The Immeasurable Risk European Banks Are Hiding

By: Catherine Boyle: There is growing concern among policymakers and analysts that the true extent of European banks’ debt problems is being masked. Sir Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, became the most high-profile policymaker to date to warn of the dangers of banks putting off foreclosures in a speech Tuesday night.

His stern warning to U.K. banks that they need to drop the “pretense” that some of their bad debts will be repaid was coupled with the statement that they have “insufficient capital” to deal with losses which have remained undeclared.

Essentially, what seems to have happened is that banks across the euro zone have put off foreclosures on weak businesses – a process known as forbearance. This has been enabled by low interest rates across the region and rescue packages which have injected unprecedented amounts of liquidity into the banking system and helped keep struggling economies afloat.

The scale of forbearance is hinted at in relatively low rates of company insolvencies.

In the U.K., despite the recession, insolvency rates are similar to 2002, when the economy grew by 1.6 percent, according to government figures.

(Read More: Is It Time to Kill Off U.K.'s Zombie Companies?)

Greece’s problems have been well flagged – yet just five Greek companies were declared insolvent in 2011, the year it was forced to seek a bailout from international lenders, fewer than in 2007, when its economy was still growing. This persists across the euro [EUR=X  1.2968    -0.0003  (-0.02%)   ] zone, with the weakest economies sometimes experiencing its lowest insolvency rates.

In 2011, the number of insolvencies per 10,000 companies was lowest in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, according to calculations from Creditreform.

Bani Walid Hospital destroyed by Al-CIA-da who used 'GAS'!!!

By Morris: Until an update call - i will update text here -- A call from Bani Walid - Misrata still have not taken it

Tom Watson; "a pedophile ring in Parliament and No.10"

WTF?!!!!!!!  ~ The Artist Taxi Driver

"Major, major, major crime!... The corrupt police, judiciary, BBC and within number 10, they are laughing in your face!"

Ben Bernanke’s secret philanthropy

By Simon Black: Singapore - Legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens famously calls America’s oil imports ‘the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.’

Pickens is referring to the money that is paid each year to oil exporting nations, particularly those in the Persian Gulf which raked in around $100 billion last year.
No doubt, this is an enormous transfer of wealth. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the TRILLIONS that Ben Bernanke gives the world’s elite.
Over the past few years, central banks have created trillions of dollars, most of which they loaned to commercial banks at 0%. The commercial banks then loaned this money to their best customers (and governments) at a slightly higher rate.
The end result is that a huge chunk of those trillions ended up in the pockets of a small handful of people. The banks and their best customers get sweetheart deals to make even more money, while the vast majority of people get screwed with inflation.

Generational Wealth and Upward Mobility - Charles Hugh Smith

Advanced democracies have lost upward mobility. 

Both capitalism and democracy promise the opportunity for upward mobility.  Capitalism offers upward mobility to anyone with a profitable idea or productive skillset and work ethic. Democracy implicitly promises a "level playing field" of meritocracy, where talent, drive and hard work open opportunities for advancement.

Crony capitalism offers wealth to the class that already possesses it. Feudalism bestows "rights" to wealth to a favored few.  In a way, upward mobility is a real-world test of a nation's economic and social order: if upward mobility exits in name only, then that nation is neither capitalist nor democratic. Stripped of propaganda and misleading labels, it is a feudal society or a crony-capitalist economy masquerading as a capitalist democracy.

Japan is an interesting case study. Some readers of last week's series on Japan noted that Japan was still very wealthy and life was good there. Indeed, some commentators have made the case that Japan has purposefully indebted itself to mask the wealth generated by its export machine: The Myth That Japan is Broke.

US Third Party Presidential Debate (Moderated by Larry King)

In response to widespread blackout from both the mainstream media and political establishment alike, RT is honored to be presenting a platform for the major third-party candidates also vying for the White House this election year to debate. We are offering the event live in cooperation with the debate's organizers, the Free and Equal Elections Foundation. The event is moderated by multi-award winning broadcast journalist Larry King.

Serbian Conflict Has Historical Roots - Natasha

Morris: Another Serb is interviewed as a consequence of the Libyan Doctor mentioning Srebrenica. Which I could have easily done too. btw I am now looking for a Bosnian to interview ... Source

Irish society is colluding in its own destruction, due to malignant shame!

FINTAN O'TOOLE: CAN A country die of shame? Probably not – but Ireland is making a good effort. Ours is a society colluding in its own destruction. We go along with the outrageous expropriation of public wealth and the imposition of stupid cruelties because, at some level, we are convinced that “we” deserve it.
Shame can be a very good thing – a lot of shameless people in Ireland could do with a large dose of it. But the psychiatrist Garrett O’Connor usefully distinguishes “healthy shame” from “malignant shame”: “Healthy shame becomes malignant when it . . . is used as a weapon by individuals or groups in authority to control or manipulate the actions and attitudes of those under their power . . .
“Malignant shame, more than a simple emotion, is an identity: a more or less permanent state of low self-esteem that causes even successful persons to experience themselves as being unworthy . . . Thus, abuse victims often remain passive in the face of punishment because they suspect that the rage and criticism of their perpetrator is both accurate and justified.”
This is an eerily accurate diagnosis of the collective passivity of Irish citizens. We are the victims of an obvious outrage – forced to beggar ourselves to pay off debts that “we” never incurred. But we are unable to respond to this attack because we suspect that we deserve it.

What If We Adopted A System Where The Banks Did Not Create Our Money?

By Michael: What if there was a financial system that would eliminate the need for the federal government to go into debt, that would eliminate the need for the Federal Reserve, that would end the practice of fractional reserve banking and that would dethrone the big banks?  Would you be in favor of such a system?  A surprising new IMF research paper entitled "The Chicago Plan Revisited" by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof is making waves in economic circles all over the globe.  The paper suggests that the world would be much better off if we adopted a system where the banks did not create our money.  So instead of a system where more money is only created when more debt is created, we would have a system of debt-free money that is created directly by national governments.  There have been others that have suggested such a system before, but to have an IMF research paper actually recommend that such a system be adopted is a very big deal.  At the moment, the world is experiencing the biggest debt crisis in human history, and this proposal is being described as a "radical solution" that could potentially remedy some of our largest financial problems.  Unfortunately, apologists for the current system are already viciously attacking this new IMF paper, and of course the big banks would throw a major fit if such a system was ever to be seriously contemplated.  That is why it is imperative that we educate people about how money really works.  Our current system is in the process of collapsing and we desperately need to transition to a new one.

Secrets of Radiation Fallout Survival: John B Wells

John B Wells of Coast to Coast fame sits down with unnamed government insider to discuss Fukushima, and how to survive radiation fallout. This information could save your life. Source

Anti War Protests in Turkey Are Rampant - Turkish Citizen

Morris: Erdogan is making loud noises, he would like a war, but his army are not even good enough to make a buffer zone, yet his political standing in Turkey is unrivaled. He continues to support Muslims fighting other Muslims: Libya, Syria and Bahrain for starters. He thinks he can be an Ottoman Pasha.
And the PKK (Kurdish fighters in Turkey) is getting stronger. Source

Greece Kills Bond Buyback Proposal

Submitted by Tyler Durden: One of the zanier proposals floated in the past few weeks, yet sufficient to send Greek bonds soaring to post-restructuring highs on hopes of a take out, was the suggestion that Greece would repurchase its fresh-start bonds in the open market, which recently traded in the teens, and have since virtually doubled, at a price ~25 cents of par. Obviously since the price of the bonds had been much lower, even the mere possibility of what is termed in the industry as a distressed buyback, sent everyone scurrying to purchase the paper, as if it had any intrinsic economic value (it did not), instead of mere hopes that Greece would throw even more good money after bad (especially since the fresh start bonds have a meaningless cash coupon and nobody expects them to be repaid at maturity). There is also the detail that a distressed buyback is, for the rating agencies, equivalent to an Event of Default, but knowledge of that small fact would be demanding too much out of those who scrambled in the latest chase for yield. Anyway, with all that said, it now appears that the whole idea is over, with Greek Kathimerini reporting moments ago that Greece has scuttled the proposal for a bond buyback.

From Kathimerini:

The Finance Ministry is ditching banks’ plan for a bond swap that would have eased their recapitalization requirements.

According to sources, Minister Yannis Stournaras has rejected the proposal that local banks presented to him, suggesting that this would be a move that would benefit bank shareholders disproportionately.