agli intermediari finanziari il decreto legislativo dispone una *deroga alla normativa sulla privacy*. In particolare, *per le società finanziatrici sarà possibile ottenere informazioni su documenti d'identità, partite Iva, codici fiscali, dichiarazioni dei redditi, ma anche posizioni previdenziali e assistenziali dei consumatori che hanno chiesto un prestito, una dilazione o uno slittamento dei pagamenti*. Il tutto attraverso un sistema pubblico di prevenzione. Il sistema, che sarà costituito**presso il Ministero dell'economia, si basa su un archivio centrale informatizzato e su un gruppo di lavoro appositamente dedicato, i cui componenti resteranno in carica per tre anni. I costi del sistema graveranno interamente sugli aderenti il sistema pubblico di prevenzione. L'adesione al meccanismo di tutela e ogni richiesta di verifica, per singolo nominativo, comporteranno un pagamento che la finanziaria richiedente informazioni, aderente al sistema, dovrà versare all'ente gestore. Prima di poter accedere al sistema, ciascun aderente dovrà stipulare una convenzione con l'ente gestore. Al sistema di prevenzione potranno partecipare: banche (incluse quelle extraUe) e intermediari finanziari, fornitori di servizi di comunicazione elettronica, fornitori di servizi interattivi associati o di servizi di accesso condizionato, gestori di sistemi di informazioni creditizie e imprese che offrono servizi antifrode.

News stories related to the World Bank and IMF

A selection of news stories related to the World Bank and IMF, brought to you by the Bretton Woods Project:


Brazil's Lula tells Portugal to reject IMF bailout as Lisbon faces downgrade
http://blogs.forbes.com/afontevecchia/2011/03/29/brazils-lula-tells-portugal-to-reject-imf-bailout-as-lisbon-faces-downgrade//afontevecchia/2011/03/29/brazils-lula-tells-portugal-to-reject-imf-bailout-as-lisbon-faces-downgrade/
Forbes, 29 March 2011

Climate funds to underwrite the World Bank's love affair with big dams?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/climate-funds-to-underwri_b_842170..html
Huffington Post, 29 March 2011

Europe needs debt relief, not decades of austerity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/28/europe-debt-relief
Guardian, 28 March 2011

The World Bank and Africa
http://www.modernghana.com/news/322076/1/the-world-bank-and-afrika.html
modernghana.com, 28 March 2011

Continuing colonialism: World Bank funds mining in Africa
http://www.countercurrents.org/mychalejko270311.htm
countercurrents.org, 27 March 2011

World Bank's forest climate fund slammed for sidelining indigenous peoples' rights and failing to protect forests
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/41428
egovmonitor.com, 25 March 2011

Serbia unions rally for wage hikes, less austerity
http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/serbia-unions-rally-for-wage-hikes-less-austerity
Reuters, 25 March 2011

Guess which policy your central bank will pursue by Dean Baker
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/15/economics-imf
Guardian, 15 March 2011

Japan Post's stalled sale a saving grace

Japan Post's stalled sale a saving grace
By Ellen Brown, Asian Times

When a spokeswoman for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said at a news conference on March 17 that Japan has the financial means to recover from its devastating tsunami, skeptical bloggers wondered what she meant. Was it a polite way of saying, "You're on your own?"

Spokeswoman Caroline Atkinson said, "The most important policy priority is to address the humanitarian needs, the infrastructure needs and reconstruction and addressing the nuclear situation. We believe that the Japanese economy is a strong and wealthy society and the government has the full financial resources to address those needs."

Asked whether Japan had asked for IMF assistance, she said, "Japan has not requested any financial assistance from the IMF." Skeptics asked how a country with a national debt that was over 200% of gross domestic product (GDP) could be "strong and wealthy". In a Central Intelligence Agency Factbook list of debt to GDP ratios of 132 countries in 2010, Japan was at the top of the list at 226%, passing even Zimbabwe, ringing in at 149%. Greece and Iceland were fifth and sixth, at 144% and 124%. Yet Japan's credit rating was still AA, while Greece and Iceland were in the BBB category. How has Japan managed to retain not only its credit rating but its status as the second- or third-largest economy in the world, while carrying that whopping debt load? The answer may be that the Japanese government has a captive funding source: it owns the world's largest depository bank. As US vice president Dick Cheney said, "Deficits don't matter." They don't matter, at least, when you own the bank that is your principal creditor. Japan has remained impervious to the speculative attacks that have crippled countries such as Greece and Iceland because it has not fallen into the trap of dependency on foreign financing. Japan Post Bank is now the largest holder of personal savings in the world, making it the world's largest credit engine. Most money today originates as bank loans, and deposits are the magic pool from which this credit-money is generated. Japan Post is not only the world's largest depository bank but its largest publicly owned bank. By 2007, it was also the largest employer in Japan, and the holder of one-fifth of the national debt in the form of government bonds. As noted by Joe Weisenthal, writing in Business Insider in February 2010: Because Japan's enormous public debt is largely held by its own citizens, the country doesn't have to worry about foreign investors losing confidence. If there's going to be a run on government debt, it will have to be the result of its own citizens not wanting to fund it anymore. And since many Japanese fund the government via accounts held at the Japan Post Bank - which in turn buys government debt - that institution would be the conduit for a shift to occur. That could explain why Japan Post has been the battleground of warring political factions for over a decade. The Japanese Postal Savings System dates back to 1875; but in 2001, Japan Post was formed as an independent public corporation, the first step in privatizing it and selling it off to investors. When newly elected prime minister Junichiro Koizumi tried to push through the restructuring, however, he met with fierce resistance. In 2004, Koizumi shuffled his cabinet, appointed reform-minded people as new ministers, and created a new position for postal privatization minister, appointing Heizo Takenaka to the post. In March 2006, Anthony Rowley wrote in Bloomberg: By privatizing Japan Post, [Koizumi] aims to break the stranglehold that politicians and bureaucrats have long exercised over the allocation of financial resources in Japan and to inject fresh competition into the country's financial services industry. His plan also will create a potentially mouthwatering target for domestic and international investors: Japan Post's savings bank and insurance arms boast combined assets of more than 380 trillion yen (US$3.2 trillion) ... A $3 trillion asset pool is mouthwatering indeed. In a 2007 reorganization, the postal savings division was separated from the post office's other arms, turning Japan Post into a proper bank. According to an October 2007 article in The Economist: The newly created Japan Post Bank will be free to concentrate on banking, and its new status will enable it to diversify into fresh areas of business such as mortgage lending and credit cards. To some degree, this diversification will also be forced upon the new bank. Some of the special treatment afforded to its predecessor will be revoked, obliging Japan Post Bank to invest more adventurously in order to retain depositors - and, ultimately, to attract investors once it lists on the stock market. That was the plan, and Japan Post has been investing more adventurously; but it hasn't yet given up its government privileges. New Financial Services Minister Shizuka Kamei has put a brake on the privatization process, and the bank's shares have not been sold. Meanwhile, the consolidated Post Bank has grown to enormous size, passing Citigroup as the world's largest financial institution; and it has been branching into new areas, alarming competitors. A March 2007 article in USA Today warned, "The government-nurtured colossus could leverage its size to crush rivals, foreign and domestic." Before the March 2011 tsunami, that is what it appeared to be doing. But now there is talk of reverting to the neoliberal model, selling off public assets to find the funds to rebuild. Christian Caryl commented in a March 19 article in Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations: As horrible as it is, the devastation of the earthquake presents Japan and its political class with the chance to push through the many reforms that the DPJ [Democratic Party of Japan] has long promised and the country so desperately needs. In other words, a chance for investors to finally get their hands on Japan's prized publicly owned bank and the massive deposit base that has so far protected the economy from the attacks of foreign financial predators. The battle of the banks Before the 1990s, Japan was the world's leading industrial and consumer goods innovator. The Japanese public-private model promised a high standard of living and leisure time for all, with much of the work done by robot-driven machines. But Japan was also the world's largest creditor, posing a threat to other international interests. The Bank for International Settlement (BIS), the "central bankers' central bank" in Basel, Switzerland, demonstrated in 1988 that it had the power to make or break banks and economies when it issued a Basel Accord, raising bank capital requirements from 6% to 8%. Japan's banks were less well capitalized than other banks, and raising the capital requirement forced them to cut back on lending. Housing in Japan was in a major bubble. The Basel Accord supplied the pin. When credit collapsed, so did the housing market, creating a recession in Japan like that in the US today. Property prices fell and loans went into default, as the security for them shriveled up. A downward spiral followed, ending with the total bankruptcy of the banks. The banking system had to be rescued by the government. Essentially, the banks were nationalized, although that word was avoided to prevent arousing criticism. The Nikkei stock market crashed and took Japanese industries down with it. By 2001, Western investors were finally able to penetrate Japanese markets that had previously been closed to them, entering the merger-and-acquisition market to acquire crippled Japanese enterprises. Major public companies were at least partially privatized, including the railway, telegraph and telephone companies; but the government resisted letting go of its vital postal service system. 'Japan's second budget' The history of the Japanese Postal Savings System (JPB) is detailed in a University of Leipzig discussion paper called "Behold the 'Behemoth': The Privatization of Japan Post Bank". Founded in 1875, the postal savings banks were quite popular with the Japanese people, and Japan soon had more post office locations than the United States and other countries. Japanese postal savings banks specialized in offering small accounts for low-income households, in competition with private savings banks that paid higher interest rates but were considered less safe than the government's postal savings system. Postal savings banks were also attractive to savers because they offered special time deposits called teigaku savings, or "fixed amount postal savings", on quite favorable terms. These were 10-year time deposits from which depositors could withdraw funds on short notice without penalty, making them very liquid and reducing interest-rate risk. There was a formal limit of 10 million yen in postal deposits per individual or household, but it was not rigorously enforced; and wealthy savers could circumvent it by holding multiple accounts. JPB formed the basis of a unique and opaque system of borrowing and lending, which operated as a "shadow" banking system sometimes referred to as "Japan's second budget". Postal savings were channeled into government-related banks or forwarded to various government-affiliated institutions, where lending was guided by the Japanese Ministry of Finance (MoF). Formalized after the Second World War and named FILP, this system turned postal services into "a huge, opaque pool for funding for various policy lending purposes". Unlike the national budget, budget allocation to FILP did not require parliamentary approval. Funds were channeled to local governments, government-affiliated public companies, and government financial institutions acting as highly specialized lenders. Although many countries have government-sponsored loan programs, the Japanese program was remarkable for its size. By 2001, the FILP program involved over 400 trillion yen, a sum equal to 82% of Japan's GDP.

That was the year Japan Post was formed as a newly independent public corporation; but it was still owned by the government, and employees retained their status as public servants. New regulations encouraged government agencies that had relied on FILP loans to issue their own securities, and FILP agencies no longer had automatic access to postal savings funds. But Japan Post bought the bonds issued by the government agencies, and the flow of funds was largely unchanged.

The battle over privatization
What followed was described by Christian Caryl in his article in

Foreign Affairs: Under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - the party whose cadres ruled Japan almost continuously from the party's formation in 1955 to its defeat in a general election two years ago - politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate leaders developed a powerful web of patronage and interconnected interests, which ended up funneling taxpayer money into public works projects of dubious justification. But ... Japan's political culture began to change ten years ago, when Junichiro Koizumi, then LDP's leader, won a remarkable election victory by vowing to dismantle his party's entrenched establishment and the vested interests that propped it up. (On the eve of the election, Koizumi famously declared that he would "destroy the LDP.") He pushed through a vital restructuring and privatization of Japan Post, which is not only Japan's postal service but the world's biggest savings bank by assets and the source of much of the funding for public works. When Koizumi met with resistance, he vowed to "discipline" opponents. When the Upper House of the Japanese Diet did not pass his privatization bills, he dissolved the Lower House and called for a general election. A few weeks later, his postal privatization plans passed both chambers of the Diet. The privatization plan was begun in 2007 and was supposed to end in complete privatization of Japan Post by 2017. Caryl observes: Among its other effects, Koizumi's reforms expanded the political and cultural space for a genuine two-party system - an opening that was seized by the Democratic Party of Japan, which had gradually evolved into a credible force since its formation in 1998. The DPJ is now led by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who since the start of the current crisis, has failed to give an entirely convincing performance. He has oscillated between forceful displays of leadership and indecisiveness. The DPJ's indecisiveness was evident in its handling of Japan Post. The DPJ appointed Shizuka Kamei, the leader of a junior coalition party called People's New Party, as the minister responsible for the post office. Mr Kamei then proceeded to freeze the postal privatization. Michiyo Nakomoto, writing in the Financial Times on April 5, 2010, said, "There was always going to be disagreement between the DPJ, whose core members believe the post office's bank and insurance companies should be scaled back to revitalize the private sector, and Mr Kamei's PNP, whose prime goal is to expand the post office's influence." But Mr Kamei and his junior party had the upper hand in this debate. Mr Nakamoto wrote in the Financial Times on September 20, 2009: Mr Kamei ... has been particularly vocal about the need to reverse course on postal privatization. ... The minister has also been vocal on the need to support struggling small and medium-sized companies, fuelling concerns that the government would adopt a socialist approach to the private sector. Of particular alarm to some critics have been Mr Kamei's remarks suggesting that the government would shelter SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] facing financial problems via a temporary moratorium on loan repayments. "When the lender is in trouble, we will rescue them with taxes and when the borrower is in trouble, we will grant them a reprieve [on their loans]. That is the natural thing to do," Mr Kamei told the Nikkei business daily at the weekend. In an April 2010 article in The Australian, Peter Alford called Kamei "the man who masterminded a major change to Japan's public finance arrangements in the guise of restructuring postal services". Alford wrote: It was accepted that he would halt and disable the previous government's privatization program to separate and sell the bank and insurance businesses by 2017. But now, without any apparent consultation with ... other fiscal and administrative policy ministers, he has moved to significantly alter private savings behavior and public funding capability. ... The irascible 73-year-old Financial Services Minister proposed - well, demanded, actually - that Japan Post Bank's individual deposit limit be raised to Y20 million ($230,000) and Japan Post Insurance's maximum policy coverage rise to Y25m. In doing so, he has significantly expanded Japan Post's capacity to use those savings and premiums to finance public debt. As of March 31 last year, 74% of the postal bank and postal insurer's combined assets of Y303 trillion (that's right, $3,480 billion) were held in Japan government bonds (JGBs) and another 4% in local government bonds. Utilizing the post office's 24,000 shop fronts, Japan Post Bank (the world's largest savings bank) and Japan Post Insurance (the nation's largest personal insurer) held Y280.2 trillion of deposits and insurance reserves, equivalent to 19% of Japanese household financial assets. ... Kamei justified the move by saying, "The reality is we issue a massive amount of Japan government bonds and we need someone to buy them - we should be thankful the Post Office is willing to buy." Kamei's bold move was good for the government and good for the people, but its foreign and domestic competitors were not pleased. A coalition of organizations representing American, Canadian and European business interests objected that the proposal disregarded "international best practices to ensure equal competitive conditions" and raised "new and serious questions regarding Japan's commitment to fulfilling its international GATS [General Agreement on Trade in Services] obligations." Michiyo Nakamoto wrote in the Financial Times in May 2010: In a last ditch effort to stall the expansion of Japan's post office bank, seven financial associations, representing all manner of private sector banks, on Thursday issued a joint statement opposing the government's decision to significantly enlarge the bank's role in financial markets. The private sector banks are fuming at the government's decision to raise the maximum that can be held in an account at the postal bank from Y10m ($112,000) to Y20m and allow the lender into a wider range of businesses than it has been permitted to engage in so far. They argue that the government's stake, which is currently at 100%, gives the postal bank almost a state guarantee that will encourage depositors to shift their savings out of private banks into the post bank. They are also worried that the post bank, the country's biggest bank by deposits, will encroach on the few profitable areas of banking business in Japan's sluggish economy. Japan Post Bank started diversifying away from low-interest government bonds into more lucrative investments. In December 2010, sources said it was considering opening its first overseas office in London, "aiming to obtain the latest financial information there to help diversify its asset management schemes." But that was before the crippling tsunami and the nuclear disaster it triggered. Whether they will finally force Japan Post's privatization remains to be seen. Other vulnerable countries have sold off their assets only to wind up in debt peonage to outside creditors. The Japanese government can afford its enormous debt because the interest it pays is extremely low. For the private economy, public debt IS money. A large public debt owed to the Japanese people means Japanese industries have the money to rebuild. But if Japan Post is sold off to private investors, interest rates are liable to rise, plunging the government into the debt trap it has so far largely escaped. The Japanese people are intensely patriotic, however, and they are not likely to submit quietly to domination by foreigners. They generally like their government because they feel it is serving their interests. Hopefully the Japanese government will have the foresight and the fortitude to hang onto its colossal publicly owned bank and use it to leverage its people's savings into the credit needed to rebuild its ravaged infrastructure, avoiding a crippling debt burden to foreign interests. Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of 11 books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com. (Copyright Ellen Brown 2011.)

LA FINANZA MONCA DELL’ITALIA IN VENDITA

LA FINANZA MONCA DELL’ITALIA IN VENDITA

Nel 2006 ho iniziato a spiegare pubblicamente – primo in Italia, a quanto mi risulta – attraverso i miei libri e le mie conferenze, l’esistenza di pratiche di creazione monetaria della dark pool finance o upstairs finance: operazioni finanziarie extracontabili, fuori dal mercato borsistico, eseguite a porte chiuse, privatamente. Si tratta soprattutto di emissione da parte di banche, intermediazione e sconto (trading) – con conseguente creazione di mezzi monetari contabili – di grossi strumenti finanziari (taglio standard: 500 milioni di USD), detti MTN, o Medium Term Notes (sorta di pagherò bancari) che possono essere appunto scontati o usati come garanzia per erogare prestiti o analoghe operazioni creative di liquidità. Liquidità che viene usata sia per estese speculazioni finanziarie e immobiliari (costruzione di bolle), che per investimenti infrastrutturali e simili. Tutto su grande scala. I profitti per le banche che li emettono e li intermediano sono enormi. Notevole anche la remunerazione dei privati che, mettendo a disposizione la loro liquidità effettiva (non ricevuta a prestito) come investitori, danno la copertura frazionaria a tali operazioni – le banche, infatti, non sono autorizzate a farle direttamente tra di loro e mediante denaro contabile. Si noti che queste operazioni sono extracontabili, extrabilancio, quindi non appesantiscono i conti apparenti delle banche emittenti (cioè, che si indebitano).

Generando enormi quantità di liquidi, esse consentono di eseguire grandi investimenti, grandi opere pubbliche, grandi programmi di sviluppo Sono quindi lo strumento elettivo per rilanciare le economie di paesi in stagnazione o recessione e affetti da forte indebitamento e forte pressione fiscale. In tali paesi, di cui l’Italia è uno, i capitali privati aspettano, per investire, che il trend recessivo e di rarefazione monetaria (con conseguente calo della domanda e della capacità di pagare) sia invertito, perché altrimenti non ci sono le prospettive di poter ammortizzare l’investimento e realizzare profitti. Il trend può venire invertito da massicci investimenti infrastrutturali di lungo termine, che in passato faceva lo Stato spendendo a deficit, ma ora non li può fare perché è senza soldi, schiacciato da debiti, vincolato a tagliare la spesa. Quindi l’unica fonte possibile di investimenti massicci e di lungo termine è la suddetta dark pool finance.

Da quando mi interesso di dark pool finance, cerco anche di individuare suoi operatori in Italia. Nel mondo ci sono 25 o 26 banche autorizzate a praticare il trading di MTN e simili, ma in Italia non ne ho trovato alcuna. Ho appreso soltanto di una primaria banca che, giunta in una situazione di pre-crisi, è stata salvata con iniezioni di denaro generato mediante trading. Ma all’estero, anche in vicini paesi europei, queste operazioni si fanno – si genera cioè liquidità (anche) per investimenti, per il rilancio. Là sì, qua no. Non stupiamoci quindi se l’Italia non solo resta al palo, anzi declina. E se i pezzi forti della sua economia (dalle griffes alle poche grandi industrie, dalla gestione delle acque al mercato della grande distribuzione e alle quote delle sue banche strategiche) vengono comperati da capitali stranieri. La mancanza di questi strumenti monetari fa dell’Italia (e di altri paesi) automaticamente un paese senza sovranità o autonomia rispetto ad altri – un paese inferiore e servitore, una nazione “escort”, ma povera, non come Ruby. Un sistema paese che non ha la capacità di produrre moneta, e che per giunta è indebitato e vincolato a non proteggersi dai capitali stranieri, è automaticamente destinato ad essere comperato e colonizzato dai capitali stranieri, e precisamente da quei sistemi-paese e da quei potentati finanziari che hanno la possibilità di produrre moneta a costo zero. Essi comperano il suo debito pubblico, le sue azione indebitate, le sue banche, etc. – e in tal modo ne acquisiscono il possesso economico e politico. In essenza, se l’Italia vuole uscire dalla recessione, non potendo generare moneta internamente, deve farsi comperare da capitali cinesi, francesi, tedeschi. Deve vendersi. Ma non come lo fa una escort di lusso, bensì come una donna affamata. I suoi politici sono i suoi magnacci, infatti. Questa compera-colonializzazione è tanto più rapida, quanto più il paese debole si fa, o viene reso, carente di liquidità, indebitato, colpito da disoccupazione. Una crisi bancaria può completare il processo di colonizzazione in pochi mesi.

E una crisi bancaria, in Italia, è in preparazione. Infatti, dall’interno di una primaria banca, ho informazione che i suoi titolari, al fine di moltiplicare gli utili onde poterla vendere ad un’altra primaria banca a un costo superiore al dovuto, hanno implementato una politica di bilancio che a)evita di mettere in sofferenza molti crediti che dovrebbero essere messi in sofferenza; b)mantiene nello stato patrimoniale crediti già ceduti; c)si crea liquidità a breve (6 mesi, rinnovabili) registrando come “raccolta” portafoglio (ri.ba.) senza valore, spesso fasullo; d)non paga i premi di produzione ai dipendenti, differendoli ad annate venture.

I media, le autorità di sorveglianza, nonché I soci, grandi e soprattutto piccoli, della banca prospettiva acquirente o incorporante, stiano quindi in campana. Anche perché analoghe politiche corre voce siano praticate anche da altre banche.

La situazione del sistema bancario italiano appare quindi molto tesa e mascherata con sistematiche falsità contabili. Fonti bene informate prevedono l’emersione massiccia dei trucchi contabili, quindi il collasso finanziario del sistema Italia, pubblico e bancario, tra il luglio di quest’anno e il dicembre del prossimo.

01.04.11 Marco Della Luna

Golpe at Central Bank Of Libya

The Economic Collapse

Wow That Was Fast! Libyan Rebels Have Already Established A New Central Bank Of Libya

The rebels in Libya are in the middle of a life or death civil war and Moammar Gadhafi is still in power and yet somehow the Libyan rebels have had enough time to establish a new Central Bank of Libya and form a new national oil company. Perhaps when this conflict is over those rebels can become time management consultants. They sure do get a lot done. What a skilled bunch of rebels - they can fight a war during the day and draw up a new central bank and a new national oil company at night without any outside help whatsoever. If only the rest of us were so versatile! But isn't forming a central bank something that could be done after the civil war is over? According to Bloomberg, the Transitional National Council has "designated the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and the appointment of a governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi." Apparently someone felt that it was very important to get pesky matters such as control of the banks and control of the money supply out of the way even before a new government is formed.

Of course it is probably safe to assume that the new Central Bank of Libya will be 100% owned and 100% controlled by the newly liberated people of Libya, isn't it?

Most people don't realize that the previous Central Bank of Libya was 100% state owned. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on the former Central Bank of Libya....

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) is 100% state owned and represents the monetary authority in The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and enjoys the status of autonomous corporate body. The law establishing the CBL stipulates that the objectives of the central bank shall be to maintain monetary stability in Libya , and to promote the sustained growth of the economy in accordance with the general economic policy of the state.

Since the old Central Bank of Libya was state owned, it was essentially under the control of Moammar Gadhafi.

But now that Libya is going to be "free", the new Central Bank of Libya will be run by Libyans and solely for the benefit of Libyans, right?

Of course it is probably safe to assume that will be the case with the new national oil company as well, isn't it?

Over the past couple of years, Moammar Gadhafi had threatened to nationalize the oil industry in Libya and kick western oil companies out of the country, but now that Libya will be "free" the people of Libya will be able to work hand in hand with "big oil" and this will create a better Libya for everyone.

Right?

Of course oil had absolutely nothing to do with why the U.S. "inva---" (scratch that) "initiated a kinetic humanitarian liberty action" in Libya.

When Barack Obama looked straight into the camera and told the American people that the war in Libya is in the "strategic interest" of the United States, surely he was not referring to oil.

After all, war for oil was a "Bush thing", right? The Democrats voted for Obama to end wars like this, right? Surely no prominent Democrats will publicly support this war in Libya, right?

Surely Barack Obama will end the bombing of Libya if the international community begins to object, right?

Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize. He wouldn't deeply upset the other major powers on the globe and bring us closer to World War III, would he?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has loudly denounced "coalition strikes on columns of Gaddafi's forces" and he believes that the U.S. has badly violated the terms of the UN Security Council resolution....

"We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council resolution."

So to cool off rising tensions with the rest of the world, Obama is going to call off the air strikes, right?

Well, considering the fact that Obama has such vast foreign policy experience we should all be able to rest easy knowing that Obama will understand exactly what to do.

Meanwhile, the rebels seem to be getting the hang of international trade already.

They have even signed an oil deal with Qatar!

Rebel "spokesman" Ali Tarhouni has announced that oil exports to Qatar will begin in "less than a week".

Who knew that the rag tag group of rebels in Libya were also masters of banking and international trade?

We sure do live in a strange world.

Tonight, Barack Obama told the American people the following....

"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different."

So now we are going to police all of the atrocities in all of the other countries around the globe?

The last time I checked, the government was gunning down protesters in Syria.

Is it time to start warming up the Tomahawks?

Or do we reserve "humanitarian interventions" only for those nations that have a lot of oil?

In fact, atrocities are currently being committed all over Africa and in about a dozen different nations in the Middle East.

Should we institute a draft so that we will have enough young men and women to police the world with?

We all have to be ready to serve our country, right?

The world is becoming a smaller place every day, and you never know where U.S. "strategic interests" are going to be threatened next.

The rest of the world understands that we know best, right?

Of course the rest of the world can surely see our good intentions in Libya, can't they?

Tensions with Russia, China and the rest of the Arab world are certainly going to subside after they all see how selfless our "humanitarian intervention" has been in Libya, don't you think?

In all seriousness, we now live in a world where nothing is stable anymore. Wars and revolutions are breaking out all over the globe, unprecedented natural disasters are happening with alarming frequency and the global economy is on the verge of total collapse.

By interfering in Libya, we are just making things worse. Gadhafi is certainly a horrible dictator, but this was a fight for the Libyan people to sort out.

We promised the rest of the world that we were only going to be setting up a "no fly zone". By violating the terms of the UN Security Council resolution, we have shown other nations that we cannot be trusted and by our actions we have increased tensions all over the globe.

So what do all of you think about what is going on in Libya? Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....