MEANWHILE, IN SPAIN, THEY’RE ARRESTING BANKSTERS
Typically,
according to "Great Power" theory, Spain lost its status as a Great
Power in the Napoleonic era, and hence, it gets ignored... too much, in
my opinion. The reason? Spain may have fallen on hard times from the end
of the Napoleonic era up through the Spanish Civil War and the victory
of Franco, but under Franco it regained much of its lost economic clout
and, despite grievous setbacks in recent years, in 2016 was the 10th
largest world economy by Gross Domestic Product, and the fifth largest
in the European Union, behind Germany, the U.K., France, and Italy, and
just slightly ahead of the Netherlands. But Spain, in a manner rather
similar to Great Britain, does have an enormous soft-power card, due to
the enormous influence it has had historically on the development of
western culture. From the Philippines to Central and South America,
Spanish culture became the dominant influence. During World War Two
Franco carefully maneuvered, in spite of enormous pressure to join the
Axis, to keep Spain neutral, playing the soft power card quite
effectively in this effort, reminding the Axis powers that any invasion
of Spain would be met with stiff resistance, and sever any useful ties
the Axis had, via Spain, with the rest of the Latin world and most
importantly, with their considerable investments in South America. In
return, Franco bought Spain's neutrality by sending a "volunteer"
infantry division, the "Blue" division, to fight with the Axis in the
Soviet Union, where it distinguished itself in combat operations in and
around Leningrad.
So when a major
economy of the West decides to start arresting banksters, I sit up and
take notice (thanks to Mr. B.H. for sharing this article):
Note how this article by Jacky Murphy begins:
Spain's Supreme court last year ruled that there was “serious inaccuracies” about listing led investors to back Bankia in error, as a result the bank has paid out millions of Euros in compensation.
If
one translates this, what the Spanish Supreme Court is really saying is
that Bankia, a consortium built from other failed banks(!), failed to
apprise investors of serious exposure and risk; in short, it committed
major material omissions of fact. This in and of itself is highly
significant, but its import takes on a more sinister aspect when one
connects it to the last paragraph in the article:
“The court is questioning why they allowed Bankia to sell shares in an initial public offering in 2011, less than a year before Bankia’s portfolio of bad mortgage loans forced the government to seize control of it. It said there was evidence the regulators had ‘full and thorough knowledge’ of Bankia’s plight. After its nationalisation, it went on to report a €19.2bn ($24.7bn) loss for 2012, the largest in Spanish corporate history.” (Emphasis added)
Now,
many people may recall that Spain did indeed embark on an orgy of real
estate projects during the pre-2008 boom, and, like other countries,
when the housing bubble collapsed, the problems began. Additionally,
while not often mentioned in connection to the refugee crisis, the
Spanish government, like others, fell victim to the the multicultural
virus and began importing refugees to such an extent that it
dramatically effected the ability of native Spaniard youth to gain jobs;
consequently unemployment rose dramatically, and with it, calls for
secession from Madrid in various regions, most notably Catalonia. One
reader of this website, located in Spain, referred years ago to the
whole process of being one of remaking Spain into "Spanistan." And
though we don't hear of Spain in this connection as often as we do of
the Netherlands, France, Germany or Italy, or for that matter Great
Britain or the USA, there has been a growing backlash against these
policies among Spaniards.
What caught my eye here,
however, was the admission that Bankia's and indeed Spain's economic
woes were due to the same cause as elsewhere: "bad mortgage loans."
That, as one might imagine, caught my eye because I strongly suspect
there is much more going on in between the lines, as it were, than the
Spanish people, and indeed the rest of us, are being told. Bad mortgage
loans would seem to be a euphemism for "mortgage backed derivative
securities," and with that possibility comes today's high octane
speculation, for we all know what large European bank is up to its
earlobes in derivatives exposure, and which has been the target of a
number of investigations in Great Britain, the U.S.A., and Italy:
Deutsche Bank. As of yet, I know of no direct evidence connecting
Bankia's woes to those of Deutsche Bank, other than this exposure to
"bad mortgage loans." But if here, as elsewhere, this is connected to
derivatives exposure, then I suspect that eventually the Spanish
investigators might be connecting all sorts of dots. Those dots, I
rather suspect, will take them first to Italy, where similar patterns of
material omission, usage of the float, and so on, seem to be implicated
in the controversy surrounding Italian investigations of Deutsche Bank
in connection with Banca dei Paschi di Sienna, and from there I suspect
the Spanish, too, will be led eventually to Frankfurt.
And in the prevailing political atmosphere, this does not bode well for Mad Madam Merkel's political future.
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