Deutsche Bank's Jain Says Crisis `By No Means Over' (Update2)

By Joyce Moullakis

July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Anshu Jain, head of global markets at Deutsche Bank AG, said the contagion triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage collapse has erased more than a fifth of the banking industry's value and is ``by no means over.''

Jain, at a Euromoney conference in London, said the crisis ``has wiped out $200 billion,'' or about 22 percent of U.S. banks' so-called tangible equity. That impact is similar to the combined effect on the insurance industry of Hurricane Andrew, the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina, he said.

``This banks crisis is really at a point where it equals the three biggest crises faced by the insurance industry,'' said Jain, 45. ``It's by no means over.''

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George Soros

He made billions with his hedge funds and betting on currencies. But George Soros sees himself rather as a philosopher and critic of the world economical system. In an interview with stern Magazine he warns about the consequences of the financial crisis, which so far shattered mainly the real estate market.

Mr. Soros, how does it feel being a speculator, these days?

Soros hesitates, finally laughs. It is not always easy. Yet, when people ask about my profession, I say: Yes, I am a speculator. I am a financial, as well as a philanthropic and philosophic, speculator. And in this wider sense, I am proud of being a speculator.

In a recent interview with stern Magazine, German President Horst Koehler referred to the international financial markets, where you, over the past year, made billions of dollars, as a "monster". Are you stung by this criticism?

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Citibank ATM breach reveals PIN security problems

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology WriterTue Jul 1, 4:39 PM ET

Hackers broke into Citibank's network of ATMs inside 7-Eleven stores and stole customers' PIN codes, according to recent court filings that revealed a disturbing security hole in the most sensitive part of a banking record.

The scam netted the alleged identity thieves millions of dollars. But more importantly for consumers, it indicates criminals were able to access PINs — the numeric passwords that theoretically are among the most closely guarded elements of banking transactions — by attacking the back-end computers responsible for approving the cash withdrawals.

***

Hackers are targeting the ATM system's infrastructure, which is increasingly built on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and allows machines to be remotely diagnosed and repaired over the Internet. And despite industry standards that call for protecting PINs with strong encryption — which means encoding them to cloak them to outsiders — some ATM operators apparently aren't properly doing that. The PINs seem to be leaking while in transit between the automated teller machines and the computers that process the transactions.

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Barclays warns of a financial storm as Federal Reserve's credibility crumbles

US central bank accused of unleashing an inflation shock that will rock financial markets, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero".

"We're in a nasty environment," said Tim Bond, the bank's chief equity strategist. "There is an inflation shock underway. This is going to be very negative for financial assets. We are going into tortoise mood and are retreating into our shell. Investors will do well if they can preserve their wealth."

Barclays Capital said in its closely-watched Global Outlook that US headline inflation would hit 5.5pc by August and the Fed will have to raise interest rates six times by the end of next year to prevent a wage-spiral. If it hesitates, the bond markets will take matters into their own hands. "This is the first test for central banks in 30 years and they have fluffed it. They have zero credibility, and the Fed is negative if that's possible. It has lost all credibility," said Mr Bond.

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Update
Full story in English and pictures from papers...

Fortis is a large bank and insurer in the Netherlands and Belgium. It took over ABN Amro last year, together with RBS and another bank. Last Thursday, its share lost 17% because Fortis attracted foreign capital.

I was shocked when I read the following, which was brought out 4hours ago:

American 'meltdown' reason for money injection Fortis. 

28th of June, 9:10 

BRUSSELS/AMSTERDAM - Fortis expects a complete collapse of the US financial markets within a few days to weeks. That explains, according to Fortis, the series of interventions of last Thursday to retrieve € 8 billion. "We have been saved just in time. The situation in the US is much worse than we thought", says Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens. Fortis expects bankruptcies amongst 6000 American banks which have a small coverage currently. But also Citigroup, General Motors, there is starting a complete meltdown in the US"  

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Tue Jun 24, 2008 5:13pm BST

By Phil Stewart

VATICAN CITY, June 24 (Reuters) - The Vatican defended the late archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the head of the Vatican Bank whose tenure was marred by financial scandal, from media reports on Tuesday that he ordered the killing of a 15-year-old girl in 1983.

Marcinkus, an American who died in Arizona in 2006 at the age of 84, was accused by the girlfriend of a slain mobster of hiring hitmen to kidnap and kill Emanuela Orlandi in 1983, the Italian media and some foreign newspapers said.

"Defamatory, baseless accusations were published regarding Mons. Marcinkus, who has been dead for some time and is unable to defend himself," responded the Vatican in a statement chiding the media for publishing the accusations "without any checks". 


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"This desperate act comes as reports are surfacing that the public mutual fund universe has not been truthful about their structured mortgage debt marks. Sources say that most mutual fund managers have their MBS holdings mis-priced, which puts the public at significant risk. The job that structured mortgage debt did on hedge funds and banks has been bad, but a mark-to-market across the public mutual fund universe could be worse because it larger and directly effects Ma and Pa America."

Posted on June 23rd, 2008 in Daily Stock Market / Economic News - The Real Story

Tonight, FT’s Aline van Duyn broke a story that the bond insurers are begging banks to tear up $125 billion in credit default swaps in order to save their lives. You never know, this could be a blackmail situation…”hey, you rip up these Credit Default Swaps or you will take big losses when we fail”.

Yes, I ride these guys hard and always assume the worst first. Why shouldn’t I? Since New Century failed in March of 2007 we have been lied to at least in 99% of the cases regarding potential serious problems with companies claiming ’there is nothing to see here’ and by officials, analysts and famous investors when talking about the mortgage, housing or credit crisis in general. 

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ML-Implode

BofA, Perhaps Countrywide Wrote Dodd-Shelby Bailout - THIS NEWS MUST GET OUT THERE! 

Posted on June 21st, 2008 

None of us really believed that Dodd could come up with anything close to this. Just go through transcripts or videos and look at the language and terminology he used just a few months back when referring to the subprime and credit meltdown. Think back to the left-field, irrelevent questions he asked at hearings when he could have made a difference by asking the right questions and getting information out. I have always wondered who was behind it all. Now we know what $70k in contributions, which is what BofA has given Dodd in the past 18-months, will buy. Only Hillary and Obama have received more from BofA.

This $300 billion Dodd-Shelby bailout is an absolute crime. It bails out the banks by limiting their loss to 10%; a joke since many of the problem areas like CA are down as much as 30% already on the median in the past 12-months and the rate of acceleration of the price declines are picking up steam. The subprime crisis is nearly over and now Prime, Alt-A, Pay Option ARMs and Home Equity Lines/Loans are failing. If they get this $300 billion passed, another $1 trillion+ will have to come on its heels for all of the other bailouts 

This needs to be fought and/or vetoed or it’s potentially $300 billion of taxpayer money down the toilet. Bernanke already cost global citizens enough by ratcheting down rates the most in the shortest amount of time in history, sparking a massive inflation wave in order to save the very investment banks who started all of this in the first place. Now, unless we all do something and get this story out there, another $300 billion will go up in smoke.

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Related
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McCain's housing crisis, Rothschild-linked bank connections under scrutiny

 
By JESSICA GRESKO – 2 hours ago

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) — A former UBS executive has pleaded guilty in a U.S. tax case that is part of a wide-ranging probe into whether the Swiss banking giant helped wealthy clients hide assets and evade taxes.

Bradley Birkenfeld entered the plea of guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. The 43-year-old had previously pleaded not guilty to the charge but changed that plea Thursday and in an agreement with prosecutors said he would offer assistance in the wider probe. The charge carries a potential five-year prison term and $250,000 in fines.

Birkenfeld worked for UBS AG from 2001 to 2006. Prosecutors say he and others helped a California real estate magnate hide $200 million in assets in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, helping the developer evade $7.2 million in taxes. 

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Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:14pm EDT 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on Thursday said Congress should examine Countrywide Financial Corp's mortgage loans to Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad.

"My view is that these allegations should be considered by the appropriate bodies, and I understand that the Senate Ethics Committee has already begun to look into the matter," Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. 

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Related
Congressmen get favored loans from Citibank-- sponsor $400 billion bailout.

By Roland S. Martin

CNN Contributor

updated 1:57 a.m. EDT, Wed June 18, 2008

Commentary: Be honest, we all wish to be VIPs

Roland Martin says we all like preferential treatment if we can get it.

(CNN) -- Be honest: How many of you are really shocked to find out that a bunch of Washington insiders were part of a VIP program coordinated by mortgage giant Countrywide Financial?

The story was first reported by CondeNast's Portfolio magazine, and everyone else has jumped on it since. Based on what we know, folks like former Housing and Urban Development honcho Alphonso Jackson, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala got favorable loan terms from the mortgage behemoth.

My first reaction was, "Man, these folks are dumb to think they could get away with it!" But as I was preparing to go on CNN Tuesday, it dawned on me that if most folks were in the same situation, and it wasn't illegal, they would love to have the hookup!

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Related
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RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

Last Updated: 2:50pm BST 18/06/2008

Have your say Read comments

The Royal Bank of Scotland has advised clients to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets over the next three months as inflation paralyses the major central banks.

"A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared," said Bob Janjuah, the bank's credit strategist.

A report by the bank's research team warns that the S&P 500 index of Wall Street equities is likely to fall by more than 300 points to around 1050 by September as "all the chickens come home to roost" from the excesses of the global boom, with contagion spreading across Europe and emerging markets.

RBS issues global stock and credit crash alert
RBS warning: Be prepared for a 'nasty' period

Such a slide on world bourses would amount to one of the worst bear markets over the last century.

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Commentary: Gold bug sees impending attack on Iran

By Peter Brimelow, MarketWatch

Last update: 10:21 p.m. EDT June 8, 2008

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bears were blindsided by the past week's sudden spike in gold and commodities. But gold bugs have an explanation: the world smells war in the Middle East, specifically, an attack on Iran.

When I last wrote on gold, it had withstood a serious late-April sell-off and had started a rally. The Gartman Letter, the widely-followed institutionally-oriented newsletter with a good record of catching rallies had jumped back in. An exciting time for gold's friends seemed ahead. See May 18 column

Well, it was exciting, both for bulls and bears. Euphoria and misery swept both camps in unprecedented quick succession.
Gold continued to climb, gaining to above $930 an ounce, but then it ran into stern resistance.

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Related
25% REPORTED CREAMED OFF THE TOP OF SETTLEMENTS: LONDON, 6th June 2008: It has been reported to us that the World Court agreed to the terms of a petition, believed to have been lodged by the World Bank, providing for 25% to be sliced off the top of the aggregate Settlements figure for redirection to ‘humanitarian’ purposes*.
$45 Trillion Needed to Combat Warming
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PRESS RELEASE

Paris OECD Forum: Make Money, Go for Global Green Financial Dictatorship

PARIS, June 4, 2008 (EIRNS)—Over 600 experts, decision makers, elite bankers, CEOs, ambassadors, financial journalists, and elected officials participated in the two-day brainwashing session June 3-4 at the prestigious Paris OECD Forum 2008 on "Climate Change, Growth, Stability," paying each a EU1,000 euro registration fee.

The June 3 afternoon session was keynoted with a long triumphant speech on the "new phase" of globalization and free trade "integrating high oil and food prices" by the Jesuit-trained Francoist Rodrigo de Rato, former economics minister of Spain, former Managing Director of the IMF and now senior managing director of Lazard. Of course, de Rato blamed the "surges of nationalism," now even stronger in the North than in the South and called for a rapid conclusion of the WTO Doha Round.

EIR correspondent Karel Vereycken took the microphone and told the room: "Mr. de Rato, listening to your speech reminds me of the Marxist ideologues before the fall of the Wall. For them, everything that was good was the result of Marxism and everything that was bad was the fault of a conspiracy of evil capitalists. Let's face it: today, 37 nations are facing food riots as a result of globalization. Even better, the new study Growth and Development of the World Bank-connected experts including Robert Rubin of Citibank studied those 25 nations that achieved over 6% growth over the last 25 years. All of them succeeded because they did not follow the 'Washington Consensus' (deregulation, privatization, etc.). What do you have to say about that?"

***

Australian Adrian Blundell-Wignall, Deputy Director of the OECD's directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs also gave an interesting insight in the history of the financial bubble and indicated that 2004 was key (rating agencies, securitization, and subprimes existed way before), since it was then that the Basel II agreements were cooked up to lower banking requirements. The securities bubble doubled rapidly.

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US banks fear accounting changes could impact lending as they force $5 trillion of assets back on to their balance sheets

Written by AccountancyAge.com

Accountancy Age, 04 Jun 2008

Analysts at Citigroup warn the planned tightening of accounting rules for off-balance sheet vehicles would force US banks to reconsider arrangements and could result in up to $5 trillion (₤2.5 trillion) of assets coming back on to their books.

‘We think it is very likely that these vehicles will come back on balance sheet.’ Birgit Specht, head of securitisation analysis at Citigroup, told Financial Times.

‘This will not affect liquidity because [they] are funded, but it will affect debt-to-equity ratios [at banks] and so significantly impact banks’ ability to lend.’

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Banks' credit crisis solutions have echoes of 1929 Depression

As banks look to shore up their balance sheets in the wake of the credit squeeze, Philip Aldrick asks whether it is all short-term trickery

	Investors gather in New York's financial district after the stock market crash of 1929, which heralded the onset of the Great Depression

'We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s," warns the eminent financier George Soros in his latest book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets. It's a rather extreme view, but the man who broke the Bank of England is not alone in his dark funk. At a recent event, one banker laced Soros's sentiment with a little gallows humour, ruefully predicting "10 years of depression followed by a world war".

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Sunday, May 25, 2008
Posted by The_West on 5/25/2008

Added: May 13, 2008

Ron Paul Fox Business Interview David Asman 05/13/2008



http://ronpaul2008.com/

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by Ty Andros, Editor, Tedbits Newsletter| May 9, 2008

Introduction

In today’s missive we are going to cover the creeping socialization of the G7 banking system and the second act of the horror show known as biofuels. Slowly but surely, the central banks of the G7 are taking over the short term funding needs of the money center and investment banking industries. The march is set to accelerate as the income streams dive as outlined in the Tedbits 2008 Outlook (Wolf Wave at www.TraderView.com ).

In the second piece we will be covering the unfolding debacle known as biofuels versus food, and the impacts about to unfold in the grain markets. They are set to be quite dramatic. There is no escape from the math. The food price and availability crisis is about to get a whole lot worse.

Confusion reigns supreme as the forces of darkness, embodied by the mainstream press and public servants, are set to blow the public to and fro in a gigantic game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey and the politics of FEAR (false evidence appearing real). The mobs are set and ready to lynch the bad guys. Unfortunately, the bad guys are their elected leaders.

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May 2, 2008

by Richard C. Cook

April 30, 2008

Much has been written about whether a worldwide plan exists to control events and steer them in the direction profitable to an elite of the rich and powerful. Is this a “conspiracy theory”? While it is difficult to be specific about who exactly may be behind such a conspiracy, if it exists, it is at least clear that the privately-managed system of global financial capitalism gives ample opportunity for the world’s richest people to combine for their mutual benefit. Further, global financial capitalism itself is based on the monopolization of money-creation by a world banking system that is largely privately owned, even while working through the central banks of the largest and most prosperous nations. This article postulates the existence of a coordinated and longstanding matrix set up by the controllers of money to dominate the movements of history. The article focuses particularly on what seems to have been an attack that has been going on for over a century against the independence of the nations of Russia and the U.S. The article also suggests a series of monetary reforms whereby the U.S. , or any other nation, can regain its economic identity and preserve its political freedom. The article was written a short distance from the reconstructed colonial capitol building in Williamsburg , VA. On this site on May 15, 1776, the Fifth Virginia Convention voted unanimously to instruct its delegation at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to enter a motion for independence. It may be time to do that again.

Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) wrote, “It is a mistake to think the times we are living in are like any other. These are extraordinary times.”

Ouspensky, with his mentor, G.I. Gurdjieff, escaped from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, during the Russian Civil War. Though academia has failed to acknowledge it, this epochal convulsion was financed in part through the monetary resources of the international financial elite operating out of London, Amsterdam, New York, Paris, Hamburg, and Frankfurt.

It was this elite, acting through Western banks, which appears to have surreptitiously provided the wherewithal for Lenin and Trotsky to destroy the Russian nation after the fall of the Tsarist regime at the end of World War I. Support by the Western financiers is discussed by Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson in his revisionist history, The Third Rome: Holy Russia, Tsarism & Orthodoxy. (The Foundation for Economic Liberty , Washington , D.C., 2003)

The present analysis postulates that the takeover of Russia, whose backbone was the alliance among the House of Romanoff, the Orthodox Church, the land-owing nobility, and thousands of self-governing peasant communes, was one of two major projects which the financiers set out to accomplish early in the 20th century in a longer-range plan to dominate the globe. The other was the control and eventual destruction of the United States of America. That project may be reaching fruition through the ongoing and seemingly purposeful financial meltdown of 2008.

Why Russia and the U.S.

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