HSBC Buys $876 Million Worth of Silver

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Silver has now rallied for 7 days due to the flood of inflows into silver backed ETF’s and investment demand for coins and bars internationally. Analysts polled by Reuters expect silver to rise in 2013.

Holdings of iShares Silver Trust, the world's largest silver ETF, stood at 10,689 tonnes on Jan. 22, up 604.9 tonnes, or nearly 6 percent, from the end of 2012.

By comparison, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's top gold ETF, saw an outflow of nearly 15 tonnes so far this year.

This has helped silver prices rally over 6% so far this year and 4.5% last week alone. The close above $32/oz yesterday was bullish technically and could lead to silver testing the next level of resistance which is at $34/oz.

The U.S. Mint has sold out of 2013 American Eagle silver coins and will resume sales the week of January 28 when the US Mint said inventory would be replenished.

Chinese silver turnover surged to 2,200 tonnes on Friday and analysts say Chinese investor’s interest in silver is continuing to rise as many are looking at silver as a cheaper alternative to gold.

Hence, trading volumes for the precious metal on the SGE soared in 2012.

Silver bullion imports by China remain robust too. Silver imports were 228 metric tons in December, according to data released by the customs agency.

There are also rumours that Apple is experiencing delays in producing the new iMac due to difficulty in sourcing industrial silver in volume in China. More silver than is typically used is utilised in the new 21.5" Apple iMacs.

HSBC has quietly moved into acquiring large amounts of silver bullion.

The bank has secured another deal to buy silver bars from KGHM which brings their total purchases of silver from KGHM alone in the last 12 months to $876 million or PLN 3.65 billion.

KGHM is one of the largest producers of silver in the world and is the second-largest producer of refined silver in the world.

They produce silver bars registered under the brand KGHM HG that are attested to by “Good Delivery” certificates issued by the London Bullion Market Association and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre.

 Listed metals producer KGHM signed an estimated PLN 1.67 billion deal on 2013 sales of silver to HSBC, KGHM said in a market filing yesterday.

The deal puts the total value of deals between KGHM and HSBC in the last 12 months to PLN 3.65 billion or $876 million, the filing read.

The Management Board of KGHM announced that on 21 January 2013 a contract was entered into between KGHM and HSBC Bank USA N.A., London Branch for silver sales in 2013.

The estimated value of the contract is PLN 1,672,260,469.66. As a result of entering into this contract, the total estimated value of contracts entered into between KGHM and HSBC Bank USA N.A., London Branch over the last 12 months exceeded 10% of the equity of the Company and amounts to PLN 3,654,120,061.59.

The highest-value contract signed during this period is the above-mentioned contract. The criteria used for describing the contract as significant is that the total estimated value of the contracts exceeds 10% of the equity of KGHM.

KGHM is one of the largest companies in Poland and one of the largest mining & metallurgy companies in the world.

The main customers of Polish silver in recent years have been the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium.  HSBC appears to be one of their main customers now.

Respected and erudite, James Steel, the chief commodity analyst at HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. continues to be bullish on silver and recently said how “silver tends to track gold, except it over performs in a bull market”  and how he was “moderately bullish on silver” in 2013.

HSBC did not comment on the deal and it only came to light as KGHM is a listed company and had to report the deal which was then picked up in Polish media.

The massive deal could simply be HSBC securing supply for the NYSE listed ETFS Physical Silver as they are the custodian.

Or it could be that senior people in HSBC are concerned about securing supply as they expect robust investment demand to continue and possibly increase resulting in higher prices.

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China and Russia are Acquiring Gold and Dumping USZ Dollars

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There is evidence that central banks in several regions of the World are building up their gold reserves. What is published are the official purchases.

A large part of these Central Bank purchases of gold bullion are not disclosed. They are undertaken through third party contracting companies, with utmost discretion.

USZ dollar holdings and USZ dollar denominated debt instruments are in effect being traded in for gold, which in turn puts pressure on the USZ dollar. 

In turn, both China and Russia have boosted domestic production of gold, a large share of which is being purchased by their central banks:

It has long been assumed that China is surreptitiously building up its gold reserves through buying local production. Russia is another major gold miner where the Central bank has been purchasing gold from another state entity, Gokhran, which is the marketing arm and central repository for the country’s mined gold production. Now it has been reported by Bloomberg that the Venezuelan Central Bank director, Jose Khan, has said that country will boost its gold reserves through purchasing more than half the gold produced from its rapidly growing domestic gold mining industry.

In Russia, for example, Gokhran sold some 30 tonnes of gold to the Central Bank in an internal accounting exercise late last year. In part, so it was said at the time, the direct sale was made rather than placing the metal on the open market and perhaps adversely affecting the gold price.

China is currently the world’s largest gold producer and last year it confirmed it had raised its own Central Bank gold holdings by more than 450 tonnes over the previous six years. Mineweb.com – The world’s premier mining and mining investment website Venezuela taking own gold production into Central Bank reserves – GOLD NEWS | Mineweb

The 450 tons figure corresponds to an increase in the gold reserves of the central bank from 600 tons in 2003 to 1054 tons in 2009. If we go by official statements, China’s gold reserves are increasing by approximately 10 percent per annum.

China has risen to now be the largest gold producing nation in the world at around 270 tonnes. The amount bought in by the government initially looks like 90 tonnes per annum or just under, 2 tonnes a week. Before 2003 the announcement by the Chinese central bank that gold reserves had been doubled to 600 tonnes, accounted for similar purchases before that date. Why so small an amount you may well ask? We think local and national issues clouded the central bank’s view as it was the government that bought the gold since 2003 and have now placed it on the central bank’s Balance Sheet. So we would conclude that the government has ensured central bank gold purchasing must continue. “How will Chinese Central Bank Gold Buying affect the Gold Price short & Long-Term?” by Julian Phillips. FSO Editorial 05/07/2009

Russia’s Central bank holdings are in excess of 20 million troy ounces (January 2010)

Russia’s Central Bank reserves have increased markedly in recent years. The RCB reported in May 2010 purchasing 34.2 tons of gold in a single month. Russian CentralBank Gold Purchases Soar In May – China Too? | The Daily Gold

The diagram below shows a significant increase in monthly purchases by the the RCB since June 2009.

Central Banks in the Middle East are also building up their gold reserves, while reducing their dollar forex holding.

Gold reserves of GCC states is less than 5 percent:

Dubai International Financial Centre Authority economists released a report yesterday calling for local countries to build gold reserves, according to The National.

Despite a high interest in gold, GCC states maintain less than 5 percent of their total reserves in gold. Compared to the ECB, which holds 25 percent of reserves in gold, that leaves a lot of room for growth. http://www.businessinsider.com/gcc-boost-gold-holdings-2010-12#ixzz18FEqpTy3

GCC states should boost their foreign reserve holdings of gold to help shield their billions of dollars of assets from turbulence in global currency markets, say economists at the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority (DIFCA).

Diversifying more of their reserves from US dollars to the yellow metal would help to offer central banks in the region higher investment returns, said Dr Nasser Saidi, the chief economist of DIFCA, and Dr Fabio Scacciavillani, the director of macroeconomics and statistics at the authority.

“When you have a great deal of economic uncertainty, going into paper assets, whatever they may be – stocks, bonds, other types of equity – is not attractive,” said Dr Saidi. “That makes gold more attractive.”

Declines in the dollar during recent months have dented the value of GCC oil revenues, which are predominantly weighted in the greenback. GCC urged to boost goldreserves

According to a report in People`s Daily;

The latest rankings of gold reserves show that, as of mid-December, the United States remains the top country and the Chinese mainland is ranked sixth with 1,054 tons of reserves, the World Gold Council announced recently.

Russia climbed to eighth place because its gold reserves increased by 167.5 tons since December 2009. The top ten in 2010 remains the same compared to the rankings of the same period of last year. And Saudi Arabia squeezed to the top 20.

Developing countries and regions, including Saudi Arabia and South Africa, have become the main force driving the gold reserve increase. … .

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European central bank are the major gold sellers, and the IMF’s gold reserves decreased by 158.6 tons. (China’sgold reserves rank 6th worldwide – People’s Daily Online

It should be understood that actual purchases of physical gold are not the only factor in explaining the movement of gold prices. The gold market is marked by organized speculation by large scale financial institutions.

The gold market is characterised by numerous paper instruments, gold index funds, gold certificates, OTC gold derivatives (including options, swaps and forwards), which play a strong role, particularly in short-term movement of gold prices. The recent increase and subsequent decline of gold prices are the result of manipulation by powerful financial actors.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

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Swiss Army Preparing for Violent Unrest Across Europe

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One of the world’s richest nations openly expressed concerns over the possible outcome of Europe’s continuing financial troubles, and is currently conducting army exercises against the possibility of riots along its borders.

In September, the Swiss military conducted exercises dubbed ‘Stabilo Due,’ with scenarios involving violent instability across the EU.

Switzerland has maintained an avowedly neutral stance for decades, and refused to join the eurozone when presented with the opportunity.

Bern’s biggest fear is likely the disorganization of neighboring nations’ armies that would follow general instability; the eurozone crisis and the severe austerity measures in the EU are forcing member-states to significantly slash their military budgets. If protest continues to spread across Europe, police and armed forces may find themselves ill-equipped to manage the unrest.

“I will not rule out that we will need the army in the coming years,” Swiss Defense Minister Ueli Maurer said last Sunday.

The Swiss Defense Ministry has pressed ahead to modernize the country’s army despite political opposition. With its multibillion-Franc military budget and an army of around 200,000 soldiers, the country also plans to purchase new ‘Saab Gripen’ jet fighters.

“Minister Maurer, accompanied by whispers from the top uniformed leadership in Switzerland, is trying to raise awareness that Europe’s massive fiscal-cum-political crisis could get very unpleasant,” John R. Schindler, a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War College wrote in an article for the XX Committee website.

The Chief of the Swiss Armed Forces, Lieutenant General André Blattmann, likewise revealed plans to deploy an additional four battalions of military police (1,600 soldiers) to protect strategic points across the country. Blattmann is expected to present the plan in December.

Professor Schindler predicts that, “if the next Anders Brievik were to target Muslims, not fellow Europeans, things could get unimaginably ugly very quickly,” which could trigger widespread Muslim uprisings in Europe.

Switzerland, however, stands in stark opposition to the multicultural policies and thinking now common in other European nations. In 2009, Switzerland passed a national referendum banning the construction of Islamic minarets.

And while the global economic crisis has forced several European nations to cut military expenditures, Switzerland has maintained relatively consistent levels of defense spending.

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13 USZ States Now Considering Gold & Silver as Money

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When the governor of Utah signed a bill that made gold bullion and silver bullion legal tender in the state last March, he had no idea of the groundswell he was going to start.

The Utah Sound Money Act outright flies in the face of the fiat money system, which is the printed money used today; backed by nothing but the promises of politicians.

… It is not practical for people to carry around heavy gold bullion or silver bullion coins, so the Utah Gold & Silver Depository was created. People can deposit their gold bullion and silver bullion coins there and receive a debit card to make transactions with—just like depositing money at a bank. The prices of gold bullion and silver bullion are based on the closing prices of both precious metals in U.S. dollars in London on each business day, creating the exchange rate used on the debit card.

Missouri and South Carolina in 2012 are the closest to enacting very similar legislation and creating a gold bullion and silver bullion depository, just like Utah. (Source: CNN Money, February 3, 2012.)…

… Other states considering legislation to make gold bullion and silver bullion legal tender are Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, New Hampshire, Georgia, Washington, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia…

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Banks to Steal Your Money, Blame 'Muslim Cyber Army' a.k.a Digital Al-CIA-Da

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Senator and self-proclaimed Zionist Joseph Lieberman declared that it was Iran who "cyber-attacked" Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase in 2011 and began with more frequency this year. Lieberman, as the chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee states that the financial attack was spurned from the state-sponsored anti-Muslim film circulating the Middle East thanks to CIA-operatives al-Qaeda.

Lieberman explains: “I don’t believe these were just hackers. I believe this was done by Iran and the Qods force, which has its own developing cyber-attack capacity. And I believe it was in response to the increasingly strong economic sanctions that the United States and our European allies have put on Iranian financial institutions.”

The US government is planting the propaganda seed that according to “highly classified” documents provided by the Join Chiefs of Staff’s Intelligence Directorate confirm that Iranian hackers are committing cyber-attacks against US financial institutions.

This report assures that US mega-banks are a “valid target” of the Iranian “cyber army”. However, the attackers used a known forum that is utilized by the CIA-controlled Anonymous to issue threats and brag about their successes.

The timing of the newly formed “digital al-Qaeda” and their expressed anger over the US-produced anti-Muslim film are questionable considering how the US and Israeli government are setting the stage for a justified war with Iran. This fake hacker group is threatening other countries controlled by the Zionist regime, such as France, Germany and Britain. According to the false flag group: “The army was recently formed and we have started to work as a team after we used to work individually. The hacking operations are of course a response to the offence against the prophet, peace and blessing be upon him.”

Radware, a security firm, analyzed the attacks and concluded that the alleged Iranian nameless, faceless cyber army accused to attacking BoA and JPMorgan Chase did not conduct the attack.

This week, Wells Fargo & Co. upped their cyber security measures after being attacked by a nameless, faceless group calling themselves Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-din Al Qassam. Wells Fargo announced in a formal statement: “We apologize to customers who may be experiencing intermittent access issues to wellsfargo.com and online banking. We are working to quickly resolve this issue.”

Customer complaints included difficulty logging-in as well as pages not loading properly.

Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-din Al Qassam claimed that their attack was retaliatory for the anti-Muslim film produced by the US government.

According to House Representative, Mike Rogers, the anti-Muslim film was released to cover the US government’s involvement in the bombing and death of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens at the hand of the CIA-sponsored al-Qaeda.

The film in question is actually a 14-minute trailer written, produced and directed by Sam Bacile, a.k.a. Nakoula Basseley Nakoula who is an FBI informant, an Israeli citizen and the patsy used by the Zionist regime in order to facilitate a manufactured revolt of fake Islamic tension in the Middle East.

Just as the false flag bomb threats called in by anonymous members of al-Qaeda earlier this month, this banking threat has the hallmarks of a state-sponsored false flag to unnerve the American public, mask a planned implosion of the US economy through the ultimate theft of the banking cartels: the money deposited into private checking accounts by banking customers.

On August 9th the banks were given the legal authority to steal money from their customer’s private accounts just as Jon Corzine had with MF Global with the ruling on Sentinel Management Group.

Based on the ruling, regulatory systems such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SPIC) will not insure customer funds, investments, depositors and retirees who hold accounts in banks. In fact, the FDIC has announced that beginning in January 2013, they will stop insuring all deposits. Of the estimated $1.6 trillion in deposits, and a measured 85-90% in the hands of the mega-banks, large depositors are expected to close their accounts due to the lack of security.

The money in deposits will be funneled through the US Treasury for short-term securities. It is expected that the US Treasury will offer negative interest rates; this combination will surely cause a run on the banks that will put Spain and Greece to shame.

Per request of the Federal Reserve Bank, in 2010 the mega-banks filed contingency plans wherein the US government could not assist them. Called resolution plans, they describe how to liquidate banking assets without causing further damage to a failing financial system. By selling “non-core assets” without upsetting shareholders while protecting the monetary system, taxpayers and creditors is the work of the mega-banks who have contributed solely to the destruction of the global financial markets.

In the event of insolvency, duress or bankruptcy, the banks could use customer secured funds to assist them in repaying debts and loans. Currently Bank of America (BoA) has sold off portions of their domestic assets to secure capitol while Citigroup has followed suit.

By adhering to initiatives provided by the Financial Stability Board, these mega-banks will, when they enact their resolution plans, coordinate with international banking institutions and regulators rather than simply implode.

While preparing for financial collapse, the technocrats on Wall Street are also acquiring firearms, ammunition and control over private mercenary corporations like DynCorp and ‘Blackwater” as authorized by the Department of Defense (DoD) directive 3025.18.

Recently, the former mortgage broker of JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley revealed that due to their involvement in the mortgage-backed securities and derivatives fraud, they are selling off their non-core assets. This means that Morgan Stanley is becoming insolvent.

The recent false flag attacks on our banks falls in line with the scenario that has been coming into view for quite some time. In America, just announcing a banking holiday would cause absolute chaos and there may not be enough armed forces within our US borders to handle the rioting in the streets. However, the banking cartels must implode the US economy in order to gain the sovereign debt – as they are currently doing in Spain and Greece.

Meanwhile, there is a Zionist plot to attack Iran over false claims of procurement of nuclear weapons that do not exist. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been peddling this lie since 1992. Twenty years later, it appears that the Zionist-controlled Israeli government may just have their war with Iran along with the “unwavering support” of the US government.

Framing Iran for the American banking system’s computer failure kills two birds with one stone. Not only would the banking cartels be able to shut down all banking computers (and simultaneously syphon the remaining money in their customers' accounts) but also use this fake cyber-attack to engage the American public against Iran and justify their highly anticipated military strike.

By blaming Iran, the technocrats could initiate the shutdown of all domestic banking computer systems in order to “purge” the virus and reconfigure their systems. However, this would be a false flag meant to pacify the public to avert mass panic. While the general public would fall for the cover story, the banking cartels would simply electronically transfer all customer funds from private checking accounts out to off-shore banks where they could not be touched and cover their tracks.

The American public, being told that Iran was to blame might not riot in the streets as we have seen in European countries of late. There would be total support for the war with Iran if this scheme could be pulled off. The technocrats could not only bankrupt America but also simultaneously stave off a social display and breakdown of society because the Iranians would be to blame.

The plan is perfect. All we have to do is not be fooled and use the recent riots in Spain as a barometer as to how we can take this country back from the Zionists and the banking cartels.

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Germany to see its first Islamic Bank in October

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Turkey's Kuveyt Turk investment fund, which operates under the principles of Islamic sharia law, plans to open its first German branch in October. The first branch in Germany will be opened in Frankfurt with the assistance of Ernst & Young and the Norton Rose law firm. More branches are due to open in the near future in other German cities, particularly Berlin, the Financial Times Deutschland reported.

Sharia law bans a fixed or floating payment or acceptance of specific interest or fees on loans. The bank also buys houses and then resells it to clients for a higher price. Such banks already operate in Britain, where the Muslim community nears 3 million people. Germany has one of the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. About 3.5 million Muslims live in Germany with 70% of them originally from Turkey.

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Finland Preparing for End Of Euro, Deeply Suspicious Of EU’s ‘Gang Of Four’

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If you have been watching the financial headlines, the media is quoting more and more analysts and economists saying the ejection of Greece from the Euro-zone won’t be that big of a deal.

This of course comes after years of claims that such an event would not only be the beginning of the end for the single Euro currency, but would trigger a cataclysmic financial Armageddon as the fallout from Greece alone would amount to nearly 10 trillion in lost GDP upon the core and the peripheries.

Now we are being prepared for the event; and since it isn’t such a big deal, we can only assume those reports were nothing more than lies to push harsh austerity measures on the masses in order to fund banskter bailouts with insanely high interest rates.

As we are now even getting a timeframe for the first domino to fall – an ejection of Greece – being projected to happen as early as September - quoted live right now on Bloomberg’s ticker - we are also being prepped for the final domino in the chain that will fall: the dissolution of the single European currency.

As the governments across Europe have secretly been planning for the dissolution of the Euro publicly, all have maintained lockstep public policy of not even acknowledging the scenario, instead lying to the public with outlandish claims that the ‘Euro is irreversible’.

Nations rise and fall, and so do their currencies, so clearly any fool can see how outlandish such claims are.

Keeping with that mentality, Finland’s foreign minister apparently doesn’t want to end up being part of YouTube compilations in the near future in which people will say look at those bastards lying through their teeth the whole way (much like we see looking back at Bush with Iraq, the unfolding Libor Scandal, Greenspan with the mortgage crisis, and so forth).

As Zero Hedge reports, these are the first cracks in Europe’s Nash equilibrium as FM Toumioja even goes as far as saying he is deeply suspicious of the ‘gang of four.’

While not advocating the break-up of the Euro-zone, Finland’s foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja told the Daily Telegraph this evening that 'it is only a matter of time'. In a somewhat stunning show of truthiness, perhaps the first cracks in Europe’s Nash Equilibrium are starting to show through following Monti’s ‘threats’, Draghi’s ‘promises’, and Merkel’s ‘well, nothings’. The Finn continues, via Reuters, 'Either the south or the north will break away because this currency strait-jacket is causing misery for millions and destroying Europe’s future.'

Finland, which has a veto that could be used to block any new bailout measures, has already stirred the pot unilaterally by demanding collateral from Greece and Spain, and is quite clear in its view that Europe 'is a total catastrophe,' but adds that no one wants to be first to get out of the Euro and take all the blame.

Insisting that the break-up of the Euro does not mean the end of the European Union, Tuomioja believes 'it could make the EU function better,' but comments that he is deeply suspicious of the ‘gang of four’ – which includes Draghi – with regard to his promises (especially ESM seniority), adding that he 'does not trust these people.' Source: Zero Hedge

Now that we have had the first major EU government official jump ship from titanic lie that has been perpetuated for all too long, we will either see more rats follow him; or see him get assassinated by the gang (politically I assume), as a clear message to others not to even think about it.

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USZ Banks Told To Prepare For Total Collapse

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U.S. regulators directed five of the country's biggest banks, including Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), to develop plans for staving off collapse if they faced serious problems, emphasizing that the banks could not count on government help.

The two-year-old program, which has been largely secret until now, is in addition to the "living wills" the banks crafted to help regulators dismantle them if they actually do fail. It shows how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress.

Officials like Lehman Brothers former Chief Executive Dick Fuld have been criticized for having been too hesitant to take bold steps to solve their banks' problems during the financial crisis.

According to documents obtained by Reuters, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency first directed five banks - which also include Citigroup Inc, (C.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) - to come up with these "recovery plans" in May 2010.

They told banks to consider drastic efforts to prevent failure in times of distress, including selling off businesses, finding other funding sources if regular borrowing markets shut them out, and reducing risk. The plans must be feasible to execute within three to six months, and banks were to "make no assumption of extraordinary support from the public sector," according to the documents.

Spokespeople for the five banks declined to comment. The Federal Reserve also declined to comment.

Recovery plans differ from living wills, also known as "resolution plans," which are required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Living wills aim to end bailouts of too-big-to-fail banks by showing how they would liquidate themselves without imperiling the financial system.

"Recovery plans are about protecting the crown jewels," said Paul Cantwell, a managing director at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. "It's about, 'How do I sell off non-core assets?' The priority is to the shareholders. A resolution plan is about protecting the system, taxpayers and creditors."

The recovery plans are being used as part of regulators' ongoing supervisory process. In Britain, recovery and resolution plans have both been part of the living will requirements for large banks.

Mike Brosnan, senior deputy comptroller for large banks at the OCC, said the regulator continuously evaluates contingency planning at the banks and savings associations it supervises.

“Recovery plans required of the largest banks are helpful in ensuring banks and regulators are prepared to manage periods of severe financial distress or instability affecting the banking sector,” he said.

This summer, nine global banks submitted living wills to the Fed and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and regulators released the public portion of the documents.

The recovery plans requested in 2010, meanwhile, have received little publicity. The names of the banks required to submit them have not been previously disclosed, and Reuters obtained them only through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Fed supplied Reuters with the letters requesting plans from banks, but not the banks' actual plans because they were deemed confidential supervisory information. The regulator said it was withholding 5,100 pages of information.

MOVING FURTHER FROM DISASTER

Five years after the financial crisis, concerns remain about whether blow-ups at big banks could lead to another round of taxpayer bailouts. Trading losses have cost JPMorgan nearly $6 billion so far, and scandals such as the alleged rigging of an international interest rate benchmark have only highlighted the risks lurking inside big banks.

These disasters have damaged banks' reputations, but not their balance sheets. Most are still profitable, and in recent years the five banks have improved their capital bases and liquidity. They also have been subjected to annual Federal Reserve stress tests that measure whether the banks have sufficient capital to weather severe economic scenarios.

Bank of America and Citigroup, in a sense, have already been executing the kind of moves called for in the recovery plans. Both have been selling off non-core operations and assets to streamline their sprawling businesses, after receiving multiple bailouts during the financial crisis.

Bank of America in June 2011 told Fed officials that it could shed branches in some parts of the country if it needed to raise capital in an emergency, a person familiar with the matter said in January. The proposal was part of a series of options provided to the Fed, including issuing a tracking stock for Bank of America's Merrill Lynch operations.

But just because the bank proposed selling branches does not mean it's a desirable move or highly probable, the person said. In the past year, Bank of America has shown progress in building capital without such actions. Its Tier 1 common capital ratio increased to 11.24 percent of risk-weighted assets as of June 30 from 8.23 percent a year earlier.

Tier 1 refers to a bank's core capital and has been the main focus of regulators in assessing a bank's capital adequacy.

MENTIONED IN PASSING

The banks' chief risk officers, and in the case of Citigroup, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit, received letters in May 2010 instructing them on what to include in the recovery plans. The requests stemmed from January 2010 crisis management meetings held by regulators. The letters sent to the five banks were nearly identical.

Each plan was to address severe financial stress at the firm, as well as "general financial instability." The plans should be capable of being executed ideally within three months, but no longer than six months, the documents said. 

The plans should "make appropriate assumptions as to the valuations of assets and off-balance sheet positions," the documents said.

Recovery plans have been mentioned in public before, but only in passing. In testimony to Congress in July 2010, Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo said the "largest internationally active U.S. banking organizations" were working on recovery plans. The initiative stemmed from work led by the Financial Stability Board, a body that coordinates the work of international financial regulators, he said.

In a presentation in March, JPMorgan Chase said it had a recovery plan in place and said it was ordered by regulators. The presentation was organized by Harvard Law School and was closed to the media at the time, but is available online.

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How the IMF and the European Central Bank Are Strangling the Greek Economy

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With Greek workers bracing themselves for more announcements of privatization of public services and industries, the fight among political factions continues. But the drama that is unfolding proves that Greek Parliament is but a puppet regime for an occupying force known as the troika: the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.

The pro-austerity government (led by the conservatives, New Democracy) installed this summer is already on shaky ground. With three ministers already having resigned, the country is just a few rowdy demonstrations away from new elections in the fall.  The troika is using its leverage to arrange the debt-ridden country’s economy and governance as it sees fit, which, as shadow justice minister and Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) parliamentarian Zoe Konstantopoulou said, constitute “violations of our international obligations,” and amounts to the nation being “a guinea pig for Europe, and the experiment has failed again and again.”

Common sense says that lower wages means people would spend less money, hurting the retail economy and giving the government less through value-added taxes. Unemployment is above 20 percent, and left-wing activists and politicians note the country is already experiencing pain in the healthcare sector because of medicine shortages and delays in surgeries due to cuts in spending. While the International Labor Organization recently stated that these austerity measures will only cause even more unemployment, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the Greek government to “deliver, deliver, deliver” on the cuts.

Greece has seen its fair share of foreign occupiers and home-grown tyrants: the Ottomans, the Nazis and the military dictatorship that fell in 1974. Geopolitically, Greece is the West, considering its ancient contributions to its early entrance into NATO. But in other ways, it is more like an small nation in the Global South. It’s been occupied, but never an empire in modern times. It shares a religion and borders with Eastern Europe. And like Jamaica or Argentina, it is enduring a political crisis as it copes with its debt. When the country came into the European community, it was told that it was poor, at least in terms of its industrial output, despite its agricultural self-sufficiency. The new European order would integrate it into the modern economy, which of course wouldn’t work for geopolitical reasons, so now the lenders get to auction off its assets through forced privatization.

“We were self-sufficient in bread, sugar, olive oil and meat,” Liana Kanelli, a member of Parliament from the Communist Party (KKE), said of the country before 2001. “We survived under German occupation by just eating olive oil. Now we import everything. We have three state-owned sugar companies--they will be [liberalized], and the price will go up.” Kanelli believes that unless Greece leaves the Eurozone and the entire European community, the "loan sharks" of the troika and Northern Europe will continue to come and impose hurtful economic policy onto Greeks.

Yet, the mundane punditry about the crisis focuses on this myth that Greece suffers from a bloated public sector and a backward private sector that consists of nothing but tourism and feta cheese--there is also shipping and steel, and as some activists point out, the often overlooked fact that the Greek Orthodox Church, despite being a major land owner, doesn’t pay enough taxes, they say. It is true that the public sector is rife with corruption, but activists point out that cutting people’s wages doesn’t address that problem.

And like any other colonizer, Northern Europe has found allies in the Greek 1 percent. As Konstantopoulou explained, one of the most curious things about the austerity plan first implement by the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) led government is that its mandates for labor reform in the private sector went beyond what the troika asked for. “There are very strong internal interests who have found their way into the troika,” she said.

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EU-IMF Rescue Program Destroying Greece: Greek Union

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Greece’s leading private sector union says international auditors monitoring Greece's compliance with its EU-IMF rescue package would have failed their own evaluation.

"Their program has destroyed us, pushing the Greek economy into recession," Yiannis Panagopoulos, head of the GSEE, an umbrella union with some 700,000 members, said on Friday.

He made the remarks in Athens after meeting with the EU-IMF mission.

Panagopoulos called the auditors "charlatans," adding, “If (the auditors) were civil servants and had to be evaluated, it is certain that they would have been fired."

The auditors are inspecting Greece's finances, and urging the government to fulfill its promises to evaluate the civil service and cut 150,000 state jobs by 2015.

Athens is obligated to make spending cuts of 11.6 billion euros ($14.1 billion) over the next two years in order to keep getting loans.

The money is supposed to be saved by making cuts in pensions, health support and other benefits.

"We told them that if the measures reported in the newspapers are carried out, recession in 2013 will be over 5.5 percent and unemployment could approach 28 percent," Panagopoulos noted.

GSEE has vowed to present a "dynamic" response against the cuts.

Greece has been at the epicenter of the eurozone debt crisis and is experiencing its fourth year of recession, while harsh austerity measures have left about half a million people without jobs.

One in every five Greek workers is currently unemployed, banks are in a shaky position, and pensions and salaries have been slashed by up to 40 percent.

Greek youths have also been badly affected, and more than half of them are unemployed.

The long-drawn-out eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and reached Italy, Spain, and France last year, is viewed as a threat not only to Europe but also many of the world’s more developed economies.

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