Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s president, is the biggest shareholder in Portuguese cable-television company Zon Multimedia (ZON) SGPS SA, and holds 19 percent of Portuguese lender Banco BPI SA, and in many other enterprises over here.

On the surface it’s an innocent sentence. Someone owns a chunk of a bank. Except that 1) the person is the daughter of the man who has been ‘President’ of Angola since 1979, during which time he and his family have amassed a business empire currently estimated to be worth at least €1.5 billion, while the people of Angola live in poverty despite the billions in revenue from Angola’s Oil and other mineral riches, and 2) the bank she owns 19% of is about to get a €1.5 billion bail out from the Portuguese tax payer.

Once that happens, a miraculous solution to the lack of credit will be found and the entire scam will slowly start to wind up again.

The debris of the crash will also expose banks and they may part with some of their records, establishing what you allege!

http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp254/pippy59/LesIndignes.jpg

Hello Rita,

Thank you for commenting.

In answer to your question – what can ordinary people do? I did write two things recently making a suggestion. You can read them by scrolling down the front page a little till you see two blogs one called “The Way Forward” and the other called “The Next Steps”.

I and a number of people who come here regularly are quite serious about this. Perhaps it might appeal to you. I hope so.

The normally-reserved Yves Smith asks whether Obama should be impeached over it.

Democratic Senator Wyden – the head of the committee which is supposed to oversee it – is so furious about the lack of access that he has introduced legislation to force disclosure.

Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is so upset by it that he has leaked a document on his website to show what’s going on.

What is everyone so furious about?

An international treaty being negotiated in secret which would not only crack down on Internet privacy much more than SOPA or ACTA, but would actually destroy the sovereignty of the U.S. and all other signatories.

It is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Wyden is the chairman of the trade committee in the Senate … the committee which is supposed to have jurisdiction over the TPP. Wyden is also on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and so he and his staff have high security clearances and are normally able to look at classified documents.

And yet Wyden and his staff have been denied access to the TPP’s text.

Watch this interview from today – on democracynow.org – explaining why TPP is so dangerous to America … and the rest of the world:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/

Backwardsevolution

Good stuff, makes a lot of sense especially in regards to Tspirus. Hopefully one good thing to eventually come out of this tragedy would be the breaking up of the old corrupt political guard.

The most interesting part of the article below is a chart showing estimates of countries banking exposure to Greece. Of course these figures are probably showing only the tip of the iceberg, which in itself is possibly big enough to sink a huge supposedly unsinkable hulk. The whole thing strikes me as a bit like a mixture of poker & dominoes played by mostly corrupt, greedy, hubristic people devoid of humanity, in which the pot always wins & the onlookers are forced to cough up to cover the losses :

http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/what-next-for-greece.html

Interesting chart showing the geographical share of the vote. It seems to me that Tspirus has most of it’s support in urban areas, particularly in Athens, probably not a good recipe for quiet streets if a Troika business as usual coalition is formed :

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OzeS-6tqPLM/T984xwN0wVI/AAAAAAAAWc4/e6kZZkls2C8/s640/greekelectionfinal.PNG

Finally the ex advisor to Brian Lenihan gives some advise to Spain :

http://soberlook.com/2012/06/irelands-advice-for-spain.html

It would be quite funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

Currently based in Tibet, a fully autonomous state I’ll have you know, i am very limited to internet time, even the VNPs are affected. I do however have good access to Chinas main credit rating agency dadong, who seem way ahead of the west.

The banks, all of them, in the following countries are either rated as junk or are unofficially rated even worse. Spain, Italy, France, RoI, Portugal, Malta, Latvia, Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Rumania, Poland and Bulgaria. Even many German, dutch and UK ones feature, this is just in Europe.

For a living I specialise in deviancy statistics. Just for fun I calculate the likihood of going against wisdom and investing in banks. The sum I get is expressed as -0.95 as near to a negative correlation as statistics usually get.

China will not step in to rescue your euro horror entries. I should know I’m one of the ones telling them so. Not something I choose to do but I have little choice.

Cherish democracy we can win it back.

backwardsevolution,

Thanks! Funny what you suggest. Some time ago I tried to interest a backer in what I described to him as ‘The Alternative G8″.

The idea was, coinciding with a G8 meeting, to hold an Alternative G8. Exactly as you prospoed it. Use on-line technology to get 8 of the ‘best’ or fiery non-mainstream commentators together on-line, live and together to speak, discuss and field questions.

I suggfested a rather disparate group. They might well disagree in many ways but together they blow out of the water the idea that ‘There is no alternative’. Such a gathering, if properly moderated, would show that there are several alternatives to the mainstream mantra, taht the mainstream media have ignored.

Properly run I thought such an event would have an energy and urgency about it. It would show-case how many people, whatever their differences, are united in seeing the utter lunacy of the policies being forced upon us for the benefit of the very wealthy and powerful.

Like you I thought, and still do think, it could be an event which empowered people. Just to realize that there are alternatives that are considered and workable. That the real political spectrum is much wider than the moribund carcass we get to see on Television, and that there is a growing and very real ‘other’ opposition

This is actually a war we’re in, but most don’t know it. These guys are fighting for their lives and we’re all just standing back. Of course, they’ve made it so complicated that even the most intelligent have a hard time wrapping their minds around what they’ve done. And some of the people who could step up, speak out, aren’t, because they are making money off of these guys.

The only way I see this correcting itself is if something calamitous happens (and it will all on its own eventually), OR by forming our own G20, getting together the smartest, most on-side and horrified onlookers to bring the people together. One guy can’t do it, or one blog. But it has to be people like Karl Denninger, David, Tyler Durden, Bill Black, Charles Hugh Smith, the good people from the Automatic Earth, etc.