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‘Gov’t seeking delicate balance in regards to patriarch’s rights’

Bülent Arınç

Voicing determination to expand the rights and freedoms of non-Muslim communities in Turkey, including Orthodox Christians, a senior Cabinet minister has made it clear that such willingness does not mean Ankara recognizes the legal personality of the İstanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.

“The institution represented by Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew does not have a legal personality under current Turkish law. They don't have a legal personality, but they exist,” Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said on Monday, echoing Ankara's argument that Turkey doesn't consider the patriarchate to be ecumenical, in line with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which governs the status of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey.

Ankara rejects Patriarch Bartholomew's use of the title “ecumenical,” or universal, arguing instead that the patriarch is merely the spiritual leader of İstanbul's dwindling Greek Orthodox community.

The Fener Greek Patriarchate in İstanbul dates back to the 1,100-year-old Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453.

“We are seeking an arrangement that recognizes the existence of the patriarchate but doesn’t offer a legal personality to it, in line with the Lausanne Treaty and our laws,” Arınç said, as he visited the Ankara bureau of Today’s Zaman to join a modest celebration on the fourth anniversary of the establishment of the newspaper.

Arınç underlined that the same was valid for Roman Catholics living in Turkey as well. “For now, it is not possible for us to meet the Vatican’s demands for a legal personality for the Catholic Church in Turkey,” Arınç said.

Turkish authorities say that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the main agreement regulating minorities in Turkey, recognized only Jews, Armenians and Greek Orthodox communities as minorities, meaning many others, including Roman Catholics, Syriacs and Protestants, were left out. Last year, Pope Benedict XVI said, “The Catholic Church in Turkey is waiting for civil juridical recognition,” noting that this would help the Turkish Catholic community “to enjoy full religious freedom and make an even greater contribution to society.”

In early January, Arınç became the highest-level Turkish official to visit the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in more than half a century, symbolizing the government’s pledges to address the problems of religious minorities and strengthen the country’s bid for European Union membership.

Turkey for decades has ignored demands from the patriarchate due to mistrust stemming from their rivalry with Greece. But Arınç’s visit coincided with government promises to consider reopening a seminary that trained generations of ecumenical patriarchs and return property that the state confiscated from Christian and Jewish minority foundations. In November, Turkey complied with a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling, returning a 19th-century orphanage to the patriarchate.

“We have to dispose of fears, delusions and prejudices. What matters is that different faith groups in Turkey should be able to live freely and peacefully and that their justified demands should be met. This is the approach and the decision of the AK Party [the ruling Justice and Development Party], even if some politicians find such an approach dangerous,” Arınç said. “We will do whatever is ordered by law. Furthermore, we will make the necessary arrangements if some laws are insufficient for meeting these demands because what matters are rights, and we are very careful about that,” he added.

Arınç also reiterated that the government is trying to overcome legal obstacles that stand in the way of reopening the Halki (Heybeliada) Seminary, which has been closed since 1971.

The Halki Seminary, the only school where the Greek minority in Turkey was able to educate its clergymen, was closed in 1971 during a period of tension with Greece over Cyprus and a crackdown on religious education, which also included Muslim religious schools.

The total number of graduates from the school is 990, and some of them have become clergymen in various places in Turkey and even in Athens. The school has been maintained by the functioning monastery on its premises. Read more at www.todayszaman.com

 

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Debt Bondage: The Economic Treason of Banks

Bob Chapman The International Forecaster January 18, 2011

Between now and the end of the year, most likely in the fall, we’ll see major financial and economic problems in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Those events will sorely test Germany, France, Holland and Austria.

Over and over we hear announcements from Brazil of trade wars. Brazil is deliberately reining in their currency, the real, due to its strength. They have imposed reserve requirements on domestic banks’ foreign exchange positions. These are taxes on investments and de facto currency controls. Such actions are very good moves that cause indirect higher gold prices.

In Ireland harsh measures are being taken. Public spending will be cut 12%. Added to that is a tax increase that would be a reduction of $7.8 billion. Public services and the minimum wage will be cut as well. The wealthy will pay more and child support payments will fall.

While the above troubles manifest themselves the US goes merrily on its way like nothing was wrong. Americans have been pre-propagandized, as they were under stimulus – one into believing a recovery is in progress. We don’t share that prediction. The Irish and others understand their problems, but Americans cannot come to grips with them.

Like other members of the Euro zone, Ireland discovered they could borrow cheaply under one interest rate fits all. This policy, which we predicted 14 years ago, would be disastrous, was disastrous for Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, and Belgium. Needless to say, the leverage provided by cheap money brought on speculation, particularly in real estate, that brought on today’s problems. Yes, speculation by individuals was a problem, but as in other countries, the problems really lie with the banks, which are really responsible for these tragedies. They should have never made the loans in the first place. Stupidly, the Irish government bailed out the banks just like Greece did. They should have defaulted and allowed the banks to fail. The banks were more than complacent. Just as we see now in the US the banks have at least temporarily been bailed out and depositors guaranteed that their savings are safe. There are also the stimulus programs everyone else has tried as well, that we have seen ultimately don’t work. That is because they are geared to bail out the financial sector and not the economy.

Ireland’s budget will be followed by equally harsh budgets guided by the IMF, which will lead to decades of poverty, as bad as the 800 year reign of Britain over the Emerald Isle. PM Brian Cowen and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan sold out the Irish people to British bankers. The vultures are circling the Republic to prepare for years of future enslavement. Many have called it economic treason.

Allied Irish Bank and Anglo Irish Bank caused all the problems and now the Irish people have to bail them out. A then secret meeting was held at which AG Paul Gallagher sat in as adviser to the government and Dermot Gleeson, AIB Chairman and former AG representing the banks. Both are Illuminists and members of the Bilderberg Group. These two and the PM and FM sold out Ireland to save the banks owned and controlled by the British. They have put the Irish people on the hook for $600 billion. In addition, government bought $70 billion in toxic bonds containing real estate from these banks. These banks are owned by British, French, German banks that are controlled by the Black Nobility and among them the Rothschilds and Queen Beatrix of Holland, an ardent Bilderberg. Her father, Prince Bernard, was a former Colonel in Hitler’s SS.

The only thing left for Ireland to do is to default and leave the euro returning to the Irish punt. They should also leave the EU. They should also end fractional reserve banking, which would allow government to issue debt free, interest free money with gold backing. They should kick Royal Dutch Shell out of the Irish offshore gas fields and much more. This in part was what we told the Greeks to do.

We see a rocky year in Europe that could end in bankruptcies. The efforts to bailout Greece and Ireland and now Portugal and Spain, will increase debt throughout Europe and lead to all nations having problems. The deal struck with Ireland to cover bank insolvency will only increase the debt in the long run and not solve the problem. There is no effort of debt restructuring because the banks refuse to take losses. This attitude and policy is carried forward in all governments via fellow Bilderberg connections. The system has to be changed and purged, but they won’t hear of that. Again, we remind everyone it was the banks that were and are responsible for the condition that the Western world is in today and now they want the public to bail them out. The banks are an extension of the Fed in the US and the Fed was the moving party. They lowered interest rates eventually to zero and it was they who increased money and credit by 17% to 18% for an extended period of time. The Fed created the debt bubble and all the damage you see is a result of that. They are now using tactics, which they know will not work, but they do not know what else to do. It is all about buying time and covering up what they have done. As a result not only did banks over leverage, but so did corporations and individuals, not to mention speculators. Now that bank leverage is down from 70 to 1 to 40 to 1, when 9 to 1 is normal. They are getting a high enough return from the Fed that they have cut lending by 25% or more to small and medium sized businesses. Such antics can only impede recovery. We have been told since last June that lending would increase. By the Fed’s own admission it has increased by a very small amount. Thus, our conclusion is that the Fed is deliberately restricting lending in order to keep banks away from risky loans.

These Fed policies and those of the ECB are designed to extend problems rather than solve them, which tells us there is no solution. Look at what has been done in Greece. No solution, just patchwork and austerity in order to delay the problems. Ireland’s bailout is a carbon copy. Such programs can only bring on default, which we expect to occur later this year. In March or April the Irish election result could turn everything upside down. That could cause a run on other sick economies. This grand design for nations to be interconnected could eventually cause all of them to collapse like dominoes. If the US, the UK and Europe are in trouble the entire world is in trouble.

QE1 and QE2, as well as TARP and other programs were only designed to bail out the financial sector in Europe as well as the US. As we predicted last May there would be QE2 and then QE3. The aggregate spending $2.5 trillion each time, as we saw in QE1. In QE2 the pork laden extension of the Bush tax cuts supplied the $868 billion to assist the fed in keeping the economy and the financial sector afloat. After expenses the Fed returns its profits back to the Treasury. That then isn’t a major problem. What is the problem is that the owners of the Fed control all aspects of financial and economic life. They do not get inside information; they create it. What these banks and brokerage houses do is make mega-money because they really control the system. That is what the Fed is all about – control. Can you imagine trading departments at major brokerage firms and banks for months never have a losing day trading? We were professional traders for 25 years – that is simply impossible unless it involves illegal activity. The owners of the Fed have a license to steal. They created the credit crisis and the taxpayer now is subsidizing them so they can make even more wealth. All this happens because people do not understand fractional banking and the true role of the Fed, which is to loot America.

The pork laden tax bill may temporarily help the economy, but QE2 will only flow to the Treasury and the financial sector. As we have said before the Fed could end up owning all of the Treasury debt. These desperate actions cannot help but force foreign buyers to vacate the market. These activities of the Fed and the fiscal irresponsibility of government in time can only create more inflation.

The spent and borrow policy is totally profligate and will have to be paid for by future generations, if not defaulted upon.

Then there is the horrible concept of free trade, globalization and terrorism. Today anything you have to say that government disagrees with labels you a terrorist. Government tells us danger lurks everywhere. These fears in part are neutralized by the good deeds being done by transnational conglomerates. If they provide jobs and opportunities in the second and third world’s there supposedly will be less chance of conflict with terrorists and others who disagree with US policy. Everything is supposed to have a global solution. The cost for this over the past 11 years has been the loss of 8.5 million good paying jobs and 42,400 businesses that will never return unless we institute tariffs on goods and services. Of course, in this process these transnationals get filthy rich and avoid some $750 billion in taxes. That is if they are able to pull off their latest tax-free caper. This in part is what the new world order is all about. Destroy the economies of Europe and the US and force them to accept world government. These are part of the group of people who want to dictate how you will live – every facet of your life. This process destroys the sovereignty of the nation state. Their functions are taken over by the World Bank, IMF, BIS and the WTO.

We are then beset with the privately owned Federal Reserve whose power stretches worldwide. Recent legislation makes the Fed a financial and monetary all encompassing monopoly. The Fed from its inception usurped the power of the Constitution and the US Treasury. The IOU’s, Treasury bonds, are sold to the Fed for a digital entry, the value of which is created out of thin air. For this the Fed receives interest paid by US taxpayers. Funds are used by the Fed on a fractional basis multiplying profits. That means interest is paid indefinitely unless the bonds are redeemed.

Today as a solution to poor bank lending we see austerity programs whose creation go back centuries. The enforcer today is the IMF, which in its processes becomes a dictatorial power of its own. In the austerity process comes privatization or the looting of assets owned by a sovereign state in the name of repatriation of debt. Of course, the buyers at $0.30 on the dollar are transnational conglomerates, part of the worldwide Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. These tactics are reminiscent of the slogan used over the entrance of German concentration camps, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” “Work will make you free”. Truly something befitting George Orwell’s “1984”. This is the mentally that we are dealing with here. This cartel of bankers controls all these institutions and has for hundreds of years in one form or another. The idea is to bring on perpetual economic and financial crisis, so that the IMF’s work is never completed. A form of debt bondage, which is supposed to be stability. The IMF may be the new world order’s Gestapo, which sets up formerly sovereign states as supplicant members of world government. The goal ultimately is a world bank to control all nations monetarily and financially. The stepping-stone to this condition is the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements.

What people have to understand is that events do not happen by chance and there are no coincidences. Every major event is planned as are many other smaller ones. A good example was the Treaty of Versailles, which was essentially constructed by European and US bankers. They were the ones who handled the reparations that deliberately stripped Germany of its ability to economically and financially survive. This is the cabal that never negotiates in good faith. These were the frontrunners of today’s corporatist fascists. In the 1930s to survive in Germany you were either a Bolshevik or a National Socialist NAZI. That is somewhat like the conditions we have in America today in our two party system. Hitler was born at Versailles and the defeat of Germany opened the war against the people of the world in the form of globalization. The result was the IMF, UN, World Bank and the World Trade Organization. That gave the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and eventually the European Central Bank a license to steal. Today it is the distraction of terrorism and assassinations that keep the public’s attention somewhere else. Let this all be a lesson to you. Nothing is ever as it seems to be.

Sales at US retailers rose slightly less than expected in December, but retail sales for all of 2010 reversed two years of contraction and posted the biggest gain in more than a decade, a government report showed on Friday.

Total retail sales climbed 0.6%, advancing for the sixth straight month as sales declines at electronics and general merchandise stores were offset by gains in gasoline and building materials sales, the Commerce Department said.

Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting sales to gain 0.8%.

Excluding auto, sales rose 0.5%. Analysts had forecast a 0.7% increase.

Total sales for the 12 months of 2010 were up 6.65% from the previous year at a 6.5% drop in 2009. It was the largest 12-month gain in sales since 1999.

Home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month in November, taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time in the prolonged housing slump, according to Zillow.

Home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933, the housing data company said in a report on Monday. Prices fell 0.8 percent over the month.

It is a dubious milestone for the U.S. housing market, which has failed to gain much traction despite a host of government programs to reduce delinquencies and encourage demand with temporary tax credits and lower interest rates. Many economists expect further price drops, even if there are some anecdotal signs of growing demand, such as in pending home sales data.

“For the next six to nine months, the larger factors affecting the housing market that will produce more home price declines will be the excess inventory of homes, high negative equity and foreclosure rates, and weakened demand due to elevated employment, Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief economist, said in a blog post.

Declines are accelerating, and it will take a while before falling unemployment and other signs of economic improvement support the market, Zillow said.

Home prices fell at a 0.78 percent pace in November, the fastest since February 2009, the company said.

The delinquency rate on loans included in US CMBS conduit/fusion transactions increased 16bp in December to 8.79%, according to Moody’s Investors Service’s Delinquency Tracker (DQT). For the year, the rate has increased 79% from 4.90% at the end of 2009.

Moody’s expects the delinquency rate to continue rising in 2011, but at a slower pace than it has over the past two years. The CRE markets are beginning to show signs of a turnaround. Moody’s says its DQT is expected to finish the year in the 9.5% to 11% range.

“The rate of increase in newly delinquent loans is likely to continue moderating in the coming year as capital markets continue to heal and the flow of loans into special servicing slows,” says Moody’s Managing Director Nick Levidy.

This past December, loans totaling $3.7bn became newly delinquent, while previously delinquent loans totaling roughly $2.6bn became current, worked out, or disposed. The total number of delinquent loans increased to 4,104 and the total balance of delinquent loans increased by approximately $1.1bn to $54.9bn.

By property type, hotel properties saw the most improvement in their December delinquency rate with a 5bp drop to 16.37%. Retail saw $1.15bn in loans becoming newly delinquent, while only $474m in loans dropped out of delinquency, raising the retail loan delinquency rate 30bp to 7.44%. Multifamily saw a rise of 48bp to 14.38% with a $371 net rise in its total delinquent balance. Industrial properties continue to have the lowest rate at 6.54%, a 16bp increase from November.

By region, the South has the highest delinquency rate at 11.00%, followed by the West, at 9.86%, and the Midwest, at 8.74%. The East is the best performing region, with a delinquency rate of 6.70%. For the year 2010, the Midwest had the smallest increase in its delinquency rate, which rose 312bp, while the West experienced the largest increase, with a 458bp rise.

By state, Nevada’s rate climbed 149bp to 28.99%. Alabama is the next worst performing state, but with a delinquency rate that is slightly more than 1000bp lower than Nevada.

U.S. Cuts Global Grain Supply Outlook; Higher Prices Expected at Grocery Stores Prices of corn and soybeans leapt 4% Wednesday and wheat gained 1%…With yesterday’s gains, prices of corn futures contracts are now up 94% from their June lows; soybeans are up 51% and wheat is up 80%. [Good thing inflation is too low and the CPI is constructed to not show inflation!]

“The markets are very, very tight,” said Joseph Glauber, the USDA’s chief economist. “There is concern, no doubt.”

The NY Fed released its new POMO schedule on Wednesday. It will monetize $112B of US Treasuries in 18 of 19 trading sessions – from today until February 9.

We have warned for years that big banks have been crafting earnings out of mark-to-fantasies on derivatives and other paper. Forbes’ Robert Lenzer provides this disturbing detail about banks:

US Banks Reporting Phantom Income on $1.4 Trillion Delinquent Mortgages

They are allowed to accrue interest on non-performing mortgages” until the actual foreclosure takes place, which on average takes about 16 months.

All the phantom interest that is not actually collected is booked as income until the actual act of foreclosure. As a result, many bank financial statements actually look much better than they actually are. At foreclosure all the phantom income comes off the books of the banks.

Ultimately, these banks face a potential loss of $1 trillion on nonperforming loans, suggests Madeleine Schnapp, director of macro-economic research at Trim-Tabs, an economic consulting firm 24.5% owned by Goldman Sachs.

The potential writeoffs could be even larger should home prices continue to weaken, placing more homes in the nonperforming category on bank balance sheets.

http://blogs.forbes.com/…

During the 1960s, we began to empty the state mental hospitals but failed to put in place programs to ensure that the released patients received treatment after they left. By

the 1980s, the results were evident increasing numbers of seriously mentally ill persons among the homeless population and in the nation’s jails and prisons.

A 2007 study by the U.S. Justice Department found that 56% of state prisoners, 45% of federal prisoners, and 64% of local jail inmates suffer from mental illnesses.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages increased last week as lending rates eased from recent highs, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity rose 2.2 percent in the week ended January 7 to its highest level in about a month. It had dropped on the back of refinancing activity as influential U.S. Treasury yields soared in late 2010.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.78 percent in the week, down from 4.82 percent the prior week and 4.93 percent before the Christmas holiday.

The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications climbed 4.9 percent last week, and its gauge of loan requests for home purchases dropped 3.7 percent.

Trading Spike Seen Just Before ADP Report Data from two independent sources show that trading in select currencies and future contracts surged in the seconds before last Wednesday’s unexpectedly strong private-sector jobs report from payrolls processor Automatic Data Processing Inc., raising suspicions that someone obtained the report ahead of its official release.

http://online.wsj.com…

How to Revive the California Dream – The decline in tax receipts from Golden State households earning more than $200,000 accounts for fully 93% of the decline in total tax revenues from 2007-08.

http://online.wsj.com…

Will highlight alleged conflicts of interests – Senior Democrats hope the new report, which deals with Wall Street’s behavior during the crisis but is believed to focus heavily on Goldman, will press the SEC to reopen its investigation into the bank.

Directors of Federal Reserve banks in Dallas and Kansas City again requested, unsuccessfully, a 0.25 percent rise in the rate charged to banks for emergency loans, minutes of Fed meetings in November and December showed on Tuesday.

The Illinois House passed a massive tax hike bill 1/11/11. Individual taxes will jump from 3% to 5%; corporate taxes will surge to 7% from 4.8%. If enacted in the lame-duck session, the exodus will begin.

The cost of goods imported into the U.S. rose in December, led by higher prices for commodities such as fuels and food.

The 1.1 percent increase in the import-price index followed a revised 1.5 percent gain in November, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 1.2 percent gain for December, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Import prices climbed 0.3 percent excluding fuel, with little change in the costs of automobiles and consumer goods.

Rising demand from emerging markets like China, along with a weaker dollar, is driving up the cost of commodities. With unemployment stuck above 9 percent, companies are finding limited scope to raise finished goods prices, allowing the Federal Reserve to complete a second round of monetary easing to stimulate the economy.

“The improving economic sentiment in the U.S. and across the world is putting pressure on commodity prices,” said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit. “Core prices are still relatively tame. The Fed has some time before they feel the need to take some of the easing off the table.”

The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country’s debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America’s international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.

Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase

The poll underscores the tough task ahead for U.S. lawmakers as the debt nears its current ceiling of $14.3 trillion. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week warned that a failure to raise the borrowing limit in the coming months could lead to “catastrophic economic consequences”.

Republicans, who won control of the House of Representatives in November on a promise to scale back government, hope to pair any debt-ceiling hike with a commitment from President Barack Obama to reduce long-term spending.

Republicans have vowed to slash $60 billion from the budget as soon as March, but many of those cuts are not likely to be popular with the public.

WHAT TO CUT?

Only 24 percent say the country can afford to cut back on education spending, a likely Republican target, and 21 percent support cuts to law enforcement.

With the Pentagon fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 51 percent supported cutbacks to military spending.

Less than half, 45 percent, support an expected Republican effort to pare environmental enforcement.

Some 53 percent support cutting the budgets of financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, in spite of the widespread consensus that a lax regulatory atmosphere contributed to the devastating financial crisis of 2007-2009.

And 47 percent support cutbacks to national parks, which were shuttered for several weeks during the budget battles of 1995 and 1996.

Expensive benefit programs that account for nearly half of all federal spending enjoy widespread support, the poll found. Only 20 percent supported paring Social Security retirement benefits while a mere 23 supported cutbacks to the Medicare health-insurance program.

Some 73 percent support scaling back foreign aid and 65 percent support cutting back on tax collection.

The poll of 1,021 U.S. adults was conducted between Friday and Monday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

Slush fund accounts of major US politicians identified and seized at Vatican Bank (Rome). Connection established with Daniel Dal Bosco RICO indictment, which cites Giancarlo Bruno, Silvio Berlusconi & Ban Ki Moon.

On Wednesday 5th January 2011, it emerged that US establishment-related slush fund accounts had been located in, and seized from, the Vatican Bank in Rome. The source of funds for these accounts in almost every instance was found to be the US Treasury.

Beneficiaries of the covert Vatican accounts include Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and each of the Obama children, Michelle Obama’s mother, all the Bushes and the Clintons, including Chelsea Clinton, Joe Biden, Timothy Geithner, Janet Napolitano, several US Senators, including Mitch McConnell, several US Congressmen including John Boehner, several US Military Chiefs of Staff, the US Provost Marshal, the US Judge Advocate General, the US Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, several US Judges, the Pope, and several cardinals.

Big money was found in each of the accounts. The longer the beneficiaries have been in office, the greater the account balances were found to be. They range from a few million USD to more than a billion USD in the case of John Roberts. The total number of slush fund accounts so far identified at the Vatican Bank is said to be between 600 and 700. This number is likely to grow as international élite corruption investigations spread worldwide.

The disclosures have split the Roman Catholic Legatus organisation down the middle. Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of England) is in the know and is intimately involved in the swirling and fissiparous covert power plays.

The giant US banks have been bailed out again from huge potential write-offs by loosey-goosey accounting accepted by the accounting profession and the regulators.

They are allowed to accrue interest on non-performing mortgages until the actual foreclosure takes place, which on average takes about 16 months.

All the phantom interest that is not actually collected is booked as income until the actual act of foreclosure. As a result, many bank financial statements actually look much better than they actually are. At foreclosure all the phantom income comes off the books of the banks.

This means that Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, among hundreds of other smaller institutions, can report interest due them, but not paid, on an estimated $1.4 trillion of face value mortgages on the 7 million homes that are in the process of being foreclosed.

Ultimately, these banks face a potential loss of $1 trillion on nonperforming loans, suggests Madeleine Schnapp, director of macro-economic research at Trim-Tabs, an economic consulting firm 24.5% owned by Goldman Sachs.

The potential writeoffs could be even larger should home prices continue to weaken, placing more homes in the nomnperforming category on bank balance sheets.

About 6 million homes are still at risk, according to Schnapp, and at least 10% of them are 25% underwater, meaning their market value is 25% less than the mortgage– but the owners are still paying interest to their banks.

U.S. citizens may become global “pariahs” when a law forcing foreign banks to report their accounts takes effect, according to Switzerland’s oldest bank.

Americans “risk becoming pariahs of the global banking system through the fault of their own government,” Konrad Hummler, managing partner of Wegelin & Co., said in the copy of a speech presented today in the Swiss capital, Bern.

The U.S. law will require all foreign financial companies to supply information on American clients to the Internal Revenue Service and withhold 30 percent of U.S. interest and dividend payments from account holders who provide inadequate information to determine their U.S. status. The Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act will complicate offering services to clients with U.S. links when it takes effect in two years, Hummler said.

“The risks run by financial intermediaries promising to respect these rules are considerable,” said Hummler, who is also chairman of the Swiss Private Bankers Association.

St. Gallen-based Wegelin, founded in 1741, advised clients 16 months ago to sell U.S. assets because extended reporting requirements may saddle investors with tax obligations for themselves or their heirs. Wegelin, which is an unlimited partnership, has said that it can’t afford the risk of increased liabilities at time when American tax authorities are cracking down on international banks.

Implementation of the law risks costing the U.S. more than it will generate over 10 years, Hummler said. It’s unclear whether Swiss banks will be allowed to sign such agreements with the IRS under Swiss law, he said.

“We still don’t know whether these criticisms will be taken into consideration or on the contrary, ignored by the American administration,” Hummler said.

Banks have been lobbying for an easing of the rules since the law, known as FATCA, was incorporated into jobs legislation enacted in March. Now diplomats are stepping into the campaign, with countries including Switzerland, the U.K. and Canada weighing in with the Treasury.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the law is estimated to bring in $8.7 billion in revenue to the U.S. over 10 years — an amount banks and governments say is relatively low compared with the expense of complying with the law.

The Obama administration pushed for the measure in the wake of the political firestorm arising from the case against UBS AG, which in 2009 settled U.S. government claims that the Zurich- based bank helped thousands of rich Americans hide their money offshore.

Wegelin, along with Geneva-based Pictet & Cie. and Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie., is one of 13 banks in Switzerland in which partners collectively own and have unlimited liabilities for commitments made by the bank.

Switzerland manages an estimated 27 percent of the world’s privately held offshore wealth. Read more at www.infowars.com

 

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Rabbi and Pope discuss Jewish-Christian cooperation in Israel

Amplify’d from www.catholicnewsagency.com

Rabbi and Pope discuss Jewish-Christian cooperation in Israel

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin meets with Pope Benedict XVI

Vatican City, Jan 17, 2011 / 08:10 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict met with prominent Israeli Rabbi Shlomo Riskin on Jan. 12, who updated the pontiff on the efforts of the Jewish community to support local Christians in the face of mounting tensions with Islamic militants.

Riskin, chief Rabbi of Efrat and chancellor of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, briefed the Pope in a recent audience on the work the organization is doing in Israel.

“We are taking Your Holiness’ call to stand in solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters in Israel and advocating on their behalf,” Riskin said.

Riskin added that local members of the Jewish faith are looking for ways to alleviate poverty within the Christian community, as well as “opportunities to dialogue on those areas where we must cooperate.”

These areas, he underscored, include “our united faith in a God of love, compassion, morality and peace rather than a God of will, power and Jihad.”

Rabbi Riskin also explained to Pope Benedict the opportunities the organization provides for Christians visiting Israel to learn more about the Jewish foundations of the Christian faith.

According to Rabbi Riskin, Pope Benedict affirmed his remarks and responded, “we need to work together.”

After the audience, the Center's Executive Director David Nekrutman spoke about the group's focus in 2011 to address the needs of the Christian community in Israel.

“For the first time in history Jews as a majority are coming face to face with religious minorities. It is Judaism’s obligation to adhere to the biblical mandate: You shall love the stranger in your land.”

Nekrutman also noted that each religious and ethnic community in Israel has different needs, saying, “we cannot just lump everyone into one melting pot.”

He stressed the organization's desire to become a trusted partner in dialogue with local Christians, explaining that to achieve this end, they first “must address their individual concerns.”

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Dog nonprofit asks Vatican for $600 for shepherd shot in the head

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Dog nonprofit asks Vatican for $600 for shepherd shot in the head

Tipton, PA

Believes stray dog, ignored by local Catholic Church, would have avoided injury if priest and church had done 'christian duty.' Tipton, PA -- January 17, 2011 -- Dogs Deserve Better, a U.S. nonprofit organization working on behalf of the country's mistreated dogs, has asked the Vatican today via an e-mail to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for $600 to vet a shepherd shot in the head. It's not that the group cannot afford the $600.00. Donors have stepped forward to pay vet bills for the dog, now named Ezekiel, and the alleged shooter will also have to reimburse the organization if convicted. But founder Tamira Thayne explains that in neglecting to help the shepherd who showed up at the church just before the New Year, the church had fallen short of its moral obligations according to the Catholic Catechism, and asking the Vatican to provide the $600 serves as a lesson to American churches that animals are God's creatures. Tamira Thayne attended the church's service after it was found that the dog had been shot to ascertain if the church was genuinely unconcerned about his welfare. She observed that "there was not one mention of Ezekiel, not one mention of his condition, not one mention of praying for him, and not one mention of contributing to his care. It was as though he never existed." The Church's official position on animals, from the Catholic Catechism, states clearly that "Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals... It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly." To watch the YouTube video of the rescue of Ezekiel, visit the link at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lIdwfW0Fb4 To read news articles, releases, and the entire text of the letter, visit the site at http://www.dogsdeservebetter.org/shepherd.html   Tamira Ci Thayne Executive Director Dogs Deserve Better Tipton, PA 814.941.7447 814.742.8679 Contact Tamira Ci Thayne Ask a question with InterviewNetSM Read more at www.expertclick.com

 

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The Pope's unholy alliance with the dictator

Amplify’d from www.charter97.org

The Pope's unholy alliance with the dictator

Alexander Lukashenko, still president of Belarus thanks to a rigged election, has found an ally in the Vatican.

Scandal is too mild a term to describe the abuse of children at the hands Roman Catholic priests. But whatever word you fix on – "atrocity", "obscenity", I can't find the right one – you cannot doubt that rape was all about power, as the feminists of the 1970s once said. The power of the old to groom and force themselves on the young was complemented by the power of the Vatican to protect rapists from justice and cover up their crimes.

If the church believed its own doctrine, one might have expected the papacy to show a smidgen of contrition and to seek repentance. After presiding as Cardinal Ratzinger over a parallel justice system in which there was one law for his church and another for everyone else, however, Pope Benedict XVI is showing that he will forgive his own sins but learn nothing from them.

It is not too hyperbolic to say that the dictatorship of Alexander Lukashenko is raping Belarus. From the moment crowds gathered in Minsk to protest about last month's rigged elections, secret policemen have been forcing themselves on their victims. They have arrested and assaulted hundreds, jailed seven of the nine opposition candidates for the presidency and beaten unconscious one of them, Vladimir Neklyayev, as they dragged him from a hospital where he might have found sanctuary.

In a tribute to the tactics of the communists, Lukashenko is threatening to send the children of dissidents to orphanages – his own form of child abuse. After the authorities tried to pick up Danil Sannikov, the three-year-old son of the jailed opposition leader Andrei Sannikov, a local political analyst explained that "by using children they are able to get their opponents to confess, to capitulate politically, to appear on state television and make a repentant speech".

Or as the boy's grandmother put it as she clung to the child: "The terrible Stalinist times are returning to Belarus. I can't believe that this is really happening."

Naturally, those members of the Belarussian opposition still at liberty have appealed for outsiders to condemn the regime. It is their last card. Russia keeps the tyranny economically secure because Putin wants Belarus as a buffer state and no more cares about the sufferings of its people than China cares about the sufferings of the people of North Korea.

Europe is all they have, and although it is easy to criticise Baroness Ashton, the British politician hardly anyone in Britain had heard of until a game of musical chairs in Brussels ended with her in the seat of the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, I have to say that she is behaving honourably. She met the Sannikov family and promised to do what she could to secure the release of political prisoners. Her office hints strongly to me that she will try to persuade European governments to impose travel bans on Lukashenko and his goons at the end of month.

The opposition has its enemies in Europe. The correspondent for the New Statesman, which excused the mass murders of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, out-Stalinised his Stalinist predecessors when he cited as a reason for readers to give the dictatorship the benefit of the doubt his visit to "one of the country's industrial gems – the enormous Belarussian Autoworks (BelAZ) factory… [It] employs 12,000 people and is the biggest producer of mining dump trucks in the world". Beyond the tyrannophile left with its perennial reverence for truck production quotas, however, the dissidents' main problem is the indifference of Europe rather than its enmity.

So it was with a little hope that opposition leaders asked to meet Archbishop Martin Vidovic, the papal nuncio in Belarus. They carried a letter to the Pope, which said: "Today Belarus is enshrouded in darkness. Arrests of activists, raids and pogroms at independent websites and newspaper offices, searches of apartments continue. The authorities are blackmailing the political prisoners using their little children. We are seeking your help." The nuncio refused to meet them. Later he relented, but Ratzinger has not protested against the oppression or promised to break diplomatic relations with the outlaw state.

The Vatican that still claims to be a force for good is staying silent because it is seeking a concordat with a state that still has a KGB and statues of Lenin on its streets, just as it sought accommodation with Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The advantages for the papacy are hard to judge, because the terms of concordats are secret, but we can assume it wants what it has always wanted: public money and control of children's schooling. The advantages for Lukashenko are easier to grasp.

It is an error to suppose that dictators do not need to worry about public opinion. At a minimum, they want to secure the passive acquiescence of the subject population and to demoralise their opponents. In return for agreeing to cut a deal with Rome, a grateful Lukashenko has heard Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, do both.

The absurd cardinal praised Belarus for allowing "freedom of religion", and denounced sanctions against the regime as "unacceptable". Belarus has a large Catholic minority and the Pope has cold-bloodedly sought to legitimise the dictator in its eyes, not just with his political interventions, but also by inviting Lukashenko to an audience at the Vatican.

Last year, I met Natalia Koliada, founder of the Belarus Free Theatre, a centre of intellectual dissent to Lukashenko. She was fizzing then; filled with the hope that maybe life in her country was about to get better. Last week when I phoned her, the formerly dynamic woman was too depressed to talk.

While it was in London, the Free Theatre showed a video of Numbers, a brilliant absurdist play which you can find on the Index on Censorship website . The actors mime surreal routines while a camera projects on to a wall behind them statistics that enumerate the scale of prostitution, poverty and sickness in Belarus. At the end, a list of famous names fills the screen – Marc Chagall, Isaac Asimov, Kirk Douglas… people we would or should know about, who had been born in Belarus or into exiled families.

For a moment, I was puzzled and then realised that the actors were trying to say that Belarus was a part of the western world and we should fight for it. The spectacle of the Pope, Europe's last absolute ruler, cutting deals with Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator, shows that the fight must also be fought on the home front.

Nick Cohen, The Observer Read more at www.charter97.org

 

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