THE BUNDESBANK, DEUTSCHEBANK, AND THAT GOLD THING…AGAIN, PART ...
Yesterday I blogged about the improbability of the Bundesbank's gold inventory list being intended to shut down debate within the German gold repatriation movement. If anything, as I tried to illustrate, it fueled a detailed criticism and analysis from the very movement the media would have us believe it was trying to silence. Indeed, from my high octane speculative point of view, it was designed to do that, and to fuel even more scrutiny of the Bank of France, the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, and the NY Fed. The Bundesbank list also indictaed that, no, it now wants to repatriate more of its gold than originally intended, though at the slow pace of getting half of it back on German soil by 2020.
There may be reasons lurking in the background for this, reasons highlighted by the increasing difficulties of Germany's largest bank, Deutschebank, which is awash with bad paper - you guessed it, derivatives - and posting a gigantic 3rd quarter loss of almost $7,000,000,000, in addition to all the fines imposed on the bank by US regulatory authorities. He's the New York Time's take, shared by Mr. V.T.:
Deutsche Bank Forecasts a Loss of Nearly $7 Billion, Taking an Array of Charges
There has been much speculation that with the financial salvos straddling Deutsche Bank, it could become the next Lehman. Under such a scenario, the bank falls under the category of "too big to fail", if one applies the current American way of dealing with banker malfeasance. It therefore would mean its current and previous leaders are "too big to jail"(unless one is in Iceland, of course). Thus, as some regular readers here have commented to me privately, that gold would be a nice thing to have on German soil over the next few years if the German government should think itself required to bail out the big bank. With all that bad paper on its books, no one is going to take "paper gold" reassurances. After all, it's the corruption in the system itself that is coming home to roost right on top of the heads of the banksters.
But there's a curious set of statements in the Times article, the imply perhaps other, deeper, long-term agendas might be in play:
Still, shareholders of Deutsche might take heart from the fact that the third-quarter loss stemmed mostly from a $6.5 billion write down of so-called intangible assets. These can be assets that reflect past paper gains, so reducing their value is not thought to be as serious as slashing the value of, say, financial assets like bonds or loans. Still, the write-downs of intangible assets appeared to be prompted by higher capital requirements by regulators. Since many regulatory capital changes have been known for a while, it is not clear why Deutsche would be taking the charge now.
Cutting the value of intangible assets may not have much of an impact on an important regulatory capital measurement, something that Deutsche noted in its news release.
In addition, Deutsche said that it would write down its stake in a Chinese bank, Hua Xia Bank, by nearly $700 million. “This reflects an updated valuation triggered by a change of the intent of the holding as Deutsche Bank no longer considers this stake to be strategic,” the bank’s statement said.
When reading this, I was reminded of the insight of former Assistant Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Catherine Austin Fitts, that it appears that what is being done on the west's part of the global financial stage is that all the liabiliies are being moved into the public sector - which Deutsche Bank's write down of intangible assets could conceivably fall under, under certain circumstances - while all the assets are being moved into the private and largely hidden systems. But even if my interpretation is not true(and it has its flaws), Deutsche Bank's move to do so, at precisely this juncture in its corporate history, and with the growing pressures for bullion repatriation, and Germany's own participation in China's Asia Infrastructure Development bank, could be, as the bank itself stated in its own releases, "strategic" in nature, with its current crisis simply providing the cover for a massive repositioning. Write-downs of derivatives - some of its "intangible assets" - could be signaling a significant withdrawal from the run-amok finance capital of Wall Street, and a return toward much more prudent investment in tangible things.
Whether any of this high octane speculation is true or not will depend on how events unfold over time, and specifically, how much, and what type, of its intangible assets will be "written down", and how much, if any, of Germany's gold is repatriated, and how much, if any, pressure is applied on the west's major central banks to come clean on their gold holdings and accounts. One way to measure this reading of events will be to watch if the gold repatriation and audit movements not only in Germany are given new life, but if in fact they grow in other countries to become major domestic political memes. In the USA Ron Paul has consistently called for it, but this has fallen on largely deaf ears. After all, in the current context of American culture and politics, who would trust anyone to conduct a genuine audit of the Fed and its gold?
There is, additionally, one final thing to watch for, if any of this intensely high octane speculation is true, and that is not only how much "write down" is done, but whether any of it touches the open festering sore at Deutsche Bank, the derivatives. And, of course, one must watch the German government and political parties themselves, to see if any new laws or regulations curtailing derivatives trading in any significant degree are going to come up for discussion.
See you on the flip side...
17 Comments
Help the Community Grow
Please understand a donation is a gift and does not confer membership or license to audiobooks. To become a paid member, visit member registration.
Gold, Nazis & Cosmic Wars. Excavations to start in Southern Italy for the treasure of Alaric.
Link www followed by: telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11936505/Italy-to-dig-for-ancient-Roman-treasure-sought-by-Nazis.html
Just out of curiosity how many people can you feed with one portion of monatomic gold derived from one ton of pure(or gold bar quality) gold? Could be a community of the super rich living on this stuff believing it offers semi-immortality or at least a gracefully healthy old age. The new trend for the yuppies,doing gold instead of coke,it even sounds more trendy.
Socialize the Cost$.
Privatize the Profit$.
They intend to OWN IT ALL!
Including YOU!
nice catch Joseph.
So does anyone see this devolving to a Greecification of the Fatherland? Are all major cities in Europe and the America’s getting Detroitified?
And yeh in terms of cannibalism – Didn’t old man Morgan do something similar to the Vanderbuilts. Germany might want to avoid accepting invites to parties on Titanic like ships? This all just keeps questions coming.
first – what’s that chart depict at the top of the page? is that gold holdings? if so where’s the u.s. on there?
second – right on about switzerland. understandable that the geography makes for difficult invasion strategies. just the same the only way such a little country does so well for so long in such calm waters while the rest of the world boils and roils in mortal storms,… well, that’s got something more going for it than neutrality. same applies to the vatican (and their quaintly dressed swiss guards). so why did mr global vacate to switzerland after or during or before wwII? who, what, where, when and how is mr global still there? how is control and security for mr global so easily and safely wielded from there? it has to be more than just the location of the bis making the difference.
third – does anyone have more details on how iceland is faring?
any help? thank you.
On your first paragraph:
The long-term prosperity of a nation lies with a thriving manufacturing base. One of the truly-scary articles that I read at the height of the ruination of the US manufacturing base noted how you could take the entire US industrial population and drop it into the Chinese workforce without a ripple. The differences in the numbers of working people were that vast. Lost jobs will not be coming back. Any additional ‘transportable’ jobs will end up in low-wage countries. That is the current reality, barring artificial barriers.
Globalization has given tremendous power to those economies with a vast, low-wage, subservient workforce. More precisely, to those shadowy figures with great amounts of capital to ‘slop’ around the world. And, the obliging oligarchies within those countries who see humans as commodities, not beings.
Ironically, it may actually require an enlightened WORLD ‘viewpoint’ to stop the systematic “Detroit-ification’ of any city/country/union. To stop the ‘rape’, there has to be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide…
The neoliberals have no qualms about sacrificing others so they gobble-up even more of the pie.
As long as others have one molecule of liberty, equality , fraternity; it’s just too much – they must save them for their own good[of course].
“…with the financial salvos straddling Deutsche Bank…” Boy, that brought up old images/sensations. Well done, Joseph!
“…it appears that what is being done on the west’s part of the global financial stage is that all the liabiliies are being moved into the public sector … while all the assets are being moved into the private and largely hidden systems.”
As I mentioned earlier, the phrase making the rounds is: “Privatize the gains; socialize the losses.”
With the US banks, the *ahem* US government bailout (around 2008) chose to value the near-worthless bankster derivatives at 100% on the dollar, giving the banksters an enormous, undeserved ‘windfall’. “Privatize the gains; socialize the losses,” indeed! It sounds like the German politicos are not so willing to ‘cave’; perhaps pitchforks were brandished at them. Hence, the derivative writedowns…
(Switzerland… Ahh, Switzerland. Home of at least part of the Templar ‘refugees’. Perhaps the banking part, guarded by enough Knights to render Switzerland ‘safe’. Ever since ‘neutral’ Switzerland was totally-excluded from WWII invasions, I knew something was up with Switzerland. Even today, the ‘gaze’ slides off Switzerland. It may just be my hackles, but something ‘dark’ seems to have taken-up ‘residence’ in Switzerland. And, not just surface banksters…)
I wonder if this fighting over an ever diminishing piece of the pie will throw a monkey wrench into the PTB “gentlemen’s agreement”. Where now, they appear to be cannibalizing each other after doing same to the rest of the planet. A sign of this will be if we start to see more famous PTB names going down in small airplanes and / or committing suicide with nail guns, lawnmowers, golf clubs, etc.
As we accelerate toward the end game, the cannibalization will increase until only one is left. Those that don’t want to be eaten will cow down the those doing the eating. When the dominoes begin falling on a regular basis you’ll know the end is near. How do you prefer your elites; baked, broiled, or fried?
Yep the game of Sole Survivor this time played for real. With the the last oligarch trying to eat themselves since there won’t be anything to eat. It would be fun to watch but the rest of us won’t be around we will be dead.
I prefer shot publicly.
It’s cooking the books and creative accounting on a global scale. Derivatives counterfeit money in everything but name plus NAZI plunder lurking in the shadows. The eight pound gorilla in plain sight nobody wants to talk about. When will this gigantic house of cards fall.
Just my thoughts Marcos
I agree with W.D.. With so much stolen gold in WWII its gotta be the main payment method employed for the extensive blackmail and pay-offs that took place at the end of the conflict with the clean gold supplies being stuffed into the bank managements pockets and the “hot” stuff replacing pre weighed inventory’s. Time for the german banks to fire up the kilns and recast the precious into re-stamped bars. I’m sure they could always tap into their hidden reserve in Paraguay for missing tonnage if necessary. It’d be even more interesting to control the numbers on all the gold bars Switzerland has stashed since the 20’s.
I’m curious about how much of that Nazi loot might be considered part of Germany’s gold subject to repatriation? Is it still part of that “off the books, hidden system of finance”? Is there any way to actually answer these questions?
I have often heard it said that possession is 9/10ths of the law, implying possession implies ownership.
Good point and how do you say to them “F*!k off it was never your gold to start with” without giving the whole game away.
I think your right, who knows “where” Germany’s gold came from in the first place, although the “camps” comes to mind. The BB is just like the BIS, and if it’s “German”, then “The Third Way” comes into view. In other words, anything that’s financial in Germany has to be viewed to be shonky. The NAZI’ were experts in shady financial deals, so what has changed, answer, NOTHING!!