Posted on 06/12/2012 3:04:26 AM PDT by AAABEST
I don't often put stories in "breaking." I post vanities even less often. Hardly anything surprises me any longer, but I find this absolutely astounding. If you follow the financial threads or the situation in Europe, you really need to read this. Actually anyone with a bank account needs to read this.
I'm going to ask the mods to leave this here, unless they really feel I'm all wet here. I don't, however, believe I am. Follow me here.
BNI (Bank Network Investments) is Italy's oldest and forth largest bank. In other words, it's a biggie.
Anyway, the bank went into receivership last November. as of late last week, without any notice whatsoever to depositors, eureka, BNI suspends all payments and withdrawals. In other words the very first European bank goes on holiday. Furious depositors are left with no way to access their money or pay their bills. They will be on "holiday" (nice term btw) until at least July.
This is quite alarming in its own right on many levels. It's not, however, what is astounding. What's astounding is that there is a total media blackout. NOT A SINGLE ENGLISH SPEAKING ONLINE PERIODICAL MENTIONS THIS. Not one. Nobody. This happened last week, and we're going into Tuesday.
Don't believe me? Here is a Google News search of the terms "BNI" and "Italy" (no quotes).
Nothing. Zero, zilch, nada. Goose egg. Really?
The story is not a hoax, it was confirmed right here on FR at this thread. An astute FReeper, (Kartographer) picked up on it and worked the translation.
It's also on the bank's own website.
The only English speaking source I've been able to find it is right here on Kartographer's barely noticed FR thread, after which I found bits and pieces on a regular (not news) Google search at some other third rate websites.
Here is a site that has several stories on the matter translated from Italian.
Again, this went down last week, today is Tuesday.
This morning we have the Chinese news agency xinhuanet.com reporting Italy may be next to request EU bailout. We have some news from Australia about Monti's mounting Italian challenge , but not much else in the English speaking press.
I'm thinking I agree with you. The English speaking press understands that Italy is not "too big to fail", it's too big to save. If Italy defaults, then not even the combination of EU plus the US can save the EU system from collapse.
And that scares the crap out of them.
I agree that Italy is “too big to save”.
For me, the question is will a systemic banking failure trigger an EU-wide systemic banking failure (owing to European banks being generally quite under-capitalized) which in turn triggers a global systemic banking failure?
That’s the SHTF moment. And as the Circle Jerks once sang, “’We all gotta duck when the s**t hits the fan’”.
Oops. Make that a “systemic banking failure in Italy” triggering a systemic EU-wide banking failure, etc., etc.
Glass Steagal is the key to protect customer accounts. Unfortunately we have the illusion of Frank Dodd which does not address an MF Global type bankruptcy that allows the failing bank to last minute ransack customer accounts to pay off big powerful creditors before folding. Leaving the customers robbed and last in the line of creditors during a bankruptcy procedure. Even worst Pres Obama via exec order placed US taxpayers on the hook for any derivative losses incurred by Wall Street bankers in the future.
Wall Street Bankers are assuring the US public that they are financially strong to withstand the EU shock waves. What they don’t tell you is how much derivative exposure they have on the books that can incur heavy losses if their leveraged schemes go wrong like MF Global. Many of these derivative schemes are hidden and off the books until they implode. In these times trust no bank.
(((ping)))
It isn’t just Obama; politicians worldwide seen to have come to the conclusion that their respective taxpayers are the penultimate “lender of last resort”.
This will not end well.
There is one thing that many on the left argue, and I do agree with them in principle on it, which is that the people themselves shouldn’t be left picking up the tab for business failures.
That’s the nature of the free-market economy, after all. If I run a business that goes bust, it’s hardly up to you, or the guy down the street, or my next-door to neighbor, or some part-time waitress in Tokyo for that matter, to compensate me for my losses. C’est la vie.
And numerous threads/discussions on the Belmont Club, while everybody else was giddy about WI Recall and Obama “Private Sector Is Doing Fine”.
“Easy...any news source who is the first to lead with this will be accused of spreading panic. In other words..the editors are askeered of getting taken to the cleaners..or worse.”
Correct. No different than when crimes occur in Baltimore or New Orleans (or just about anywhere else) - not a peep in the media if the racial makeup of perpetrators and the victims follow the usual trend.
One could only imagine what would happen to Harbor (or whatever they call it in Baltimore) or the French Quarter, if tourists only knew that they were visiting some of the most dangerous real estate on Earth...in cities where politicians seem to derive their strength by reading reports of violent crimes.
Nailed it.
I forgot who it was who originally said it, but he (or she) called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”.
From what I’ve read, the nominal value of derivatives floating around out in the electronic ether is in the trillions. Some numbers have it pegged as more than the actual global GDP value.
When the Wall Street bankers say anything, I take it with a grain of salt. A very big grain of salt. I certainly don’t trust any bank, no matter how seemingly well-managed and run it is: after all, no one really knows how much off-books exposure they may have to derivatives, and horribly enough, the banks themselves may not even have an idea of their overall exposure level.
Italy's (and the world's) oldest bank is Monte dei Paschi di Siena (~"cowpats of Siena").
Italy's 4th largest bank (by assets) would be UBI Banca or Banco Populare.
Not saying that things are rosy in Italy - just that this story has grown in the telling.
I would say yes. One reason I posted two threads on it one here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2894210/posts
and one here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2893886/posts
Estimates are 1500 trillion. Since derivatives are traded in secret no none really knows the total amount. If 1500 trillion is an accurate number, the ENTIRE WORLD GDP is 60 trillion. If it collapses, all the nations of the world would run out of paper and ink just printing money to cover the losses. One small derivative office in JPM London office caused 2 billion in losses (new numbers indicate it can go as high as 17 billion. JPM is one of five large US banks and they are all involve in London (where there is no limit on how much you want to leverage your money) and each bank have more then one small derivative investment team. Secrecy and not knowing what is happening behind the scenes is the most dangerous aspect of derivatives. Since these bankers know they are too big to fail, will not stop them from taking high risks with US bailout money.
on the news there?
What about FDIC insured accounts here in this country? Even if one of our major banks in the US went on "Holiday", wouldn't FDIC insurance eventually cover depositors?
This reminds me of the guy I saw in a video a few years ago that claimed he owned the same number of shares in a particular small publicly traded company as the company claimed to have released, yet the stock was still being traded on the Nasdaq.
It was a video about stock fraud and the possibility that a lot of stock shares being traded in the major markets are actually the equivalent of check kiting, and don’t actually exist. Very interesting, actually.
You nailed it! ;-)
What a world we live in when the corner three card Monte dealer is more honest than most of the ‘Too Big to Fail’ banks and investment houses. And face it the Monte deal who ‘scams’ a few hundred is a thousand times more likely to go to jail that the ‘banksters’ that are stealing millions.
The game is so rigged now that the fraudsters don’t even know how its going to play out. We are head for some bad times, which is one of the reasons I’ve been sounding the alarm. Its time that you either prepare to stand on your own beholden to no one or accept that you will be a ‘serf’ dependent on others to provide your basic needs.
As for me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
Some seem to think that prepping is foolish, so I ask you what’s easier telling your children and loved ones why you prepared or explaining to them why you didn’t?
But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8
But then someone has to stand on the bridge waiting for FEMA to bring them a bottle of water, an MRE and a warm blanket so as to provide the Network Anchors their background ‘Money Shot’. I wonder how that will workout for them?
I am not saying that things will turn Mad Max/Book of Eli, (With the possible exception of a brief time in a few of the larger big blue cities) but things could easily breakdown for 30 to 60 days during which basic supplies, goods and services stop, banking stops (No checks No Credit Cards, No Debit Cards so on...) now how many people do you think are ready for such?
And between those not ready and those who have always had the ‘gubberment’ hand them everything what do you think the reaction will be?
Their reaction I think can be summed up in one of my favorite quotes:
Quark: Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes. ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’: The Siege of AR-558 (#7.8)” (1998)
For those who are just starting or are old hands at prepping you may find my Preparedness Manual helpfull. You can download it at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf
NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, a extra couple changes of oil and filters for your car, tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Or as the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
NIV Proverbs 22:3
Lastly this for the doubters and the scoffers.
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger.
Underestimation can be fatal.”
When that bank went into receivership (that’s how Europeans describe bankruptcy proceedings), it was only a matter of time before the bank is closed. I wonder why there there wasn’t an attempt to return money to depositors even at as little as 40% of the original value?
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