Tag: banks

NATO’s Shadow Bank: Financing a New Era of Militarisation

As the war in Ukraine continues to reshape European security, tensions surrounding Iran and the Middle East intensify, and NATO members accelerate defence spending, the alliance is entering a more openly militarised phase. Behind the familiar language of deterrence, resilience and collective security lies a deeper question: how will this expanding confrontation be financed, and who stands to benefit from it?

In this special broadcast, Kevork Almassian, host of Syriana Analysis, speaks with Mats Nilsson, senior analyst at Sweden’s Dissident Club, about the NATO summit in Ankara and the emerging financial architecture behind long-term rearmament. Their discussion examines the proposed Defense, Security and Resilience Bank, a mechanism presented as supporting allied preparedness but viewed by critics as a means of locking Western states into permanent military expenditure.

Almassian and Nilsson place Turkey’s growing regional weight, Israel’s strategic position, and the conflicts involving Russia and Iran within a wider geopolitical contest extending toward China and Eurasia. As conventional diplomacy gives way to enlarged military budgets, arms transfers and financial instruments designed to sustain them, the stakes reach far beyond any single battlefield.

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The World’s Biggest Shell Game

In 2001, Enron’s collapse revealed that a corporation could manufacture the appearance of financial health by creating thousands of shell companies, the purpose of which was to buy the real corporation’s toxic assets, keeping them hidden from investors and regulators. Enron created more than 3,000 such shell companies, officially dubbed “Special Purpose Vehicles” (SPV). When the shell game unraveled, $30 billion in hidden debt materialized overnight.

Lehman Brothers used this principle with “Repo 105,” temporarily moving $50 billion in assets off its balance sheet at quarter-end to SPVs, then retrieving them days later after reporting deadlines passed. Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner documented the fraud across 2,200 pages. No one went to prison.

Citigroup ran $80 billion through off-balance-sheet structured investment vehicles. When the commercial paper market froze in 2008, Citigroup had to re-absorb $58 billion, requiring a $45 billion government bailout. Bear Stearns created hedge fund SPVs housing toxic mortgage securities. When they imploded in 2007, they served as the canary in the coal mine for the entire financial system.

Bigger Than Corporations

The crucial question is: Does the same architecture operate at the level of nation-states? It does, through the mechanism of dollar reserve requirements and Treasury market structure.

Here is how it works. The United States issues Treasury bonds to finance deficit spending. Under the post-Bretton Woods dollar reserve system, central banks worldwide are expected (and in practice effectively required) to hold significant portions of their foreign exchange reserves in U.S. dollar-denominated assets, primarily Treasury securities. The Bank for International Settlements and International Monetary Fund frameworks for reserve adequacy create structural pressure on smaller countries to accumulate Treasuries as a demonstration of financial stability and as insurance against currency crises.

The result: Japan holds approximately $1.1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries. China holds approximately $760 billion. The United Kingdom, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, Belgium, and Ireland each hold hundreds of billions. Together, foreign countries hold approximately $8.5 trillion of the $36 trillion U.S. national debt.

The Carrot and the Stick

These countries are not freely choosing to hold American debt the way a private investor chooses a stock. Many are incentivized, and in some cases coerced, into doing so by the international monetary system.

Countries that attempt to de-dollarize their reserves face currency instability, reduced access to dollar swap lines, and in some cases direct U.S. diplomatic and financial pressure. Iraq announced it would price oil in euros in 2000. Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi proposed a gold-backed African currency to replace the dollar for oil transactions. Both countries experienced U.S. military intervention shortly thereafter. Correlation is not causation, but the pattern has not gone unnoticed by smaller nations.

Without foreign central-bank demand structurally supporting the Treasury market, the interest rates required to attract voluntary buyers would be considerably higher. Foreign reserve requirements effectively subsidize American borrowing costs, suppress Treasury yields, and support the dollar’s reserve status in a mutually reinforcing cycle that benefits the issuer enormously.

Enron’s SPVs kept toxic assets off the balance sheet, allowing rating agencies such as Moody’s and S&P to maintain investment-grade ratings until days before the collapse. The structural foreign demand for Treasuries similarly influences how sovereign debt markets evaluate American creditworthiness. When Moody’s downgraded the United States from Aaa to Aa1 in May 2025, it cited the $36 trillion debt and deficit trajectory. But that downgrade was decades late relative to what the raw numbers would suggest.

Loss Is Inevitable

The difference between Enron’s SPVs and the sovereign SPV system is that Enron collapsed suddenly. The dollar reserve system is unwinding slowly — through BRICS de-dollarization efforts, bilateral currency swap agreements between China and trading partners, Saudi Arabia’s acceptance of yuan for oil sales, and the gradual diversification of central bank reserves away from Treasuries toward gold, which global central banks purchased at record rates in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

When enough of the SPV network decides to stop absorbing the parent’s liabilities, the parent’s true balance sheet becomes visible. What happened to Enron in 2001, and to Lehman in 2008, will eventually happen to any entity that has confused the appearance of solvency with its substance.

The shell game always ends the same way.

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‘Not simply another community bank’: Critics sound alarm over new Indian bank in Texas

The State Bank of India has announced it is opening a new branch in Frisco, Texas, with critics raising concerns about Indian workers sending remittances back to India with minimal fees.

The branch is expected to open in mid-September and will be located off Coit Road.

The Indian population in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is estimated at about 230,000, with many being in the U.S. on H-1B visas. The population increased by 20% from 2020 to 2024 as the federal government continued approving H-1B visas.

The bank’s website states that customers can send remittances—money foreign workers send back to their home countries—with zero transfer fees.

Online customers can send up to $50,000 per day, while mobile customers can send up to $25,000 per day, according to the bank’s website. There is no stated limit for remittances sent from a branch. The bank specializes in remittance services to India and Bangladesh.

Employees at the bank speak multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Punjabi, and other Indian languages.

State Bank of India is headquartered in Los Angeles and has multiple branches across California. The institution is also backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits of up to $250,000 per depositor.

The new Frisco location has drawn criticism from those who say the services could be used to evade American laws.

According to an article by Ammon Blair, a senior fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Secure & Sovereign Nation Initiative, the United States is losing at least $200 billion annually from remittances leaving the domestic economy and supporting foreign economies.

“Through the lens of gray-zone conflict, remittances are not neutral financial transfers. They function as an asymmetric economic weapon, weakening U.S. labor markets, eroding the rule of law, and stabilizing regimes that act contrary to American interests. In gray-zone conflict, the rule of law itself becomes contested terrain,” Blair wrote.

Blair also told the Daily Signal that the bank is bringing the remittance issue directly to Texas.

“This is not simply another community bank entering a growing suburb,” Blair said. “SBI California is a subsidiary of State Bank of India, which is controlled by the Indian government.”

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House Passes Bill Preventing Credit Card Companies from Tracking Gun Sales

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to block credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales.

The bill, H.R. 1181, passed on a vote of 221 to 201. Two-hundred-and-fifteen Republicans voted for the bill, along with five Democrats and one Independent.

H.R. 1181 is sponsored by Riley Moore (R-WV).

Breitbart News reported Moore’s introduction of the bill on February 12, 2025, noting that he titled it the “Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act.”

He introduced it after major credit card companies succumbed to the gun control lobby during the Biden Administration and made plans to track the sales of guns and ammo.

For example, on September 11, 2022, Breitbart News pointed out Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a merchant code. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit card companies also agreed to flag gun sales. On March 2, 2023, Breitbart News noted Discover was slated to begin tracking gun and ammunition purchases with the new MCC in April 2023.

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Banks Have Been Lending to Illegal Aliens. The Trump Administration Just Stepped In.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, along with two other federal regulators, has officially issued new guidance to banks recommending that they stop issuing loans to illegal aliens, a practice that is legal under current law. Regulators also pushed financial institutions to reconsider providing credit cards and mortgages to illegal aliens.

The Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, explained that American banks have been making “lots” of loans to illegal aliens, creating significant financial risk for lenders who may never recover the money they’ve loaned out if that alien is deported. He added that the measure is intended to increase financial stability and suggested it was prompted by a “surprising” finding by federal regulators, presumably regarding the volume of loans being issued to individuals without citizenship or legal immigration status.

“Why would loans even be going to illegal immigrants in the first place?” Hasset was asked on Fox News.

“Right, they shouldn’t have been going there in the first place, and the bottom line is that if a bank is making lots of loans to people that might be deported because they have a criminal record or whatever, then obviously that person is probably not going to pay back the loan,” Hassett replied. “And so we view this as a financial stability measure that makes a great deal of sense. And it’s, I guess, the interesting thing is that the regulators felt they had to issue that guidance, presumably because of something they discovered that was surprising.”

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Former Obama White House Counsel – and Goldman Sachs’s Former Top Lawyer – Kathryn Ruemmler Testifies Before Congress, Says She Was ‘Used’ by Jeffrey Epstein

The Epstein stain is very hard to get rid of.

Among the many people exposed by the DOJ document releases as being connected to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, was former Barack Obama White House Counsel and former Goldman Sachs chief legal officer Kathryn Ruemmler.

We have reported here on TGP about how the evidence of her close relation ship with Epstein led to her resignation from her job at Goldman Sachs.

And yesterday (15), Ruemmler testified before the House Oversight Committee, calling the convicted sex offender a ‘masterful liar’.

She said Epstein used her to ‘legitimize’ himself, but had to acknowledge that he ‘referred paying clients to her law practice.’

The New York Post reported:

“Ruemmler, who resigned as Goldman’s top lawyer earlier this year after previously undisclosed communications with Epstein became public, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday that she maintained years of dealings with him because of those business relationships.

‘I did not see any evidence of ongoing criminal conduct or misconduct of any kind by Epstein during the time I dealt with him’, Ruemmler told lawmakers in her opening statement, adding that she ‘would have immediately reported him to law enforcement’ had she seen evidence that he was abusing women or girls.”

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De-Banked: It’s Only A Matter Of Time Before It Happens To You

“We are writing to inform you that we cannot continue serving you.

As a result of this decision, your account will be closed within 14 days from the date of this letter.

Any remaining account balances will be sent by check to the address we have on file.”

Sooner or later, expect your bank to send you a letter like this.

They won’t even tell you why they are closing your account, and you will probably have trouble opening accounts at other banks.

De-banking is a disturbing and growing trend.

In short, the ruling elite – parasites, more accurately – have weaponized the banking system to enforce conformity to their preferred narrative.

If you don’t lap up their lies about Covid, climate, elections, wars, rising crime, or whatever the media is hyping as the “current thing,” expect the financial hammer to come down on you without warning.

You could lose your ability to take payment from your customers and pay your bills at the drop of a hat.

We’ve seen banks close the accounts of prominent doctors critical of the Covid mass hysteria and politicians opposed to schemes to centralize power on a global level (globalism).

However, for every example of a bank closing a high-profile person’s account, hundreds – or thousands – of other ordinary people likely receive the same despicable treatment but are never heard from.

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Why Have Central Bankers Gone Radio Silent On The Digital Currency Agenda?

During the 2020 pandemic hysteria there was a mad rush by globalist institutions like the WEF, IMF, BIS and numerous national central banks to speed-run the concept of “CBDCs” (Central Bank Digital Currencies) into the mainstream consciousness. The idea of digital currencies rooted to a blockchain ledger was presented as a solution to the pandemic. A number of globalists asserted that digital exchange would be necessary because “paper money carries the covid virus.”

This was, of course, complete nonsense. There was zero evidence that shifting to digital would prevent the spread of the virus in any way. But, as I’ve said for years now, covid was their big play. It was intended to become a nexus point for a global coup; the “New World Order” takeover. The elites figured the population was so terrified that they would agree to anything without a logical reason.

They were wrong, at least in the long run. The virus was a dud (which seemed to catch them by surprise) and the death rate was minimal (0.23% median IFR). The public eventually woke up to the deception and the agenda was forced to dissolve, largely due to nearly half of all US states blocking the mandates. If Americans could live just fine without restrictions, then the rest of the world was going to follow.

I mention the pandemic once again because the attempted coup gave the general public a once in a lifetime insight into the plans and motives of the globalists. This event changed everything. Millions of people who once thought that “conspiracy theorists” were crazy just had their eyes opened to a dark reality. There really is an international cabal. They really do make evil plans in smoky rooms. They really do want a “New World Order.”

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Banking On Magic

Monthly Budgets Under Assault

American consumers are being squeezed. Between high grocery prices, rising utility bills, and hefty prices at the pump, little float remains in monthly budgets. An unexpected medical bill or car repair is all it takes to blow the household budget.

We’re all living through stressful macroeconomic crossroads here in mid-2026. For a while, it appeared the post-pandemic inflationary dragon had been slain. We were promised inflation would soon return to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.

But that was before the U.S.-Israel attacked Iran and a new energy shock was triggered. Perhaps the MOU negotiations and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with UN evacuation, will soften things in the months ahead. Nonetheless, we do not expect there to be long-lasting relief.

When energy costs spike, they don’t just stay at the pump. They weave their way into the price of just about everything you buy, eat, or touch. And right now, as the Federal Reserve transitions into a new era under inbound Chair Kevin Warsh, the combination of elevated oil prices, persistent consumer price inflation, and nosebleed stock market valuations have created an abundance of risks that are not being properly appreciated.

In short, your purchasing power is being eroded, the new Fed chief is caught between a political rock and an inflationary hard place, and the stock market is behaving like gravity doesn’t exist. To understand why your monthly budget is under assault, we must look at how inflation is composed.

Economists love to talk about core inflation. This metric conveniently strips out food and energy prices because they tend to be volatile. It’s the economic equivalent of saying, “Aside from the rain, it’s a perfectly dry day.”

But as consumers, we live in the real world. We can’t choose to skip buying food or filling the gas tank.

Invisible Tax

Right now, the headline numbers are singing a discordant tune. The May 2026 Consumer Price Index (CPI) report clocked in at a stubborn 4.2 percent year-over-year inflation. The April Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index – the Fed’s preferred metric – sat at 3.8 percent. Both are a country mile away from that 2 percent target.

Thanks to ongoing geopolitical friction and conflict with Iran, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude – the light sweet stuff – spiked above $100 a barrel in May. It has since dropped to about $69. However, this is well above the $57 price that a barrel of WTI crude fetched at the start of the year. Moreover, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drained to a 43-year low. Refilling it will put an elevated price floor under the price of oil in the months ahead.

Higher oil prices haven’t just been an inconvenience for commuters. Rather, they’re a supply shock that behaves like an invisible tax on the entire global supply chain. When a barrel of oil crosses the triple-digit threshold, a domino effect ripples through the economy.

For starters, diesel fuel gets much more expensive. The trucks delivering fresh produce to your supermarket, the container ships bringing electronics across the ocean, and the delivery vans bringing packages to your doorstep all pass those fuel surcharges directly down the line.

Modern farming is also incredibly energy intensive. From petroleum-based fertilizers to the diesel that runs massive harvesters, expensive energy directly translates to more expensive eggs, milk, and bread.

So, too, there’s the rising input costs for petrochemicals. These are the building blocks of 95 percent of manufactured goods, including packaging, synthetic fabrics, medical devices, and construction materials.

When energy prices rise, it doesn’t take long for transitory spikes to harden into long-term, sticky consumer price inflation. Businesses can absorb higher input costs for a month or two, but eventually, they protect their margins by changing the price tags. That is exactly what we are seeing play out across the retail landscape today.

Oil prices may be moderating. But the impact on consumer prices from the oil price spike is here to stay.

This is why consumer prices will never return to where they were last year, and certainly not to where they were in January 2020. Not unless new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh gets his productivity miracle… 

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The UK’s Latest “Debanking” Scandal Should Give Everyone Pause

UK-based readers may recall the moment almost exactly three years ago when the word “debanking” entered the mainstream British English lexicon. The prestigious London-based private bank Coutts had just decided to close Nigel Farage’s bank account due to his unsavoury political views and alleged Russian connections. That decision turned out to be very costly.

Almost immediately, Farage did what Farage does best: he whipped up a massive media frenzy. In next to no time two senior banking scalps had been claimed: those of Dame Alison Rose, the CEO of Coutts’ parent bank and “Big Four” lender, Natwest (formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland) and Coutts’ chief executive Peter Flavel.

Within a month, Natwest’s share price had slumped 8%, wiping £1 billion off its market cap, much of which was being propped up with public funds, and generating juicy returns for short-selling hedge funds. As we reported at the time, the resulting scandal drew much-needed public attention to a long-standing but accelerating trend — the “de-banking” of people and organisations with politically inconvenient views:

[T]his is hardly a one-off event: as I reported a couple of weeks ago, banks on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly debanking their customers, often without explanation. I gave the example of California-based writer, activist, and social and political commentator Elad Nehorai, whose political views and ideals could not diverge more from those of Nigel Farage. Yet he, too, had his account at Bank of America, his bank of many years, summarily closed with no apparent warning or explanation…

Without a bank account, it is almost impossible to participate in the economy. And it is getting more difficult as cash becomes harder and harder to access and use. As Alex Lo writes for South China Morning Post, “Banking is a fundamental utility like water and electricity, and that’s precisely why democratic societies are increasingly turning to its use as a method of censorship and repression.”

However, the resulting government inquiry concluded that customers were not being “debanked” for political reasons. As a result, not only has debanking continued but debanked customers now face the prospect of being blocked from setting up new accounts at other banks, as the Telegraph reported on Monday:

Banks are planning to block “debanked” customers from setting up accounts with other lenders, potentially leading to innocent people being effectively locked out of the financial system, The Telegraph can reveal.

Lobby group UK Finance is developing a platform that will allow banks to share data on their customers where they detect “markers of economic crime”.

Lloyds, Barclays and Revolut have already started sharing data about customers, leading to accounts being frozen or closed, The Telegraph understands, following a pilot in 2024.

The data-sharing platform will build on that pilot to make a UK-wide system, which could automatically bar people from opening another account.

But concerns have been raised that thousands of innocent customers and businesses who have been debanked unfairly could be barred from opening up an account with another bank, effectively leaving them locked out of the financial system.

The latest victim of the debanking trend is the left-wing news website The Canary, which has accused the Lloyds Banking Group of “withholding a substantial amount of our money”  after nearly a decade of use. The news outlet — which brands itself as “radical working-class media” — says “Lloyds has not explained why it has taken this action… despite multiple communications from us”.

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