Weekly News Wrap-Up 6.15.12
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
Forget about the Greek Elections because, in the end, Greece still has to pay its bills. There probably will not be any one party that will get enough votes to garner a majority, but the anti-bailout party is gaining ground. Spain is the latest bailout casualty, but it is all a sign of a system in a tailspin of insolvency.
How much longer before Italy will need a bailout? There are reports of bank runs and rumors of capital controls to stop them in many European countries. There seems to be no end in sight. Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase testified in front of Congress this week, and he would not discuss the size of the bank’s loss in risky derivatives or the size of the trade. Some are reporting it between $70 billion to $100 billion. Dimon says the financial system is much safer today, but how can it be with the five biggest banks in America holding more than $220 trillion in derivative bets?
Things continue to heat up in Syria. The Russians are reportedly sending attack helicopters, and charges the West with arming Syrian rebels. It has turned into a full-blown civil war, and there is no end in sight. Don’t forget the big meeting in Russia next week concerning Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S., UK, Germany, France and China have attended two previous meetings, and all that was accomplished was an agreement for another meeting. If Iran will not budge, the U.S. is threatening a blockade, but will that be enough to stop Israel from striking anyway? All these stories and much more coming from Greg Hunter in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.
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About the Author
Greg Hunter
Greg is the producer and creator of USAWatchdog.com. The site’s slogan is “analyzing the news to give you a clear picture of what’s really going on.” The site will keep an eye on the government, your financial interests and cut through the media spin. USAWatchdog.com is neither Democrat nor Republican, Liberal or Conservative. Before creating and producing the site, Greg spent nearly 9 years as a network and investigative correspondent. He worked for ABC News and Good Morning America for nearly 6 years. Most recently, Greg worked for CNN for shows such as Paula Zahn Now, American Morning and various CNN business shows.
….and lets not forget,we have a narcissistic, not as smart as he thinks punk and pathological liar in the White House who does not need CONgress to lead us into WW III if Valerie Jarrett,and Axelrot tell him that will help him win the election.
Jamie Dimon’s Congressional questioning was a joke, the snowballs questions were very soft, not intended to find out anything of importance. When it was over Mr. Dimon stood around and took photos like a movie star. I believe the fix was in and he knows that for that kind star treatment he must deliver allot more campaign contributions this election cycle than usual, but don’t worry, he will get board approval.
Wall Street loves the European problem as it keeps the American People from recognizing the 5,000 pound elephant in the room which is our poor debt ridden, stagflationary, employment deficient economy. When our American patriotic corporations screwed the middle class and took our jobs to Asia 30 years ago for high profits with cheap labor any high school economic student could see what would happen sooner or later; that is, high unemployment and lower wages results in lower buying power to buy the corporations products, which results in the cycle repeating itself again and again. High wages on the other hand creates wealth, buying power, pride in workmanship, better products, and a greater economy. People with money like the late great middle class were buying American and always wanted new and often, I lived it, I saw it, I know what good wages did for so many families, no so today. The Corporations who stood strong and stayed here are my first buying choice.
Lastly and as usual, CNBC sees a buy signal behind every tree, case in point, the market rallied yesterday on another quite higher weekly unemployment figures, now go figure that one!
Great reporting as usual and well appreciated by thinking men & women.
Greg: what is most interesting about the Euro crisis is the two opposing viewpoints of analysts. On the one hand there are those who believe that Greece and the other PIIGS to follow, should default, leave the Euro and, after a period of pain and readjustment; easily following the sterling example of Iceland. The opposing viewpoint hinges on some form of miraculous bailout of monies that do not exist (dropped from a circling Black Swan, not a helicopter, I presume), using the actual sovereignty of the country as collateral. When you break down the arguments in this fashion it becomes fairly obvious that the real choice is between democracy/freedom, and totalitarian debt enslavement.
Snap…unemployment up and Pres. Obama does an end run on Congress and allows illegal aliens under 30control years old to get a work permit. Just what unemployeed citizens of the USA need…more competition.
How is rule by His Royal Hindmost Obama any different than rule any other dictator? He kills US citizens without trial. He uses executive order or un-elected bureaucrats decrees to rule without the representation of “We the people”.
Thanks Greg for the real news
Thank you DroidX-G
Greg
Why don’t you interview Max Keiser?
Ross,
Good idea. Thank you for your support.
Greg
Hillary has been caught lying about Russia supplying copters to Syria.
They are refurbished copters being returned to Syria.
What is happening is that Israel wants to put in place dictators of choice in Syria and Iran, and Hillary’s job is to put out propaganda
to sell the world on allowing the US to invade those countries with the blessing of the UN.
This is the same con job used to invade Iraq to satisfy Israel.
imo.
hmmm integrity and credibility. Will you post that you were wrong? Einstein did not say that about insanity. But what does it matter if we pass on info that is incorrect, right?
Greg Haas,
This is widely attributed to Einstein. If I am wrong I am far from alone.
Greg
‘All these stories and much more….’ thanks Greg, hopefully good news…mabey not….hang on to your hat.
Thanks Rainman for the support.
Greg
Yep Greg…
Gold is king once agian.
This weak i had a renter to have an air conditioner go out. what was 400.00 fake dollars 5 yrs ago is now 685.00/ what am i to do for my renter ?
he,s to poor to go up on his rent,and i cant afford to keep him up.
Im not really looking for a reply from you bud. just another example among many of how bad its getting in america. Things are worse then they are being reported.
Yes. The focus on the Greek election by the financial markets and others is somewhat of a joke. It matters little who takes power as Greece simply has too much debt that it can never repay, regardless of which bunch of totally incompetent politicians and bureaucrats are in charge.
One guy who is calling it correctly (in my view)is Mark Grant who had a piece published in the zero hedge site on 16 Jun. Here is a little snippet of what “Financial Guru” Mr. Grant had to say.
“Let us calmly consider the facts as we can ferret them out and change our focus to reality and not what we are spoon fed by the Europeans. Greece has a total debt of about $1.3 trillion. This is composed of their sovereign debt, which Europe counts, and then their $90 billion in derivatives, their Federally guaranteed regional debt, their sovereign guaranteed bank and corporate debt, their obligations to the EU and finally their loans at the other central banks. It is just simple addition and not my opinion; I am just counting all of the liabilities while Europe does not. Then if you take their GDP and divide it by their total debt you get a debt to GDP ratio of around 453%. You may claim, and somewhat correctly, there is value in some of their assets which would be an off-set in case of actual default but the problem here is that they are a sovereign nation so how one would lay claim to any Greeks assets would be quite problematical.
In any event the amount of money that Greece owes cannot be paid back. They do not have enough assets, they certainly do not have enough cash flow or revenues and the situation was manipulated by Greece and allowed by the European Union as other factors were more important and overshadowed the burgeoning deficit. So now Greece is stuck and Europe is stuck and it matters very little really who will be elected on Sunday as there is no way out of this trap except continuing cash payments from the other European nations. Because the charity that has been given comes with strings attached there is one group that is more friendly to Europe and one that is less friendly and the reality is that Greece will try to soak up as much money as they can from the EU and when the money is stopped then Greece will default because there is no other choice regardless of anyone’s politics. It is then the default that is the real issue, the only important issue really, because the size of the debt will cause ripples and possibly large waves all across the financial landscape. It will hit the ECB, the banks on the other side of the derivatives contracts, all of the Greek banks who are really in default at present and being carried by Europe as well as the nation and the Greek default will spread the infection in many places that we cannot imagine because so much is hidden and tucked away in the European financial system.”
All the best to you Greg.
Good stuff Sean!! Thank you for adding content to the site.
Greg
five biggest banks in America holding more than $220 trillion in derivative bets?
Which means what? I suppose I don’t understand derivatives. How they work, what it means for the wider economy, etc, etc…anyone care to explain?
NM, a derivative is a bet on how another bet will do or a way to securitize a debt in order to use it as the basis for more loans,and as a taxpayer, you owe 3000 dollars for every trillion dollars you hear about.Bernie Sanders does an audit of the Fed and finds out they gave member banks 16 trillion in loans, you and I owe 48,000 each, you read JP Morgan Chase has derivative exposure of 70 trillion we owe 210,000 each etc etc, it’s called too big to fail! The banks that pay into the FDIC program have not put enough money back to cover their exposure, there is not enough money in the world to cover the unregulated, off the books bets made in the opaque world of derivative finance, we are on the hook for the difference, as our children and grandchildren. As a side note, about 800 billion in actual US currency covers about 7 trillion in currency obligations, most of it is digital.The physical money to let everybody take their money out of the bank does not exist.
Great reporting. While the world spins out of control take this Sunday & relax!
I hope you have a wonderful Fathers Day.
Peace.
Thank you M Smith!!
Greg
Greg,
The Greek election is now over and the conservative party won. It looks like Greece is going to stay in the euro zone a bit longer. I think the election result will only delay the Euro crisis. The economy in Greece (and other European countries) will not improve without painful reforms.
I watched this video clip on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-14-2012/bank-yankers—jamie-dimon-on-capitol-hill) and it made me sick. Did you see those shameless senators asking Jamie Dimon how to do their jobs? Do you think they will protect our money and investments? I am afraid not.
As for Syria, the rebels are getting a steady flow of heavy weaponry, more powerful bombs and anti-tank rockets weapons from Turkey. Although there is no direct link to the U.S., it is hard to believe that the Turkish government is supplying the weapons to the Syria rebels without the U.S. consent. As Russia is shipping more arms to the Syrian government and Turkey is arming the Syria rebels, full size civil war is unavoidable. Syria is a new attraction for arms dealers and war profiteers.
Ambrose
Gregg!
This is absolutely devestating to see you publish a pure propaganda-cartoon on Syria! While Assad is certainly no angel – a fake-revolution led by Al-CIA-Da followed by extremist-globalist sell-out governments is certainly not superior. As Ex-NATO-commander Wesley Clarke put it – he has been given a hit-list of regime-change-countries more than 10 years ago – Syria, Egipt, Tunesia, Libya – all those countries suddenly have “revolutions” and basically the people are worse off than before – but hey it is “freedom” and “democracy”.
Bourchakoun,
Your points are well made and well taken. I’ll do better screening the toons in the future.
Greg
Greg, I think the cartoon might misrepresent what’s happening in Syria. It seems the recent massacre in Houla may have been carried out by U.S. armed terrorists rather than by Syrian government forces as reported in the U.S. media.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/pers-j14.shtml
Henry,
Yes I noted that in a post earlier. I used a Ron Paul quote to point that out. I probably should not have used that cartoon. You are the second person to point that out. Thank you for doing so.
Greg
The Greeks have just voted themselves into becoming slaves.
A case of the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, same as it ever was.