KUALA LUMPUR: Hong Leong Bank Bhd and Hong Leong Islamic Bank Bhd will reduce their Base Lending Rate (BLR) and Islamic Financing Rate (IFR) by 55 basis points from 6.5% to 5.95% from Feb 3.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Hong Leong Bank said the cut in the BLR followed Bank Negara’s move to cut the overnight policy rate by 75 basis points on Jan 21.
“The reduction of BLR/IFR would translate into lower cost of financing for our customers and businesses,” it said.
It added the lower borrowing costs would support the central bank’s objective to promote domestic economic activities.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/1/28/business/20090128181535&sec=business
Filed under: Bank, Stocks Investing | Tags: global financial crisis, public bank
Public Bank founder and chairman Tan Sri Teh Hong Piow expects the banking industry to remain resilient this year and Public Bank to outperform the industry growth rates for deposits and loans.
WHAT is your outlook for the banking industry in Malaysia in 2009?
The banking industry is expected to remain profitable and sound although growth of the Malaysian economy is expected to moderate to around 3.5% in 2009. The growth outlook, which is based on the strength of domestic demand and the proactive management of the economy, is still respectable considering that some of the developed economies have entered into a recession and will remain in recession this year. While the inflationary pressures in Malaysia should ease further in the first half of 2009, we expect the unemployment rate to inch up slightly due to significantly slower external demand. We believe that the action to support global financial markets and to provide massive fiscal stimulus and monetary easing will limit the decline in world growth. Based on this economic outlook, we expect loan growth for the banking industry to be around 7% this year.
The banking industry in Malaysia will remain resilient due to its strong capitalisation, healthy asset quality and improved risk management standards and practices. Credit goes to Bank Negara for the successful reforms and capacity building measures which have been taken to strengthen the banking system after the Asian financial crisis in 1997/98. The banking industry is well capitalised with the risk weighted capital ratio of 12.6% in October 2008, which was well above the minimum international requirement of 8%.
The industry’s net non-performing loans ratio at 2.4% in October 2008 is at its lowest since the Asian financial crisis 10 years ago. We also expect the impact of the financial turmoil and credit crunch in the West on the banking industry in Malaysia to remain muted as the industry has no significant exposure to the subprime and other toxic securities that had hit institutions in the US and other countries.
Banks in Malaysia have built more robust corporate governance and risk management frameworks to overcome the challenging economic environment.
The preemptive and precautionary measures introduced in October 2008 with Bank Negara standing ready to provide liquidity and the Government providing a full guarantee to all ringgit and foreign currency deposits in the banking system should sustain the high confidence in the Malaysian financial system. We believe the Government and Bank Negara still have ample capacity to undertake the appropriate policy response to avoid a severe economic downturn.
Tan Sri Teh Hong PiowWhat is your strategy to ride out the economic slowdown?
Our core business strategies remain unchanged in that the Public Bank group will continue to focus on its organic growth strategies to grow its retail loans and core customer deposits. For 2009, we expect the group’s loans and deposits to increase at above industry rates by tapping on the group’s competitive product packages, competitive pricing, superior delivery standards, strong PB brand and extensive delivery channels.
The high rate of loans growth will continue to be supported by growth in home mortgages, passenger vehicle hire-purchase financing, personal financing and retail commercial loans to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In growing its funding base, the Public Bank group will continue to promote both retail and wholesale deposits to ensure that the group continues to maintain a healthy loans to deposits ratio. As part of long-term ongoing efforts, the Public Bank group will accelerate growth in fee-based incomes, particularly by tapping on Public Mutual’s fund management business, the long-term bancassurance tie-up with ING Group and a broader range of wealth management services.
As a prudent banking group, the Public Bank group will remain focused on maintaining its risk management standards to ensure that it maintains the best asset quality in the banking industry in Malaysia.
Public Bank has been voted as the best in Asia by several publications. What aspects of your business will you be seeking to improve on in 2009?
Our key business goal is to ensure that the Public Bank group continues to sustain its superior financial results amidst the challenging economic environment ahead. To achieve this goal, we need to drive retail loans and retail deposits, fee incomes and also asset quality management.
Management resources will continue to be devoted to efforts to further increase the productivity of the group’s staff and branch network and also to increase the contributions from overseas operations.
Retail banking and SME lending has been a big success for Public Bank. How would this segment perform in 2009?
Retail banking has been and will continue to be the main driver. Currently, the Public Bank group’s retail banking contributes close to 80% of the group’s profits.
Within retail banking, lending to households, comprising mainly residential mortgages and passenger vehicle hire-purchase financing, and lending to business enterprises, particularly SMEs, for purchase of operating premises and working capital, constitute about 86% of the group’s total loans outstanding. From December 2007 to September 2008, the Public Bank group’s retail lending to households and businesses increased at an annualised rate of 20%.
Going forward, the group’s retail banking initiatives will continue to drive business growth. As part of its core business strategies, the group is committed to support the Government’s ongoing efforts to further develop and strengthen SMEs, including bumiputra SMEs and micro enterprises, as a key engine of domestic economic activity. To grow its SME lending, the Public Bank group will continue to provide competitive financing packages as well as promote the various Bank Negara funds for SMEs. The group will continue to provide a full range of trade bills facilities to SMEs. In 2009, the group’s lending to SMEs is expected to continue to expand at a healthy pace.
How do you see the group’s business in Hong Kong and China in 2009? How will the Public Bank group continue its expansion drive abroad?
The Public Bank group expects its businesses in Hong Kong and China to continue to grow in 2009 amidst the challenging economic environment and competitive pressures in that market.
Currently, the Hong Kong economy is projected to slow to around 2% in 2009 with significant downside risks to that forecast. Because of economic uncertainties, declining local property prices and a potential rise in unemployment, demand for financing by consumers and businesses in Hong Kong are likely to ease.
Despite the economic slowdown, the Public Bank group’s operations in Hong Kong and China have the capacity to withstand the challenges and continue to contribute significantly to the group’s results.
As in domestic operations, the Public Bank group will continue to focus on organic growth strategies and accelerate growth in retail loans and retail deposits.
Various delivery standards, which have been established quantitatively and implemented successfully in Malaysia, will be implemented by the group’s overseas operating units. This year the Public Bank group plans to open 16 new branches in Hong Kong and China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. The group’s initiatives to promote the PB brand abroad continue unabated.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/1/1/business/2889648&sec=business
Filed under: Bank | Tags: global financial crisis, hungary, hungary financial crisis
BUDAPEST — As the financial crisis rippled over Europe in recent weeks, Hungary found itself particularly vulnerable. The country — once a favorite of Western investors — is burdened with heavy debt. Worse yet, the government financed past spending sprees, in good part, with foreign currency loans that are growing ever more expensive as its own currency founders.
Average Hungarians are also in trouble. They flocked in droves to banks here in the last several years for once-cheap loans in Swiss francs and euros to buy their cars and houses. Now, they find themselves exposed to rising debt payments.
The government has taken steps to shore up its position in the midst of the credit crunch that has grown out of the crisis, lining up support last week from the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.
But Hungarian consumers can do little more than hope their wobbly currency, the forint, stabilizes.
“I can’t do anything else,” said Bori Bende, 26, who with her husband owns not one, but two apartments with mortgages denominated in the Swiss franc. The couple had bought a new, larger apartment and were in the process of selling their old one, a one-bedroom in an up-and-coming part of the city, when the credit markets tightened and scared buyers away.
Borrowing in another currency, a mostly foreign concept for middle-class Americans, had become as simple here as walking into the nearest bank branch and applying for credit. The interest rates were lower. There was a risk, but only if the Hungarian currency declined relative to other currencies, forcing borrowers to pay increasing amounts to cover the same monthly bills.
That possibility did not stop nearly 90 percent of consumer borrowers this year from taking out their loans in Swiss francs or euros, according to the central bank.
Once the crisis hit, investors concerned about the stability of Eastern European economies began pulling their money out of the country, and risk became reality: the forint began to drop sharply, falling 10 percent against the euro and 13 percent against the Swiss franc this month.
Although Hungary is in nowhere near as dire a situation as Iceland, where the government has seized control of several major banks, it has been marked as one of Europe’s problem countries because of its debt, almost a third of which is in foreign currencies. As credit has dried up, growth targets have been cut, public spending is being curtailed and Hungary’s benchmark stock index plunged, dropping close to 40 percent for the month.
For Ms. Bende and her husband, the economic volatility means they are spending more than $500 a month to maintain an empty apartment. The small calendar in Ms. Bende’s wallet tells the story, with hastily scribbled notes detailing the once-steady stream of potential buyers suddenly yielding to blank pages as inquiries ground to a halt last week.
“I work really hard, have two jobs, so I can afford it right now,” she said. But in November the exchange rate for the mortgage on the apartment she and her husband are living in will adjust to reflect the forint’s relative value, as it does every six months. In December, the rate will reset on the empty apartment.
Andras Simor, head of the National Bank of Hungary, said in an interview in his office here that the bank had campaigned for some time to slow foreign-exchange borrowing. “If you borrow foreign exchange, you take a risk, but the public was not fully aware of the risk,” he said.
Mr. Simor pointed out that Hungary’s banks were not taking the same chances as those in the United States, where mortgages were given out with little money down or scant documentation.
But Hungary’s banks were making their decisions about offering foreign exchange loans before the economic crisis began buffeting Europe and raised questions about Eastern Europe in particular.
While experts said some countries, like Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland, had used their borrowing to expand their export capacity and long-term competitiveness, others, most notably the Baltic nations, had put more of their borrowing into houses and shopping malls.
But almost all the countries in the region feel somewhat exposed and worry that they could fall prey to the same problems affecting Hungary and Ukraine, which is in talks with the International Monetary Fund.
“If this whole thing gets worse, then inevitably more innocent bystanders will get hit,” said Christoph B. Rosenberg, head of the I.M.F.’s office for Central and Eastern Europe.
Hungary was long considered the least socialist of the socialist countries. Even before the end of Soviet hegemony in the region, Hungary allowed a greater measure of free enterprise than others in the bloc, with its so-called “goulash Communism” system. After the fall of Communism, the country quickly established itself as the leading destination in the region for Western investors.
In 2004, along with its Central European neighbors and the Baltic countries, Hungary joined the European Union, an important step toward shedding the label of an emerging market. But the government had grown profligate, and deficit spending reached a peak in 2006 of 9.3 percent of the country’s economy. It is a sad bit of hindsight for policy makers here that they had already begun taking steps to get their spending under control before economic fears began to spread.
“The crimes of the past came back to haunt us, actually,” said Eva Palocz, general director of the Budapest-based economic research group Kopint-Tarki, pointing to the most recent government projection of a 3.4 percent budget deficit this year.
There are no lines of anxious customers at banks here, no runs on supermarkets or other signs that the deep concern expressed by average residents has slid anywhere close to panic. “What really surprises me is that Hungary is mentioned in the same way as Iceland,” said Aniko Kesmarky, 53, a customer leaving a bank in downtown Budapest on Friday.
She and her husband bought a new car over the summer, a Spanish Seat Altea, using a loan denominated in Swiss francs. Ms. Kesmarky said that they have been able to handle increased payments so far, but they had decided to put off a planned renovation in their apartment.
That kind of spending decision, along with the government’s planned cutbacks in public spending and falling demand for the country’s exports, led officials here to revise their growth expectations significantly, to 1.2 percent for 2009, from previous projections of 3 percent.
At Havalda Leather in downtown Budapest, the owner, Viktor Hamori, 44, said that he had not noticed a decline in spending by customers, but that economic turmoil and currency woes were all anyone was talking about.
Two enormous oil paintings of Mr. Hamori’s grandparents look down on the shop full of belts and leashes, a reminder of his family’s roots in the business. His forebears owned a flourishing leather factory before the nationalizations under the Communist regime.
“If we survived the last very turbulent century,” Mr. Hamori said, “I hope we won’t lose everything in the next.”
For financial markets, it has again been an extraordinary weekend, one of a series since the vicious credit squeeze began just over a year ago. For when a firm is on the verge of collapse, and this time it is one of the giants of Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, the heavy work of trying to devise a rescue scheme is often compressed into the 48 hours that elapse from a Friday evening until a Sunday night. The absolute deadline of having to make an announcement by start of business on Monday produces the necessary pressure.
Lehman Brothers is one of the Big Four investment banking firms in New York. Lehman was founded in 1850. I give this date to show how venerable are the market leaders. Goldman Sachs goes back to 1869, Merrill Lynch began life in 1914 and Morgan Stanley was spun out of the J P Morgan banking business in 1935. In London, only Rothschild’s has such a long history as an independent business.
If Lehman Brothers disappears, it will leave Goldman Sachs as the sole inheritor on Wall Street of the great German Jewish banking tradition. The founders of these firms immigrated to the United States in the middle of the 19th century – among them the Loebs, the Guggenheims, the Kahns, the Kuhns, the Schiffs, the Seligmans, the Strauses, the Warburgs and the Lehmans. They brought with them one of the few skills that anti-Jewish regulations in Germany had allowed them to acquire, peddling goods on foot or with a wagon. Henry Lehman started selling groceries, dry goods and utensils to the local cotton farmers in Alabama. The subsequent history of the firm can be quickly told – from dry goods to cotton broking in the South, to cotton broking in New York, to investment banking in New York. Now, 158 years later, Lehman Brothers employs 26,000 people around the world.
In Our Crowd, the story of the “Great Jewish families of New York”, Stephen Birmingham tells how one of the original Lehman brothers, Mayer, at the height of a panic on the Cotton Exchange, was seen striding out of his office in silk hat, frock coat and striped trousers, wielding his gold-handled stick, wearing a smile on his face and generating an air of confidence. A young colleague ran up to him and said: “Mr Mayer, aren’t you worried?” Mayer replied: “My dear young man, I can see you have no experience of a falling market” and strode on.
That is the very same attitude that Mayer Lehman’s present day successor, Richard Fuld, the chairman and chief executive, has been taking. For he has assumed that while the credit crunch was undoubtedly damaging, it wouldn’t be fatal. He failed to take avoiding action when he could. Mr Fuld has taken his predecessor’s sang froid too far. For at some point, hard to locate, admirable self-confidence becomes foolhardiness and he crossed the line. Thus this 62-year-old former bond trader, who has run the company for 14 years like a close-knit family, albeit with a firm hand, has been slow to acknowledge the firm’s losses and has frightened potential investors away by trying to drive his usual hard bargains. As a result, he has had to spend the weekend wondering whether anyone will now rescue his firm at even a derisory price. Barclays Bank pulled out last night. The significance of the discussions goes well beyond the fate of Lehman Brothers itself. For the Federal Reserve Bank and the US Treasury have been trying to bring about a solution to Lehman’s difficulties which doesn’t involve the government providing financial help as it did on previous occasions. Thus the Fed and the Treasury have been urging Lehman’s rivals to provide it with the temporary financial support it needs without government backing, and to do this for the good of the financial system itself.
And this message, that the government has done enough and that henceforth banks must themselves clean up the mess they have created, is akin to the statement that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, made on Thursday. Mr King said Britain’s stricken mortgage lenders shouldn’t rely on the Bank of England to support them through the credit crisis. He also warned the Government against guaranteeing mortgages.
This morning, bankers in New York and London have woken up wondering whether they are on their own now. The pernicious idea that their firms are too important to be allowed to fail is fast becoming another myth. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s is like Hurricane Ike. There is nothing you can safely cling to while the storm rages.
How The Jews Took Great Britain
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=86
HOW THE JEWS TOOK GREAT BRITAIN
By Brother Nathanael Kapner, Copyright 2007-2008
Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner
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IT ALL STARTED with The Edict of Expulsion of 1290 AD. The Jews would have us believe that their expulsion from England by Edward I (reigned 1272-1307) was due to their money lending endeavors. The real reason was due to the Jews’ crime of blood ritual murders.
The Orthodox Christian historian of the 5th Century, Socrates Scholasticus, in his Ecclesiastical History, 7:16, recounts an incident about Jews killing a Christian child:
— “At a place near Antioch in Syria, the Jews, in derision of the Cross and those who put their trust in the Crucified One, seized a Christian boy, and having bound him to a cross they made, began to sneer at him. In a little while becoming so transported with fury, they scourged the child until he died under their hands.” —
Here are a few examples which led to the English expulsion of the Jews in 1290 AD:
1144 A.D. Norwich: A twelve year-old boy was crucified and his side pierced at the Jewish Passover. His body was found in a sack hidden in a tree. A converted Jew to Christianity named Theobald of Cambridge informed the authorities that the Jews took blood every year from a Christian child because they thought that only by so doing could they ever return to Palestine. The boy has ever since been known as St. William.
1160 A.D. Gloucester: The body of a child named Harold was found in the river with the wounds of crucifixion.
1255 A.D. Lincoln: A boy named Hugh was tortured and crucified by the Jews. The boy’s mother found the body in a well on the premises of a Jew named Jopin. 18 Jews were hanged for the crime by King Henry III.
1290 A.D. Oxford: The Patent Roll 18 Of Edward I, 21st June 1290 contains an order for the Gaol delivery of a Jew named Isaac de Pulet for the murder and blood letting of a Christian boy. Only one month after this, King Edward I issued his decree expelling the Jews from England.
(See Sources #1 Below )
OLIVER CROMWELL & THE BEHEADING OF KING CHARLES I IN 1649
FINANCED BY THE JEWSJEWISH BANKERS FROM AMSTERDAM led by the Jewish financier and army contractor of Cromwell’s New Model Army, Fernandez Carvajal and assisted by Portuguese Ambassador De Souza, a Marano (secret Jew), saw an opportunity to exploit in the civil unrest led by Oliver Cromwell in 1643.
A stable Christian society of ancient traditions binding the Monarchy, Church, State, nobles and people into one solemn bond was disrupted by Calvin’s Protestant uprising. The Jews of Amsterdam exploited this civil unrest and made their move. They contacted Oliver Cromwell in a series of letters:
Cromwell To Ebenezer Pratt of the Mulheim Synagogue in Amsterdam,
16th June 1647:
— “In return for financial support will advocate admission of Jews to England: This however impossible while Charles living. Charles cannot be executed without trial, adequate grounds for which do not at present exist. Therefore advise that Charles be assassinated, but will have nothing to do with arrangements for procuring an assassin, though willing to help in his escape.” —
To Oliver Cromwell From Ebenezer Pratt, 12th July 1647:
— “Will grant financial aid as soon as Charles removed and Jews admitted. Assassination too dangerous. Charles shall be given opportunity to escape: His recapture will make trial and execution possible. The support will be liberal, but useless to discuss terms until trial commences.” —
Cromwell had carried out the orders of the Jewish financiers and beheaded, (yes, Cromwell and his Jewish sponsors must face Christ!), King Charles I on January 30 1649.
Beginning in 1655, Cromwell, through his alliance with the Jewish bankers of Amsterdam and specifically with Manasseh Ben Israel and his brother-in-law, David Abravanel Dormido, initiated the resettlement of the Jews in England.
(See Sources #2 Below )
JEWS GET THEIR CENTRAL BANK OF ENGLANDWILLIAM STADHOLDER, a Dutch army careerist, was a handsome chap with money problems. The Jews saw another opportunity and through their influence arranged for William’s elevation to Captain General of the Dutch Forces. The next step up the ladder for William was his elevation by the Jews to the aristocratic title of William, Prince of Orange.
The Jews then arranged a meeting between William and Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York. The Duke was only one place removed from becoming King of England. In 1677 Princess Mary of England married William Prince of Orange. To place William upon the throne of England it was necessary to get rid of both Charles II and the Duke of York who was slated to become James II of the Stuarts. It is important to note that none of the Stuarts would grant charter for an English national bank. That is why murder, civil war, and religious conflicts plagued their reigns by the Jewish bankers.
In 1685, King Charles II died and the Duke of York became King James II of England. In 1688 the Jews ordered William Prince of Orange to land in England at Torbay. Because of an ongoing Campaign of L’Infamie against King James II contrived by the Jews, he abdicated and fled to France. William of Orange and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England.
The new King William III soon got England involved in costly wars against Catholic France which put England deep into debt. Here was the Jewish bankers’ chance to collect. So King William, under orders from the Elders of Zion in Amsterdam, persuaded the British Treasury to borrow 1.25 million pounds sterling from the Jewish bankers who had helped him to the throne.
Since the state’s debts had risen dramatically, the government had no choice but to accept. But there were conditions attached: The names of the lenders were to be kept secret and that they be granted a Charter to establish a Central Bank of England. Parliament accepted and the Jewish bankers sunk their tentacles into Great Britain.
ENTER THE ROTHSCHILDSMAYER AMSCHEL BAUER OPENED a money lending business on Judenstrasse (Jew Street) in Frankfurt Germany in 1750 and changed his name to Rothschild. Mayer Rothschild had five sons. The smartest of his sons, Nathan, was sent to London to establish a bank in 1806. Much of the initial funding for the new bank was tapped from the British East India Company which Mayer Rothschild had significant control of. Mayer Rothschild placed his other four sons in Frankfort, Paris, Naples, and Vienna.
In 1814, Nathanael Rothschild saw an opportunity in the Battle of Waterloo. Early in the battle, Napoleon appeared to be winning and the first military report to London communicated that fact. But the tide turned in favor of Wellington. A courier of Nathan Rothschild brought the news to him in London on June 20. This was 24 hours before Wellington’s courier arrived in London with the news of Wellington’s victory. Seeing this fortuitous event, Nathan Rothschild began spreading the rumor that Britain was defeated.
With everyone believing that Wellington was defeated, Nathan Rothschild began to sell all of his stock on the English Stock Market. Everyone panicked and also began selling causing stocks to plummet to practically nothing. At the last minute, Nathan Rothschild began buying up the stocks at rock-bottom prices.
This gave the Rothschild family complete control of the British economy – now the financial centre of the world and forced England to set up a revamped Bank of England with Nathan Rothschild in control.
(See Sources #4 Below )
ALL ABOUT THE JEWISH VATICAN
(As much as that is possible given Rothschild secrecy)A PRIVATE FINANCIAL CORPORATION exists today in England known as “The City.” It is also known as The Jewish Vatican located in the heart of Greater London.
A Committee of 12 men rule The Jewish Vatican. They are known as “The Crown.” The City and its rulers, The Crown, are not subject to the Parliament. They are a Sovereign State within a State.
The City is the financial hub of the world. It is here that the Rothschilds have their base of operations and their centrality of control:
* The Central Bank of England (controlled by the Rothschilds) is located in The City.
* All major British banks have their main offices in The City.
* 385 foreign banks are located in The City.
* 70 banks from the United States are located in The City.
* The London Stock Exchange is located in The City.
* Lloyd’s of London is located in The City.
* The Baltic Exchange (shipping contracts) is located in The City.
* Fleet Street (newspapers & publishing) is located in The City.
* The London Metal Exchange is located in The City.
* The London Commodity Exchange (trading rubber, wool, sugar, coffee) is located in The City.
Every year a Lord Mayor is elected as monarch of The City. The British Parliament does not make a move without consulting the Lord Mayor of The City. For here in the heart of London are grouped together Britain’s financial institutions dominated by the Rothschild-controlled Central Bank of England. The Rothschilds have traditionally chosen the Lord Mayor since 1820. Who is the present day Lord Mayor of The City? Only the Rothschilds’ know for sure…
(See Sources #5 Below )
HOW CAN WE STOP THE JEWISH BANKING CABAL? Here is what we must do to stop the Jews:
*** Only a strong Christian society can counteract the Jewish financiers of the world.
*** We must all make a commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour and regular Church attendance.
*** Ron Paul wants to abolish the Federal Reserve Bank which is part of the Jewish financial Cabal. We must all support him.
We Can Stop The Jews. The Lord Will Help Us!
___________________________________<
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Sources #1: Ariel Toaff, Bloody Passover-Jews of Europe and Ritual Homicide, 2007 Click Here; J. C. Cox, Norfolk Churches; Victoria County History of Norfolk, 1906; Arnold Leese, Jewish Ritual Murder In England; Henry III, Close Roll 16; Joseph Haydn, Dictionary of Dates.
Sources #2: Isaac Disraeli, Life of Charles I, 1851; Hugh Ross Williamson, Charles and Cromwell; AHM Ramsey, The Nameless War; Lord Alfred Douglas, Plain English, 1921; Geoffrey H. Smith, The Settlement Of Jews In England
Sources #3: John Harold Wood, History of Central Banking in Great Britain; Gustaaf Johannes Renier, William of Orange
Sources #4: Frederick Morton, The Rothschilds; Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby
Sources #5: E.C. Knuth, The Empire of The City; Des Griffin, Descent Into Slavery
Filed under: Bank | Tags: bank negara malaysia, bank negara overnight policy rate
Another round of hikes may trigger ‘monetary response,’ says Zeti
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/7/30/business/21952368&sec=business
XI’AN: Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said another round of price increases may trigger a “monetary response” after inflation surged to a 26-year high last month.
“Our concern at this stage would be the generalised second-round effect of price adjustments, which would prompt a monetary response,” Zeti said in an interview yesterday after a meeting of East Asia-Pacific central bankers. She wouldn’t specify possible measures.
So-called second-round increases occur when one price gain leads to others. Malaysia last month raised gasoline and diesel prices after oil surged to records, a move that Zeti said was likely to be “deflationary” in the longer term by subduing domestic demand.
The central bank unexpectedly kept its overnight policy rate at 3.5% for an 18th straight meeting on July 25, refraining from following its Asian counterparts in raising borrowing costs to fight inflation as it focused on sustaining growth. Bank Negara next meets to review rates Aug 25.
“The central bank has not completely forgotten about the risk of higher inflation,” said Tai Hui, head of South-East Asian economic research at Standard Chartered in Singapore. “They’re still adopting the wait-and-see approach. The comments today are a good reminder that they’re not completely against acting if needed.”
Bank Negara would probably keep interest rates steady “in the near term,” said Hui, who had accurately predicted the central bank’s decision to keep borrowing costs on hold last week.
The central bank has emphasised the risks to growth and the impact on inflation, he said.
Economic growth this year would be “at least 5%,” Zeti said, citing the low end of a central bank estimate in March. Last year’s expansion was 6.3%. Growth may moderate in the next 12 months, she said, declining to provide an estimate.
“The banking industry is still resilient with steady lending growth,” Zeti said.
“Our reserves level is very strong, there’s low external indebtedness, we’ve a diversified economic base and we’re a net exporter of oil and commodities.”
The government was due to release an economic forecast on Aug 29 with its 2009 budget, she said.
“If the public and private sectors can manage this challenging period well, conditions in the second half of 2009 will improve considerably, with lower inflation and a resumption in growth,” Zeti said. Still, “the external environment is less favourable, with commodity and energy prices at elevated levels.”
Inflation may slow to 4% in the second half of next year, Zeti said.
That compares with 7.7% last month and the central bank’s estimate of 5.5% to 6% for 2008. – Bloomberg
As I mentioned in my previous post, Bank negara maintains its OPR at 3.5%
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http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/7/25/business/20080725200927&sec=business
KUALA LUMPUR: Bank Negara’s Monetary Policy Committee has decided to keep the Overnight Policy Rate unchanged at 3.5%.
Announcing this on Friday night after a day-long Monetary Policy meeting, Bank Negara said while the risks to higher inflation and slower growth have increased in the next 12 months, “the immediate concern is to avoid a fundamental economic slowdown that would involve higher unemployment”.
“Slowing growth itself will contribute to containing the potential for second round effects on inflation, thereby containing further increases in prices in the second-half of 2009. Given the underlying fundamental strength of the economy, and the resilient banking sector, the Bank’s assessment is that after this transitional period, the Malaysian economy has the potential to re-establish its medium term growth path,” Bank Negara said in a statement.
According to the central bank, the performance of the Malaysian economy in the first-half of 2008 has been driven by robust domestic demand and reinforced by favourable export performance.
“The recent major restructuring of domestic energy prices to bring prices closer to the substantially higher international prices is intended to reduce the fundamental distortions that it might create, and to ensure fiscal sustainability. These adjustments are expected to have a deflationary effect on the economy in the second half of this year and into the early part of 2009.
“The Bank is projecting inflation to remain elevated in the second-half of this year and into early next year before moderating towards the middle of 2009. The average inflation for 2008 is projected to be in the range of 5.5-6%. The inflation rate is expected to moderate in the second half of 2009 in the context of a more moderate growth environment.
“Currently, much of the significant rise in inflation is due to the increase in fuel prices. At this stage, the concern is for broader price increases and second-round effects, which would result in inflation being persistent. In such circumstances, the appropriate monetary policy response will be taken in order to maintain medium term price stability and ensure that the high inflation does not undermine the longer term growth prospects of the Malaysian economy.”
Today Bank Negara Malaysia has a meeting whether to increase or not the interest rate. Most economists said that bank negara will increase the interest by 25 point basis from 3.5% to 3.75%.
I beg to differ from the majority. I think Bank Negara would maintain the current interest rate due to:-
1) Inflation is caused by speculation rather than by demand
2) There is no much growth in malaysian economy
Most of the inflation is caused by the increase of commodities especially oil. I think oil increase is due to speculation rather than real demand.
Filed under: Bank | Tags: abraham lincoln, how international bankers gained control of america
How International Bankers Gained Control of America
From a Video Script Produced by Patrick S. J. Carmack
Directed by Bill Still
Royalty Production Company 1998
[QUOTE]
One month after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the first shots of the American Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12,1861. …
Certainly slavery was a cause for the Civil War, but not the primary cause. Lincoln knew that the economy of the South depended upon slavery and so (before the Civil War) he had no intention of eliminating it. Lincoln had put it this way in his inaugural address only one month earlier:
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
Even after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, Lincoln continued to insist that the Civil War was not about the issue of slavery:
“My paramount objective is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.”
So what was the Civil War all about? There were many factors at play. Northern industrialists had used protective tariffs to prevent their southern states from buying cheaper European goods. Europe retaliated by stopping cotton imports from the South. The Southern states were in a financial bind. They were forced to pay more for most of the necessities of life while their income from cotton exports plummeted. The South grew ncreasingly angry.
But there were other factors at work. … The central bankers now saw an pportunity to use the North/South divisions to split the rich new nation – t divide and conquer by war. Was this just some sort of wild conspiracy theory? Well, let’s look at what a well placed observer of the scene had to say at time.
This was Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, the man who united the German states in 1871. A few years later, in 1876, he is quoted as saying:
“It is not to be doubted, I know of absolute certainty,” Bismarck declared, “that the division of the United States into two federations of equal power was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained as one block and were to develop as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset the capitalist domination of Europe over the world.”
Within months after the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, the central bankers loaned Napoleon III of France (the nephew of the Waterloo Napoleon) 210 million francs to seize Mexico and station troops along the southern border of the U.S., taking advantage of the Civil War to violate the Monroe Doctrine and return Mexico to colonial rule.
No matter what the outcome of the Civil War, it was hoped that a war-weakened America, heavily indebted to the Money Changers, would open up Central and South America once again to European colonization and domination.
At the same time, Great Britain moved 11,000 troops into Canada and positioned them along America’s northern border. The British fleet went on war alert should their quick intervention be called for.
Lincoln knew he was in a bind. He agonized over the fate of the Union. There was a lot more to it than just differences between the North and the South. That’s why his emphasis was always on “Union” and not merely the defeat of the South. But Lincoln needed money to win.
In 1861, Lincoln and his Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, went to New York to apply for the necessary war loans. The Money Changers, anxious to maximize their war profits, only offered loans at 24-36% interest. Lincoln said thanks, but no thanks, and returned to Washington. He sent for an old friend, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago, and put him onto the problem off financing the War. At one particular meeting, Lincoln asked Taylor how else to finance the war. Taylor put it this way:
“Why, Lincoln, that is easy; just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes… pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also.”
When Lincoln asked if the people of the United States would accept the notes, Taylor said:
“The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money … the stamp of full legal tender by the Government is the thing that makes money good any time, and this will always be as good as any other money inside the borders of our country. ”
So that’s exactly what Lincoln did. From 1862 to 1865, with Congressional authorization, he printed up $432,000,000 of the new bills.
In order to distinguish them from private bank notes in circulation, he had them printed with green ink on the back side. That’s why the notes were called “Greenbacks.” With this new money, Lincoln paid the troops, and bought their supplies. During the course of the war, nearly all of the 450 million dollars of Greenbacks authorized by Congress were printed at no interest to the federal government.
By now Lincoln realized who was really pulling the strings and what was at stake for the American people. … This is how he explained his monetary views:
“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers… The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity… By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The financing of all public enterprises, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”
Meanwhile in Britain a truly incredible editorial in the London Times explained the Bank of England’s attitude towards Lincoln’s Greenbacks.
“If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurate down to a fixture, then the Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
Keep in mind, by this time the European monarchs were already chained to their private central banks, hence the bankers’ concern to preserve their captive monarchs. Within four days of the passage of the law that allowed Greenbacks to be issued, bankers met in convention in Washington to discuss the situation. It was agreed that Greenbacks would surely be their ruin. Something had to be done. They devised a scheme gradually to undermine the value of the Greenbacks.
Seemingly unimportant limitations on the use of Greenbacks (printed on the green back), insisted on by the bankers, forbidding their use to pay import duties and interest on the public debt, were utilized by the banks to slap a surcharge on Greenbacks of up to 185%. This undermined the confidence of the people in Greenbacks and necessitated further concessions to the bankers to obtain more, discounted as the Greenbacks now were.
This scheme was effective – so effective that the next year, 1863, with Federal and Confederate troops beginning to mass for the decisive battle of the Civil War, and the Treasury in need of further Congressional authority at that time to issue more Greenbacks, Lincoln gave in to the pressure, which he described:
“They persist, they have argued me almost blind – I am worse off than St. Paul. He was in a strait between two. I am in a strait between twenty and they are bankers and financiers.”
Lincoln allowed the bankers to push through the National Banking Act of 1863 in exchange for their support for the urgently needed additional Greenbacks. This act created “National Banks” (hence the N.A. still in use after National banks’ names) and gave them a virtual tax-free status. The new banks also got the exclusive power to create the new form of money – National Bank Notes. Though Greenbacks continued to circulate, their quantity was limited and no more were authorized after the war.
[END QUOTE]
The ones who REALLY pull the strings in politics are the ones who pull the PURSE strings. Sharon, Bush, Blair and their ilk are merely puppets. The REAL tyrants – the Mammonites, the Plutocrats, the gazillionaires – almost always remain nameless!
Courtesy Ardeshir Mehta and togethernet
