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 President Bill Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act.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.
Nic, I think she thinks you’re a he.
Oh, so you’re the globalist spokesman here tonight?
foflol. Does that hurt your feelings too?
good grief.
You blame Pres Bush for what has been happening in this country for the past forty or fifty years?
Narrow focus there. There is a mighty change taking place in the world and what is happening here in respect to the culture, the people and the values seems to me to be a product of what is happening in the world and what started in this country back in the sixties.
The world seems to be shaking ever since the end of the cold war. The balance of power has been turned upside down. At the same time the culture here is upside down. I think we live in a time of incredible upheaval and change.
GWB did not start this nor do I think he can make much of a dent in what is going on. As to our sovereignty, he is waging a war and is being vilified daily by the most vile people in the world.
Why would you want to enable such vileness by attacking a man who is showing incredible fortitude in the face of a hideous implacable enemy within our own country?
You are being a tool of the opposition.
Hold your breath until that happens. Please.
Awwww, someone is a tad jealous...
Oh yea, I forgot the Euro didn’t happen either, kooky.
Indeed, but I keep wondering who all these people are who keep holding and buying US stocks. Not me. Nobody I know of at the financial institution where I work. None of the hedge fund managers I know (except some who are selectively buying “special situation” stocks, but no broad market buying), money ought to be flowing out of equity-only and equity heavy mutual funds like cars heading out of a region about to be hit by a hurricane, forcing those mutual fund managers to sell.
Who, exactly, has both an interest in delaying the inevitable, AND the means to delay it. Sure, I’d just as soon see the “crash” delayed until after the Presidential election. Won’t stop it, and probably won’t change the election results, but will leave Bush with a nicer place in the history books, while the winner will just have to cope (and if the winner’s a Dem, a decent percentage of the clueless masses will “blame the Democrats” for something that appears to them to have happened after the Democrats took office and thus must be their fault.
Is THAT what’s being set up? Hold the house of cards together for one more year, let the Dems have the White House that they’re probably going to get anyway, and then let them get the blame from the clueless masses, who can then easily be steered to provide a solidly Republican Congress two years later, to preside over the inevitable beginnings of the recovery, and set the stage for the election of a Republican President two more years later, to preside over the inevitable triumph of the recovery?
The two of you are a tag team.
Yep; we’ve been talking about this for over a year.
As I keep telling everyone, get out of debt and stay out of debt; the roller coaster ride has yet to begin and many will be finding themselves in a lot of hurt and troubles if they don’t wake up to these red flags.
Excellent post. You do know that will go right over some of their heads?
The Euro was never kept secret and was placed on all reputable news sources. The Amero is not. Therefore, there isn’t one. If it’s in the works, which I doubt, then it could be stopped. If it doesn’t even exist yet it’s not like they can just switch to it tomorrow.
lol!
You are being a tool of the opposition.
Why are you singing the praises of someone who is doing everything he can to ruin this country, strip the middle class, rob U.S. citizens of their protections, side-step the Rule of Law, and name-call and spit on those who elected him?
You are the tool, you just don't realize it yet.
Aww, that's so sweet. You're just a big ole sugar pie tonight.
Looks it, huh? *snicker*
So your definition of patriotic and loyal requires one believe that back-room deals are being done to create a new NA currency?
Like I said in a previous post: we have enough real problems to focus on that fantasizing about Ameros and North American Unions is just flat out counterproductive.
You can be snide and join the folie a deux I see here. Actually folie a deux is the most benign explanation of these two guys smirking and posting their little snide comments to each other.
I noted your appearance and am not surprised to see you joining in the fun of the hour.
Truth is, this is a thread started to have a ‘the world is ending” and has evolved into an attack on the President and will surely evolve into something else.
But it is not meant to enlighten or discuss. It is meant to sow distrust and fear.
You can be snide and join the folie a deux I see here. Actually folie a deux is the most benign explanation of these two guys smirking and posting their little snide comments to each other.
I noted your appearance and am not surprised to see you joining in the fun of the hour.
Truth is, this is a thread started to have a ‘the world is ending” and has evolved into an attack on the President and will surely evolve into something else.
But it is not meant to enlighten or discuss. It is meant to sow distrust and fear.
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