Monday, September 8, 2014

BANK COLLAPSE - BAIL INNS & 0% BANK DEPOSIT RATES


If you're looking around right now for a new bank account that pays a reasonable rate of return, ANZ bank has a hell of a deal for you: 0%!

That's right. ANZ is offering its depositors absolutely zero interest.

Now, a bank paying 0% isn't exactly abnormal in today's banking environment. But what's really strange is that ANZ actually took out an ad in an Australian newspaper to advertise this.

Yesterday's page 10 of the Australian Financial Review (AFR) had a quarter-page ad from ANZ boasting about 0% interest rates for accounts denominated in number of foreign currencies, including Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen, British pounds, and more.

Curiously, in order to qualify for this bargain 0% rate, you have to meet a rather significant deposit minimum.

For the 0% Japanese yen account, for example, you have to deposit 23.5 million yen (currently about $223,000 US dollars).

So basically some manager at ANZ actually thought that paying 0% interest on substantial account minimums would be an attractive offer... so attractive, in fact, that they should brag about it in the newspaper.

This is so completely ridiculous. But it really crystalizes what's wrong with the entire financial system.

We're told to keep our money in banks... that banks are safe. But the objective data tells a completely different story.

Holding money in most banks guarantees that you will lose money.

Adjusting for taxes and inflation, you're losing at least 2% per year, even if you believe the governments' notoriously understated official inflation statistics.

This level of absurdity pushes people into riskier and riskier assets, simply in an effort to avoid LOSING money.

Case in point-- the government of Spain recently issued 1 BILLION euros worth of bonds that yield a paltry 4%. And they're due in 2064.

Bear in mind, Spain is completely broke. And just two years ago the government had to pay 7.5% on ten year notes.

Now people are lending money to the Spanish government for 50 fucking years at just 4%.

This is insane.

But couldn't this insanity last forever? Couldn't the grand wizards of the financial system continue to engineer one deranged bailout after another for decades to come?

Possibly. But unlikely.

Right now the US dollar is the world's dominant reserve currency. This gives the United States nearly total control of the global financial system.

In order to clear cross-border trade transactions, foreign banks HAVE to use the US banking system which is controlled by the US government.

Further, rest of the world must essentially mirror US Federal Reserve policy.

But this power... and insanity... only lasts as long as the US dollar is the dominant reserve currency. And this is starting to change rapidly.

China's renminbi is becoming much more widely accepted around the world for trade settlement; a number of foreign governments are now holding renminbi reserves and doing deals to promote trade in renminbi.

Even in the United States, renminbi payment business increased 327% last year, and the US is now the fifth largest offshore renminbi settlement center.

It's no secret here, this is happening right under our noses. The financial system IS changing.

People who ignore this trend do so at their own financial peril.

Yet those who understand what's happening and align themselves accordingly stand to make fortunes.

The Weimar Republic's episode with hyperinflation in the 1920s is a great example.

Despite all the warning signs, most people did nothing... and they got wiped out.

A handful of people, though, saw the writing on the wall. They took steps to safeguard what they had. And they allocated their investment capital to bet that the currency would collapse.

They were right. And vast fortunes were created in a matter of months.

Throughout history there's always a handful of people ahead of the trend. And they're rewarded for their foresight.

Right now we're in the very early stages of a similar transition, arguably one of the most important economic transformations since the Industrial Revolution.

Because of this, opportunities already abound if you know where to look. It's an incredibly exciting time to be alive.
 
 

"This is not the country that I grew up in..."?

Do you ever look around and think, "This is not the country that I grew up in..."?

Many people are making this realization. They're utterly disgusted by what they see happening at home. And they feel powerless to stop it.

Think about what's happened just in the past two years:

The US government has brazenly continued its arrogant domestic spying program despite overwhelming public opposition. So much for a government "for the people"...

Banks in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the UK have begun restricting how much customers can withdraw.

Banks in the United States are now restricting their customers' international wire transfers.

And of course, banks in Cyprus completely froze people out of their accounts.

Everyone from the International Monetary Fund, ANZ CEO Mike Smith to leading Harvard economists have been calling for capital controls (which will lock your money inside a failing banking system).

"Wealth taxes" are also being proposed... again by the IMF, as well as several central banks around the world.

Poland nationalized private pension funds last year, and the new US MyRA program has been set up for you to loan your retirement funds directly to the US Gov. This is slso happening in Australia and Japan.

Brand spanking new taxes were rolled out in 2014 in the Land of the Free, including a capital gains tax increase from 15% to 53.8%.

Obama quietly signed an Executive Order that gives Homeland Security the ability to control and shut down the nation's communications systems upon the President's request

As of January 10, 2014, 92.5 million Americans were receiving food stamps. That's 29% of the entire population. And it's double the amount in 2008 when the financial crisis began.

According to a recent IRS report, "tax requirements have become so confusing and the compliance burden so great that taxpayers are giving up their U.S. citizenship in record numbers"
The list goes on and on. But the big picture trend is crystal clear: most of the West is in terminal velocity decline.

They have reached the point of no return with respect to their MASSIVE debt burdens, NO country will be saved, when the house of cards begins to collapse the entire world will implode and come crashing down. Greece. Italy. The United States. Japan. They have absolutely no hope of paying down their debts without resorting to some destructive tactic.

And we're seeing it all unfold in front of our very eyes. Capital controls. Bank withdrawal limitations. Wealth taxes. Etc.

This is what happens when nations go bankrupt. They almost always resort to plundering their citizens. Deep down, you know it's already happening.

But there's something critical that most people don't realize.

Most people watch this unfold... and shake their heads in disgust thinking that there's nothing they can do about it.

And it's true, there really is no 'saving' the system.

Look at a situation like here in Japan, where the government is already spending over 25% of its tax revenue just to pay interest on its debt... at a time when interest rates are basically zero!

This is not a system that can simply be fixed. There is no adjustment, no lever that can be pulled for a soft landing.

History is generous with examples going all the way back to the ancient Sumerians through the French Bourbon monarchy-- whenever things get too far out of control, the system resets itself.

This isn't about fear. It's about facts, uncomfortable as they may be.

We are programmed practically from birth to deny this. We grow up thinking that the country we live in is " the best country in the world, and this could never happen here."

Look around. It's not the country you grew up in. And it's already happening in every country on the planet.

The Demise of the King Dollar

In 1974 Richard Nixon struck a deal with Saudi Arabia that might go down as the biggest scam in US history.

In exchange for weapons and protection, the Saudis would sell their oil for US dollars, then reinvest those dollars back in the United States.

This was a matter of life or death for the dollar at the time; Nixon had closed the gold window three years before, and a massive devaluation of the dollar ensued.

Ensuring that the world’s most traded commodity would only be priced and settled in US dollars was absolutely critical in propping up the currency.

Looking back, it was a brilliant strategic move. The rest of OPEC followed, and this sealed the deal for US financial, political and military supremacy for decades.

 

 The petrodollar was born.

Today, oil remains the most widely traded commodity in the world. And since EVERY nation either buys or sells oil, it means that every nation holds US dollars.

Rather than just sitting on a pile of paper currency, though, foreign banks, governments, and central banks tend to hold US Treasuries, i.e. US debt.

This means that the US government has a nearly unlimited supply of foreigners to pawn off its dollars, debts, and deficits onto.

The rest of the world toils away to produce things. They work in the fields, manufacture products in factories, pull oil and gas out of the ground.

The US, on the other hand, prints dollars… and then trades this paper to foreigners for the stuff they’ve actually worked to produce.

It’s an unbelievable scam.

You’d think the US government would be gratefully sending fruit baskets to every foreign country in the world, treating everyone like a welcome friend.

But that’s not what they do.

The US government arrogantly commands every bank in the world to report to the IRS. They drop bombs, send in drones, and invade foreign nations.

They spy on their allies and enemies alike. They freeze foreigners out of the US banking system and fine foreign banks for doing business with countries they don’t like.

It’s unbelievably stupid. Their behavior practically begs foreigners to abandon the dollar, and the US.

And it’s starting to happen, right in front of our very eyes.

The US has shown that it’s willing to go to war to support this petrodollar system.

(Saddam Hussein won support from the UN in the early 2000s to sell oil for euros. Shortly after, he was gone.)



So the fact that it’s starting to unwind right now is very concerning, especially given the existing battlefield in Ukraine.


 

Currency WOARS - Yen hits 6 year low >105 to the U$D

Currency WOARS
Yen hits 6 year low  >105 to the U$D,  MASSIVE problem for Germany and EU exporters to Asia. Germanys exports have TANKED.
Meanwhile US making EVERY effort possible to push their King dollar off the cliff..