Rickards: Here’s Where the Next Crisis Starts

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So many credit crises are brewing, it’s hard to keep track without a scorecard.

The mother of all credit crises is coming to China with over a quarter-trillion dollars owed by insolvent banks and state-owned enterprises, not to mention off-the-books liabilities of provincial governments, wealth management products and developers of white elephant infrastructure projects.

Then there’s the emerging-markets credit crisis, with Turkey and Argentina leading a parade of potentially bankrupt borrowers vulnerable to hot money capital outflows and a slowdown of growth in developing economies.

Close on their heels is the U.S. student loan debacle, with over $1.5 trillion in outstanding debts and default rates approaching 20%.

Why are so many bankers committing suicide?

Nothing has changed since 2013 except the coverage. More bankers getting ‘suicided’ is expected as the economy takes a turn for the worst, corruption gets buried and large financial losses go punished.

The dead banker list reloaded:

 

David Rossi, 51, a communications director at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, fell three stories from the bank’s Italian headquarters in March 2013. Photo: Reuters

 

 

Three bankers in New York, London and Siena, Italy, died within 17 months of each other in 2013-14 in what authorities deemed a series of unrelated suicides. But in each case, the victim had a connection to a burgeoning global banking scandal, leaving more questions than answers as to the circumstances surrounding their deaths.

The March 6, 2013 death of David Rossi — a 51-year-old communications director at Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank — came as the institution teetered on the brink of collapse.

Rossi was found dead in an alleyway beneath his third-floor office window in the 14th-century palazzo that served as the bank’s headquarters.

A devastating security video shows Rossi landing on the pavement on his back, facing the building — an odd position more likely to occur when a body is pushed from a window.

‘Yes he killed himself. But there’s a question: could it be suicide by extortion… There’s a couple suspicions I have.’

 – Val Broeksmit, on his stepfather’s suicide

The footage shows the three-story fall didn’t kill Rossi instantly. For almost 20 minutes, the banker lay on the dimly lit cobblestone, occasionally moving an arm and leg.

As he lay dying, two murky figures appear. Two men appear and one walks over to gaze at the banker. He offers no aid or comfort and doesn’t call for help before turning around and calmly walking out of the alley.

Greece introduces tax on bank withdrawals as elitists seek to criminalize cash

(NaturalNews) The Greek financial crisis continues to escalate, as the government recently put in place a controversial revenue-generating policy aimed at improving its economic position at the expense of its citizens.

The government will introduce a “surcharge” — really, just a tax on cash — for all cash point withdrawals, such as at banks or at ATMs, in what is proving to be a last-ditch, desperate attempt to prevent citizens from taking their money out of beleaguered financial institutions altogether.

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