Banks fined $2.5 billion, to plead guilty to market rigging

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four big banks will pay $2.5 billion in fines and plead guilty to criminally manipulating the global currency markets going back to 2007.

JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays and The Royal Bank of Scotland conspired with one another to fix rates on U.S. dollars and euros traded in the huge global market for currencies, according to a settlement announced Wednesday between the banks and U.S. Justice Department. Currency traders allegedly shared customer orders through chat rooms and used that information to profit ahead of their clients.

The criminal behavior took place between December 2007 and January 2013, according to the agreement.

Another bank, UBS, has agreed to plead guilty to manipulating key interest rates and will pay a separate $203 million criminal penalty.

Credit to Yahoo News

GLENN BECK: 'PREPARE FOR ALL-OUT WAR IN AMERICA'

Glenn Beck

Former Fox News host-turned-media-giant Glenn Beck issued a dire warning to America, telling citizens to be on guard and prepare – all-out war is coming.

“I would suggest that you prepare for all-out war,” he said in a recent broadcast, Raw Story reported. “War unlike we’ve ever seen in our lifetime because that’s what I believe is coming, unfortunately. I’m hoping that there’s a way to put this genie back into the bottle, but I don’t see it.”

Beck said he feared “losing our country” and said another Sept. 11-type attack would prove a devastation to the nation, Mediaite reported.

“We talk about World War II, where they did shock and awe,” Beck’s co-host Stu Burguiere said. “Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians died. It was not a pretty picture. And obviously war is hell, but is there any way that America — with the backbone we have today, with the 99 percenters and Occupy Wall Street as part of this country, with all that — they are going to accept a war effort like that?”

Beck said the next truly devastating terrorist attack will be perpetrated by “home-grown” terrorists, and “they will be in multiple cities, so you won’t know” what to expect next.

He said, in context of discussing the ISIS vow to harm the president and raise the terrorist flag over the White House: “Did you see what ISIS came out and said? That ISIS, their number one goal now is to hit America and kill the president. I cannot imagine. That would change perspectives entirely.

“We got the Patriot Act the last time. Can you even imagine what the Department of Homeland Security would do if they, God forbid, hurt the president?”

Beck also said a different president – a Republican chief – would prove the better defender of America in a coming all-out war.

“We would bomb the snot out of them, if you had a Republican,” he said. “If we had President Barack Obama, I think we would just go on some apology tour. But if we had some economic collapse where people were frightened – really, truly frightened – and then on top of it we had some really bad terrorist attack, I think we would.”

Credit to WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/glenn-beck-prepare-for-all-out-war/#5ekuH7TsI2cPsa2J.99

Rob Kirby-Extreme Reduction in Standard of Living Guaranteed

Obama Is Creating a World Police Force While Destroying the U.S. Military

In the recent past, I have documented how Jade Helm is, in some measure, about gun control and the use of foreign troops to enforce martial law. As if this is not offensive enough to the American people, these two factors, when combined, add up to the fact that the United States is creating a World Police Force.

Jade Helm and the UN Small Arms Treaty

Jade Helm will consist of gun confiscation and there is ample evidence pointing to this strong possibility and it started with a very concerning act that involved the Secretary of State, John Kerry, and President Obama as Kerry signed the illegal and unconstitutional UN Small Arms Treaty which effectively bans all private ownership of guns. There is one provision in the treaty that has received absolutely no attention in our mainstream media and that is the section having to do with confiscation and the use of foreign troops:

State parties to the ATT (i.e. UN Small Arms Treaty) “may seek assistance” in implementing the Treaty. The ATT indicates that a voluntary trust fund was established to promote the establishment of a multinational gun confiscation program. This statement brings in the “legitimized” use of foreign troops in order to enforce international law on American citizens in direct opposition to the Constitution. 

More proof for Jade Helm morphing into a gun confiscation drill comes from the United Nations itself. Under the heading, “Hiding in plain sight”, the United Nations previously advertised for the following position in the Summer of 2014:

Posting Title: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Officer, P4

Job Title Code: DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER

-Department/Office: Department of Peacekeeping Operations

-Duty Station: New York

-Job Description: A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration or related area. Experience working within peacekeeping, peace-building or development programmes operations is desirable. Experience with small arms control,conflict/post-conflict crisis management, economic recovery is desirable. Experience coordinating multiple partner agencies, funds or programmes is desirable.

Nobody seems to be talking about this illegitimate imposition of foreign troops on our soil and this notion is represented in the phrase “conflict/post conflict management“! What conflict/post conflict management? Conflict management is another euphemism reserved for one of two possibilities. First, this implies there will be a civil war, hence, we have one of the reasons for the Jade Helm 15 drills. Or, that the U.S. has been conquered at the time that Jade Helm goes live and this is about disarming individual American citizens.

Ask yourself, what would be the one thing that this administration could do that would guarantee a violent response from many of the American people? That one thing would be to start seizing private guns. Foreign troops will be operating under the UN flag in the pursuit of this agenda. Obama is in the midst of purging the military leadership who will not blindly obey him and that means, in part, being willing to necessarily and indiscriminately firing upon American citizens who would resist having their Second Amendment rights obliterated by this present administration. Secondly, in order to create the manufactured need to impose martial law, the administration would need a pretext, a false flag event. I have been covering the pretext possibilities for over a  year. In fact, the pretext has been rehearsed repeatedly since the Summer/Fall of 2013, when 386,000 foreign troops trained on American soil to (1) learn to speak English; (2) learn how to use American guns; and, (3) fight in an urban environment. This DHS/FEMA drill was clearly about the imposition of martial law upon the citizens of this country through the use of foreign mercenaries.

If this was all that would be reported in this article, it would be disturbing enough. However, the convergence of these two developments, coupled with both UN and State Department documents makes it clear that this administration is creating a World Police Force.  

The Revised START Treaty Introduces the World Police Force

The United States has introduced at the Sixteenth General Assembly of the United Nations a Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World.

From a Constitutional perspective, this document implements some outrageous policies and is the kind of stuff that Senator Joe McCarthy feared the most. Today, if McCarthy read his famous statement “I have a list of 57 State Department employees who are card carrying members of the Communist Party….”, he would be correct!

The newly revised START treaty contains the following disturbing statements regarding US policy with regard to disarmament?

“Disarmament: Under Article VI of the NPT, all Parties undertake to pursue good-faith negotiations on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race, to nuclear disarmament, and to general and complete disarmament” (State Department Document entitled “Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” Page 3, Release Date May 11, 2015 which is an update of an earlier 2010 START agreement with Russia). I was sent copies of this agreement by an insider. This information has not been released to the media as of this printing. 

It is within this agreement that find the first rumblings of an international effort, backed by Obama to neuter our nuclear forces:

“President Obama stressed that “We need more resources and authority to strengthen international inspections.” Parties can advance this goal at the Review Conference by supporting universal adherence to the Additional Protocol, endorsing the Protocol as the standard for NPT verification and the supply of nuclear material and technology, and by advocating that the IAEA is given the resources that it needs to accomplish its mission” (Page 14).

The above statement is about subverting national power and sovereignty and becoming a secondary entity in comparison to the United Nations. This is the loss of American sovereignty.

These radical policies are embraced by the Obama administration as these treasonous principles have appeared in State Department literature before:

“The disbanding of all national armed forces and the prohibition of their reestablishment in any form whatsoever other than those required to preserve internal order and for contributions to a United Nations Peace Force

The armed forces of the United States and the Soviet Union would be limited to 2.1 million men each (with appropriate levels not exceeding that amount for other militarily significant states); levels of armaments would be correspondingly reduced and their production would be limited”. 

Do you remember when Obama announced that he was reducing the size of the military to pre-World War II levels? This action was the fulfillment of the desire of the globalists to disarm the United States. The State Department document further goes on to state:

“The UN will seek and obtain the permanent presence of a standing UN military force”.

“An International Disarmament Organization (IDO) shall be established within the framework of the United Nations upon entry into force of the agreement. Its functions shall be expanded progressively as required for the effective verification of the disarmament program”.

Connecting the Dots

The revised 2010, now 2015, START treaty is designed to weaken both Russia and the U.S. Yet, there is one key missing element in this agreement, China. Why aren’t the Chinese involved in these nuclear disarmament agreements? Is this by design? Is this move by the UN and its lackey, the State Department designed to make China the most powerful nation in the world and will the emerging World Police Force actually be an emerging nuclear power, namely, China? Is this what the Jade in Jade Helm is all about?

It is clear from the State Department documents that the U.S. has laid the foundation for a World Police Force. Will it be the Chinese that heads up this force? Has the mantle of power been passed from the United States to China? Does this increase, or decrease, the likelihood that the U.S. and Russia will be encouraged to fight a war which will weaken both nations, while a healthy China waits for the winner in the wings?

Returning to Jade Helm, it is clear that not only is the U.S. being disarmed, but so will the people of the United States. Please refer to an email I received about 5 weeks ago.

Dear Dave, 

I am working in conjunction with JH 15, but I decline to specify my role. In every conceivable scenario, we are rehearsing that every home that we are preparing to invade involves someone who is heavily armed. Certainly, not ever person of high-valued interest would be well-armed. This has led many of my colleagues to believe that Jade Helm is about arresting well-armed gun owners prior to occupying the immediate area of concern…. This is about gun confiscation…..

These are certainly game-changing revelations and there is a lot to consider. For example, is this new World Police Force going to be the enforcement mechanism of the TPP? Are strong nation states being purposely weakened so that corporations, under the TPP, can absorb and control nation states through this new World Police Force? Logic would lead us to answer these questions in the affirmative.

There are still many unconnected dots out there. However, there is one thing we can say for sure:

The wise American will become as independent from the existing local and federal authority as possible.

Credit to Common Sense

Are They About To Confiscate Money From Bank Accounts In Greece Just Like They Did In Cyprus?

Do you remember what happened when Cyprus decided to defy the EU?  In the end, the entire banking system of the nation collapsed and money was confiscated from private bank accounts.  Well, the nation of Greece is now approaching a similar endgame.  At this point, the Greek government has not received any money from the EU or the IMF since August 2014.  As you can imagine, that means that Greek government accounts are just about bone dry.  The new Greek government continues to insist that it will never “violate its anti-austerity mandate”, but the screws are tightening.  Right now the unemployment rate in Greece is over 25 percent and the banking system is on the verge of collapse.  It isn’t going to take much to set off a panic, and when it does happen there are already rumors that the EU plans to confiscate money from private bank accounts just like they did in Cyprus.

Throughout this entire multi-year crisis, things have never been this dire for the Greek government.  In fact, Greece came thisclose to defaulting on a loan payment to the IMF back on May 12th.  And with essentially no money remaining at all, the Greek government is supposed to make several large payments in the weeks ahead…

Athens barely made its latest payment (May 12) to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and it managed to do so only when the government discovered that it could use a reserve account it wasn’t aware of, according to the Greek media.

Kathimerini, a Greek daily newspaper, reports that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras wrote to the IMF’s Christine Lagarde warning that Greece would not be able to make that May payment, worth €762 million ($871 million, £554.2 million).

Pension and civil-servant pay packets are due at the end of the month, and based on this news Athens may struggle to pay them. Even if it does manage that, on June 5 the country owes another €305 million to the IMF.

In the two weeks following June 5 there are another three payments, bringing the June total to the IMF to over €1.5 billion.

The Germans and the other financial hawks in the EU are counting on these looming payment deadlines to force Greece into a deal.

Meanwhile, Greek banks also find themselves in very hot water.  Many of them are almost totally out of collateral, and without outside intervention some of them could start collapsing within weeks.  The following comes from Bloomberg…

Greek banks are running short on the collateral they need to stay alive, a crisis that could help force Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s hand after weeks of brinkmanship with creditors.

As deposits flee the financial system, lenders use collateral parked at the Greek central bank to tap more and more emergency liquidity every week. In a worst-case scenario, that lifeline will be maxed out within three weeks, pushing banks toward insolvency, some economists say.

“The point where collateral is exhausted is likely to be near,” JPMorgan Chase Bank analysts Malcolm Barr and David Mackie wrote in a note to clients May 15. “Pressures on central government cash flow, pressures on the banking system, and the political timetable are all converging on late May-early June.”

If no agreement is reached, by this time next month Greece could be plunging into a Cyprus-style crisis or worse.

And if that does happen, there are already rumblings that a “Cyprus-style solution” will be imposed.  Just consider what James Turk recently told King World News…

The troika of the EU, ECB and IMF have not yet pulled the plug on the Greek banks, but the following quote in the Financial Times from this weekend should be a warning to anyone who still has money on deposit in that country: “The idea of a “Cyprus-like” presentation to Greek authorities has gained traction among some eurozone finance ministers, according to one official involved in the talks.”

The ECB is up to its eyeballs swimming in unpayable Greek debt that it holds. The ECB is not going to take a loss on this Greek paper on its books. Because Greece does not have the financial capacity to repay what is now about €112 billion of credit exposure to Greece on the ECB’s books, the ECB has only two alternatives.

It can push the €112 billion of Greek debt it holds to the national central banks of the Eurozone and on to the backs of the taxpayers in those countries, which it politically untenable. Or it can confiscate depositor money in Greek banks, like it did in Cyprus and as the FT has now reported.

Needless to say, such a move would be likely to set off financial panic all over Europe.

Could we actually see such a thing?

Well, let’s recall that back in April we already saw the Greek government forcibly grab “idle” cash from the bank accounts of regional governments and pension funds.  The following is from a Bloomberg report about that event…

Running out of other options, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ordered local governments and central government entities to move their cash balances to the central bank for investment in short-term state debt.

The decree to confiscate reserves held in commercial banks and transfer them to the Bank of Greece could raise as much as 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion), according to two people familiar with the decision. The money is needed to pay salaries and pensions at the end of the month, the people said.

“It is a politically and institutionally unacceptable decision,” Giorgos Patoulis, mayor of the city of Marousi and president of the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece, said in a statement on Monday.“No government to date has dared to touch the money of municipalities.”

Grabbing cash from the bank accounts of private citizens is just one step farther.

And what happened in Cyprus just a couple of years ago is still fresh in the minds of most Greeks.  That is why so many of them have been pulling money out of the banks in recent weeks.  The following comes from Wolf Richter…

Greeks remember very well what happened in Cyprus in 2013, when local banks were given a big thumbs-up from Europe to help themselves to their depositors’ accounts. Cyprus and Greece are very closely tied, and many Greeks consider the island a “sister-nation.”

What little trust remained in banks in Greece died that day. People have been nervously looking for signs something similar may happen again in their home country. And they resolved to act at the first sign of danger: banks cannot confiscate money you have under your mattress. Cash can be hidden away.

Let’s certainly hope that what happened in Cyprus does not happen in Greece.

But right now, both sides are counting on the other side to fold.

The Germans believe that at some point the economic and financial pain will become so immense that it will force the new Greek government to give in to their demands.

The Greeks believe that the threat of a full blown European financial crisis will cause the Germans to back down at the last moment.

So what if they are both wrong?

What if both sides are fully prepared to stand their ground and take us over the cliff and into disaster?

For a long time I have been warning that a great financial crisis is coming to Europe.

This could be the spark that sets it off.

Credit to Economic Collapse

The Truth About Planet X

ISIS War Front on American Soil?

WASHINGTON -- U.S.-led airstrikes may have slowed ISIS's advance in the Middle East, but the brutal terrorist movement continues to attract followers around the world.

ISIS has made no secret of its desire to attack America and it's putting foot soldiers in place to make that dark vision a reality.

After two ISIS supporters attempted to storm a Mohammed cartoon drawing contest and murder everyone inside earlier this month in Garland, Texas, the Islamic State was quick to claim responsibility for what's been called the first ISIS attack on American soil.

The attackers, both American citizens, were killed by a police officer before they had a chance to carry out their plan. But the incident in Texas may have been a sign of things to come.

ISIS in Every State
From Pennyslvania to Illinois to Ohio to Minnesota to Kansas, federal authorities have arrested close to a dozen ISIS supporters in recent weeks.

"We're very definitely in a new environment because of ISIL's effective use of social media, the Internet, which has the ability to reach into the homeland and possibly inspire others…" Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said.

"Because of the use of the Internet, we could have little or no notice in advance of an independent actor attempting to strike," he explained.

In the wake of the Texas attack, FBI Director James Comey said that there are potentially "thousands" of American citizens that now follow ISIS online.

Comey has also said that the FBI is now conducting investigations into ISIS-related activity in all 50 U.S. states.

In addition, U.S. authorities say some 180 U.S. citizens have traveled overseas to join ISIS—and at least 40 of them have already returned.

"What they say is that their first obligation is to go to the caliphate," explained Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for The Clarion Project. "But what they say is that, if they're unable to do that, if they feel they'll be arrested at the airport, that's when they carry out an attack here in the United States."

Orders to Attack
Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud was one who made it to Syria. The Columbus, Ohio, resident trained with an Islamic terror group and then returned to the United States with orders to attack the homeland.

He was arrested before he had the chance.

Mohamud had been on U.S. authorities' radar before he left for Syria. That's why terrorism expert Patrick Poole said Mohamud should have never made it that far.

"They allow him to apply for a passport; they allow him to travel to Turkey," Poole told CBN News. "From there he goes into Syria, trains, comes back, and he's wandering the streets of Columbus for eight months."

Like a growing number of American ISIS recruits, Mohamud was of Somali descent.

Most hail from the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul—an area with the largest Somali-Muslim population in North America.

"We've got to revisit these humanitarian visas," former Pentagon spokesman J.D. Gordon, executive director of Protect America Today, said. "We've got so many people here from places like Somalia with major Islamic terror problems and we keep letting them into the country. Why are we doing that?"

America's Dangerous Future
Mauro told CBN News that's one way the United States is heading down a dangerous path.

"You have Sharia patrols in places like the U.K.," Mauro said. "And that's not what we're facing here in the United States, so it's hard for us to believe that that's where we're headed. But if you want to look at the future of the United States, you have to look at Europe."

The goal of ISIS and its growing network of followers in the West is to turn American and European cities into guerilla war zones—with regular attacks similar to those seen recently in Ottawa, Paris, Sydney and Texas.

Gordon told CBN News that to defeat this threat, the Obama administration must first acknowledge that it exists.

"The White House can't even name radical Islam as the enemy," Gordon said. "Radical Islam is trying to wipe us out, and the White House—Barack Obama—won't even mention it."

Ignoring the threat won't make it go away. ISIS recently boasted that it has "71 trained soldiers in 15 different U.S. states"—and promised that the attack in Texas was only the beginning.

Credit to CBN

Economy Is Unsustainable: Dramatic Shifts Ahead

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld: Countering the threat of Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles is too hard and too costly

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The top of the list of threats to the survival of the United States itself is “a massive nuclear attack from Russia, or some other high-end adversary or potential adversary like China,” Winnefeld noted.

“We have stated that missile defense against these high end threats is too hard, and too expensive, and too strategically destabilizing to even try,” Winnefeld said of the threat of a Russian or Chinese nuclear attack in a speech at the Center for Strategic International Studies.



Military and top civilian leadership have alleged that US homeland and regional European missile defense systems are intended to counter long-range missile threats from North Korea and Iran.

The primary US deterrent against Russia, Winnefeld added, is the nuclear triad.

“We will use the cost imposition piece to deter Russia by keeping all three legs of our nuclear deterrent strong and our nuclear command and control system robust.”




Moscow has repeatedly raised opposition to US proliferation of missile defense systems near its border, claiming it represents a threat to Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

The BMD systems were previously limited under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the US and Russia to avoid a strategic imbalance. The United States backed out of that treaty in 2001.

Credit to Sputnik

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/military/20150519/1022335176.html#ixzz3adE9K5zP

Yuan to Replace Dollar as World Reserve Currency