PROPHETIC TRENDS: PROPHECY NEWS HEADLINES WHERE IS THE US IN BIBLE PROPHECY? IS OBAMA SECRETLY WORKING TO REPLACE NETANYAHU? Nurtured in the Saul Alinsky-style, ACORN-esque tactics of organizing revolution under the banner of social change, Barack Obama, as a young community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s understood early on the importance of a crisis and how to ride the waves of an emergency to effect the fundamental transformation of society. As the nation’s chief executive, President Obama has demonstrated a particular specialty in the use and perpetuation of crises to push through policies that the public otherwise might not willingly accept, including the wildly unpopular healthcare law, immigration reform, and the first-term stimulus legislation. It is therefore unsurprising to detect the international export of the Obama’s “crisis” game plan to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A dispassionate look at the sequence of events shows that the Obama administration has generated an unprecedented crisis in US-Israeli relations, a crisis utilized at every twist and turn by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rivals, most notably those within his coalition, to try to shake up the country’s leadership. There is more than a hint of White House interference in helping to agitate the coalition drama that provoked Netanyahu’s hesitant decision last Tuesday to dissolve parliament and schedule early elections that could potentially see the prime minister unseated. Before divining the Obama administration’s fingerprints on the events that led to Netanyahu’s predicament, the immediate question is just what about the Israeli premier makes him so problematic for this White House. The answer is fraught with policy implications that cut to the very heart of Obama’s dangerously myopic, academic view of the world and America’s place among friend and foe. Unforgivable to the US president is Bibi’s stubborn refusal to acquiesce to the concept of a sweeping, final deal with Iran that many experts believe will leave the mullahs perpetually within months of a nuclear weapon. Never mind that Iran has numerous times threatened to wipe Israel off the map and is a main state sponsor of the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Obama is more than annoyed at Netanyahu’s Congressional activism of lobbying for tougher sanctions on Tehran at precisely the same time the US administration is working with European allies to extend sanctions relief until next June 30, as the deadline for nuclear talks was yet again postponed until that date. Netanyahu has repeatedly accused Iran of using the drawn-out negotiations as a smokescreen to develop an illicit nuclear infrastructure. Also problematic for the White House is the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian “peace” talks, with rhetoric from the Obama administration indicating that the US largely blames Netanyahu for the collapse of the negotiations. In the Alices looking-glass lens through which Obama views the Middle East, the sturdy legs of the bargaining table broke because of Netanyahu’s decision to build Jewish homes in sections of Jerusalem that will most likely remain under Israeli sovereignty in any future deal. Also, like every other prime minister before him who engaged in these kinds of negotiations, Netanyahu had dared to insist that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, an understanding that Israelis see as central to peaceful co-existence. Never mind that Netanyahu took the unprecedented step of freezing Jewish construction in the West Bank and sections of Jerusalem and even released Palestinian terrorists as “good will gestures” to help jumpstart talks with an intransigent Palestinian leadership. Using a different lens on Palestinian complacency, the White House is blind to such infractions as Abbas’s decision to walk away from the talks and instead seek unilateral recognition at the United Nations; the near daily anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement in the official Palestinian media; the role of Abbas’s Fatah organization in helping to guide riots currently rocking Jerusalem; the question of whether or not Abbas, amid Hamas gains in Gaza and the West Bank, even represents the Palestinian people; and of course the Palestinians long history of walking away from every other major international attempt to broker peace. The White House has singled out Netanyahu as standing in the way of Obamas utopian vision for a new Middle East and Persian Gulf. What better way to bypass this obstacle than aiding in Netanyahu’s removal from office? Let’s look at the clues. Netanyahu’s decision last week to disband his coalition came when he dismissed his finance minister, Yair Lapid, and his justice minister, Tzipi Livni, both of whom have not disguised their ambitions for the country’s highest office. Tellingly, both took advantage of the steady stream of US criticism toward Netanyahu by leading an escalating public campaign in which they repeatedly accused Netanyahu of causing this dangerous rift in relations with Israel’s most important ally. Case in point. In October, Israel’s Ynet news website reported that a request by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to meet with US Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice during his visit to Washington had been denied by the White House. This reported move is highly unusual, and was a nearly unprecedented snub of Netanyahu’s government. It helped to set off a firestorm against Netanyahu in Israel, particularly among the center and the left, with Livni and Lapid leading the charge. Also in October, in what can only be viewed as an orchestrated campaign, the US espoused uncharacteristically harsh language to oppose a plan for Israel to build 2,610 new homes on empty lots in Givat Hamatos, a Jerusalem neighborhood in the eastern section of the city where Palestinians want to build a future state. Immediately following a meeting between Netanyahu and President Obama in October, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki and White House spokesman Josh Earnest took the Israeli leader’s delegation by surprise when they released nearly identical statements slamming the Jerusalem construction. They warned the housing plans could distance Israel from its “closest allies,” a clear euphemism for the US, and questioned whether Netanyahu was interested in peace. Netanyahu for his part said at the time that he was “baffled” by the US criticism, stating the American position “doesn’t really reflect American values.” As if on queue, Lapid and Livni raced to endorse the US condemnation and accuse Netanyahu once again of damaging US-Israeli relations. That month, Lapid took further issue with Netanyahu’s plan to build roughly 400 homes in Har Homa and about 600 in Ramat Shlomo. “This plan will lead to a serious crisis in Israel-US relations and will harm Israel’s standing in the world,” Lapid said. In another seemingly orchestrated development, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg in October described relations between the US and Israel as a “full-blown crisis” and reported that senior Obama administration officials had called Netanyahu “chickenshit” on matters related to the so-called peace process. Goldberg gratuitously added that Bibi is a “coward” on the issue of Iran’s nuclear threat. This level of speech in a diplomatic confrontation between putative allies is close to unprecedented. The Atlantic published a comically ruder exchange, but it was between enemies. Lapid jumped on the puerile and vulgar remarks to release a vaguely nuanced criticism of Netanyahu: “I said only a few days ago that there is a real crisis in the relations and it needs to be dealt with responsibly,” he said, while faux-lecturing US and Israeli officials on the “need to tackle the crisis behind the scenes.” Adding more fuel to the anti-Bibi firestorm, Haaretz reported last week the Obama administration had held a classified discussion a few weeks earlier about possibly taking more proactive measures against the “settlements,” including mulling sanctions or punishing Israel at the United Nations. While the State Department dismissed the claims as unfounded and completely without merit, the Haaretz article is already providing more fodder to target Bibi. Here’s the kicker. In March, an informed diplomatic source in Jerusalem told me that representatives of the Obama administration held meetings with Lapid to check him out politically and to discuss the kind of prime minister he would make if he won elections in the future. The diplomatic source said the Obama administration identified Lapid as a moderate who would support Israeli-Palestinian talks. While the alleged meeting might have been as innocent as getting to know the powerful finance minister, the claim does fuel the perception of Obama administration tentacles working surreptitiously to change the political order in the Jewish state. At the end of the day, this political interference could backfire monumentally. Obama’s support among the Israeli populace is dismal. Just last week, The Jerusalem Post reported on a poll that showed the number of Israelis who believe Obama had either a “positive” or a “neutral” view of Israel has fallen sharply. Israelis largely see Iran as their single greatest existential threat and seem to react positively to Netanyahu’s tough stance against the US-led negotiations. And remarkably, Netanyahu has the quiet support of the Egyptian and Saudi governments for his regional policies. It remains to be seen if Israelis are ready to entrust their security to a relative political newcomer like Lapid or the perpetually evolving Livni in the face of mounting threats that even now engulf the Jewish state in all directions. WHERE IS THE US IN BIBLE PROPHECY: UN SENDING THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS TO AMERICA The federal government is preparing for another “surge” in refugees and this time they won’t be coming illegally from Central America. The U.S. State Department announced this week that the first major contingent of Syrian refugees, 9,000 of them, have been hand-selected by the United Nations for resettlement into communities across the United States. The announcement came Tuesday on the State Department’s website. WND reported in September that Syrians would make up the next big wave of Muslim refugees coming to the U.S., as resettlement agencies were lobbying for the U.S. to accept at least 75,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years. Until now, the U.S. had accepted only 300 of the more than 3.2 million refugees created by the Syrian civil war in which ISIS, El Nusra and other Sunni Muslim jihadist rebels are locked in a protracted battle with the Shiite regime of Bashar al-Assad. But the U.S. government has been the most active of all nations in accepting Islamic refugees from other war-torn countries, such as Iraq, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now, the Syrians will be added to the mix. They are cleared for refugee status by the U.N. high commissioner on refugees (UNHCR), who assigns them to various countries. Once granted refugee status by the U.N. they are screened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for any ties to terrorist organizations. The State Department announcement makes it clear that the 9,000 refugees represent just the beginning of an extended program to accept more Syrians. “The United States accepts the majority of all UNHCR referrals from around the world. Last year, we reached our goal of resettling nearly 70,000 refugees from nearly 70 countries. And we plan to lead in resettling Syrians as well,” the statement reads. “We are reviewing some 9,000 recent UNHCR referrals from Syria. We are receiving roughly a thousand new ones each month, and we expect admissions from Syria to surge in 2015 and beyond.” The United States, with its commitment to accepting 70,000 displaced people a year, absorbs more refugees than all other countries combined. This number is understated, however, as once refugees get to the United States they are placed on a fast track to citizenship and are able to get their extended families to join them in the states under the government’s Refuge Family Reunification program. The State Department works to place refugees in 180 cities across 49 states. Despite the large numbers, the U.S. has come under criticism from aid groups for its pace in taking in refugees from the Syrian war, which is by far the largest refugee crisis of recent years, reported Ann Corcoran of Refugee Resettlement Watch. U.S. officials say the resettlement program has moved slowly because the United Nations refugee agency, which they look to for referrals, didn’t begin making recommendations until late last year. And the United States takes 18 to 24 months on average to carefully vet each applicant to make sure he or she poses no security risk. Muslim countries in the Middle East have so far not stepped up to permanently take in their Islamic brothers and sisters although the temporary refugee camps to which the Syrians have fled are in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. The State Department announcement was careful to explain that the U.S. will take in only those Syrians who are “persecuted by their government.” Christians in Syria are being killed by ISIS and other Muslim rebels, not by “their government,” but the Sunni Muslims are being killed by the Shiite-led government. It also would not take 18 to 24 months to “vet” Christian refugees for security purposes. “There is no doubt the majority of Syrians to be admitted to the U.S. will be Muslims because it would be unlikely there would be a ‘security risk’ with the Christians,” according to Corcoran. She said screening has become more rigorous since 2009, when authorities were alarmed to discover that two members of al-Qaeda had entered the country posing as Iraqi refugees. That concern has been sharpened by worries that fighters from the Islamic State militant group may try to enter the United States. The United States has accepted nearly 2 million refugees from Muslim countries since 1992, WND previously reported. The authority for the resettlement program is the Refugee Act of 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. On Tuesday, Anne C. Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said at a U.N. meeting in Geneva that the Obama administration was going to step up its efforts because the refugee outflow had swelled “to a mass exodus.” At the Geneva meeting, 28 countries agreed to take in 66,000 refugees. But that was far short of the 300,000 Syrians that officials at the U.N. refugee agency believe need to be permanently resettled. Corcoran alerted readers of her blog who live in cities already stocked with large numbers of refugees that they should contact their members of Congress if they have concerns about getting new shipments of displaced persons. The added burden that refugees put on social services has prompted several mayors in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to request that the federal government shut off the refugee spigot, as reported recently by WND. The mayor of Athens, Georgia, Nancy Denson, has requested that her city not be added to the list of cities accepting refugees until a full accounting of the costs can be tabulated. Richard, in her announcement, said resettlement agencies and “charities” are already mobilizing to help the soon arrival of new Syrian refugees. “Like most other refugees resettled in the United States, they will get help from the International Organization for Migration with medical exams and transportation to the United States. Once they arrive, networks of resettlement agencies, charities, churches, civic organizations and local volunteers will welcome them. These groups work in 180 communities across the country and make sure refugees have homes, furniture, clothes, English classes, job training, health care and help enrolling their children in school. They are now preparing key contacts in American communities to welcome Syrians.” What Richard fails to mention is that most of the resettlement work done by the above network of agencies is taxpayer funded through various grants distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Refugee Resettlement Program. The nine contractors that lobbied for more Syrian refugees are: • Church World Service (CWS) • Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) • Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) • Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) • International Rescue Committee (IRC) • U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) • Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) • U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) • World Relief Corp. (WR) The cost of resettling 70,000 refugees comes to just over $1 billion per year to the U.S. government, according to a State Department report for fiscal 2015. This includes running the program and issuing federal grants to the nine resettlement agencies. The $1 billion figure does not include the cost of the unaccompanied alien children program, supplying food stamps, subsidized housing, interpreters, Medicaid, WIC, temporary assistance to needy families (TANF) and educating the children, much of which falls to states and localities. Corcoran estimates that, taken in total, the cost of the U.S. refugee resettlement program could run as high as $10 billion per year. “Those numbers are just not obtainable,” she said. That also does not include the potential cost of security risks. WND reported in September that 22 Somali-Americans brought in through the refugee program have been documented by the FBI to have left the country to fight for Al-Shabab, a terrorist organization in Somalia, while several others have gone to fight for the Islamic State, also called ISIS, in Syria. Dozens of others have been prosecuted for sending money or other material support to terrorist organizations. Several of the resettlement agencies, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have posted statements on their websites welcoming President Obama’s recent executive action granting amnesty to up to 5 million illegal aliens. The religious “charities” conduct their refugee resettlement work with government grants accounting for 90 to 98 percent of their budgets, as previously reported by WND. WHERE IS THE US IN BIBLE PROPHECY? DHS: 100 MILLION AMERICANS COULD LOSE POWER IN MAJOR SUN STORM Millions of Americans face catastrophic loss of electrical power during a future magnetic space storm that will disrupt the electric grid and cause cascading infrastructure failures, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document. DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) stated in an internal 2012 fact sheet outlining its response plan for severe “space weather” that the actual impact and damage from a future solar storm is not known. “An analysis of the space weather impacts indicates that the greatest challenge will be to provide life-saving and life-sustaining resources for large numbers of people that experience long-term power outage from damage to the U.S. electrical grid,” the FEMA document, dated March 1, 2012, states. The FEMA fact sheet noted the findings of a 2010 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that monitors sun storms, warning that an extreme solar storm could leave “130 million people without power for years,” and destroy or damage more than 300 hard-to-replace electrical grid transformers. Major solar storms are rare. Two major solar disruption events took place in 1859 and 1921, times when electricity was less prevalent than today. The study said a future solar storm like the great magnetic storm of May 1921 would black out most states east of the Mississippi River along with most states in the Pacific Northwest. The long-term loss of electrical power likely would produce catastrophic loss of life. However, the FEMA document disputed that worst-case scenario, noting that in 2011 DHS experts were “not convinced” about the dire consequences outlined in the earlier study. Still, DHS scientists in 2011 warned that the U.S. electric grid remains vulnerable to damage from an extreme geomagnetic storm. The scientists said the extent of damage to high-voltage transformers from a space storm “are not well known” and the matter needs further study, the report says. “Based on an analysis of many space weather studies, there does not appear to be specific agreement among space weather and electric industry experts regarding space weather impacts on the U.S. electric grid,” the document says, adding that there is “general agreement among the experts that extreme geomagnetic storms could have significantly damaging impacts on the U.S. electric grid.” Space weather is defined as conditions on the Sun, in space, in the earth’s magnetic field, and upper atmosphere that impact space and ground technological systems and can “endanger human life on earth,” the report says. The report outlines the scenario for a major “coronal mass ejection” from the Sun that will first be detected by U.S. satellites. The magnetic band reaches the earth within 24 to 72 hours, affecting up to 100 million people. The largest such storms, called G-5s, would cause transformers and transmission lines to be “severely damaged.” The storms last from hours to a day but can disrupt electric power grid operations, GPS satellites, aircraft operations, manned space flight, satellite operations, natural gas distribution pipelines, and undersea communications cables. GPS satellites could be disrupted causing them to produce false positioning information. “The extreme geomagnetic space weather event will cause widespread power outages to a large number of people (approximately 100 million people) in a multi-region, multi-state area of the U.S. due to geomagnetic induced currents damaging EHV transformers, especially along coastal regions,” the report says. Power losses may cause spiraling failures that could lead to loss of systems that control water and wastewater systems, perishable foods and medications, lighting and air conditioning, computer, telephone and communications systems, public transportation, and fuel distribution. After the magnetic storm passes in some 36 hours, power will be restarted and within 36 hours up to 65 million will regain electric power. By two weeks, after damaged equipment is replaced or repaired, another 25 million people will have power restored. However, the report indicates that it would take up to two months to repair or replace damaged electrical power equipment for the remaining 10 million people over six states. Mark Sauter, an adviser to security companies and coauthor of the textbook Homeland Security: A Complete Guide, said severe space weather poses a major homeland security challenge. “It occurs rarely, can’t be predicted, full protection is impossibly expensive and the potential impact ranges from inconvenient to cataclysmic,” said Sauter, who obtained the document under the Freedom of Information Act. “The released documents indicate DHS/FEMA—with buy-in from the electrical industry and U.S. military—has now settled on a ‘plausible’ planning estimate that 25 million Americans could lose power for two weeks and 10 million could be without power for up to two months—and this estimate, the government admits, is 10 percent of one major outside study,” he said. Sauter said FEMA’s more-than-200-page response plan for dealing with a solar storm was blacked out from the released documents. “This makes one wonder why FEMA is refusing to release the government’s space weather response plan,” he said. “How would the government deal with 10 million, or many more, Americans without power for two months, or even longer?” Sauter questioned whether the government is taking the threat of a major solar storm seriously, or is “just going through an obligatory bureaucratic exercise that in reality reflects DHS/FEMA crossing its fingers and hoping that such a plan will never need to be used.” “Is FEMA simply worried about alarming the public?” Sauter asked. “For example, advice on the DHS Web site urges citizens to disconnect appliances and avoid using the phone during a space weather emergency, but doesn’t go into how people should survive for two months without electricity.” Peter Pry, a former CIA official who now heads a group that has warned about the impact on the electric grid of a nuclear detonation-caused blackout from electromagnetic pulse, said a congressional EMP Commission warned several years ago of the threat posed by a geomagnetic super storm. Such an event “could have catastrophic consequences for civilization,” Pry said. A similar solar blast like the 1859 Carrington Event could collapse electric grids and life-sustaining critical infrastructures worldwide, putting the lives of billions at risk, he said. U.S. utilities are unprepared for major solar storms such as the Carrington Event or the 1921 magnetic storm. “We are running out of time to prepare,” Pry said, noting that NASA reported in July that Earth narrowly missed a second Carrington Event. Pry said current legislation known as the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) passed the House last week unanimously and would help protect against natural or manmade EMP. FEMA spokesman Rafael Lemaitre had no comment on the fact sheet and its outline of the potential damage from a major solar storm “FEMA constantly monitors and plans for all hazards, and that includes the potential impact from a coronal mass ejection,” he said. ISRAEL: GODS TIMEPIECE - IRAN: U.S. MILITARY OPTION IS OFF THE TABLE A credible U.S. military option against Iran is off the table and something the Obama administration can “no longer even think about,” according to one of Iran’s top military leaders, who claimed in a wide-ranging interview that Iran has deployed advanced missiles and satellites capable of tracking foreign militaries. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), scoffed at the Obama administration’s insistence that a credible military option exists against Iran and discussed the Islamic Republic’s offensive military capabilities during a wide-ranging interview on Iranian state-run television. On the heels of another deal with Iran that extends talks with Western powers over the country’s contested nuclear program through July 2015, Salami accused the United States of bluffing about the threat of military action against Tehran. “We have denied our enemy any military option,” Salami said in an interview on Iranian television just days after the Nov. 24 extension in talks was announced. “The enemy can no longer even think about a military option.” “When senior U.S. officials use the term ‘military option,’ it is only for psychology purposes,” Salami said, according to a translation of his Farsi language remarks provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “It is an outdated bluff. It is a banal and decayed theory. To use the Americans’ own words, it is ‘political decay.’” Salami went on to declare that U.S. sanctions against Iran—which have been significantly weakened under the terms of an interim deal with the West—no longer have an impact on the Iranian economy and will not push the Islamic Republic to make concessions in the nuclear negotiations. “The Americans believe that their economic sanctions have had an effect on our people or on our economy,” the military leader said. “They believe that they can take their time, wear us down in negotiations, and continue the sanctions.” “That way, they hope to bring our people to despair, and to lead to political defeat [in the negotiations],” he continued. “We can and must throw these beliefs into the garbage-can of history.” In the weeks since the extension in nuclear talks was announced—along with around $50 billion in cash payments to Tehran over the next months—Iranian officials have accused the White House of lying about concessions the Islamic Republic has made. It also has unveiled a range of advanced military hardware following a call by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ordering the nation’s military to be on the ready. IRGC official Salami warned that the country’s ground-to-ground missiles are “capable of reaching enemy targets thousands of kilometers away.” Israel for instance is about 1,600 kilometers, or 1,000 miles, away from Tehran. These ballistic missiles “are able to deal deadly blows of various magnitudes to our enemies,” Salami said. These include missiles that can reach around 2,000 kilometers, making them capable of hitting portions of Europe and much of the Middle East. The continued construction of ballistic missiles by Iran was not barred under the terms of the interim nuclear agreement with Iran. Salami also issued a veiled threat to U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf region. “Our land-to-sea missiles are capable of reaching naval targets deep in the sea,” Salami said. “Our radars are able to detect enemy satellites. Our drones are able to track enemy movements thousands of kilometers beyond our borders. Our helicopters can fly, and our cannons can fire.” Salami also claimed that Iran has satellites in space that “can see tiny objects on the ground,” as well as “send us photographs and connect us to the entire world.” The military leader went on to provide further confirmation that Iran is arming Palestinian terrorist in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Relatedly, Hamas officials were in Tehran this week to renew its anti-Israel military alliance with Iran. “I am sure that the day will come—and that day is not far off—when the West Bank will become a living hell for the security of the Zionists,” he said. “We shall see the day when the children of the West Bank and Gaza will hold hands. Allah willing, that day is near.” Meanwhile, Iranian commanders announced that the country will test new radar systems and fire at least five new “homemade” missiles next month, according to the country’s state-run press. Iran unveiled earlier this week a laser simulator to help the country’s troops learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades. OTHER EVENTS TO WATCH: BIG BANKS WILL TAKE DEPOSITORS MONEY IN NEXT CRASH The G-20 met recently in Australia to make new banking rules for the next financial calamity. Financial reform advocate Ellen Brown says these new rules will allow banks to take money from depositors and pensioners globally. Brown explains, “It became rules we agreed to actually implement. There was no treaty, and Congress didn’t agree to all this. They use words so that it’s not obvious to tell what they have done, but what they did was say, basically, that we, the governments, are no longer going to be responsible for bailing out the big banks. These are about 30 international banks. So, you are going to have to save yourselves, and the way you are going to have to do it is by bailing in the money of your creditors. The largest class of creditors of any bank is the depositors.” It gets worse, as Brown goes on to say, “Theoretically, we are protected by deposit insurance up to $250,000 in the U.S. and 100,000 euros in Europe. The FDIC fund has $46 billion, the last time I looked, to cover $4.5 trillion worth of deposits. There is also $280 trillion worth of derivatives that the five biggest banks in the U.S. are exposed to, and under the bankruptcy reform act of 2005, derivatives go first. So, they are basically exempt from these new rules. They just snatch the collateral. So, if you had a big derivatives bust that brought down JP Morgan or Bank of America, there is no way there is going to be collateral left for the FDIC or for the secured depositors. This would include state and local governments. They all put their money in these big banks. So, even though we are protected by the FDIC, the FDIC is not going to have the money. . . . This makes it legal for these big 30 banks to take our money when they become insolvent. They are too-big-to-fail. This was supposed to avoid too-big-to-fail, but what it does is institutionalizes too-big-to-fail. They are not going to go down. They are going to take our money instead.” Part of the coming financial calamity will involve hundreds of trillions of dollars in un-backed derivatives. Brown contends, “If the derivative bubble pops, nobody knows what is going to happen, and it’s obvious it has to pop. It can’t just keep growing. Depending on who you read, some people say it is up to two quadrillion dollars. It’s virtual money, and it cannot keep going on.” When a financial crash does happen, you can forget about getting immediate access to your money. Brown says, “The banks will say, well, we don’t have it. All the money goes into one big pool since Glass Steagall was repealed. They are allowed to gamble with that money and that’s what they do. I think maybe Bank of America is the most vulnerable because of Merrill Lynch. Everybody is concerned, and they do very risky deals and they are on the edge. I think they have over $50 trillion in derivatives and over $1 trillion in deposits. . . The Dodd-Frank Act says we, the people, are no longer going to be responsible for the big banks when they collapse. It is not clear the FDIC will even be able to borrow from the Treasury, but even if they could, who is going to pay that money back? Let’s say they borrowed $1 trillion. Who is going to pay that $1 trillion back? It will bankrupt all the small banks that had to contribute to this premium. They will say we’re raising your premium to everything you got, basically. Little banks will go out of business, and who is going to survive–the big banks. . . . What we’re going to have left is five big banks, and everybody else is going to be bankrupt.” Shalom, Thad and Sue
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 17:58:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015