"Who runs Bartertown?"

Warning: Europe is not the same as the European Union. The European Union is only an episode in Europe’s history and is doomed to failure.

...according to the unelected bureaucrats who printed all the money to begin with, people have been saving too much.
Consequently, everyone must be punished with negative interest rates. And they’re your fault.
That’s like a rapist saying, “she deserved it.” It was an appalling response, and astonishingly stupid...

***ECB blames you for negative interest rates

New: ECB Governing Council bankster member Vitas Vasiliauskas:  We Are Magic People

How many times have I said here that  they r sociopaths Any more doubts? I thought not.

More here

'Miracle' needed to save the world, because central banks can't, says BTIM's Vimal Gor

There are a number of potential triggers to a new crisis.
The first potential trigger may be equity prices

The second potential trigger may be debt markets

A third possible trigger may be problems in the banking system fed by falling asset prices and non-performing loans

A fourth potential trigger may be changes in liquidity conditions exacerbate stress
A fifth potential trigger will be currency volatility and the currency wars that are not, at least according to policy makers, under way

A sixth potential trigger may be weakness in global economic activity

A seventh potential trigger may be a loss of faith in policy makers

A final trigger is political stress

More here

My take is that the the greatest beneficiaries of financialization ie private equities, hedge funds etc and thiefs in general have a quid pro quo with gov't to keep ponzi alive...

The Cayman Islands are now the third-biggest foreign owner of US government debt

US probe: Banks Sued Over Manipulation on $9 Trillion Agency-Bond Market

"Bank of America Corp. and Deutsche Bank AG were among five banks sued over claims that traders conspired to manipulate the market in agency bonds, which is made up of an estimated $9 trillion of debt issued by government entities and institutions like the World Bank.
The suit, filed by the Boston Retirement System, a pension fund representing city workers, follows inquiries by the U.S. and U.K. into the market for the securities, known as supranational, sub-sovereign and agency bonds, or SSAs. The probes target alleged illegal collusion in international bank trading, after regulators reached billions of dollars in settlements over manipulation claims involving interest-rate benchmarks and currency markets.
The suit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court, adds the threat of possible triple damages available under U.S. antitrust law for investors harmed by any illegal price-fixing. Also sued were Credit Agricole SA, Credit Suisse Group AG and Nomura Holdings Inc. or their units.
The SSA market is generally defined to include international development organizations, government-sponsored entities and some sovereign debt. Depending on the securities which are included, the market could range from $9 trillion to $15 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The bonds generally have high credit ratings because many are backed by explicit or implicit guarantees..."

How Is This Not Criminal: Goldman Underwrites $2 Billion Tesla Stock Offering Hours After Upgrading Stock To A Buy

Change is coming. It must come, because the status quo is unsustainable, and has been so for some time.
How many times will our 'very serious people' with access to the public information channels continue to miss the obvious dissonance of the common reality from the official story that they tell each other about everything from the economy to politics?
At the root of this inequality, hidden as it is in the fog of fine sounding theories and economic models, is simple injustice.
The longer that change is delayed, the longer that the professional class continues to insulate itself, looking down on the broader public with smug contempt from privileged perches, blinding themselves with hypocritical arguments that deny what is happening all around them, the more disruptive that change will finally be.
And, as always, 'no one,' or at least no one who matters in their world, will have ever been able to see it coming. Because by definition no one who is an insider can ever publicly admit that the insiders have blown it completely, once again. -Jesse

Helen Chaitman-Big Bank Customers Destroyed in Next Economic Meltdown

Attorney Helen Chaitman, who represents victims of the Bernie Madoff $65 billion fraud, contends the big banks are like mobsters. Chaitman says, “There is no question about it. They operate illegally because they can generate huge profits by doing so. They go from one crime to another, and when they get caught committing one crime, nobody gets fired. Nobody disgorges bonuses. They just take those people and put them in a new area where they haven’t yet been prosecuted.”
What will happen to the customers of the big banks in the next financial meltdown? Chaitman warns, “The customers will be destroyed, and if the banks still have enough money to buy Washington, the government will protect them just like it has since 2008.”
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Helen Chaitman, author of the new book “JP Madoff.”

"...the Big Bank crime syndicate remains totally in control of what we call our “markets” (for lack of a better word). Currency prices remain fixed (rigged). Equity market prices remain fixed (rigged). Bond market prices remain fixed (rigged). Are we to believe that the banksters simply 'forgot' to continue their precious metals price-fixing – even as the mainstream media was shouting the word “rally” at the top of its lungs? ..."

The Big Banks remain in complete control of all markets

 There will be blood.

Goldman Sachs Financed Hillary Clinton’s Son-in-Law to Make Bullish Greek Bets After It Structured Unseemly Greek Debt Deals that Hobbled that Country

Bloomberg News reports that Dimon’s speech  comes on the heels of a $720,000 donation from JPMorgan Chase to the campaign for Britain to remain in the E.U. – the “Remain” campaign.
Jamie Dimon Gets in the Face of His U.K. Workers With Threats on Brexit

UPDATE: It’s past time the EU breaks up. It’s time to end these vile institutions that are designed to enslave humanity. End the UN. End the IMF/Federal Reserve central banking oligarchy. And while we’re at it, round up all the Bilderberg attendees and put them all in prison. Here’s a good message I came across last night that aligns with my views:
Millions of Taxpayers worked for a lifetime, earning and saving for retirement, only to have it stolen in 2008 by criminals on Wall Street. This money was not lost or destroyed. It was stolen. By deception, lies of omission, and outright lies, illegal collusion, insider trading pump & dumps, and 101 other means not yet revealed, the life savings of millions of Taxpayers was stolen. These are not baseless accusations. The testimony of Alayne Fleischmann is sufficient to convict JP Morgan of criminal behavior that was commonly practiced by its peers. Overall, trillions of Dollars were stolen from millions of Taxpayers.
The injured parties demand full restitution, since this savings is their sole means of survival. Given the unreasonable disparity in wealth between those who control and directed the criminal actions, versus the victims, restitution is justified. The amount owed is due to the extent of the fraud.
Due to the fraud described above, each Taxpayer is owed at least one million Dollars. Social Security is an appropriate mechanism by which to return the stolen wealth.
Do what Iceland did. Repudiate the debt they create out of thin air. Kick the banker-aligned politicians out. Kick the bankers out or put them in prison. End their sick and immoral system of money. Make them pay back hard working Americans. They have been stealing from us for over 100 years now. Time for pay back! Stop importing millions of people who do not want to assimilate into western culture–a culture of freedom worth preserving.
Maybe Brexit will be the start of this trend!

—Ben Garrison

Brexit logic is a curious thing.
The list of names of organizations who are against Brexit are the very same names that ignite memories of housing bubbles, blown economic forecasts, and the rising income inequality woes the left rails against.
Yet, the British left sings the praises of preposterous claims made by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the IMF, and David Cameron who have all blown economic call, after call, after call!
Will Anyone On the Left Stand Up for Brexit?

LS: What’s your comment on Deutsche Bank’s recent agreement in New York City to settle gold and silver rigging claims? In particular, I would be interested in your comment on the fact that the Western financial mainstream press does not comment on this.
GW: Well, the stories of rigging in the gold and silver markets are legendary. There are so many of them. Some of them are wackier than others, but if the last three or four years has taught us anything, it’s that all financial markets are rigged and I truly believe they are. I’ve been involved in financial markets for 30 years, and so if you want to tell me that they can rig Libor, one of the key rates in the entire world, but no one wants to rig the gold and silver market, I think you’re out of your mind. I’m absolutely certain that the gold and silver markets are rigged in some way, shape or form. How deep that rigging goes and the actual mechanics of it, I don’t know. But you can see all kinds of strange behaviour in the wee small hours overnight. You can see trades being done which are clearly not done by any kind of full profit organization. So I think there is definitely manipulation of the gold and silver claims. I think the Deutsche Bank agreement is just the tip of the iceberg. Part of that agreement was that they were going to share information a) about how the markets were rigged and b) who else was involved, so I fully suspect to see a lot more news on that coming out.
Now, whether it makes the mainstream media or not, I don’t know. I’m continually confused as to why they don’t report these stories because they are so interesting, but unlike the rigging of Libor or foreign exchange markets or the treasury market or any of the other rigged markets, when people rig the gold market, they are rigging a claim on a physical asset that’s been money for 6,000 years. It’s not a paper contract, and so if this becomes mainstream, if people understand what’s going on in the gold markets and they believe that some gold they believe they’ve bought is subject to rigging, again, people are going to want to get their own gold, they’re going to want it allocated, they’re going to want it in their own safety deposit box outside the system, and it really just takes a few people; the numbers are extraordinarily small for people to say, “Okay, I’m going to take my gold out of the banking system and I’m going to put it in a safety deposit box”. You don’t need too many people doing that to really let the tide go out, and as Warren Buffet is famed for saying, “We will then see who’s swimming naked”, and I suspect there’ll be quite a few people in that predicament.
THE MATTERHORN INTERVIEW

H/T Tom from Florida

Fed Uncertainty Principle Corollary Number Three: “Don’t expect the Fed to learn from past mistakes. Instead, expect the Fed to repeat them with bigger and bigger doses of exactly what created the initial problem.”

Simply remove the word “Fed” in the previous sentences and replace with ECB, Bank of Japan, or any other central bank of your choice.

-Mish Talk here

"...According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), as of December 31, 2015, there was $237 trillion in notional derivatives (face amount) at the 25 largest bank holding companies in the U.S. with the vast majority of that amount held by just five bank holding companies: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley..."

The Market Just Held a Stress Test: Morgan Stanley, Met Life and Citigroup Flunk

You cannot stop this collapse, nor can you talk it into happening with negativity either. It is going to happen because it has to happen. It has inevitability all over it. Economic structures that should never have been created in the first place are giving way in what will become total structural failure. They are giving way because of their own flawed design:
◦You cannot create mountains of enduring wealth by carving out caverns of debt beneath them.
◦You cannot create stable economies by focusing all the benefits toward the rich industrialists and hoping they will trickle down to create demand later.
◦You cannot deplete your nation’s treasure with endless wars around the world by putting the wars of budget and beguiling yourself to think that means there was no cost to your own greatness.
◦You cannot cram people from divergent cultures together by the millions without creating huge social costs that become economic costs.
◦You cannot bail out rich bankers without creating moral hazard that entices them to repeat their sins.
◦You cannot centrally manage economies in a way that benefits the periphery.
The list could be bigger. The earthquake has happened. The aftershocks will come. -Knave Dave

"Voters are angry. Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, UKIP, and the AfD party in Germany have all been accused of stirring up anger and hatred.
But anger is not the problem. None of those individuals or political parties are the problem.
Protectionism and isolation culminating in the Brexit vote in the UK, and the nomination of Donald Trump in the US are not the problem.
What is the problem? Why the anger?

People Angry Because
1.Banks were bailed out and they weren’t
2.Middle class is shrinking
3.President Bush’s Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 made kids with student loans debt slaves for life.
4.Warmongering by the Bush and Obama administrators alike made billions for defense contractors at the expense of everyone but the contractors and their employees.
Instead of blowing up the world, making enemies in the process, and creating ISIS in the process, wouldn’t we have been better off building US infrastructure?
Social Anger
The above chart explains rising social anger perfectly. However, that chart does not portray the real problem.
Income inequality, the shrinking middle class, angry voters, and the rise of extreme political parties are all symptoms of the real problem: Central banks and their inflationary policies..."

More here

Banking Sector Malaise
Instead of pondering the obvious problems, what about other things?
1.Targe2 imbalances starting to matter
2.Italian banking woes starting to matter
3.Rising chance that Eurosceptic leaders take control of Italy.
4.What if Eurozone intrabank balances are in question?
My best guess is that Deutsche Bank share prices reflect all of the above but something in the second set of reasons, or something we still do not fully understand is the primary reason behind the collapse.

It’s been almost 10 years in the making, but the fate of one of Europe’s most important financial institutions appears to be sealed.
After a hard-hitting sequence of scandals, poor decisions, and unfortunate events, Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank shares are now down -48% on the year to $12.60, which is a record-setting low.
Even more stunning is the long-term view of the German institution’s downward spiral.
With a modest $15.8 billion in market capitalization, shares of the 147-year-old company now trade for a paltry 8% of its peak price in May 2007.

The Beginning of the End
If the deaths of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were quick and painless, the coming demise of Deutsche Bank has been long, drawn out, and painful.
In recent times, Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division has been among the largest in the world, comparable in size to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup. However, unlike those other names, Deutsche Bank has been walking wounded since the Financial Crisis, and the German bank has never been able to fully recover.
It’s ironic, because in 2009, the company’s CEO Josef Ackermann boldly proclaimed that Deutsche Bank had plenty of capital, and that it was weathering the crisis better than its competitors.
It turned out, however, that the bank was actually hiding $12 billion in losses to avoid a government bailout. Meanwhile, much of the money the bank did make during this turbulent time in the markets stemmed from the manipulation of Libor rates. Those “wins” were short-lived, since the eventual fine to end the Libor probe would be a record-setting $2.5 billion.
The bank finally had to admit that it actually needed more capital.
In 2013, it raised €3 billion with a rights issue, claiming that no additional funds would be needed. Then in 2014 the bank head-scratchingly proceeded to raise €1.5 billion, and after that, another €8 billion.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
In recent years, Deutsche Bank has desperately been trying to reinvent itself.
Having gone through multiple CEOs since the Financial Crisis, the latest attempt at reinvention involves a massive overhaul of operations and staff announced by co-CEO John Cryan in October 2015. The bank is now in the process of cutting 9,000 employees and ceasing operations in 10 countries. This is where our timeline of Deutsche Bank’s most recent woes begins – and the last six months, in particular, have been fast and furious.
Deutsche Bank started the year by announcing a record-setting loss in 2015 of €6.8 billion.
Cryan went on an immediate PR binge, proclaiming that the bank was “rock solid”. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble even went out of his way to say he had “no concerns” about Deutsche Bank.
Translation: things are in full-on crisis mode.

In the following weeks, here’s what happened:
•May 16, 2016: Berenberg Bank warns that DB’s woes may be “insurmountable”, noting that DB is more than 40x levered.
•June 2, 2016: Two ex-DB employees are charged in ongoing U.S. Libor probe for rigging interest rates. Meanwhile, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority says there are at least 29 DB employees involved in the scandal.
•June 23, 2016: Brexit decision hits DB hard. The bank is the largest European bank in London and receives 19% of its revenues from the UK.
•June 29, 2016: IMF issues statement that “DB appears to be the most important net contributor to systematic risks”.
•June 30, 2016: Federal Reserve announces that DB fails Fed stress test in US, due to “poor risk management and financial planning”.
Doesn’t sound “rock solid”, does it?
Now the real question: what happens to Deutsche Bank’s derivative book, which has a notional value of €52 trillion, if the bank is insolvent?

Meanwhile...EU-jesuit hypocrisy knows no bounds

"...Here’s the bottom line: the banking crisis of 2008 never fully healed.
It just got shuffled under the carpet while the public was fed a phony narrative that everything is fantastic.
This turned out to be a gigantic farce; many of the world’s banking systems are just as risky as they were back in 2008.

Do yourself a favor: don’t keep 100% of your savings trapped in a risky banking system.
What’s the point? They’re only paying you 0.1% anyhow. Why take on so much risk?
If you have savings of even more than $10,000 (and definitely if you’re in the six to seven figure range), move some funds to a stronger, better capitalized banking system abroad.

And definitely consider owning precious metals, plus holding at least a month’s worth of expenses in physical cash in a safe at your home.
Given how low interest rates are, you won’t be any worse off. But should Bancopalypse 2.0 be upon us, cash and gold could end up being a phenomenal insurance policy."

More at How to safely protect your life your liberty and your assets

Fred & EntendanceInvestors Private Beach. Members Only Area.

Hang the central banksters

“The longer-term returns of the fund -- the three-, five-, 10-, 15- and 20-year total returns of the fund -- are now below the assumed rate of 7.5 percent for the fund,” Eliopoulos said. “That’s a significant policy issue for us."
Calpers must average at least 7.5 percent a year to match its assumed rate of return or turn to taxpayers to make up the difference...

Calpers Earned 0.6% as Long-Term Returns Fall Below Target

H/T Tom from Florida

History Repeating. 5:30 Mark is Critical.

I have discovered the secret of the philosopher's stone; it is to make gold out of paper. -John Law 

This is what we're up against: a status quo that has institutionalized soaring inequality and rising poverty as the only possible output of defending the privileged few at the expense of the many...

Deutsche Bank: So what's next for the world’s most systemically dangerous bank?

***Big Banks and Big Insurers Send Scary Signals

What comes next? Always Updated! *Inquiring minds only!