Tag: banks

Swiss Bank Accounts are DEAD – The New Banking Hub

For decades, Switzerland sold one thing better than perhaps any country on earth: privacy. That became its true export. People think of watches, chocolate, pharmaceuticals, or skiing resorts, but Switzerland’s real business was protecting capital from governments. That was the foundation of modern offshore banking.

Switzerland has destroyed the very industry that made it rich. Hong Kong has officially overtaken Switzerland as the world’s largest offshore wealth hub, managing roughly $2.95 trillion in cross-border wealth compared to Switzerland’s $2.94 trillion, according to the latest Boston Consulting Group report.

This was entirely self-inflicted. I warned years ago that Switzerland was committing financial suicide by surrendering banking secrecy under pressure from Washington, Brussels, the OECD, and the global tax authorities. Once Switzerland agreed to automatic information exchange treaties and effectively transformed Swiss bankers into tax informants for foreign governments, they destroyed the very reason international capital flowed there in the first place.

Offshore banking was never simply about taxes. It was about protection from political instability, confiscation, currency collapse, revolution, war, and predatory governments. Switzerland became wealthy because it remained neutral and outside the endless political insanity consuming Europe.

But after 2008, the entire Western financial system changed. FATCA turned foreign banks into enforcement agents for the IRS. CRS reporting standards spread globally. European politicians demonized offshore banking because governments drowning in debt cannot tolerate wealth escaping their reach. Suddenly, confidentiality itself became suspicious.

The politicians pretended this was about “fairness” and fighting tax evasion. Nonsense. This was about governments hunting capital because sovereign debt is spiraling out of control worldwide. Europe is collapsing economically under regulation, welfare spending, energy costs, migration pressures, and war expenditures. Once governments cannot sustain themselves honestly, they begin searching for private pools of wealth to confiscate.

Switzerland surrendered to that pressure completely. The famous Swiss numbered account became little more than mythology. Automatic reporting agreements gutted the entire purpose of Swiss banking secrecy. Once confidentiality disappeared, wealthy clients naturally began looking elsewhere.

That is where Hong Kong entered the picture. Hong Kong operates under an entirely different mentality. While Switzerland spent years apologizing to foreign governments and dismantling privacy protections, Hong Kong positioned itself as the gateway between Chinese wealth and global markets.

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The Devil Neither Political Party Will Name

The widening wealth inequality gap is the political third rail nobody in power truly ever wants to touch.

Politicians will scream at each other all day over taxes, healthcare, immigration, tariffs, student loans, climate policy, or whatever outrage is currently driving engagement on cable news and social media. But the second the conversation turns toward monetary policy, toward the machinery of money creation itself, the room suddenly gets very quiet.

That’s because monetary policy has quietly become the single most powerful force reshaping wealth distribution in modern America. And unlike the endless partisan theater surrounding fiscal policy, monetary intervention oddly enjoys remarkable bipartisan support.

Republicans and Democrats may pretend to be existential enemies on television, but when it comes to flooding the financial system with dollars, both parties reliably fall into line. And that support is precisely why this topic is politically radioactive: once people understand how the system works, the illusion of two competing economic ideologies starts to collapse. Republicans want less spending, Democrats want higher taxes…but both parties want the Fed to keep printing dollars.

Since the early 2000s, and especially after 2008 and the COVID era, America has effectively entered a permanent regime of monetary intervention. Quantitative easing, near-zero interest rates, endless debt monetization, emergency lending facilities, and the mainstream acceptance of Modern Monetary Theory-adjacent thinking have fundamentally altered the structure of markets beyond recognition.

When Ben Bernanke first rolled out quantitative easing during the 2008 financial crisis, Americans were repeatedly assured it was a temporary emergency measure. Bernanke described the programs as targeted interventions designed to stabilize markets and support recovery, not permanently redefine the financial system.

QE1 was supposed to calm panic. Then came QE2. Then Operation Twist. Then QE3 became effectively open-ended, with the Fed purchasing tens of billions in bonds every month indefinitely. What began as a supposedly temporary crisis tool metastasized into a permanent feature of the modern economy. And every subsequent crisis only justified bigger interventions: larger balance sheets, lower rates, more liquidity, more market dependence on central bank support.

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet exploded from under $1 trillion before 2008 to nearly $9 trillion after the pandemic era. Like nearly every government “emergency” program in history, the temporary measure never truly disappeared, it simply normalized, expanded, and embedded itself deeper into the system. It culminated in Neel Kashkari taking to national television to let the world know the Fed has “infinite” cash.

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House Bombshell: JPMorgan, BofA, Morgan Stanley Accused of Helping CCP-Linked Firms Cash In

An investigation carried out by the House of Representatives Select Committee on China has revealed that American banks may have been involved in helping Chinese interests tied to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army raise billions of dollars. It is belaboring the obvious that having China raise money on this scale isn’t in the best interests of the United States.

The Committee broke the news first on X.

The post is a lengthy one, but here is a key point:

Just months after @DeptofWar designated Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd. (@catl_official), the world’s largest battery maker, as a “Chinese military company,” JPMorgan and Bank of America moved forward with underwriting its Hong Kong IPO, helping the company raise billions in new capital. According to our investigation, the banks proceeded even after CATL was linked to China’s Military-Civil Fusion strategy and despite evidence connecting the company to entities tied to the PLA, China’s defense-industrial base, and forced labor in Xinjiang. 

The investigation uncovered CATL partnerships and business relationships with blacklisted Chinese defense-linked entities, including @Huawei, NORINCO, CETC, @CSSC_global>, COMAC, @ChinaMobile_X, and @CN_Nuclear_Corp. The report also details CATL’s ownership stake in Wuhu Shipyard, a key builder of Chinese naval vessels and military equipment, as well as research partnerships tied to the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology and China’s nuclear weapons complex.

And:

In a separate transaction, Morgan Stanley sponsored the IPO of Zijin Gold even after its parent company and Xinjiang subsidiaries were added to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List. Internal documents showed the firm identified significant sanctions and national security risks and moved forward regardless.

In simple English, American financial institutions are implicated in a financial scheme that may well have raised money for the Chinese military – and for Chinese operations that use forced labor in their operations. 

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Trump Moves to Squeeze Illegal Aliens Out of the U.S. Financial System with New Executive Order Targeting Banking Loopholes

President Trump has taken another major step in his immigration enforcement agenda, this time targeting access to the American banking system.

In a new executive order issued Tuesday, the Trump administration directed the Treasury Department to increase scrutiny of financial activity tied to illegal immigration, including potential payroll tax evasion, concealed account ownership, off-the-books wage schemes, labor trafficking, and the use of Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) without verified legal presence documentation.

Banks will now be pressured to strengthen customer identification requirements and think twice before handing out accounts, loans, credit cards, or any financial services to those here illegally.

In plain English: No more easy banking for illegal aliens. No more wiring billions in remittances back to foreign countries while American families struggle. No more using our financial system to launder cartel money or fund the very invasion destroying our communities.

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Was Fed Chair Warsh Chosen For A Controlled Demolition?

Supposed monetary hawk Kevin Warsh, who was officially sworn in as the 17th Fed Chair earlier this week, will now face the dilemma of staying true to his hawkish roots or caving to his unabashed high-rate hating President. That is, of course, unless there’s a deeper plan at play…

Last night, Cornell professor Dave Collum hosted Michael Lebowitz and Stephanie Pomboy for a deep dived into ‘How F***ed Markets Are’ where Dave posited the theory that Warsh man be a demolition man for a managed crash.

Collum and co. also talked about the insane disconnect between the economy and financial markets… and why Pomboy has increasingly abandoned financial assets altogether in favor of gold and hard assets.

Dave’s Fed truther theory and other highlights from last night below:

Retail Retards

Collum warned that modern markets have become completely detached from traditional valuation discipline… but that reality will eventually set in.

“It’s my assertion that probably greater than 50% of the investors in the world don’t understand what valuation means… Everything’s a Bitcoin price now.”

Standard valuation metrics have compounded roughly 4% annually for 45 years and are now firmly in “the nosebleed section,” yet “nobody cares,” per Collum.

Classic warning indicators are now near historic extremes. Lebowitz noted that “CAPE is near its all-time high. It’s above the 1929 level and just short of the dot-com level.” He argued the bigger danger may actually be hiding in supposedly “safe” stocks like Walmart and Costco.

Pomboy has opted out of the mania altogether. How? Real assets.

“Markets can go on longer than you can remain solvent betting against it…. I finally just sort of resigned myself to buying gold… At the end of the day I have been outperforming those markets by only gold.”

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Warren Whines As Senate Banking Committee Advances Crypto CLARITY Act, Two Democrats Break Ranks

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on a 15–9 vote Thursday, with Sens. Ruben Gallego (D‑Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D‑Md.) joining all 13 Republicans to move the sweeping crypto market structure bill to the full Senate.

The Clarity Act is the Senate’s bid to build a federal framework for digital asset trading, stablecoins and intermediaries, splitting oversight between the SEC and CFTC and setting registration, disclosure and compliance rules for exchanges, brokers and custodians. It now advances alongside a related bill from the Senate Agriculture Committee, with the two texts expected to merge before a floor vote.

Chair Tim Scott (R‑S.C.) cast the markup as a turning point after years in which crypto firms operated in what he called a “regulatory gray zone” under “outdated rules.” 

He said the bill aims to protect consumers, keep innovation in the United States and “close the doors that criminals, terrorists and hostile regimes have tried to exploit,” after months of cross‑party talks that expanded the draft by more than 200 pages.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R‑Wyo.), who leads the committee’s digital assets panel, called the Clarity Act “the hardest piece of legislation” she has worked on across decades in state and federal office. She described it as a “case of first impression” that tries to fit new asset types and software into a regulatory code built for earlier markets.

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Treasury Department Alerts US Banks To Suspected Iranian Money Laundering Efforts

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes ​Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on May 11 issued an alert to financial institutions warning them of efforts by ​the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to evade sanctions.

FinCEN said in a statement that the IRGC has been facilitating and laundering the proceeds of illicit oil sales using networks of financial facilitators and shell companies. The alert provides red flags on the IRGC’s oil smuggling, digital assets, and front-company abuse to aid financial institutions in detecting and reporting suspicious activity, the statement said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that financial institutions have a responsibility to stop this activity.

“Degraded by Economic Fury, the Iranian military is desperately trying to fund its weapons programs and terrorist proxies,” Bessent said.

“Treasury will continue to deny the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps access to the financial networks it exploits to fund its terrorist acts. Financial institutions should be on notice that they have a responsibility to detect suspicious activity and stop it in its tracks.”

The Treasury network describes the IRGC as a parallel organization to Tehran’s regular armed forces, which reports directly to the leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. The IRGC is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

Shadow Banking

FinCEN says the IRGC can make money from oil sales by misrepresenting its commercial activities. It smuggles oil using a “shadow fleet” of vessels that operate outside normal maritime rules and are often owned and operated by companies outside Iran.

Proceeds are then laundered through “shadow banking” networks to sell their oil and commodities abroad.

“By using front company accounts outside Iran to receive and remit payments, sanctioned entities like the IRGC are able to conduct transactions through the international financial system without repatriating funds to Iran,” FinCEN said.

The network says that with these proceeds, Iran can fund the procurement and development of weapons, as well as fund terrorist activity abroad.

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American Bankers Attempt Last Ditch Effort To Kill Crypto Market Structure Bill Regarding Stablecoins

American Bankers Association (ABA) CEO Rob Nichols sent an emergency Sunday letter to every bank CEO in the country, urging “immediate engagement” against what he called a stablecoin yield loophole in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, days before a Senate Banking Committee markup scheduled for Thursday.

The letter, dated May 11 — Mother’s Day — and addressed to ABA member bank CEOs, asked bank leaders to contact their senators and mobilize their employees to do the same before the committee convenes for a scheduled May 14 executive session on the bill.

“I am reaching out to make every bank leader in this country aware of an urgent advocacy fight that requires your immediate engagement,” Nichols wrote, according to the letter.

He warned that, without further changes, “we believe the current proposal would unnecessarily incentivize the flight of bank deposits into payment stablecoins, putting both economic growth and financial stability at risk”.

The timing of the letter drew sharp public pushback from Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, who posted on X that the ABA’s alarm bells were misplaced.

“Maybe the CEO didn’t get the message from the people actually in the room at the WH in meeting after meeting,” Grewal wrote.

“We’ve already had ‘immediate engagement.’ You got ‘idle yield’ killed. I know because I was there — you weren’t. Take yes for an answer. Move on. Stop wasting the time of the Senate and the American people.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, fired back at the ABA in a social media post, saying “the banking cartel in full panic mode” and accusing it of deceiving lawmakers by characterizing stablecoin yield as a “loophole” – a term he said was an insult to the bipartisan work already done during the GENIUS Act debate. 

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Big Finance Might Be Dooming the SPLC — Even Before Its Day in Court

The Southern Poverty Law Center is preparing for the legal fight of its life with the U.S. government — but its most immediate threat is coming from the financial system, rather than the courts.

Fidelity Charitable, Charles Schwab affiliate DAFgiving360, and Vanguard Charitable have begun blocking donor-advised fund, or DAF, donations to the SPLC — effectively cutting off one of the organization’s most important funding pipelines at a critical moment. The decision arrives alongside a politicized and bogus indictment announced late last month by the Trump Department of Justice, which is attempting to paint one of the country’s most prominent watchdogs against hate and racial violence as a promoter of it.

A letter from Democratic Reps. Jamie Raskin and Mary Gay Scanlon notes the House Judiciary Committee has received whistleblower reports that the DOJ “ordered the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama to rush through the indictment of the SPLC despite serious concerns about the strength of the case.” As Alabama Reflector editor Brian Lyman wrote, “DOJ has no evidence of SPLC committing a crime. The organization’s real offense, in the eyes of Trump’s toadies, is its lack of obedience.”

But before any courts can assess the merits of the case, the SPLC is already suffering severe financial consequences.

Donor-advised funds have become a key part of American philanthropy. Managed by firms like Fidelity and Vanguard, DAFs allow donors to receive immediate tax benefits while recommending grants to IRS-recognized nonprofits over time. They are one of the primary channels many nonprofits use to connect with donors.

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Time To End the Fed and Its Mismanagement of Our Economy

Every major economic downturn of the last 110 years bears the mark of the Federal Reserve. In fact, as long as the Fed has been around, it has swung the economy between inflation and recession. Yet Americans, surprisingly, have tolerated it.

But we shouldn’t expect that to go on forever. We had three central banks before the Fed and confined each to the ash heap of history. The problems inherent to central banking are cause to scrap the Fed as well.

Central banking dates to 1694, when the Bank of England was founded for the purpose of creating the hidden tax of inflation to provide cheap money to government—above all, for Britain’s many foreign wars. In exchange, the central bankers were paid well with interest.

Like any government-favored bank, the Bank of England lent money it didn’t have, lending far more than the silver in its vaults. The British government endorsed this fraud because the king and Parliament wanted the money. 

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