Free Republic

With countless settlements documenting the rigging of every single asset class, it was only a matter of time before the regulators - some 10 years behind the curve as usual - finally cracked down on gold manipulation as well, even though as we have shown in the past, central banks in general and the Fed in particular are among the biggest gold manipulators. That said, we are confident by now nobody will be surprised that there was manipulation going on in the gold casino. In fact, ever since Germany's Bafin launched a probe into Deutsche Bank for gold and silver...

S&P Says China’s Banks Face Growing Risk From Bad Debt Problems in the real-estate sector are also a factor as ratings firm revises assessment to negative from stable By Mark Magnier Sept. 21, 2015 8:18 a.m. ET 0 COMMENTS BEIJING—In the latest sign of headwinds hitting the Chinese economy, a U.S. credit-rating firm said China’s banks face growing risk tied to rising bad loans and problems in its real-estate sector. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said Monday it had revised to negative from stable its assessment of the economic risks facing China’s banking industry, one of Beijing’s major levers as...

While the world breathlessly awaits the outcome of this week’s FOMC meeting—will the Federal Reserve raise interest rates or won’t it?—one thing is clear regardless: the Fed is driving the U.S. into a 2nd depression in order to carry out its one and only remit now that America’s ability to produce real jobs has been reduced to ash, namely, propping up criminal banks with multi-trillion-dollar giveaways. What’s so disturbing about the fatal path that the Fed has been on for 7 years is that it's one the Fed went down before, when—by its own admission—it extended and deepened the Great...

“Let me assure you, if the revenue environment weakens or interest-rate structures don’t move up, and the economy slows down, we’ll have to take out more costs,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said on Thursday at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference. And that would mean more job cuts.BofA is famous for whittling down its headcount in recent years. In Moynihan’s 25-slide presentation, there was this chart that shows just how skillfully he has trimmed down his workforce, chopping it by 25% overall since the second quarter of 2011:Wolf Street So if, as he said, “interest-rate structures don’t move...

n an unusual last-minute act before the new administration takes over the reins, acting Treasury Secretary Stuart A. Levy’s former office issued a stunning report on Friday, laying out long-standing ties between Iran and the top leadership of al-Qaida. As undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence since that job was created in July 2004, Levy spearheaded the Treasury Department’s efforts to take the war on international terrorists to the financial battlefield, by denying individual terrorists and terrorist-support states such as Iran access to international financial markets. Less known, until last Friday, was Levy’s involvement in tracking down fugitive al-Qaida members...

For Florida taxpayers, the move by the administration of then-Gov. Jeb Bush to forge a relationship with Lehman Brothers would ultimately prove disastrous. Transactions in 2005 and 2006 put the Wall Street investment bank in charge of some $250 million worth of pension funds for Florida cops, teachers and firefighters. Lehman would capture more than $5 million in fees on these deals, while gaining additional contracts to manage another $1.2 billion of Florida’s money. Then, in the fall of 2008, Lehman collapsed into bankruptcy, leaving Florida facing up to $1 billion in losses. But for Jeb Bush personally, his enduring...

Last month I bought a house in Potomac, Md., a trade up on my current home, and was shocked to learn in the ensuing weeks that I couldn’t get a mortgage loan. First, I went to PNC bank. Then Wells Fargo. Then another. Denied. Denied. Denied. No, I don’t feel entitled to a loan, and the banks have every right not to lend me money. But my tale of woe tells a broader tale of what is going on in the lending industry these days. All the bankers told me the same thing: “Steve, if you’d walked in our bank...

Regulation: The Dodd-Frank Act's fifth anniversary this month has received surprisingly little notice. Too bad. It's a pernicious law, one that a devastating new report suggests is largely to blame for our lackluster economy. How bad is Dodd-Frank? One of its main goals, cited by both the White House and the then-Democrat-run Senate, was to get rid of the "too big to fail" doctrine that made some banks too important to allow to go bust. It sounded good at the time. But in fact, it's had the exact opposite effect, leading to a decline in small banks and rising market...

financial reform increases staffing costs. Small banks are struggling to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed to regulate the financial industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, said Rep. Scott Tipton. The Republican from Cortez received some national attention this week for challenging Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen to support his plan to ease the burden of Dodd-Frank on small banks. ... Mike Burns, president of Alpine Bank for the Southwest region, said in a phone interview that Dodd-Frank is creating head winds. “We really want to focus our time and energy in supporting the communities...

President of Greek Banks Association Louka Katseli appealed at the citiznes to return their money to the banks. “Banks are absolutely trustworthy,” Katseli told Mega TV “as guaranteed by the ECB and the Bank Association, but they would have been even more powerful if 40 billion euros had not been withdrawn in the last months. Katseli, a former PASOK Minister, appealed to citizens to return their deposits to the banks “now that the banks are open” after a three-week holiday and capital controls. “Let’s all help our economy,” Katseli urged Greeks and added “If you take your money out of...

Tuesday will mark five years since President Obama’s signing of the Dodd-Frank law, the most sweeping rewrite of the country’s financial laws since the New Deal. Mr. Obama told the country that the legislation would “lift our economy.” The statute itself declared that it would “end too big to fail” and “promote financial stability.” None of that has come to pass. Too-big-to-fail institutions have not disappeared. Big banks are bigger, small banks are fewer, and the financial system is less stable. Meanwhile, the economy remains in the doldrums. Dodd-Frank was based on the premise that the financial crisis was the...

Cash for cheese may sound like a parody of the cash for gold scheme, but in Italy it's a reality for many Parmigiano Reggiano producers seeking quick cash.

Capital controls have been in place in Greece since the start of the month to protect the banks from mass withdrawals by nervous Greeks. They have rightly been concerned about their savings, the collapse of the banking system and the loss of their savings in deposit confiscations or bail-ins.

Over the past few days Sera Wilson and I have discussed the dangers of what is happening in Greece and how it could also happen here. Of course, most of our readers already know the U.S. economy is teetering on so much debt that a crisis is, in many ways, inevitable. That said, there is a common belief that thanks to FDIC depositor insurance, all cash held in banks (Under certain amounts covered by FDIC) is safe.Not so fast. Not have the FDIC and big banks been working on a way that enables them to circumvent the safeguard, they already...

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are reintroducing legislation to revive the Glass-Steagall Act, which would force big banks to split their investment and commercial banking practices. Glass-Steagall was first passed in 1933 but repealed during the Clinton administration, leading many progressives to argue that it contributed to the 2008 financial collapse. Warren and McCain, along with their cosponsors, Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said in a statement that the legislation would make big banks that are "too big to fail" smaller and safer and minimize the likelihood of a government bailout....

Stay tuned for analysis on Greece, where European leaders have given the debt-stricken country a deadline of five days to achieve a reforms-for-aid deal. The Greek Finance Ministry has said that concrete reform proposals will be out by Thursday and it has applied for a 3-year loan from the European Stability Mechanism. We'll keep you updated.

Greeks cannot withdraw cash left in safe deposit boxes at Greek banks as long as capital restrictions remain in place, a deputy finance minister told Greek television on Sunday. ...

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said. A Greek bail-in could resemble the rescue plan agreed by Cyprus in 2013, when customers’ funds were seized to shore up the banks, with a haircut imposed on uninsured deposits over €100,000. Meanwhile, Yanis Varoufakis swears this is nothing but a "malicious rumor": FT report of a Gk Bank Bail In is a malicious rumour...

Banks and the stock exchange will remain closed today after Greek citizens queued all weekend to withdraw savings. Banks in Greece and the country's stock exchange will be shut all week in a sign of the deepening financial crisis. The drastic move comes after people rushed to withdraw their cash amid panic ahead of the referendum on bailout terms. Under the controls, there will be a daily €60 limit on withdrawals from cash machines, which will reopen on Tuesday. Speaking in a televised address, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged calm and insisted bank deposits were safe. He blamed European partners...