InvestorMind

12-year old Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada, and most of the world, is in debt. April 27, 2012 at the Public Banking in America Conference, Philadelphia, PA. For more information see http://www.publicbankinginstitute.org.

It looks like Bank of America might have started circling the drain before the Occupy movement even had a chance to launch its campaign against the company. For weeks now there have been ominous signs of trouble at the bank, and yesterday we heard yet another dark piece of news. Last year, there was an uproar when Bank of America announced a plan to slap customers with a monthly $5 fee for debit card usage . The bank eventually backed off that plan when the public and some politicians cried foul. Now it seems the company is going to try to put a new package on the same crappy idea and sell it again. This time, the plan is to add charges that range from $6 to $25 a month. From an MSNBC report : Pilot programs in Arizona, Georgia and Massachusetts are experimenting with charging $6 to $9 a month for what’s called an “Essentials” account. Other account options being tested in those states carry monthly charges of $9, $12, $15 and $25, but give customers opportuniti...

Forget Europe — the weak U.S. recovery puts more than 750 domestic banks at risk of failure, according to a report from Invictus Consulting Group (via Business Wire). Invictus, which stress tested all FDIC-insured banks, says 758 lenders could collapse in the next three years, forecasting a new wave of borrower defaults in the absence of a strong economic up-tick. A disaster in Europe would probably make things much worse. Invictus says the at-risk lenders — mostly regional banks or subsidiaries of the majors — won't be able to sustain themselves on current earnings, and will likely fail if they don't merge or raise "significant" amounts of new capital. The banks are spread right around the country, with big clusters in Florida (72), Illinois (69), Georgia (66), Minnesota (37) Missouri (33) and Tennessee (31). They have total assets of around $440 billion — about $580 million on average — and many of the troubled banks in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, ...

ZURICH, Jan 29 (Reuters) - The break-up of Switzerland's oldest bank Wegelin, involved in a row with U.S. authorities over tax cheats, became necessary when clients pulled 4 billion Swiss francs ($4.35 billion) of wealth, Der Sonntag newspaper reported on Sunday, citing unspecified sources. Under pressure from the investigation, the 270-year-old institution moved assets of 21 billion Swiss francs ($22.9 billion) to a subsidiary Notenstein Privatbank, which was then bought by cooperative bank Raiffeisen. Wegelin is still left with U.S. assets under scrutiny from U.S. prosecutors. In his first interview since news of the sale broke on Friday, Wegelin head Konrad Hummler told the paper he had done the right thing at the right time. "We became the victims of a larger matter. I don't want to say more than that," he said in a separate interview. Citing unnamed sources, Der Sonntag said the purchase price for the bank's good assets was somewhere between 2.5 and...

Jon Corzine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, and former CEO of MF Global is seen with Vice-President Joe Biden during a campaign speech in 2010. VP Biden reveals that economists asked the Obama Transition Team when would they schedule a bank holiday, and they contacted Corzine for advice. I wonder if VP Joe Biden would be saying the same thing now.

For a long time, we have questioned what central banks have done in response to crisis. To really get this, lets take a step back and take a close look at what they have done. Central bankers operate under one fundamental tenet—that an economy must expand. Sure, “price stability” is commonly cited as a goal or mandate of central banks. But let’s be honest—if you look at the last 100 years, the prices of things have not been stable at all—they have consistently risen to balance an expanding supply of paper. Over the last few years, central banks have responded to financial lock-up by lowering interest rates. This has two basic effects. Firstly, it makes it cheaper for us to borrow to consume now—which buoys the economy. But secondly, if you were saving, you would quickly realize that your savings are earning less interest—and if you spent instead of saving, you wouldn't really lose that much. In economic nerd-speak—the opportunity cost of spending goes down. So what is wrong wit...

Money As Debt is a fast-paced and highly entertaining animated feature by artist & videographer, Paul Grignon. It explains today's magically perverse DEBT-MONEY SYSTEM in terms that are easy to understand. Check out his website: http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, there is no human relation between master and slave. Debt- government, corporate and household has reached astronomical proportions. Where does all this money come from? How could there BE that much money to lend? The answer is...there isn't. Today, MONEY IS DEBT. If there were NO DEBT there would be NO MONEY. If this is puzzling to you, you are not alone. Very few people understand, even though all of us are affected.

Eric Sprott speaks at the Casey Research/Sprott Summit When Money Dies.