Bankster gangsters

            

Cyprus banks are open now but as was reported yesterday the exact details were a bit liberal in the numbers. Seems folks were told they could withdraw 300 euros when in fact they could only withdraw 100. None leaving the country can carry more than 1000 euros (down from 3000) and folks paying for college out of the country are limited to 5000 euros per quarter (down from 10,000).

The russians were notified of the current situation some 6 months ago and began withdrawing their money. (Nothing like insider information to protect your wealth.) So who's next on this slow motion train wreck? There's indications that Slovenia is reaching that market stress that's becoming more and more prevalent. In the last tow weeks their bond yields went from 4.5% to 6.5% meaning they are looking for money to prop up a sagging economy.

On Thursday, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, tried to limit fears of contagion, saying Cyprus was a very special case and the EU had found the right solution for it. He said Luxembourg had a completely different business model to Cyprus and any comparison of the two would be absurd.

(You will note that the German finance minister is trying hard to protect the Luxembourg brand. Wonder how much money he has stashed there?)

As I see it this bail out thing is all a temporary band aid when the money is not going for things that would actually count like rebuilding infrastructure fixing schools and hospitals and the like. But do keep your eyes peeled as other nations suffer the same fate because poop does roll and it may be headed this way. Should the european union crumble it will bring the rest of us down with it. We are after all tied together financially with the rest of the world like it or not.

Oh and forget the tommy gun. A pen or laptop is so much neater and cleaner.  

News you can't use and could probably care less about

                                    

UK banks have a capital shortfall of $38 billion 

(Okay that's nothing new. Most of our banks are under capitalized but  that leads to the next headline which makes little sense)

Pound rises to Six week high against Euro

(Here's the rub as Shakespeare would say. UK has been doing about the exact same austerity measures as Spain Italy and Greece. Maybe not on such a grand scale but no less harmful to the social programs than the other countries.)  

No cashing of checks in Cyprus

(Oh that's going to go over big come payday when most people get their paychecks ) So like the Hotel California deposit will be permitted but only 100 euros will be permitted to be withdrawn. That'll go over big with folks wanting to buy a house or car. And if you think this is bad enough here's the rest of their hair brained scam:

• All savings accounts must run until their expiry date - with no early withdrawals allowed.

• Cashing of cheques will be suspended, but 'cheque deposits' will be allowed.

• Individuals will only be allowed to take €3,000 in cash on each trip out of the country.

• Cypriots will only be allowed to transfer up to €10,000 per quarter for fellow citizens who are studying abroad.

• All credit/debit card transactions abroad will be capped at €5,000 per person, per month.

• The measures will apply to all accounts, regardless of the currency it uses.

• Import payments will be allowed when 'the relevant documents' are provided to the authorities.

• They will run for seven days

(Somebody see a run on tar and feathers here?) 

Paging Mr. Berra

                

Judging by the Cyprus bail out deal you'd think the financial market just won the Powerball lottery twice in a row. Not so fast Mr Gotrocks.  Articles plastered across the financial news tout a last minute bail out deal. All well and good for those who only read the headline and not the meat of the articles. We heard last week that depositors would take a 10% haircut on their accounts which caused the beginnings of a run on the banks. When that idea didn't fly it was back to the drawing board and the new plan calls for even more suffering with a proposed plan of anywhere between 20 and 40%. So you didn't like the plan of the bully punching you in the face? Well then this time he'll kick you in the nuts too. How do you like them apples?

But seriously this was all caused by several factors. Cyprus was in great financial shape just a few years ago but when it got sucked into the black whole of the housing and derivatives market then the picture turned bleak very fast. The nations' debt was a mere 2% of GDP back in 2004 jumping to 6% a few years later. Russia is said to have some 20 billion in investments which might be puzzling considering the main source of income for the nation like Greece is tourism. Ah but it was those tax breaks that sank the ship. Cyprus became a tax haven for wealthy Russians looking for a place to hide their gold and cash. And since Cyprus is a part of the Euro zone it can't print it's own money to stabilize it's markets should things go awry which they did. And the irony is not lost in that it was Germany in the 1930s who faced the very same situation only the names were changed.

So as the Wall Street boys pop their corks on the bubbly the game isn't over yet. What would you do knowing your bank statement would be 20% or more lighter if and when the banks open again? And limiting the amount of withdrawals to 100 euros isn't going to make for a healthy economy any time soon. Most food and rent is more than that these days. 

The underlying plan is to separate the assets of the two largest banks and creating a good bank and a bad bank. We've seen this before and it's the same story. The banksters get the assets while the taxpayers get the debt. Focus on the assets and forget about the debt because after all it's been sequestered into a bad bank. And yet again it's privatize the profits and socialize the losses. These crooks must think we're stupid.     

Chilly Friday beaver

                                   

Second day of spring and what do we get? Snow of course. Poor beavers don't know what to think so I guess they'll have to wait it out until later in the day after it all melts. That's the way we roll up here in the northwest.

Cyprus isn't looking too good. They know if they open the banks there'll be a run on cash like money is free. Can't fault them for that. Would you want your account drained by 6 to 10% when it wasn't you who screwed up? Let's face it the country will default so just bring in the vultures and be done with it. Iceland made it out okay.

Today is World Water Day the focus being on sustainable safe drinking water for the billions on the planet. The two major sources of problems are the industrial pollutants we dump into our waterways every day and the fact that 2.5 billion have no toilet and resort to "doing it" wherever is convenient. Sad fact is that a simple sand filter can be fashioned and is cheap to operate. They've been using these in Africa for years. If only we'd think simply instead of creating high tech complicated computerized systems.

Here's something I bet nobody ever thought about. We've heard so much about gay marriage but nobody thought about gay divorce. How is that going to work out? Which one's the wife and which one's the husband? Who pays child support and who pays alimony? Judges are going to have a fun time with that.

South Korea

Quick background and how things change. We fought the north to a stalemate along side the south Korean forces. All was frozen in time since the early 50s. The youth of the country forgot what it was all about and became complacent. With mounting tensions and more saber rattling it should be a wake up call. Now we have a cyberattack. The source is said to come from China but as we all know web addresses can be hidden. You can put on your tin foil hat and make all kinds of conspiracy theories out of that one. But it will be interesting to see what korean youth makes of all this. I'm sure being plugged into the electronic information age they must be a bit concerned by now. It is after all a worry when you hit an ATM for a weekend of fun and the thing won't work that they might take notice. Or perhaps this was a test of our own cyber abilities like some sort of black flag operation. We may never know.  But it is a bit disheartening to think that maybe your money isn't quite as safe as you thought it was. Banks are said to have the best encryption codes or so they say.

Our Bank fails later
Update: No fails this week  

Liar Liar Hypocrite

Blogger is not being nice the last few days so we'll see what happens here. (Just checked and this is all screwed up) Compose mode is broken.

It's hard to dig through the lies and deceptions of late. The boy who cried wolf has nothing on our news media. Iraq 'celebrates' it's 10 year anniversary. Now there was the grandaddy of all lies. No WMDs. No Saddam climbing in bed with Bin Ladin. Over 4000 U.S. troops and 100,000 Iraqis dead and a price tag of over 2 trillion dollars (all things there are true except truth is the first casualty of war).

 Then there's the "stupid" party telling us that it's our fault that the country is in such a mess from something we did not do. Like the fat lady who's dress bulges at the seams they think another dress would suit them better to get invited to the White House ball. Not enough lip stick in the world to fix that pig. They say they're for women's issues all the while taking away more of their rights. As I've always said judge someone by their actions and not their words.

Rand Paul comes out as the sweetheart of the CPAC gathering. If he's their boy in 2016 then they have a lot of work to do. This is the libertarian who much like Rick Perry of Texas would like nothing better than to eliminate much of government conveniently forgetting that we actually need oversight in things like the operation of our airports and nuclear plants. He'd also delight to a return to the pre 1960s days of 'whites only' signs over his business. But the biggest lies are when the news is flipped on it's head as with Fox News or Faux Noise whichever you prefer. Rand Paul supports illegal aliens (the tea bag crowd isn't going to like that one) Must have secure borders touts Rand. (And how does that work with border patrol when you want to slash government, hum?)

Cypriot parliament rebels against a european hand out. (Those ungrateful scamps, how dare they not want to drain their bank accounts and give it to people who don't need it?) Arms depot explosion (that'll teach them to use cheap American made mortar shells, next time use cheap Chinese made shells. Much cheaper and reliable too.)

Hypocrite Obama urges Palestine to return to the peace table.
(All the while using drones on Pakistan. Ah but that's different. And let's not talk about what they'd like to do to Iran.)

India passes sweeping bill on crimes against women. (We have a half dozen mass shootings and can't pass gun legislation.)

UK passes draconian cuts to social programs. (While giving its' legislative body a pay raise.)

Eurozone economic downturn (No shite Sherlock. That's what happens when you cut spending and there's no jobs left to support your Ponzi scheme.)

XL pipeline study exposed as a hoax A supposed State Department study was actually done by oil industry. The study was done by a company hired by TransCanada who is going to build the pipeline. ERM insists that it has no ties to the Canadian contractor yet all of it's sources for the impact came from other companies in the industry. TransCanada is in partnership with the Koch brothers and you know they have no regard for the planet. (They wouldn't lie to us now would they?)

Pope supported civil unions as a cardinal (And his boss didn't excommunicate him then? Might want to check his hard drive for provocative alter boy pics while you're at it too.)

Look at those legs

                                         

U.S. news sources are slowly becoming irrelevant. They wonder why so many are turning to the web for their daily news fix and never once stopped to consider they have become trivial relics, no make that dinosaurs of an evolution morphed into trite infotainment. (Side note: even my idiot spell check knew that last word)

While the "Lame" stream media would have us focus on the latest starlets' night out of debauchery other far more important events are happening around the world that just might effect the price of tea in china.

All the while we, the underlings, are spoon fed the drivel of NASCAR crashes and peek a boo shots of Hollywood  nether regions as things that actually affect our lives are happening in real time on a global scale.

Cypress government had just agreed to do something unthinkable. Faced with inevitable bankruptcy it agreed to scalp all bank accounts by almost 10% in order to pay a debt not made by it's customers. Imagine if they did something like that over here. With so many living pay check to pay check the sheer volume of rubber checks would surely be enough to start a condom factory with enough for a world supply and then some. But no, our government is far sneakier than that. They continue to boil the frog as the expression goes by slipping cuts to bills that have nothing to do with the budget. You will note (if you were paying attention) that George W. neatly slipped by us no less than a dozen tax breaks for corporations most of which were under the guise of national security. Ever bill passed his second term had little goodies squarely directed at his "base" the uber  wealthy.

So where does one go for a daily fix of reality and real news that might actually mean something in our meager existence? Best method is to turn to foreign sources that have few ties to corporate controlled media. However I see even they are slowly being tainted with the money being thrown around. If you can get past the rhetoric of some foreign ideologies you just might find out what's really happening or did happen. But judging by what is happening on a world scale it takes no Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there's a class warfare going on and it's not looking any prettier as the days go by. At every turn we were promised greater stability and jobs if only the next bill was passed and it hasn't happened yet. And so the cavalcade of crisis continues and we see the water in the pot get warmer and warmer as it gets closer to boiling. Frog legs anyone?  

As for news try the Guardian  or Headline Grabber they at least cover what isn't being covered here.

How did I get here?

Or more importantly how did they get in here? From time to time I check the traffic here at casa Demeur. Not that I really care as this is a non monetary site ie no greenbacks have changed hands (what do you think I am some kind of prostitute? Don't answer that). But I was surprised to find traffic from some of the oddest places. The U.S. came in at first place followed by Poland? I'll have to investigate this further. I am not nor have I ever been polish. Not even a distant long lost relative has hailed from there. So it makes me wonder why they'd have a fascination with this little blog. Polish sausage is okay and I've eaten a proggie or two over the years but other than that it's a mystery.

Then there's the sources referring URLs they call them. Again a mystery. Google search I can understand. Someone looking for one thing and stumbling onto another. I've done that enough times myself. Or maybe it was just random web surfing as in click on the next button at the top and see what comes up. That can be fun at times. 

This could be a plot and not the communist kind. Most true communists got sucked into the capitalist black hole with ping pong diplomacy. That only leaves one alternative. The CIA is doing secret ops through Poland or maybe the former Polish pope started a clandestine organization before he passed. And that leaves other more sinister thoughts to bear. If the CIA was said to close it's overseas rendition operations then where are they holding their interrogations now? Fearless leader never gave us a clue when he closed them.  That just might leave the following guys to consider. They did after all manage to conceal their wrong doings for a good 40 or 50 years. 

The Mafia has nothing on these guys. Wonder if they kept their "enhanced" interrogation equipment left over from the Spanish Inquisition because after all "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition".