Category: Aggregated

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) sent shock waves through financial markets Thursday, by suddenly removing its “peg” to the euro — at 1 euro = 1.20 CHF or higher — which it had maintained for three-and-a-half years, and lowering its discount rate to a truly extraordinary minus 0.75%. Stock markets plunged, foreign-exchange traders lost billions in minutes, ATMs refused to give euros, as the Swiss franc immediately leaped 30% above parity with the euro. It then slightly adjusted back to about 1 euro = 1.035 CHF. The Swiss stock market particularly plunged, due to fears of export drops as consequence of the new parity.

SNB chairman of the governing board Thomas Jordan, in a press conference, stated that the reasons for the decision were not domestic but international. He did not say more. But the Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger indicates that they are: 1) The coming QE from the European Central Bank; 2) The Greek elections.

Due to the desperation of the bankrupt and sinking Eurozone banks, the European Central Bank (ECB) has now made clear, in a statement Jan. 11 by French ECB board member Benoit Coeuré, that the ECB will announce, at its Jan. 22 meeting, “quantitative easing” by buying Eurozone government bonds from those banks. The surprise Swiss central bank move (Switzerland is not in the Eurozone) can be taken as a clear sign that the ECB bank-bailout-bondbuying coming next week will be very large, and will drive the euro into the cellar. Wall Street wants the ECB to buy 4.5 trillion euros of government bonds from the banks.

The Swiss measure was inevitable, as the 1.20 parity was unsustainable in the longer term. It cost an unbalanced reserve basket at the SNB, which, through the constant purchases of euros, had reached the equivalent of $500 billion in euros. These reserves will accordingly lose value; some estimates are that the SNB itself lost $50 billion today.

However, the decision to drop the parity now, as hinted by Jordan, shows that the Swiss are leaving the sinking ship. Keeping parity with the euro means to follow the same monetary policy as the ECB, which the SNB has done so far, but the coming QE is too much. Furthermore, “Greek elections” means a feared fatal tsunami for the euro.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) sent shock waves through financial markets Thursday, by suddenly removing its “peg” to the euro — at 1 euro = 1.20 CHF or higher — which it had maintained for three-and-a-half years, and lowering its discount rate to a truly extraordinary minus 0.75%. Stock markets plunged, foreign-exchange traders lost billions in minutes, ATMs refused to give euros, as the Swiss franc immediately leaped 30% above parity with the euro. It then slightly adjusted back to about 1 euro = 1.035 CHF. The Swiss stock market particularly plunged, due to fears of export drops as consequence of the new parity.

SNB chairman of the governing board Thomas Jordan, in a press conference, stated that the reasons for the decision were not domestic but international. He did not say more. But the Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger indicates that they are: 1) The coming QE from the European Central Bank; 2) The Greek elections.

Due to the desperation of the bankrupt and sinking Eurozone banks, the European Central Bank (ECB) has now made clear, in a statement Jan. 11 by French ECB board member Benoit Coeuré, that the ECB will announce, at its Jan. 22 meeting, “quantitative easing” by buying Eurozone government bonds from those banks. The surprise Swiss central bank move (Switzerland is not in the Eurozone) can be taken as a clear sign that the ECB bank-bailout-bondbuying coming next week will be very large, and will drive the euro into the cellar. Wall Street wants the ECB to buy 4.5 trillion euros of government bonds from the banks.

The Swiss measure was inevitable, as the 1.20 parity was unsustainable in the longer term. It cost an unbalanced reserve basket at the SNB, which, through the constant purchases of euros, had reached the equivalent of $500 billion in euros. These reserves will accordingly lose value; some estimates are that the SNB itself lost $50 billion today.

However, the decision to drop the parity now, as hinted by Jordan, shows that the Swiss are leaving the sinking ship. Keeping parity with the euro means to follow the same monetary policy as the ECB, which the SNB has done so far, but the coming QE is too much. Furthermore, “Greek elections” means a feared fatal tsunami for the euro.

The battle for the survival of the United States now centers around two distinctly different New York City images: The New York City of our first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who forged the Federal Constitutional Republic around the principle of national credit and national banking, versus Wall Street’s treason, from Hamilton’s assassin Aaron Burr to today’s Jamie Dimon and the rest of the too-big-to-fail pirates who have stolen the nation’s future if allowed to continue.

On Saturday, January 17, the battle intensifies with the convening of the latest in a series of Schiller Institute Manhattan conferences, which aims to draw together citizen-patriots who are fed up with Wall Street and the City of London and are ready to fight.

In discussions on Thursday, Jan. 14, with colleagues, Lyndon LaRouche observed that we are entering into a period in which the revolt against Wall Street can erupt into a force for revolutionary policy change. LaRouche emphasized,

“We are on the edge of that kind of sudden, revolutionary shift.”

Evidence of the growing anti-Wall Street ferment is all around. This week, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Oh.) reintroduced legislation—HR 381—to reinstate Glass Steagall, the FDR-era bill that broke up the too-big-to-fail banks of the Great Depression era into totally separated commercial banks, under FDIC insurance protection, and the investment banks with no protection for their gambling. The bill has an initial 16 co-sponsors. A similar bill was introduced into the US Senate last session, by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Angus King (I-Vt.) and must be again filed immediately.

In Western Europe, where the banks are on the verge of collapse, the Swiss National Bank decoupled from the euro, and immediately went up by 40 percent in value against the euro before slightly falling back. The Swiss know that the euro is doomed in the coming days, with the anticipated European Central Bank announcement next Thursday of a typhoon-like ‘quantitative easing’ program and the upcoming Greek elections that could signal the end of the euro system altogether.

The instability of the bankrupt trans-Atlantic banking system has Wall Street in a state of desperation. Jamie Dimon told analysts and financial reporters on Wednesday that “the banks are under assault.” The reality is, that the hatred of the American people for Wall Street is welling up—and everything that Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are doing is making things worse for them. The flagrant buying off of Congress to wipe out the pathetically small restrictions left in Dodd-Frank has fueled the backlash.

There is no recourse but to reinstate Glass-Steagall as Step One of the Hamiltonian revival that is the only viable solution. By returning to the American System, the United States would be naturally aligned with the BRICS countries that have embarked on a new system of international cooperation among sovereign nation-states joined together to pursue the common aims of mankind.

The alternative is the war drive coming out of the same desperate London and Wall Street circles. In Europe, there are frightening signs of a re-emergence of neo-Nazi ideas, spreading from the Right Sector and related forces in Ukraine into Germany and other parts of Europe. LaRouche told colleagues today that the fear of such a neo-fascist revival has German politicians, especially Angela Merkel, terrified. He added, in disgust, that Merkel’s failure to officially rebuke Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s disgusting public comments in Berlin about the Soviet invasions of Ukraine and Germany in World War II, was “unbelievable in today’s Germany.”

LaRouche contrasted this capitulation and fear to the brave stance taken by the French in reaction to last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. Hollande and France were targeted because they are breaking from the British-led war drive against Russia, and are being joined by other more sane Europeans who are pushing for a revival of cooperation with Russia that is the only war-avoidance option and the only way to solve some of the most pressing problems in the world today—including the menace of terrorism and asymmetric warfare coming from the Anglo-Saudi monarchies.

It is in this context that the Saturday afternoon Manhattan event is of historic importance.

The battle for the survival of the United States now centers around two distinctly different New York City images: The New York City of our first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who forged the Federal Constitutional Republic around the principle of national credit and national banking, versus Wall Street’s treason, from Hamilton’s assassin Aaron Burr to today’s Jamie Dimon and the rest of the too-big-to-fail pirates who have stolen the nation’s future if allowed to continue.

On Saturday, January 17, the battle intensifies with the convening of the latest in a series of Schiller Institute Manhattan conferences, which aims to draw together citizen-patriots who are fed up with Wall Street and the City of London and are ready to fight.

In discussions on Thursday, Jan. 14, with colleagues, Lyndon LaRouche observed that we are entering into a period in which the revolt against Wall Street can erupt into a force for revolutionary policy change. LaRouche emphasized,

“We are on the edge of that kind of sudden, revolutionary shift.”

Evidence of the growing anti-Wall Street ferment is all around. This week, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Oh.) reintroduced legislation—HR 381—to reinstate Glass Steagall, the FDR-era bill that broke up the too-big-to-fail banks of the Great Depression era into totally separated commercial banks, under FDIC insurance protection, and the investment banks with no protection for their gambling. The bill has an initial 16 co-sponsors. A similar bill was introduced into the US Senate last session, by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Angus King (I-Vt.) and must be again filed immediately.

In Western Europe, where the banks are on the verge of collapse, the Swiss National Bank decoupled from the euro, and immediately went up by 40 percent in value against the euro before slightly falling back. The Swiss know that the euro is doomed in the coming days, with the anticipated European Central Bank announcement next Thursday of a typhoon-like ‘quantitative easing’ program and the upcoming Greek elections that could signal the end of the euro system altogether.

The instability of the bankrupt trans-Atlantic banking system has Wall Street in a state of desperation. Jamie Dimon told analysts and financial reporters on Wednesday that “the banks are under assault.” The reality is, that the hatred of the American people for Wall Street is welling up—and everything that Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are doing is making things worse for them. The flagrant buying off of Congress to wipe out the pathetically small restrictions left in Dodd-Frank has fueled the backlash.

There is no recourse but to reinstate Glass-Steagall as Step One of the Hamiltonian revival that is the only viable solution. By returning to the American System, the United States would be naturally aligned with the BRICS countries that have embarked on a new system of international cooperation among sovereign nation-states joined together to pursue the common aims of mankind.

The alternative is the war drive coming out of the same desperate London and Wall Street circles. In Europe, there are frightening signs of a re-emergence of neo-Nazi ideas, spreading from the Right Sector and related forces in Ukraine into Germany and other parts of Europe. LaRouche told colleagues today that the fear of such a neo-fascist revival has German politicians, especially Angela Merkel, terrified. He added, in disgust, that Merkel’s failure to officially rebuke Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s disgusting public comments in Berlin about the Soviet invasions of Ukraine and Germany in World War II, was “unbelievable in today’s Germany.”

LaRouche contrasted this capitulation and fear to the brave stance taken by the French in reaction to last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. Hollande and France were targeted because they are breaking from the British-led war drive against Russia, and are being joined by other more sane Europeans who are pushing for a revival of cooperation with Russia that is the only war-avoidance option and the only way to solve some of the most pressing problems in the world today—including the menace of terrorism and asymmetric warfare coming from the Anglo-Saudi monarchies.

It is in this context that the Saturday afternoon Manhattan event is of historic importance.

The battle for the survival of the United States now centers around two distinctly different New York City images: The New York City of our first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who forged the Federal Constitutional Republic around the principle of national credit and national banking, versus Wall Street’s treason, from Hamilton’s assassin Aaron Burr to today’s Jamie Dimon and the rest of the too-big-to-fail pirates who have stolen the nation’s future if allowed to continue.

On Saturday, January 17, the battle intensifies with the convening of the latest in a series of Schiller Institute Manhattan conferences, which aims to draw together citizen-patriots who are fed up with Wall Street and the City of London and are ready to fight.

In discussions on Thursday, Jan. 14, with colleagues, Lyndon LaRouche observed that we are entering into a period in which the revolt against Wall Street can erupt into a force for revolutionary policy change. LaRouche emphasized,

“We are on the edge of that kind of sudden, revolutionary shift.”

Evidence of the growing anti-Wall Street ferment is all around. This week, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Oh.) reintroduced legislation—HR 381—to reinstate Glass Steagall, the FDR-era bill that broke up the too-big-to-fail banks of the Great Depression era into totally separated commercial banks, under FDIC insurance protection, and the investment banks with no protection for their gambling. The bill has an initial 16 co-sponsors. A similar bill was introduced into the US Senate last session, by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wa.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Angus King (I-Vt.) and must be again filed immediately.

In Western Europe, where the banks are on the verge of collapse, the Swiss National Bank decoupled from the euro, and immediately went up by 40 percent in value against the euro before slightly falling back. The Swiss know that the euro is doomed in the coming days, with the anticipated European Central Bank announcement next Thursday of a typhoon-like ‘quantitative easing’ program and the upcoming Greek elections that could signal the end of the euro system altogether.

The instability of the bankrupt trans-Atlantic banking system has Wall Street in a state of desperation. Jamie Dimon told analysts and financial reporters on Wednesday that “the banks are under assault.” The reality is, that the hatred of the American people for Wall Street is welling up—and everything that Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo are doing is making things worse for them. The flagrant buying off of Congress to wipe out the pathetically small restrictions left in Dodd-Frank has fueled the backlash.

There is no recourse but to reinstate Glass-Steagall as Step One of the Hamiltonian revival that is the only viable solution. By returning to the American System, the United States would be naturally aligned with the BRICS countries that have embarked on a new system of international cooperation among sovereign nation-states joined together to pursue the common aims of mankind.

The alternative is the war drive coming out of the same desperate London and Wall Street circles. In Europe, there are frightening signs of a re-emergence of neo-Nazi ideas, spreading from the Right Sector and related forces in Ukraine into Germany and other parts of Europe. LaRouche told colleagues today that the fear of such a neo-fascist revival has German politicians, especially Angela Merkel, terrified. He added, in disgust, that Merkel’s failure to officially rebuke Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s disgusting public comments in Berlin about the Soviet invasions of Ukraine and Germany in World War II, was “unbelievable in today’s Germany.”

LaRouche contrasted this capitulation and fear to the brave stance taken by the French in reaction to last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris. Hollande and France were targeted because they are breaking from the British-led war drive against Russia, and are being joined by other more sane Europeans who are pushing for a revival of cooperation with Russia that is the only war-avoidance option and the only way to solve some of the most pressing problems in the world today—including the menace of terrorism and asymmetric warfare coming from the Anglo-Saudi monarchies.

It is in this context that the Saturday afternoon Manhattan event is of historic importance.