Tag: banks

Those Who Rule the World

Roosh explains who is ruling the world on Satan’s behalf:

How can one explain the fact that conservative politicians who speak against transgendered children or vaccine mandates are ultimately controlled by the same bankers who are forcefully pushing those very things through other politicians? If you are a top banking family that controls both sides, the left and the right, you will grant the left an allowable set of behaviors that are opposed by the right and grant the right an allowable set of behaviors that are opposed by the left. If you did not do this, there would not be two sides but only one, and you would have to watch in fear as an organic opposition rose up from the people. Therefore, even if you are the banker who desperately wants to promote sodomy for the purpose of your depopulation agenda and everlasting rule, you must allow some of your pawns to mildly speak out against that agenda for the purpose of establishing a dialectic that ultimately you fully control to serve your long-term interests. Therefore, some “conservative” politicians are allowed to usher in toothless conservative policies under the guise of letting people think that power resides with them and their votes instead of a shadowy elite who increasingly desires to control every aspect of their lives.

Some leaders are allowed to go against cultural aspects of the globalist agenda, such as gay marriage, but they are not allowed to go against global agenda items such as climate change and pandemic response. Politicians cannot go against the big-ticket items of the bankers, and if they do, they will be quickly removed or assassinated. The ability to mildly oppose degenerate cultural norms outside of abortion is greatly limited. The biggest obstacles to family creation and higher birth rates are not abortion but women’s education, employment, and birth control, which all fall under the feminism umbrella, but conservative politicians dare not stand in opposition. Conservatism is what the liberals believed a few years ago, and never includes pre-feminist traditional views, which puts God, family, and nation above all other concerns, especially the emotional and material desires of women.

This is why one should never get too excited over the statements made by those who have been raised up to govern over us or shape our opinions. They are permissible, which means they have been corrupted.

And neither ideology nor identity will save you. Because there is no earthly salvation.

DISCUSS ON SG

Yeah, That’s Not How This Works

If the global media suddenly begins rehabilitating the image of Vladimir Putin and painting the Zelensky government as the bad guys who need to be regime-changed, you’ll know why:

Ukraine has called on international financial organizations to cancel the country’s foreign debts claiming massive destruction in the country caused by the Russian military offensive that began last Thursday.

“The scale of destruction in Ukraine … is colossal! In view of this, our external creditors must be required to write off Ukraine’s debts. To date, the external debt is 1.6 trillion hryvnia, or more than $57 billion.

International financial organizations should revise the debt policy and zero out the debts of Ukraine!” the head of the Accounts Chamber of Ukraine, Valeriy Patskan, wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

That’s no way to win the support of the global satanists who rule the West. See, what you want to do is demand that Russia be forced to pay those debts while promising that they will be paid no matter what, one way or another. You don’t fill social media with blue-and-yellow flags by threatening the lifesblood of The Empire That Never Ended.

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Bold Move, Cotton

I wonder if any of these brilliant “soft power” strategists have taken into account the fact that a) Russia has prepared for this move, and b) Russia and China already have a SWIFT alternative in place and ready to go.

The leaders of the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States issued a statement on Saturday, announcing the latest round of restrictive measures targeting Russia’s economy in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.

In particular, they concern “selected Russian banks,” which will be “removed from the SWIFT messaging system.” Russian Central Bank, meanwhile, will be prevented “from deploying its international reserves in ways that undermine the impact” of the sanctions.

The leaders said they will also “limit the sale of citizenship — so called golden passports — that let wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government become citizens of our countries and gain access to our financial systems.”

Finally, the countries announced plans to launch “a transatlantic task force” that will identify and freeze the assets of sanctioned entities within their jurisdiction.

As usual, the provocation is a bluff. The Prometheans aren’t willing to simply shut down SWIFT entirely because that would result in Russia simply replacing it with the Sino-Russian alternative. And because it would shut off natural gas shipments to Western Europe for lack of payment. So, they’re trying to cause enough pain to encourage submission, but not so much that would result in rejection and competition.

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Mailvox: Canadian Boots

A boots-on-the-ground report from Canada:

I tried to withdraw $20 000 in cash from my bank today. They would only give me half, due to their “reserves being very low”. They were out of $100 dollar bills, gave me $50’s instead. They said the next cash shipment to them was on the 23rd. Later in the day they called me and said the next cash shipment wouldn’t be until March 2nd. I bank at RBC, the biggest bank in Canada. My boss ran into the same thing at TD, another big Canadian bank. The bank staff was very nervous. I was calm and polite since I’m well prepared, but they looked like they had been yelled at a lot in the last couple days since the government started locking down accounts of people who donated to the Freedom Convoy.

The bank run is real.

Power to the people.

The more serious problem the Canadian government has caused for itself is the extreme lack of confidence it has now instilled in the entire banking system. Now, in addition to not receiving any interest on their deposits, even Canadians who are not involved with the Freedom Convoy are learning that they can’t even rely upon the banks as a safe store of their wealth.

Since its role as a store of wealth is the primary purpose of money, this means that the legitimacy of the Canadian monetary system is being actively undermined by the converged Canadian government. Which means that the legitimacy of the Canadian government will also soon be questioned by those who don’t even support the convoy.

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Uninvestable or Uninfestable?

Somehow, I don’t think the CPC strategists are overly concerned about the global financial community’s sudden addition of China to the uninvestable zone that includes Russia and Iran:

Investors may want to think twice about putting their money to work in China, contends DoubleLine founder Jeffrey Gundlach.

“China is uninvestible, in my opinion, at this point,” the bond king told Yahoo Finance in an interview at his California estate. “I’ve never invested in China long or short. Why is that? I don’t trust the data. I don’t trust the relationship between the United States and China anymore. I think that investments in China could be confiscated. I think there’s a risk of that.”

The ongoing crackdown on the operations of big Chinese internet companies such as Didi by the government has rocked investors in the space. The clamping down on the country’s biggest tech names has now led to a tightening of listing requirements by the Chinese government

The Chinese have long understood the corollary to the Golden Rule: the only way to prevent those with the gold from making the rules is to refuse to accept it.

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CIPS+SPFS

The alternative financial system linking the Chinese and Russian economies takes shape:

In 2015, approximately 90% of trade between Russia and China was settled in dollars, and by 2020, dollar-denominated trade between the two Eurasian giants had almost reduced by half, with only 46% of trade in dollars. Russia has also been leading the way in cutting the share of US dollars in its foreign reserves. The mechanisms for de-dollarizing China-Russia trade are also used to end the use of the greenback with third parties – with advancements being seen in places such as Latin America, Turkey, Iran, India, etc. The US has been pumping out dollars to the entire world for decades, and at some point, the tide will change as the sea of dollars return home with increasingly diminished value.

Financial transactions
The SWIFT system for financial transactions between banks worldwide was previously the only system for international payments. This central role for SWIFT began to erode when the US used it as a political weapon. The Americans first expelled Iran and North Korea, and in 2014, Washington began threatening to expel Russia from the system as well. Over the past few weeks, the threat of using SWIFT as a weapon against Russia has intensified.

China has responded by creating CIPS and Russia developed SPFS, both being alternatives to SWIFT. Even several other European countries have banded together with an alternative to SWIFT to curb Washington’s extra-territorial jurisdiction and thus continue trading with Iran. A new China-Russia financial architecture should integrate CIPS and SPFS, and make them more available to third parties. If the US expels Russia, then the decoupling from SWIFT would intensify further.

Development banks
The US-led IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank are renowned instruments of US economic statecraft. The launch of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015 became a watershed moment in the global financial architecture, as all the major allies of the US (except Japan) signed up in defiance of American warnings. The New Development Bank, formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, was a further step towards decoupling from the US-led development banks. The Eurasian Development Bank and future SCO Development Bank are more nails in the coffin of US-controlled development banks.

Synergy effects
China and Russia have also developed their own rating agencies and replaced the dominant position of Visa and Mastercard in their respective countries. This new financial architecture is complemented with an energy partnership and a technological partnership as neither China nor Russia wants to be reliant on American high-tech industries as they move into the fourth industrial revolution.

For those who live outside the USA, it will be wise to find a bank that is utilizing both systems, which will limit one’s exposure to either deplatforming or a collapse of the self-styled “rules-based order” that is, in fact, neither rules-based nor orderly.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Supply-Chain Crisis

Well, that’s not going to help:

Waco, Texas-based Central Freight Lines has notified drivers, employees and customers that the less-than-truckload carrier plans to wind down operations on Monday after 96 years, the company’s president told FreightWaves on Saturday.

“It’s just horrible,” said CFL President Bruce Kalem.

A source close to CFL told FreightWaves that CFL had “too much debt and too many unpaid bills” to continue operating, despite exploring all available options to keep its doors open.

Kalem agreed.

“Years of operating losses and struggles for many years sapped our liquidity and we had no other place to go at this point,” Kalem told FreightWaves. “Nobody is going to make money on this closing, nobody.”

Central Freight will cease picking up new shipments effective Monday and expects to deliver substantially all freight in its system by Dec. 20, according to a company statement.

Denninger sees this as an early sign of deleveraging-based contraction of the money supply.

The simple man (or simple family) has decent reserves, no debt beyond a modest mortgage, paid-for vehicles and thus, while they won’t like a disruption of income or tough times, will be ok.

Nearly all of the so-called “betters” running around screwing you with this or that are the precise opposite.

Indeed, that “virtue signaling” is expensive. Those solar panels? They’re a lease, basically. That Tesla? It has a note on it. That nice, expensive house? It has both the original note and probably a HELOC too. That fabulous nearly-new boat? Anyone care to bet what the odds are the bank actually owns it?

Every one of these levered things has serious and unavoidable cost associated with it. So long as everything is fine in your world that’s ok, or so you think. It all pencils out; you can meet the cash flow requirements and in a low interest-rate environment those look reasonable and safe.

You’re wrong.

If you’re not in debt, you’ll be fine. If you’ve got cash, there will be bargains available. But if you’re leveraged, you can’t control when the loans will be called.

DISCUSS ON SG

We’re Not Locked Out, You’re Locked Out

As I anticipated on a recent Darkstream, China and Russia are collaborating to provide the world with an alternative payment infrastructure that will compete, most likely favorably, with SWIFT and the US dollar.

Russia and China will develop shared financial structures to enable them to deepen economic ties in a way that foreign states will be unable to influence, the Kremlin has announced following talks between the countries’ leaders. The move appears to be a response to a series of warnings that Western nations could push to disconnect Russia from the Brussels-based SWIFT financial system as a form of sanctions.

The payment platform underpins the vast majority of international transactions. During the talks on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping called for increasing the share of national currencies in mutual settlements and expanding cooperation to provide Russian and Chinese investors with access to stock markets, said Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy advisor.

Ushakov said “particular attention was paid to the need to intensify efforts to form an independent financial infrastructure to service trade operations between Russia and China.”

“We mean creating an infrastructure that cannot be influenced by third countries,” the Kremlin aide added.

Ahead of the video summit, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov hinted that economic discussions were likely to be on the agenda for the two heads of state.

Both Russia and China are said to be increasingly looking to move away from using the US dollar as the main currency of international trade, instead using their own denominations to underpin the booming volume of Moscow-Beijing trade.

It’s probably not a bad time to get an Alipay account, if you don’t have one already.

DISCUSS ON SG

China’s Lehman Bros

China has discovered the concept of “too big to fail” with the Evergrande disaster:

As of the end of June, Evergrande had nearly 2 trillion yuan ($309 billion) of debts on its books, plus an unknown amount of off-books debt. The property giant is on the verge of a dramatic debt restructuring or even bankruptcy, many institutions believe.

A bankruptcy would amount to a financial tsunami, or as some analysts put it, “China’s Lehman Brothers.” The venerable American investment bank’s 2008 collapse helped trigger a global financial crisis.

Evergrande, one of China’s three biggest developers, has a giant footprint in China. Its liabilities are equivalent to about 2% of China’s GDP. It has more than 200,000 employees, who themselves and many of their families have invested billions of yuan in the company’s WMPs. The company has more than 800 projects under construction, more than half of them halted due to its cash crunch. There are thousands of upstream and downstream companies that rely on Evergrande for business, creating more than 3.8 million jobs every year.

Like many of China’s “too big to fail” conglomerates, Evergrande’s crisis has fueled speculation over whether the government will step in for a rescue. Several state-owned enterprises, including Shenzhen Talents Housing Group Co. Ltd. and Shenzhen Investment Ltd., both controlled by the Shenzhen State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), are in talks with Evergrande on its Shenzhen projects, according to people close to the talks. But so far, no deals have been reached.

A potential default by Evergrande could spread to markets outside China as it has huge, high-interest offshore bonds. Some of its offshore bonds carry interest rates as high as 15%, a person close to the Hong Kong capital market said. UBS estimates that $19 billion of Evergrande’s liabilities are made up of outstanding offshore bonds.

Evergrande has been frantically selling properties at discounts this year. In late May, it offered certain homebuyers 30% to 40% off if they paid entirely in cash. In the first half, the company reported 356 billion yuan of contracted sales, slightly higher than 349 billion yuan for the same period last year. Average selling prices in the first six months declined 11.2%. Meanwhile, payables increased 14.7% to 951 billion yuan, and sales and marketing expenses increased 30% to 17.8 billion yuan. In response to the market environment, the company increased sales commissions and marketing expenses, the company said.

Compared with its competitors, Evergrande has higher capital and human costs but lower selling prices, an industry participant said. “How can it make money?” the person said.

The developer reported a 29% slide in profit for the first half. Its 10.5 billion yuan of profit mainly reflected an 18.5 billion yuan gain from the sale of some shares and marked-to-market holding in internet unit Henten Networks. It reported a loss in its core property business of 4 billion yuan.

Evergrande’s extremely high debt ratio, high financing cost and repeated delays in payments to suppliers, partners and local government show that its liquidity has always been tight, but on the other hand, the fact that it has survived years under this model indicates that it has always been able to generate money, a veteran investor said.

Now everyone is watching whether it can dodge the bullet once again.

I would not assume that the Chinese government will follow the lead of the US government and bail out Evergrande and the banks whose failure it threatens. First, Xi Jinping hates corruption with a passion and he is not likely to care one little bit about saving the wealth and careers of all the bankers and businessmen at risk. Second, China has seen how the 2008 financial crisis weakened the USA, and how the US failing to burn the dead wood in the financial sector had terrible consequences for its real economy.

We know the Chinese were paying very close attention to the 2008 situation and its aftermath, because the strategic guideline of Tao Guang Yang Hui established under the Deng regime was officially revised for the first time after the global financial crisis, which the Chinese interpreted as marking the end of the USA as the singular superpower.

So my guess is that unlike the US government, the Chinese government will protect the common people at the expense of the financial sector.

DISCUSS ON SG

Never trust the banks

As in 2008, the banks are taking the money the government has given them to help small businesses and are refusing to loan it out:

Nearly a fifth of small British businesses could be forced to close in the next four weeks after running out of cash amid complaints banks are refusing to give them government-backed coronavirus loans.

Many bosses said banks had declined them emergency payments over claims they had not met the required criteria while others could not get through on the phone or were told the money would take weeks to arrive.

Mark Fuller, who owns popular celebrity haunt Karma Sanctum in Soho, said he was unable to apply for funds because he could not guarantee his businesses would be able to start paying it back after six months in the event of a lengthy shutdown.

‘The loan is under normal business conditions, which is fine but then don’t suggest otherwise,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I have already been told by the government and Barclays that the only way to receive a loan is by cutting my staff.’

Other bosses were declined payments for having significant cash reserves, despite fears these would not be enough to last out a lengthy lockdown, or because they owned properties that could be used as collateral for a regular commercial loan.

Scott Littlefield, from SPL Management, a property company based in Poole, told MailOnline: “This scheme is not really fit for purpose. Our bank, Nat West, is virtually non-contactable at the best of times and the staff in branch can only deal with personal banking issues, not business. They always say to approach your relationship manager although all relationship managers were done away with in 2010.”

If you think the US banks are bad, you should try dealing with a UK bank. They make it almost impossible for a UK-based company to even get a bank account. And, as in the US, they refuse to play what is supposed to be their part in crisis-amelioration efforts.

The governments need to stop looking to the banks to help solve the problem. They ARE the root of the problem, and therefore cannot be part of the solution.