Not that anyone in this country has heard anything from the increasingly worthless MSM about two major corruption scandals in Europe that threaten the world markets because hey, we need to know what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast and who Oprah plans on interviewing next.
Meanwhile, Spain's PM Mariano Rajoy is allegedly receiving illegal cash payments and calls for his resignation are growing louder by the day. The other involves a derivative scandal at the third largest bank in Italy. Again, allegedly, an investigation into Monti Pasche Bank is suggesting that Deutsche Bank (a super shady bank with alleged ties to CIA slush funds, drug lords and terror groups) helped cover up a $367 million loss on the derivative market in 2008, making the bank look more stable than it was just before it was bailed out by taxpayers, shades of what happened here as well. US banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have also been mentioned in the investigation which shouldn't be that big a surprise as they both have a history with illegal deals that were conveniently swept under the rug by our worthless SEC and Justice Department. This is from Bloomberg.com, the only organization running stories about this scandal:
The Italian papers followed Bloomberg’s scoop days later with news that Nomura had structured a derivative for Monte Paschi along similar lines. The Italian central bank then disclosed Monte Paschi executives had concealed documents on the trades from them. Reuters reported that JPMorgan also did a sketchy derivative for the bank.
But the scandal only continued to grow. So far, the bank may have lost a billion dollars on the deals, and it turns out that the Bank of Italy knew about the allegedly fraudulent deals back in 2010, when Mario Draghi was its chief. Draghi is now head of the European Central Bank, and has been critical in tamping down the euro crisis in the last several months.
Now, the scandal threatens to change the course of Italian national elections being held later this month, giving a leg up to Silvio Berlusconi. Meantime, the political upheaval is helping cause the temperature to rise in the euro crisis again. The story has gotten relatively short shrift in The Wall Street Journal, though The New York Times weighed in last week with 1,600 words.
This scandal threatens banks world wide and, with it, the economy. This has also shaken up the upcoming elections in Italy with former PM and convicted felon, Silvio Berlusconi, rising in the polls, raising further uncertainty into an area that hardly needs it. The anti-austerity measures have proven a dismal failure, but much like the Republicans here, politicans are still demanding harsher cuts and the people have had it. Berlusconi is running as a populist, anti-austerity candidate and it's working. Should he win, Italy may prove to be ungovernable as a coalition may be impossible to form and send the entire country into a tailspin and ultimately Europe and the US.
Here's how bank stocks in Europe did yesterday:
UniCredit SpA: -8.3 percent
Commerzbank AG: -5.9 percent
Santander: -5.7 percent
Intesa Sanpaolo SpA: -5.4 percent
Credit Agricole SA: -5.4 percent
Société Générale SA: -4.8 percent
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA: -4.7 percent
That is not good news. And the news in this country is hardly much better. We found out this week that two thirds of this country makes less than $41,000 a year, meaning our middle class is officially dead. Our true employment stands around 23% which hasn't budged now in four years. More and more companies are switching to part time workers because of "Obamacare," but the reality is many companies have doing this for years. I saw it first hand when I worked as an editor for a CBS affiliate nearly a decade ago and soon discovered my chances of getting full time work amytime soon in this field was really nil. I would have to work part time, graveyard shift hours in the hopes that a union job would open that wouldn't be filled by someone with better connections than me. My take home pay for that entire time would be around $250 a week. As I couldn't survive on that kind of pay with zero benefits, I soon quit. This is the reality facing all workers in which Obamacare is a convenient excuse to further destabilize working families.
Most jobs being created are low paying, part time jobs with no benefits and being filled by people who once made $70,000 a year. Now they make $20,000. That is not a job. It's a slave position. And we here in the US are taking it on the chin. Keep it up people and soon you won't even be making that. Start fighting for what is right and stop being sheep. Or dig a ditch and lie down in it because that will be your new home if this crap continues.
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