Have your Life’s Savings been given a “Haircut”?

Maybe this is the answer…

Keep your money under the mattress, literally!

If your life’s savings haven’t yet had a “Cyprus haircut”, then get your money out of the banks and under your mattress before thy do!

The mattress safe – the latest way to bank with confidence

One Spanish business has hit upon a novel update to an old idea to bypass the country’s banking crisis – a mattress in which you can stash your hard-earned euros

My Mattress Savings Bank features a safe hidden among the bed springs.

Is your money safe in the bank? Obviously not if you deposited large sums in Cyprus – where the decision to raid savings accounts has rung alarm bells in other countries teetering on the bank bailout high-wire.

But what else can you do with those hard-earned pounds, euros or – for Russian tax-dodgers and mafiosi – roubles? Stuffing them under the floorboards or your mattress is hardly a secure option.

Step forward La Caja de Ahorros Mi Colchón, My Mattress Savings Bank, a novel Spanish business that provides you with a mattress that has a safe hidden inside the springs.

Read more

English Banks are Quivering

Barclays: Cameron says bank faces ‘serious questions’

Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Barclays Bank management has “serious questions” to answer over how it manipulated banking lending rates.

Barclays was fined £290m ($450m) after an investigation into claims that several banks manipulated the Libor rate at which they lend to each other.

The Chancellor George Osborne confirmed that HSBC, RBS, Citigroup and UBS are also under investigation.

The scandal hit Barclays shares, which ended Thursday trading down 15.5%.

Other banks shares fell as well, with RBS losing 11.5%, Lloyds down 3.9%, and HSBC giving up 2.6%.

Barclays had acknowledged on Wednesday that its actions between 2005 and 2009 had fallen “well short of standards”.

Investigators say that Barclays’ traders lied to make the bank look more secure during the financial crisis and, sometimes – working with traders at other banks – to make a profit.

‘Who was responsible?’

// David Cameron: “The whole senior management team have got some big questions to answer”

Mr Cameron said “the whole management team have got some serious questions to answer. Let them answer those questions first.

“Who was responsible? Who was going to take responsibility? How are they being held accountable?”

Business Secretary Vince Cable said that while it would be “seriously premature” to decide now whether Mr Diamond should be sacked, he added that the Government did have powers to disqualify directors.

“If the facts suggested action – and obviously we would be subject to legal advice; this is a legal process – then indeed that could well follow,” he said.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Chancellor Osborne said: “The FSA report is a shocking indictment of the culture at banks like Barclays in the run-up to the financial crisis.”

Source: BBC News Read more

Opinion:

Looks like the English have got the banks quivering.

In America the banks have the government quivering.

’nuff said!

No More Bailouts!

Spain’s Bankia seeks 19bn-euro bailout from government

Spain’s fourth-largest bank, Bankia, has asked the government for a bailout worth 19bns euros ($24bn; £15bn).

Bankia also restated its results – now saying it made a 2.98bn-euro loss for 2011 rather than the 309m euros in profit it announced in February.

Earlier on Friday, trading in Bankia shares was suspended on the Madrid stock exchange while its management put together a restructuring plan.

Bankia has already been bailed out because of its bad property loans.

Source: BBC News Read more

Opinion:

No more Bailouts!

It’s only prolonging the agony and costing the people.

That side of the Atlantic, the other side of the Atlantic, it doesn’t matter, banks or  countries, no more bailouts for the lying cheating bastards.

Let them wallow in their own shit. They made it.

State of the Union – In Deep Shit

State of the Union address

Obama’s State of the Union address was as full of holes as a Swiss Cheese.

The state is in deep shit, the hole is so deep that current policies, not even amended policies will correct that.

What is needed is different policies altogether; and neither the Repugicans nor the Democraps can deliver that. They are too entrenched in the oligarchy that America has become.

He is right about the tax reform, tax the rich, and tax the selfish bastards heavily. But then with that promise they’ll only send the rich rushing for the Repugnicans.

And take a look at the Repugnican options, Romney is a sheep… follow the leader. Gingrich is a newt, slimy and poisonous. Both will sell what’s left of the country out to the Israelis. Neither of them are asking relevant questions; their mouths are opening and closing like goldfish gasping for oxygen.

There is only one Republican. The man asking serious questions about TSA, SOPA, PIPA, NDAA, FEMA Camps the things that are threatening the freedom of Americans.

Obama fails to address the major cause of lost American jobs. American companies who manufacture overseas and export to America should be penalised with heavy import tariffs and be paying more tax than companies who produce goods in America for consumption. That would be a good start. Bring American jobs home!

Refinancing for homeowners… I seem to remember reading where this had already happened and the homeowners got themselves into a worse financial position. How about this… Revoke the mortgage, assign the property freehold where the banks can’t show original proof of ownership/debt as is required by law. Make the thieving bastard banks cringe with their skulduggery. Make them realise that if you try to cheat the system, you’ll pay for it.

How about turning education into education and not indoctrination.

How about demanding that police forces become protectors and not protagonists of law and order. Forcing them to ‘demilitarise.’

How about destroying monopolies on food, seeds.

How about demanding that foodstuffs containing GMOs be labelled.

How about demanding an independent inquiry into 9/11 and settle the matter once and for all.

How about becoming a real fuckin’ government! And govern.

Obama’s wishy washy address had no substance. He is making promises like he did during his election campaign and he kept none of them, not one. He stepped right in and kept diggng GWBs holes even deeper. What makes you think he’ll honour anything that dribbles from the corners of his mouth?

Well, those holes are full of shit, and America is in it up to its eyeballs.

US banks sued over homes seizures

Agents used by banks to sort out foreclosures may have acted illegally

Massachusetts is suing five major banks alleging “illegal” and “deceptive” conduct in the way they seized homes during the financial crisis.

Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and GMAC must pay for the “harm” caused, the writ says.

Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, said the banks had no legal right to foreclose on “hundreds, if not thousands, of properties”.

The banks have expressed disappointment over the move.

Massachusetts’ action could potentially de-rail attempts to reach a US-wide settlement against banks accused of hastily calling in debts as the country’s property bubble imploded.

Federal and state prosecutors have been negotiating a $25bn (£16bn) deal to resolve the issue over so-called “robo-signing”, where banks employed people to sort out foreclosure documents without reviewing homeowners paperwork and circumstances.

Ms Coakley said: “We have two clear goals with this lawsuit – one is to provide for real accountability for the role the banks have played in unlawful and illegal foreclosures, and secondly to provide for real and enforceable relief for the harm that the misconduct has caused.”

The complaint claims the banks violated Massachusetts law with “unlawful and deceptive” conduct in the foreclosure process, including unlawful foreclosures, false documentation, robo-signing, and deceptive practices related to loan modifications.

‘It’s taken too long’…

Source BBC News Read more

Opinion:

Isn’t this about time?

Massachusetts is doing what the freakin’ President should have done back in 2008 instead of bailing the bastard banks out.

Pigs Squealing

The banks are squealing like stuck pigs!

I hope Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan, GMAC and Wells Fargo are taken to the cleaners over this issue.

They are nothing but thieves supported by the government.

The collective $29bn deal being negotiated is bullshit. If the banks are ‘happy’ with $29bn, then it is but a drop in the proverbial bucket. The real figure has to be much more, a hell of a lot more, so much more that it would make the heads of mere mortals spin.

If every state did this, the people may, just may get a fair deal.

At Last a Judge with Balls

Citigroup-SEC $285m toxic mortgage deal rejected

Citigroup's settlement was to compensate investors who lost money on mortgage assets

A US judge has rejected a $285m (£184m) settlement between Citigroup and Wall Street’s regulator, the SEC, over the sale of toxic mortgages.

Federal court judge Jed Rakoff ordered a trial, saying the settlement was “neither reasonable, nor fair, nor adequate, nor in the public interest”.

The SEC claimed Citigroup sold $1bn worth of mortgage assets and then bet that their value would fall.

Neither the SEC nor the US’s third-largest bank had any immediate comment.

In a written opinion, the Manhattan judge said the allegations against Citigroup should go to trial.

Under the settlement, agreed in October, Citigroup was to pay $285m to compensate investors for losses on the mortgage assets, which plunged in value months after the bank sold them in 2007.

Investors lost $700 million, according to the SEC, while Citigroup made about $160 million in profits.

The trial would seek to establish clarity about the financial markets and the Security and Exchange Commission’s responsibility to uncover the truth, the judge said.

“Although this [settlement] would appear to be tantamount to an allegation of knowing and fraudulent intent… the SEC, for reasons of its own, chose to charge Citigroup only with negligence,” Judge Rakoff said.

He said that the settlement, in which Citigroup did not admit or deny the accusations, did not give him enough information to know whether the deal was fair or correct.

“The court concludes, regretfully, that the proposed Consent Judgment is neither fair, nor reasonable, nor adequate, nor in the public interest,” the judge said.

Source: BBC News

Opinion:

It’s about time that some of these bastards were brought to book!

Actions like this are what is needed to right the wrongs of the financial world. These banks and corporation MUST be made accountable.

It is this shit that Occupy Wall Street is about.

These ‘settlements’ are bullshit, make them pay, make them reimburse every last cent, fine them, bring them to their knees if necessary to protect the people!

 

Here’s the Truth

One teacher at the rally, Brother Muziki, told AFP news agency: “Our classrooms are overcrowded. The banks are being bailed out – but not the schools.”

Quote from BBC News: US Occupy protesters clash with police at Oakland port

Where are the American government’s priorities?

Need I say more?

Go Occupy Wall Street!

Think Occupy Wall St. is a phase? You don’t get it

(CNN) — Like the spokesmen for Arab dictators feigning bewilderment over protesters’ demands, mainstream television news reporters finally training their attention on the growing Occupy Wall Street protest movement seem determined to cast it as the random, silly blather of an ungrateful and lazy generation of weirdos. They couldn’t be more wrong and, as time will tell, may eventually be forced to accept the inevitability of their own obsolescence.

To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from the perspective of the 20th century politics, media, and economics in which we are still steeped.

Yes, there are a wide array of complaints, demands, and goals from the Wall Street protesters: the collapsing environment, labor standards, housing policy, government corruption, World Bank lending practices, unemployment, increasing wealth disparity and so on. Different people have been affected by different aspects of the same system — and they believe they are symptoms of the same core problem.

Are they ready to articulate exactly what that problem is and how to address it? No, not yet. But neither are Congress or the president who, in thrall to corporate America and Wall Street, respectively, have consistently failed to engage in anything resembling a conversation as cogent as the many I witnessed as I strolled by Occupy Wall Street’s many teach-ins this morning. There were young people teaching one another about, among other things, how the economy works, about the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, the history of centralized interest-bearing currency, the creation and growth of the derivatives industry, and about the Obama administration deciding to settle with, rather than investigate and prosecute the investment banking industry for housing fraud.

The members of Occupy Wall Street may be as unwieldy, paradoxical, and inconsistent as those of us living in the real world. But that is precisely why their new approach to protest is more applicable, sustainable and actionable than what passes for politics today.

Excerpts from CNN read the full story.

,