What financial crisis?
The collapse of the world financial system is still in full swing.  Good information is thin on the ground because those most culpable are doing their best to hide the full implications of their crimes. No one really knows how many trillions of worthless derivatives were created. New crisis arise almost daily like mushrooms after fall rain. Cover ups are uncovered almost as frequently. It’s almost impossible for anyone to grasp the whole picture but we know its really bad.
I’m very far from being an economist and I don’t pretend to understand all the complexities of the greatest of all white collar crimes. What I would like to share are some comments based on what I think I do understand, as a starting point for discussion, some links to articles you may not be aware of and suggest that we look beyond the failures of the current system into a better, more equitable and sustainable model.
David Spring, a tireless advocate for state banks has written a piece suggesting that the recent bailout of European banks in reality an extension of TARP. That many American banks are waiting in the wings with their hands out, the greedy and insolvent Bank of America being first in line. Â http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29474.htm
In fact money from the Federal Reserve and US taxpayers has been whizzing back and forth across the Atlantic since 2008 when ‘banksters’ bamboozled Bush/Obama into believing that the self inflicted failure of the private banking system was the end of the civilized world. Many recipients of the first infusions of TARP were European banks, many of whom had liar loan subsidiaries just like American banks. I question whether this is this a legal or even appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?
There is an incestuous relationship between the international banking community that should be addressed. The system is unstable, prone to abuse and dangerous to civil society. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29463.htm
The European Crisis is the stepchild of US financial meltdown. Governments all over the world and obscure public institutions such as school districts in Norway bought US mortgage based securities (ranked AAA by Moodys and S&P who are now busily downgrading US and other nation’s debts; a direct contradiction of the own ratings). Greece has been struggling prior to the crisis but with the help of folks such as Goldman Sachs, they were able to conceal it until the mortgage bubble burst. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html Many of Greece’s problems are the direct result of Wall Street fraud. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/25/greece-debt-default-crisis
In the case of Greece, ECB, because of its structure was forced to slam the door in its face just when it was critical to lend support.
Silly and irresponsible from a fiscal standpoint (poisoning their own well) but as a way to begin imposing European wide austerity, a good start.  It’s not a ‘European Debt Crisis” it’s international banking industry fraud and no one with power is willing to call the cops.
The goal of austerity and bailouts are to funnel even more money into the same pockets that  are known to have engaged in criminal activity and are now mugging the governments of so many nations. Most of these institutions are private banks.
‘Occupy’ can play a critical role here.
Germany is a special case. They rebuilt their country after WWII with a public banking system. The ‘privateers’ have been have been chipping away but there is still a strong public system in place. Ellen Brown in her latest article suggests the German model as a way out of cycle of crises and debt slavery. http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/the-public-option-in-banking-another-look-at-the-german-model/
Bank of America has its own particular set of problems. No one can figure out B of A’s books. They are deliberately and unnecessarily complex.
B of A is probably insolvent even after sucking up trillions in TARP and Federal Reserve money. (They repaid TARP with low cost taxpayer backed loans. We’re still on the hook but without the pesky regulations such as not using TARP money for political donations).
B of A, like all the other banks, have been beefing up their bottom line by keeping non performing loans on their books at precrash prices. The foreclosure conveyer belt helped free up some cash but with all the ‘irregularities’ (fraud) they have had to slow that process way down. Hiding non-performing loans has also had the effect of propping up the real estate market and increasing the value of the assets on their books.
However this may be about to end. Michael Whitney predicts that within a year the banks will be forced to release this shadow real estate market (more than 3 million homes; at least double the current housing inventory) and housing prices will plummet again. Needless to say Whitney advises against buying a home in the next year unless you have a couple of hundred grand you don’t mind losing.
B of A has an additional burden of having purchased Countrywide right after the crash (the subprime loan diva who had Peter Pelosi on their board and gave sweetheart loans to members of Congress while guiding qualified people of color into exploding loans). There are law suits galore looming on the horizon and B of A doesn’t have the dosh, even with shaking down their customers for another 5 bucks a month to access their own money.
Soros is predicting that the Greeks will detach themselves from the Euro or at least believes that is a logical step for them to take. Attempts at austerity have all ready produced wide spread civil unrest. Soros made his billions on currency ploys and has some credibility in this area. Â Whether the latest ‘new deal’ will hold remains to be seen.
One of the basic tenets of Ellen Brown’s writing her fabulous book ‘Web of Debt” is that nations should take back their sovereign right to create and control their own currency. Cutting the private banking industry that charges us to use our own money and call all the shots out of the picture is the best way out of the debt slavery that is built into our current monetary systems and gi-normous tranfers of wealth upward that are the manufactured product of their policies.
Here is an important analysis by a Swiss group that looked at more than 43,000 multinational corporations and how they are connected with each other (check out the graphic). The incestuous web of ownership and corporate boards narrows to a mere 146 mega corporations controlling everything. Most of them are financial institutions.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29463.htm
Such a concentrated system of wealth and power is not only inherently unstable but neo fascism, deep economic instability, revolutionary levels of wealth disparity with widespread civil unrest follow in its wake.