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Tyler Durden2-29-2016Back in August 2012, when negative interest rates were still merely viewed as sheer monetary lunacy instead of pervasive global monetary reality that has pushed over $6 trillion in global bonds into negative yield territory, the NY Fed mused hypothetically about negative rates and wrote "Be Careful What You Wish For" saying that "if rates go negative, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing will likely be called upon to print a lot more currency as individuals and small businesses substitute cash for at least some of their bank balances." Well, maybe not... especially if physical currency...

Forget accumulating gold, printing money or buying mortgage-backed securities. One central bank is acquiring live ammunition and handguns instead in order to boost its security force. According to a government website for public procurements (via Bloomberg News), the National Bank of Hungry purchased 200,000 rounds of live ammunition and 112 handguns for its security company. In a letter to lawmakers, central bank Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy cited international security risks, like migration and terrorism, as reasons for the latest round of purchases. This comes as the central bank faced staunch criticism for spending money on real estate and fine art, including...

Roughly 2 1/2 years ago ; readers were introduced to a paradigm of crime, corruption, and control which they now know as "the One Bank". First they were presented with a definition and description of this crime syndicate. That definition came via a massive computer model constructed by a trio of Swiss academics, and cited with favor by Forbes magazine . The computer model was based upon data involving more than 10 million "economic actors", both individuals and corporations, and the conclusions which that model produced were nothing less than shocking. The One Bank is "a super-entity" comprised of 144...

When Donald Trump heard that Ted Cruz had taken out a loan from Goldman Sachs (against his own investments, by the way), he lashed out at his rival. The loan proved that Cruz was owned by the banks! He could not be trusted! He'd just do Goldman's bidding! Oh my, how terrible! Yes, Cruz was clearly a crony of the big banks. This criticism caused the Cruz campaign to study Trump's own finances a bit. What they've discovered is downright shocking: Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz on Sunday said GOP front-runner Donald Trump owes “hundreds of millions or even billions”...

Don't miss this live interview!! Tomorrow, Saturday 2/13, 8 AM EST! SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES ORTEL! Saturday (2/13) LIVE 8 AM EST!!! Charles Ortel is an investor and writer interested in economics, geo-politics, history, travel and just, lasting peace. He has done extensive research on the fraudulent activities of the Clinton Foundation, and is known for predicting the revelation of fraud at General Electric. His work can be found at CharlesOrtel.com. Topics of Discussion: > The Bank of England joins the IMF to embrace Islamic Finance - really? > European banks face a 2008-like crisis - will it spread? >The...

PARIS (AP) -- Questions are growing over the financial health of banks, particularly in Europe and the U.S., as they face a toxic mix of low economic growth, bad loans and squeezed earnings. France's Societe Generale became Thursday the latest bank to issue a confidence-shattering profit warning, which helped trigger a new sell-off in financial stocks. The bank saw its share price stumble 12 percent and major rivals like Deutsche Bank and UniCredit saw losses of nearly 10 percent. European banks are not the only ones to suffer. Japanese bank Mitsubishi Financial fell 7 percent on Thursday. In the U.S.,...

In the movie "The Big Short," Steve Carell plays a slightly altered version of me. In real life, I am a portfolio manager and financial services analyst who over a 25-year career has, at times, been highly critical of bank behavior. More than eight years after the financial crisis, many people say that the large banks still pose a threat to the economy and should be broken up. Such a view captures the justifiable anger many Americans still feel toward the large banks. But I don't agree. Breaking up the banks would ignore the significant progress made by regulators to...

"I Don't Trust Deutsche Bank" David Stockman Unleashes Truth Bomb: "When The Crunch Comes, Bank CEOs Lie" Following this morning's proclamation by Deutsche Bank co-CEO John Cryan that Germany's largest bank is "rock solid," David Stockman exposed the ugly truth that everyone appears to have forgotten from just 7 years ago... "in my experience is that when the crunch comes, bank CEOs lie" Stockman details the Morgan Stanley, BofA, Lehman, and Bear Stearns bullshit that occurred before exclaiming... "I don't trust Deutsche Bank. I don't trust what they're saying. And there's reason why the banks are being sold all across...

NEW YORK (Reuters/IFR) - U.S. bank stocks and bonds took a pounding on Monday as recession fears compounded concern about their exposure to the energy sector and expectations that global interest rates are unlikely to rise quickly.... Meanwhile, bonds issued by U.S. banks extended their decline, with the yield premium demanded by investors to hold these securities, rather than safer U.S. Treasury debt, climbing to the highest in three-and-a-half years, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fixed Income Index data. "Investors' attitudes seem to be worsening relative to the likelihood of a global recession. I think that's what financials...

There is so much chaos going on that I don't even know where to start. For a very long time I have been warning my readers that a major banking collapse was coming to Europe, and now it is finally unfolding. Let's start with Deutsche Bank. The stock of the most important bank in the "strongest economy in Europe" plunged another 8 percent on Monday, and it is now hovering just above the all-time record low that was set during the last financial crisis. Overall, the stock price is now down a staggering 36 percent since 2016 began, and...

Now we got trouble.I am in receipt of a copy of a bulletin from Old Republic Title in which it states: The Company will not insure title to any property which has been foreclosed by Ally Financial, Ally Bank or GMAC until further notice. Oops.I suspect this is going to spread fast, given that this "wee problem" is NOT specific to GMAC and Ally.  In fact, JP Morgan/Chase has reported "similar discrepancies", and then today we had my report on a ruling from a court in which a counterfeit summons was issued not by the court, but by a...

Newly uncovered internal memos reveal the Obama administration knowingly exaggerated charges of racial discrimination in probes of Ally Bank and other defendants in the $900 billion car-lending business as part of a “racial justice” campaign that’s looking more like a massive government extortion and shakedown operation Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has reached more than $220 million in settlements with several auto lenders since the agency launched its anti-discrimination crusade against the industry in 2013. Several other banks are under active investigation. That’s despite the fact that the CFPB had no actual complaints of racial discrimination — it was all...

The New York Post had something of an overlooked bombshell report this weekend regarding a settlement reached between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Ally Bank last year. This is a strange story and if it proves true it could seriously affect the reputation and position of the CFPB. The case in question was a very expensive settlement reached between the Bureau and Ally over charges that they engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination in their automotive loan lending practices, denying applications or charging higher fees to minority applicants. But according to some new documentation revealed by the...

A coming change in accounting standards could do irreversible damage to community banks, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., said in a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board. An accounting-standards update due to be issued by the board would change the way all lenders set aside reserve funds in anticipation of possible losses. The board, wrote Tipton and Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., should take "utmost caution" in proceeding because it has the potential to "irreversibly damage community banks' and credit unions' ability to continue to adequately serve their customers/members and communities and sustain the economic recovery." ... Tipton, a member...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Elizabeth Banks, Retta, Dascha Polanco and other actresses came together to tell real abortion stories as part of the Center for Reproductive Rights' Draw The Line campaign. In the clips, published Wednesday, the actresses, including Mary McCormack, Amy Brenneman, Mercedes Mason and Bellamy Young, retell stories from women who have had abortions to represent the myriad of reasons why everyday women choose to undergo the procedure.

Two weeks ago, we reported that even as U.S. lenders were professing to their investors that there is no risks with their energy exposure and that they are comfortably reserved for any potential losses, they were reducing their unfunded (and total) exposure to oil and gas exploration companies due to balance sheet, default and contagion concerns.We showed a list 25 deeply distressed companies, whose banks we found have quietly shrunk the borrowing base of their credit facilities anywhere from 6% in the case of Black Ridge Oil and Gas to a whopping 51% for soon to be insolvent New...

President Barack Obama is bringing the subprime-mortgage crisis back, fueled by the progressives' political urge to treat borrowed money loans as a "right" that everyone is "entitled" to get, and by the willingness to dismiss mathematical probability as a racist conspiracy. The last time liberals ran this mortgage ponzi-scheme, from 1995 to 2007, they almost crashed the financial system of the entire planet. They managed to largely evade responsibility by pinning the blame on their junior partners -- the banks, the stock-market and the GOP -- and even found political profit in the ensuing panic, so why shouldn't President Obama...

Subprime 2.0: In an orchestrated assault on the credit standards underpinning mortgages, no fewer than four Obama agencies have gone to war against FICO. If politicians don't want another bank crisis, they'll stop the attack. Home loan approvals hinge on FICO credit scores. But the Obama regime views FICO scoring as too strict, cutting off millions of low-income minorities and immigrants from mortgages. So it's pressuring Fannie and Freddie, which control 90% of the mortgage market and set the underwriting standards for the entire mortgage industry, to abandon FICO for a softer standard in evaluating credit risk. Obama's regulators look...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau remains "the most out-of-control, unaccountable, and nontransparent agency in the federal government... And we can say that without reservation because this is one of the only agencies that literally operates outside of congressional oversight," added Wise, whose Virgina-based organization "works to protect consumers' right to access free-market goods and services." The CFPB, created under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, is funded largely by fees banks pay to the Federal Reserve. While its director, Richard Cordray, has bragged that his bureau has levied more than $141 million in fines used for CFPB education programs or reparation to...

New Hampshire Democrats have an important choice to make on Feb. 9. And the choice is clear: Donald Trump for President. For decades, Trump has consistently supported bigger government, and ridiculed conservative principles.During his first - run for the Presidency in 1999, Trump told Larry King, “I believe in universal health care.” He repeated that support in his 2000 book, backing a system like Canada’s single-payer system. And Trump has been consistent, praising Scotland’s single-payer health care system this year. Trump can carry the Democrat’s banner as a longtime advocate for government takeover of health care.Trump has a long history...