Emergency Financial Meetings, Rumors Of Banking Collapse, 'Aggressive' Russian Fighters Buzz U.S. Warship

Two very interesting stories were emerging today, the first involving some strange meetings that have been held recently which is leading to a lot of speculation:

Euro Bailout: Will Americans be on the Hook to Cover Trillions in European Bank Debt?

President Barack Obama and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen discussed risks to the economy and progress from Wall Street reform during a rare meeting in the Oval Office on Monday, the White House said. -Reuters

The meetings going on in Washington DC have been the subject of much speculation in the alternative media, especially the one between Janet Yellen, President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Ostensibly, the meetings were to discuss the challenges facing the Fed and to allow Obama to express his appreciation for the job Yellen is doing.

After the meeting, a formal statement was issued, as follows:

“The President and Chair Yellen met this afternoon in the Oval Office as part of an ongoing dialogue on the state of the economy. They discussed both the near and long-term growth outlook, the state of the labor market, inequality, and potential risks to the economy, both in the United States and globally. They also discussed the significant progress that has been made through the continued implementation of Wall Street Reform to strengthen our financial system and protect consumers.”

ZeroHedge wrote, “Here is our modest attempt at translating what was and what was not said: no market crashes allowed until November.”

This may well be true – given the upcoming presidential election – but it brings up a much larger point.

The banking system around the world is extremely fragile and securing credible and calm markets make take considerable doing. The government of Italy for instance, just concluded an emergency meeting with its deeply indebted banks that saw the government agree to a bail out of over euro five billion.

Throughout Europe, the banking sector is in critical shape – and Japan too. The ratio of performing to non-performing loans is critically low. But perhaps the most concerning area is Germany where the Deutsche Bank – of all banks – is said to be in critical condition.

In fact, some alternative media reports regarding the meeting between Obama, Biden and Yellen involved a possible discussion of Deutsche Bank’s solvency.

This is not simply speculation. Not so long ago, there were reports that JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs were involved in negations with Deutsche Bank to purchase their nonperforming loans.

Here, from Bloomberg in early March:

Deutsche Bank AG, the lender exiting some trading operations, is in talks with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. to sell the last batches of about 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) in complex financial instruments, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Fed is supposed to tend to US solvency. But during the 2008 crisis, Ben Bernanke reportedly extended trillions in overnight loans to banks around the world, and many of those loans still may not have been paid back. It is said to be one reason among many to be sure, why Fed officials don’t want an audit.

But what if the Fed has now agreed to “backstop” Deutsche Bank loans? Deutsche Bank is a critical bank, perhaps the most critical in all of Europe. Bank insolvency in Italy would already be a disaster, but a declaration of insolvency by Deutsche Bank would be unimaginably worse.

And so, perhaps, it is possible that the Fed will ensure, or help ensure, the solvency of Deutsche Bank. And this of course brings up a larger question – which is whether the  Fed is now to do the same sort of thing in Italy, Greece, Ireland and elsewhere where banks are facing critical shortfalls.

The difficulties faced by Europe in the current environment have been seen as intractable. But what if a decision has been taken that the Fed will step in for the ECB? The ECB cannot print the necessary money but the Fed is both less scrutinized and more powerful than the ECB.

This is a damnable economic system in which a very few individuals and entities are in charge of the world`s solvency and will do anything – or virtually anything – to sustain it.

It is hard to think of an activity that the central bankers will not participate in to perpetuate the system as it is. They certainly seem to manipulate gold and silver on a regular basis to lessen challenges to the fiat system.

But now perhaps the time has come for further action.  If the Fed is being used this way, then it is the US taxpayer ultimately, who will pay for the Fed’s generosity. The cost, extracted via price inflation, would certainly run into the hundreds or billions and even trillions.

It will take a lot of money printing to sustain Europe’s banks, and it’s probably not possible anyway. But surely at this point in time anything and everything will be tried to support European banking and sovereign solvency – at least until US elections are done. This would seem to call for additional monetary aggressiveness by the Fed.

Current Banker Meetings Are Deciding How to Confiscate Your Bank Account and Retirement

In the midst of the looming economic Armageddon, some are reporting that the banks have just begun to horde gold. Run from these authors. For over three years, I have been imploring people to buy gold in order to replace the cash that will soon be gone. Three years ago, Goldman Sachs was ordering its brokers to short gold.

The fact is, the criminal elite have solidified their hedges against currency collapse by focusing on the acquisition of gold by any means possible.

The bankers and government are meeting this week. At issue is the confiscation of your assets to facilitate a bailout of the banks. This time they are playing for keeps.

• “The Federal Reserve Board of Governors just held an “expedited special meeting” on Monday in closed-door session.
• The White House made an immediate announcement that the president was going to meet with Fed Chair Janet Yellen right after Monday’s special meeting and that Vice President Biden would be joining them.
• The Federal Reserve very shortly posted an announcement of another expedited closed-door meeting for Tuesday for the specific purpose of “bank supervision.”
• A G-20 meeting of finance ministers and central-bank heads starts in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, too, and continues through Wednesday.
• Then on Thursday the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund meet in Washington.
• The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta just revised US GDP growth for the first quarter to the precipice of recession at 0.1%.
• US banks are widely expected this week to report their worst quarter financially since the start of the Great Recession.
• The European Union’s new “bail-in” procedures for failing banks were employed for the first time with Austrian bank Heta Asset Resolution AG.
• Italy’s minister of finance called an emergency meeting of Italian bankers to engage “last resort” measures for dealing with 360-billion euros of bad loans in banks that have only 50 billion in capital”.

What does this all mean? If we are lucky, there will be a new round of austerity (i.e. bail outs). This is not likely as bail-outs will not have much of an effect on the banks given the gravity of the economic condition of the banks.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, on Monday (11/10/)4), ran a joint exercise simulating how they would prop up a large bank (e.g. Bank of America) with operations in both countries that has landed itself in trouble. Also taking part in the “bank failure drill” was Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, and the heads of a large number of other regulators, in a meeting hosted by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.  Then they brought in the military into the drill and they practiced how they would protect their assets from the public when the banks fail and retirement accounts are seized as collateral by the government. 

The FDIC has only about $25 billion in its deposit insurance fund, which is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to only 1.15% of insured deposits.

If a banking collapse were to be on the near horizon, the banksters are not going to notify you because they would not want to incite a bank run. With only 1.15% of all deposits being insured by the FDIC, your money would be left vulnerable and only the elite would be warned as they quietly transfer their money to a safer haven, such as gold. How do I know this? Please read on.

"Aggressive" Russian Fighter Jets Buzz US Warship; Navy Releases Videos

In a rerun of what happened two years ago when in April 2014 a Russian Su-24 fighter jet flew repeatedly within 1000 yards of a US warship, CNN reports that the Pentagon is furious that while sailing in the Baltic Sea, US warship the USS Donald Cook had two "extremely close overflights" by unarmed Russian fighter jets. 

According to the initial reports, two concerning encounters occurred Tuesday night in international waters. A third overflight, at a more acceptable distance, happened Sunday, according to the source.

CNN adds that the ship, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, also had a Polish helicopter on board as part of routine training, according to the official, leading to some speculation in military circles that the Russians were also "sending a message to Poland," the official said. 

Navy officials are not commenting publicly, but inside the Pentagon there is an intense discussion about releasing video and still photos of the Russian encounter to demonstrate the danger the jets posed to the ship, a U.S. official told CNN.

A U.S. official described the Russian maneuver as "strafing runs" without firing any weapons. The unarmed Russian aircraft swooped in over the deck in the same flight profile that would have been used if an attack was underway. 

A second U.S. defense official told CNN that the overflights were conducted by a Russian SU-24 and helicopter. Flight operations by the Polish helicopter were interrupted because one of the overflight was so close.

EUCOM added some additional details moments ago:

On April 12, while Donald Cook was operating in international waters in the Baltic Sea, a Russian KA-27 Helix helicopter conducted circles at low altitude around the ship, seven in total, at approximately 5 p.m. local. The helicopter passes were also deemed unsafe and unprofessional by the ship's commanding officer. About 40 minutes following the interaction with the Russian helicopter, two Russian SU-24 jets made numerous close-range and low altitude passes, 11 in total.

CNN reports that the Cook had been shadowed by a Russian intelligence-gathering ship for some time before the aircraft encounter. The U.S. crew had radioed the Russian ship that it was conducting routine operations, according to the official.

The Pentagon is livid because while there have been encounters between US ships and aircraft and Russian counterparts, this time Russia appears to have gone too far according to CNN sources.

Moments ago the US Navey released the following photos of the overflights.