News

Per uscire dalla crisi: 10.000 euro a tutti, subito - come anticipo sulla restituzione del signoraggio...Yes We Can!

Italia 2008: 307 miliardi di euro, il 53,36% delle entrate, il costo del signoraggio BCE - più di 10mila euro per famiglia

Appuntamenti

- 5th annual AMI 2009 Monetary Reform Conference - Roosevelt University in Chicago, Sept. 24–27, 2009

- Rebus, questioni di conoscenza: Signoraggio - lunedì 27 aprile, dalle 22.00 alle 23.15 su Odeon e Oden24 - canale SKY 827
- Bail Out the People Not the Banks! March On WALL STREET April 3 & 4 - Assemble at 1 pm both Friday, April 3 & Saturday, April 4 at the Intersection of Wall & Broad Streets (The Stock Exchange)
- NEW VISION AMID THE ECONOMIC CRISIS - IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS Committee Room, London, 14, 2ND APRIL 2009

The G20 Must Discuss Monetary Reform at its 2nd April Meeting and We Must Make Sure It's On Their Agenda

Attualità di marzo 2009  
Since late 2006:  341 major U.S. lending operations have "imploded"
Since late 2006: 110 funds at 67 outfits have "imploded"
Since early 2007:  83  banks have "imploded"
Since late 2006:  71  major builders have "imploded" - plus 49 additional tiny implosions

Monete "altre"         ...alla ricerca della Moneta Democratica: il primo passo per la liberazione dell'Europa

La monnaie, à l'image des écosystèmes: plus de diversité S.V.P.! - par Bernard Lietaer, FINANcité, 9 Mars 2009

A Spezzano Sila il progetto per la moneta locale - Il Quotidiano della Calabria, 27/03/2009
Il progetto «Buoni Scec-monete locali contro la crisi», per contrastare l'impoverimento delle famiglie rilanciando i settori produttivi locali

Conferenza del 28 febbraio 2009: SOVRANITA' MONETARIA E CRISI ECONOMICA (video) - CONACREIS, 28 marzo 2009
Con la partecipazione dell'avv. Amerigo Festa, presidente dell'Ass.ne United Beings Project e responsabile del Conacreis Campania

Veneto/ Verona, arriva lo 'Scec' la moneta solidale anti-crisi - di Apcom, 24 Marzo 2009
Sarà affiancata all'euro ma consentirà sconti fino al 30%

Note alle osservazioni del 16/03/2009 del Consiglio Regionale sul pdl del BRS - di Marco Saba, 20 marzo 2009

Proposta di pdl di iniziativa popolare "Istituzione del BRS" - osservazioni - Consiglio Regionale della Lombardia, Prot. 00003755 - 16/03/2009

Arriva lo SCEC: riscoprire il vero valore della moneta - di Francesco Bevilacqua, TerraNauta, 17 Marzo 2009
L’8 marzo si è tenuto a Rovigo il lancio ufficiale di Arcipelago Veneto, la sezione veneta dell'Arcipelago SCEC. Oltre che per conoscere questa interessante realtà in grande espansione, l’incontro ha rappresentato anche un’occasione per presentare analisi e proposte economiche alternative, in un momento storico in cui il fallimento dell’economia globale è sotto gli occhi di tutti

Gli Scec, la moneta complementare approda in Abruzzo - PrimaDaNoi.it, 12 marzo 2009

Euflazione: finalmente il denaro al servizio della comunità - intervista a Antonio Miclavez, MacroEdizioni
Tra pochi giorni in libreria il nuovo libro di Antonio Miclavez, coautore del bestseller Euroschiavi e attualmente attivo nella diffusione di NoEuro, la nuova moneta complementare pensata per i Comuni

COME GLI STATI ASSETATI DI SOLDI POSSONO CREARE IL PROPRIO CREDITO - da: webofdebt.com, 10/03/2009
Come diceva Gandhi “Quando il popolo farà strada, i leader si accoderanno”. Noi popolo possiamo battere i banchieri di Wall Street nel loro gioco, spingendo i nostri legislatori ad istituire banche di proprietà pubblica che possano creare credito utilizzando i medesimi princìpi che sono normalmente e usualmente accettati nelle attività dei banchieri stessi

Andata male con la lira e con l'euro? Proviamo con lo Scec - Abruzzo24oreTV, 12/03/2009
C'è chi nella vita, pur impegnandosi, non ha fatto una lira. Poi è arrivato l'euro, ma peggio che andar di notte. Ora arrivano gli Scec su iniziativa dell'associazione Terra nostra. La presentazione ufficiale del progetto si svolgerà sabato 14 marzo alle ore 11 presso la sala teatro del “Cuore Immacolato” (via Vespucci) a Pescara , con l’esclusiva partecipazione del presidente di ArcipelagoScec, Pierluigi Paletti

Intervento del Meetup di Napoli con menzione dello SCEC (video) - Firenze, 8 marzo 2009

CITIZEN CURRENCY: New Monetary System to Compete with the Predatory Federal Reserve System - by James Jaeger

CHIEMGAUER REGIOMONEY: THEORY AND PRACTICE OF A LOCAL CURRENCY - Christian Gelleri, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY CURRENCY RESEARCH, Vol 13 (2009) pp. 61- 75
My name is Christian Gelleri, I am 35 years old, married and I am manager of the Chiemgauer. I have studied business administration in Rosenheim and business pedagogics in Munich. After my traineeship as a vocational school teacher I became a Waldorf teacher at the Waldorf school in Prien am Chiemsee in 2002. Prien is in the south-east of Bavaria about 80 kilometres from Munich. The region is called ‘Chiemgau’. About half a million people live there...

Book: The New Economics of Sustainable Consumption: Seeds of Change - Gill Seyfang, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
Local organic food systems, low-impact eco-housing, and complementary currencies are examined to measure their success at delivering localized economies and inclusive communities, enabling people to reduce their ecological footprints, harnessing collective energies and building new forms of social organization. Viewing these activities as innovative ‘green niches’, the book explores the opportunities for grassroots innovations to spread and influence wider society, and the barriers preventing them achieving their potential

Glenn Beck show reschedules Liberty Dollar founder to Friday - Gata.org, March 4, 2009
The Glenn Beck program on Fox News, which originally scheduled an interview with Liberty Dollar founder Bernard von NotHaus for 5 to 6 p.m. ET today, has rescheduled the interview to this Friday, March 6, at the same time

Radio DANEE: IL PROGETTO DI LEGGE SUL BUONO REGIONALE DI SOLIDARIETA' (mp3) - 3 marzo 2009

The good news is that the need for some powerful government to create currency is merely an illusion. Indeed, when citizens take making their currency into their own hands, it will, by default, always lead to an increase in living standards for the entire community, as the fiat (by force) money of governmental central banks is *always* less efficient (and grows more inefficient with scale). After all, Benjamin Franklin's currency scheme, known as the Colonial Scrip and Philadelphia Scrip was what caused America to become the pre-Revolution power that made the British tax us so hard in the first place. After they outlawed the scrip in 1764 and started enforcing the ban in the 1780s, the colonies spiraled into an all-out depression on scale of the Great Depression, leading to the unrest that caused the foundation of the initial Revolution

"Istituzione di magazzini o luoghi di deposito pubblici, dai quali, accertato il valore approssimativo delle merci consegnate, si rilascerebbe un documento o bono simile a un biglietto bancario, ammesso alla circolazione e allo sconto, tanto da render capace l'Associazione di poter continuare nei suoi lavori e di non essere strozzata dalla necessità d'una vendita immediata e a ogni patto"
- Giuseppe Mazzini, I doveri dell'uomo, 1860

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CSM NEWS          !Fight for the right of all to a job or an income! - Martin Luther King
     
An Integral View on money and financial crises, explaining the collective psychology of crashes (1,600 Kb) - Bernard Lietaer, 2005
Bernard Lietaer was Head of Organization and Electronic Data Processing Department of the National Bank of Belgium (the Belgian Central Bank); responsible for the design and implementation of the ECU, the convergence mechanism to the Euro, the single European currency; and President of the national Electronic Payment System, the world’s most comprehensive and cost effective of such systems according to the BIS (Bank of International Settlements)

"La IBBC è una banca, il loro obiettivo non è il controllo del conflitto, è il controllo del debito che il conflitto produce. Vedete, il grande valore di un conflitto, il vero valore, sta nel debito che genera. Se controlli il debito, controlli tutto quanto. Voi lo trovate inquietante, vero? Ma è questa la vera essenza dell'industria bancaria: fare di tutti noi - sia che siamo nazioni o individui - schiavi del debito." - Luca Barbareschi, nella parte di Calvini, un finanziere italiano che si sta candidando alla vita politica, nel film The International, 20 marzo 2009 (nel film appare brevemente anche Roberto Formigoni)

GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS OF SELLAFIELD: "IRISH SEA COAST EFFECT" AND BEYOND
"The decision to drop two atomic bombs [on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945] was made by one man - Colonel Henry Stimson - a Wall Street banker with ties to Churchill and the City of London bankers. It's always the international bankers who are engineering these horrific wars and the development of ever more horrific technologies of war."

Bin Report N° 2 Dicembre-Gennaio 2009 - Associazione Basic Income Network Italia
(La domanda è: dove si trovano le risorse per il reddito di cittadinanza? La risposta: prelevandole dalla rendita monetaria effettiva)

WHO FRAMED ‘SOCIAL DIVIDEND’? - Walter VAN TRIER, Resource Centre for Labour Market Research, Catholic University of Leuven, 2002
Back in 1984 a small group of young Belgian intellectuals, calling themselves Le Collectif Charles Fourier, wrote an essay, L’Allocation Universelle, picturing how the world of work would change if conditional benefits, employment subsidies and some other standard employment policy instruments would be abolished and replaced by a guaranteed income paid unconditionally and as of right to everybody. The essay earned them an award from the King Boudewijn Foundation and they decided to use the money to organise a conference, inviting a wide range of people to debate this idea...

Clifford Hugh Douglas, Credit-power and democracy: with a draft scheme for the mining industry, 1920
Both Douglas and Social Credit were under scrutiny from the British Secret Service, whose records on the matter have still not been made public! Why? Further academic debate followed Douglas' submissions to the Macmillan Committee in 1930 (in UK) and 1932 (in NZ). It came mainly from economists like Durbin, Gaitskell, and Robbins, all of whom were linked to London School of Economics and Labour/Fabian politics...

Special Alert: U.S. Currency Exchange Controls - by Patrick Wood, August Review, March 31, 2009
Could President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner suddenly impose currency exchange controls on the United States and the U.S. dollar? This report will explore this notion and its possible consequences

Clifford Hugh Douglas, Economic democracy, 1920

Arthur Kitson, A fraudulent standard: an exposure of the fraudulent character of our monetary standard, with suggestions for the establishment of an invariable unit of value, 1917

Arthur Kitson, The money problem, 1903

LE FALSE DISPUTE - CONTROLLORI ALL' ATTACCO DEI CONTROLLATI - DI ANTONELLA RANDAZZO, Come Don Chisciotte, 30 Marzo 2009
L’idea fondamentale è che non possa esistere libertà di credere a quello che si vuole, ma che credere in alcune realtà, anche quando sono del tutto empiriche, debba esporre al ridicolo quando tali realtà non hanno il privilegio di essere avallate dal sistema. In altre parole, l’attuale sistema decide, attraverso la scienza ufficiale e attraverso ciò che i media divulgano (e nel modo in cui li divulgano), ciò che è ridicolo e ciò che non lo è, ciò che è equilibrato pensare e ciò che è paranoico. Si tratta di una sfida che mira a mettere in guardia dal fatto che se si fuoriesce dai dettami di regime si diventa automaticamente ridicoli o paranoici. Anche quando ci sono prove a sostegno di ciò che si dice, si fa passare l’idea che non ce ne siano affatto, se il sistema così decide

Why Germany is urging 'humility' on Ireland - and a yes vote to Lisbon - by Anthony Coughlan, Spectrezine, March 31, 2009
How long would it be before the EU imposes its own income tax, sales tax or property tax on us - which would be permitted for the first time under Lisbon's Article 311 TFEU and which Germany and France are likely to push for once the Council of Ministers would obtain the legal power ?

Controllo giudiziario delle operazioni di credito - Dr. Giovanni Battista Frescura, 31 Marzo 2009
Calcolo del t(a)eg nella verifica del superamento della soglia dell’usura con particolare riguardo all’apertura di credito in conto corrente ed ai finanziamenti sbf

[ITALIAN TAX] Milano: Project Brontos Exposed - Memo from Michael Keeley, 2 March 2007
Involves Barclays, INTESA, UNICREDIT... Up to €3,500m (£3,288m). The scheme, involving a bank in Italy, the Milan branch of Barclays Bank, and an entity in Luxembourg, generated £55m for Barclays, according to the Sunday Times. The Milan branch would be incorporated in the bank's accounts. HMRC may well not see the branch accounts at all. Consequently, the Italian bank's loan would be "lost'' in a mass of borrowings. The Luxembourg accounts would be submitted showing next to no profits, and little in the way of activity. If the scheme came to light, it would be explained away as the avoidance of Italian tax by a third party...

History of the Legal Tender Paper Money Issued During the Great Rebellion, Being a Loan Without Interest and a National Currency (Buffalo: Express Printing Co., 1869), by E. G. Spaulding
"[W]e're taking a lot of steps to . . . open up separate credit lines outside of banks for small businesses so that they can get credit -- because there are a lot of small businesses out here who are just barely hanging on. Their credit lines are starting to be cut. We're trying to set up a securitized market for student loans and auto loans outside of the banking system. So there are other ways of getting credit flowing again." - Barak Obama. Tonight Show with Jay Leno, March 19, 2009

In Defense of Bernanke's Helicopters: The banker-owned Federal Reserve finally acts Federal - by Ellen Brown, OpEdNews, 3/28/09
The Federal Reserve has the capacity to create money on its books and lend it to whomever it will. This credit may be extended to the public to replace the loans that banks have been unwilling or unable to make; but there is also a danger that we may just see more money being funneled to those same Wall Street banks that got us into this crisis in the first place. The Fed remains a privately-owned "bankers' bank," and it has not asked Congress's permission before engaging in its new policy of massive "quantitative easing."

Emile de Laveleye, Luxury, Publisher: London : G. Allen, 1912
It is my opinion that a thing may be valued at enormous sums, and be, not only quite useless, but very harmful. The Chinese buy from the English £16,000,000 worth of opium; this is worse than useless. It is a poison, and the Emperor of China would do well to fling into the sea all the cases of this abominable narcotic which England palms off upon him. These are what I call false riches.

Come Venezia orchestrò il più grande disastro finanziario della storia - Movisol, 27 novembre 2008
Alcune case bancarie toscane, gli Asti di Siena i Franzezi e gli Scali, erano già fallite dopo il 1320. I Peruzzi, gli Acciaiuoli ed i Buonaccorsi operavano in perdita, dirigendosi verso la bancarotta come conseguenza del crollo della produzione dei beni primari di cui avevano ottenuto il monopolio ma che veniva divorata dal meccanismo canceroso della speculazione finanziaria. Gli Acciaiuoli ed i Buonacorsi, che prima della cattività avignonese erano stati i banchieri dei papi, finirono in bancarotta nel 1342 a seguito dell’insolvenza di Firenze e delle prime morosità di Edoardo III. Peruzzi e Bardi, che all’epoca erano le più grandi banche del mondo, crollarono nel 1345, innescando il caos nei mercati finanziari del Mediterraneo e dell’Europa, con l’eccezione della sfera della Lega Anseatica, le città del nord della Germania che non avevano mai ammesso i banchieri italiani ad operare nei loro mercati

The Road to Hell - Douglas V. Gnazzo
Whoever controls the one world currency would effectively control the world, as they would be in control of the money power - a control no such entity should have. The money power should reside with the people, as the people are the market - it is the individual who is sovereign. This is what it means to have inalienable rights as the Declaration of Independence states

L'atp (accertamento tecnico preventivo) ex art. 696 bis c.p.c. nelle controversie sui saldi dei c/c bancari e sui mutui - G. Frescura, lapraticaforense.it, 16/3/2009
La *migliore soluzione*, soprattutto per le piccole e medie imprese che hanno problemi con le banche, non è la (in ogni caso costosa) procedura di conciliazione/arbitrato ex D. Leg.vo 5/2003. o una (ancora più costosa e lunga) ordinaria controversia civile sulla base della perizia (preventiva) di uno studio (+ o -) specializzato che rilevi le irregolarità dei c/c, ma quella di *chiedere subito un atp* (accertamento tecnico preventivo) *ex art. 696 bis c.p.c.* (ai fini della composizione della lite), sulla base dell'eventuale rifiuto (espresso o tacito) della banca di procedere al ricalcolo del saldo o di altre eventuali contestazioni del rapporto da far valere in sede contenziosa. In questo caso infatti non si dovrà pagare nessuna perizia preventiva

L'usura anche nei finanziamenti bancari è un illecito penale e civile - G. Frescura, lapraticaforense.it, 17/3/2009
Molti magistrati (giudici e p.m.), avvocati, consulenti e soprattutto i responsabili degli istituti di credito, quando si parla di usura, ritengono che la questione *non* abbia una rilevanza pratica nelle operazioni di credito bancario, in quanto i funzionari delle banche (generalmente) seguono le procedure previste dalla Banca d'Italia e pertanto, anche nell'ipotesi in cui, per un caso fortuito, il tasso globalmente applicato dalla banca superi il limite di legge (il tasso globale medio pubblicato trimestralmente in G.U. aumentato del 50%) il reato non si verifica perché, in ogni caso, *mancherebbe il dolo*... (questa convinzione è moralmente e giuridicamente infondata)

Foreclosed Homeowners Try New Strategy - American Free Press, Issue # 14, April 6, 2009
Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio says force banks to ‘produce the note’ (si può fare ovunque, si chiama difetto di legittimazione attiva. In Italia salterebbero subito almeno il 40% dei mutui)

Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis (A Video in Six Parts) - Written and Produced by Richard C. Cook, rense.com, 3-27-9
1 - "Our Early Political Leaders Warned Us Against the Banking Interests"
2 - "The Federal Reserve System: The Bankers Take Over"
3 - "The Collapse of the Financial System"
4 - "What is Credit and Who Should Control It?"
5 - "The Gap Between Prices and Income"
6 - "The Greenback and National Dividend Solutions"

Comunicato politico numero 20 - di Beppe Grillo, 26 Marzo 2009
Il primo di aprile, un giorno adatto, sarò a Bruxelles al Parlamento Europeo per spiegare la totale mancanza di controlli nel sistema bancario italiano...  Loro non molleranno mai (ma gli conviene?). Noi neppure.


Lost History Hurts Obama's Iran Bid - By Robert Parry, ConsortiumNews, March 26, 2009
President Barack Obama and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke past each other in a recent exchange partly because both countries nurse historical grievances against the other and neither has fully acknowledged that mutual history dating back three decades

History and the Security of Property - Nick Szabo
According to Mancur Olson, the state emerged from competition between roving bandits and stationary bandits. Stationary bandits, Olson explains, will tax less and invest more in public goods than roving bandits because the future of a stationary bandit is tied to particular people and resources, usually territorially. If, for example, a public good cost less than 25% of its value to citizens, and 25% of that value can be recaptured as taxes, it will pay the stationary bandit to make that investment

A COMPENSATED DOLLAR'; Prof. Fisher Shows How His Seigniorage Plan Might Work - IRVING FISHER, The New York Times, October 18, 1912
My attention has been called to a letter to THE TIMES from the eminent writer on finance, Horace White. In it, while paying me high compliments, which I keenly appreciate, he raises as an objection to the plan for "a compensated dollar," recently discussed before the International Congress of Chambers of Commerce, the practical difficulty of getting an international agreement to adopt the plan.

Hegemony and Seigniorage: The Planned Spontaneity of the US Current Account Deficit - Maria N. Ivanova, Paper prepared for the 49th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, San Francisco, CA, March 26-29, 2008
The paper dollar - the present day key international currency - is backed neither by gold nor by a large and growing productive economy since asset price inflation has in the meantime replaced production as the main source of income generation in the US. In addition, the accumulation of external deficits over the years has turned the one time world’s biggest creditor into the world’s biggest debtor. How can then the continued willingness of foreigners to accept payments in dollars and to invest in dollar-denominated assets be explained?

MONEY DEMAND AND THE POTENTIAL OF SEIGNIORAGE IN CHINA - Geneviève Boyreau Debray, 1998
Abstract. Since 1978 China has been experiencing a strong monetary growth. However annual inflation has not exceeded 20%. One of the outcomes has been a high level of seigniorage. This paper looks for the factors that have enabled to collect this quasi-inflation-free revenue and asks the question of whether or not China can still rely on this kind of financing. For this purpose, an augmented Cagan's money demand is specified which takes into account the transitional characteristics of this economy. A Laffer type model is derived from it and provides an analysis of the dynamics of the potential of seigniorage.
Résumé. La Chine connaît, depuis le lancement de ses réformes en 1978, un taux de croissance monétaire de grande ampleur qui n’a pas entraîné d’inflation excessive. Une des conséquences a été un niveau de seigneuriage important, de l’ordre de 7% du PIB par an. Nous recherchons les facteurs de ce revenu par la création monétaire, au travers de la spécification d’une demande de monnaie adaptée aux caractéristiques chinoises. Ces facteurs sont principalement la monétisation de l’économie et le développement financier. De cette demande de monnaie est dérivé un modèle d’inflation/seigneuriage de type “Laffer”, qui permet d’analyser l’évolution du potentiel de ce revenu. [ Il PIL Italiano del 2007 (dati IMF) è stato di 2.104.666 milioni di dollari USA. Se avessimo seguito, ad esempio, il sistema cinese di gestione del signoraggio primario nel 2007, ne avremmo ricavato il 7% del PIL, ovvero: 147.327 milioni di dollari USA - circa 110 miliardi di euro... Se usiamo questa cifra come base per la riserva frazionaria (2%), otteniamo un signoraggio totale - per il 2007 - di circa 5.500 miliardi di euro, abbastanza per dare ad ogni italiano un reddito di cittadinanza di 100.000 euro all'anno...Fatta questa considerazione, è facile calcolare quanti cittadini avrebbero interesse ad insorgere per attuare la giustizia nella redistribuzione - militari e forze dell'ordine incluse. Esattamente l'inverso del quoziente frazionale, il 98 % ]

The Globalisation of China’s Financial Sector: policies, consequences and lessons - James Laurenceson, School of Economics, University of Queensland, 10 Sep 2004
Another consequence of the increase in financial depth has been that the Chinese government has earned considerable seigniorage revenue (Kime, 1998). This is important in the context of a transitional economy, which tends to lose it traditional tax base in the move to a market economy (McKinnon, 1991) and China is no exception (Wong, et al., 1995). The collection of seigniorage revenue further reduced China’s need to borrow from abroad

Fifty Years On: Cuba’s Challenges - By RON RIDENOUR, Havana Times, December 26, 2008
Seventy days after the Cuban revolutionary victory, the National Security Council under the Eisenhower-Nixon regime issued a directive on March 10, 1959, to bring “another government to power in Cuba.” This decision was made precisely because Cuba’s young leadership initiated politics of solidarity among human beings. A week later, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train Cuban exiles for an invasion of their country, according to Eisenhower’s “The White House Years: Waging Peace 1956-1961.” In 1967, President LB Johnson, then bogged down in Vietnam, told a reporter: “We were running a goddamn Murder Incorporated in the Caribbean”. He said so after learning the CIA had used the Mafia to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. The CIA was also infecting humans, animals and crops with poisons, terrorizing its people from the air and on the ground...

Bankruptcy is Economic Stimulus - By: Dr. Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman, 23 March 2009
This whole situation is a perfect demonstration of why “doing nothing” and letting failing companies fail would have been much better than sinking valuable money and resources into them

How should the collapse of the world financial system affect economics? - Part II - real-world economics review (Formerly the post-autistic economics review) Issue no. 49 12 March 2009
"In this situation, stuffing the banks with money will not change their behavior. Banks are not money-lenders. Banks are money-creators. They do that by making loans. And the bank chiefs have made it very clear, in testimony here and elsewhere: they will not return to ordinary commercial, industrial and residential lending until they can see a reasonable way to make money at it. If given the chance, they may go off on another bender in commodities or some other quick way to repair losses. More likely, they will hunker down, invest in Treasuries and prime corporate bonds, and rebuild capital for the long-term, as they did from 1989 to 1994. Only this time, with the yield curve as flat as it is and the insolvencies as deep as they are, it could take a decade or longer. Seen in this light, the latest version of the plan to remove bad assets from the banks’ balance sheets is a costly exercise in futility..."

Obama Economic Program Increases America's Bondage To Wall Street Billionaires. It's Time for a New Monetary System - By Richard C. Cook, 3-23-9
This article previews the author's new six-part video series scheduled for release April 2: "Credit as a Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis."

Restoring Our Financial Sovereignty: A New Monetary System - by Nikki Alexander, www.opednews.com, March 18, 2009
When Benjamin Franklin was called before the British Parliament in 1757 and asked to account for the prosperity in the American colonies. He replied, "That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one." Now "they" have successfully held the nation hostage with a universal credit freeze and threats of systemic collapse if trillions of dollars in ransom demands are not met. But why would our government agree to double its public debt to save crooked financiers and reckless gamblers from bankruptcy? Why would our government re-victimize taxpayers who did not participate in this global fraud and whose investments, retirement savings, pension plans and real estate values have already been eviscerated by these swindlers? The answer is that the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman have historically represented a parasitic crime syndicate, not the host government and its taxpayers. Timothy Geithner is an IMF Director, BIS committee Chairman, ex-president of the Federal Reserve and a protégé of David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers. Existing debt to the central bank syndicate disappears in an instant when it is recognized that fictitious accounting entries do not constitute lawful "consideration". Nothing of value has been borrowed. What a bank "lends" is the borrower's own promise to fabricate interest for the bank, an absurd fraud.

The Story of the Committe of 300 -  by  Dr. John Coleman, 1992
The Club of Rome is a Committee of 300 subversive body. It will be recalled that Prime Minister Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978 and subsequently brutally shot to death. It was at the trial of members of the Red Brigades that several of them testified to the fact that they knew of high-level U.S. involvement in the plot to kill Moro. When threatening Moro, Kissinger was obviously not carrying out U.S. foreign policy, but rather acting according to instructions received from the Club of Rome, the foreign-policy arm of the Committee of 300. The witness who delivered the bombshell in open court was a close associate of Moro: Corrado Guerzoni. His explosive testimony was broadcast over Italian television and radio on November 10th, 1982, and printed in several Italian newspapers yet this vital information was suppressed in the U.S. Those famous bastions of freedom with a compelling right to know, the Washington Post and the New York Times, did not think it important to even print a single line of Guerzoni’s testimony. Kissinger not only terrified Moro, but carried through on his threats to “eliminate” Moro if he did not give up his plan to bring economic and industrial progress to Italy.

The smoking gun: an Italian DoD document -dated March 2, 1978- showing EX ANTE knowledge of the Moro kidnapping. Kissinger will reappear later in the BNL-ATLANTA scandal, were the BNL manager Claudio Ciampi -the son of the Bank of Italy Governor- was involved

How to neutralize illuminati disinformation agents on the internet - Benjamin Fulford, 03/20/2009
The best technique they have for lies is to attack straw men. For example when I asked NSA Admiral Bobby Inman about the privately owned Federal Reserve he said “are you one of those UFO nuts?” He was both insulting me and attributing a belief to me I did not state so he used both ad hominen and straw man techniques but avoided facts

[Economic Hit Man] Il burattinaio - Massimiliano Viviani, MovimentoZero, 21 marzo 2009
Draghi nasce a Roma nel 1947. Nel 1970 si laurea in Economia col massimo dei voti all'Università La Sapienza di Roma, relatore il professor Caffè. Nel 1976 ottiene il dottorato presso il MIT di Boston con Franco Modigliani. La sua carriera accademica è altrettanto brillante: insegna nelle università di Trento, Padova, Venezia e Firenze. A questi incarichi si aggiunge nel 1984 quello di direttore esecutivo della Banca Mondiale (tutto questo mentre ora, per la vergogna, alcuni stanno togliendo dal proprio curriculum "ho lavorato in banca"...)

Genius Seculi, versione italiana di "zeitgeist addendum" (YouTube video)
Un gruppo italiano ha doppiato il film e riadattato i primi 25 minuti per la nostra economia. Autore originale: Peter Joseph Adattamento italiano: Christian Ice Revisione testo: Alessandro Bono Voce narrante: Marco Benevento Musiche: Luca Bellanova

An Alternative Program for Economic Recovery - by Dr. Jack Rasmus, Global Research, March 20, 2009
1st Measure: Reset Mortgage Rates for All Loans Originated 2002-2007
2nd Measure: Reset Principle Loan Balances for All Loans Originated 2002 -07
3rd Measure: Provide Direct Lending to the Homeowner-Small Business Property Markets
4th Measure: One Year Moratorium on All Foreclosures and Default Proceedings
5th Measure: Optional Homeowners 40-Year Fixed Loan Extension
6th Measure: 15% Homeowners Investment Tax Credit
15th Measure: Capital Incomes Tax Rate Rollbacks
16th Measure: Repatriation of $2 Trillion from Offshore Tax Havens
20th Measure: Single Payer Universal Health Plan

Commentary: Supreme Court Sides With Consumers in Federal Arbitration Ruling - J. Noah Hagey, Special to Law.com, March 20, 2009
In a case that pitted Discover Bank against a defaulted credit card customer, a divided U.S. Supreme Court recently resolved a long-standing circuit split regarding parties' ability to seek federal court assistance to compel arbitration of litigation pending in state court. The majority opinion was a win for the consumer

Poste Vita. Lannutti: "Basta con gli specchietti per le allodole!" - IDV, 20 Marzo 2009
"In realtà - spiega Lannutti - le polizze erano collegate a prodotti finanziari altamente rischiosi per cui, viste le perdite registrate recentemente, Poste Vita ha chiesto ai propri clienti di trasformarle in un diverso prodotto, garantendo un rendimento del 5% alla scadenza che viene però allungata al 2015". "E' un rendimento ridicolo per chi ha lasciato i propri soldi in quei prodotti per oltre tredici anni, perdendoci il 30% solo con l'inflazione - sostiene l'esponente IdV - e non si vede perché le Poste non debbano rispettare gli impegni presi, visto che i soldi li hanno".

Non c'e' futuro nel nucleare - Antonio Di Pietro, 20 Marzo 2009
In Inghilterra, in questo momento, l'Edef, l'Enel francese, interviene sul piano energetico inglese attaccando gli obiettivi delle rinnovabili e dell'eolico perché con tutte queste energie non c'è spazio per il nucleare. La verità è che dobbiamo avere chiaro tutti che il nucleare è un settore in forte crisi, che non è stato cancellato dagli ecologisti, ma è stato cancellato dal mercato e dal fatto che dopo 60 anni i costi sono cresciuti invece che diminuire, e dalla impossibile gestione delle scorie (che attualmente vengono sparate sui civili nelle guerre di usurykeeping)

Usura: il caso Banca Antonveneta - 20 marzo 2009
Elenchiamo di seguito i provvedimenti giudiziari dove è stata accertata la pratica dell’usura da parte della Banca Antonveneta o in cui questa banca è stata accusata di averla praticata

Lavori in corso: provvedimenti penali sull'usura bancaria al 14-03-2009 - trasmesso da G. Frescura, 20 marzo 2009

L’accertamento tecnico preventivo nelle (potenziali) controversie sui finanziamenti bancari - Dr. Giovanni Battista Frescura, 20 marzo 2009
Allo stato dell’arte, le norme di legge vigenti e le interpretazioni dei giudici sulle “scorrettezze contabili” nelle operazioni di finanziamento (aperture di credito, sbf, mutui, ecc…) collegate ai conti correnti bancari, comportano, di regola, la modifica a favore del cliente, dei saldi di questo particolare tipo di rapporto contrattuale.
Per “scorrettezze contabili” si intendono il calcolo di
- interessi composti (anatocismo), illegali fino al 2000;
- interessi “uso piazza” (ultralegali), nulli per indeterminatezza;
- “valute” (antergazioni, postergazioni di addebiti e accrediti), illegali;
- “commissioni di massimo scoperto”, nulle dal 2009.

L’usura anche nei finanziamenti bancari è un illecito penale e civile - dr. Gianni Frescura, Comitato “Meglio Senza Usura“, 20 marzo 2009
Molti magistrati (giudici e p.m.), avvocati, consulenti e soprattutto i responsabili degli istituti di credito, quando si parla di usura, ritengono che la questione non abbia una rilevanza pratica nelle operazioni di credito bancario, in quanto i funzionari delle banche (generalmente) seguono le procedure previste dalla Banca d’Italia e pertanto, anche nell’ipotesi in cui, per un caso fortuito, il tasso globalmente applicato dalla banca superi il limite di legge (il tasso globale medio pubblicato trimestralmente in G.U. aumentato del 50%) il reato non si verifica perché, in ogni caso, mancherebbe il dolo...

Japan’s prosecutors ordered by US to trump up charges against opposition leader Ozawa’s secretary - Benjamin Fulford, 03/17/2009
As the US secret government comes to an end it is using every dirty trick in its book both in Japan and the US in a desperate but doomed effort to stay in power. No matter what they do they will not be able to con the Japanese people like they did during the last lower house election that was held on September 11 4 years ago. For one thing they no longer have any money so they will not be able to bribe the TV stations to run their propaganda

Mathematically perfected economy vs. usury (YouTube video) - Mike Montagne, March 17, 2009

Explaining China's Anti-Monopoly Law - Jun Wei and Janet McDavid, The National Law Journal, March 19, 2009
China has moved quickly to put a merger-control regime in place since its Anti-Monopoly Law went into effect on Aug. 1, 2008. Chinese authorities issued both formal filing guidelines and draft filing rules that set forth the basic procedures of the Chinese merger-filing regime and provide practitioners and businesses with guidance on how proposed transactions will be analyzed under the regime

Assemblea Nazionale Francese - rapporto sul riciclaggio: Il Lussemburgo - 22 gennaio 2002
"Voilà l'environnement général qui a permis l'éclosion de la place financière. De plus, il y a eu - coïncidence dans le temps - le besoin des banques allemandes de s'internationaliser de nouveau après l'isolement de l'après-guerre. Pour se lancer dans les affaires internationales, notamment les euromarchés, les grandes banques allemandes se sont tournées vers le Luxembourg en raison de la proximité. Le Luxembourg présentait un second avantage nullement fiscal mais principalement commercial, en ce sens que la réserve obligatoire auprès de la Bundesbank n'existait pas à Luxembourg, du simple fait que nous n'avions pas de banque centrale. Nous avions confié toutes les missions de banque centrale à la Banque nationale de Belgique qui ne connaissait pas non plus le principe de la réserve minimale."

"The Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody" - hearings before the Senated Armed Services Committee, June 17 and September 25, 2008

The Irrelevance of Economists - by Prof. John Kozy, Global Research, March 18, 2009
The last thirty years of the 19th Century was financially difficult for the United States. The American economy, in trying to adjust to the rise of the railroad, iron, and steel industries, was beset by a concentration of ownership of and the use of predatory practices by these industries which came to be called "trusts". These trusts were opposed by agrarian interests and trade unions. In the 1880s, violence often resulted from the confrontations of capital and labor. Economists took sides, and a group of archconservative American economists, called the American Apologists, arose to defend the new industrial age and condemn unions and populist causes. They were apologists for the status quo, and they dominated the American university system much as neo-classical economists do today

Preparing for Civil Unrest in America - by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 18, 2009
Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases

The Failure of Democracy - by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi, 18/03/2009
The British Head of State is not de facto Head of State. During a period of just over 200 years, firstly, the Parliament usurped the ultimate authority of governance. Secondly the parties took control of the country. Belloc correctly pointed out that ‘the front benches’ of both sides represented government, that is, cabinet plus opposition ‘shadow’ cabinet ruled in see-saw. This meant that in turn party had ceded to elite rule. Thirdly that balance of a bi-polar committee was eroded quite swiftly into a transfer from cabinet rule to prime ministerial authority. Democracy had become dictatorship.

THE INTERNET AND THE END OF MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY - by Bill A. Frezza, Wireless Computing Associates, Cato Institute's 14th Annual Monetary Conference, May 23, 1996
We know that wealth can be exchanged electronically, both in the form of new monetary instruments and, equally important, in the actual content of the products and services that will be delivered over the Internet. It is possible, then, that a link to external physical commodities or existing fiat currencies may not always be necessary to establish the value of money in cyberspace

[Bankenstein] The Radical Polarization of Law Enforcement - by Patrick Wood, The August Review, March 18, 2009
"It was during this timeframe that many individuals and organizations began to concoct conspiracy theories to explain their misfortunes. These theories varied but almost always involved a globalist dictatorship the"New World Order (NWO), which conspired to exploit the working class citizens."

Il pendolo tra mercato e «sociale» - Giulio Tremonti, Corriere della Sera, 17 marzo 2009
Con la globalizzazione, mentre cresceva la forza del mercato, configurato come il fondamento di una nuova religione terrestre, decresceva simmetricamente la forza dello Stato. Via via che con la globalizzazione cresceva la forza dell'economia, lo Stato rinunciava ad esercitare una delle sue funzioni sovrane: rinunciava al monopolio nel battere la moneta. Nell'età della globalizzazione anche le banche private potevano infatti battere, e perciò battevano la loro moneta. Una moneta addizionale che prendeva forma nei più incredibili strumenti finanziari. Una moneta fondata sul debito e perciò stampata sul nulla. È così che la moneta cattiva ha via via sovrastato la moneta buona. Ed è proprio nella implosione di questa nuova e privata massa monetaria la causa della crisi che vediamo e viviamo

Speech in Congress Opposing the National Bank - February 2, 1791

JAK Bank Report (YouTube) Part 1/4  2/4 3/4 4/4 - www.giorgiosimonetti.net, 17 marzo 2009

Buoni regionali: botta e risposta col Prof. Douglas Hofstadter - 17 marzo 2009


Seigniorage, Dollarization and Public Debt: The Lebanese Civil War and Recovery Experience, 1982–97 - Ali A. Bolbol, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1 March 1999
The paper develops theoretical frameworks to explain the phenomena of seigniorage, dollarization, and public debt; and then applies them to the Lebanese macroeconomic situation over 1982–97. More specifically, it analyzes the implications of seigniorage and dollarization to see what extent they were responsible for the inflation and exchange rate depreciations during the civil war period

Webster Tarpley on Alex Jones Tv: The Derivatives Scam [1] [2] [3] [4] - March 10, 2009

Another big story on gold omits most important parts - Gata.org, March 14, 2009
While it's long and purports to be comprehensive, the story from London's Telegraph never mentions central bank gold sales and leasing and the possible motives behind them, including price suppression...

International clearing union to deal with surpluses and deficits - NCLG blog, 15 January 2009
As the global financial crisis deepens, the rich nations will be forced to recognise that their problems cannot be solved by tinkering with a system that is constitutionally destined to fail. But to understand why the world economy keeps running into trouble, they first need to understand what was lost in 1944.

Book online: Gottfried Feder, Das Manifest zur Brechung der Zinsknechtschaft des Geldes, 1919

Guidelines of the German Federation to Abolish Interest Slavery - Translated by J M Damon, Presented in Public Debate in Wagner Hall, Munich, 11 April 1921
We demand the nationwide discontinuation of interest payments, which is nothing more than robbery of the nation on behalf of global finance...

Crisi economica “le istituzioni rischiano grosso” - intervista di Daniele Martinelli, 12 marzo 2009
La credulità popolare indotta a ritenere i soldi emessi dalle banche centrali unica valuta economica possibile, produrrà disordini dagli esiti imprevedibili come conseguenza della crisi economica che incalza. E’ il quadro che ribadisce Marco Saba, ricercatore del Centro studi monetari



The initial priority for resolution of the current crisis is the distribution of the purchasing power to the common people. Without a functioning demand system, everything else (i.e. the economy, real estate, banking, government) falls apart

Perché la Banca d'Italia è fallita - di Marco Saba, 12 marzo 2009
Abuso della credulità popolare e appropriazione indebita del potere d'acquisto, reati contro il patrimonio ed una catena margherita di frodi ai danni del pubblico sono solo alcune delle peculiarietà del nostro sistema bancario attuale basato sul "miracolo della moltiplicazione dei pani e dei pesci" che deriva dal meccanismo truffaldino della riserva frazionaria...

The Federal Reserve is Bankrupt: How Did It Happen and What are the Ugly Consequences? - By Matthias Chang, Global Research, March 10, 2009
The Federal Reserve is bankrupt for all intents and purposes. The same goes for the Bank of England! This article will focus largely on the Fed, because the Fed is the "financial land-mine". When Joe Six-Packs realises that the Federal Reserve Note is not even secured by US treasuries and or the FED has no real tangible assets, but its balance sheet is littered with junks and toxic waste, there will be a run on the Fed i.e. when Americans and foreigners no longer have faith in the Federal Reserve Notes as "money"

Contro Bankestein/2  - di Marco Francesco De Marco, Movimento Zero, 10 marzo 2009
L’aspetto più importante del passaggio da Privato a Pubblico, nella modalità ipotizzata, cioè da BCE a Stati Nazionali, magari associati (Unione Europea), che lo si condivida o meno, consisterebbe nel poter creare danaro, in misura eguale o se necessario in misura maggiore o minore, senza creare debito per lo Stato

Contro Bankestein/1:  Signoraggio e decrescita - di Alessio Mannino, Movimento Zero, 3 marzo 2009
In guerra, i fronti possono essere più d'uno. In questa guerra uno è certamente il signoraggio, lo strapotere della finanza cannibale. Ne sono così convinto che per me non farne un problema fondamentale diventa un'omissione letale, come lasciar scoperto un fianco della battaglia esponendosi così al rischio di combattere per niente, condannandosi alla sconfitta. Ciò non toglie che non sia l'unico su cui battere. Nè tanto meno significa perdere di vita lo scopo finale: liberarsi dalla dittatura dell'economia

THE WHITE HOUSE - Office of the Press Secretary - For Immediate Release, March 9, 2009
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT:  Scientific Integrity
"If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public."

Leadership Review of Barack Obama Administration - By Carl Teichrib, The August Review, March 9. 2009
This report attempts to provide a biographical window into those who are taking the leading offices in North America. By better grasping the political networks of those on the Obama team, you’ll be better equipped to understand the direction this administration is going. Moreover, many of these networks, or political organizations, espouse an internationalist worldview. Hence, this leadership list report will be a useful tool in discerning the motives for future political actions

Unopened claims letters hidden at VA offices - By Rick Maze - Staff writer, ArmyTimes, Mar 4, 2009
A new report about Veterans Affairs Department employees squirreling away tens of thousands of unopened letters related to benefits claims is sparking fresh concerns that veterans and their survivors are being cheated out of money (and tell a lot about how much the elite care about their pawns)

THE POWER ELITE AND THE SECRET NAZI PLAN - PART 2 - By Dennis L. Cuddy, NewsWithViews.com, March 9, 2009
People across the U.S. question whether there really is a Power Elite (PE) facilitating global events. My response is, “If a former Chief of Special Operations (clandestine activities) for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (USJCS) says there’s a secret team that controls the U.S. and the World, why is it so hard to believe in a PE acting similarly?” Former Special Ops Chief for the USJCS, L. Fletcher Prouty authored The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World (1973), in which he revealed there’s a “Secret Team consisting of security-cleared individuals in and out of government who receive secret intelligence data gathered by the CIA and the National Security Agency… The Secret Team has very close affiliations with elements of power in more than threescore foreign countries and is able when it chooses to topple governments, to create governments, and to influence governments almost anywhere in the free world.”

La magia dei Cauri: Una piccola conchiglia svela i misteri dell’Africa - Testo e foto di Andrea Semplici, Missionari d'Africa, 1-2006
I negrieri europei pagavano in cauri la merce umana che acquistavano dai razziatori africani (in Costa d’Oro, nel 1600, uno schiavo costava 55 libbre di cauri). Re Gezo, sovrano del Dahomey, non nascose mai di preferire pagamenti in cauri all’oro: «Solo così sono certo di non essere imbrogliato». Uguale preoccupazione aveva il re di Juda: «Meglio essere pagato in cauri – confessò a un missionario – I mercanti bianchi non possono né ingannarmi, né truccare il peso». Le piccole conchiglie, in effetti, si potevano contare, ammucchiare, impilare una sull’altra. Erano semplici da usare e non si potevano falsificare... Fino alla prima guerra mondiale, queste conchiglie ebbero una diffusione monetaria ben più ampia del dollaro o della sterlina. Ma gli imperi coloniali...


[US concentration camps] Installations: Civilian Inmate Labor Program - Army Regulation 210–35, 14 January 2005
Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations

EVASIONE DALL’IDIOZIA - DI MARCO DELLA LUNA, Come_Don Chisciotte, 7 Marzo 2009
Perché non far emergere l’enorme evasione fiscale delle banche sul signoraggio secondario, attuata col mettere al passivo uscite inesistenti delle somme che fingono di prestare

The Dismantling of the Political Class as prelude to the Restoration of Personal Rule: the Islamic Position - by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi
What we the Muslim World Community are faced with is that those who enslave us also enslave that small community of believing christians and jews, who for their survival are going to be obliged either to join us or to stand behind us while we defend them. Today’s usurers, today’s ruling power elite, that is to say the top triangle of the wealth pyramid, consists of ex-jews, of ex-christians and of ex-Muslims. This last category, the wealthy elite I have designated as ex-Muslim, represent those who have Muslim names, may even declare themselves to be Muslim, yet have slavishly submitted to the rules of the kafir usury finance system in order to gain their wealth (...) At the present moment the absolutist nature of the bankers’ rule seems to have paralysed the cerebral process of the normal human creature. The Political Class which claims to represent the people not only seems helpless to alleviate the people’s poverty, but at the same time knows its task is to make sure that they keep paying the endless, un-meetable debt that is now each human’s daily existence

WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE: Acclaimed exposé of Federal Reserve deception FREE! - WorldNetDaily.com, March 03, 2009
'Fantastic Fed Fraud' package explains U.S. money system more clearly than ever. While millions of Americans look to the Federal Reserve to stabilize the current financial crisis, millions more mistrust the Fed, seeing it as an unaccountable, private banking cartel siphoning off citizens' wealth and manipulating America's economy for the benefit of a hidden elite (see also: Military coup against bankers in progress)

"Outlaw the Shadow Banking System!" Guess Who Said It? . by Matthias Chang, Global Research, March 7, 2009
When I read the remarks of President Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown after their meeting at the Oval Office on March 3, 2009 and the speech of the latter to the Joint Session of Congress on March 4, 2009, I realized that a growing antagonism has emerged between certain factions of the ruling elites in the City of London and in Washington DC

PAYING ATTENTION TO MR. MELT: The Singularity is Creative Destruction - by James Jaeger, 01 March 2009

Tremonti: «Non salvare banchieri falliti» Asse con Bossi: «Serve un sistema di controllo nelle mani del governo» - Corriere della Sera, 7 marzo 2009
E SUGLI AMMORTIZZATORI SOCIALI: «I SOLDI SONO GIUSTI. SE NON BASTANO NE TROVEREMO ALTRI»

Tremonti: "Gli Stati hanno rinunciato alla sovranità monetaria per la moneta privata" (youTube) - Rai-Tg1, 6.3.09
Bene ora speriamo che valuti con attenzione l'ipotesi dei biglietti di stato a corso legale!

What's Dead (Short Answer: All Of It) - The Market Ticker, March 5. 2009
Civil unrest will break out before the end of the year.  The Military and Guard will be called up to try to stop it.  They won't be able to.  Big cities are at risk of becoming a free-fire death zone.  If you live in one, figure out how you can get out and live somewhere else if you detect signs that yours is starting to go "feral"; witness New Orleans after Katrina for how fast, and how bad, it can get.

Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data, Insists on Secrecy - By Mark Pittman and Craig Torres, Bloomberg, March 5, 2009
The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma” on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral

Dear Glenn Beck, Detention Camps DO Exist In America - Steve Watson, Infowars.net, March 4, 2009
Legislation currently working it’s way through Congress mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations. The purpose of such facilities is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” the expansion of which under FEMA is codified under HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Act


I Governatori della Banca d'Italia: VINCENZO AZZOLINI E LA RESISTENZA FLESSIBILE - Stefano Poddi, www.panoromanews.it, OTTOBRE 2008
Una storia da riscoprire: quando la Banca - e l'oro - era veramente d'Italia. Pochi sanno che la Lira crollò solo DOPO la libera-occupa-zione da parte degli americani....

The Really Longest War: U.S. Still Spending on Nazi War Docs - By Jeff Stein, SpyTalk, March 3, 2009
Evidently $30 million and 10 years wasn't enough to finish the job of declassifying records on the involvement of U.S. intelligence agencies with Nazi and Japanese war criminals. Congress has just budgeted another $650,000 to finish the job - really, they're serious this time -- of poring through some 8 million postwar pages

[economic concentration camps] FEMA Camps Outed on Fox (video) - Glenn Beck
During the Bush Administration, FEMA was given hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit former military bases and other existing infrastructure so they can be used as "camps." Not camps as in summer camps. Camps as in prison camps and perhaps even concentration camps. One of the first thing the Obama Administration did was to legitimize their existence... (as the middle class is vanishing, you only have the upper or the lower class people to go to those camps. Who do you think will be sent there?) List of the camps


Worldwide financial debacle explained by a Lakotah (video)

Dying of starvation - 1 - by Beppe Grillo, 3 March 2009
Someone is knocking on the door. You open and everything changes. The letter saying you are sacked has arrived for you too. You are no longer one of the Modern Slaves kept alive by a paltry wage. And you are not even a candidate for a White Death who has a job anyway. Now you are one who is Starving to Death...

IL DENARO SIAMO NOI - di Orazio Fergnani, 4 marzo 2009
I beni e le merci estratte, lavorate e prodotte sempre più a caro prezzo (sotto tutti i punti di vista ed accezioni) rimangono invenduti. Rimangono invenduti e non per una particolare sensibilità acquisita dai cittadini/consumatori che hanno preso coscienza dell’insensatezza dello sfruttamento sfrenato dell’ambiente… no, semplicemente non hanno più i soldi per comprare nulla che non sia effettivamente necessario, e molto spesso neanche i soldi per comprare il necessario e l’indispensabile...

PLAYING THE BANKING GAME: HOW CASH-STARVED STATES CAN CREATE THEIR OWN CREDIT - Ellen Brown, March 2nd, 2009
What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don’t? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation. The state legislature established the Bank of North Dakota in 1919. Fleetham writes that the bank was set up to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men (a.k.a. the Robber Barons). By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, and the state guarantees its deposits. Three elected officials oversee the bank: the governor, the attorney general, and the commissioner of agriculture. The bank’s stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota

New World Financial System (NWFS) WITHOUT public consultation - Daily Kos, Mar 02, 2009
This NWFS proposal presents Australians with a once in a lifetime opportunity to argue for a people friendly, totally sustainable, recession proof financial system, such as that established, and proved successful, between 1913 and 1923, by the original Commonwealth Bank. Proof of success are two of the major benefits: (1) this bank issued 'repayment not required’ money allowing Australia to finance WW1 expenditure and the Trans Australian Railway simultaneously, without creating debt

Should a world government be like a hunter-gatherer tribe? - Benjamin Fulford, 03/02/2009
The countries of the planet are now negotiating a world government. In that context, I believe we should heed the words of Lao Tzu: “Ruling a country is like cooking a small fish.” It took me a long time to figure that one out but I now believe it to be a fractal thing

How to Hijack an EU Open Source Strategy Paper - by Glyn Moody, LINUX Journal, February 27th, 2009

Githongo: It's Our Turn to Eat - Wikileaks, March 3, 2009
This just released explosive book, on grand corruption in Kenya, by former Financial Times journalist Michella Wong and John Githongo, founder of Transparency International, Kenya and former self-exiled Keynan government ethics head, is currently being suppressed from selected Kenyan bookshops

Systemic Failure: Capitalism "Lays An Egg" - by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, March 2, 2009
After the 1929 October 24, 28 and 29 market crash, the weekly entertainment industry magazine Variety (on October 30) published its most famous ever headline: "Wall Street Lays an Egg." In October 2008, history repeated, and since the October 2007 peak, equity prices plunged over 50% after the Dow and S & P (in February) posted their second worst ever monthly percentage declines - topped only in 1933 during the depths of the Great Depression

“The Last Picture Show”: Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget - by Richard C. Cook, Global Research, March 2, 2009
We hear a distant tune reminiscent of America ’s high and lonely places and the sound of a dry wind blowing. It’s March 2010 in the tiny West Texas town of Anarene . Nothing much happens here any more. The last business shut down a couple of years ago. It was a cement plant that went broke after the housing bubble burst and the banks stopped lending. The kids out of high school drive their jalopies from one end of Main Street to the other past boarded-up storefronts... Every American will pay, during the course of his or her lifetime, over $20,000 to rescue the banks from their bad loans. To put that number in perspective, it equates to 2-1/2 years of tuition at a state university that instead will be paid to the government of China or a similar foreign "investor"

America's Fiscal Collapse - by Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 2, 2009
"Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account—to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day—because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government." - President Barack Obama, A New Era of Responsibility, the 2010 Budget

Giochi: economia e scacchi - di Marco Saba, 2 marzo 2009
Invece di questa immonda corsa disperata ad accaparrarsi l'ultimo beneficio economico, l'ultimo soldino, che sta facendo la nostra élite, come fosse un giocatore di scacchi di bassa lega che, rimasto col solo RE sulla scacchiera, rifiuta di abbandonare la partita ormai persa... Chissà, magari l'avversario potrebbe morire d'infarto prima di dare il matto?

Proposta di progetto di legge "Istituzione del buono regionale di solidarietà" (BRS) - di Marco Saba, CSM, 1 marzo 2009
"Nei periodi storici in cui il sistema economico-monetario ha presentato gravi deficenze e profonda crisi, si è sopperito alle esigenze della cittadinanza adottando strumenti econometrici che permettessero di superare l'emergenza. Tipico è il caso della Milano del 1240 dove a seguito della crisi, si ebbe la prima emissione europea di "cartamoneta"..."

Fiat World Mathematical Model - MISH'S Global Economic Trend Analysis, February 19, 2009
A monetary system that is based on DEBT is stupid and criminal from the beginning. If the public knew this is what they would eventually be getting back in 1913 (when the NY money center banks ushered in the Federal Reserve System to exploit the mathematically- challenged opinion "leaders," they probably would have laughed them out of town. It's pretty amazing if you think about it: Credit is extended (created) with 30-50 times leverage on inherently worthless paper

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B A N C O P O L I    News - marzo 2009  (urge operazione "Banche Pulite")
Abbiamo una moneta come poco prima della rivoluzione americana, un debito come poco prima della rivoluzione francese...

"China, with $740 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds is America's main creditor" - by Fidel Castro Ruz, Global Research, March 31, 2009
The report states that China, being the biggest among the emerging countries, demands more influence for poor states which have been particularly affected by the crisis. It reiterates in its argument the well known fact that China , with a total amount of 740 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds, is the main US creditor.The world public opinion have the duty and the right to know more about the economic problems deriving from a crisis that is affecting today all peoples of the world

Beppe Grillo al Parlamento Europeo - 31 Marzo 2009
Nella Borsa italiana vi sono persone con precedenti penali come Colaninno, Ligresti, Geronzi, Romiti, Scaroni...

Mario Chiesa: niente di nuovo sotto il sole - Antonio Di Pietro, 31 Marzo 2009
Con l’arresto di Mario Chiesa, avvenuto il 17 febbraio del ’92, nel caso qualcuno non lo ricordasse, non comincia la storia di Tangentopoli, ma semmai quella di Mani Pulite: o meglio la fase operativa dell’inchiesta. Il presidente del Consiglio ha dichiarato due giorni fa che Tangentopoli è finita. Tangentopoli non è mai finita ma, inchieste come quella di Mani Pulite, sono state messe nelle condizioni di non ripetersi mai più (chissà, magari ora parlerà di banche?)

[tutti contro tutti] Rich investors sue Queen’s bankers: Over 500 Coutts customers who lost millions are fighting back - Robert Watts, The Sunday Times, March 29, 2009
MORE THAN 500 of the richest people in Britain are planning legal action against Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for losses of more than £200m from investments through Coutts, the Queen’s bankers, which it bought in 2000. The claimants include five members of the House of Lords and up to 10 chief executives and finance directors of FTSE 100 companies. The action is being master-minded by Sir Keith Mills

In Wake Of GM Ouster, Unions Demand Obama Fire Bank Of America CEO - Greg Sargent, The Plum Line, 3/31/2009
The major unions are grabbing on to the ouster of General Motors chief Rick Wagoner to launch a campaign to pressure the Obama administration to engineer a similar axing of Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis

Center in Guernsey County would serve police, military - By Josh Jarman, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH,  March 26, 2009
The facility is named after the Knights Templar, a Christian military order that existed during the crusades. "The name was selected because of the dual role of the Knights Templar during their time," Janson said. "First off, they were fierce warriors, which speaks to our military market, and later they assumed the role of protectors, which is indicative of our law-enforcement officers."

Japan gives cash to jobless foreigners to go home - AP via Yahoo! News, Mar 31, 2009
Japan began offering money Wednesday for unemployed foreigners of Japanese ancestry to go home, mostly to Brazil and Peru, to stave off what officials said posed a serious unemployment problem

Obama’s Attack on the Middle Class - Paul Craig Roberts, Infowars, March 31, 2009
The “free American” starts off with a 30% tax rate, the position of a medieval serf. In medieval Europe, when tax rates reached beyond 30%, serfs rebelled and killed their masters.

GOLD: SPOT PRICE 917.20  $/OZ - Gold bullion sold on e-bay (average) : 1046.66 $/OZ
SILVER: LONDON FIX 13.11  $/OZ - Silver bullion sold on e-bay (average) : 17.31 $/OZ

LONDON G20 MEETING LIKELY TO END IN TEARS / BIS vs IMF - BenjaminFulford, 03/31/2009
The criminal cabal that controls the US is increasingly isolated and disliked. The entire world is watching in disgust and horror as they try to get American taxpayers and other countries to bail out criminal bankers who engineered the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. The Federal Reserve Board, meanwhile is using every trick it can think of to fool the rest of the world into accepting some of the $15 trillion in funny money it has printed since last September. The Americans are also fighting efforts to shut down all those offshore tax havens that shelter the world’s criminal elite

BITING CRITICISM OF THE CORRUPTION GOES 'MAINSTREAM' - Global Analysis, 31 March 2009
WAGONER COME-UPPANCE FOLLOWED OUR DERIVATIVES LEAFLET EXPOSURE. A leaflet containing three charts extracted from International Currency Review, Volume 34, #2, distributed in March, has been disseminated to relevant quarters in Washington DC and in the Virginia area. The charts show the participation of General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and General Electric in the MBS-CDO-CDS Fraudulent Finance Non-recourse Carousel...The ExCel Centre is the most hideous bunker-style block of concrete imaginable. We understand that in addition to the reason for relegation of the G-7 meeting to Canning Town given earlier (it will be the first time that any Head of State has been anywhere near the place since the days of King Canute), this hideous location was chosen precisely because it is such a long way from the centre of the British capital city, so that if it is attacked, the physical collateral damage to the surrounding area 'won't matter', in comparison to the disaster which would occur if the Queen Elizabeth Centre opposite Westminster Abbey were to be attacked. In such a catastrophe, the ancient, venerable Westminster Abbey might be destroyed. Also, one presumes that the remote concrete dump was constructed for a purpose, namely to withstand any category of attack, even a nuclear attack

Why the End of America is Closer than You Think - RMNews, 31 March 2009,
This repeated creation of trillions of dollars in new money by the Federal Reserve is the last great looting of the U.S. economy by the wealthy elite. The Titanic is sinking, and high officials have monopolized the life rafts, leaving everyone else to drown with the ship. And while they're rowing away from the doomed vessel that's taking on water, they shout back to the low-income workers clinging to the rails, "Don't worry! The ship isn't really sinking. It's just 'correcting!'"

Hundreds of French workers take bosses hostage - CNN, 31 Mar 2009
Hundreds of French workers, angry about proposed layoffs at a Caterpillar factory, were holding executives of the company hostage Tuesday, a spokesman for the workers said. It is at least the third time this month that French workers threatened with cutbacks have blockaded managers in their offices to demand negotiations. Executives were released unharmed in both previous situations. The latest incident started Tuesday morning at the office of the construction equipment company in the southeastern city of Grenoble. Nicolas Benoit, a spokesman for the workers' union, told CNN that they did not want to harm the Caterpillar executives

[war in Bankistan] Economic crisis fueling civil unrest in US - 30 Mar 2009
Five people have been shot dead in California in what appears to be another sign of a social crisis on the back of falling US economy. Two others -- a child and an adult -- suffering from bad wounds, were transferred to a nearby clinic Sunday night. The Santa Clara home shooting in California came at a time when the US society is already marred by an emerging social unrest mainly because of the credit crunch

Attorneys Drop Fees in Shareholder Case Alleging Backdating - Amanda Bronstad, The National Law Journal, March 31, 2009
The plaintiffs lawyers in a shareholder derivative lawsuit involving allegations of stock-options backdating against Cirrus Logic have agreed, in a revised deal filed this month, to drop all attorney fees, which the judge in the case had described as "almost entirely unmerited."

Former Stanford Facing Criminal Charges Sues Proskauer for Malpractice - Alison Frankel, The American Lawyer, March 31, 2009
Considering that former Stanford Financial CIO Laura Pendergest-Holt doesn't have money to pay her lawyers, she's getting a lot of legal help. On Friday, Anthony Buzbee of Houston's Buzbee Law Firm filed a suit for Pendergest-Holt, accusing Proskauer Rose and partner Thomas Sjoblom of legal malpractice, professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty

UN NUOVO ASSETTO PUBBLICO PER BANKITALIA - MARIO LETTIERI E PAOLO RAIMONDI, 30/03/2009
Draghi ha anche spiegato come non manchi la capacità di credito delle banche, anzi ha detto che "queste sono inondate di liquidità". Ma la percezione di un rischio non più quantificabile dalle banche sta bloccando i flussi di credito soprattutto verso le PMI. A questo punto della crisi, mentre si discute di nuove regole e di nuovi modelli di sviluppo, è forse necessario rivedere il ruolo e la proprietà della Banca d’Italia. La crisi globale ha evidenziato la mancanza di istituti statali che sappiano indirizzare le politiche di sviluppo strategico di lungo periodo sostenendole con una conferita capacità di emissione di credito

Explaining Bernie Madoff - By Howard Bess, ConsortiumNews, March 30, 2009
Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff is often dismissed as an aberration, someone who presented himself as a serious, pious, reliable investor but was really just a world-class con man running a high-end Ponzi scheme. But there is another more troubling explanation, that Madoff was nothing particularly special, just an extreme example of what went wrong with the American financial system, who simply went the extra mile in putting greed ahead of integrity

"Let Them Have Stained Carpets" - Obama's Marie Antoinette Moment - The Huffington Post, March 29, 2009
Instead of handcuffing them and bringing them up on charges of fraud and racketeering, however, Obama asked the bankers politely to try to restrain themselves from spending their ill-gotten gains so conspicuously (isn't that what the ring leader always tells the others after a heist in the movies)?

AIG crisis could be the tip of an insurance iceberg - By Ralph Vartabedian and Tom Hamburger, LATimes, March 30, 2009
The company's situation reflects problems throughout the life insurance industry as investments suffer. Further strain could bring about a second financial crisis

This winter, twice as many homeless families sought emergency shelter - By Jia-Rui Chong, LATimes, March 30, 2009
By the end of this year's winter shelter program, which wrapped up this month, 620 families had sought vouchers for motel or hotel stays. Last winter, there were 330 families

Greening Foreclosures: Buy a Home in Detroit for $40 - by Jennifer Lance, RedgGreen&Blue, March 30th, 2009
That’s right, you can buy a bank owned home in Detroit for only $40. Of course, homes for these low prices may have fire damage or boarded up windows, but it is still a house sitting on a lot. Another shocking statistic from Detroit is that the average price of a home is almost equitable to a year’s worth of auto insurance.  According to the Macomb Daily: Because the neighborhoods and housing stock in the city have deteriorated so dramatically, the median sale price for a foreclosed home in Detroit has dipped to $7,750. At the same time, auto theft, insurance fraud and vehicle burglaries are so rampant that the average car insurance policy carries a price tag of $5,072

Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures  - By SUSAN SAULNY, NYTimes, March 29, 2009
The so-called bank walkaways rarely mean relief for the property owners, caught unaware months after the fact, and often mean additional financial burdens and bureaucratic headaches. Technically, they still owe on the mortgage, but as a practicality, rarely would a mortgage holder receive any more payments on the loan. The way mortgages are bundled and resold, it can be enormously time-consuming just trying to determine what company holds the loan on a property thought to be in foreclosure. In Ms. James’s case, the company that was most recently servicing her loan is now defunct. Its parent company filed for bankruptcy and dissolved. And the original bank that sold her the loan said it could not find a record of it. “It is what some of us think is the next wave of the crisis,” said Kermit Lind, a clinical professor at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and an expert on foreclosure law

Bankitalia: Passera, usciremo con piacere dal capitale - Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor, 30 marzo 2009

Incontro: L'Italia in gabbia. Il volto politico della crisi economica - in occasione della presentazione del libro del prof. Guido Tabellini (audio) - Radio Radicale, 30 marzo 2009
Intervengono: Dario Di Vico (vice direttore de "Il Corriere della Sera"), Corrado Passera (Amministratore delegato di Banca Intesa), Marco Tronchetti Provera (imprenditore), Giulio Tremonti (ministro dell'Economia e delle Finanze), Guido Tabellini Rettore dell'Università Bocconi di Milano [praticamente parlano i guardiani della gabbia...]

Suing a broken bank (video) - CNNMoney Reports, Mar 30, 2009
Investors who lost billions when WaMu collapsed are holding top executives personally responsible

[BANCHE PULITE] Chase to refund millions to credit card holders - CNNMoney.com, March 30, 2009
Under pressure from New York Attorney General, JPMorgan Chase agrees to end $10 monthly fee for credit card holders

[BANCHE PULITE] Serious Fraud Office urged to launch criminal probe into RBS - By Simon Johnson, Telegraph, 29 Mar 2009
The Serious Fraud Office is being urged to launch a criminal investigation into the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland, which has so far cost the taxpayer £45billion. Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, wants the SFO to launch a full-scale inquiry that would also look into the company's tax avoidance operations

Tax havens batten down as the hurricane looms - Nick Mathiason, The Observer, Sunday 29 March 2009
Offshore financial centres from Jersey to the Cayman Islands are rallying to defend their privileges from a wave of international action against secrecy. Nick Mathiason reports (To add insult to injury, the additional counter-intuitive claim is made that a hallmark of democracy is to make the central bank "independent" of elected government. In reality, of course, that is just the opposite of democracy. Finance is the crux of the economic system. If it is not regulated democratically in the public interest, then it is "free" to be captured by special interests. So this becomes the oligarchic definition of "market freedom." The danger is that governments will let the financial sector determine how "regulation" will be applied. Special interests seek to make money from the economy, and the financial sector does this in an extractive way. That is its marketing plan. Finance today is acting in a way that de-industrializes economies, not builds them up. The "plan" is austerity for labor, industry and all sectors outside of finance, as in the IMF programs imposed on hapless Third World debtor countries)

DUPLICITY CATCHES UP WITH CRIMINAL INSTITUTIONS: 'SNIPPED' PORTION OF 26TH MARCH REPORT PROVES WE ARE CORRECT - Global Analysis, 30 March 2009
Current pre-G-20 coverage in the 'mainstream' media in both London and New York is discussing every nuance under the solar system with the single exception of the ONLY ISSUE THAT MATTERS: namely, the perverse intention to restore the Fraudulent Finance Ponzi fraudulent trading operations so that the greedy US 'State within the State' Intelligence Power that controls the Federal Government can continue its secret offshore financing operations so as to retain its power contrary to the interests of the American people and the Rest of the World

Berlusconi urges EU-Russia cooperation pact - Novosti, 30/ 03/ 2009
Italy exports cars, equipment, clothes and furniture to Russia. Oil and gas accounts for 70% of Russian exports to Italy. Berlusconi is due to visit Russia on April 5-9 along with an 800-member business delegation

A handgun to defeat any body armor (video) - Novosti, 27/03/2009
The anti-oligarch GSh-18 pistol, the world’s most lightweight handgun, is capable of piercing any body armor. Weapon designers at the arms developer and manufacturer KBP Instrument Design Bureau in Tula say it is a next generation side arm, replacing the legendary Makarov pistol.

Geithner’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: The Entire Global Financial System is at Risk - by F. William Engdahl, Global Research, March 30, 2009
The ‘dirty little secret' which Geithner is going to great degrees to obscure from the public is very simple. There are only at most perhaps five US banks which are the source of the toxic poison that is causing such dislocation in the world financial system. What Geithner is desperately trying to protect is that reality. The heart of the present problem and the reason ordinary loan losses as in prior bank crises are not the problem, is a variety of exotic financial derivatives, most especially so-called Credit Default Swaps. The five are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives (€66 trillion!). Morgan Chase is followed by Bank of America with $38 trillion in derivatives, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs with a ‘mere’ $30 trillion in derivatives. Number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain’s HSBC Bank USA has $3.7 trillion

World Depression: Regional Wars and the Decline of the US Empire - Part I - by Prof. James Petras, Global Research, March 30, 2009
Experts everywhere witness the collapse of the US and world financial system, the absence of credit for trade and the lack of financing for investment.  A world depression, in which upward of a quarter of the world’s labor force will be unemployed, is looming.  The biggest decline in trade in recent world history – down 40% year to year – defines the future.  The immanent bankruptcies of the biggest manufacturing companies in the capitalist world haunt Western political leaders.  The ‘market’ as a mechanism for allocating resources and the government of the US as the ‘leader’ of the global economy have been discredited

[violenze in Bankistan] Usa: strage in famiglia nella Silicon Valley, sei morti - SwissInfo, 30 marzo 2009

Capitalist Incarnate: My interview with a vampire - By Jason Miller, 3/27/09
JM: What about “Bob’s” family?
JA: Well, first of all, his damn wife should have chosen a better mate to be her bread-winner.
JM: And their children?
JA: The state’ll take care of them. That is why I pay outrageous property and capital gains taxes, my friend. Before you judge me too harshly, remember that I pay thousands of times the taxes that you and the “Bobs” of this world do. I pay taxes so I don’t have to worry about the plight of lazy, stupid, insignificant people.

Ma quanto vale Banca d'Italia? -  di   Matteo Toniato, 30 Mar 2009
La scadenza, ovviamente, non è stata rispettata e ad oggi l’antico conflitto d’interessi resta insoluto. I controllati – le banche – detengono ancora il capitale del loro controllore. Sul rinvio pesa un tema fondamentale, sul quale con la nostra indagine abbiamo cercato di fare un po’ di luce: quanto vale Bankitalia? La stampa finanziaria racconta che la vendita delle quote di Banca d’Italia frutterebbe alle banche una cifra indefinita, per alcuni 4 miliardi di euro, per altri 20 e per taluni proprio nulla, perché il patrimonio dell’Istituto è “frutto del signoraggio passato ed appartiene ai cittadini, certamente non alle banche”

Franceschini: ai poliziotti è stato chiesto di anticipare le spese per il G8 - RaiNews24, 30 marzo 2009
Perché non fargli pagare anche i danni per non averci protetto dai banchieri mannari?

Heller Estate, Creditors Pursue Banks Blamed for Firm's Bankruptcy - Amanda Royal, The Recorder, March 30, 2009
Like a pack of hounds, the Heller Ehrman estate and its creditors teamed up Friday to go for the jugular of the banks blamed for the firm's bankruptcy. The creditors, with the estate's support, are asking for standing to sue Bank of America and Citibank to get back $50 million Heller paid them in the months leading up to its bankruptcy. And while lawyers for both sides begged, cajoled and argued for more than an hour, the bankruptcy judge in the case said he was still "on the fence" and didn't rule on the motion Friday

Attorney to Challenge Office Raid After Arrest in Mortgage Scam Tied to Dominatrix Club - Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal, March 30, 2009
Now that a lawyer has been arrested in connection with a bizarre real estate fraud that allegedly recruited straw buyers at a dominatrix club, he has standing to challenge the warrant that authorized a raid on his law office last month, his attorney said Thursday. On Wednesday, solo practitioner George O. Guldi was among seven people -- three of them lawyers -- charged in connection with an alleged mortgage scam that fraudulently obtained more than $50 million in mortgages on dozens of homes

GM CEO resigns at Obama's behest - By MIKE ALLEN & JOSH GERSTEIN, politico.com, 3/29/09
The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said

IL CASO: Genova, perde il lavoro e si suicida - La Stampa, 29/3/2009
Tragico gesto di un geometra 54enne. La spiegazione lasciata in due biglietti

[Bankistan strategy] Economic Meltdown: The "Dollar Glut" is What Finances America's Global Military Build-up - By Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, March 29, 2009
The U.S. Treasury prefers foreign central banks to keep on funding its domestic budget deficit, which means financing the cost of America's war in the Near East and encirclement of foreign countries with rings of military bases. The more "capital outflows" U.S. investors spend to buy up foreign economies ­the most profitable sectors, where the new U.S. owners can extract the highest monopoly rents ­ the more funds end up in foreign central banks to support America's global military build-up. No textbook on political theory or international relations has suggested axioms to explain how nations act in a way so adverse to their own political, military and economic interests. Yet this is just what has been happening for the past generation

Will U.S. financial woes lead to new world order? - By Adam Abrams, Haaretz, 26/03/2009
The only such event that seems even remotely likely is the end of Western global dominance and the transfer of global hegemony to the Eurasian powers. Perhaps it would not be a "global government", but a "new world order", with the central power of the world residing in Asia. This seems to be the most realistic scenario, particularly as China is the largest creditor to the U.S. If the Chinese government decided to dump all of its U.S. dollars, the entire U.S. economy would collapse overnight

Obama holds “very pleasant” meeting with top US bankers - by Joe Kishore, Global Research, March 28, 2009
The bankers have every reason to be happy. Over the past week, the Obama administration has enacted or announced a series of measures that are tailored to serve the interests of this financial oligarchy

The 1929 & 2007 Bear Market Race to The Bottom - Week 76 of 149 Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Charts - Mark J. Lundeen, Gold Eagle, 27 March 2009


Swedish newspaper picks up GATA story - Gata.org, March 29, 2009
The largest morning newspaper in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter ("News of the Day") of Stockholm, which is also the only morning paper with a national circulation in that country, yesterday picked up some of the story from the London Times about the questions GATA has been raising about the U.S. gold reserve

German TV interviews Dimitri Speck on gold price suppression - Gata.org, 28, 2009
This seems to be the month for publicizing the gold price suppression scheme around the world

Roma: volantinaggio davanti Banca Italia bloccato - LiberoReporter, 29 marzo 2009
La manifestazione organizzata dal mensile L’Altra Voce e dallo SNARP a cui si sono aggregati il Movimento dei Pensionati Cattolici e l’Associazione ADIUBAN è stata spenta sul nascere, poiché questa mattina, i primi volontari presentatisi per la distribuzione dei volantini contro il signoraggio bancario sono stati tutti preventivamente «identificati» dai carabinieri della Stazione Quirinale. E’ accaduto di fronte alla sede di via Nazionale, dopo la notifica a Domenico Longo direttore del mensile “L’Altra Voce” del provvedimento della Questura di Roma con il quale veniva reso edotto: “per motivi di Ordine e Sicurezza Pubblica, che l’iniziativa di volantinaggio potrà essere consentita solo in Piazza della Repubblica da dove, una ristretta delegazione di manifestanti, (massimo quattro) potrà recarsi in via Nazionale attestandosi sul marciapiede opposto alla sede della Banca d’Italia”... (la strana collusione tra istituzioni pubbliche e interessi privati continua... per quanto ancora?)

Bank of America Accused in Ponzi Lawsuit - New York Times, 28 Mar 2009
Bank of America effectively set up a branch in a Long Island office that helped Nicholas Cosmo carry out a $380 million Ponzi scheme, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn late Thursday, contends that Bank of America "established, equipped and staffed" a branch office in the headquarters of Mr. Cosmo’s firm, Agape Merchant Advance. As a result, the lawsuit contends that the bank knowingly "assisted, facilitated and furthered" Mr. Cosmo’s fraudulent scheme

Corteo a Roma contro il G8. Fumogeni contro l'Altare della Patria - RaiNews24, 28 marzo 2009
In tutto sono state danneggiate due filiali di Unipol, una di Carim, di Banca Intesa SanPaolo e dell'immobiliare Pirelli. Contro l'Altare della Patria sono stati lanciati quattro fumogeni finiti nelle aiuole che delimitano il monumento, mentre uno ha oltrepassato la cancellata e il cordone di forze dell'ordine schierate in tenuta antisommossa intorno al Vittoriano. Momenti di tensione tra polizia e manifestanti si sono verificati in piazza dell'Esquilino quando alcuni giovani si sono staccati dal corteo per andare a colpire con un'azione dimostrativa la sede della societa' assicuratrice al centro di una polemica a Roma per aver messo in vendita alcuni appartamenti dove abitano inquilini in affitto, in via Pincherle. Una manifestazione, autorizzata, che e' si e' contraddistinta per essere divisa in tre netti tronconi: il sindacalismo di base (Cobas, Rdb e Sdl) tra cui alcuni vigili del fuoco in divisa, che ha aperto il corteo con uno striscione con la scritta "Voi G14 con i responsabili della crisi; noi con i lavoratori, i disoccupati e i precari". Il secondo troncone, partito dall'universita' La Sapienza e dalla stazione Tiburtina, era composto da studenti ed universitari dell'Onda; il terzo dai movimenti per la casa ed i centri sociali, con la nutrita presenza di immigrati (nel prossimo futuro ci sarà anche un quarto cordone: militari e forze dell'ordine!)

GORIZIA: DONNA VUOLE VIVERE IN PANCHINA, SINDACO LA DENUNCIA - AGI, 28 marzo 2009
Almeno negli Stati Uniti hanno le tendopoli...

Manning the barricades - Economist Intelligence Unit, March 2009
Who's at risk as deepening economic distress foments social unrest

London Declares World War III - Executive Intelligence Review, March 27, 2009
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has produced a paper titled, "Manning the Barricades."  The bulk of the report deals with nation-by-nation ratings of the likelihood of countries being destroyed. The EIU projects that Britain will be in the front line of nations shaken by social upheavals that will topple governments. In Britain, "popular discontent and anger are likely to rise, and populist sentiments to strengthen. The news of big personal payouts to bankers who have failed spectacularly has incensed public opinion." Overall, 95 countries are ranked as being at "high" or "very high" risk

Russia wants rouble, yuan, gold in new currency basket - By Simon Shuster, Reuters, March 28, 2009
Russia supports expanding the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to include the rouble, the yuan, and gold, but sees no chance of the G20 Summit accepting a new reserve currency, a Kremlin aide said on Saturday, agencies reported

Is There Any Gold Inside Fort Knox, the World's Most Secure Vault? - By Chris Ayres, The Times, March 28, 2009
"It has been several decades since the gold in Fort Knox was independently audited or properly accounted for," said Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and former Republican presidential candidate, in an e-mail interview with The Times. "The American people deserve to know the truth."

Financial Crime in America - by Danny Schechter, Global Research, March 28, 2009
Why Hasn’t Obama Targeted The Ongoing White Collar Crime Wave? (Obama somiglia sempre più ad una delle innumerevoli truffe nigeriane da spam su internet...)

Geithner's Hog-wallow: the US Treasury's Cash Giveaway Bonanza - by Mike Whitney, Global Research, March 28, 2009
Thus begins the next taxpayer-subsidized feeding frenzy featuring all the usual suspects. The race is on to vacuum up as much toxic mortgage paper as possible so it can be dumped on Uncle Sam at a hefty profit. Nice. These are the same miscreants the Obama administration is so dead-set on rescuing. It's crazy to try to help people who use the cover of a financial crisis to fatten their own bottom line. It's better to let them sink from their own bad bets

How the Scam Works: The "Free Market" at Work, Financial Style - by Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, March 28, 2009

[rubi chi può] Stock options a Portofino - di Beppe Grillo, 28 Marzo 2009
Telecom Italia ha spiato migliaia di italiani senza nessun mandato. Perchè nessuno dice nulla? Tavaroli a chi rispondeva? Le decine di milioni di euro della società che ha speso chi li autorizzava? Questa gente ha fatto quello che ha voluto. Trasferito i divendi di Telecom agli azionisti, tra i quali lo stesso tronchetto dell'infelicità, invece di investirli nella società. Venduto decine di aziende strategiche. Fatto crollare il titolo. Esternalizzato migliaia di dipendenti. Spiato mezza Italia. Bernabè deve chiedere indietro i soldi e istituire un fondo a favore dei dipendenti in difficoltà. E' il minimo che si possa prtendere

Schiavisti e schiavi grandi e piccoli - Pierre Carniti, Eguaglianza e Libertà, 28/03/2009
Sono quasi tre milioni in Italia gli irregolari: il 10% degli occupati al centro-nord, il 23% al sud. Per gran parte di loro si ripete il triste rito del caporalato, oggi diventato multietnico. E poi ci sono i bambini: secondo le stime, da 4-500.000 al doppio, spesso esposti ad alti rischi - Terzo di una serie di articoli

Caccia grossa all'evasore - di Paolo Biondani e Vittorio Malagutti, L'espresso, 26 marzo 2009
Una lista misteriosa. Con 552 "nomi grossi". Sono tutti noti industriali e professionisti del nord-est. Che hanno gabbato l'erario italiano. Grazie a un avvocato svizzero. Finito a San Vittore. I principali referenti bancari di Pessina sono ovviamente i giganti del credito svizzero, a cominciare dall'Ubs. In Italia, invece, in molte operazioni registrate nella lista dell'avvocato di Chiasso viene citato il nome della Banca Mb, un piccolo istituto nato da poco a Milano per iniziativa di alcune decine di imprenditori di seconda fila. Tra i promotori spicca un nome storico della finanza nazionale come Giuseppe Garofano, il manager, presidente Montedison ai tempi dei Ferruzzi, da sempre vicino all'Opus Dei. Clienti di Pessina sono i primi azionisti della banca. E come amministratore della Mb, dal 2003 fino al marzo 2006, spunta il commercialista Siro Zanoni, storico collaboratore dello stesso Pessina

[dimostrazioni in Bankistan] Chanting G20 protesters march though London - Telegraph, 28 Mar 2009
Environment campaigners are planning more protests at G20 following last weekend's march. Up to 15,000 protesters gathered in Hyde Park after marching through central London ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders

La Polizia scorta i manifestanti contro Bankenstein

Contro Bankestein - 3a parte - Andrea Marcon, movimento zero, 27 marzo 2009
Non commetteremo l’errore di confondere una battaglia con la guerra, ma dobbiamo comunque continuare a volare alto, anche in quel terreno dell’Utopia (ma chi è più utopista di colui che crede che questo sia un Sistema che possa reggere a lungo, addirittura all’infinito?) che giustamente ci è stato indicato

G20 summit: thousands start protest march through London - By Andrew Alderson, Patrick Sawer and David Harrison, Telegraph, 28 Mar 2009
Thousands of protesters have begun to march through central London, marking the start of a series of demonstrations ahead of the G20 summit which police fear will descend into violence

Spunta una lista veneta: capitali nascosti nei paradisi fiscali, tremano centinaia di imprenditori - Andrea Priante , Corriere del Veneto, 28 marzo 2009
L'inchiesta I nominativi trovati nel computer di Fabrizio Pessina, un avvocato svizzero arrestato a Milano. C'è l'amministratore delegato dell'azienda trevigiana, il manager di una squadra di calcio veronese, e poi vip, imprenditori, banchieri e intere aziende. In tutto 552 nomi...

EU president declares US economic policy is the "road to hell" - By Stefan Steinberg, wsws, 27 Mar 2009
One day after being ousted as head of the Czech government Mirek Topolanek, who currently holds the revolving chair of the European Union, openly criticised the financial policy of the US government, telling European parliamentary deputies that America was on the "road to hell"

Conferenza del 28 febbraio 2009: SOVRANITA' MONETARIA E CRISI ECONOMICA (video) - CONACREIS, 28 marzo 2009
Con la partecipazione dell'avv. Amerigo Festa, presidente dell'Ass.ne United Beings Project e responsabile del Conacreis Campania.

The secrets of the US dollar and the new currency - Benjamin Fulford, 03/28/2009
No matter how much President Obama and the Feds say no to a new international currency controlled by the IMF, they are powerless to do anything about it

Banche, l’ira dei clienti - di Vittorio Feltri, Libero, 27 Marzo 2009
Il nostro titolone di prima pagina di ieri: “La banca è furba? Scriveteci. Libero mette a disposizione le sue pagine ai lettori che trovano difficoltà agli sportelli e a trattare con gli istituti di credito. Raccontateci ogni fregatura subìta”. Non l’avessimo mai fatto. Nel breve giro di alcune ore siamo stati sommersi da lettere...

Stress takes toll on Moscow metro commuters - Independent, 27 March 2009
Underground suicides expected to rise as more Russians lose their jobs

Tax Dodgers Multiply as ‘Underground Economy’ Cushions Job Cuts - By Emma Ross-Thomas, Bloomberg, March 27, 2009
Milton Haro, a 37-year-old Peruvian electrician, said he is registered among Spain’s 3.5 million unemployed, while he works illegally. He sometimes earns more in a day’s work off the books than he did in a week as a salaried electrician, he said. In the good times, only newly arrived immigrants without papers or connections would come to this improvised labor exchange, Haro said. Now, men who have worked legally in Spain for years also show up before dawn. The greater the unemployment rate, “the higher the likelihood of participation in the underground economy,” said Steinar Strom, professor of economics at the University of Turin in Italy. Informal work accounted for 51 percent of global employment in 2007, with the highest concentrations in developing countries, the Geneva-based ILO said in a Jan. 28 report. That may climb to as high as 53 percent this year, or 1.6 billion people, an increase of 113 million in two years, it said

Congresswoman Introduces Bill To Ban Global Currency - Steve Watson, Infowars.net, March 27, 2009
Says true intentions of President and Treasury head are questionable

U.S. FRAUD SCHEME LAUNCHED MONDAY IN BIG TROUBLE - Global Analysis, 26 March 2009
QUESTION: WHAT IS THE ‘PRICE’ OF FRAUDUENT ‘ASSETS’ THAT HAVE NO VALUE? BANKS ‘BLACKMAILING’ GOVERNMENT: BY PRIOR AGREEMENT. TOP OFFICERS OF THE BIG BANKS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ARRESTED. HOW THE CHINESE REACT TO THIS U.S. SCAM IS WHAT MATTERS NOW. G-20 MEETING IN LONDON WILL BE A FLOP. CRIMINALISTS DON’T CARE ABOUT PONZI VICTIM SUICIDES

ATTAC: Manifestazione nazionale. La crisi la paghino banchieri, padroni, evasori

Appuntamento di sabato 28 Marzo 2009, a Roma, in Piazza della Repubblica.

Abbiamo scelto la data del 28 marzo per una manifestazione nazionale a Roma perchè quel giorno si riuniranno i ministri del welfare del G14 per ripresentare le ricette che hanno portato alla crisi e all’immiserimento popolare, per scaricarne ancor più i costi sui salari, l’occupazione, le pensioni, i tagli ai servizi sociali e ai beni comuni, la pressione fiscale. Vogliamo dunque chiamare tutti i lavoratori/trici, le forze sociali, i movimenti di lotta contro la crisi e la devastazione ambientale, gli studenti e tutti/e coloro che si battono contro il tentativo del capitalismo di uscire indenne dalla crisi, colpendo di nuovo i ceti popolari, a essere in piazza con noi a Roma

[BANCHE PULITE] UNDERCOVER OPERATION RESULTS IN FRAUD CHARGES AGAINST PROFESSIONALS IN THE MORTGAGE LOAN INDUSTRY - DOJ, FBI, MARCH 25, 2009
Federal law enforcement officials announced today that 24 defendants, most of whom are professionals in the mortgage loan industry – including mortgage brokers, loan officers, loan processors, attorneys, accountants, an appraiser, and a banker – were named in 10 indictments charging them with federal offenses relating to mortgage fraud in the Chicago area. “Mortgage fraud often happens with the active participation of professionals in the industry,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S.Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.  “It is particularly disturbing that the fraud has continued notwithstanding widespread publicity about the real and serious consequences of mortgage fraud.  We will continue to use undercover operations like Operation Madhouse so that corrupt professionals will have to wonder whether the person sitting across the closing table from them is actually an undercover agent,” he added.

Top bank regulator placed on leave pending review - AP, March 27, 2009
An OTS top bank regulator - Scott Polakoff - has been placed on leave pending a Treasury Department investigation into regulators' approval of backdated cash infusions for troubled thrifts

Omni National Bank, Atlanta, Georgia - The Bank Implode-O-Meter, March 27, 2009
The 21st “official” bank implosion of 2009 was centered on Georgia yet again (Georgia must be on the FDIC’s mind, for sure), as Omni National Bank stepped up to the plate and was knocked down

Consumer advocates call for Geithner’s resignation - By Personal Liberty News Desk, Mar 25th, 2009
Following the AIG bonuses debacle, two prominent consumer advocates have called on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign

History Lesson: And These Are the People We Expect to Fix Things Now? - This Can't Be Happening!, 03/27/2009
Today President Obama met to consult with bank industry "leaders" about his recovery plans. Nice place to turn for advice, Mr. Prez (kind of akin to inviting your predecessor, George W Bush, over for some friendly advice on how to rescue the Constitution, or visiting Charlie Manson to discuss ways of ending torture).

Reform is needed. Reform is in the air. We can't afford to fail - Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian, Friday 27 March 2009
The task is to build a new financial architecture. If we flunk it, the pain will strike most cruelly in the world's poorest countries

Terra di Lavoro NON votò per i Savoia - Fernando Riccardi, Rinascita, 26 Marzo 2009
Il 26 ottobre del 1860, a Teano o giù di lì (i più propendono per la contrada di Taverna Catena), avvenne lo storico incontro tra Garibaldi e Vittorio Emanuele II. A conclusione della sua mirabolante impresa il prode nizzardo depose nelle mani del re sabaudo l’intera Italia meridionale con tutta la sua storia e i suoi tesori...

The Quiet Coup - Simon Johnson, The Atlantic, March 27, 2009
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time

Obama's Latest No Banker Left Behind Scheme - by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, March 27, 2009
Geithner's plan will have the Fed and FDIC "subsidize investors to buy toxic assets from the banks at inflated prices." If done, it will be another in a series of massive wealth transfers in the hundreds of billions of dollars "to bank shareholders from taxpayers." If investors incur losses, the Fed and FDIC will absorb them, meaning heads or tails they win

The Bourbons of Global Finance - by Prof Howard Stein and Prof Claudia Kedar, Global Research, March 27, 2009
Today’s International Monetary Fund (and, to a lesser degree, the World Bank) recall Talleyrand’s description of France’s Bourbon kings: it has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. At a time when rich countries like the United States are running deficits of 12% of GDP because of the global financial meltdown, the IMF has been telling countries like Latvia and Ukraine, which did not start the crisis but have turned to the Fund to help combat it, that they must balance their budgets if they want aid. But the Obama administration can still help – for example, by asking the Federal Reserve to expand the currency swap arrangements that it recently offered to Singapore, South Korea, and Brazil to other developing countries. That way, the world’s poor could at least avoid the heavy-handed conditionality imposed by the IMF and World Bank...

Hidden Homeless Emerge as US Economy Worsens - by Steve Gorman and Suzanne Hurt, Reuters, March 26, 2009
Stoops, who has worked with the homeless for 35 years, said the newly dispossessed often retain some income and seek initially to downsize or find cheaper accommodations. WORST NIGHTMARE: "Their worst nightmare would be winding up on the streets, in a tent city or a shelter," he said. "That's the last stage. They will do everything they can before that happens to them."

Professor suspended over ‘hanging bankers’ remarks - AFP, March 27, 2009
A university professor who is organizing a protest at next week’s G20 summit was suspended from his job after warning bankers could be “hanging from lampposts.”


Missouri retracts report linking militias, 3rd party candidates to domestic terrorism - By Jason Noble, Kansas City Star, March 27, 2009
The Highway Patrol also will open an investigation into the origin of the report, which linked conservative groups with domestic terrorism and named former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin

South African central bank to build gold reserves slowly - By Michael Hamlyn, IAfrica.com, Cape Town, South Africa, March 27, 2009

Geithner Gets a Taste of the Peasants' Anger - By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive, March 27, 2009
Finally Americans got it: they are iron ruled by Goldman Sachs. Why are we funneling hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money to a bunch of hedge fund managers to buy “toxic� assets from banks for more than they are worth?

U.S. Government Buys Hypocrisy With Fiat Currency - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/27/09
So, even more embarrassing, America used to strut around the world, scolding countries that got into this deficit-spending-gone-kaput mess, sanctimoniously preventing them from increasing their government deficit-spending as a condition of getting bailout loans from the U.S., the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, miscellaneous secret government slush funds and terrorist goon-squads, and instead we insisted that they increase taxes and cut government spending! Hahaha! Now, in a spate of irony, the tables are turned

Zombie Economy Feeds on New Money and Credit - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/26/09
All that money, and yet still more money from other countries and other sources, will be with us for the rest of our lives, and the inflation in the money supply will show up as higher and higher inflation in consumer prices, which is what will cause rioting when the people realize that they are bankrupted and starving to death. It will be a lesson everyone else will, hopefully, not forget the next time their government acts like a moron.

France to compensate victims of nuclear testing - By Sophie Hardach and Estelle Shirbon, Reuters, 24 March 2009
* France recognises link between tests and illnesses * Burden of proof reversed * Government sets aside 10 million euros initially. France ran a total of 210 nuclear tests, in Algeria between 1960 and 1966, then in French Polynesia between 1966 and 1996. France had long refused to recognise officially a link between the tests, which ended in 1996, and diseases afflicting 150,000 army and civilian staff who were at the sites. Defence Minister Herve Morin told reporters on Tuesday France had conducted the tests as safely as possible, and had needed them to build up a credible nuclear deterrent and emerge as a global nuclear power. "Thirteen years after the end of tests in the Pacific ... it's time for our country to be at peace with itself, thanks to a system of compensation and mending the damage that was suffered," he told a news conference

L’inizio della fine ? - inviato da Giancarlo Chetoni, 27 marzo 2009
Le sanzioni contro l'Iran sono state rinnovate di anno in anno dal 1995 dalle Amministrazioni USA e dall’Unione Europea, a partire dal 23 Giugno 2008, di cui il Governatore della Banca d’Italia Draghi si è fatto sollecito interprete per inibire l’attività della Banca iraniana Melli mentre il Ministro degli Interni Maroni ha bloccato il visto d’ingresso in Italia per i funzionari ed il personale diplomatico compreso nella lista di Bruxelles. D’Alema e Frattini - nel frattempo - si sono dati un gran da fare per deprimere l’export-import Roma-Teheran, come risulta dai dati ICE, con decrementi annuali che hanno sfiorato il 18-20 %. Il portavoce di Teheran Alì Zabihi ha inoltre denunciato il complotto ordito a Roma il 3 Giugno 2008 contro il Presidente Ahmadinejad in visita alla Conferenza FAO e l’Ambasciatore dell’Iran Abolfaz Zehrehvand mediante una massiccia irradiazione di raggi x da attuarsi durante un controllo "metal detector" nei saloni FAO e il posizionamento all’esterno dell’Ambasciata dell’Iran - in prossimità dei varchi carrabili - di materiale emanante altissimi livelli di radioattività (le leggi anti-usura emanate dall'Iran - all'indomani della liberazione del paese - sono un permanente pugno nell'occhio dei droni dei banchieri che abbiamo deciso di meritarci come governanti...)

BANCHE. Nasce Extra dedicata agli immigrati - Vita.it, 27 marzo 2009
L'iniziativa è di Fondazione Cariplo e Generali

La faccia nascosta del messaggio di Obama all'Iran - MegaChip, 27-03-2009
Si tratta di un autentico signoraggio monetario applicato all'intero pianeta, ovvero si scambiano foglietti di carta verde (senza nessun valore intrinseco) contro merci, creando una enorme bolla speculativa fondata sul debito...

Signoraggio e sovranità: un po' di chiarezza - Aleandro Volpi, enricomoriconi.it, 27-03-2009
Oggi si assiste alla circolazione di una particolare moneta detta “di conto” e costituita soprattutto dalle carte di debito e di credito e formata grazie al moltiplicatore dei prestiti e dei depositi. Questo tipo di moneta è sotto il diretto controllo più del Sistema Bancario, e dei suoi componenti, che sotto il controllo delle BNC...

Le illusioni del nocchiero - Elio Di Caprio, Terza Repubblica, 27-03-2009
Il dilemma è difficilmente risolvibile fino a quando non sarà messo in causa il “signoraggio”- come lo chiama Giuliano Amato - del dollaro che è la principale moneta di riserva e di scambio sui mercati mondiali

Benevento, La Destra replica a Fi: ‘Non ci tiriamo indietro, non ci vendiamo a nessuno’ - 82cento.it, 27-03-2009
Siamo contro il signoraggio delle banche, vere lobbies che, manovrate da un disegno occulto, strozzinano la nostra economia sprofondandola in una crisi epocale

Crollo governo Repubblica Ceca, preoccupazione per Trattato di Lisbona - Simone Storti, La Voce, 26/3/2009
Timori per la presidenza di turno della Ue, detenuta da Praga



In Israel, Economic Woes Lead to Looting - By Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2009
First came the employees, shortchanged two months' pay and laid off by the supermarket called God's Blessing. They rifled through their shuttered workplace, helping themselves to crates full of groceries. As word spread through the small town, the store's jilted creditors joined in ... The two-day spree shocked and puzzled Israelis, who assume that the rule of law prevails in their society. Yet this and other recent cases of looting have coincided with news that the economy, flattened late last year after half a decade of enviable growth, had slid into recession


Income Tax: Why We Have It - by Alan Stang, NewsWithViews.com, March 26, 2009
Tote that barge, lift that bale, and make sure you pay on time. April 15th approaches and my guess is that only a relative handful of Americans knows why we have the income tax. With rare exceptions, they will exclaim that we must have the income tax to “pay the expenses of the government.” Of course the truth is exactly the opposite. The income tax has nothing to do with paying the expenses of the government...

A NEW GLOBAL CURRENCY - By Paul Proctor, NewsWithViews.com, March 26, 2009
You see, the loan can never be repaid in full because only the principal is created and loaned out by The Fed. You and I, the taxpayer, have to somehow come up with the interest. The Fed doesn’t print interest – only the principal – which means the taxpayer has to keep borrowing principal to repay interest that was never created to begin with. Breathtaking, is it? Now, Russia and China are calling for a new global currency because they know what’s coming: The dollar’s collapse into absolute worthlessness

Judge Freezes Assets of Madoff's Brother - Vesselin Mitev, New York Law Journal, March 26, 2009
A Brooklyn Law School student whose family was close to Bernard Madoff has filed suit against Madoff's brother, Peter, claiming Peter Madoff squandered a trust fund of nearly $500,000 in his brother's massive Ponzi scheme. In response to the suit by Andrew Samuels claiming that his trust fund was depleted by the payment of "fictitious returns" to other Madoff investors, a New York judge has temporarily frozen Peter B. Madoff's assets

J’ACCUSE/ Debenedetti: le banche non vogliono far pulizia al loro interno - ilsussidiario.net, 26 marzo 2009
Le banche non vogliono fare pulizia al proprio interno, perché per farlo dovrebbero scoprire le carte. Se lo facessero, dichiarando l’entità degli asset tossici che hanno a bilancio, rivelerebbero di essere tutte potenzialmente fallite. E non solo negli Stati Uniti...


[guerra in Bankistan] G20: Brown, la crisi e' un uragano - ANSA, 2009-03-24
Azione globale contro paradisi fiscali, fine delle banche ombra

L’AUTORICICLAGGIO - di Luca Chianca, Report-RaiTRE
Sembra proprio una nuova tipologia di reato ritagliata apposta sul caso delle banche...

U.S. watchdog says billions of U.S. aid wasted in Iraq --$3 to $5 billion in U.S. aid for 'rebuilding' Iraq has been wasted since 2003 - Reuters, 25 Mar 2009
About $3 billion to $5 billion in U.S. aid for rebuilding Iraq has been wasted since 2003, and similar problems will likely haunt development in Afghanistan, a top U.S. watchdog said on Wednesday. Stuart Bowen, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told Congress that sums wasted on ill-designed or failed projects in Iraq translate into 15-20 percent of the $21 billion Iraqi Relief and Reconstruction Fund

[war in Bankistan] Fanatics 'could use roadside bombs to kill VIPs in Britain' - Daily Mail, 25 Mar 2009
Activists could use Iraq-style roadside bombs to target VIPs in Britain, officials fear. An attack by a nuclear 'dirty bomb', which spreads radioactive material, is also becoming more likely, according to an official report yesterday. The report, unveiled by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday, refers to 'significant developments' in the IED threat to the UK, 'in particular the use of novel home-made explosives and the detonation of devices by suicide bombers' (maybe bankrupt people?)

Warning after Goodwin's home attacked: 'Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.' - Independent, 25 Mar 2009 Windows were smashed at the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive's house in Edinburgh overnight. The windows of a Mercedes S600, parked in the driveway, were also smashed. A statement issued to media organisations shortly after the attack on Sir Fred's house said: "We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning." The email, sent in the early hours of the morning to a number of outlets including the Press Association, came from the address bankbossesarecriminalsmail.com

NBC Connecticut Obtains AIG Death Threats: 'All you motherf*ckers should be shot.' --Documents reveal the level of threats against AIG employees - nbc, 25 Mar 2009
The anger in the threats against AIG executives is palpable. "Get the bonus, we will get your children," someone identified only as "Jacob the Killer" hauntingly writes in an e-mail. His is one of dozens of threats against AIG and its employees that were obtained from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's office under a Freedom of Information Act request by NBC Connecticut. 'All you motherf*ckers should be shot. Thanks for f*cking up our economy then taking our money.' 'If the bonuses don't stop, it will be very likely that every CEO @ AIG has a bulls-eye on their backs.'


French boss barricaded in office by employees - By Scott Sayare, Independent, 26 March 2009
Striking French workers at the US manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labour talks yesterday at a plant south of Paris, as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country. While the situation at the 3M plant outside Pithiviers was calm, worker rage elsewhere boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace in Paris and a bonfire of tyres set alight by Continental AG employees whose car parts factory was being shut down

Stimulus, bailout will lead to more fraud: FBI - By Andy Sullivan, Reuters, Mar 25, 2009
The FBI is bracing for a wave of fraud and corruption cases stemming from the government's multitrillion-dollar effort to get the economy moving again, the agency's chief told Congress on Wednesday

IBM to shift 'large number' of US jobs to India - Brisbane Times, 26 Mar 2009
Computer giant IBM plans to cut a "large number" of US employees in its business services unit and transfer their duties to India, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the situation," said that IBM generally [hides] avoids public disclosure of layoffs and the number of US jobs being eliminated could not be determined

US Virgin Islands Criminal Tax Case Seen as Growing Trend - March 25, 2009
The case above is a HUGE lose for the IRS.  It shows how incompetent they can be and also how far outside the law they are going. The IRS spent millions of dollars and used many agents and 1000's of hours. The government used 40 witnesses and the defense put only ONE witness on the stand and won the case. They clearly did not break any laws

One Small Problem With Geithner’s Plan: It Will Bankrupt The Banks - Henry Blodget, Henry Blodget, The Business Insider, March 25, 2009
The big problem with Tim Geithner’s plan to fix the banks is the same as it ever was: The gap between what banks say their assets are worth and what the market says they are worth

[Cemetery for Bankistan war victims] Military Industrial Complex Prepares Mass Graves for U.S. Citizens - Shepard Ambellas, Infowars, March 25, 2009
“FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere,” writes William

Journal intime d'un économiste pendant la crise (3) - Bernard Maris, 16 Mars 2009
Débat à i-télé. Avec un type qui défend les suppressions d’emplois de Total. Le fait que Total fasse 13,9 milliards d’euros de bénéfice net et ne renouvelle pas 555 postes, le fait saliver. Il jubile. Il va nous faire un orgasme sur le plateau. « Et c’est l’efficacité, la productivité, la rentabilité, la nécessité, le marché » et autres calembredaines contre lesquelles on ne peut rien, comme on ne peut rien contre la bêtise, la « bêtise au cou de taureau » disait Cavanna. Flaubert pensait la bêtise était un autre nom du diable. Or le diable c’est l’argent, Mammon, si je me souviens bien... De là à penser que le désir d’argent entraine l’humanité dans une bêtise criminelle et suicidaire, un pas que je franchis allègrement avec Keynes

HSBC axes 1,200 UK jobs - Julia Kollewe, guardian.co.uk, 25 March 2009
Backroom staff hit as services moved overseas. Leamington Spa, Newport and Leeds worst affected (altri 1.200 potenziali testimoni per l'operazione Banche Pulite!)

Brown's free trade plea 'puts millions of jobs at risk' - Kathryn Hopkins, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 March 2009
War on Want attacks Gordon Brown's call to G20 leaders to complete Doha talks on liberalising world trade

Economy brings out entrepreneurial spirit - By Sabine Vollmer, NewsObserver, March 24, 2009
Cemetery plots. Blood plasma. Human eggs. Whatever they think they can spare, some Triangle residents are selling it to pay bills or to hold off debt collectors. After her husband's work hours were cut by about half, Kari Lovings, a 21-year-old stay-at-home mom of two, signed up to become an egg donor at the N.C. Center for Reproductive Medicine, a Cary fertility center. If she is picked, she'll earn $3,000 and help a couple unable to conceive

EU presidency: US and UK economic recovery plans are 'a way to hell' - By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels, Telegraph, 25 Mar 2009
Mr Topolanek warned the European Parliament that the Obama administration's stimulus package and financial bail-out "will undermine the stability of the global financial market". ”All of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the way to hell,” he told Euro-MPs in Strasbourg ”We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the EU is the refusal to go this way.”

CDS 'Godfather' Says Blow 'Em All Up' - By Webster Tarpley, rense.com, 3-25-9
Myron Scholes, the creator of the infamous Black-Scholes model for pricing derivatives which won the Nobel Prize and then almost destroyed the world banking system with the Long Term Capital Management bankruptcy of 1998, has now partially understood that his derivative creations are a Frankenstein monster. He recommends wiping out the current crop of toxic cds derivatives

Geithner Remarks on IMF Roil Foreign-Exchange Market - By Rebecca Christie, Bloomberg, March 25, 2009
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent the dollar tumbling with comments about China’s ideas for overhauling the global monetary system, only to drive it back up by affirming that it should remain the world’s reserve currency

Usury Remains Untouched - Jim Kirwan, rense.com, 3-25-9
This all began with the appointment of Gerald R. Ford and the 25th Amendment that made his administration possible. Ford did a lot more than just officially pardon Nixon: because he also appointed Rockefeller as his VP, who was able to quietly connect all those secret decisions that linked corporate banking to the military-congressional-industrial-complex; which opened the way for the formal creation of the New World Order, and simultaneously unplugged the public from any role in this entire travesty

Federal Corruption Lacks Proper Punctuation - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/25/09
I am working myself into a howling rage, inching towards some kind of open rebellion where I seize control of the USA by rallying those who respond to my campaign promise of “Free lunch for everybody! And a free breakfast and a light supper, too!” [bankers] by gathering them all up, declaring them to be “mentally incompetent” to believe in such a stupidity as a free lunch, and sending them to those secret internment camps that the government has been building

[PeaceKeeping in Bankistan] The world needs to carry out the Chinese/BRIC plan for a new currency - Benjamin Fulford, 03/25/2009
If the world took action the Fed would collapse and the American people would be free for the first time in 100 years

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JONES ADMITS - I TAKE MY DAILY ORDERS FROM DR. KISSINGER - RMNews, 25 March 2009
"Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today"

[vittime civili in Bankistan]  Dramma della disperazione a Roma un uomo si dà fuoco al Campidoglio - La Repubblica, 25 marzo 2009
Vincenzo C., 39 anni, era stato licenziato da una cooperativa e proprio ieri gli avevano comunicato che non avrebbe avuto alcuna indennità di disoccupazione

[War in Bankistan] Vandals Hit Home of Ex-Chief of Bank - By JULIA WERDIGIER, NYTimes, March 25, 2009
Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of ailing Royal Bank of Scotland, was criticized for keeping his $1 million pension despite a string of ill-timed acquisitions under his reign

[from Bankistan] Dear A.I.G., I Quit! - NYTimes, March 24, 2009
The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

Grillo 168 e il silenzio del potere - di Beppe Grillo, 24 Marzo 2009
Sono appena tornato da Parma dove ho testimoniato sulla Parmalat. Mi hanno chiesto come facessi a sapere. Belin, che domande...Lo sapevano tutte le banche e gli organi di controllo. Il giudice, invece del sottoscritto, avrebbe dovuto convocare i responsabili della Consob e della Banca d'Italia di allora e chiedere ragione del loro silenzio. Il silenzio si dice che sia d'oro, ma in Italia il silenzio è di piombo, il silenzio è potere, il silenzio è mafioso, il silenzio è politico. il silenzio è giornalistico

More documentation of central bank gold rigging -- buried - Gata.org, March 24, 2009
The long MarketWatch story published today about the decline in central bank gold sales may be most notable for coming upon without recognizing it and thus burying what appears to be more documentation of the central bank gold price suppression scheme

Bloomberg TV archive carries Murphy interview - Gata.org, March 25, 2009
Bloomberg TV has placed on its Internet video archive Bernard Lo's interview Tuesday with GATA Chairman Bill Murphy

Geithner Grilled on Goldman Sachs Connections - David Edwards, Raw Story, March 24, 2009

Stiglitz: Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers - Reuters, March 24, 2009
The U.S. government is basically using the taxpayer to guarantee against downside risk on the value of these assets, while giving the upside, or potential profits, to private investors, he said

David René James de Rothschild delivered a lecture on global crisis - EMportal, 19 March 2009
David de Rothschild estimated that the global economic crisis will come to an end in 2010. He also stressed that the first signs of recovery will be stock markets rising, but he warned that the crisis will leave the governments’ coffers with enormous public debt

Blair's New East India Company - Executive Intelligence Review, March 20, 2009

Laissez Unfair - By Brent Budowsky, ConsortiumNews, March 24, 2009
What the current financial crisis has revealed is that this supposedly “free-market capitalism” has been just another form of cronyism in which privileged insiders profit when things go well and are bailed out when they don’t, as Brent Budowsky observes in this guest essay that appeared first as a column in The Hill newspaper

Wall Street celebrates government windfall for banks and big investors - By Barry Grey, WSWS.org, 24 March 2009
Wall Street erupted in a demonstration of euphoria and greed Monday as the Obama administration announced a plan to offload bankers' bad debts that amounts to an unprecedented looting of taxpayer funds to benefit the financial elite. All of the major stock indexes soared as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid out details of the administration's so-called Public-Private Investment Program--a euphemism for a scheme to bankroll private investment firms and guarantee them huge profits in return for buying failed home loans and securities from the banks at vastly inflated prices

LaRouche: `They're Stealing! Stop Them from Stealing!' - EIRNS, March 18, 2009
On the fact more than $100 billion of the AIG bail-out has gone to cover derivatives bets, LaRouche asked,
Why should anyone have to pay that? It's a gambling debt! It's not an asset, it's a gambling debt! We should go out with an all-out pitch, the whole organization: 'They're stealing! They're stealing! Stop them from stealing! The President must stop them from stealing. Somebody has to go to jail. These guys should go to jail!' The contracts should be cancelled! We're not obliged to honor it! It's a gambling debt! We don't pay gambling debts! "Put organized crime into bankruptcy!" he expostulated. A couple of these guys from Wall Street should be in prison right now! Sitting there awaiting trial, but under custody, so they can't run away. Goldman Sachs is the number one. The officers of Goldman Sachs should be in prison now, being held as a precautionary measure, so they can't run away, and they can't get any assets. This would be the proper procedure; this is a fraud against the government.

WHEELS COMING OFF WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION ENGINE - Global Analysis, 24 March 2009
PERVERSE OPERATION TO 'REIGNITE' FRAUDULENT FINANCE IS FALLING APART. THE LATEST MISGUIDED, WRONG-HEADED GEITHNER PLAN. NO TAKERS FOR 'GEITHNERS'. 'A HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FEELING THIS IS GOING TO END BADLY'

Obama to Meet Friday With Top Bank CEOs - WSJ, 24 Mar 2009
President Barack Obama plans to meet Friday with about a dozen of the U.S.'s top banking chiefs in an unusual gathering designed to discuss the administration's plans to shore up the financial sector. Attendees are expected to include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. (C). The meeting comes as relations between Washington and Wall Street are frayed following last week's furor over bonuses paid to American International Group Inc. (AIG) employees. At the same time, the administration is relying heavily on private investors and Wall Street banks to implement its various rescue programs and needs to repair its relationship

America Is in Need of a Moral Bailout - by Chris Hedges, Global Research, March 24, 2009
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money

Simmering Public Fury regarding the Bank Bailout: Judgment Day for Geithner - by Mike Whitney, Global Research, March 24, 2009
Whether he deserves it or not, Timothy Geithner has become the poster boy for everything that's wrong with the government's scatterbrain financial rescue plan. Geithner was in the wheelhouse at the New York Fed when Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros defaulted, and he played a central role in the $165 million AIG bonus scandal which ignited a populist firestorm across the country. Now everything even remotely connected to the bank bailout has become a source of fist-clinching rage. The mood of the country has darkened from the steady downpour of bad economic news, the sharp decline in housing prices and the steep rise in unemployment. People are angry at the government, the banks and Wall Street. Their nerves are frayed and their patience is stretched to the limit

Bloomberg TV's Lo interviews Murphy, plans gold suppression debate - Gata.org, March 24, 2009
From their studio in Hong Kong, Bloomberg TV's Bernard Lo just interviewed GATA Chairman Bill Murphy, speaking from the Bloomberg studio in Dallas, for about 15 minutes on the "Morning Call" program

Falling dollar prompts BRIC nations to rethink dollar - By Sebastian Tong and Peter Apps, Reuters, March 23, 2009
A push by the world's leading emerging economies to dislodge the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency appears to be gaining momentum even as a weakening greenback adds further urgency to the discussion

Call to stop closed door EU-India FTA negotiations - Spectrezine, March 24th, 2009
We, express our opposition to the lack of transparency, public debate and democratic process of the ongoing negotiations of the European Union and India Free Trade Agreement (EU-India FTA). We are deeply concerned that this free trade framework will have adverse socio-economic and environmental impacts

India-EU Free Trade Agreement: Should India Open Up Banking Sector? - By Kavaljit Singh, Spectrezine, March 24, 2009
One of the major underlying themes in the ongoing negotiations on the India-EU FTA is the liberalization of trade and investment in financial services. Financial services cover a wide range of services from banking to insurance to brokerage and asset management. The global trade in financial services has registered rapid growth in the past two decades on account of growing internationalization of trade and finance. Financial services firms see regulation as the biggest obstacle to their global ambitions. The liberalization of trade and investment in financial services is a part of wider financial sector liberalization which consists of domestic (e.g., interest rate deregulation) as well as external (e.g., capital account liberalization) reforms (i.e. through off-shore banking - without any minimal reserves at all - Bankenstein is arranging to further rape India. Exactly the same tactics that he tried against Russia...)

High-Profile Plaintiffs Attorneys Start to Beat the War Drums Over AIG Bonuses - Amanda Bronstad, The National Law Journal, March 24, 2009
At least two high-profile plaintiffs attorneys are considering filing lawsuits over the recent controversies surrounding $165 million in retention bonuses that AIG paid to its utives. In a March 19 letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Coughlin Stoia's Darren Robbins said several of the firm's pension fund clients have directed him to "advise the Treasury Department of our mandate to take appropriate steps on behalf of AIG against the members of AIG's board of directors."

Why the Market Rally is Like Waiting for Godot - Douglas A. McIntyre, TIME, March 24, 2009
Prominent economists, led by James Galbraith and Paul Krugman, have said that the plan may actually do more harm than good

As credit markets froze, banks loaned millions to insiders - By Stella M.Hopkins, Charlotte Observe, March 22, 2009
Banks nationwide hold $41 billion in loans to directors, top executives and other insiders, a portfolio that experts say should be stripped of secrecy

Paul Krugman: The Problem Is Toxic Banks Not Just Toxic Assets (Video) - John Carney, The Business Insider, March 24, 2009

Le imprese chiedono soldi alle banche e al governo - Andrea Angelini, Rinascita, 24 Marzo 2009
Per le imprese l’emergenza resta quella del credito. Emma Marcegaglia, intervenuta agli Stati generali degli industriali lombardi, c’era anche il ministro dell’Economia Giulio Tremonti, ha ricordato ai presenti di aver chiesto al governo di rifinanziare con un importo di un miliardo e mezzo di euro il fondo di garanzia per le imprese, in maniera tale che quei soldi siano immediatamente spendibili e non destinati ad un futuro nel quale le aziende non ci saranno più o come Italia saremo già usciti dalla crisi. Disporre di quei fondi, ha insistito il presidente di Confindustria, significa poter garantire 60-70 miliardi di euro di crediti da destinare in tempi rapidissimi alle piccole e medie imprese. (anche la Marcegaglia ha finalmente capito il trucco della riserva frazionaria...)

Il pizzo di Taranto - blog di Antonio Di Pietro, 24 Marzo 2009
Taranto è ammorbata da sostanze cancerogene teratogene come gli idrocarburi policiclici aromatici come il mercurio, l'arsenico, il piombo, tutte sostanze che vengono dalle sue principali industrie che non sono industrie di poco conto, ma sono industrie che si chiamano Ilva, la più grande acciaieria d'Europa, si chiamano Eni e la sua raffineria, che si chiamano Cementir, laddove si produce cemento. Queste tre industrie, che sono le più grandi, oltre che ammorbare Taranto e a contribuire in maniera pesante all'aumento dei tumori, delle malattie leucemiche, quindi ad uccidere i tarantini come mosche, non pagano l'Ici al comune di Taranto fin dal 1993, anno in cui l'imposta comunale sugli immobili venne istituita per Legge...

Internet: furti d'identita', giro affari per 5,3 mld dollari - ANSA, 24 MARZO 2009
Da una parte ci sono dati e informazioni sulle identita', come data e luogo di nascita, che possono essere usati per aprire un conto corrente fasullo, come e' successo alla sorella del ministro Tremonti qualche giorno fa; dall'altra ci sono i dati delle carte di credito. Ci sono persino dei tariffari sui numeri di conto corrente, che possono essere venduti con un valore fino a 1000 dollari, a seconda dell'affidabilita' o della freschezza dei dati'. (chissà, magari sono soprattutto operazioni di "insider", gli impiegati stessi delle banche...non sarebbe logico indagare in quella direzione?)

Crisi, Geithner e Bernanke "Serve ampia riforma del sistema" - la Repubblica, 24 marzo 2009
Intervento del segretario al Tesoro e del presidente della Fed al Congresso. Ribadita l'esigenza di nuove regole, in particolare per la supervisione

Banche Usa: molte ombre dietro al nuovo piano di Obama - Diana Pugliese, Rinascita, 24 Marzo 2009
“Usando dai 75 ai 100 miliardi di dollari con capitale del Tarp e capitali provenienti dagli investitori privati, il programma Pubblico-privato creerà un potere d’acquisto da 500 miliardi di dollari”, ha spiegato Geithner in un’intervista rilasciata al “Wall Street Journal”, sottolineando che vi è “il potenziale per l’espansione nel tempo fino a 1.000 miliardi”

[global default] 'Many nations in the West are already bankrupt' - Vivek Kaul, DNA, March 23, 2009
"Many nations in the West are already bankrupt (US, Britain, Spain, Iceland and Ireland) and the only thing they can now do is to print even more money. For example, America's total debt is now worth $54 trillion (and rising!) and there is no way the US can ever hope to repay its debt in today's money. In other words, either the US will default (highly unlikely in my view) or it will print and inflate so that this huge mountain of debt feels much smaller in the future due to the loss of its purchasing power," says Saxena

JPMorgan Chase To Spend Millions on New Jets and Luxury Airport Hangar - By BRIAN ROSS, JOSEPH RHEE and MEGAN CHUCHMACH, abcNews, March 23, 2009
Outraged Critics Decry the Proposal, Call For Bank To Abandon Plans

Heinous Investment Advice - by Andy Borowitz, The Daily Beast, March 23, 2009
Some foolproof rules for the savvy investor: Hiding money in mattresses is too risky. Mothers can’t be trusted. And the average dog can beat the S&P 500

[banking onanism] BofA's insider loans zoomed in 2008, but no one will say why - By Stella M.Hopkins, Charlotte Observer, March 21, 2009

Greenspan Not Reserved About His Innocence - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/23/09
I know that my boss will laugh dismissively at my conspiracy theory, like she always does – but this time I have proof! It was provided by Alan Greenspan himself, lying former chairman of the Federal Reserve – which is itself a Big Fat Lie (BFL) because the Federal Reserve is not a part of government, but is, instead, just a name picked by the true owners of the Fed; shadowy figures creeping around in the shadows, which is why I called them “shadowy” in the first place…

U.S. Declaration of Insolvency becomes official 15 days BEFORE "tax day", April 15, 2009 - From: Supreme Law Firm, 21 March 2009
Effective midnight ending March 31, 2009 A.D., the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the IRS, and the Federal Reserve Banks will be legally barred from collecting any more Federal income taxes, by virtue of the automatic STAY authorized by Federal bankruptcy laws and ultimately Article I, Section 8, Clause 4

Hugo Chavez calls Barack Obama 'a poor ignoramus' - Reuters, 22 Mar 2009
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has described his US counterpart Barack Obama as a "poor ignoramus" during a television show. Hugo Chavez is working to ensure that his core support, the people, can still fill their shopping baskets with food. The real obstacle has been the empire that Obama today presides over, which has exported terrorism for nearly 200 years, has launched atom bombs on innocent cities, has bombarded, invaded and issued orders to kill whenever they have taken the notion

[war in Bankistan] Downturn will only end when 'banks are fixed' - Elizabeth Judge, Times Online, March 23, 2009
Speaking at a meeting of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), he said that the economic crisis would push millions into poverty and unemployment and could lead to social unrest and even war

HACK MONEY, HACK BANKING - by Douglas Rushkoff, March 20, 2009
Except in a few rare cases, corporate charters and centralized currency were never intended to promote commerce. They were intended to prevent locals and non-chartered entities from creating and exchanging value. They are not extensions of the free market, but efforts at extracting value from the free market. Corporate monopoly charters were extended to a king’s favorite companies in return for shares

Part II: Geithner, Obama Kowtowing to "Massively Corrupted" Banks, Galbraith Says - TechTicker, March 23, 2009
Given the entire system was "massively corrupted by the subprime debacle," the professor believes criminal prosecutions on par with the aftermath of the S&L crisis - when hundreds of insiders went to jail - is a likely (and necessary) outcome of the current crisis

Gregg: 'This country will go bankrupt' - From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart, March 22, 2009
“It is as if you were flying an airplane and the gas light came on and it said ‘you 15 minutes of gas left’ and the pilot said ‘we’re not going to worry about that, we’re going to fly for another two hours.’ Well, the plane crashes and our country will crash and we’ll pass on to our kids a country that’s not affordable.”

Ignore any missile fired by the North Korean state - Benjamin Fulford, 03/23/2009
In the past they used North Korea to help set up the Aum Shinryikyo subway gassing cult as a way to get Japanese cooperation in the upcoming fake “war on terror.” As illuminati rule of the planet comes to an end, they are using every trick in the book to keep in power. It won’t work though because they have been exposed. Their days of manipulating humanity are coming to an end

La lezione dello svizzero De Benedetti - Andrea Angelini, Rinascita, 21 Marzo 2009
Il finanziere, ha ammesso di non sapere quanto sarà lunga la crisi economica, perché privo di una sfera di cristallo. E di non essere né ottimista né pessimista. Ma ha definito “una pia illusione” pensare che la ripresa ci sarà nel 2010. Quella in atto infatti non è una crisi congiunturale ma sistemica, sarà una crisi lunga, e quindi anche usare la parola ripresa rappresenta “una stupidaggine”

Indesit: in migliaia in piazza a Torino contro la chiusura dello stabilimento - Diana Pugliese, Rinascita, 21 Marzo 2009
Una protesta movimentata, accompagnata da otto ore di sciopero indetto da Fim, Fiom e Uilm, che ha visto uomini e donne abbigliati da ‘lavastoviglie’, numerose bare ambulanti - simbolo del triste destino dei lavoratori - e una sposa proveniente da Caserta, con tanto di bouquet di rose rosse, decisa a protestare contro il divorzio tra la Indesit e lo stabilimento pinerolese

Madoff to Help U.S. Sell Bad Assets - Borowitz Report, March 23, 2009
Legendary Swindler Pressed into Service


Obama should beware the growing anger in America - Michael Crowley, The Observer, 22 March 2009
With each revelation of fat bonuses at AIG, Americans grow increasingly willing to embrace a popular anti-Barack demagogue

[no fraudster left behind] Tim Geithner's US bank rescue may not go far enough, experts warn - By Richard Blackden and Edmund Conway, Telegraph, 21 Mar 2009
US President Barack Obama is poised within days to unveil a new trillion-dollar plan aimed at restoring America's crippled banking system to health, as anger over bonuses paid to executives at bailed-out institutions escalates

UK population must fall to 30m, says Porritt - Jonathan Leake and Brendan Montague, The Sunday Times, March 22, 2009
The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably. Such views on population have split the green movement. George Monbiot, a prominent writer on green issues, has criticised population campaigners, arguing that “relentless” economic growth is a greater threat. Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries (maybe we can begin with those lunatics?)

Brown warns of enduring al-Qaida threat to UK - Matthew Weaver, guardian.co.uk, 22 March 2009
Prime minister says 60,000 civilians have been trained to deal with terrorist incidents. Brown said that more than two-thirds of the plots threatening the UK are linked to Bankistan...

The fiesta is over in recession-stricken Spain - By JORGE SAINZ, Associated Press, Mar 22, 2009
"Imagine now, here I am at age 54, without a job," Montoya says in disgust. "I don't know how long I will be able to hold on."

Banking Transparency Gone: The Federal Reserve has been Slowly Moving to more Archaic Forms of Creating Credit - Mar 22 2009
New Plan Will Subsidize Casino Loans for Investors with Taxpayer Money. We cannot rely on what we are being told by officials or those on Wall Street.  If we look at how poorly the TARP has been mismanaged, should we trust the same people to come up with a better plan?  Why are we to believe this next plan is going to help?  In fact, this plan from the start is designed more poorly than the TARP. Think of a car loan.  If you default, the lender has the right to takeover the car and many consumers are facing this.  Now why is this now at zero?  Well as a lending institution, would you rather take a loan or a free grant coming from the taxpayer?  That is why this lending facility went to zero once other mechanisms of lending were brought about inching closer and closer to free money funded by the U.S. taxpayer

The Collapse of ’09 - by Gerald Celente, LewRockwell.com, March 22, 2009
How safe is your money? How sound is your bank? At the end of November, Citigroup, once America’s largest bank, was on the rocks. Fifty-two thousand employees were laid off. In just three days, its stock lost more than half its value. Rumors swirled that Citi was so desperate they were looking to sell or split up the company

Processo Bassolino: le responsabilita' dei costi - Antonio Di Pietro, 21 Marzo 2009
Nel pomeriggio ha deposto Sergio Pomodoro, il dirigente che si occupava per Impregilo dei progetti energetici. Il PM Noviello gli ha fatto ricostruire le fasi della progettazione, realizzazione e gestione degli impianti CDR facendogli ricostruire la catena di comando all'interno dell'Associazione Temporanea di Imprese (ATI) denominata FIBE (sigla ottenuta dai nomi delle imprese FISIA, IMPREGILO e le tedesche BABCOCK ed EVO Oberrhausen)

Bank Expropriation Bill Clears Parliament - Der Spiegel, 03/20/2009
The German Bundestag on Friday passed a law that gives Chancellor Merkel the power to expropriate shareholders in the ailing real-estate lender HRE. It could become the first such expropriation in Germany since the 1930s

La disoccupazione non esiste! - Beppe Grillo, 22 Marzo 2009
Governare gli italiani non è impossibile, come diceva Mussolini. E' invece molto facile. Basta disporre del controllo dei mass media e raccontare balle dalla mattina alla sera. Lo predicava Gelli, lo applica B. per il quale la nostra disoccupazione è la migliore in Europa. I nostri disoccupati ci sono invidiati da tutti. Pochi, bene educati, con protezioni sociali. Il professor Mauro Gallegati dimostra il contrario. In Italia ci sono tre milioni di disoccupati in più della media europea (tasso reale di occupazione: 58,7%)

The Amazing TALF Bait And Switch - by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, March 22, 2009
As a result Bank X takes no writedown now, and in 5 years may book an equity profit of as much as $25 million (net of transaction fees paid to the Hedge Fund X), while Hedge Fund X books a profit of $3.2 million for one day's work... Lastly the U.S. taxpayer loses $54.3 million on a $77.6 million TALF Investment, or 70% (net of 5 years of interest income). Note: the maximum TALF size is $1 trillion. Will U.S. taxpayers suffer $700 billion in losses from the TALF? Ask your congressman

Toxic R Us - By MAUREEN DOWD, NYTimes, March 21, 2009
Barack Obama prides himself on consensus, soothing warring sides into agreement. But the fury directed at the robber barons by the robbed blind in America has been getting hotter, not cooler. And that’s because the president and his Treasury secretary have been coddling the Wall Street elite, fretting that if they curtail executives’ pay and perks too much, if they make the negotiations with those who siphoned our 401(k)’s too tough, the spoiled Sherman McCoys will run away, the rescue plan will fail and the markets will wither

WPost Elitists Feel for Wall St. Brethren - By Robert Parry, consortiumnews.com, March 22, 2009
Outraged over the populist outrage at the AIG bonuses, the Washington Post penned three editorials defending the payouts to executives who helped cause the financial crash

Geneva Banks Face ‘Creative Destruction’ in Losing Secrecy - By Dylan Griffiths, Bloomberg, March 20, 2009
Geneva’s private banks, money managers for the world’s rich since the French Revolution, may see their numbers shrink after Switzerland agreed to loosen bank secrecy for foreign clients...

EU should only finance doable projects, Germany’s Merkel says - Silver Scorpio, March 20th, 2009
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday threatened to scupper plans to use European Union funds to stimulate the economy, insisting the money should only be used to finance projects capable of delivering immediate results

Missouri State Police Label Honest Americans Terrorists - by Mary Starrett, NewsWithViews.com, March 22, 2009
Police Told Which Political Beliefs to Consider “Dangerous.” A secret police report targets millions of Americans as potential “domestic terrorists” if they support the Constitution, oppose unlawful taxation, supported 2008 presidential candidates Republican Ron Paul, Libertarian Bob Barr or Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, if they are opposed to abortion, are against unconstitutional gun control, if they display pro- Constitution bumper stickers or own copies of certain books and documentaries...

Licenziare impiegati. Per gioco - Elvira Pollina, Corriere della Sera, 21 marzo 2009
SI CHIAMA "LAY OFF" (LICENZIARE): Per "vincere" bisogna cacciare più dipendenti possibile. Ideato in collaborazione con la New York University per spiegare le dinamiche sociali attraverso i videogiochi. Più ne fai fuori, più vinci. È il meccanismo alla base di molti videogiochi. Solo che in Lay Off – letteralmente "licenziare" - le vittime non sono zombie o criminali, ma dipendenti in esubero, da mandare a casa per evitare il fallimento di una holding (o una banca)

Finding the True Unemployment Rate - Dr.Housing Bubble, March 21st, 2009
On an annualized basis for 2008, both Michigan and California have the highest unemployment rates.  Michigan is at 15.1 percent (depression level) and California is at 13.4 percent

Lehman assets: trinkets to be auctioned on e-bay -  March 21, 2009

Items in storage include: 1,630 green canvas duffle bags with Lehman ribbon, 353 green compact golf umbrellas, 75 Waterford Marquis Treviso crystal clocks, 682 white Lehman coffee mugs, 130 Swiss Army pens, an English beechwood-lined sterling silver box from 1902, 200 Lehman conference pens, 12 pairs of Links of London cufflinks, 24 Screwpull wine openers inscribed “LB,’ 24 Titleist PRO VI golf balls inscribed “LB,” 30 girl Teddy Bears, 18 large, ivory womens’ F&G stretch snap shirts and one Tiffany shooting star

Madoff’s 19th Century Forerunner Shows Flaws of Rules - By Tom Cahill, Bloomberg, March 20, 2009
Less than a year after Sadleir’s death, two more bank frauds came to light, one of which also ended in suicide, according to Robb. The scams helped accelerate the Banking Crisis of 1857, a panic that started in the U.S. and spread to the U.K., prompting one of the last bank runs in Britain until Northern Rock Plc, the U.K. bank nationalized in 2008

European Industrial Output Plunges by Most on Record - By Jurjen van de Pol, Bloomberg, March 20, 2009
Production in the euro region fell 17.3 percent from the year-earlier month, the biggest decline since the data series began in 1986, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today. The January plunge exceeded the 15.5 percent drop forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey. From the previous month, output fell 3.5 percent

Bernanke Inserts Gun In Mouth - Karl Denninger, Market Ticker, March 20, 2009
The nightmare scenario that is staring us in the face, right here, right now, is in fact a collapse of monetary systems driving demand for dollars through the roof in a crescendo of attempted redemptions into collapsed ("no bid") asset prices - a demand that Ben will not be able to meet, as the collateral backing those dollars will have all been exchanged for toilet paper. Whether Bernanke holds all this trash on his balance sheet or manages to scam Treasury into exchanging it for T-bills, the result is the same - there is no collateral behind Bucky and as employment collapses no production to replace it with either. The "death spiral" ends in the destruction of our monetary base due to hyperinflation  to the inability to borrow any more funds, the reduction of the currency's base to a giant circle jerk, asset fire sales in a mad liquidation dash and ultimately, the collapse of both the monetary and political systems in the United States as tax revenues collapse to very close to zero

Fed losing support as super-regulator of markets - By Alison Vekshin, Bloomberg News, March 21. 2009
"I'm not enamored with some of the Fed's actions regarding oversight," Shelby said about the idea of giving the authority to the Fed. "Some of the biggest failures in the world occurred under their watch."

Fed Planning 15-Fold Increase In US Monetary Base - by Eric deCarbonnel, Market Skeptics, March 20, 2009
262 Billion = US monetary base as of September 2008 (minus dollars held abroad)
3,818 Billion = projected US monetary base in September 2009 (minus dollars held abroad)
3,818 Billion / 262 Billion = 15-Fold Increase in US monetary base

Fed Running Out of Ammo - By David Paul Krugman, MidasLetter.com, March 20, 2009
The Fed’s decision to purchase $300 billion of long-term treasury bonds is indicative of two things: 1) The U.S. government has lost all sense of value relative to its currency, and 2) The U.S. Federal Reserve is getting desperate and is running out of options

'These newly redundant bank employees have got a lot to learn.'

Met: G20 protesters will stretch us to our limit - Sean O’Neill, Crime and Security Editor, The Times, March 21, 2009
Scotland Yard issued a stark warning of violent disorder in the City of London on the eve of the G20 summit, with the police stretched to their limit in the middle of an extraordinary week of public protest

Imploded: TeamBank, N.A., Paola, KS - bankimplode.com, 2009-03-20
TeamBank, N.A., Paola, KS became the FDIC's 20th 2009 victim today as the agency pulled the plug on the struggling bank (le chiudono tutte di venerdì così la gente non fa a tempo a ritirare i fondi prima di lunedì...)

U.S. seizes top credit union clearinghouse - By Karey Wutkowski, Reuters, Mar 20, 2009
* U.S. Central has $34 billion in assets
* Settles for all other wholesale credit unions
* Western Corporate also seized
* Action comes as three small banks closed by FDIC (Adds NCUA spokesman, moves to bolster insurance fund)

The Big Takeover - MATT TAIBBI, Rolling Stone, Mar 19, 2009
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution. It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into...


Collapsing markets expose 'Ponzimonium' of scam artists - Andrew Clark in New York, guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 March 2009
Financial authorities in the US are investigating "hundreds" of individuals and entities over suspected Ponzi schemes as turmoil on the global financial market exposes fraudsters, whose ill-gotten gains have remained undetected for years

Kremlin refuses to bail out Russian oligarchs - By Catherine Belton and Stefan Wagstyl in Moscow, FT.com, March 21 2009

Financial fears grow: More consumers are just a paycheck or two away from ruin - By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch, March 20, 2009
Americans are in a collective state of financial depression as many admit they could only cover their bills for two months at most if they found themselves suddenly jobless, a nightmare more and more worry may come true (hope they revolt BEFORE it is too late!)

Hungary's PM to quit amid tumbling popularity - By PABLO GORONDI, AP. March 21, 2009
Hungary's prime minister stunned the country Saturday by announcing his resignation because he had become an "obstacle" to the reforms needed to pull the country out of its worse financial crisis since the end of communism nearly 20 years ago

Top-class graduates struggle for jobs as they spurn stricken banks - Alex Spence, The Times, March 21, 2009
Thousands of highflying graduates, who made banking their first career choice for years, are risking major disappointment as they fight for places as accountants and lawyers

On the Edge of the Volcano - By ALEXANDER COCKBURN, CounterPunch, March 20-22, 2009
Since last September Barack Obama has been trying to pull off the tricky shot of backing bailout schemes at taxpayers’ expense for the Wall Street operators who have brought the economy to its knees, while simultaneously presenting himself as a populist crusader battling for economic justice and the regular folks on Main Street. Right now, for the first time since he was elected president, he’s perilously close to plummeting from this high wire act and ending up publicly derided as Mr Facing-Both-Ways, a toxic label for a man whose moral keynote has always been that he’ll play it straight with the American people

Bank Crisis Spawns New Kind of Gold Rush - By David Parkinson, The Globe and Mail, March 20, 2009
In 1897, at the height of a major U.S. recession and banking crisis, a gold discovery on the Klondike River in Yukon Territory triggered one of the biggest gold rushes ever seen. Now, more than a century later, history is -- sort of -- repeating itself

John Embry: Own gold, the metal, not a paper promise - Gata.org, March 20, 2009
John Embry, notes the failure of the supposed massive gold purchases by exchanged-traded funds to affect the gold price much. He wonders: Since mine production is declining, where is the ETF gold coming from? And since the custodians of the ETF gold are also the perpetrators of the gold price suppression scheme, is the ETF gold really there at all?

Proposals for homeless include tent city acreage, forced aid - By ALAN CHOATE, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, March 19, 2009
Goodman said Las Vegas can no longer tolerate problem. "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson


Quanto guadagno? Io lo dico, ma altri… - Renato Brunetta, 18 marzo 2009
“E tu quanto guadagni?” ho chiesto secco all’amico Cazzullo. Ha iniziato a boccheggiare. Ho insistito ma niente, non c’è stato verso di farglielo dire. Vittima anche lui di questo vero e proprio tabù, sociale e italianissimo. Non male per chi accusa gli altri di essere “casta”

PRIMO PIANO: Bomba derivati su Roma e Milano - di Mario Lettieri e Paolo Raimondi, ItaliaOggi, 19/3/2009
La procura di Milano indaga da tempo, anche con numerosi avvisi di garanzia, per chiarire contratti in derivati per 1 miliardo e 680 milioni di euro che, secondo varie stime, potrebbero comportare una perdita tra 200 e 300 milioni di euro per il Comune.Questi contratti in derivati determinano un grande trasferimento di risorse finanziarie dai bilanci degli enti locali verso le banche. Queste banche, nazionali e soprattutto internazionali, sono le stesse che sono in situazioni di grande crisi proprio per le bolle speculative create dai titoli tossici. Sono sempre le stesse banche che chiedono sostegni finanziari ai governi per salvarsi dalla bancarotta. Chiedono capitali pubblici garantiti dagli stati e quindi dalla collettività. Come si può quindi tollerare che la collettività paghi due volte? La prima per salvare le banche dalla crisi e la seconda per pagare i derivati sottoscritti con le stesse?

PUNTO 1 - Derivati, Consob invita Enti Locali a rinegoziare - Reuters, 18 marzo 2009
Occorre rilevare che l'assetto dei "controlli oggi esistente potrebbe essere migliorato attribuendo alla Corte dei Conti un potere preventivo (interdittivo) sull'adozione degli strumenti finanziari derivati da parte degli enti territoriali"

REVOLUTIONARY IDEA: Tax Day tea parties expected to number more than 1,000 - By Chelsea Schilling, WorldNetDaily, March 19, 2009
'We don't necessarily need mainstream media anymore'

Bernie Madoff, Mini-M, & Mohamed Atta - by Daniel Hopsicker, March 20 2009
New owner of 'terror' flight school in huge Ponzi scheme

Systemic Failure - By Patrick J. Buchanan, March 20, 2009
As the U.S. financial crisis broadens and deepens, wiping out the wealth and savings of tens of millions, destroying hopes and dreams, it is hard not to see in all of this history’s verdict upon this generation

Reckoning on the Iraq War - By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, March 20, 2009
This is the sixth anniversary of Bush’s illegal war against Iraq, and it’s time for a little reckoning. Isn’t it incredible that there is always $2 trillion for an unnecessary war that any President wants to wage, and there’s always $2 trillion to bail out banks, but there’s never enough money for universal health care, or free college education, or eliminating poverty in this country?

Solid Gold Advice for Chinese Economists - By The Mogambo Guru, The Daily Reckoning, 03/19/09
Of course, being The Mogambo like I am, it is my duty to enlighten world leaders about economics, and in that regard I say to them, “Of course those dollar-denominated assets are safe, Chinese dude! If they ever get lost or destroyed, the United States will merely give you more paper promises! That’s the beauty of a fiat currency, you morons: We can give you more and more dollars until you are freaking drowning in them!”

Banks: Taking the Credit - report from the World Development Movement, March 20, 2009
In times like these, a banking sector that puts people before profit is vital. But Europe’s trade deals would lift restrictions on how banks operate in developing countries, at a time when rich countries are recognising the need to re-regulate banks in our own economies

Lost Horizons Crack the Internal Revenue Code
'Cracking the Code-...' shows that the application of the income tax is far more limited than most Americans believe. It demonstrates how key terms in the code such as “wages,” “employer,” “employee,” “trade or business” and “self-employment” are explicitly defined in the law in order to limit the income tax to benefits of federal privilege, such as dividends from federally-controlled corporations, and compensation paid to federal officeholders. Earnings unconnected with such privilege are not subject to the tax. Unaware of these special definitions, most Americans give the words their common meaning, fill out and sign their tax returns accordingly, and mistakenly pay taxes they do not owe. Hendrickson points out that, "The limited nature of the tax is not a matter of my opinion. In addition to the clear words of the law, dozens of United States Supreme Court rulings agree with my research and analysis, while no Supreme Court rulings support any alternative view, including the broad misunderstanding of the law the IRS likes to encourage." While the DOJ and Judge Edmunds work to suppress Hendrickson’s book, and the IRS floods the media with disinformation and fear, the hard evidence-- the words of the law, dozens of Supreme Court rulings, the ongoing stream of complete refunds and everything else-- remains squarely on the side of the liberating revelations in 'Cracking the Code- the Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America'. (the income tax was masterminded to pledge a free-lunch for the owners of the Federal Reserve)

G20: De Benedetti; non ne uscirà nulla, è turismo politico - Dow Jones Newswires, 20 marzo 2009
"i Governi non sanno cosa fare, ormai sono convinto che sparino nel buio, e questo vale anche per Obama"

Il y a dix ans, la chute de la Commission Santer - L'Investigateur, 19/03/2009
Quoi qu’il en soit, Santer est vite retombé sur ses pattes grâce à Nadhmi Auchi, le sulfureux milliardaire irakien, pour moi aussi, ce coup fut tout bénéfice et il n’y a finalement que l’Europe qui est restée sur le carreau. Car la chute pénible de Santer et consorts et mon travail acharné n’ont finalement servi à rien ! Il y a aujourd’hui encore plus de népotisme et de corruption en Europe qu’il y a dix ans

Canada: A Modest Proposal to Stand on Our Own Feet - by David Orchard, Global Research, March 20, 2009
After decades of resource wealth being pumped south from Alberta -- at give-away royalties -- the province is in deficit, about to tap its small heritage savings fund of $14 billion, while Norway -- in a similar oil rich position -- has saved its oil profits (some $400 billion in its heritage fund) and kept its industry in Norwegian hands. Are the Norwegians -- whose standard of living exceeds Canada 's -- "Luddites," "protectionists" or simply good managers?

Banchisti disperati sull'orlo di una crisi di nervi: Pietro Di Giorgio - 20 marzo 2009
Leggete cosa scrivono, porta direttamente a BANCOPOLI...

Rinvio a giudizio per il deputato Alfredo Messina - Daniele Martinelli, 19 marzo 2009
Il presidente di Mediaset, Fedele Confalonieri, e l’ex dirigente Mediaset Alfredo Messina, attuale senatore Pdl, sono stati rinviati a giudizio accusati di “favoreggiamento reale” dell’allora sondaggista di Silvio Berlusconi e inventore del “contratto con gli italiani” sventolato in tv da Luigi Crespi, che con altre 16 persone sarà processato per la bancarotta da 40 milioni di euro del suo gruppo Hdc. Un crac per il quale, oltre all’ex amministratore di Publitalia ‘80 Fulvio Pravadelli, saranno giudicati anche i finanziatori (Gianpiero Fiorani di Bpl e Enrico Fagioli di Efibanca) della travolgente crescita di Hdc: gruppo poi affondato, a detta di Crespi a causa del suo posizionamento nello scontro tra l’allora governatore di Bankitalia Fazio e il ministro Tremonti, quando “le banche chiusero i rubinetti”



Did Compliance Programs Fail the Test During the Financial Meltdown? - David Hechler, Corporate Counsel, March 20, 2009
Why weren't compliance, ethics and risk departments able to prevent the financial industry meltdown? In a search for answers, Corporate Counsel looked for examples from the catastrophe that highlight both problems and solutions, including the many ways in which compensation is structured to reward bad behavior...

CRISI ECONOMICA: ACLI, META' ITALIANE SI FA IN CASA PANE E VESTITI - Adnkronos/Labitalia, 20 marzo 2009
Oltre la meta' delle italiane (56%) si fa in casa il pane e la pasta, ma anche abiti e borse. E il 65% ricicla abitualmente i rifiuti (mangiandoseli)

De Magistris: uno dei nostri in Europa - blog di Beppe Grillo, 20 Marzo 2009
"Sono convinto, da tempo, soprattutto per il lavoro svolto come magistrato, che proprio attraverso la gestione illegale del denaro pubblico è cresciuta non solo la criminalità mafiosa di tipo tradizionale, ma anche la criminalità dei colletti bianchi. Il denaro pubblico in gran parte viene gestito da comitati d'affari che decidono a chi dare i soldi, a quale società dare i soldi, a chi affidare gli appalti, a chi affidare i progetti, a chi affidare i subappalti, chi assumere in queste società nel fare sia i progetti che i lavori e quindi condizionando il voto."

Obama’s Busted Bank Bailout - by Jack Rasmus, Global Research, March 20, 2009
20 Million Jobless vs. $3 Trillion More for the Banks

Crisi: De Benedetti; allarme precari, detassare redditi bassi - MF Dow Jones, 20 marzo 2009
Carlo De Benedetti lancia l'allarme precari (3 milioni) e invita il Governo a non finanziare l'offerta per lavorare maggiormente sulla domanda (ogni tanto, qualcuno che capisce qualcosa)

Crisi: De Benedetti, allarme sociale - ANSA, 20 marzo 2009
'Un'illusione pensare che ci sara' la ripresa nel 2010'

L’osservatorio fotografa l’universo dei prestiti illegali al tempo della crisi: in 22mila strozzati dal racket ma solo 45 usurai denunciati - CronacaQui.it, 20/03/2009
Con un fatturato da 90 miliardi di euro - il sette per cento del nostro Pil - il racket dell’usura pende come una spada di Damocle sull’economia italiana. Perché rappresenta, con la crisi attuale, un rischio sempre più forte, una trappola per imprenditori, commercianti e artigiani, disoccupati o cassaintegrati

[fuggi-fuggi] Kazakh bank BTA says doesn't know where ex-CEO is - Reuters, Mar 20, 200
The government took over BTA last month saying it would have collapsed otherwise. It sacked BTA chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov who criticised the takeover as "corporate raiding", and is now investigating him for theft and money laundering

EU leaders reject further stimulus plan - www.chinaview.cn, 2009-03-20
But European labor and socialist leaders joined the United States to push European governments for more effort to counter the crisis. "There is a broad agreement that we must do more than is in the package now," Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, leader of the European Socialists, said at a meeting with EU leaders. "If we don't do more we risk having 25 million unemployed people at the beginning of next year," he added.


Etats-Unis : la "Federal Reserve" élargit le programme de prêt personnel - Xinhua, 2009-03-20
Le programme, appelé TALF (Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan  Facility), vise à "catalyser" les marchés de crédit qui ont été  gelés dans la crise financière

La crisi finanziaria... ingrasserà le banche - Juan Torres López, Rinascita, 19 Marzo 2009
Fino a quando non arriva il redde rationem, ovviamente...

France/grève : trois millions de manifestants dans la rue - Xinhua, 2009-03-20
Trois millions de manifestants ont  participé jeudi aux plus de 200 défilés dans différentes régions  en France, dans le cadre de la journée de grève et de  manifestations, organisée par les syndicats français, a-t-on  appris jeudi auprès du service de presse de la CGT, la plus grande organisation syndicale dans le pays

Auto parts workers occupy closed plant in Windsor, Canada --CAW moves to block broader struggle against layoffs - By Jerry White, wsws.org, 19 Mar 2009
Hundreds of workers rallied yesterday in front of a Windsor, Ontario auto parts plant, which autoworkers have been occupying since Tuesday night. Workers at the Aradco factory seized control of the plant a week after its parent company, Catalina Precision Products, shut it down, throwing 90 workers out of their jobs without severance and vacation pay and other benefits

Dal Britannia alla crisi monetaria - Andrea Angelini, Rinascita, 18 Marzo 2009
Il 1992, l’anno che cambiò l’Italia. L’anno in cui scoppiò Tangentopoli e venne avviata la campagna di Mani Pulite. L’anno in cui la Democrazia cristiana e il Partito socialista finirono nella bufera. L’anno della Crociera del Britannia (nel corso della quale dalla finanza anglo-americana venne ‘suggerita’ all’Italia la privatizzazione delle imprese pubbliche poi realizzata da Mario Draghi) e anche l’anno della successiva speculazione intimidatoria contro la lira non ostacolata dalla Banca d’Italia di Ciampi. (Loro non si arrenderanno mai - ma gli conviene? - Noi neppure.)

US calls on "Mr Fix It" - By Henry Samuel in Stockholm, Telegraph, 19 Mar 2009
The Swedish financial chief known as "Mr Fix It" has been summoned to Washington to advise on how Sweden's model might avert a global banking meltdown. Mr Lundgren chuckled at the Wall Street joke that "Swedish models used to only attract attention if they were blonde and leggy"...

Five reasons why tax havens and the banking crisis are linked - by  Dan Roberts, Guardian, 17 March 2009
While it is true there were many other causes of the financial crisis - too much debt, being the most obvious - it is wrong to pretend that systemic tax avoidance of the sort practiced on a huge scale by our banks is unconnected with their eventual demise

[ce n'est qu'un début] France braced for huge street protests over economic crisis - Angelique Chrisafis in Paris, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 March 2009
Private and public sector workers in second general strike against Sarkozy cuts

Hang The Bastards Or At Least Bring Fraud Charges - By Lord Stirling, rense.com, 3-19-9
The corporate officers and those employees involved engaged in fraud against the corporate stockholders; they also engaged in fraud against the policy holders. They should be tried for criminal fraud at the Federal level and/or at the state level. This can be undertaken by the US Department of Justice or by State Attorney Generals or local county prosecutors in jurisdictions where either stockholders and/or policy holders reside or do business in

The Geithner-Summers-Bernanke Plan to Prop Up Asset Prices Has Failed - Global Research, March 18, 2009
Whether or not the banks should be liquidated (the free market solution) or nationalized (the government intervention approach) is subject to debate. But regardless, it should now be obvious that the Geithner-Summers-Bernanke plan to prop up asset prices is not only crazily expensive, but it is a failed approach

Real cost of EU is ten times higher than EC figures show, Taxpayers' Alliance says - By Martin Banks, Telegraph, 18 Mar 2009
The real cost of EU membership for British taxpayers is ten times higher than figures quoted by the European Commission suggest, it has been claimed

Bank of America Ordered to Give Bonus Data to N.Y. Attorney General - Noeleen G. Walder, New York Law Journal, March 19, 2009

CIA's Panetta Is Falling Short - By Melvin A. Goodman, CNews, March 18, 2009
If President Obama and Leon Panetta were serious about stopping torture and abuse as well as extraordinary renditions that led to torture and abuse in Third World countries, then why would they not adjust the chain of command to remove those high-ranking individuals responsible for these measures (Possibly because they don't want to lose the opportunity of using those measures against economic terrorists?)

Madoff's Accountant Charged With Securities Fraud, Other Crimes - Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal, March 19, 2009
A small-town accountant Wednesday became the first person to join Bernard L. Madoff in facing criminal charges in connection with Madoff's vast Ponzi scheme. Federal prosecutors accused David G. Friehling of securities fraud and other offenses for failing to conduct audits and for deceiving investors as he provided audit services to Madoff's investment services business

House approves bill to tax AIG bonuses at 90% - 19 Mar 2009
Responding to the anger about bonuses paid to AIG traders, the House approved a bill Thursday that would impose a punitive 90% tax on bonuses paid by American International Group Inc. and other financial companies that receive federal help. The vote was 328-93

Citigroup May Spend $10 Million for Executive Suite - By Erik Schatzker, Bloomberg, 19 Mar 2009
Citigroup Inc. plans to spend about $10 million on new offices for Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit and his lieutenants, after the U.S. government injected $45 billion of cash into the bank. Some city approvals for the project weren’t issued until after Citigroup got its first $25 billion from the U.S. in October, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, according to records available at the New York Department of Buildings

13 firms receiving bailouts owe back taxes --Rep. John Lewis: Two companies owe over $100 million apiece - msnbc, 19 Mar 2009
At least 13 firms receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes, a key lawmaker said Thursday. Rep. John Lewis, chairman of a House subcommittee overseeing the federal bailout, said two firms owe more than $100 million apiece. "This is shameful. It is a disgrace," said Lewis, a Georgia Democrat. "We are going to get to the bottom of what is going on here."

Push to audit Federal Reserve gains steam: Lawmakers join call to examine nation's money controllers - By Drew Zahn, WorldNetDaily, March 16, 2009
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas bill calling for the comptroller general of the United States to audit the private Federal Reserve is gaining momentum in Washington, D.C., as more and more representatives add their names to its bipartisan support. Paul's abolition plan calls for the director of the Office of Management and Budget to "liquidate" Fed assets "in an orderly manner so as to achieve as expeditious a liquidation as may be practical while maximizing the return to the Treasury."

China said to support Russia on replacing dollar - By Gleb Bryanski, Reuters, March 19, 2009
Calls for a rethink of the dollar's status as world's sole benchmark currency come amid concerns about its long-term value as the U.S. Federal Reserve moved to pump more than a trillion dollars of new cash into the ailing economy late Wednesday

Banche: arriva quella dei tabaccai - ANSA, 19 Marzo 2009
La realta' si chiama Banca Itb e ha gia' incassato il via libera ad operare dalla Banca d'Italia

Wall Street: recupera l'euro mentre i bancari precipitano - Yahoo!Finanza, 19 Marzo 2009
Tra i peggiori si fanno notare Citigroup sotto del 5,54%, Jp Morgan in calo del 6,42% mentre Bank of America lascia sul terreno il 3,91% del proprio valore


Bank Medici consegna licenze - ANSA, 19 marzo 2009
La cessazione dell'attivita' avra' luogo dopo la chiusura dei conti dei clienti.

Credito/ Quadrio Curzio torna all’attacco: per ricapitalizzarsi le banche cedano le quote in Bankitalia - Luca Spoldi, AffariItaliani, 18.03.2009
"Se le banche italiane sono così dubbiose circa l’opportunità di chiedere i Tremonti-bond, sarebbe meglio che si rafforzassero patrimonialmente cedendo partecipazioni non strategiche come quelle in Banca d’Italia". Se basarsi sul valore nominale dei titoli non ha senso, altrettanto poco corretto sarebbe fare riferimento al patrimonio della Banca d`Italia (valutato attorno ai 20 miliardi di euro), frutto del signoraggio passato e appartenente alla collettività e dunque non certamente “regalabile” a istituti privati

Bresso: persi 100mila posti di lavoro - Stefano Parola, la Repubblica, 19 marzo 2009
Da settembre 2008 a febbraio 2009 sono più di centomila persone che hanno perso il posto di lavoro, molti senza aver neppure goduto di una qualche forma di ammortizzatore sociale. È il conto, ancora parziale, presentato al Piemonte dalla crisi economica ed evidenziato dal tavolo anti-crisi messo in piedi dalla Regione

CRISI: BERSANI, TENSIONI TREMONTI-DRAGHI NON AIUTANO, SERVE COLLABORARE - ASCA, 19-03-09
Non si puo' chiedere alle banche di fare male il loro mestiere, di creare flussi di credito verso destinatari poco affidabili. Al tempo stesso - ha sostenuto Bersani - le Banche devono individuare e sostenere gli imprenditori che ci vogliono provare. Su questo punto le banche devono fare bene il loro mestiere ed anche lo Stato deve fare la sua parte, assicurando le garanzie pubbliche per aiutare chi ha investito''. I piccoli imprenditori ''non vanno lasciati soli nel rapporto con le banche'' (quello che occorrerebbe, per restituire fiducia al sistema, è una commissione d'inchiesta su moneta e credito per far luce sulle pratiche bancarie illegali)

Summit police fear attacks on hotels used by the G20 leaders - Sean O’Neill, Crime Editor, The Times, March 18, 2009
Security will be bolstered against ‘guerrilla’ raids. All police leave has been cancelled in London for the first two days of next month – the summit is on April 2 – and thousands of uniformed officers will be on the streets to prevent legitimate protests by violent activists after indications that there will be the worst public disorder in a decade

Lord Turner: a man under pressure to tighten the grip on banks - By Telegraph Staff, 18 Mar 2009
Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, has today unveiled his widely-anticipated review of the UK's financial services industry


UniCredit to seek €4bn aid - By Vincent Boland in Milan, FT.com, March 18 2009
The bank, which has expanded into central and eastern Europe and as far as Kazakhstan in the past decade, said on Wednesday it would ask the Italian and Austrian governments for the cash. (and now, look where the money will go: to "London investors") “I think what these results show is that we have a very, very resilient commercial business,” Alessandro Profumo, UniCredit chief executive, said in a telephone interview from London, where he was presenting the results to analysts and investors

Stop AIG's Stealing: Put Organized Crime Into Bankruptcy ! - LPAC, March 18, 2009
AIG has perpetrated fraud against the U.S. Government," Lyndon LaRouche declared today. The bailout arrangements should be canceled on that basis, he continued. "Make them pay the money back, to teach the world a lesson who is boss." "The whole world system is bankrupt, and must be put into bankruptcy reorganization by the governments," LaRouche concluded. "`But that's socialism!' some will scream. `I stole it fair and square. You can't take it from me!'" But we can. It is high time for a new Pecora Commission.

The Real AIG Conspiracy - By Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, March 18, 2009

Fischer: State couldn't handle a multiple mogul meltdown - By Moti Bassok, Haaretz, Mar 17, 2009
Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer told a Knesset temporary Finance Committee session yesterday that the state could handle the collapse of a single local tycoon. But Israel would be in trouble if several of the country's richest businessmen went under, he said

Netanyahu Embraces New Economic Thinking - By Neal Sandler, Businessweek, March 17, 2009
With unemployment up and exports down, Israel's next Prime Minister is casting off laissez-faire philosophy in favor of more state intervention

Abi: si dimette direttore generale Zadra -  ANSA, 2009-03-18
ROMA - Il direttore generale dell'Associazione Bancaria Italiana Giuseppe Zadra si è dimesso e resterà in carica fino alla prossima assemblea di luglio per gestire il passaggio di gestione



New international currency: yet another US bluff - Pravda.Ru, 17.03.2009
“The structure of the world currency system, in which one and the same currency serves as both the national and the international reserve currency, has proved to be corrupt. When people purchase dollars, they accept the national risks of the US economy, which remains afloat due to international investors’ infinite faith in it. They still believe that the US economy is stable and solvent, and that the US dollar is still the international reserve currency,” Andrei Gangan said. The Russian administration believes that it is incorrect to keep dollar reserves against the background of the uncontrollable and irresponsible financial policies

[grazie Draghi !] Perde il lavoro, 52enne si suicida - TgCom, 18/3/2009
Bari, non riusciva a mantenere famiglia. Dieci mesi fa aveva perso il lavoro e da allora le difficoltà economiche non lo avevano più abbandonato. Così un 52enne ha deciso di farla finita, impiccandosi a un albero di un suo piccolo podere a Gravina in Puglia (Bari). L'uomo, negli ultimi tempi, aveva cercato di tirare avanti facendo il muratore, ma guadagnava troppo poco per mantenere la moglie e i tre figli. Di recente aveva confidato a un parente le sue preoccupazioni

Madoff’s Accountant Is Charged With Securities Fraud - By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NYTimes. March 18, 2009

China's purchase of Treasuries to fall with trade surplus - By Wang Xu, China Daily, Beijing, March 18, 2009

Associazione a delinquere fra i Ros - Daniele Martinelli, 17 marzo 2009
Tra gli imputati ci sono una dozzina di agenti del Ros, il loro numero uno Giampaolo Ganzer e il giudice Mario Conte, tuttora in carica alla procura di Bergamo, oltre che alcuni narcotrafficanti originari della Colombia e del Libano. Tutti imputati di associazione a delinquere, peculato e falso ideologico

Misdirected Bailout Rage Sets Pretext For New Financial World Order - Steve Watson, Infowars.net, Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Greedy Wall St Execs are flotsam jetsam compared to global banking elites. The globalists’ call for a centralized global economic order has nothing to do with providing solutions to the crisis but everything to do with providing themselves with more power and control over the world’s financial system

Cherie Blair hired to sue RBS and Sir Fred Goodwin - Telegraph, 16 Mar 2009
Cherie Blair is to act on behalf of British pension funds in a lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation from Sir Fred Goodwin and the Royal Bank of Scotland

Campione: Italian Tax Haven Enclave in Switzerland - QWealth Report, 14-03-2009
Campione’s tax advantages only apply to private persons resident in Campione, and not to companies domiciled or managed from there (except that there is no VAT in Campione, which I suppose is a big advantage for companies) How can you obtain a residence permit in Campione? You must normally buy an apartment or a house - simply because there is very rarely the opportunity to rent

Rules of physics provide insight into economic crisis - Russia Today, 17 March, 2009
Russian scientist Victor Maslov calculated the global financial crisis using formulas derived from mathematical physics. He is is now disclosing his know how to help government fight the recession (I can believe this: the system is mathematically corrupt)

G20: Russia’s proposals - Russia Today, 17 March, 2009
Russia proposed to hold a further conference which would outline a standardized world economy and help the international community emerge from the global financial scam

Credit Card Defaults Hit 20 Year High - Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis, March 17, 2009
Credit card defaults are soaring. In response, lenders are hiking rates and slashing credit lines. Meanwhile Obama wants to throw money at the problem by increasing small business loans

The FDIC: as Rock Solid as Social Security - Michael Pento, 321gold, Mar 17, 2009
We all should be painfully aware by now that there is nothing held inside the Social Security and Medicare trust funds but a bunch of IOUs. Monies collected from payroll taxes are treated as general revenues and used in the "unified budget." But how many of us are aware that the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund works in a similar fashion?

Wall Street's and the City's Attempt to Destabilize the EU Banking System and the Euro - by GEAB, Global Research, March 17, 2009
Growing Transatlantic Tensions on the Eve of the G20 Summit. If the G20 Summit fails to prevent the world entering into the phase of geopolitical dislocation, similar operations of manipulation and destabilization will increase in number, each regional block trying to discredit their opponent, like any zero-sum game (18) : a player gains what the other players lose

Bernanke's Witness Protection Program: Welcome to the TALF - by Mike Whitney, Global Research, March 17, 2009
$1 trillion for Bernanke's TALF and another trillion for Geithner's so called "Public-Private Partnership". That's $2 trillion down a derivatives sinkhole just to preserve the illusion that the banks are still solvent. Bernanke has decided to shrug off the advice of nearly every reputable economist in the country, most of whom are pushing for a government takeover of the failing banks (nationalization), just to toss his shifty banking buddies a lifeline. It doesn't bother him that the public till has already been looted and that his action will leave the next generation of Americans bobbing in a pool of red ink

There’s No Place Like Gold - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/17/09
The reason they are openly manipulating the price of gold, which is the advice of former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, is because they are concerned about the price of gold rising, which is a clear signal that inflation is raging because the Fed is a bunch of money-maddened morons and the economy is in Big Freaking Inflationary Trouble (BFIT) because of them and their mismanagement of monetary policy with their ridiculous neo-Keynesian econometric stupidities! Hahahaha!

The End of the Dividend Fallout - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/16/09
The Economist magazine says, “A share’s value must be the present value of all future dividends – otherwise stock markets would be a giant Ponzi scheme” which is made chillingly instructive today with the huge Bernie Madoff and other Ponzi scheme scandals that are popping up everywhere...

Goldman Sachs lends money to its cash-strapped executives - Graeme Wearden, guardian.co.uk, 17 March 2009
The New York Times reported today that the bank is prepared to provide loans worth anything from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars

Citigroup CEO awarded $10.8 million - By Jonathan Stempel and Dan Wilchins, Reuters, Mar 16, 2009
Citigroup Inc awarded Chief Executive Vikram Pandit $10.82 million of compensation in 2008, a year when the government propped up the bank with $45 billion of capital

China Sends Obama a Clear Message - by Tony Sagami, Money & Markets, 03-17-09

AIG releases list of bailout beneficiaries - Kevin Anderson, guardian.co.uk, 16 March 2009
Despite denials, Goldman Sachs tops lists of beneficiaries from US taxpayer bailout of insurance giant AIG

The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble - Catherine Austin Fitts, March 15, 2009
One of the dirty little secrets behind the housing bubble is the long standing partnership of narcotics trafficking and mortgage fraud and the use of the two in combination to target and destroy minority and poor communities with highly profitable economic warfare. This model is global. It is operating in counties throughout the world as well as in US communities

US senator Charles Grassley suggests AIG executives commit suicide - Nico Hines, Times Online, March 17, 2009
As politicians around the world compete to take the toughest stance against banking excesses, one Republican senator has surely taken an unassailable lead. Last night he suggested that AIG executives should take the “Japanese” approach to responsibility and kill themselves


Barclays gags Guardian over tax - Staff reporter, guardian.co.uk, 17 March 2009
Injunction forces news website to remove seven leaked memos showing how bank avoided hundreds of millions of pounds in tax. The internal Barclays memos – leaked by a Barclays whistleblower – showed executives from SCM, Barclays's structured capital markets division, seeking approval for a 2007 plan to sink more than $16bn (£11.4bn) into US loans. Tax benefits were to be generated by an elaborate circuit of Cayman islands companies, US partnerships and Luxembourg subsidiaries

Voluntary code to make banks pay taxes could be made law - By Andrew Grice, Independent, 17 March 2009
A new code of conduct for banks to stop them avoiding billions of pounds in taxes is to be introduced, Alistair Darling announced yesterday

[terza repubblica] Luigi De Magistris in Europa - 17 Marzo 2009
Mi occuperò di giustizia, legalità e trasparenza. Sono convinto che questo sia un momento storico per poterci impegnare tutti, contribuendo con le proprie forze a cambiare questo Paese. Sono convinto che si possa fare sia impegnandosi quotidianamente, come ho sempre detto, nel proprio lavoro, nelle proprie professioni, nelle proprie relazioni, ma anche impegnandosi per il bene pubblico, nella politica per essere protagonisti del cambiamento

Genchi: informazione orizzontale - Antonio Di Pietro, 17 Marzo 2009
Se una persona è agente dei servizi segreti non è vietato vedere a chi ha fatto e da chi ha ricevuto le telefonate. E' vietato pubblicarle, ma se per caso è accusato di qualche reato, pure su di lui bisogna indagare. Non c'è il privilegio di essere intoccabili (forse basterebbe togliere il segreto bancario...)

The exposure of Satan worshippers accelerates as the Federal Reserve Board heads for collapse - Benjamin Fulford, 03/16/2009
We are likely to see many more horrendous confessions over the coming months and years

Prefetti e Banchieri - Beppe Grillo, 17 Marzo 2009
L'azienda in difficoltà si presenterà allo sportello con le Forze dell'Ordine. Del resto è l'unico modo per costringere le banche a mollare un prestito (e se un prefetto ha il mutuo con la banca? Come si controlla il conflitto d'interessi?)

Buone notizie dalla carta stampata - Beppe Grillo, 17 Marzo 2009
La discesa dei titoli dei gruppi editoriali è da infarto per chi li possiede. Nei primi due mesi e mezzo del 2009 Rizzoli Corriere della Sera ha perso il 43%, Mondadori il 33% e il Gruppo L'Espresso il 42%. In soli due mesi e mezzo! Indovinate quanto possono perdere in 12 mesi. Se si confrontano i valori minimi e massimi delle azioni nel 2008/2009 si può arrivare a prefissi telefonici

Draghi: Recessione continua, no ingerenze politiche su credito - Apcom, 17/03/2009
Draghi ha lanciato un monito molto forte al governo (dopo la lettera inviata alle filiali di Bankitalia) per evitare "interferenze politico-amministrative" nell'attività bancaria, perché "il credito è e deve restare attività imprenditoriale" (si è mai visto un imprenditore con un potere di ricatto così micidiale? Dopo LOTTA CONTINUA, ora abbiamo RECESSIONE CONTINUA)

ITALEASE: LANNUTTI, TREMONTI BOND PER SALVARE BANCHE E NO PMI - AGI, 16 marzo 2009
'Ancora una volta a pagare sono i consumatori e non i banchieri che hanno sbagliato o le Autorita' vigilanti che hanno dormito tra due guanciali': e' quanto afferma Elio Lannutti, capogruppo dell'Italia dei Valori in Commissione Finanze al Senato, riferendosi al riassetto dell'Italease. 'I Tremonti bond, che dovevano andare a finanziare le piccole e medie imprese strozzate dalla stretta creditizia, vengono invece utilizzati per salvare i crack bancari ed i banchieri azionisti delle banche popolari che, al pari di Consob e Bankitalia, non hanno affatto vigilato sulla gestione allegra dei finanziamenti e sull'uso disinvolto degli strumenti derivati da parte dei propri funzionari'

Swelling Criminal Gang Violence in Sweden - by Nina Larson Nina Larson, Agence France Presse, Mar 12, 2009
Prosecutor Barbro Joensson was driving to work when a bomb exploded at the front door of her house, rocking her whole neighbourhood and sending shockwaves through traditionally serene Sweden ... The bombing -- one of the first overt attacks on a Swedish prosecutor -- prompted calls to root out the swelling criminal gangs that have smashed the Scandinavian country's tranquil image. The gangs have caused a spike in a number of crimes, including extortion and loan-sharking -- a gang specialty -- which have jumped from 740 cases reported in 2003 to 1,715 last year, according to preliminary statistics from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention

America faces new Depression misery as financial crisis worsens - The Times, March 13, 2009


DESPERATE MEASURES: Berlin Brothel Offers Flat-Rate Service to Beat Slump - Der Spiegel 03/16/2009
These are hard times even for the oldest trade in the world. A Berlin brothel has responded to the economic crisis by launching a flat-rate service to woo customers

Left MEPs: “Social justice is the only way forward” - Spectrezine, March 17th, 2009
Czech United European Left MEP Jiří Maštálka said that although an EU reform programme and the Lisbon Strategy had been in place since 2005, “now, in 2009, we have a financial crisis in which people are experiencing poverty to an extent never seen before.” He reminded MEPs that unemployment is expected to reach half a million this year and to continue growing. “The current economic situation shows us that our policies have failed. We have given unequivocal support to big companies and big profits to the detriment of citizens and the environment,” he said

Secrecy prevails among EU banking lobbies - by Olivier Hoedeman, SPECTREZINE, March 17, 2009
The EU lobbying register does not show which companies and lobby groups are the main players, who are the actual lobbyists and how much money the financial industry is spending on influencing EU decisions. In the US, regulators may be in a position to identify their role in the fincancial crisis. In the EU, we appear to be operating in the dark...The European Financial Services Roundtable, the European Venture Capital Association, the European Parliamentary Financial Services Forum (EPFSF), the European Mortgage Federation, the European Covered Bond Council, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and the European Securitisation Forum, are just a few of the financial services lobbying vehicles that have failed to register so far

President’s Intel Advisory Board Members All Resigned - Steven Aftergood, FAS, March 17, 2009
There are no current members, since the entire membership of the Board resigned at the end of the previous Administration

In a First, Bankruptcy Judge Rules Calif. City Can Void Union Contracts - Pamela A. MacLean, The National Law Journal, March 17, 2009
In the first ruling of its kind, a bankruptcy judge held that the city of Vallejo, Calif., has the authority to void its existing union contracts in its effort to reorganize, saying public workers do not have the same protections as union workers at private companies. Municipal bankruptcy is so rare that no judge had yet ruled on whether Congressional reforms in the 1990s that required companies to provide worker protections before attempting to dissolve union contracts also applied to public workers' contracts

Alleged Minn. Ponzi Schemer's Attorneys Want to Quit Over Nonpayment - The Associated Press, March 17, 2009
Defense attorneys for Tom Petters, who is accused of running a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme, are seeking court permission to quit. The lawyers accuse the government of meddling in the Wayzata, Minn., businessman's defense by objecting to payment of their fees from Petters' frozen assets. In court filings Monday, they say they haven't been paid in nearly three months

Wachovia Sued Over 'Bad-Faith' Charging of Overdraft Fees - R. Robin McDonald, Fulton County Daily Report, March 17, 2009
A federal bad-faith bank fee suit filed against Wachovia joins similar suits pending across the U.S. against Wachovia as well as Bank of America and Wells Fargo, accusing the banks of deceptive practices intended to maximize profits at the expense of customers and challenging bank policies governing the assessment of overdraft fees. Last year, Bank of America set aside $35 million to settle a California suit with bank customers who claimed the bank posted debit transactions to accounts in high-to-low order

Bacchettate/ La casta colpisce ancora, salta il tetto agli stipendi di banchieri e super manager - Affari Italiani, 17.03.2009
Mario Draghi: "è verosimile che l'intero 2009 si chiuda con un nuovo, significativo calo dell'attività economica, concentrato soprattutto nel settore privato" (chi la fa, l'aspetti!)

[magna che ti passa] Napolitano a tavola con Berlusconi e ministri. Draghi fa lezione a Tremonti - Dazebao, 17 Marzo 2009
Chiude la giornata una nota di colore con l’ingresso a Palazzo Mezzanotte,  l’austero palazzo della Borsa di Milano,  di Laura Perego, attrice di hard che ripete le gesta di cui si rese protagonista al festival di Sanremo. Laura si è spogliata, è salita sul tavolo di un  usciere , gridando “ l’Italia è in mutande.” Una  Volante della  polizia l’ha presa “ in consegna” per accertamenti (probabilmente volevano controllare che almeno le mutande fossero rimaste!)

BOSSI, PROBLEMA NON E' GOVERNO SONO LE BANCHE - AGI, 17 marzo 2009
Purtroppo non basta che le banche riprendano a strozzinare le imprese, occorre redistribuire la rendita monetaria

Banche/ Prc: Draghi difende indifendibile,misure inutili governo - APCOM, 17 marzo 2009
Ferrero: L'unica soluzione è la nazionalizzazione. "Rifondazione comunista - prosegue Ferrero - propone una misura chiara ed efficace: la nazionalizzazione delle banche di interesse nazionale al fine di fornire il credito per le imprese e per una attività di spesa e produzione pubblica. In questo modo lo stato potrebbe compensare il crollo degli investimenti delle imprese private e potrebbe aprire una strada di riconversione ambientale dell'economia che rappresenta la via maestra - insieme alla redistribuzione del reddito - per uscire dalla crisi. Dalla crisi non se ne esce proseguendo le politiche liberiste che l'hanno generata".

Barrick settles securities fraud lawsuit over hedging - By Joe Schneider, Bloomberg News, March 16, 2009
Barrick spokesman Vince Borg declined to immediately comment on the settlement. Brower didn't immediately return a call seeking comment. The case is Wagner v. Barrick Gold Corp. 03-CV-4302, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

[insane asylum] UK's Royal Mint is top prospect for privatization - By Samantha Pearson, Financial Times, March 15, 2009
The Royal Mint, which manufactures coins for the UK and over 50 other countries, has moved to the top of the government's privatisation list as it looks for ways to ease the huge pressure on public finances in the wake of the banking crisis

Russia Proposes Macro-economic, Budget Standards to G-20 - From Russian News and Information Agency, RIA Novosti, March 16, 2009
"At the upcoming London summit, we need to reach accord on the basic parameters of the world financial system. In this connection, we propose holding an international conference after the London summit to agree the basic parameters of a world financial architecture and international conventions for a new world financial order," the Russian document read

Strache lashes out at big business Raiffeisen - Austrian Times, 20. 02. 09
Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Heinz-Christian Strache has sharply attacked Raiffeisen bank, calling it "a state within the state." Strache said yesterday the bank had long abandoned its original goal of helping farmers and had become "a powerful colossus." A state within the state, he claimed, and was a threat to democracy. The bank has more parliamentary deputies than the Green Party


The Financial Sector: "A House Burning Down": Ben Bernanke’s False Analogy - by Prof. Michael Hudson, Global Research, March 16, 2009
For starters, banking houses are not in the same neighborhood where most people live. They’re the castle on the hill, lording it over the town below. They can burn down and leave the hilltop revert "back to nature" rather than having the whole down gaze up at a temple of money that keeps them in debt. More to the point is the false analogy with U.S. policy. In effect, the Treasury and Fed are not "putting out a fire." They’re taking over houses that have not burned down, throwing out their homeowners and occupants, and turning the property over to the culprits who "burned down their own house." The government is not playing the role of fireman. "Putting out the fire" would be writing off the debts of the economy – the debts that are "burning it down."

Mammoth Financial Losses: Credit Default Swaps – Exercises in Surrealism - by Satyajit Das, Global Research, March 16, 2009
The CDS market is also complicating restructuring of distressed loans as all lenders do not have the same interest in ensuring the survival of the firm. A lender with purchased protection may seek to use the restructuring to trigger its CDS contracts

£40,000 each: The personal cost of the downturn - By Sean O'Grady, The Independent, 16 March 2009
The worst economic slowdown in three-quarters of a century has wiped £40,000 from the wealth of every adult in the United Kingdom, a national total of almost £2 trillion; that is £2,000bn, or £2,000,000,000,000. The research into the destructive effects of the recession by the accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers for The Independent shows that the fall in the value of property and shares owned by British households between July 2007 and February 2009 has reached the equivalent of 18 months-worth of national output...

Britain showing signs of heading towards 1930s-style depression, says Bank - Telegraph, 16 Mar 2009
Britain is showing signs of sliding towards a 1930s-style depression, the Bank of England says today for the first time. The country is displaying early symptoms of being trapped in a so-called "debt deflation trap" where families find themselves pushed further and further into the red every month, according to a Bank report published today. The stark warning will cause serious concerns, since it was this combination of falling prices and soaring debt burdens that plagued the US in the 1930s

AIG Threatened with Subpoenas Over Bonuses - abcNEWS, 16 Mar 2009
The hot seat is getting even hotter for AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy. ...The New York Attorney General has set a deadline of 4pm Monday for Liddy to release the names and job descriptions of those receiving bonuses stating that if the information is not received this afternoon that he will seek a subpoena to force compliance

Riot police quell protest as water forum opens - AFP, 16 Mar 2009
The World Water Forum, a seven-day arena aimed at addressing the planet's deepening [corporate-created] crisis of fresh water, was launched here Monday amid a violent protest broken up by riot police using tear gas. Anti-riot police dispersed some 300 demonstrators against the forum as they headed to the venue buildings, detaining at least 15

[Eyes opening] Turkey to use lira in trade with Iran - PressTV, 15 Mar 2009
He stressed that the plan will considerably increase Ankara's trade with Tehran and Moscow and that it will solve the problems caused by trade in foreign currencies

Turner to attack bonus culture of the banks - By Sean O'Grady, The Independent, 16 March 2009
A multilateral assault on so-called "shadow banking" will be led by Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, when he publishes his much-awaited review of financial regulation on Wednesday

Bailout money is flowing abroad - By Sean O'Grady, The Independent, 14 March 2009
Much of the new money the Bank of England has "printed" to stimulate the UK economy is ending up abroad where it will be of no benefit to UK households and businesses, according to an analysis of the Bank's "quantitative easing" programme

Vatican offers Islamic finance system to Western Banks - World Bulletin, 06 March 2009
The Vatican says Islamic finance system may help Western banks in crisis as alternative to capitalistm

Federal Jury Finds Former Pa. State Sen. Vincent Fumo Guilty on All Counts - Shannon P. Duffy, The Legal Intelligencer, March 16, 2009
Fumo has been found guilty on all counts

Banche: nazionalizzazioni, Tangentopoli, privatizzazioni - Armando C. Tavano, Corriere d'Italia, 06.03.09
Ci si chiede quale sia il segreto di questa ricetta miracolosa. La risposta è semplicissima: la moneta rappresenta un mezzo di pagamento e una misura del valore di esclusiva proprietà delle Stato. Se viene trattata secondo questi principi base essa diventa uno strumento potentissimo per la realizzazione di opere pubbliche e per il raggiungimento della maggior parte degli obiettivi che ogni Stato si prefigge e che sono finalizzati al benessere dei cittadini. Se, invece, come da noi, viene trattata ingiustificatamente come merce di proprietà di banche private (come vogliono fortissimamente Scalfari, Franceschini, Casini, etc.), generatrice di debito pubblico e divoratrice a titolo di interessi di 307 miliardi di euro nel solo 2008, la crescita economica diventa impossibile, i servizi ai cittadini si riducono drasticamente e l’economia si inceppa (rivelando il segreto economico-bancario del fascismo, probabilmente si svela anche quello di un certo anti-fascismo...)

Italya: dalla “resistenza sui monti” alla “resistenza nelle banche” - Antonino Amato, Corriere d'Italia, 16.03.09
Apporta un qualche chiarimento Antonio Di Pietro che dichiara: “Meglio i prefetti che la Banca d’Italia a controllare questo sistema creditizio”. E chiarisce che “la Banca d’Italia, avendo come soci proprio le singole banche che dovrebbe controllare, non può fare in modo indipendente il proprio lavoro”. E si torna al problema del “SIGNORAGGIO”, malaffare tutto italiano che ha messo le azioni della Banca d’Italia in mano a dei privati

Bretton Woods le regole e l'etica dei prefetti - Eugenio Scalfari, la Repubblica, 15 marzo 2009
Scalfari da i numeri, sarà l'età. Definisce la Banca d'Italia una "istituzione di garanzia, una magistratura economica che non trae il suo fondamento dal voto popolare e proprio per questo opera al di sopra delle parti e delle "lobbies" avendo di mira gli interessi del paese". Non capisce che la pirlamide bancaria italiana è la lobby delle lobbies, il potere assoluto in questo tipo di società fondata sull'usura. Allo stesso modo, allora, perché non concepire un governo che non tragga fondamento dal voto popolare avendo così finalmente, secondo la logica scalfariana, "di mira gli interessi generali del paese"? Siamo al delirio. Lo spettatore ha però finalmente davanti il quadro di due poli ben precisi: "res pubblica" o "cosa nostra" bancaria. Come al solito, si metterà dalla parte di chi vince. Si sappia però che la magistratura economica del sistema bancario non prevede appello e cassazione. Molto meglio allora sarebbe istituire delle giurie economiche popolari. La moneta ed il credito sono materie troppo importanti per lasciarle in mano a banchieri screditati e pennivendoli

MOTO ONDOSO: DA MODUGNO PARTE LA SFIDA ALLE LOBBIES DELL'ENERGIA - Angela Cirone ,Gianvito Armenise, Azione e Tradizione, 13.III.2009
Il nucleare? Superato. Lo dimostra un genio di Modugno con in tasca una licenza media

Greek Group That Targeted Citigroup Warns of Plan for Revolt - Maria Petrakis and Natalie Weeks, Bloomberg, March 14, 2009
The group targeted the branches because it wants to make Greece “hostile territory for the criminal agents of international capital, like Citibank,” according to an eight- page statement published in the weekly newspaper Pontiki today. Revolution is “our duty, here and now. This crisis should be the tomb of the system,” the group said

Regulator: Before Banks Collapsed, They Pleaded With Feds To Let Them Fudge Their Books - Ryan Grim, Huffington Post, March 13, 2009
Before financial institutions have collapsed over the past several months, they have come to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, pleading for a change in mark-to-market accounting rules so that they can continue to appear to be solvent on their balance sheets...

Moody's AAA Ratings: What Impacts on the Financial Crisis? - Global Research, March 15, 2009
Misleading Investors on Financial Trends. Moody's - one of the big 3 credit rating agencies with an official government endorsement - helped cause the financial crisis by keeping the ratings of failing companies artificially high. Moody's shareholders are now suing in federal court, saying that Moody's misrepresented the fact that its ratings are impartial. Once it became clear that Moody's was gaming its ratings, its share price plunged - 75% since February 2007

Another twist for the unemployed: Debit card fees - By Drew Griffin and David Fitzpatrick, CNN Special Investigations Unit, March 14, 2009

UBS cutting 5,000 management jobs:report - Reuters, Mar 15, 2009

Summers calls AIG bonuses 'outrageous' - AP, 15 Mar 2009
"Outrageous." That's what the president's chief economic adviser calls the tens of millions of dollars in new bonuses paid out by the troubled insurance giant American International Group

America cheers as satirist delivers knockout blow to TV finance gurus - Dave Smith, The Observer, Sunday 15 March 2009
It caught the attention of the White House, prompted a frenzy among bloggers and soul-searching in the media, which failed to spot the biggest story of a lifetime or warn the public until it was too late. Indeed, CNBC and other supposedly objective journalists stood accused of complicity with big business, belonging to a cosy coterie that egged on company chief executives and fanned the flames of excess

Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer on The Daily Show (YouTube video) - March 11, 2009
Come in Italia Beppe Grillo, anche negli USA i comici ne sanno di più dei commentatori economici...

Obama at the Business Roundtable - by Tom Eley, Global Research, March 15, 2009
If the financial elite, working through the Obama administration, is allowed to determine the resolution of the economic crisis, workers will foot the bill at a terrible cost. It is urgent that the working class impose its own solution to the crisis, one based on the democratic control and social ownership of finance and industry in the US and internationally. This is the perspective of the Socialist Equality Party

ICC — ‘Western kangaroo court’ - by Olley Maruma, Global Research, March 15, 2009
In Africa, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague is considered by many to be a Western kangaroo court set up to hound, jail and silence African and Third world leaders who refuse to submit to the grip of Western hegemony and domination

“Where’s My Million Dollars?” America's "Prize Promotion" Scams - by Sherwood Ross, Global Research, March 15, 2009
The U.S. Post Office warns that unscrupulous high pressure sales people “armed with sophisticated selling techniques designed to get you to send them money” are operating out of “boiler rooms,” and are out to defraud consumers

In New Terror Video, AIG Demands Huge Ransom from U.S. - Borowitz Report, March 15, 2009
Shadowy Group Seeks Bonuses, Golf Retreats. Intelligence analysts said that the man, AIG chairman Edward M. Liddy, appears to be speaking at a luxury beach resort that offers few clues as to his exact location, although there is “good intelligence” pointing to the Ritz Carlton in the Cayman Islands...

OBAMA, CHANGE AND CHINA, Part 2: A dangerous balance - By Henry C K Liu, Asia Times, Mar 13, 2009
The Republic of China under the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) had been under Washington's paternalistic umbrella since its founding in 1911. US support for the KMT further strengthened after the left wing of the party was purged following the assassination of 48-year-old leftist party leader Liao Zhong-kai on August 20, 1925. During and after World War II, the Republic of China was reduced to the status of a client state of the US

DOLLAR CRISIS IN THE MAKING: Before the stampede - By W Joseph Stroupe, Asia Times, Mar 14, 2009
Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what could soon be the perfect storm against the United States dollar and against the present dollar-centric global financial order. It will result from a correlation of forces arising out of the deepening global financial and economic crises, coupled with recurring and conspicuous miscalculation on the part of some of the world's political, financial and economic leaders

SILVER TONGUED DEVILS OFFER CPR TO MAMMON WORSHIPPERS - By Roger Fredinburg, NewsWithViews.com, March 15, 2009
This week has been wrought with Banksterland folly as everyone from Timothy Geihtner to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke calling out to their Koolaid drinking cult followers in the financial sectors and beyond in what can only be described, as the last will and testament of the elite central banking tyrants. Even Mr. Kucinich gets it! It sounded pretty good to me, hearing a liberal Democrat advocating the end of the Federal Reserve and fractional banking. Hooray!

Controlli internazionali su banche agenzie di rating ed hedge funds - STEFANO LEPRI, La Stampa, 15/3/2009
A Giulio Tremonti pare emblematica la frase che ha trovato in un documento portato dalla Cina: «Finora si pensava che il miglior modo di fare regole fosse di farne poche; adesso è l’opposto»...

Il governatore Draghi e il ministro Tremonti al vertice di ieri

«Confindustria ora l'ha capito Il peggio sta per arrivare» -  Enrico Marro, Corriere della Sera, 15 marzo 2009
Il leader della Cgil: si fermino sui contratti e torneremo a collaborare. Epifani: abbiamo evitato che la rabbia esplodesse come in Grecia e Francia. Il ministro dell'Economia, Giulio Tremonti, dice che se la crisi è da debito non la si può risolvere facendo altro debito

ECONOMIA, NON SOLO “PANE” MA SOPRATUTTO LAVORO - Carmine Gonnella, politicamentecorretto.com, 15 Marzo, 2009
I Tremonti Bonds (credo si chiamino cosi) perche’ regalarli alle banche a fondo perduto e non indirizzarli direttamente alle imprese in difficoltà ?

Prefetti in banca, Di Pietro sta con Tremonti - IlSole24Ore, 14 marzo 2009
«Sto con Tremonti». Il ragionamento del leader dell'Italia dei valori parte dal fatto che la Banca D'Italia è controllata dalle stesse banche sulle quali è chiamata a vigilare. «Questa operazione non si può lasciare alla Banca D'Italia - sottolinea il presidente dell'Idv - perchè non si è mai visto che un controllato nomini il controllore e che, in queste condizioni, il controllore possa fare fino in fondo il proprio lavoro» (la prima citazione scritta di questo conflitto di interessi l'ho trovata in Il Disubbidiente, di Francesco Pazienza, Longanesi, 1999)

Crisi/ Casini: Fra Tremonti e Draghi stiamo con il Governatore - APCOM, 14 marzo 2009
"Noi nella polemica tra Tremonti e Draghi siamo dalla parte del Governatore senza se e senza ma". Lo ha detto Pierferdinando Casini oggi a Bari (così finalmente si delinea la natura di due "veri" poli: uno dalla parte dei banchieri privati - cosa nostra - ed uno dalla parte degli interessi della gente - res pubblica)

Germany and France reject Brown's global economic recovery plan - Toby Helm and Heather Stewart, guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 March 2009
Angela Merkel insists any further short-term fiscal stimulus should be up to individual governments, not the G20

Warren Buffett loses top credit rating - Julia Kollewe, guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 March 2009
Berkshire Hathaway loses AAA grade. General Electric also downgraded after 60 years

Child Debt to Bankers - blogspot.com, 2009-03-14
"Over the course the past year, Obama, Bush, and congress have brutally generated $10T in new child debt to maniacally rich multinational financiers. The NY Times chart, below, doesn't count Obama's more recent $2T+ of jackpot payoffs to his filthy rich owners, raised by flogging the new American destitute"


Svizzera, segreto ciao - di Cristina Bartelli, Italia Oggi, 14 Marzo 2009
La conseguenza è la risposta caso per caso. Ma la richiesta a cui la svizzera deciderà se rispondere o meno, dovrà essere concreta e motivata nell'ottica di effettuare uno scambio di informazioni con gli altri paesi. Per la Svizzera però il segreto bancario resta, in quanto "il consiglio federale riconosce che il desiderio di un'adeguata protezione della sfera privata del cittadino rimane profondamente radicato nella popolazione svizzera". Questa affermazione si traduce in un mantenimento del segreto bancario e nel respingere al mittente uno scambio di informazioni automatico

China's warning to the US: Honour your commitments - By Sean O'Grady, Independent, 14 March 2009
Beijing comments fuel fears China could offload its dollar reserves

‘Going Galt’ is a Futile Fad - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/13/09
“Going Galt: America’s Wealth Producers vs. Wealth Redistributors” is an interesting essay by Michelle Malkin posted at townhall.com. It starts off with “Enough” which is so perfectly pithy because “In a word, that is the message of disgusted taxpayers fed up with the confiscatory policies of both parties in Washington

Franceschini: si litighi ma Palazzo Koch non venga coinvolto - Marco Cremonesi, Corriere della Sera, 14 marzo 2009
"Litighiamo pure tra maggioranza e opposizione, ma lasciamo fuori la Banca d'Italia. Nessuno ne tocchi l'autonomia e la libertà" (da PD, Polo Democratico, a PB, Private Banking. Viaggio di sola andata. Sòla, in senso romano. Par d'essere tornati all'800: invece dello scandalo della "sinistra ferroviaria", ci prepariamo a quello della "sinistra bancaria")

[seigniorage game] SPP: Updating the Militarization and Annexation of North America - by Stephen Lendman, Global Research, March 13, 2009
The title refers to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), also known as the North American Union - formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 Waco, Texas meeting attended by George Bush, Mexico's President Vincente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's for a tri-national agreement, below the radar, for greater economic, political, and security integration with secret business and government working groups devising binding policies with no public knowledge or legislative debate (usury currency must expand to survive)

Sony Workers Hold Execs Hostage Over Pay --CEO, Head of Human Resources In France Freed After Employees Angered Over Severance Package Give Them Earful - CBS News, 13 Mar 2009
Workers at a Sony factory in southwestern France freed two company executives Friday whom they had held to protest the severance package offered for when the plant shuts for good. Serge Foucher, CEO of Sony France, and Roland Bentz, the head of human resources, had been prevented from leaving the plant since Thursday afternoon

Madagascar: Troops defy orders to put down opposition protests - By Fred Weston, Marxist, 12 March 2009
On Sunday the depth of the crisis and the level of social discontent in Madagascar directly affected a group of soldiers of the Army Corps of Personnel and Administrative and Technical Services who had been ordered to move against protestors on the streets. The soldiers refused to obey orders to fire on the people and repress anti-government demonstrators. Following this, they then declared they would not obey government orders either. As one rebel soldier stated, "We no longer take orders from our hierarchy, we are following our hearts. We were trained to protect property and citizens, not to fire at people. We are with the people." Postscript: Since this article was written a section of the army has taken over army Headquarters and forced the defence minister, Mamy Ranaivoniarivo to resign!

The Fix Is In For The Owners Of The Fed - From Joel Skousen, World Affairs Brief, 3-13-9
As the US Treasury Department continues to brag that the US has not yet been forced to make good on its guarantees of toxic debt held by the major insider banks (Citigroup, JP Morgan, Bank of America, etc) we find they have been using a back door to funnel money to their friends--AIG the world insurance giant holding the largest share of derivative contracts that guarantee those toxic debts against default

Sacramento tent city is just one of dozens in an ailing America - Analysis: Mike Harvey, The Times, March 13, 2009
Across America, from Washington State to Nevada, Georgia and even Florida, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the biggest rise in homeless encampments in a generation, as the US economy takes a spectacular plunge

Crime, Corruption And Collapse On Wall Street - The International Forecaster, March 11 2009
The Masters of the Universe have lost control. The stock market, which had held up for so long has not only broken 7,268 as we forecast, but we broke 6,600 easily this past week. Economists, analysts and newsletter writers still do not get it. Stockbrokers are telling clients you do not have losses until you take them. What do they say when the Dow breaks 4,000? By then most of these so-called professionals will be out of jobs

Is the committee of 300 about to be dissolved? - Benjamin Fulford, 03/13/2009
Until the current financial crisis erupted many Western politicians, military personnel, members of intelligence organizations, scientists and other intellectuals did not know about the committee of 300 or the nature of the Federal Reserve Board. Like me, once they did find out, they got pretty angry

The man who broke the banks from his Mayfair office - Jonathan Prynn, ThisIsLondon, 12.03.09
A team of "rogue traders" based in Mayfair was today blamed for triggering the financial meltdown that led to the global recession

'O FOR OLD, D FOR DUMB': German Lawsuit Aims at Banks that Preyed on Lehman Investors - By Hauke Goos, Der Spiegel, 03/13/2009
Bankers called them "OD customers" -- "old and dumb" investors who let their advisors talk them into buying Lehman Brothers securities last year. They lost their savings in the financial storm, but now the injured parties are fighting back, with help from an experienced fighter

Gary Franchi Exposes Federal Reserve on PBS (video) - 13 March 2009
THE TRUTH IS GOING MAINSTREAM!

Austrian officials arrest BAE lobbyist on money-laundering charges - David Leigh, guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 March 2009
Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly is being detained in Austria after being arrested on Friday, a spokesman for the Vienna regional court for criminal matters, Christian Gneist, said. Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly questioned over €13m payment from British arms company

China’s Leader Says He Is ‘Worried’ Over U.S. Treasuries - Michael Wines, New York Times, March 13, 2009
The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that its investment would keep its value in the face of a global financial crisis

Ron Paul: Culprits Of Financial Collapse Should Be Arrested - Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, March 12, 2009
Not treated as saviors and given more power to “fix” the problem that they created

Swiss action sparks talk of currency war - By Peter Garnham, Financial Times, March 12, 2009
Analysts said the move was likely to increase talk that countries were set to engage in a bout of competitive devaluation. "Let the currency wars begin," said Chris Turner at ING Financial Markets (approprizione indebita di potere d'acquisto e rendita monetaria da parte della Banca Centrale Svizzera attraverso nuove emissioni - business as usual)

Astrid Lulling arnaque le contribuable - L'Investigateur, 12/03/2009
Un certain nombre de députés européens, depuis des décennies et jusqu’à aujourd’hui, ont investi par l’intermédiaire d’une société d’investissement dans un fonds destiné à leur garantir un complément de retraite confortable et juteux. Quand on écrit qu’ils ont investi, il conviendrait de dire que c’est l’argent du contribuable, quelque 212 millions d’euros quand même, qui a été dirigé au nez et à la barbe de la législation, dans ce fonds dont l’existence n’était pas spécialement rendue publique

Surprise Supreme Court Decision Ends Big Pharma's Pre-Emption Bid for Legal Immunity - by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor, March 05, 2009
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against Wyeth in the Diana Levine case, setting a crucial precedent in the battle against Big Pharma. The ruling ends an important part of the Big Pharma / FDA conspiracy racket that sought to market extremely dangerous (and even deadly) drugs while providing full legal immunity to drug companies, even when those companies actively lied about the safety of their drugs by hiding negative drug studies from the public and the FDA. The decision has hit Big Pharma hard. The industry, already reeling from layoffs and a loss of innovation, is now facing a wave of lawsuits from potentially hundreds of thousands of people who have been harmed by dangerous prescription medications

BANCHE: FRANCESCHINI, TOLGONO CREDITO A PMI PRIMA CHE A GRANDI IMPRESE - Adnkronos, 13 marzo 2009
La banca, prosegue Franceschini, ''non se lo può permettere di chiudere alla grande impresa, magari anche perché è sua azionista, ma al piccolo che chiede mille euro per non chiudere il negozio, a quello si chiude piu' facilmente'' (in questo modo ritrasferisce la ricchezza togliendo ai poveri - come al solito. Altro esempio per cui è necessario un controllo "terzo" - non certo delle banche stesse)

Banche, Comitato di Basilea: rivedere i requisiti minimi di capitale  - Valori.it, 13/03/2009
Occorre rafforzare il capitale delle banche per evitare ulteriori momenti di crisi in futuro. E, per questo, è necessario riflettere su una revisione dei requisiti minimi che gli istituti dovranno soddisfare... (ma la vera domanda è: chi è il comitato di Basilea per decidere cosa fare del nostro futuro? Chi li ha eletti?)

Bailout Blues: Why Bank Nationalization Makes Sense - By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive, March 10, 2009
Socialist Norman Thomas scoffs at Republican accusations that FDR is a "socialist." No socialist, Thomas explains, would stage a short-term government takeover of the banks, only to return them once they were solvent to the same Wall Street millionaires who broke them in the first place

Top GCs Protest Proposals for Financial Disclosures on Potential Litigation Losses - Marcia Coyle, The National Law Journal, March 13, 2009
More than 135 general counsel and utives from Fortune 500 and 100 companies are protesting a controversial proposed amendment to financial accounting statements on corporate disclosures of litigation-related loss contingencies. The proposed amendments would require companies to make significantly more extensive disclosures in financial statements regarding loss contingencies, even when the company expects to prevail or does not believe there will be a material cost to settle the matter

Madoff Led Off to Jail After Guilty Plea - Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal, March 13, 2009
Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to 11 felonies as part of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history and was led off to prison for what may be the rest of his life

I VICERE’ - di Sigfrido Ranucci, Report/RaiTre, in onda domenica 15 marzo alle 21.30
Il professore Umberto Scapagnini ha amministrato Catania per otto lunghi anni, dal 2000 al 2008. Ha lasciato un buco di bilancio di oltre 360 milioni di euro e un indebitamento complessivo di circa un miliardo di euro...

De-globalization? - by Jon Christian Ryter, NewsWithViews.com, March 13, 2009
What happens when the world's greediest industrialists and even greedier bankers bite off more of the Utopian dream than they can chew? They choke. The good news is there is now a very real, very serious chink in the armor of globalization. World trade is plummeting because the transnational money barons: the industrialists, the bankers and the global merchant princes who saw the human chattel of the third world as the primary consumers of the 21st century have literally overextended themselves...

IL NAUFRAGIO DELL'EUROPA: UCRAINA QUASI IN DEFAULT - di Carlos Enrique Bayo, Voci Dalla Strada, 12 marzo 2009
Il rischio non è solo economico, ma anche geopolitico, dato che quei soci orientali hanno vissuto la recente esperienza di rinunciare ai loro sistemi economici centralizzati e super regolati, attraversando una terapia d'urto che li ha sottomessi a grandi penurie quando avevano appena cominciato a recuperare e stabilizzarsi...

Administration to Ask Congress to Expand Funds Available to IMF - Washington Post, 11 Mar 2009
The Obama administration is planning to ask Congress to expand the United States' primary line of credit to the International Monetary Fund from about $10 billion to $100 billion to boost usury against struggling economies around the world

Lettera a un ragazzo del 2009 - Beppe Grillo, 12 Marzo 2009
E’ strano dirlo ora, ma c’erano persone che investivano il loro denaro per sviluppare le aziende. E manager che vedevano lontano. Enrico Mattei dell’ENI, ucciso in un attentato, Adriano Olivetti, Mondadori, Ferrari, Borghi e cento altri che non ricordo. Intorno alle città c’erano i prati e non i cimiteri di cemento che chiamano unità residenziali. La bottiglia di latte la riportavo al lattaio e non costruivano inceneritori. La televisione era un servizio pubblico in cui lavoravano anche veri giornalisti come Enzo Biagi...

Banche, scontro tra il Tesoro e Draghi - Andrea Angelini, Rinascita, 12 Marzo 2009
Le banche in questa fase hanno operato una drastica stretta creditizia che ha messo in crisi sia le famiglie che le piccole e medie imprese, tutte invitate a rientrare dei crediti che erano stati loro concessi. La Banca d’Italia vede come un vero e proprio affronto il fatto che Tremonti abbia previsto l’istituzione di appositi centri di controllo collegati alle prefetture che dovranno verificare che tali finanziamenti alle banche arrivino davvero all’economia. Ma oggi, dopo la privatizzazione di banche ex pubbliche, ci si trova nell’imbarazzante situazione di vedere che gli azionisti “privati” della Banca d’Italia sono gli stessi su cui Via Nazionale dovrebbe vigilare

CRISI: MARONI, BANCHE FACCIANO LORO LAVORO MA LO FACCIANO BENE - ASCA, 12-03-09
Gli Osservatori provinciali coordinati dai prefetti e composti da rappresentanti delle parti sociali, del mondo delle impresee dei lavoratori, nascono per evitare ''una stretta creditizia da parte delle banche''

Financial Meltdown: The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF - by Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet, Global Research, March 11, 2009
Unable to deny their failure, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund claim they no longer uphold the set of neo-liberal policies known as the Washington Consensus. Yet, discredited though they may be, these two institutions are using the international crisis to return to the limelight. For decades they have enforced the deregulation measures and structural adjustment programmes that have led to the current impasse. After this total fiasco the WB and the IMF must now account for their decisions before world opinion. The only acceptable solution is the immediate abolition of the IMF and the WB, and their replacement by radically different institutions that focus on satisfying fundamental human needs

Grasping A Trillion Dollars - by Debbie Morgan, Global Research, March 11, 2009
If we divided $1 trillion by the population of the United States, EACH person, that is each man, woman, and child, would receive $3,251.  Now, THAT would stimulate the economy!   Now let’s averaged by household, there are approximately 117,687,214 households in the US.  That means that EACH household would receive more than $8,497.  What could you do with that?

Secret State Police Report: Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, Libertarians are Terrorists - Kurt Nimmo, Infowars, March 11, 2009
The MIAC report does not concentrate on Muslim terrorists, but rather on the so-called “militia movement” and conflates it with supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, the so-called patriot movement and other political activist organizations opposed to the North American Union and the New World Order. The MIAC document is a classic guilt by association effort designed to demonize legitimate political activity that stands in opposition to the New World Order and its newly enshrined front man, Barack Obama

Detroit, the economic Chernobyl (picture gallery) - Time

[economic planning] What Sells in a Recession: Canned Goods and Condoms - By Sean Gregory, Time, Mar. 11, 2009
What's the last thing people want in a recession? More kids, apparently. According to data-tracking firm the Nielsen Co., dollar sales of products in the "family planning" category, which include condoms and over-the-counter female contraceptives, were up 10.2% for the first two months of this year. Unit sales were up 1.5%, which indicates that consumers are willing to pay higher prices today to prevent crib expenses tomorrow

Nobel-prize winner backs world currency - Agence France-Presse, March 11, 2009
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has won backing for his plan for a single world currency from an intellectual architect of the euro currency, Nobel-prize winner Professor Robert Mundell

Credit agency names 283 US firms most likely to go bust - Elena Moya, guardian.co.uk, 10 March 2009
US industrial companies such as Eastman Kodak, media firms such as Univision Communications and carmakers including Ford and General Motors have a 45% chance of going bust in the next 12  months, according to a report published today

Dalla finanza islamica proposte e idee per l'occidente in crisi - di Loretta Napoleoni e Claudia Segre,  L'Osservatore Romano, 4 marzo 2009
La finanza islamica potrebbe ispirare la riformulazione delle regole di quella occidentale, oggi in grave difficoltà. Dall’Egitto alla Malesia, istituti bancari e studiosi della shar’ia lavorano insieme, in un fenomeno unico nell’economia moderna

The terrorist nuclear plot that no-one wants to talk about - By Julian Assange, Wikileaks, March 8, 2009
The Belfast dirty bomber millionaire James G. Cummings is just one drop from an ocean of truth that is unreported, not repeated, and does not enter into civil discourse, because it is not perceived to be profitable to talk about, regardless of how profitable it may be to hear

The Big Bad Database of Senator Norm Coleman - Wikileaks, March 11, 2009
Senator Coleman collected detailed information on every supporter and website visitor and retained unencrypted credit card information from donors, including their security codes, that were released onto the Internet on January 28 as a result of sloppy handling by the campaign...

Journal intime d’un économiste en temps de crise (2) - Bernard Maris, 11 Mars 2009
L’angoisse du spectateur au moment du chiffre. Débat avec Jacques Attali et Manuel Valls du coté de chez Valls, à son initiative. 200 personnes. Attali dresse un tableau apocalyptique de la situation. La croissance de la Chine pour 2009 n’est pas 8%, comme l’annoncent les Chinois, mais 0%. Quand aux Etats-Unis, c’est moins six ou sept, le Japon moins 12, l’Allemagne moins 5, la France moins 3, bref, il fait froid dans le monde. Le système bancaire est, de fait, en faillite...Les américains en sont à passer par-dessus le système bancaire complètement en faillite, et à prêter directement aux entreprises nécessiteuses

Nowhere at Best – Wiped Out at Worst - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/11/09
The latest bad news is that “In February, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors” which indicates an entire economy in a death-spiral, the specifics of which are that the number of unemployed persons increased by a whopping 851,000 in February, taking the total to 12.5 million unemployed!

Scenari, l'inchiesta: Madoff, la truffa più grande (video) - RaiNews24, 6 marzo 2009
Quello che non si spiega bene, ancora una volta, è lo schema Ponzi, che funzionava perché Ponzi era d'accordo col banchiere che gli ritornava parte dei soldi creati con la riserva frazionaria - per questo lo schema non crollò per "mancanza di soldi", ma perché le banche concorrenti, che perdevano "affari", lo fecero condannare in tribunale...

Why people Cheat: Economics, not moral decay, is the reason everyone does it - By ROBERT J. STONEBRAKER, October 7, 2006
People do cheat, and cheating does damage the fabric of society. However, if we want to change behavior, let's skip the moral invectives and breast-beating. We will be better served by careful studies of how to alter the benefits and costs

CRISI: ITALIA, +46% IN DUE MESI I NUOVI DISOCCUPATI - di Lucia Manca, ANSA, 2009-03-10
Allarme occupazione in Italia. Dopo i dati sulla cassa integrazione di febbraio, che ha visto un incremento superiore al 553% in un anno, oggi nuova doccia fredda: tra gennaio e febbraio 370.561 lavoratori hanno perso il posto

G8. Tremonti: Al via commissione esperti per nuovo codice regole - APCOM, 10 marzo 2009
Il ministro al Corriere: Dieci anni di eclissi giuridica. Fanno parte del team Guido Rossi, Giulio Napolitano (figlio del presidente della Repubblica), Gustavo Visentini (figlio di Bruno), Enrico Letta, Gabriele Crespi Reghizzi, Alberto Santamaria, Silvia Cipollina

[usurykeeping exposed] Imagine an Occupied America - by Rep. Ron Paul, March 10, 2009
The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment toward us

Fight Back Against the Banker Onslaught - Infowars, March 10, 2009
It is a banker dream come true, a scam designed to ensure your children and grand children are in hock to the international bankers for generations to come

Canadian Military Units To Undertake “Domestic Security” - Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, March 10, 2009
The Canadian military is reorganizing its priorities to suit a “post 9/11-world,” by creating reservist units for each area of the country that would be tasked with providing “domestic security,” and involve roles such as the mass internment of citizens...

Western military forces turning inward in anticipation of domestic unrest - Daniel Taylor, Old-Thinker News, March 10, 2009
As the growing world-wide economic crisis deepens, military forces from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom are preparing to meet angry citizens on the street. The economic crisis - and the public outrage it is causing - is at the forefront of intelligence agencies and military forces in the western world...

Like Somali Pirates, Wall Street Holds U.S. to Ransom - Ann Pettifor, The Huffington Post, March 8, 2009
The Somalis were kinder to their hostages than Wall Street is to millions of unemployed Americans. For while the Somalian pirates returned hostages unharmed, bankers, fraudsters and failed insurers continue to harm the US administration and hold millions of Americans hostage. The latter are being stripped effectively, of pensions, savings, livelihoods and jobs. All this daylight robbery and confusion takes place because policy-makers - at the US Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the British government - do not understand what is going on (You want to bet on mass unemployment, rising crime, hungry children and riots outside banks?)

Ranks of homeless kids climb - By Cynthia Hubert, The Sacramento Bee, 10 Mar 2009
In and out of classrooms, sleeping in shelters, shielded by parents, homeless children can seem invisible to society at large. A national study released Monday finds that one in 50 children in America is homeless. They're sharing housing because of economic hardship, living in motels, cars, abandoned buildings, parks, camping grounds or shelters, or waiting for foster care placement

China energy head would buy more gold, oil, commodities - By Zhou Xin, Reuters via Forbes.com, March 9, 2009
China should use part of its nearly $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves to buy more gold, oil, uranium, and other strategic commodities, the head of China's energy bureau said in comments published on Monday

Five biggest U.S. banks are 'dead men walking'  By Greg Gordon and Kevin G. Hall, McClatchy Newspapers, March 9, 2009
Citibank, Bank of America, HSBC Bank USA, Wells Fargo Bank, and J.P. Morgan Chase reported that their "current" net loss risks from derivatives -- insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset -- surged to $587 billion as of Dec. 31. Buried in end-of-the-year regulatory reports that McClatchy has reviewed, the figures reflect a jump of 49 percent in just 90 days

Famiglie baresi rischiano di restare per strada - Franco Carrozzo, Comitato dei Quartieri di Bari – Casa Pound Bari
Le famiglie occupanti, composte da circa 30 individui di cui 10 minori, sono tutte a reddito zero e, in caso di sgombero, non avrebbero altra alternativa se non quella di dormire per strada... (gli ultimi saranno i primi.... ad essere sfrattati!)

Luxembourg 14ème place financière mondiale et 5ème paradis fiscal - L'investigateur, 09/03/2009
Malgré les efforts engagés depuis un an contre l'évasion fiscale, les paradis fiscaux sont toujours autant prisés, selon une étude de la City of London Corporation

$5 Billion in Lobbying for 12 Corrupt Deals Caused the Multi-Trillion Dollar Financial Meltdown - By Robert Weissman, Multinational Monitor, alternet, March 9, 2009
This extraordinary investment paid off fabulously. Congress and executive agencies rolled back long-standing regulatory restraints, refused to impose new regulations on rapidly evolving and mushrooming areas of finance, and shunned calls to enforce rules still in place

Is the Future Going Down the Drain? Baby Boomers Going Bust - By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet, March 6, 2009
Millions of boomers born into the dawn of the largest economic expansion in history are being forced to re-imagine their retirement futures (maybe some Civilian Inmate Labor Program ?)

Overvalued euro set to plunge 'within months' - By Garry White, Telegraph, 09 Mar 2009
Spread betting companies have reported a huge wave of short euro trades in the last two weeks, leading to speculation that a significant correction in the currency will come in the next few months

Bloomberg TV airs doubt about gold ETFs - Gata.org, March 9, 2009
The word about the precious-metals price suppression scheme is steadily reaching investment professionals around the world

Obama’s Top Economic Adviser: More Money for the Bankers - Kurt Nimmo, Infowars, March 9, 2009
According to Summers, the United States and other western nations need to live “within their means” in the long term, but in the short term they need to “raise spending sharply,” that is to say the bankers need additional infusions of tax-payer cash

The Upcoming Political Crisis in Washington - by David Gordian, Global Research, March 9, 2009
The contours of the upcoming political battle are not yet clear: each side will use its surrogate experts, agitators and useful idiots, but the very gentleness of the Stiglitz/Krugman warnings are an indication that such as they still hope that mortal combat may be avoided. This is, of course, pure fantasy

Civil Unrest in America? - by José Miguel Alonso Trabanco, Global Research, March 9, 2009
The much-feared financial meltdown is no longer a distant and remote possibility because in fact it is already taking place. However, this chaos might trigger some very serious and preoccupying consequences. In order to have a clear understanding of these implications, it is vital to take into account some reports that were not given the proper amount of attention they deserved when they were first published

Kiss the Banks Goodbye: It's Time to Put a Stop to This Farce! - by David Lindorff, Global Research, March 9, 2009
The point here is that if people aren’t willing to spend money, then what good is it to give more money to banks and their shareholders, in hopes that they will start lending it? The lending business has two sides—those offering to make a loan, and those wanting to borrow. If there’s no borrower, no amount of money available for lending is going to change the fact that there will be no loans written (people don't need more debt, they need more purchasing power. A Basic Income for all can solve that problem)

Flash mob protest outside RBS - By Sumant Bhatia and David Ferrarotto, Telegraph, 09 Mar 2009
A protest by the pressure group Climate Rush against the Royal Bank of Scotland left bankers bemused and couriers cursing. They told Telegraph TV they were there to protest against the Government's bail-outs of the banking industry and the £16.9m pension pot awarded to former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin

Can you survive economic crisis? - By Drew Zahn, WorldNetDaily, March 08, 2009
Booming preparedness industry says Americans are stockpiling

Banking stocks lead world markets down again - By PAN PYLAS, AP Business Writer, Mar 9, 2009
"Sentiment is terrible," said Ben Pedley, managing director of LGT Investment Management Ltd. in Hong Kong. "We're going to be in a funk, not only in Asia, but in the rest of the world for the next year or two."

Trillions Have Disappeared Into The Ether - International Forecaster Weekly, March 7 2009
No winners only losers of asset values, bailouts given to the intentionally self-destructive, shareholder value vaporized, the tip of the iceberg thus far, why do we pay AIG's bills?, indexes continue to report big shrinkages, hyperinflation wont repair anything, questions of credit and capital, what they are and what they are not. A bleaker future painted for younger people

Black Hole - Retraining For What? - Judith Moriarty, rense.com, 3-9-9
We now have over 31 million on food stamps and thousands living in tent cities. I imagine this isn't shown on the 'news' because it would make people feel bad, worried, fearful? If we just pretend it's not happening - maybe it'll all disappear?

The Zombie Bank Anthem (animation, song) - Mark Fiore

Obamavilles In America - Webster G. Tarpley, Infowars, March 8, 2009
In the depression of the1890s, the term for a breadline was a Cleveland Cafe, named after the Wall Street puppet who turned the government over to JP Morgan, London, and their cross of gold. In the 1930s, a shanty town was a Hooverville. In this depression, the wretched victims of foreclosure by Obama’s pals at Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and JP Morgan live and die in OBAMAVILLES (in Italia le chiameremo Berluscopoli?)


Hedge fund investors turn to gold: But real metal or just manipulated paper? - By Henny Sender and Javier Blas, Financial Times, London, March 8, 2009
Hedge fund investors who made money last year by betting against investment banks are now buying gold as a way of betting against central banks

- Convegno VERSO LA MONETA DEL BENESSERE Come uscire dalla finanza distruttiva - CEN SER, V.le Porta Adige, 45, ROVIGO, dalle 15,00 alle 19,30, domenica 8 marzo 2009

'Run on UK' sees foreign investors pull $1 trillion out of the City - Global Research, March 7, 2009

Barack Obama's Economic Recovery Plan: interview with Prof. Jack Rasmus - By Shamus Cooke, Global Research, March 8, 2009
What is true nationalization? It means totally taking over these banks and financial institutions -- with bondholders and shareholders not just taking a haircut, but taking a scalping. It means getting rid of management. It means consolidating and running these banks on behalf of the interests of the working-class majority in the country. You don't pay dividends. You don't pay stock shares. you take full day-to-day operational control of all strategic decision-making. You run it and turn over the profits for public investment, not to line the pockets of private investors. Without a doubt, what we need is a fully nationalized banking system


FBI Arrests Jan Lindsey, Anti-Tax Activist Featured in “Freedom to Fascism” - KTNV, March 7, 2009
Agents arrested four people, Jan Allen Lindsey, a possible former special investigator for the same bureau, but openly outspoken against the government’s collection of taxes

ICE US Trust LLC - March 05, 2009
Meet the newest shareholder of the Federal Reserve, ICE US Trust LLC, an uninsured trust company organized under New York law, as seen here: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/orders/orders20090304a1.pdf.  "ICE Trust" will become a wholly owned subsidiary of ICE US Holding Company LP (“ICE LP”) as organized under Cayman Island law.  ICE LP is indirectly controlled by Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), traded on the NYSE as "ICE".  ICE’s wholly owned subsidiary, ICE US Holding Company GP LLC (“ICE GP”), a Delaware limited liability company, will be the general partner of ICE LP (il paradiso - fiscale - non è per tutti...)

[global default] Let Sleeping Shadow Banking Systems Lie - By James Saft, Reuters, March 6, 2009
Rather than vainly trying to refloat the shadow banking system, the U.S. would be better off grappling with the inevitable ultimate solution -- debt destruction and inflation

Putin denies rumors of mysterious new world currency - Pravda, 05.03.2009
Putin also said that the crisis would most likely recede in the beginning of 2010. He said that he was certain that the Russian economy would bear the test of the crisis. “The prime goal of the state under these circumstances is to support the real sector of economy and to support the people. I believe that we have enough resources to accomplish that,” he said. “We need to develop the efficient system to support the people, including the unemployed individuals. That is why I came here to this employment center to see how it works,” Putin said.

Così le banche strangolano le imprese - di Paola Setti, il Giornale, 8 marzo 2009
«Non serve leggere libri di economia, ma la Bibbia: noi dobbiamo salvare le famiglie, le imprese. Sarebbe inaccettabile salvare i banchieri falliti, anche se è quello che sta succedendo purtroppo in tante parti del mondo». E tanto per restare in tema: «Serve la saggezza del bonus pater familias, ma troppo spesso le banche hanno pensato più al bonus che alla familias». E allora urge «un cambiamento biblico». Eccolo: la circolare a tutti i prefetti italiani. Sopra c’è scritto che, sul modello francese, in ogni prefettura nascerà un osservatorio di vigilanza sul credito alle imprese e ai lavoratori da parte delle banche. E se poi non bastasse, «a farci dare i soldi ci andiamo io e Giulio col passamontagna» ride Bossi.

Elite Bankers Threatened to Release Weaponized Strain of Avian Flu - Military Coup Against Bankers in Progress - By: Rayelan, RMNews, 8 March 2009
RMNews was just given information from a military special operations field operative (Operazione BANKENSTEIN?)

Top U.S., European Banks Got $50 Billion in AIG Aid - By Serena Ng and Carrick Mollenkamp, The Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2009
Among those institutions are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Germany's Deutsche Bank AG, each of which received roughly $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December 2008, according to a confidential document and people familiar with the matter

Russian TV interviews GATA director on gold suppression - By Adrian Douglas, Gata.org, March 6, 2009
The interview was filmed on Thursday. We had planned 45 minutes together but the cameras were rolling for almost 90 minutes. Marina was enthralled and shocked by what I disclosed to her, the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. I had sent her several pages of background information before the interview and would not have been surprised if I had been classified as "too hot to handle" and the interview was canceled. It was not.

Asian shares fall on concerns over banks - Bloomberg, 06 Mar 2009
Asian stocks fell, dragging the regional benchmark index to a fourth weekly decline, on renewed concern losses at financial institutions will mount as the global recession deepens

[small banks Vs. big banks] Minnesota Bank Asks Why It Pays for Wall Street Greed - By Linda Shen, Bloomberg, March 6, 2009
While regulators encouraged both ailing and healthy banks to take TARP money, losses by big banks and pressure to cut dividends, pay and perks have stigmatized the program for others, Cooper said. “The regulators wrongly suggested we take it,” Cooper said. “Everybody who took the TARP money now is a crook and an evil character.”

Britain has the world's biggest fall in property prices after only Latvia - By Richard Goodwin, Independent, 6 March 2009
Latvia saw the steepest slides on an annual and quarterly basis, with prices dropping by 16 per cent in the final quarter of the year and by 33.5 per cent during the whole of 2008

A million face starvation as Sudan shuts down - The Times, March 6, 2009
Desperate cry for help as victims of Sudan’s fit of anger lose faith, hope – and now charity
[blackmailing Sudan] Warrant Against Sudan President Is a Fraud Intended To Weaken Government - EIRNS, Feb. 27, 2009
The ICC is being used to prevent the Sudan nationalist government from carrying out a nation-wide development strategy which would unify the disparate segments of the country, as it was run by the British at the time the country was part of their colonial empire

I pensionati esigono aumenti per sopravvivere - Andrea Angelini, Rinascita, 6 Marzo 2009
Circa 20 mila pensionati della Cgil sono scesi in piazza a Roma per chiedere al governo che le pensioni siano adeguate all’inflazione (reale). I manifestanti hanno chiesto pure che si dia seguito alla legge di iniziativa popolare sulla non autosufficienza (oltre 2 milioni 800mila persone con una qualche forma di disabilità). Una richiesta sostenuta da un milione di firme, ma che giace dal 2007 nei cassetti del Parlamento... (le proposte di leggi che non difendono gli interessi di casta, sono destinate da sempre ad ammuffire nel dimenticatoio...)

Tremonti: il 2009 peggiore del 2008. Le banche facciano le banche - Sabrina Lauricella, Rinascita, 6 Marzo 2009
“Il rischio più grande è la stretta creditizia”, ha ammonito non senza ragioni Tremonti, secondo il quale ciò significherebbe un meccanismo “in cui tutto si avvita, che stritola imprese, lavoratori e alla fine le banche stesse”. “Il credito per l’economia - ha continuato l’esponente del governo - è un po’ come l’aria per le persone: ti accorgi quanto è importante quando viene a mancare. Il credito non è una variabile indipendente dal Pil. Se il Pil scende, scende la domanda del credito. Ma non è naturale che, con una discesa del Pil, scenda l’offerta del credito” (è ovvio invece: chi ha liquidità se la tiene per comprare i beni di chi. incravattato e strangolato dalla crisi, sarà costretto a cederli a qualsiasi prezzo. A Detroit, negli USA, una casa normale costa ormai 6.000 euro e si può comprare con la carta di credito! La giusta fine di una repubblica da sempre - salvo una breve parentesi - in mano ai cravattari)

Morgan Stanley predicts downturn will be worse than the Depression - Guardian, 6 March 2009
Some bleak predictions from Morgan Stanley this morning including the forecast that UK profits could fall by 60% in the current downturn - a worse performance than the great depression of the 1930s

Dennis Kucinich States His Intention To Put The Federal Reserve Under Government Control (video) - C-Span

IMF Wants Global Financial Religion - March 6 2009
Financial regulators must agree binding international codes of conduct to prevent chaos when crises hit banks operating across national borders, the International Monetary Fund has warned

Imploded: Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, Georgia - The Bank Implode-O-Meter, March 6, 2009
The  FDIC slamed the shutters on the 17th bank of 2009 and handed the bab banks goods to the good bank Northeast Georgia Bank, Lavonia, Georgia

Doubt Cast on $50 Billion Figure in Madoff Case - Tom Hays and Larry Neumeister, The Associated Press, March 6, 2009
Bernard Madoff and $50 billion. His name and that number have become inseparable in describing the enormity of what has been called the largest white-collar fraud in history. Investigators claim Madoff himself told them that he stole $50 billion, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the number may be as fictitious as the sprawling fraud that he allegedly ran. The actual number is not known at this point, but some believe it's less than $20 billion

Obama’s stimulus package aids people with disabilities - By Mike Ervin, The Progrssive, March 5, 2009
For the first time in many years, the White House is taking the side of people with disabilities. In his economic stimulus package that became law, President Obama included several provisions that will have a positive effect for this community

We Came an Inch from Martial Law, Bush Justice Department Memos Reveal - By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, March 3, 2009
This was an “Everything Must Go” fire sale from the Bill of Rights. And we’re just lucky we somehow managed to escape without getting too singed



Pillole della guerra che monta - Daniele Martinelli, 4 marzo 2009
Il commissario Almunia non rimane più composto nelle sue frasi. Dice apertamente che i rischi di un deterioramento nell’Eurozona sono più elevati. Fra i tanti numeri che si rincorrono uno è certo, quello relativo al Pil italiano. Per il 2009 è assestato a meno 2,1% ma nessuno è più in grado di smentire che quel dato possa peggiorare ulteriormente

Food stamp enrollment jumps to record 31.8 million - Reuters, Mar 5, 2009
A record 31.8 million Americans received food stamps at the latest count, an increase of 700,000 people in one month with the United States in recession, government figures showed on Thursday

Bank of America Says Bonus Disclosure Will Cause ‘Grave’ Harm - By Karen Freifeld, Bloomberg, March 5, 2009
“Neither the individual names nor the job titles bear any reasonable or relevant relationship” to Cuomo’s investigation, the firms argued in the documents. “Nor is there a reasonable or relevant reason to disclose such information to the general public.”

BoE Creates  £75bn As Usual From Thin Air - March 5 2009

Bogus peer Hugh Rodley tried to pull off world’s biggest bank raid - The Times, March 5, 2009
Hugh Rodley: enjoyed all the trappings of the British aristocracy. He is so crook he seems for real...

Motorist pulled over and quizzed... for LAUGHING at the wheel - By Chris Brooke, Daily Mail, 05th March 2009
"I never took my eyes off the road and was in full control of the car. Then I noticed the police car flashing its lights and the officer signalling me to pull over. I definitely wasn't speeding so I asked what the problem was and he told me I was laughing too much."

Financial Scam? Pressure to reveal major AIG counterparties grows - by Alistair Barr and Greg Robb, Global Research, March 5, 2009
Calls increased Tuesday to reveal the financial institutions that got almost $40 billion in collateral from American International Group shortly after the government first bailed out the insurer last year

Trichet Indicates ECB May Cut Interest Rates Further - By Jana Randow and Simone Meier, Bloomberg, March 5, 2009
European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet indicated officials will cut the benchmark interest rate further after reducing it to a record low of 1.5 percent today to combat a worsening recession (ma le carte di credito continuano a far pagare il 20%...)

Too Many Overseas Bases - David Vine, Foreign Policy In Focus, February 25, 2009
In the midst of an economic crisis that’s getting scarier by the day, it’s time to ask whether the nation can really afford some 1,000 military bases overseas. For those unfamiliar with the issue, you read that number correctly. One thousand. One thousand U.S. military bases outside the 50 states and Washington, DC, representing the largest collection of bases in world history (soldiers abroad will be recycled for internal riots)

German Police Raid 200 `Neo Nazi' Premises - Reuters, Mar 4, 2009
German police have launched a nationwide search of more than 200 homes and businesses of people suspected of belonging to the country's extreme right, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said Wednesday. "The primary aim of the concerted action by crime fighting authorities is to seize and confiscate prohibited items like music..." (one may ask who are the real nazi over there...)

Detroit's Outlook Falls Along With Home Prices -  By Tim Jones, Chicago Tribune, January 29, 2009
It may be tough to get financing for a new car these days, but in Detroit you can buy a house with a credit card. The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service ... Detroit has been quietly slipping into social and economic crisis for 40 years. One-third of the population lives in poverty, and almost 50 percent of children are in poverty ... There is no major grocery chain in the city, and only two movie theaters. Much of the neighborhood economy revolves around rib joints, hot dog stands and liquor stores

Golden Butter on Inflation Toasted Dollars - By The Mogambo Guru, The Daily Reckoning, 03/05/09
I refer to him as “Usurper Obama” since I have finally concluded that he is not, actually, qualified to be president of the USA by the fact that he is not “American-born” as required by the Constitution, because if he was, then all he has to do is show his birth certificate to somebody and prove it, which he has not only refused to do, but has spent millions of dollars in legal fees to block access to it! Hahaha! Apparently, this fraud has included fighting appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, which has turned away every appeal on the grounds that the petitioner had “no standing” with which to sue (by suffering actual harm), and includes even soldiers who are required to follow Obama’s military orders, who would seem to have lots and lots of “standing”!

Settlement Talks Launched in $22.5 Billion Russian RICO Case Against Bank of New York - David Bario, The American Lawyer, March 5, 2009
Any case that brings together an airline disaster plaintiffs lawyer from Miami; a former U.S. attorney general; Alan Dershowitz; the author of the RICO act; and Jonathan Schiller of Boies, Schiller & Flexner is bound to be a doozy. And indeed, the $22.5 billion suit filed in a Moscow court by Russia's Federal Customs Service against the Bank of New York Mellon two years ago has not disappointed. But like all good things, the so-called Russian RICO case must come to an end

USURA: LE CARTE DI CREDITO STANNO IMPONENDO IL 20%...

Spinello libero. E adesso la pubblicità… - AgoraVox, 5 marzo 2009
Se l’80% dei giovani europei si fa le canne, i campi di marijuana, non dovrebbero cercarli con i satelliti, si dovrebbero vedere col binocolo. Non possono dire che non sanno dove si coltiva, che non sanno dove si lavora, che non sanno chi la distribuisce. Basta pensare che i Talebani rinunciarono al commercio dell’oppio e gli americani lo ripristinarono appena “liberato” l’Afghanistan. Ma allora è o non è una presa in giro che serve solo a tenere alto il prezzo e a far guadagnare i “soliti ignobili” dell’economia mondiale? Guadagni incommensurabili, che guarda caso nessuna banca denuncia?

La notte dei banchieri... viventi - AgoraVox, 5 marzo 2009
“Viva la democrazia, viva il denaro, viva la libertà”, “alla faccia di quel c..... che voleva darci pure il signoraggio sugli spiccioli…”. Erano come tanti bambini ad una festa. Al punto tale che il tassita mi ha detto: “ma è finita la crisi, perciò stanno festeggiando?”

Free Web Tools for the Way You Work - By Nicholas Gaffney, Marketing the Law Firm Newsletter, March 4, 2009
A host of free Web applications are surprisingly effective in helping lawyers and marketing staff stay on top of their game. The trick is knowing which tools out there are worth your time and effort. Here are the apps that made consultant Nicholas Gaffney's top 24 list

Former Gen Re VP Gets Year in Prison for Accounting Fraud - Dave Collins, The Associated Press, March 5, 2009
A former senior vice president at General Re Corp. was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for an accounting fraud scandal that artificially propped up the stock price of insurer American International Group. Christopher Garand was also fined $150,000 for his role in the case, which authorities say cost AIG shareholders more than $500 million. Federal prosecutors say AIG paid Gen Re in a secret deal to take out reinsurance policies with AIG in 2000 and 2001

1776 & Today: It is Time to Refresh the Tree of Liberty - by former Kansas State Trooper, Greg Evensen, NewsWithViews.com, March 5, 2009
I have just finished watching two of my favorite motion pictures, “The Patriot” with Mel Gibson and “Red Dawn.” Although produced in liberal Hollywood, they did capture­in our imaginations­at least, the view that some Americans, at the time when their country and countrymen needed them the most, responded courageously to tyranny and evil with personal determination and great sacrifice...

An Economy Underwater - by Jon Christian Ryter, NewsWithViews.com, March 5, 2009
What happens when the whole economy sinks underwater like Atlantis? Other than fading into oblivion, that is. The tsunami-like impact will closely resemble what happens to a home owner with a mortgage that is construed to be underwater­only on a much grander, and much more devastating, scale. When the balance owed on the home's mortgage exceeds the appraised value of the home, that mortgage is said to be underwater. Conversely, when the aggregate sum of the debts owed by a nation to its creditors exceed the ability of the nation to repay those debts

Immigration: Importing Murder, Mayhem and a New Underclass - by Frosty Wooldridge, NewsWithViews.com, March 5, 2009
Anyone notice mass murder happening on our southern border. Within the last 24 months, 8,700 Mexicans died in gunfire, beheadings and other Bonnie and Clyde-style killings. Innocent men, women and children found themselves in drug cartel crossfire. That battle spills over into the U.S. in Los Angeles, Dallas and Phoenix with over 20,000 MS-13 gang members operating in dozens of our major cities...

- AMI: Free Monetary Seminar in Chicago at Roosevelt University on Wednesday evening, March 4th, 6:30 PM at the Spertus Room, 2nd floor: "How our ridiculous banking and monetary system brought down the US and World economies"

[usury-keeping] Ron Paul: Iraq is a Powder Keg (video) - By tmartin, March 4, 2009
In this speech to Congress, Ron Paul points out that US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to drain US financial resources, undermine the national defense, demoralize the military and exacerbate the financial crisis

Subprime Eastern Europe to Bankrupt Western European Banks - By: Nadeem Walayat, Market Oracle, March 04, 2009
The situation has reached such a crisis point in Latvia that anyone that reports on the truth is being arrested by the Latvian security forces as an omen that economic turmoil means a return towards tyranny as I wrote of in early December 08 - (Latvia Protects its Banking System by Arresting Economist For Speaking the Truth), as the Latvian secret police arrested Dmitrijs Smirnovs, a university professor for delivering gloomy forecasts on the prospects for the Latvian economy and the state of the Latvian banking system

How to Resolve AIG & Citi; Walker Todd on Stress Testing the Banks - IRA, March 4, 2009
The "stress test" used in 1933 was very simple, unlike modern stress tests, which take months or years to develop, if done correctly. It took only a week for the 1933 stress test to be done for 12,000 banks. You can bet it will take months for the modern stress tests to be done for the 19 banks to be tested. So it is clear that we will get a "stress test" that is so complex it cannot be questioned by the average person, but still so hurried that it will not be mathematically valid. That means it is a LIE, which is being used to give regulators freedom of action

U.S. private sector cuts 697,000 jobs in February - By Burton Frierson, Reuters, Mar 4, 2009
ADP said on Wednesday that private employers cut 697,000 jobs in February versus a revised 614,000 jobs lost in January. The January job cuts were originally reported at 522,000. It was the biggest job loss since the report's launch in 2001 and showed the misery of declining employment spreading broadly and evenly throughout the economy ( 1.3 million families will starve )

The U.S. Financial System: A Flimsy House of Paper Promises - By The Mogambo Guru, Daily Reckoning, 03/04/09
So while there is no macro, systemic solution to our problems, you will be happy to know that a solution exists on the personal level, which is to buy gold, silver and oil, as these will positively soar when the inflation in prices inevitably follows such an explosion in government spending all this new money and credit created by the Federal Reserve just for this horrifying spectacle of governmental orgiastic gluttony

White House Knocks Jim Cramer For Calling Obama Budget "Greatest Wealth Destruction By a President" (video) - RMNews, 4 March 2009

[naked short] Ted Butler: The smoking gun, Part II - Gata.org, March 3, 2009
Silver market analyst Ted Butler reports today on the latest commitment-of-traders (COT) data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and says the concentration in the short position in silver is now the greatest concentration in any U.S. commodity market, long or short, in history

Let the rich pay a share - by Eugene McCartan, Spectrezine, March 4, 2009
The mass protest in Dublin on Saturday 21st February was officially called over a 10 per cent levy on public-sector workers' pensions. In reality it was about far more. The struggle is being played out against a backdrop of economic meltdown in Ireland, once lauded as the Celtic Tiger but now exposed and increasingly threatened as boom turns to bust. Years of back-to-back growth are being reversed and Ireland's financial system is now on the brink of collapse

Report exposes failures of EU financial regulation - Spectrezine, March 4th, 2009
With financial markets collapsing throughout the world, and the effects beginning to be felt in the ‘real economy’, many people and the governments in particular of smaller member states are looking to the European Union to offer a solution. A new independent study, however, shows that the EU is, as things stand, more part of the problem than part of its solution

Elie Wiesel Says He Can't Forgive Bernie Madoff - CNN, February 27, 2009
Elie Wiesel, the Nazi concentration camp survivor who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, showed little inclination this week to make peace with accused swindler Bernie Madoff, whom he called "one of the greatest scoundrels, thieves, liars, criminals." "Could I forgive him? No," the 80-year-old told a panel assembled Thursday ... "We thought he was God, we trusted everything in his hands," the Boston University humanities professor said. Wiesel put his friend's loss at $50 million

Video: Lindsey Williams Talks About Jonathan May - Economic Hitman - Phone Conversation from Jail - By: Rayelan, RMNews, 4 March 2009
Jonathan May formerly worked for the International Monetary Fund in England. In the early 1980s he came to America with a plan to release Americans from debt to the banking system by employing the same "credit creating" system used by international banking. The law governing this system is the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). May was initially successful. Eventually, however, he was targeted and imprisoned by the banking system

Growth in violence against women feared as recession hits - Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian, Wednesday 4 March 2009
A government booklet offering advice to women on how to deal with recession-related domestic violence and discrimination from employers will be issued today, reflecting concern that women are to be worst hit by the economic crisis

Barak Obama bids to stamp out tax havens - By Nick Mathiason, guardian.co.uk, 4 March 2009
US administration backs legislation that could end centuries of banking secrecy. It will be seen as a severe blow to places such as Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, which store an estimated $13 trillion (£9.2tn) of privately held, untaxed wealth

Mozambique: growth with poverty - By Paul Fauvet, afrol News, 4 March 2009
Besides the bilateral creditors, both the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) exercise significant policy leverage through their lending. If they are not satisfied with Mozambique's implementation of IMF/World Bank programmes, they can suspend lending, which in turn endangers funds from bilateral sources. Prime Minister Mocumbi, responding in a parliamentary debate to opposition complaints that the government is taking orders from foreigners, acknowledged, "We are a country that begs, and beggars have their sovereignty curtailed." Agreements reached with the Bank, Fund and other creditor institutions have included a wide variety of policy targets and conditions... (everywhere... the same blackmail)

Parliamentarians delay Gaddafi’s oil revenue plan - afrol News, 4 March 2009
Libyan parliament has put on hold the implementation of Muammar Gaddafi's ambitious plan to distribute oil proceeds among the people, state media has reported (Why?) Mr Gaddafi had accused state bank officials of having stolen millions in public funds...

[economic euthanasia] UNESCO study warns of extreme financial crisis impact on Africa - afrol News, 3 March, 2009
The report also highlights the prospect of an increase of between 200,000 and 400,000 in infant mortality and that child malnutrition, already rising, will be one of the main drivers of higher child death rates

Vatican Perspective: The Global Financial Crisis. Papal Encyclical Coming - by Robert Moynihan, Global Research, March 3, 2009
As the 16-month-old disintegration of the post-World War II financial system seems to be accelerating to a climax, Pope Benedict XVI is preparing a major papal encyclical outlining the principles behind a just and stable economy

CBS Blows the Whistle: Families Freezing in Nation’s Poorest County: PUBLIC UTILITIES “CUT” ON CROW CREEK RESERVATION - 03/02/2009
Electric company caught “pulling meters” in the poorest community in the nation, leaving America’s most vulnerable people without power in the dead of winter. Predatory electric companies continue to conduct these atrocious practices amid growing public outcry and damning national media scrutiny...

Hamish McRae: The sudden destruction of wealth - The Independent, 4 March 2009
"It could easily be a decade before the wealth that has been lost has been rebuilt." So tell us Hamish - how has this 'wealth' been destroyed? Is it crops drying in parched fields? Or maybe flooded, water-logged and rotting? Have millions of factories and their products gone up in flames? Have millions of houses collapsed in sudden earthquakes? Or are you talking about numbers going down on computer screens?

Colbertism - Out of the frying pan into the fire - Arthur Edwards, Friends of Associative Economics Bulletin, March 2009
Thus far the rude awakening has not been not for creditors (whose assets could simply have been written down, if honest dealing had prevailed, but will now be devalued through inflation) as much as for tax-payers (who have been made liable for privately incurred debts). In the play-off between banking and political interests, it was the politicians who stood down, both fearing the ramifications of a wipe-out and not fully understanding the nature of the circumstance into which they were drawn

INDUSTRIALIZED CIVILIZATION MUST COLLAPSE - By Betty Freauf, NewsWithViews.com, March 4, 2009
Daniel Wood related a conversation he had with Maurice Strong regarding a novel Strong wanted to write. Wood writes: “Strong explains as background to the telling of the novel’s plot, the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland… A small group of those world leaders ‘would come to the conclusion that the rich countries would not sign an agreement (like at the Earth Summit in 1992) reducing their impact upon the environment, so in order to save the plant, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilization collapse?’”

TREASURY TO SELL $450 BILLION OF TRASH PER MONTH - Chistopher Story, 3 March 2009
Certainly, in nearly 40 years of watching second-rate US and British politicians and policymakers mess up everything that they touch, the Editor of this service has never observed any US Budget presentation as devoid of common sense as is implied by the Federal Budget that Barack Obama introduced in February, having torn up the Budget presented by his discredited predecessor’s Administration (at enormous cost to the taxpayer, of course) and replaced it with a set of numbers so fanciful and ridiculous that one can hardly believe that the OMB didn’t hire lunatics from the local asylum to prepare this scandalous piece of official documentation

La Bce prepara misure di allentamento non convenzionali - ILSOLE24ORE.COM, 3 marzo 2009
Il potere totalmente discrezionale di destinare il potere d'acquisto sottratto impunemente alla comunità, senza supervisione democratica, tramite l'emissione di nuova moneta, è sempre stato esercitato dalle banche centrali attraverso le operazioni di mercato aperto. La differenza sta nel fatto che ora la cosa diventa di pubblico dominio

To Catch a Thief - by Lynn Stuter, NewsWithViews.com, March 3, 2009
Americans who are watching, learned this week that the American people were lied to back in September when George Bush told the people that the $700 billion bailout bill, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), just had to happen to save the banks and Wall Street. And when Americans learned that banks who received TARP money were paying CEO’s big bonuses, taking executives to lavish spas, ordering jets, vacationing in the Caribbean, and going on hunts in England after “taking” TARP money, they were understandably upset, hammering Congress with angry e-mails...

Casa, arriva il mutuo sociale per le famiglie a basso reddito - Susanna Novelli, Il Tempo, 03/03/2009
La rata non potrà superare il 20 per cento dello stipendio mensile. Forse è presto per definirla "rivoluzione", ma certamente la delibera che istituisce il "mutuo sociale" è destinata a scrivere una pagina del tutto nuova sul fronte dell'emergenza abitativa

[seigniorage masters at work] British PM to Propose 'Global New Debt' to Rescue World's Economy - FOXNews.com, March 01, 2009
Nurturing the gigantic debt bubble, Brown's 21st century deal calls for "universal action to prevent the crisis spreading" and "action to kick-start lending so that families and businesses can borrow again."  It also requires "reform of international regulation to close regulatory gaps" and "the creation of an international early warning system."

[seigniorage masters at work] Another market analyst says gold is manipulated - Gata.org, March 2, 2009
MineWeb has reprinted from The Gold Report an interview with German market analyst Sascha Opel, who remarks, in part, that gold's rise will be limited by manipulation by the financial establishment

Major RAND study with 300 interviews: Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan - Wkileaks, March 2, 2009
"We also spent a lot of time, money, blood, and treasure on going after MVTs [medium- value targets] and HVTs... and I dont think it had a great deal of effect on the Taliban because they are not hierarchical. If we killed one guy, they just replaced him in about 10 minutes... " (un popolo che combatte per difendere la sua terra ha motivazioni diverse da quelle dei mercenari invasori che vengono per imporre un modello economico-finanziario già strafallito in casa loro...)

CRISI: BERSANI, PER ASSEGNO DISOCCUPAZIONE SERVONO 5-6 MLD - ASCA, 02-03-09
Non è vero, basta usare i "biglietti di stato" a costo di stampa e un po' di buona volontà (e onestà intellettuale) per mobilitare le risorse lavorative ed impedire l'implosione delle PMI - prima che sia troppo tardi. Se lo stato italiano ha paura dei banchieri, potrebbe intervenire lo stato Vaticano - o anche San Marino...

Le parrocchie anticrisi: prestiti a tasso zero e accordi con le banche - Gian Guido Vecchi, Corriere della Sera, 02 marzo 2009
A Pavia, Vigevano e Tortona vengono concessi duemila euro ai fedeli, senza interessi e con rate personalizzate (affiancando i buoni regionali di solidarietà, si potrebbe far di più e più velocemente, ma occorre modificare il paradigma...)

Buffett Says Economy ‘In Shambles,’ Promises Recovery - By Erik Holm and Andrew Frye, Bloomberg, March 2, 2009
Billionaire Warren Buffett said the economy will be “in shambles” this year, and perhaps longer, before recovering from the reckless lending that caused the worst “freefall” he ever saw in the financial system

Court Filing Says Former Judge Met With Felons Twice a Month - Leo Strupczewski and Hank Grezlak, The Legal Intelligencer, March 2, 2009
Former Pennsyvlania Judge Michael Conahan used to hold meetings about twice a month with a reputed mob boss and a common friend -- also an admitted felon -- to discuss pending court cases, according to a supplement to a King's Bench petition filed with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday. Conahan and Mark Ciavarella Jr. have pleaded guilty to charges they accepted $2.6 million in kickbacks from the owner and builder of a juvenile detention center, to which they allegedly steered juveniles (it is a pity that it was not a prison for bankers...)

- February 27 – March 1, 2009: Eighth Congress of the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network, Sheraton New York Hotel, 811 Seventh Avenue at 53rd Street., New York, USA
Sixty-seven speakers will participate in the USBIG Network’s Eighth Congress in New York February 27 – March 1. The conference will cover a large range of topics, including “Basic Income and the Economic Recovery;” “Human Behavior, Incentives, and Anti-Poverty Policy;” “Social Justice and Economic Wellbeing;” “Government as the Employer of Last Resort;” “Alternative Responses to Poverty;” “Monetary Reform;” “The Politics of BIG;” “Poverty in Canada;” “Bringing Basic Income into Mainstream Politics;” and many more

Is Chancellor Angela Merkel A Former Communist Spy? - by Trowbridge H. Ford, 1 March 2009
To take advantage of Merkel's potential, Markus Wolf's foreign section of the Stasi, the Hauptverwaltung Aufkluring (HVA), recruited her, it seems, to handle illegal agents the GDR was sending across The Wall to gather secrets from research facilities in the Federal Republic (FRG), France, Norway, and other Western countries - what she had learned about from her meetings and contacts at the Institute

A planet at the brink? - by Michael T Klare, Global Research, March 1, 2009
As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, bankers, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities

Who will Rescue Us as Our Economy Stays in Free Fall? - by Danny Schechter, Global Research, March 1, 2009
And there is no way to quantify that because they're not asking questions of the banks that created this stuff. They're not saying 'you know what? Give us an accurate picture, every single one of you.' Which is most of the banks in the country. Certainly ones participated more than others and throughout the world. 'Tell us what you own. Tell us what you borrow. Tell us what your loss is. Give us exact numbers. Don't tell us you don't know how to evaluate it.'

These bankers are lucky that they are not going to jail - Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer, 1 March 2009
The government has been too timid about confronting these failed financiers. It's time that it showed some teeth

Harvard’s masters of the apocalypse - Philip Delves Broughton, The Sunday Times, March 1, 2009
If his fellow Harvard MBAs are all so clever, how come so many are now in disgrace? If Robespierre were to ascend from hell and seek out today’s guillotine fodder, he might start with a list of those with three incriminating initials beside their names: MBA. The Masters of Business Administration, that swollen class of jargon-spewing, value-destroying financiers and consultants have done more than any other group of people to create the economic misery we find ourselves in

Imprisoned IRS Agent Sherry Peel Jackson Challenges Black People to Remove Their Invisible Shackles - By: Rayelan, RMNews, 1 March 2009
Tax Protestor, and former IRS Agent, Sherry Peel Jackson. Mrs. Jackson used to work for the Internal Revenue Service and now gives advice to tax protestors. Mrs. Jackson was sentenced to prision for evading income taxes

TOMORROW'S WHEAT - By Paul Cappadona, NewsWithViews.com, March 1, 2009
It is the people’s job to indict as well as convict. It is the people that create jurisdiction by way of the grand juries. Reason with your group; get them to do something that can make a difference or get out. We must force our elected DA to impanel a special free grand jury to investigate the corruption and fraud that has gone un-indicted. It is our job to investigate crimes; it is not the job of the foxes that guard the hen house. We have left this power in the street for to long it must be reclaimed

MI5 Alert On Bank Riots - Daily Express, 01 Mar 2009
Army put on standby --MI5 and Special Branch are targeting activists. If the police force is unable to cope, the Government has a contingency plan to deploy troops on the streets of Britain's major cities. Top secret contingency plans have been drawn up to counter the threat posed by a "summer of discontent" in Britain. The "double-whammy" of the worst economic crisis in living memory and a motley crew of political extremists [? Underestimate numbers at your own peril, morons!] determined to stir up civil disorder has led to the ­extraordinary step of the Army being put on standby. MI5 and Special Branch are targeting activists they fear could inflame anger over job losses and payouts to failed bankers. One of the most notorious anarchist websites, Class War, asks: "How to keep warm ­during the credit crunch? Burn a banker." Such remarks have rung alarm bells in Scotland Yard and the Ministry of Defence

"As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities" -- Voltaire

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Petizioni

Shut Down The Federal Reserve System (sign the petition)
(già raccolte 36.000 firme)
Petition: Transatlantic Seigniorage Dialogue - Petizione: per un dialogo Transatlantico sul Signoraggio

Riassunto del Sistema

"If you go back to the CIA's origins during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, the whole OSS was really nothing but Wall Street bankers and lawyers."
- Alvin Bernard "Buzzy" Krongard - 

  

"Les vrais mafieux lisent le Financial Time ou le Wall Street Journal"
Voilà ce qu’écrivait Denis Robert dans « une affaire personnelle » sorti en avril 2008... "Certains banquiers sont comme les barons de Cosa nostra. Ils démarrent soldati, montent en grade. Capodecina, consigliere. Pour finir : capo dei capi. Ils agissent, mais ne parlent pas. L’omertà est la règle. La discipline dans les deux cas est militaire. Je ne parle pas des chefs d’agence ou des petits banquiers. Eux ce sont des soldats. Je parle de leurs généraux. Je parle des types à la tête des banques..."

Ogni governo può creare, emettere e far circolare tutta la valuta ed il credito necessari per soddisfare le proprie necessità di spesa ed il potere d'acquisto dei consumatori
- Abraham Lincoln, sedicesimo presidente degli Stati Uniti
(L'ovvio corollario è: se il tuo governo non lo fa, chiediti perché...)

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance."
- James Madison (4th US President)
(L'ovvio corollario è: se il tuo potere giudiziario non li persegue, chiediti perché...)

". . . as [the usurer] fed on insolvency and controlled legislation, the laws were as ingeniously contrived for creating debt, as for making it profitable when contracted. . . As the capitalists owned the courts and administered justice, they had the means at hand of ruining any plebeian whose property was tempting."
- Brooks Adams -

"The purpose of a court in a civilised society is the vindication of men's rights and the enforcement of just causes"
- Lord Thomas Denning -