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Another gun seller says his firearms business was forced to shut down its bank account as a result of the government’s secretive initiative known as Operation Choke Point. This time, he’s offering audio recordings to prove it. Mike Schuetz is a former state employee who worked as a probation and parole officer for eight years in Hawkins, Wis. After working for the state, he told Breitbart News that he decided to open a private investigation business and operate a gun store on the side. His store, Hawkins Guns LLC, sells both firearms and ammunition. To manage his finances, Schuetz set...

Courtesy of the Cronybus(sic) last minute passage, government was provided a quid-pro-quo $1.1 trillion spending allowance with Wall Street's blessing in exchange for assuring banks that taxpayers would be on the hook for yet another bailout, as a result of the swaps push-out provision, after incorporating explicit Citigroup language that allows financial institutions to trade certain financial derivatives from subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, explicitly putting taxpayers on the hook for losses caused by these contracts. Recall: (more at link)

Senior FDIC officials must be held accountable for banking regulators’ “unethical” and “illegal” actions against legitimate businesses that are out of favor with the Obama administration, a congressman with a background in banking said today. In a letter to Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., says he wants a full review of all FDIC employees involved in Operation Choke Point. Luetkemeyer, a rising member of the House Financial Services Committee, names five officials as “implicated in this unsavory affair,” and adds that “to allow these individuals to go without penalty would be unjust.”...

If the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble implodes, who should be stuck with the bill? Well, if the “too big to fail” banks have their way it will be you and I. Right now, lobbyists for the big Wall Street banks are pushing really hard to include an extremely insidious provision in a bill that would keep the federal government funded past the upcoming December 11th deadline. This provision would allow these big banks to trade derivatives through subsidiaries that are federally insured by the FDIC. What this would mean is that the big banks would be able to continue their...

This weekend the G20 nations will convene in Brisbane, Australia to conclude a week of Asian festivities that began in Beijing for the developed countries and major economies. And on Sunday, the biggest deal of the week will be made as the G20 will formally announce new banking rules that are expected to send shock waves to anyone holding a checking, savings, or money market account in a financial institution. On Nov. 16, the G20 will implement a new policy that makes bank deposits on par with paper investments, subjecting account holders to declines that one might experience from holding...

Pat yourselves on the back! As you will recall, GOA rallied gun owners several times over the past couple of months in opposition to Operation Choke Point. Well, faced with a devastating barrage from the Second Amendment community, the Obama administration has staged a hasty retreat on its plan to shut off credit for gun stores through “Operation Choke Point.” According to an article in The Washington Times, “[g]un retailers are no longer on a hit list deemed ‘high risk’ by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. after the banking regulator formally withdrew [this list]” last week. The FDIC said its...

Rand Paul Offers Amendment to Stop Eric Holder’s Operation Choke Point Thursday, 19 June 2014 19:56 Written by Gun Owners Excellent news! A few weeks ago, we told you about “Operation Choke Point” -- an effort by Attorney General Eric Holder to put gun stores out of business. Basically, it works like this: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), at the behest of Barack Obama, has declared that gun stores are “high risk” businesses. “High risk” businesses have been, up until now, a small category of supposedly disreputable businesses, which have included pornographers, sellers of drug paraphernalia, and payday lenders....

Will FDIC Regulations Shut Down the Prepaid Card Industry? We have written about prepaid debit cards several times in recent months, but this week we saw the latest news that could throw a monkey wrench in the burgeoning prepaid card industry. As reported by PaymentsSource, Bancorp Inc., one of the biggest issuers of prepaid cards with $4.7 billion in assets, saw its shares drop 30 percent when the company agreed to curtail its prepaid card activity as part of a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). A 22-page consent order mandates that Bancorp institute a number of changes...

The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform has compiled a scathing report on the Department of Justice's “Operation Choke Point” program that critics believe is aimed at “targeting industries deemed objectionable” by the Obama administration. The report, released Thursday by panel chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., accuses the Justice Department of abusing its authority by going after the payday lending industry and other merchants and working to put them out of business. According to the report, the Justice Department “secretly” discouraged banks from conducting business with groups deemed to be “high risk,” for triggering a federal investigation. Sign Up for...

Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales. Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit...

Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales. Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit...

Porn stars say that JP Morgan Chase bank has been quietly closing their bank accounts. The skin flick starlets, including Penthouse Pet Teagan Presley, “Cougarland” actress Veronica Avluv and “White House Orgy” actress Layton Benton, are using Twitter to bash the bank over a recent rash of account closure notices. Presley, whose real name is Ashley Erickson, said her April 16 letter gave no reason for her termination. The bank also is closing her husband’s personal account and their two business accounts, including one for their studio Skinworxxx, she said. “I’m just upset and still in shock it’s even happening....

(Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation sued 16 of the world's largest banks on Friday, accusing them of colluding to suppress interest rates. The lawsuit, filed in the federal district court in New York, was the latest to accuse financial institutions of conspiring to manipulate Libor, or the London Interbank Offered Rate. The FDIC said the defendants' conduct caused substantial losses to 38 banks that the U.S. regulator had taken into receivership since 2008, including Washington Mutual Bank and IndyMac Bank.

Enough people were upset with my previous post claiming that Mt. Gox is suffering a bitcoin bank run because it is holding only a fractional bitcoin reserve that it caused me to think twice about the claim.I could have been wrong, but I doubt it.Actually, the backlash was strong enough that it made me think that perhaps I was using some common terms in strange ways. I referred to Mt. Gox as a bank, which is a stretch by some definitions, but it definitely stores bitcoin for clients and as such, acts as a custodian.Maybe it was the term “bank...

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released the public portions of resolution plans for 116 institutions that submitted plans for the first time in December 2013, a group comprising smaller banks affected by Dodd-Frank requirements for winding-up plans. The Dodd-Frank Act requires that bank holding companies (and foreign companies treated as bank holding companies) with total consolidated assets of $50 billion or more and non-bank financial companies designated for enhanced prudential supervision by the Financial Stability Oversight Council periodically submit resolution plans to the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC. Each plan must describe the...

Breitbart News has learned that in 2013 the Obama administration launched an under-the-radar project, 'Operation Choke Point,' which is designed to destroy three sectors of the private lending industry: third party payment processors ("TPPPs"), payday lenders, and online lenders. The operation is headed by political operatives and career bureaucrats at the Department of Justice, the FDIC, and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). It appears to be the latest example of the Obama administration's successful efforts to weaponize the apparatus of the federal government against people and industries it opposes ideologically. According to the Wall Street Journal, the federal...

Regulators have closed a small bank in Arizona, bringing the number of U.S. bank failures to 13 this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday seized Central Arizona Bank, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. The lender, which operated a single branch, had roughly $31.6 million in assets and $30.8 million in deposits as of March 31. Western State Bank, based in Devils Lake, N.D., agreed to assume all of the failed bank’s deposits and to buy essentially all of its assets. …

Exclusive: Porter Stansberry says printing press maintains façade The latest news out of Cyprus – the government levying taxes on bank account holders – is very, very interesting. If you understand it on a deep level, Cyprus’s actions cut to the core of whether we are going to live in a socialist world or a capitalist world. Banking is at the center of the economy, and the policies you set in banking determine who gets capital and under what conditions. That’s the definition of capitalism: how to allocate capital and under what terms. Right now, the world is completely socialist,...

If I move my savings to a brokerage account and purchase 2-year treasuries (the shortest term available at my broker) would that at least protect me from having my money stolen by the banks?

American Express announced Tuesday that its prepaid debit cards will now be backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the latest indication that a market once shunned by established financial institutions is gaining ground. The use of reloadable prepaid cards has exploded in the wake of the credit crisis that left millions of Americans outside the traditional banking system. But unlike checking accounts, reloadable prepaid cards do not offer the same financial protections for consumers and operate with fewer regulatory constraints.