Massive Bank and High Profile Resignations Across the World

[Sabrina]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml

1 Nov UK

Barclays traders are damned by their own emails which reveal how they bragged about rigging energy prices to make profits

Critics said the expletive-ridden correspondence provides further evidence of the 'rotten culture of casino banking' that built up under Bob Diamond

Bank faces £270million fine for allegedly manipulating energy market in US



Emails and phone messages between foul-mouthed Barclays traders in New York reveal how they bragged about rigging energy prices in America to make huge profits.

Critics yesterday said the expletive-ridden correspondence provides further evidence of the ‘rotten culture of casino banking’ that built up under disgraced former boss Bob Diamond.
The bank faces a £270million fine by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for allegedly manipulating the energy market across Western America between November 2006 and 2008.

Four traders are accused of conspiring to sell electricity at a loss to drive prices down.
This would enable simultaneous bets on falling energy prices to reap huge profits, leading to losses of £86million for other investors and pensions funds.

It is alleged to have taken place at four electricity-trading hubs across the western US – Mid Columbia in Washington State, Palo Verde in Phoenix, Arizona, and South Path 15 and North Path 15 in California.

These hubs are where electricity is channelled, stored and then distributed around the region.
Barclays and other banks trade in complicated financial instruments which bet on electricity price movements at these hubs.

The accused Barclays traders – Daniel Brin, Scott Connelly, Karen Levine and Ryan Smith – face penalties totalling £11million.

Connelly was described as ‘the leader of the manipulative scheme’ and the highest paid. He faces a £9.3million fine.

The bank was also ordered to pay back £22million in profits made from the alleged energy manipulation scam.

But, in arguably a more devastating blow to Barclays, the US regulator published a series of emails and phone messages sent by the bank’s traders.

In a series of messages dated November 3, 2006, Ryan Smith bragged to a colleague that he had managed to manipulate the energy markets.

He said: ‘I totally f****** with the Palo market today,’ adding: ‘I just started lifting the p*** out of the palo.’ Smith continued: ‘was fun. Need to do that more often.’
In a separate exchange on December 7, 2006, he said: ‘I’m going to c*** on the NP light and it should drive the SP light lower.’

Critics said the crude messages reinforced the immoral, profit-crazed image that Barclays has desperately tried to shed since new chief executive Antony Jenkins took over in August.


John Mann, who sits on the Treasury select committee of MPs, said: ‘This just shows how the rotten culture of casino banking that was built up under Bob Diamond went all the way through Barclays. Traders were clearly programmed to do anything to make a profit.’

The emails sent by Barclays’ American traders have echoes of the brash messages sent by their counterparts in London who boasted about rigging key interest rates.

These were published in June when Barclays was fined £290million by UK and US regulators over the scandal. This led to the departure of Diamond and several other top executives. Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott said: ‘The American authorities’ allegations of Enron-style rigging of electricity prices shows what a toxic trail Bob Diamond left behind him.’
All four traders accused of rigging the energy markets are thought to have left the bank, although none are understood to have been fired.

Barclays has been given 30 days to appeal and said it intends to do so. It said it ‘strongly disagrees with the allegations’, adding: ‘We believe that our trading was legitimate and above board and intend to vigorously defend this matter.’

Barclays is likely to argue that it did not have big enough positions in the energy market to be able to manipulate prices.

[Sabrina]

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs...112456166.html

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS's head of India investment banking, Ashok Mittal, has resigned, a spokesman for the bank said on Tuesday.

The departure of Mittal, who was named the head of India investment banking at UBS in June of last year, was an isolated incident and there were no other senior-level departures at the India unit at this time, said Mark Panday, Hong Kong-based spokesman for UBS.

Mittal was not immediately available for comment. Prior to joining UBS, he was with Lehman Brothers and had worked as co-head of India investment banking at HSBC.

His resignation follows two high-profile departures from the bank's India unit last year.
UBS's head of India operations, Manisha Girotra, resigned in November of last year. The bank appointed Aashish Kamat, who was its chairman of financial institutions coverage in Asia Pacific, to replace her as chief executive for India.

The Zurich-based bank's India equity capital markets head, Purvesh Shah, also left the bank last year to join British bank Barclays (BARC.L).

UBS unveiled plans on Tuesday to wind down its fixed income business and fire 10,000 bankers as it adapts to tougher capital rules that make it more difficult for investment banks to turn a profit in the wake of the financial crisis.

30 Oct

[Sabrina]

http://the2012scenario.com/2012/11/d...d/#more-151068

Did Hurricane Sandy Hide the Shutdown of the Fed


There are rumors that one of the functions of Hurricane Sandy was to create a cloak behind which the Federal Reserve could be taken down. Here is one news story that demonstrates that there was in fact a disruption in service at the Fed. We’ll be asking Archangel Michael for his view of the matter tomorrow.

Hurricane Sandy disrupts Federal Reserve operations
New York Federal Reserve suspended operations for a day as hurricane battered eastern US; temporary measures taken to support banking in face of disruptions to power, communications and staffing

Central Banking | 31 Oct 2012

http://www.centralbanking.com/centra...rve-operations

The Federal Reserve and regional Federal Reserve banks suspended some operations and undertook temporary measures to allow the financial system to continue to function as a hurricane battered the eastern US on October 29 and 30.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in one of the worst affected areas, was open on October 29, but suspended open market operations the following day. The settlement of transactions that took place on Monday was postponed until today (October 31), and purchases of Treasuries and agency mortgage-backed securities scheduled for October 30 were cancelled.

Hurricane Sandy was a tropical storm that originated in the Caribbean and moved up the eastern US, striking New York and the surrounding area late on October 29. Parts of the US were left without power and New York experienced major flooding. Scores of people were killed.

The Federal Reserve issued a joint statement on October 30 with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation setting out contingency measures for financial institutions affected by the hurricane. The Fed called on banks to “work constructively” with borrowers affected by the hurricane. “The agencies recognise that efforts to work with borrowers in communities under stress can be consistent with safe-and-sound banking practices,” the statement said.

Supervisory reporting requirements disrupted by the hurricane were adjusted so as to not impose unfair penalties. Federal regulators agreed to “expedite” any request to set up temporary banking facilities in affected areas as “banks face power, telecommunications, staffing and other challenges in re-opening facilities after the hurricane”.

Other Federal Reserve banks were also affected. Cash operations at the Philadelphia Fed and the Baltimore branch of the Richmond Fed were suspended, and the Boston Fed opened with only essential staff on October 30. Normal cash operations resumed today.

[Sabrina]

http://www.aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/


and

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ild-abuse.html

UK 5 Nov

Senior Tories accused over child abuse

The inquiry, established to examine allegations of abuse, heard claims that a paedophile ring operating from children’s homes included policemen, social workers and other prominent public figures.

Their identities were protected by an order from Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC, the retired High Court judge in charge of the 1997 North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal of Inquiry, after he dismissed the claims they had taken part in abuse as “fantasy”.
But there are now calls for the allegations to be re-examined in the light of the Jimmy Savile scandal, which has engulfed the BBC and parts of the NHS, with claims that his predatory abuse of young teenage girls over three decades was covered up at a time when victims were less likely to be taken seriously.

On Saturday night the calls were backed by Keith Towler, the children's commissioner for Wales, who told BBC Radio 5's Saturday Edition programme: "I would support a full inquiry. Unless you do that, the level of suspicion will always be around that there is a cover-up... No-one should be protected.”


One of the alleged victims of the north Wales abuse ring has now asked for a meeting with David Cameron to discuss his accusations, in the light of the Prime Minister’s statement, following the Savile revelations, that victims of abuse must be heard.

Two senior Conservative figures were named during an official inquiry into widespread child abuse at children’s homes.

more at link

very high profile names involved i imagine.... Sab.

[Sabrina]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...aundering.html


HSBC to face £1bn fines over money-laundering

HSBC is set to face a final bill for fines as high as $1.5bn (£937m) for the “shameful and embarrassing” US money-laundering scandal that has engulfed Britain’s biggest bank.

The lender is tomorrow expected to spell out the full financial damage caused by the crisis, which erupted earlier this year. The bank stands accused of leaving America’s financial system exposed to Mexican drug cartels and rogue nations such as Iran and Sudan, by failing to enforce US anti money- laundering laws.

HSBC said at its half-year results in the summer that it had set aside $700m to cover the cost of the scandal. The bank said at the time that the huge sum was only its “best estimate” for the fines and penalties it would face from US authorities. But Stuart Gulliver, HSBC’s chief executive, admitted the actual total could be higher.

The final bill is now expected to have more than doubled to $1.5bn, forcing the bank to make a further provision of up to $800m in its third quarter results tomorrow, according to Sky News.
HSBC is understood to have held talks with US authorities over the past few months to settle the claims, which came to light following a year-long investigation by a powerful US senate committee.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security in July branded HSBC as having been “pervasively polluted for a long time” by allowing funds to be moved to and from its US branches to countries including Mexico, Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
more at link

[KiwiElf]

S&P loses landmark Australian derivatives case
AFP November 5, 2012, 1:54 pm

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/1...ivatives-case/

SYDNEY, Nov 5, 2012 (AFP) - Standard & Poor's lost a landmark case in Australia Monday over top-flight ratings given to financial products that collapsed in the build-up to the 2008 global economic crisis.

The Federal Court of Australia ruled that S&P's AAA rating of constant proportion debt obligation notes created by banking giant ABN AMRO and sold to the councils of 13 Australian towns, had been "misleading and deceptive".

It is the first time a ratings agency has faced trial over synthetic derivatives and the case could set an important precedent for future litigation.

Within months of the councils buying the CPDOs from Australian firm Local Government Financial Services (LGFS) in late 2006, assured they had a less than one percent chance of failing, the notes defaulted.

The councils lost Aus$16 million (US$16.5 million) on the so-called "Rembrandt notes", more than 90 percent of the capital invested.

Judge Jayne Jagot said S&P's assessment of the products as "extremely strong" had been central to the loss.

"S&P's rating of AAA of the Rembrandt 2006-2 and 2006-3 CPDO notes was misleading and deceptive and involved the publication of information or statements false in material particulars, and otherwise involved negligent misrepresentations to the class of potential investors in Australia," Jagot said.

Jagot said S&P had claimed to have reached its opinion "based on reasonable grounds and as the result of an exercise of reasonable care when neither was true and S&P also knew not to be true at the time made".

The judge ruled that ABN AMRO had also been "knowingly concerned in S&P's contraventions of the various statutory provisions proscribing such misleading and deceptive conduct" and had engaged in such conduct itself.

She made a similar ruling on LGFS and rejected the financial agencies' arguments that the councils should bear a part of the blame due to to their "contributory negligence".

Jagot ordered S&P, ABN AMRO and LGFS to each pay one-third of the small mostly mining and farming councils' losses plus interest.

The sale of risky investments such as mortgage-backed securities contributed to the worldwide financial meltdown in late 2008.

[KiwiElf]

$43 Trillion lawsuit file in NY court against bankers and government officials
Friday, October 26, 2012 13:04

http://beforeitsnews.com/politics/20...s-2465376.html

Posted on a separate thread here:
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...nd-major-banks

NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Spire Law Group, LLP’s national home owners’ lawsuit, pending in the venue where the “Banksters” control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) – known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History and identifying $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers – now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the “Banksters” located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests.

In connection with the federal lawsuit now impending in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML) – involving, among other things, a request that the District Court enjoin all mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide, unless and until the entire $43 trillion is repaid to a court-appointed receiver – Plaintiffs now establish the location of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money in a racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals (without limitation):

Attorney General Holder acting in his individual capacity,
Assistant Attorney General Tony West, the brother in law of Defendant California Attorney General Kamala Harris (both acting in their individual capacities),
Jon Corzine (former New Jersey Governor),
Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and Bankster),
Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary (acting in his individual capacity),
Vikram Pandit (recently resigned and disgraced Chairman of the Board of Citigroup),
Valerie Jarrett (a Senior White House Advisor),
Anita Dunn (a former “communications director” for the Obama Administration),
Robert Bauer (husband of Anita Dunn and Chief Legal Counsel for the Obama Re-election Campaign),
... as well as the “Banksters” themselves, and their affiliates and conduits.

The lawsuit alleges serial violations of the United States Patriot Act, the Policy of Embargo Against Iran and Countries Hostile to the Foreign Policy of the United States, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly known as the RICO statute) and other State and Federal laws.

In the District Court lawsuit, Spire Law Group, LLP — on behalf of home owner across the Country and New York taxpayers, as well as under other taxpayer recompense laws — has expanded its mass tort action into federal court in Brooklyn, New York, seeking to halt all foreclosures nationwide pending the return of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000.00) by the “Banksters” and their co-conspirators, seeking an audit of the Fed and audits of all the “bailout programs” by an independent receiver such as Neil Barofsky, former Inspector General of the TARP program who has stated that none of the TARP money and other “bailout money” advanced from the Treasury has ever been repaid despite protestations to the contrary by the Defendants as well as similar protestations by President Obama and the Obama Administration both publicly on national television and more privately to the United States Congress. Because the Obama Administration has failed to pursue any of the “Banksters” criminally, and indeed is actively borrowing monies for Mr. Obama’s campaign from these same “Banksters” to finance its political aspirations, the national group of plaintiff home owners has been forced to now expand its lawsuit to include racketeering, money laundering and intentional violations of the Iranian Nations Sanctions and Embargo Act by the national banks included among the “Bankster” Defendants.

The complaint – which has now been fully served on thousands of the “Banksters and their Co-Conspirators” – makes it irrefutable that the epicenter of this laundering and racketeering enterprise has been and continues to be Wall Street and continues to involve the very “Banksters” located there who have repeatedly asked in the past to be “bailed out” and to be “bailed out” in the future.

The Havens for the money laundering schemes – and certain of the names and places of these entities – are located in such venues as Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Cypress and entities controlled by governments adverse to the interests of the United States Sanctions and Embargo Act against Iran, and are also identified in both the United Nations and the U.S. Senate’s recent reports on international money laundering. Many of these entities have already been personally served with summons and process of the complaint during the last six months. It is now beyond dispute that, while the Obama Administration was publicly encouraging loan modifications for home owners by “Banksters”, it was privately ratifying the formation of these shell companies in violation of the United States Patriot Act, and State and Federal law. The case further alleges that through these obscure foreign companies, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank, Citigroup, One West Bank, and numerous other federally chartered banks stole trillions of dollars of home owners’ and taxpayers’ money during the last decade and then laundered it through offshore companies.

This District Court Complaint – maintained by Spire Law Group, LLP — is the only lawsuit in the world listing as Defendants the Banksters, let alone serving all of such Banksters with legal process and therefore forcing them to finally answer the charges in court. Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission, nor the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, nor the Office of the Attorney General, nor any State Attorney General has sued the Banksters and thereby legally chased them worldwide to recover-back the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) and other lawful damages, injunctive relief and other legal remedies.

James N. Fiedler, Managing Partner of Spire Law Group, LLP, stated: “It is hard for me to believe as a 47-year lawyer that our nation’s guardians have been unwilling to stop this theft. Spire Law Group, LLP stands for the elimination of corruption and implementation of lawful strategies, and that is what we’re doing here. Spire Law Group, LLP’s charter is to not allow such corruption to go unanswered.”

Comments were requested from the Attorney Generals’ offices in NY, CA, NV, NH , OH, MA and the White House, but no comment was provided.

About Spire Law Group

Spire Law Group, LLP is a national law firm whose motto is “the public should be protected — at all costs — from corruption in whatever form it presents itself.” The Firm is comprised of lawyers nationally with more than 250-years of experience in a span of matters ranging from representing large corporations and wealthy individuals, to also representing the masses. The Firm is at the front lines litigating against government officials, banks, defunct loan pools, and now the very offshore entities where the corruption was enabled and perpetrated.

Contact: James N. Fiedler877-438-8766 spire-law.com

SOURCE Spire Law Group, LLP marketwatch.com/story/major-banks-governmental-officials-and-their-comrade-capitalists-targets-of-spire-law-group-llps-racketeering-and-money-laundering-lawsuit-seeking-return-of-43-trillion-to-the-united-states-treasury-2012-10-25

2012-10-26 10:37:05

Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/201...suit-file.html

[Rocky_Shorz]

just saw this roll across twitter...

Romanian prosecutors detain 33 bankers and officials in $28.5 million suspected banking fraud link to story

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Posted by WiReD, DANGER ROOM
Source: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012...rcible-sodomy/
Secrecy Lifts on General Charged With Sex Abuse
By Spencer Ackerman November 5, 2012 | 12:59 pm | Categories: Army and Marines


Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, left, currently facing a court-martial for charges including “forced sodomy,” meets with Afghan leaders at Kandahar Air Field, November 2011. Photo: DVIDS

Here’s what the deputy commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division allegedly said when subordinates objected to his crass attitude toward women: “I’m a general, I’ll do whatever the [expletive] I want.”

That and other details emerged from the beginning of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair’s court-martial, which kicked off Monday morning at Fort Bragg, for offenses including “forcible sodomy.” The hearing represented a first glimpse into a case that the Pentagon and the Army have gone to surprising lengths to keep quiet — lengths they haven’t gone to in other high-profile cases, including the one against a sergeant charged with much more serious crimes who also begins his court-martial on Monday.

Even if Sinclair gets convicted, the process might inadvertently vindicate his alleged view that generals get special treatment. “This doesn’t just smell bad,” a former Air Force lawyer, Col. Morris Davis, tells Danger Room, “it reeks.”

The first wave of details about Sinclair’s case began to emerge on Monday. Little has been revealed about Sinclair’s case besides the list of charges against him, including “wrongful sexual conduct,” forced sodomy, misusing official funds and more. But at the military version of a grand jury hearing on Monday morning, the Army disclosed that Sinclair’s alleged misconduct involved five women, four of them subordinate Army officers, in locations as varied as Fort Bragg and Afghanistan. The Fayetteville Observer reported from the hearing that Sinclair’s “encounters” with the women occurred “in a parking lot, in his office in Afghanistan with the door open, on an exposed balcony at a hotel and on a plane, where he allegedly groped a woman.” At least one of these encounters, the military contends, was forced.


Before Monday, the military had said little else about Sinclair’s court-martial. It didn’t disclose a so-called charge sheet summarizing the evidence against him. Until Monday, it didn’t reveal even whom his defense counsel was (a lieutenant colonel named Jackie Thompson). And the Pentagon rejected a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press for such basic information, on the grounds that disclosure constituted an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and could jeopardize the integrity of Sinclair’s court-martial. (Thompson argued Monday that the prosecution has done just that on its own, by reading confidential attorney-client emails, and is seeking a new prosecutorial team.)

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales — whose own court martial starts on Monday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state – got no such protective treatment. But he’s accused of being more than a scumbag with overeager hands. Bales allegedly is a war criminal, committing one of the most heinous acts of the 11-year conflict in Afghanistan. Bales supposedly massacred 17 people in Afghanistan, including nine children. While the Pentagon hardly rushed to disclose anything about his grisly case, it did confirm important details, such as where in Afghanistan the assault took place and the presence of a spy blimp that recorded Bales turning himself in to base forces in southern Afghanistan.

Davis, a former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, says the military has been similarly open in several of its top criminal cases. The Army released charge sheets and identified the investigating officers when it charged Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan with the Fort Hood shootings in 2009 and Pfc. Bradley Manning in the WikiLeaks disclosures. That stands in contrast to the treatment being received by Brig. Gen. Sinclair. “Clearly those cases are much more high-visibility and high-stakes than the Sinclair case,” Davis says.

The military also aired accusations in a rape case against a basic-training instructor, Staff. Sgt. Luis Walker, Davis notes: ”The Walker court-martial is a similar type of case to Brigadier General Sinclair — a superior alleged to have engaged in sexual misconduct with subordinates … and from a legal and common sense perspective you’d think the two would be subject to similar rules and similar treatment.”

Protecting general officers seems to be a recurring theme for the Army. It still employs a general, William “Kip” Ward, whom an inquiry found to have misused official funds, although it can’t explain what Ward does for his salary and benefits. Few officers get fired for battlefield errors, prompting author Tom Ricks to declare that American generalship resembles tenured professorship, where officers are insulated for all mistakes except embarrassing the institution. If Sinclair actually said that the stars on his shoulder allowed him to do “whatever the [expletive] I want,” that might help explain his attitude.

Are we witnessing some kind of clean up starting to happen in various places at once?

[KiwiElf]

I hope so Robert! Long overdue I'd say

[KiwiElf]

Global regulators push ahead with plans to curb "shadow banks"
Reuters November 6, 2012, 11:37 am

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/1...-shadow-banks/

MEXICO CITY/LONDON (Reuters) - International watchdogs, working to tighten-up global regulation after the financial crisis, are moving ahead with plans to extend their reach to "shadow banks" such as money-market funds that handle trillions of dollars in short-term investments.

Policymakers have already tightened regulation for mainstream banks but are keen to stop higher-risk activities shifting to less supervised areas such as off-balance sheet units, hedge funds and money-market funds, which contributed to the crisis.

This is a clear signal there will be no let up for the financial sector despite warnings that introducing too many rules could hinder global economic recovery.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), a task force from the world's top 20 economies (G20), told the group's finance ministers gathered in Mexico on Monday the new rules for what some also call "parallel" banks would be ready in September.

"The approach is designed to be proportionate to financial stability risks," FSB Chairman Mark Carney wrote to G20 finance ministers. He said the aim was to focus on activities that were material to the financial system and to make use of lessons from the last crisis.

He wants to reduce the susceptibility of money market funds to "runs" as seen in the early part of 2007-2009. The FSB will publish draft rules for consultation shortly.

The FSB is struggling to keep on track implementation of a whole series of rules already agreed by the G20 and some deadlines are slipping.

"The key determinant of the effectiveness of reforms is whether they are implemented in a timely, consistent and complete manner," Carney said.

For example, the world's top 28 banks will get another six months to June 2013 to show how they can be wound down in a crisis without wreaking the havoc caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

This delay was due to "uneven headway" made so far, highlighting the difficulties regulators face in following through on pledges the G20 made in the aftermath of Lehman.

Also, the United States and European Union are set to miss a January deadline to implement new bank capital rules - known as Basel III, the G20's main response to the financial crisis.

Progress is also slow on cutting the financial sector's reliance on credit ratings for investment decisions or for calculating how much capital banks should hold.

As a result, the FSB has tried to speed things up by telling global banking regulators to identify proposals by the end of this year to trim the use of ratings and implement them by January 2016. National supervisors must implement alternatives to ratings by the end of 2015.

The G20 is still trying to stop banks becoming "too big to fail", which covers banks the markets believe would be bailed out in a crisis.

Carney, also governor of the Bank of Canada, suggested that G20 ministers could request a full assessment next September on whether further action was needed on this issue.

The FSB also set out a timetable for extra scrutiny of second tier banks and big insurers.

Important domestic banks will have to hold more capital from 2016, if required by regulators, while insurers deemed to be "systemically important" in 2017 will have to hold extra capital from 2019.

(Reporting by Huw Jones. Editing by Jane Merriman)

[norman]

yup....

wikileaks sticks the boot into national ism, banking reform sticks the boot into banking ism.

The final sprint for global unity is almost over.

Move along folks, nothing going on here at all.

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

C'mon norman What is wrong in uniting whole planet? Besides to be legitimate in the eyes of E.T.s it has to be allowed by common people by voting. I agree that people can be manipulated to vote for any cause

There are Universal Laws which put certain limits on amount of evil upon Earth. Those who abuse free will are dealt with accordingly Cheer up mate

No politician/banker is immortal (immoral? yes ). Their children are in majority disobeying them and doing otherwise than parents. There is still hope in them

There is a saying about scientific progress: one funeral at the time. I think the same rule aplies generally. The funeral marks the end of the old and defunct paradigm

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...atabase-abuse/

Posted by WiReD, THREAT LEVEL
Female Cop Gets $1 Million After Colleagues Trolled Database to Peek at Her Pic
BY KIM ZETTER 11.05.124:02 PM

A former police officer who filed invasion of privacy suits after fellow cops illegally accessed her driver’s license record more than 400 times just to get a peek at her, will receive more than $1 million in compensation according to settlements reached in several of the suits.

The Minneapolis City Council has agreed to pay Anne Marie Rasmusson $392,000, on top of a $280,000 settlement she reached with several other cities whose cops broke the law by accessing her record for non-work reasons. She will also receive $385,000 from the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, for a total of $1,057,000 that taxpayers will have to shell out for the wrongdoing.

That figure is likely to grow higher, pending a lawsuit Rasmusson filed with the state of Minnesota.

It’s one of the largest private data breaches by law enforcement in history, according to the Minneapolis independent paper City Pages, which broke the story earlier this year.

Rasmusson, a former police officer with the St. Paul Police Department, who was known by colleagues as “Bubbles” because of her effusive personality, first became aware that other officers were abusing the database to look her up when a former police academy colleague mentioned to her in 2009 that she looked great and that he and his partner had used their squad car computer to view her driver’s license photo.

Rasmusson had once been overweight, but had undergone a dramatic makeover since last seeing him, according to City Pages.

This and a number of other incidents over the years prompted Rasmusson to suspect that randy colleagues were abusing Minnesota’s driver’s license database to look her up. In August 2011 she contacted the state’s Department of Public Safety asking if it was possible to restrict access to her driver’s license file. After explaining the reason behind her request, a worker in the office investigated and found that her record had indeed been accessed by cops repeatedly across the state going back to 2007.

Further investigation revealed that 104 officers in 18 different agencies across the state had accessed her driver’s license record 425 times, using the state database as their personal Facebook service.

Officers in the Dakota County Sheriff’s office, Bloomington Police, and state troopers, were among those who illegally accessed her file over the course of nearly four years. There were 24 police officers in Minneapolis who accessed her record 133 times, and 42 officers in St. Paul who looked her up 175 times. A female officer in St. Paul looked up Rasmusson’s record 30 times over the course of two years.

“There is nothing that I would say about this driver’s license photo or any of my previous ones that in any way would deserve the attention that they’ve gotten,” Rasmusson told the paper. “I can’t begin to understand what people were thinking.

One officer told investigators that he’d been out on patrol one day when his supervisor called his cellphone to tell him he should check out Rasmusson’s record. When investigators asked why he was told this, the officer replied, “to look at her picture, um, and this had something, I believe the conversation surrounded plastic surgery that she had done.”

Rasmusson, who took a medical retirement several years ago after suffering a work-related injury and left the police department, told Wired earlier this year that the activity was symptomatic of a larger problem involving data abuses by police and feared retribution from officers for bringing the problem to light.

In the lawsuits she filed, she alleged that the officers violated, among other things, the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act, which Congress passed in 1994 after actress Rebecca Schaeffer was killed by a stalker who obtained her home address through her driver’s license record.

The Act prohibits states from disclosing personal information that drivers submit to obtain a driver’s license, including their photograph, Social Security number, name, address, phone number, and medical or disability information.

The city of St. Paul denied Rasmusson’s invasion-of-privacy allegations and any liability for her claims, but said it agreed to settle in order “to avoid the uncertainties and costs associated with continued litigation of this matter.”

“The city’s liability could have been upwards of $565,000 because the statute provides $2,500 to be assessed per each unlawful look-up of the database, and we had 226 look-ups,” City Attorney Sara Grewing told the Pioneer Press. “So we were looking at $565,000 plus attorney’s fees, if we were found liable.”

The settlement requires the city to remove Rasmusson’s name, picture, address and other personal information from the city and police department’s internal directory and website.

Discipline for the perpetrators has been light in most cases or non-existent.

An officer who looked at Rasmusson’s record 13 times was subsequently demoted and received a five-day suspension, the harshest penalty anyone has received so far. Others have had warning letters placed in their files or were sent for training.

But according to City Pages, Minneapolis hasn’t disciplined any of the 24 officers who looked up Rasmusson’s record, and St. Paul absolved four of its officers and was still considering discipline for 38 others under investigation.

A former U.S. State Department research analyst fared much worse in 2008 when he was charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for illegally accessing the passport files of presidential candidates and celebrities and was sentenced to one year of supervised release and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.

Lawrence Yontz illegally accessed the passport records for then-presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, and admitted that between 2005 and 2008, he read the passport applications of “approximately 200 celebrities, athletes, actors, politicians and their immediate families,” among others. Yontz claimed his illegal snooping was “idle curiosity.”

[Corncrake]

Sabrina, I was not sure where to post this but feel that it fits in here. Do move if you think it is inappropriate.

This may be one reason why we have not seen more action taken against the banks since 2008.

" is it any wonder that the banks can get away with so much when they effectively control their own policing? Why haven’t we seen more criminal investigations of banks and bankers following the events of 2008?”

Nov 7 2012
What exactly is the City of London police?

It’s a good question. Is it a police force? Well, yes, it is, kind of. After all, its “About Us” page says this:

“We are committed to fighting crime at all levels. Although we fulfil a national role tackling fraud and other serious criminality, our local role is no less important to us.”

But already, the questions begin. That same front page, in the very, very top paragraph, also says this:

“The City of London is the world’s leading international financial and business centre. It is an area where disruption to ‘business as usual’ would have significant impact on the diverse range of business interests located here.

What on earth does that mean? Why would a police force highlight that above everything else (even above the bit about fighting crime?)

A year ago or so I got an email, which contained this (I’ve asked the author whether I may identify him; no response yet.) The bit in bold is the key part: boy, is that a question that needs some answers.

“I used to be a tax inspector and worked in what was then called Special Office investigating offshore tax avoidance and evasion. Curiously very little specialist training was given on the complex laws and powers available to combat these issues. It was all learned from the experience of colleagues and my own experience.
. . . .
Working in London it was amazing to see how blatantly the city banks peddle massive tax haven arrangements to multinationals, many of them relying on the tiniest veneer of legality. Big 4 accountants and city lawyers were also selling such schemes but not quite in the same league as the banks.

I was particularly taken with your account of the role of the banks in running the city. So I did a little research of my own and was surprised with what I found. The banks control the City Corporation. The City Corporation controls the City of London police. The City of London police state their purpose is “to protect the UK from economic crime” and they take the lead role on that for UK policing.

So is it any wonder that the banks can get away with so much when they effectively control their own policing? Why haven’t we seen more criminal investigations of banks and bankers following the events of 2008?”

The City of London police does like to brag about its ‘lead role:”

“The City Police is the acknowledged lead force within the UK for economic crime investigation.”

OK, let’s take that at face value for now. Next, I tried to find out what the City of London police’s strategic objectives are. I couldn’t get a clear steer from their extensive ‘policies’ page, but one entry, related to police procurement, provides this:

Strategic Aims

1. Complies with the City of London Corporation financial regulations.
. . .
6. Promotes the strategic objectives of the City of London Corporation.

A couple of questions now. What are the City of London Corporation financial regulations? (The City Corporation is not the regulator for UK financial services.) Second, this is a police procurement document, but does the City of London Police have point six as its own strategic objective? I could not find out on a(n admittedly fairly hasty) search, and I do note that all the documents I looked at on the ‘policies’ page were crammed with the curious words ‘NOT PROTECTIVELY MARKED‘ in angry red capitals, on page after page. (What is protectively marked? Can we see it please?) But I think it is safe to say – until someone shows me otherwise – that a key strategic objective of the City of London police is to “promote the strategic objectives of the City of London Corporation.”

So the next question, then, is: what are the strategic objectives of the City of London Corporation?

Well, they are laid out here, in its September 2011 Core Strategy Document, from p17 onwards, and include:

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1
To maintain the City’s position as the world’s leading international financial and business centre.

So if the City of London police is “the acknowledged lead force within the UK for economic crime investigation”, and if it has as one of its (indirect) objectives to maintain the global pre-eminence of the City financial services, then what on earth is it doing trying to fight financial crime? The objective of promoting an ever bigger financial centre directly conflicts with the objective of fighting financial crime: the more you relax law enforcement and turn a blind eye to dirty money, the more will come. It’s a simple formula used by every tax haven in the world, and which I’ve written extensively about in Treasure Islands.

This is really a gigantic black hole in global finance, which nobody is pointing to. I asked a knowledgeable ex-copper about all this, and got this reply back this morning:

“Oh, the City of London Police, or as we used to refer to them ‘…The best little police force money can buy…’

The City of London Police have always been the plaything of the City Corporation.
. . .
They were always treated with a far greater degree of consideration by the Corporation than us nasty roughnecks in the Met, and they did their absolute best to make sure that if we had investigations which took us down to the Square Mile, then they would deal with those aspects of the enquiry. Then they just told us what the City fathers wanted us to know. They did as they were told because they knew which side their bread was buttered.

I had no time for them, and as far as I was concerned, they were full of ****.

They had a very strong Freemasonic thing going because so many of the City suits were on the Square, and that’s where a lot of skulduggery got organised, so I tended to steer clear of them as much as possible.

I know that they are trying to make a case for being the lead agency for fraud investigation in the UK, but they haven’t sorted that out with ACPO [Association of Chief Police Officers] as far as I know, and the last time I spoke to a mate of mine on the ACPO financial crime sub-committee, things were still the same and ACPO weren’t going to go along with the City’s proposals.”

http://treasureislands.org/what-exac...london-police/

[Sabrina]

Thanks Corncrake - think you are dead right on all of this and the protection around the City of London. However, as Robert said, I think we are starting to witness the start up of a clean up right across the world - altho' there are obviously some messy fight backs. People are starting to talk out (some interesting quotes from the Bank of England recently) and the Savile abuse case is opening up the real can of worms of the high profile politicians and officials (and Royals?) implicated. A whole series of names are doing the rounds on internet now - and the press are starting to mention this. Some info. here:

The UK Savile abuse case and high profile names:

http://www.onlinepublishingcompany.i...active_id/1809

[Sabrina]

Demonstrations continue in Greece on the so called austerity cuts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20221111

7 Nov Greece

Clashes in Greece ahead of key austerity vote

Protesters in Greece have clashed with riot police as MPs prepare to vote on a fresh round of austerity measures to secure the next round of bailout funds.

The police fired tear gas towards the protesters when they were attacked with petrol bombs in the capital Athens.

Parliament is due to vote on 13.5bn euros ($17.3bn; £10.5bn) of measures, including tax rises and pension cuts.

PM Antonis Samaras said without the bailout Greece would run out of money this month and face "catastrophe".

The fresh package of austerity measures - Greece's fourth in three years - is meant to close Greece's budget deficit, lower its huge debt burden and make its economy more competitive.

It includes a two-year increase in the retirement age from the current average of 65, as well as salary cuts and labour market reforms including cuts to holiday benefits, notice periods and severance pay.

Workers fear this will just make it easier and cheaper for them to be fired at a time when unemployment has already soared to 25% and a five-year recession means there are few job prospects.

'Absurd' bailouts
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of demonstrators continued their protest in Syntagma Square - outside the parliament building in the heart of the capital.

The protesters chanted: "People - don't bow your heads!"

Some in the crowd held giant flags of Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain - four of the eurozone's most heavily-indebted states.

The riot police - who sealed off the parliament - later fired tear gas after the demonstrators attacked them with petrol bombs and flares.

Protests are also taking place in other big cities across Greece.

The Greek unions are staging what they described as the "mother of all strikes" - a 48-hour walkout which culminates on Wednesday
evening.

more at the link

[Sabrina]

More signs of significant changes in the world:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...8A50J420121106

6 Nov China

Exclusive: China leaders consider internal democratic reform


(Reuters) - China's outgoing leader and his likely successor are pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by party power-brokers.

The Communist Party, which has held unbroken power since 1949, is struggling to maintain its popular legitimacy in the face of rising inequality, corruption and environmental degradation, even as the economy continues to bound ahead.

President Hu Jintao and his heir, Xi Jinping, have proposed that the party's 18th Congress, which opens on Thursday, should hold elections for the elite Politburo where for the first time there would be more candidates than available seats, said three sources with ties to the party leadership.

The Politburo, currently 24 members, is the second-highest level of power in China from which the highest decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee, is chosen.

They are chosen by the roughly 200 full members of the Central Committee which is in turn chosen by the more than 2,000 delegates at this week's Congress.

Under their proposal, there would be up to 20 percent more candidates than seats in the new Politburo in an election to be held next week, the sources said. It was unclear if competitive voting would also be extended to the Standing Committee.

"Hu wants expanding intra-party democracy to be one of his legacies," one source said, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

"It would also be good for Xi's image," the source added.

Xi is considered certain to replace Hu as party chief at the congress, with Li Keqiang, currently a vice premier, tipped to become his deputy in the once-in-a-decade transition to a new administration. Xi would then take over as president, and Li as premier, at the annual full session of parliament in March.

China experts said a more competitive election for the Politburo would mark a historic reform that could lead to surprises in the formation of Xi's administration, with wider implications for further political reform.

"This is a very, very important development," said Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"It would provide a new source of legitimacy. It would not just be dark-box manipulation ... The party's legitimacy is so low that they must do something to uplift the public's confidence."

However, Li and other experts remained skeptical that the proposal would be adopted, given that it could still be vetoed by party elders or conservatives.

more at the link

[Sabrina]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ity-hotel.html

7 Nov UK

CBRE executive resigns after rape allegation in City hotel

An executive at the world's biggest property agent CBRE who was due to take charge of its UK business has stepped down after being arrested on suspicion of rape.


Matthew Pullen was due to step into his new role on January 1 but has resigned after being arrested following an alleged incident at the Grange Hotel in the City of London last Wednesday.

No formal charges have been made and Mr Pullen has been bailed until February.

In a statement, CBRE said: "Mr Pullen is no longer an employee of CBRE. We can confirm that the matter is now the subject of a police investigation with which CBRE will fully cooperate.

"It is now a private matter for the individual involved and therefore we are unable to comment further."

A spokesman for the City of London Police said: "A man, aged 44, was arrested by City of London Police on Wednesday, October 31, on suspicion of rape. He has subsequently been bailed pending further inquiries."
more at link

[Sabrina]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/e...urozone-crisis

The IMF has been cut adrift

A fundamental strategic error at the outset means the eurozone crisis continues to fester

Europe's crisis continues to fester. In large part this is due to a fundamental strategic error at the outset – the failure to restructure the debt of banks and governments.

Ten years ago the IMF revised its rules for handling crises precisely to prevent such errors. But, under short-sighted political pressure, the rules of the game were changed and the IMF was set adrift in dealing with the crisis in Europe.

The debt burdens of the three countries with official bailouts – Greece, Ireland and Portugal – illustrate the problem. Initially, they ranged from 92% (Ireland) to 125% (Greece) of GDP and will rise to at least 112% (Ireland) to 150% (Greece) of GDP by the end of 2012 (despite Greece's recent restructuring of privately held debt).

Previous debt crises pointed to the low likelihood that such large debts could be lowered to sustainable levels through adjustment and growth alone. The IMF failed to insist on these lessons from the past. Rather, bowing to the exigencies of European politics, it cobbled together low-probability assumptions about future growth, how quickly tax systems could be reformed, how rapidly government spending could be cut and when markets would re-engage in heavily indebted countries.

How could the IMF have put tens of billions of dollars into such fundamentally flawed programmes? Ten years ago, a similar question was debated in the aftermath of the Argentine default. Two views were pressed.

The first was that there was no institutional framework for orderly private debt restructuring. This view drove the 2002-03 effort to introduce a statutory sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM), bankruptcy-type procedures for sovereign restructuring. Creditors and debtors alike rejected the SDRM but settled on a scaled-down initiative – collective action clauses (CACs) in international bond issues – to facilitate restructuring. These set up provisions for creditor agreement on changing the financial terms of bond contracts. Most international bond issues now have CACs.

The second view was that the IMF is fundamentally unconstrained in deploying almost limitless financing even when debt sustainability is questionable. The IMF has always had quantitative ceilings on its loans but the history of ignoring them is impressive. To meet these concerns, four qualitative criteria – parsimonious yet on the mark – that must be met in large bailout cases were established in 2003: (i) the borrowing country must face exceptional balance of payments pressures; (ii) there must be a determination, based on a rigorous, systematic analysis, of a high probability that the country's debt burden will be sustainable; (iii) the country must have good prospects of regaining access to private capital markets; and (iv) the policy programme must have good prospects of success.

Neither innovation was seriously tested during 2003-2009 – a period of reprieve from catastrophic debt crises requiring IMF support. Some relatively small debt restructurings were concluded through "voluntary" approaches, often without activating CACs. The four criteria were mostly honoured in the few relatively uncontroversial cases.

But with the mess in Greece, questions about provisions for restructuring and constraining IMF bailouts need to come back on the table. From the outset, Greece patently needed debt restructuring. The eventual restructuring in 2012 was more costly and less comprehensive than it would have been at the outset. Ad hoc restructuring negotiations were fraught with uncertainty and brinksmanship.

It is debatable whether an SDRM would have made a substantial difference. True, negotiations were not protracted and were ultimately successful in their limited objectives. But debtors and creditors might have been less resistant to restructuring at the outset had an institutional framework for negotiations been in place.

More clear cut, however, was the failure of the four criteria to constrain the ill-fated IMF bailout. IMF staff would not state with confidence that Greece's debt burden was sustainable (that is, Greece did not meet the second criterion for exceptional access), so IMF financing should have been contingent on restructuring private debt. Instead, the IMF changed the rules, amending the second criterion to exclude crises that risk "systemic spillovers".

This punt begged three questions. Would restructuring in Greece have significant systemic spillovers? Why are sustainable debt dynamics not essential when systemic spillovers are at stake? How could a country regain access to capital markets (criterion iii) if its debt dynamics were not sustainable?

Exceptional access for Ireland and Portugal (where debt sustainability also was not affirmed) was similarly justified by the risk of systemic spillovers. These precedents will not be forgotten: the IMF now effectively has no constraint on large bailouts in unsustainable conditions.

Several questions now need answers. How can the highly politicised IMF be constrained from supporting countries with unsustainable debt burdens and increasing the ultimate costs of restructuring? Is a sovereign bankruptcy process needed as a backstop should "voluntary" restructuring fail?

Until these questions are answered and an objective voice for the IMF is secured through respected procedures for handling debt crises, the institution will remain adrift.

• Susan Schadler, former deputy director of the IMF's European department, is currently a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and the Atlantic Council.