Posted on 09/20/2007 4:55:46 PM PDT by NYer
"According to some US experts, some US$ 20 trillion in worthless securities exist, putting US and European banks are at risk. Asia should avoid the worse. A new North American currency, the Amero, is making news.">
According to US financial analyst Mike Whitney[1], a mountain of unfunded, unregulated paper worth more than US$ 20 trillion might be out there [2]. Apparently, no one, neither the general public nor professionals on Wall Street, has yet to realise the extent of the hole, a hole of 20 trillion dollars with no market, nor value.
Even if the Federal Reserve were to ease bank reserve and capital requirements, the existing financial system would still be moving towards its worst crisis in 80 years because the problem is not liquidity, but solvency. The situation is such that banks are even scared to lend to one another uncertain about each other’s solvency. Even the London interbank market is not going beyond day to day lending.
Greenspan and speculative financing
The problem arose in the United States where, starting in 1987, the bank lobby—by means of US$ 300 million in contributions—got Congress to do away with the Glass-Steagall Act (officially the Banking Act of 1933) that had been adopted in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crisis. President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.
The original law had been introduced to avoid conflicts of interests between banks and companies that sell stocks and bonds.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was the main proponent of financial liberalisation. Before his appointment to the post, he had served as a corporate director for J.P. Morgan, the first bank to take advantage of liberalisation.
Under his 18-year chairmanship he oversaw the greatest expansion of speculative financing in world history. But now the chicken are coming home to roost like a would-be train wreck that no one can stop, not even the Fed.
If Mike Whitney’s numbers are right, we are on the verge of a meltdown like that of 1929-1930, perhaps worse because of the world’s greater economic interconnectedness.
Lately, the big US financial and banking groups have tried to protect themselves by selling their junk bonds in Europe and Asia.
In Asia equity in most banking and financial institutions is in US securities and US dollar denominations. Most banks are ranked AA or even AAA by so-called independent agencies like Standard & Poors, Moody’s and Fitch. Securities with such ratings are, or perhaps we should say, were considered virtually risk-free.
Theoretically, US pension funds, insurance companies and big foundations are exposed to the uncontrolled offer of atypical securities of the past decades; so should the US financial and banking institutions which created them.
Yet we should not be surprised if those who hold the keys to the corporate are not, nor will ever be, held accountable for their wrongdoing.
Central banks, especially the Federal Reserve, are at the root of the problem because they have known about the overall situation for quite some time. But whomever is in charge of the Fed knows that a solution cannot be had from within.
Amero, North America’s new currency
With a bank crisis looming on the horizon, an odd piece of information is becoming news. As unlikely as it may seem, the United States along with Canada and Mexico, appears to be getting ready to launch a new single currency: the Amero.
With the monetary bubble on the verge of bursting, one solution would be getting rid of the dollar, replaced by a currency, the Amero, to serve a would-be North American Union.
In addition to the United States, Mexico should join such a union and in principle might be even in favour of it. Canada, too, might join, setting aside its aversion to losing its monetary sovereignty, out of concern that its equity in US dollars might simply lose its value.
When US President George W. Bush met then Mexican President Vicente Fox and then Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, in March 2005, they discussed a North American union.
The idea resurfaced the same year in a report released by the powerful US Council on Foreign Relations, a group that has influenced most US presidents, both Democrat and Republican, and a tri-national task force involving ministerial-level officials.
Wikipedia already sports a page dedicated to the Amero with the photos of prototypes.
A news report on the Amero broadcast on CNBC is also available on Youtube [3].
Similarly, 20 Amero coins can be seen on the Hal Turner Show webpage, with a small D visible, D as in ‘minted in Denver.’ Curiously, the Denver Mint is currently closed to the public, ostensibly for restoration work, till September 28 [4].
Whilst AsiaNews is unable to determine whether there is any basis to such claims, it does seem certain that a plan for a North American union is being developed [5].
Such an entity would have a population almost the size of the European Union, and could adequately respond to the current bank crisis that is bound to end up in a monetary crisis.
However, far from being a simple monetary union, the operation is likely to mean a de facto US annexation of the rest of North America.
For Asia the real point of interest would be economic rather than political since the Americas have been the United States’ backyard for a long time.
Firstly, the Amero would be definitely weaker than the US dollar because it would include the Mexican pesos, which was insolvent not so long ago.
A weaker North American common currency would quickly push the value of the currencies of China and the whole of Asia, which have hitherto been reluctant to do so.
Secondly, converting dollars used outside the United States would raise problems since in Asia as well as in many countries around the world payments in dollars are more common than one might think. In this case the impact of a North American union would also be very significant.
Yep; it's just the same-ole, same-ole, they're just onto a different topic about it now.
Now just a minute there! I called the bank and they told me that starting tomorrow it’s ATMs would be dispensing “Aramadillos” to all and sundry, so there!
Carlr and I are actually CFR members and are on the Trilateral Commission. Thanks for posting to us tonight and enabling us to track your location. You’re being watched. We will be contacting you shortly. Watch for the black helicopter outside your window with the big Amero sign.
You have been scheduled for elimination but if you give us some much-needed information about The Resistance we may spare you and simply make you a slave at the CFR compound.
Live and let live.
I call him Bush; you call him what you want.
And I say whatever anyone calls him, he not a loyal patriotic American with an agenda of America first.
That's why it's so great to have a mortgage free home. What ever comes down the pike in the future we'll always have a roof over our head.
So clever you are but perhaps you could share just a bit of your reasoning regarding your original post about the UN (?).
Just to see if you have any.
Being the first to understand before the majority gets a clue is lonely territory. SSDD.
Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens...
I’m used to it. But that isn’t what concerns me.
My concern is for my country....and what it is becoming.
We need to secure our borders end of story.
Immigrants need housing. Yes it p*sses me off that they are here illegally, but kicking out 12 million immigrants will sure as hell collapse the housing market.
GWB does realize that we need immigrants, but the bill they had sucked and I’m glad it died. We either add many more taxpaying immigrants or forget the social security system, medicare, medicaid, foodstamps.
Want to become an American? Sign up for 6 years in our military or pay into the social security system ten thousand dollars and you can buy your citizenship. If neither of these options suit you you can get the hell out and go home. You will be finger printed and never allowed a temporary visa to set foot in this country as long as you live.
I know, I saw y'all at the meeting.
You have been scheduled for elimination but if you give us some much-needed information about The Resistance we may spare you and simply make you a slave at the CFR compound
Message received and decoded.
I'm laughing my @ss off out here in the boonies. Why? Because I know some info about what is going on behind the scenes. I find it all very entertaining, indeed. What lenders are going to do refinance deals today? 159 Mortgage Lenders have gone belly up since December, 2006.
LOL, LOL !
I don't like that idea as an option. Training people, militarily, who may later decide it is to their advantage to protect their own "homeland" over America and Americans....well, that could be disastrous for us "unarmed, untrained" citizens.
My bad. I was so flustered by all the kookiness on this thread that I lost track of who said what. I hope I can assume you aren’t a tinfoil hat wearer.
Homestead.
lol!
Our military would be the ultimate thresher in weeding the wheat from the chaff. Don’t make it? One way ticket home, no appeal, no second chances.
So am I. I let it roll off my back.
My concern is for my country....and what it is becoming.
You and me both. Everyday, a little worse.
You bet. Part of NAFTA, open borders, the SSP (or SPP??), the highway from Mexico to Canada, the Supreme Court disappears and we are governed by a World Court, military under the direction of the president can do whatever necessary with those that don’t agree, etc., etc., etc.
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