Sometimes its the little details that tell the story. Here’s one such small detail that makes me think that I’m not the only person in Europe who thinks this crisis isn’t over.
A friend of mine in the financial world in Switzerland, told me today that the Swiss banks have very nearly run out of bank deposit box space.
The last few weeks have seen such a torrent of wealthy Europeans wanting to get their ‘assets’ out of Europe and in to a Swiss bank that if you want a bank box in Zurich today, they will require that you have a minum of half a million swiss francs on deposit in the bank, before they will even consider you. That is how short of space they are.
Capital flight anyone?
What do you bet that a great many of those seeking deposit boxes are Greek, Italian and Spanish? We’re all in this together? Of course we are.
It's a coming..
SOT Contracts between government and who?
5 minutes in for the doozy
NATO should switch their attention from Libya to Switzerland.
That skirmish would pay for itself a billion times over in about half an hour.
I am not joking.
Keep it up Mr Shigemitsu. You'll be on the no fly list before you can say "neutrality."
There are a lot of little detail around at the moment. There is a liquidity in interbank lending in the EU and China, BB of the Fed has all but admitted he is not in control of the finances anymore (cf zerohedge) and flash crashes in oil, gold and silver.
With oil they have released some of the world reserves for only the 3rd time in hisory thus proving what we all knew anyway. Saudi Arabia cannot make up the shortfall peak oil is notjust looming, it is here and now.
FUBAR I believe the expression is.
bill40
Switzerland has recently been encircled. The Swiss Navy fought a strong rearguard action, but it is now surrounded.
Chemical weapons and tunnels and bridges that are wired for demolition that cut Switzerland off from the EU will be of no help if a blockade is erected should a revolution occur in the EU!
Clever idea to get all the stolen proceeds in one place! Makes recovery of it somuch easier!
Switzerland must be unique, the only country where the uber rich are bailing out the banks ?
Another little detail: the Swiss analysts Helvea report a little while back analysing the national origin of deposits in Swiss banks. According to their estimates, about two thirds of UK-sourced and German-sourced deposits were not declared to the home authorities – while the figure for Italy, and for Greece, was 99%.
NIcholas,
WHAT!! Say that again slower for me. I feel sure I must have misheard.
That will be all those gold plated public workers. Damn those teachers and nurses.
Golem / Nicholas
I think it's fast becoming clear that it's Offshore & Swiss Bank Account holders versus the rest of us!
This just further confirms the three pronged strategem in action:
1) Keep the masses sedated and distracted as much as possible (Reality TV, iPads, war on terror etc.)
2) Divide and rule: make sure that if things go wrong, people end up fighing each other rather than the real culprit (i.e. Left v Right, Christian v Muslim, Private Sector v Public Sector, Young v Old, Gvt v People)
3) Prepare for hyperinflation / currency collapse, and be in a personal position of "out running the bear". See:
http://golemxiv-credo.blogspot.com/2011/04/guest-post-by-hawkeye-wall-street.html
A classic Divert, Divide and Depart strategy!
@rebecca
Here's a nice diagram explaining the oil reserves:
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/draghi/RESERVE_WF.jpg
In theory they are intended to maintain supply in the event of serious supply problems. However, there are some fishy reasons why they are doing it now:
http://gregor.us/policy/the-dark-side-of-the-oecd-oil-inventory-release/
"Today’s release of inventory is confirmation that the era of permanently constrained supply is now very much with us."
@ forensicstatistician,
thanks for those links, so basically, eeek!
Although on the gregor.us comments there was one saying it wasn't about constraints in physical supply but all to do with complicated long futures/short futures implications which I wish I could make sense of, to see if it does make sense. But I can't with those things – same with the wheat story.
But whether its speculation/peak oil/both there's an article in The Village saying that Irish households are going to be paying on average an extra €950 for oil for home heating this coming winter- that'll be no joke on top of the next spoonful of 'austerity' we'll be expected to swallow come January.
Did anybody ever hear what happened regarding Rudolph Elmer ?, it all seems to have gone very quiet since he got arrested in January & no word from wikileaks.
@ Shigemitsu
I'm not sure it would be a skirmish, I think I'm right in saying that the Swiss have the highest gun ownership per person in the world & most of the menfolk are reservists.
@ Rebecca
I agree with you about U2 & maybe I'm missing something but musicians/rock bands etc don't seem to be writing songs anymore about anything politically controversial, the only exceptions I can think of are Alabama 3. I did however see members of Rage against the machine at a Winconsin rally. I suppose that kind of behaviour wouldn't get you on the X Factor.
Fortunately we have 24K.
Just practicing my html 🙂
Zerohedge piccy on emergency oil stocks there's a couple of islands off NW Europe that apparently don't have any and I'm pretty sure that England doesn't have a strategic reserve of gas either.
I believe the british government's master plan is to claim that other governments should share their reserves in time of shortage, on the argument that …er… we're all in this together .
Link to gregor's Oilblog
You made me do that wheezy type laugh.
A song dedicated to UKuncut
When the zombie banker get cut
They're gonna be some hope a glory
WTZBGC
It won't matter if your Labour or Tory
WTZBGC
It ain't gonna be that gory
WTZBGC
It gonna be the end of the story (or the ZBDS story at least)
It's not finished, some of the words are wrong blah blah, it's for a video fimled at UKuncut protests and it's jazzy this time rather than metal.
That's where I've put all my spare cash too aswell mind, Toblerone.
The European Financial Crisis explained in three minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzR3UAyXao
Nice work, 24K.
I'm also bullish on Toblerone, cuckoo-clocks and cheese with holes in it.
Another good piece from Michael Hudson today, he seems to be getting angrier and angrier.
http://michael-hudson.com/2011/06/whither-greece/
Mr. Lipsky of the IMF, laying down the law. Intergration of labour markets, etc.
http://euobserver.com/9/32518
Capital flight to Switzerland has caused the swiss franc's to get stronger, a lot stronger. All those eastern Europeans with debts denominated in swiss franc's are really hurting, which in turn hurts the banks which are heavily exposed in that region. I wonder if that was what was behind the plunge in Unicredit's shareprice yesterday, it went down so fast that they had to suspend trading for a few hours
I really feel for the eastern Europeans, they have switched to a capitalist system just in time for the collape and they get hit first and hardest, so far at least. We should all keep our eyes on Hungery, I don't know how much pain they can take but the backlash must be coming soon
Yes, you should really list the Michael Hudson web page among your external links…
http://michael-hudson.com
Lars,
Done. Thanks
Never mind , the communists [party of china will pony up the money to fill the gap. How ironic one group of corrupt statists bailing out another group of corrupt statists, at least until the next crisis comes along.
I wonder what the communists of China want in return? a bit more than a crap bit of paper the Americans gave them I should imagine.
I think for EUrope its pull your pants down, bend over and smile even if it hurts time.
The germans are already selling them dual use machinery and technology.
Hey thanks Ewan, I'm bearish clocks but cheese with holes, mmmmm.
Always take physical delivery too that's my advice.
Silver Shades Wouldn't it be cool if everybody had mirrored shades?
Yes, the answer is yes.
What are they putting in those boxes? Pieces of Eight? Or pieces of paper?
If the latter, then nobody has to accept that they are of any value