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The banker billionaires must be a bellowing up to the give us more more more bar. Seems a little bit of reality in
the jobs numbers chopped the green shoots down to size and since the first stimulus did not work so well Congress has decided to do a second. Nancy Pelosi the corporate house whore master is leading the charge for the Democrats.
Today’s disappointing jobs number is certain to trigger a serious push for a second stimulus bill.
The talk was already happening. Earlier this wek, John Judis at The New Republic argued that one was needed. Also this week, Obama responded to a question about a possible second stimulus by saying it was “too soon” to know whether one would be needed, suggesting that it’s certainly on the table. Of course, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in favor of a second stimulus before the ink even dried on the first one, so it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to get it through the Congress, especially with the Democrats newly-solidified supermajority in the Senate (welcome Sen. Franken!).
And now we’ve heard it at least 10 times this morning on CNBC. The market is looking for its hit.
And of course anything for the market.
This is how it’s supposed to work: we have spent and indebted ourselves to the verge of bankruptcy, so we will borrow once again to buy time to repay more debt than we can repay now. In other words we’re trying to dig ourselves out of the hole that we dug ourselves into by digging deeper. We’ve been hearing analogies of this type for so long now you can be sure that even the White House understand what’s going on, but they just keep digging it deeper for us.
Prediction: We’ll get it by the end of the year.
Observation: We’ve already got it, but good. With a Ponzi scheme like this it kind of makes you wonder what they had against Madeoff.
Question: Last month, when the layoffs came in light, Obama aides Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee were all over the airwaves, playing up the green shoots stuff. Will they be taking an early 4th of July weekend today?
Update: Oops, we were too cynical; Romer will be on CNBC at 9:35 (sorry!). Looking forward to what she has to say.
Update 2: When asked about the second stimulus, Romer told Rebecca Jarvis: “Well do whatever it takes.”
But honey of course you would, just like a good whore should!
The City regulator will create a new oversight team to supervise UK retail banks and global investment banks as part of a significant reorganisation
The FDIC busied itself seizing seven banks after the close of business this fourth of July weekend. Founders Bank, Worth, IL, was the 52nd bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009 and the seventh of the night. Here is the story from Reuters:
U.S. bank regulators closed Founders Bank, of Worth, Illinois, the largest of 7 financial institutions seized on Thursday.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said Founders had $962.5 million in assets and approximately $848.9 million in deposits. The failure is expected to cost the FDIC deposit insurance fund an estimated $188.5 million.
The PrivateBank and Trust Co of Chicago will assume all of the deposits of Founders Bank.
For more information, visit the FDIC webpage for Founders Bank.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. Millennium State Bank of Texas marked the 51st bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. Here is the story from Bizjournals.
The Texas Department of Banking on Thursday closed Dallas-based Millennium State Bank of Texas, the first bank failure in Texas this year and the first in the Dallas area in more than a decade.
The six-year-old bank had one office in Dallas on Webb Chapel Road near Interstate 635.
Irving-based State Bank of Texas has acquired essentially all the assets of Millennium, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Seven groups put in bids for Millennium, according to the FDIC.
All depositors of Millennium State Bank will have access to their funds over the July Fourth weekend, according to the FDIC. On Monday July 6, they will automatically become depositors of State Bank of Texas.
“From a customer perspective, they woun’t see any disruption in service,” said Marvin Payne, an FDIC spokesman.
FDIC and Texas Banking Department staffers are working through the holiday weekend closing out the books of Millennium State Bank and integrating them into State Bank of Texas.
As of June 30, Millennium had $118 million in total assets and $115 million in deposits.
State Bank of Texas has $588 million in assets. Millennium’s Northwest Dallas office will be its fourth branch.
But that won’t be for long. State Bank of Texas is selling its headquarters location on State Highway 183 to the Texas Department of Transportation for planned widening of that freeway, said Chan Patel is the president and CEO of State Bank of Texas.
Millennium was started by a group of investors including businessman George Gouldsby and bankers J.D. Sibilsky and Clyde Hensley. Sibilsky once ran Small Business Administration lending for Comerica Bank. Hensley was chief lending officer at Dallas’ Eagle National Bank, which was acquired by Houston-based Sterling Bank in September 2002.
Millennium first focused on small-business lending and owner-occupied real estate loans.
Millennium was profitable in 2005, but has produced losses ever since.
Millennium tapped Don Flatt to be its president in spring 2008. At the time, board chairman Gouldsby said the bank should have a wider range of offerings.
“You have to do a lot of things and do a lot of things well to make money for yourself and your investors,” he said in April 2008.
Millennium is one of seven banks closed on Thursday. Thus far this year, the 52 banks have failed this year nationwide. In all of 2008, 26 banks failed nationwide.
For more information, visit the official FDIC webpage for Millennium State Bank.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. The First National Bank of Danville, Danville, IL, marked the 50th bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. Here is the story from TribStar:
As part of a federal government bank closure in Danville, Ill., First Financial Bank, N.A., of Terre Haute has assumed all of the assets of the Illinois bank.
The First National Bank of Danville was closed Thursday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver.
To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with First Financial Bank.
The seven offices of the First National Bank of Danville will reopen Monday as branches of First Financial.
Depositors of the Danville bank automatically will become depositors of First Financial.
For more information, visit the official FDIC webpage.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. Elizabeth State Bank became the 49th bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. From theofficial FDIC press release:
The Elizabeth State Bank, Elizabeth, Illinois, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Banking, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Galena State Bank and Trust, Galena, Illinois, to assume all of the deposits of The Elizabeth State Bank.
Visit the official FDIC webpage for more information.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. The Rock River Bank, Oregon, IL, became the 48th bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. Here is the story from Marketwatch:
Rock River Bank of Oregon, Ill. became the 48th bank failure of 2009, and the ninth Illinois bank failure of the year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. late Thursday. Harvard State Bank of Harvard, Ill. will assume the deposits and purchase about $72.9 million of assets. As of April 30, Rock River Bank had total assets of $77 million and total deposits of about $75.8 million. Rock River also marks the 73rd bank to fail since the beginning of the recession.
Visit the official FDIC webpage for more information.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. The First State Bank of Winchester, Winchester, IL, became the 47th bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. Here is the story from
Marketwatch:
First State Bank of Winchester of Winchester, Ill. became the 47th bank failure of the year and the eighth bank to close in Illinois, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said Thursday. First National Bank of Beardstown, Beardstown, Ill. will assume all deposits of the failed bank. As of April 30, First State Bank of Winchester had total assets of $36 million and deposits of about $34 million. The closure also marks the 72nd bank failure since the start of the financial crisis.
Visit the official FDIC webpage for more information.
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The FDIC busied itself this holiday weekend by seizing seven banks after the close of business on Thursday. The John Warner Bank, Clinton, IL, became the 46th bank to be shut down by the agency in 2009. Here is the story from Bloomberg:
John Warner Bank of Clinton, Illinois, was closed by state regulators, pushing the toll of failed lenders to 46 this year as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression fuels unemployment and foreclosures.
The bank, with $70 million in assets and $64 million in deposits, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, according a statement released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which was named receiver.
“Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, so there is no need for customers to change their banking relationship,” the FDIC statement said.
Regulators this year have closed the most banks since the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s as lenders struggle with mounting losses on real estate-related loans. The total for 2009 is nearly double the 25 banks shuttered in 2008.
State Bank of Lincoln, Illinois, will assume the failed bank’s deposits and about $63 million in assets, the FDIC said. The John Warner Bank’s three branches will open tomorrow as branches of State Bank of Lincoln.
Visit the official FDIC webpage for more information.
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The hope that green shoots and a steeper yield curve will cure European banks' ills is dangerous magical thinking. Setting up a Bank Treuhand is the way to unlock policy action, argue Adam Posen and Nicolas Véron
US retailer launches a programme for the unemployed in recession-hit Michigan, while other companies pursue similar schemes
The superior performance of the financial services sector in the years leading up to the credit crisis was almost entirely due to luck rather than skill, and banks increasingly gambled on luck in a bid to keep up with their peers, a senior Bank of England official said
![[Hydra]](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JKIdaHlR6ZQ/SNLdPT13gEI/AAAAAAAACVo/k0wbFRN519g/s1600/Hydra)
Long, long ago, doing our best for others meant bringing ourselves into the streets, where the political machine could not touch us. Those days of yore entailed missiles in October, a place called Vietnam, a precarious risk for defenders of the status quo and outright danger for those who challenged it. ML King and JF Kennedy met early demises. Both were shot dead in the summer heat of American discontent, one a challenge to the civil establishment, the other an aggressor against the financial shadow government.
With American Liberty slipping into the abyss and our country dissolving before our very eyes, Lyndon Johnson not only maintained the status quo, the bloody war, the Federal Reserve, the high taxation, and the conscription, but he also managed to exponentially increase the size of the welfare state. Only Bush and Obama have come close to the terror and destruction wrought upon our nation during those times.
Now, in a world struggling to overcome the New World Order, a manufactured credit crisis provides another opportunity for both the principled and practical. At present, 247 men and women of unknown and questionable principle stand with one man of unparalleled integrity, Dr. Ron Paul, to question the fountain of corruption from which stems all American corruption, both political and financial.
Just a decade ago. Dr. Paul introduced legislation similar to HR 1207, the “Audit the Fed” bill, and inspired exactly zero co-sponsors. Now, we have 247 congress critters to show how far we’ve come and disturbing the beast in its process of reaching for empire on its own.
The system retaliates with impunity.
When asked by Rep. John Duncan on Thursday about the fact that a majority of Congress is co-sponsoring Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke responded:
Ben Bernanke: “My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of the programs and the details of the programs but making judgments about our policy decisions would effectively be a takeover of policy by the Congress and a repudiation of the Federal Reserve would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the dollar and our national economic situation.”
That threat is serious and severe, to deliberately ruin the economy, forcing every man, woman and child in a nation of 300 million to suffer for the sake a smitten few. Ironically it has already been carried out. It would take over $21 today to buy what $1 would get you in 1913, when this, the third US central bank, was born.
The Second Bank of the United States was run by a genius named Nicholas Biddle, who graduated from Princeton as the class valedictorian at age 15. The bank had a twenty year charter, which Jackson refused to renew. It culminated in a failed assignation attempt by a man with ties to Biddle.
Jackson believed that his reelection was a mandate from the people to break the power of what he called “this hydra of corruption,” the Second Bank of the United States. To accomplish this, Jackson decided to withdraw government money from the bank to pay current expenses and to deposit future government revenues in selected state banks. These banks were called pet banks. Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney of Maryland as secretary of the treasury to carry out this policy after his two previous secretaries refused.
Bank President Biddle and his congressional supporters, led by Clay and Webster, were determined to save the bank. Biddle used the bank’s money to buy political favors. In 1834 the Senate passed a resolution of censure against Jackson and refused to confirm Taney’s appointment to the Cabinet. Biddle said, “This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges he is to have his way with the bank. He is mistaken.”
Biddle began to restrict credit and call in loans from state banks. Business leaders pleaded with Jackson to approve the bank and end the crisis. However, Jackson placed the blame for the panic on the doorsteps of Biddle’s bank and advised all callers to “Go to Nicholas Biddle.” Biddle’s reply was: “All the other banks and all the other merchants may break, but the Bank of the United States shall never break.”
In this struggle for power, Biddle was doomed to defeat. Jackson rallied public opinion behind him, and Biddle was pressured into restoring credit and loans. All he had proved was that Jackson was correct in his contention that a private monopolistic bank, independent of government regulation, should not be entrusted with public finances. Jackson won his greatest political victory, and the Second Bank of the United States passed out of existence when its charter expired in 1836.
The Second Bank of the United States was the spawn of the “money from thin air” creature and, though that bank passed out of existence, the creature did not. Since its resurrection at
Jekyll Island, it has been consuming us every day.
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Employment: As staff accept shorter hours for less pay, companies stand to benefit more than by sacking them – unless the recession drags on
For the strongest banks, the second quarter of 2009, which closed on Tuesday, has confirmed the upbeat trends of the first three months
Financial products should be regulated like medicine in future, the Bank for International Settlements, said as it advocated sweeping reforms
Financial products should be regulated like medicine in future, the Bank for International Settlements, said as it advocated sweeping reforms
Companies that seize the initiative in the next two years can dominate the business landscape for a decade, Deloitte says
The FDIC made Mirae Bank, Los Angeles, CA it’s fifth closure of the day and 45th of 2009:
Mirae Bank of Los Angeles was closed today by the California Department of Financial Institutions, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receiver, the FDIC announced in a press release.
To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Wilshire State Bank, Los Angeles to assume all of the deposits of Mirae Bank.
Visit the official FDIC web page for more information.
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There must be a possibility that with bankers once again at play, the financial system will return to chaos in the not too distant future, writes John Plender
Transcript of GoldMoney's James Turk's response to questions/comments from Principally Correct, a visitor to DollarCollapse.com:
There was a surprising degree of co-operation on the international response to the crisis in financial markets. But the restoration of calm has been the signal for cracks to appear about what to do next. The danger is that, without the glue of shared adversity, governments will fall to bickering again, writes Philip Stephens
More stringent rules to prevent "runs'' on money market funds have been proposed by US securities regulators after the financial crisis raised concerns about a sector traditionally considered among the safest
Watching the markets tank yesterday, supposedly because of a pessimistic World Bank (!) report, got me to thinking about Elliott Wave analyst Robert Prechter's belief that news doesn't move markets. Instead, he says, it is our reaction to the news th ...
Developed nations are misguided in focusing efforts to boost their own economies because the health of emerging markets is fundamental for a return to global growth
Size is clouding the issue: bad managers and poor supervision are what allow bad banks to prosper
Facts have a different feel when they're personal. And speaking personally, anecdotal evidence that Americans are seriously spooked is starting to pile up. In the past few months:
Wall Street names that have been among the most buffeted in recent months – Merrill Lynch, UBS and Citigroup – are hiking pay for their top investment bankers in an attempt to stop an exodus of talent
Party-political tensions are threatening to delay the extension of the government scheme to public sector banks – the worst casualties of the financial crisis
Barclays' president announced a plan to displace the likes of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan from the top slots in investment banking
Banks could see much of their debt downgraded if Moody's Investors Services reforms how it rates the hybrid securities
I was getting ready to post an update on GoldMoney's new service that allows customers to take delivery of their gold and silver in smaller, more practical bars. But Run To Gold's Trace Mayer got there first, with an article that also does a nice job ...
CFA analysts body finds two-thirds of members surveyed no longer believe that market prices reflect all available information
Hong Kong's HKEx and Brazil's BM&F Bovespa have overtaken rival bourses in New York and London by market capitalisation
Differences about how to assess whether banks can survive the deepest downturn and the timing of exit strategies from government measures to deal with the recession overshadow the start of a finance ministers meeting
Barclays will become more dependent on earnings from its investment banking operations following the $13.5bn sale of Barclays Global Investors, analysts warned on Friday
Discover Magazine runs a monthly back-page feature called "20 Things You Didn't Know About..." that usually lives up to its title. A while back the subject was money, and some of the factoids were worth noting. See 6, 7, and 8.
The possibility of BlackRock acquiring Barclays Global Investors has led M&A advisers to hope that if such a deal takes place it could open the floodgates to more such deals in the future
Gold is making another run at $1,000, silver is up even more in percentage terms, and the financial markets are showering the established miners with cash: In February Newmont raised $1.7 billion, while Yamana, Agnico-Eagle
The alternative asset manager has invested in a series of individual loans and senior debt backed by US commercial property
Investment banking fees are starting to come under scrutiny at a time when investors are being deprived of dividends as they instruct their boards to watch how they spend every penny
Nomura has persuaded half of its jobs-for-life Japanese investment bankers to give up local contracts and adopt more volatile western deals in the mould of Lehman Brothers
Barely four months after the world was calling for bankers to be burnt at the stake, it's BAB, that means Bonuses Are Back and even banking veterans are astonished by the speed of their return
Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article that (assuming it wasn't a clever satire) perfectly illustrates the train wreck that's in store for clients of mainstream money managers (and apparently also for Journal subscribers).
Lehman Brothers Holdings wants to investigate whether the sale of its US brokerage unit to Barclays Capital was undervalued, resulting in a "windfall" to the British bank of possibly billions of dollars
Takeover of financial advisory business for €75m complements Japanese investment bank's M&A business at home and highlights overseas push
Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan and 15 other large financial institutions filed suit on Wednesday against MBIA, claiming the bond insurer reduced its ability to pay policyholders by splitting its business in two
People believe they have little to lose, they're eager to hang those they believe responsible for their problems, and they'll listen to radical or violent proposals. We're now just entering what will likely be the worst economic trough since the Indu ...
EVERYTHING is mispriced for what is unfolding. Stocks, Bonds, currencies, natural resources, precious metals, real estate are ALL set for massive VOLATILITY and 'volatility is opportunity' for the prepared investor. Markets are going to ZOOM
The other day at lunch with a friend, we began talking about my Fear Index. He suggested that I give it a new name in order to more accurately convey the important message it offers. Namely, it numerically measures the soundness of the dollar. Others ...
After its worst year living memory, the stock market is due for a bit of relief. Whether it turns out to be a dead cat bounce or cyclical bottom remains to be seen. But some heavyweight bears are now placing their bets on the long side. Among them:
Only two things can save the Fed at this point. One is a bailout by the federal government. This recapitalization could be financed by taxes or by monetizing government debt in another blow to the value of the currency.
The other possibility is conc ...
Here, I'll simplify it: your government, through Legal Tender laws, is forcing you to use dollars to navigate the economy in which you reside. It is then printing this currency with reckless abandon. Finally, the same government is issuing more debt ...
Americans hoping to protect their wealth from a soon to be bankrupt and panicked government are finding that their options are few, and growing fewer by the day. The following article is reproduced in its entirety and without comment, because it spea ...
'No Inflation, Constant Expansion' was a misnomer to start with, the lie of the first half undone by the scam of the second. Plenty more academics (most of them policy-wonks, too) also stepped up to put a name on that era, variously calling it &quo ...
From the December 22, 2008 edition of James Turk's Freemarket Gold & Money Report: This letter is the last one for this year, so it's time to look ahead to 2009. It's shaping up to be an ugly
Henry Kissinger used to say that the tricky thing about foreign policy was that when you have the most options you generally have the least information, and vice versa. As information accumulates, options dwindle, until you're left with absolute clar ...
At the end of the de-leveraging, you will see a divergence between gold and silver on the one hand and industrial commodities on the other. Even today we have this very strong demand for physical gold and silver globally, from India to the Middle Eas ...
Today the news is unrelentingly bad. Layoffs are soaring, stocks are way down, home building is plunging. Deflation is here, with all that that implies. Here are the headlines for my top four news feeds as of 1:00 PM Pacific Time on Wednesday the 19th:
Maybe one in a million of the world's citizens realizes that there is much more gold in existence than there is silver. If sufficient numbers of people knew this fact, gold would not be 75 times the price of silver. In fact, gold might be a lot less ...
It's been fun over the past few years watching EuroPacfic Capital's Peter Schiff educate mainstream (i.e. clueless) economists and money managers on CNBC and elsewhere. My personal favorite is this one
Back in mid-2007 I posted a column titled 'Death Spiral' that made some (what seemed at the time) extreme predictions. Here are the last few paragraphs:
The greatest transfer of wealth from those that store their wealth in paper to those that don't is unfolding. ALL Markets will have to price in reality, and the reality is that the G7 in general and the financial and banking industries in particular ...
If the Fed can't save us, maybe Warren Buffett can. That seems to be what U.S. markets are hoping in after-hours trading, as they rally on the announcement that Goldman Sachs has attracted $5 billion from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. The deal comes ...
Here we go. The U.S. government's options have finally dwindled to just two: Accept a 1930s-style deflationary crash or embark on a Weimar Republic-style hyperinflation. Not that there was ever any doubt, but today they made it official. Treasury