The Fed has a HUGE problem on its hands.

Fed officials are well aware that stocks have become totally disconnected from reality. However, they cannot simply come out and discuss ending stimulus efforts outright because it would cause a market collapse. Remember, the single most important role for the Fed post-2008 is to maintain confidence in the system. So they cannot risk any explicit statement that they will be pulling the punchbowl.

Consequently, Fed officials have begun a careful process of managing down expectations regarding future stimulus.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard gave remarks Thursday on “U.S. Monetary Policy: Easier Than You Think It Is,” at a special banking forum sponsored by Mississippi State University’s Department of Finance and Economics.

Bullard discussed four considerations for QE3 going forward.  First, while substantial labor market improvement is a condition for ending the program, Bullard said that “the Committee could consider many different aspects of labor market performance when evaluating whether there has been ‘substantial improvement.’”  These include the unemployment rate, employment, hours worked, and Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data.

Second, “Without an end date, the Committee may have to alter the pace of purchases as news arrives concerning U.S. macroeconomic performance,” Bullard said, noting that “substantial labor market improvement” does not arrive suddenly.  “This suggests that as labor markets improve somewhat, the pace of asset purchases could be reduced somewhat, but not ended altogether,” he explained.  “This type of policy would send important signals to the private sector concerning the Committee’s judgment on the amount of progress made to that point.”

A third consideration for the QE program is inflation and inflation expectations, Bullard said.  Current readings on inflation are rather low, which he said may give the FOMC some leeway to continue asset purchases for longer than otherwise.  Although worries about rising inflation have so far been unfounded, “the lesson from QE2 is that inflation and inflation expectations did trend higher,” he said, adding that it is too early to know if that will happen with the current QE program.

Finally, he said, “The size of the balance sheet could inhibit the Committee’s ability to exit appropriately from the current very expansive monetary policy.”  He explained that when interest rates rise, asset values will fall, which could possibly complicate monetary policy decisions.

http://www.stlouisfed.org/newsroom/displayNews.cfm?article=1669

Note that Bullard, like the December Fed FOMC, mentions “inflation expectations.” The Fed cannot ever openly admit that inflation is a problem because doing so would inevitably lead to the realization that the Fed is in fact the primary cause of inflation in the financial system.

Consequently the Fed must use coded terms such as “inflation expectations” to discuss the presence of inflation (note that “inflation expectations” moves the blame for prices to investors who expect inflation as opposed to the Fed which has created inflation).

The fact that this phrase (inflation expectations) pops up in both Bullard’s speech and the Fed’s FOMC minutes indicates that the Fed is well aware that it is causing inflation to spiral out of control. This is a big reason why the Fed is beginning to manage down expectations of future stimulus.

Indeed, Bullard is not the only Fed official to be talking down QE.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto said the gains from the Fed’s $85 billion in monthly bond purchase may fade.

“Over time, the benefits of our asset purchases may be diminishing,” Pianalto said today in a speech at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida.

“Given how low interest rates currently are, it is possible that future asset purchases will not ease financial conditions by as much as they have in the past,” she said. “It is also possible that easier financial conditions, to the extent they do occur, may not provide the same boost to the economy as they have in the past.”

Fed officials are debating how long they should continue their bond buying, designed to foster economic growth and reduce 7.9 percent unemployment. The Federal Open Market Committee last month kept the monthly purchase pace unchanged at $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion in Treasury purchases.

The central bank has said the purchases will continue until the labor market improves “substantially.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-15/pianalto-says-benefits-of-fed-securities-purchases-may-wane.html

Inflation is on the rise in the financial system in a big way thanks to the Fed and other Central Banks’ money printing. However, the Fed has now realized that things are beginning to spiral out of control. As a result it is managing down expectations for further stimulus. This will not contain inflation in any real way. However, it will have a major impact on asset prices, particularly stocks which are now in a bubble, closing in on all-time highs despite earnings falling, the global economy rolling over, a banking crisis in Europe, a sovereign debt crisis in Europe, China slowing its liquidity injections and more.

This will end very badly. The Fed has set the stage for another Crash. And this time around its hands will be tied as it has used up all of its tools just creating this bubble.

THIS is the reason the Fed is beginning to shift its tone. It realizes it has blown another bubble and that we’re likely headed for another Crash. And this time around the Fed will be totally out of ammo to stop it. Unlike 2008 which was just a warm-up, this will be the REAL CRISIS featuring full-scale systemic failure.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from the economy taking a massive downturn, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into financial system right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

Having pumped the system with liquidity non-stop since the Crash of 2008, the Fed now realizes it’s in big trouble and needs to manage down expectations of further stimulus.

As we noted earlier this year, the Fed, while attempting to appear committed to endless money printing via its QE 3 and QE 4 programs, was in fact decidedly split on whether to commit to more as well as the risks inherent to additional QE. Indeed, the Fed FOMC minutes indicate that some Fed members were concerned about whether QE even worked as a monetary policy.

Below are the notes from the Fed’s December 2012 FOMC minutes (the meeting during which the Fed announced QE 4). I’ve added highlights to emphasize the shift in tone.

With regard to the possible costs and risks of purchases, a number of participants expressed the concern that additional purchases could complicate the Committee’s efforts to eventually withdraw monetary policy accommodation, for example, by potentially causing inflation expectations to rise or by impairing the future implementation of monetary policy.

Participants also discussed the implications of continued asset purchases for the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Depending on the path for the balance sheet and interest rates, the Federal Reserve’s net income and its remittances to the Treasury could be significantly affected during the period of policy normalization.

 Participants noted that the Committee would need to continue to assess whether large purchases were having adverse effects on market functioning and financial stability. They expressed a range of views on the appropriate pace of purchases, both now and as the outlook evolved. It was agreed that both the efficacy and the costs would need to be carefully monitored and taken into account in determining the size, pace, and composition of asset purchases.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20121212.htm

There are three key implications here:

1)   The Fed acknowledged that QE causes inflation expectations to rise (red text)

2)   The Fed was divided on the efficacy of QE (green text)

3)   The Fed was not committed to employing QE forever despite its public declarations to that effect (blue text)

This shift in tone went largely unnoticed by the media. However, the implications are very serious. By way of explanation, let’s quickly review the Fed’s primary moves in the post-Crisis era.

In 2008 the Fed had its back against the wall in terms of saving the system. Since that time every new Fed intervention (verbal or monetary) has been aimed at propping up the Too Big To Fail Banks and pushing the stock market higher.

The first wave of this came via QE 1 and QE 2 in which the Fed collectively monetized nearly $2 trillion in assets. However, once QE 2 ended in 2011, we noted the Fed began to realize that it could get the “positive” effects of additional stimulus (higher asset prices) without actually having to engage in more stimulus, simply by issuing verbal interventions at critical moments.

Thus, between QE 2’s end (June 2011) and the start of QE 3 (September 2012), the Fed became increasingly reliant on verbal intervention as opposed to actual money printing.

During this period, any time the markets began to dip, a Fed official, usually an uber-Dove such as NY Fed President Bill Dudley or Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, would indicate that the Fed was ready to act aggressively if need be and VOOM the markets would take off again.

This changed in May 2012, when the entire financial system began to implode courtesy of Spain (see our issue The “C” Word for an explanation of this). At that time the Fed switched back into aggressive monetary policy mode, first promising to provide more QE before launching QE 3 in September 2012 and then QE 4 in December 2012.

Unlike previous QE programs, which had definitive timelines, QE 3 and QE 4 were open-ended, meaning that they can continue forever. This was the Great Global Rig we referred to earlier this year. And while it did push the stock market higher, it did next to nothing for the US economy.

Which brings us to today. The US economy is contracting sharply again (without the massaged data inflation, real GDP growth would have been -1% last quarter) right as stocks close in on new all-time highs (the S&P 500 and Dow) or have already broken to new highs (the Russell 2000).

This is happening at a time when earnings are falling (despite companies booking profits), the economy is slowing, and stocks are closing in on all-time highs.

In plain terms, the stock market has become totally detached from economic realities. There is a term for when asset prices become detached from fundamentals, it’s called “A BUBBLE.”

THIS is the reason the Fed is beginning to shift its tone. It realizes it has blown another bubble and that we’re likely headed for another Crash. And this time around the Fed will be totally out of ammo to stop it. Unlike 2008 which was just a warm-up, this will be the REAL CRISIS featuring full-scale systemic failure.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from the economy taking a massive downturn, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into financial system right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

Anyone who wants to get an inside look at both the European banking system and the politicians in charge of fixing it need to only look at Spain’s Bankia.

Bankia was formed in December 2010 by merging seven totally bankrupt Spanish cajas (regional banks that were unregulated). The bank was heralded as a success story and an indication that European Governments could manage the risks in their banking systems.

Indeed, in 2011, Bankia even reported a profit of €41 million. And in April 2012, it was proposing paying a dividend. Then, in the span of two weeks, the bank revised its 2011 profit to a €3.3 billion LOSS, requested a formal bailout from Spain, and had to be nationalized.

What’s striking about this sequence of events is that throughout it, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was claiming that Spain’s banks were in great shape. Indeed, on May 28 2012, (after Bankia had already requested a €19 billion bailout, the single largest bailout in Spanish history), Rajoy stated , “there will be no rescue of the Spanish banking sector.”

Bear in mind, Spain itself was just days away from requesting outside aid from the EU.

The timeline says it all:

• May 9^th: Bankia requests €4.5 billion loan, Spanish Government states that the bank is “solvent.”
• May 21^st: Spain meets Bankia’s request for loan and takes a 45% stake in the bank thereby instigating a partial nationalization.
• May 23^rd:  Bankia’s bailout needs grows to €11 billion/ Rajoy retorts to France’s Hollande, “Hollande does not know the state of Spanish banks.”
• May 24^th: Bankia’s bailout needs grow to €15 billion
• May 25^th: Bankia’s bailout needs are now €19 billion (2011 profits revised to €4 billion loss)… the Spanish Bailout Fund has just €5 billion in cash.
• May 28^th: Rajoy comments, “there will be no rescue of the Spanish banking sector.”
• Weekend of June 8-10^th: Rajoy texts to his finance minister: “Aguanta, we are the fourth European power. Spain is not Uganda… If they want to force the rescue of Spain, they need to start getting ready €500 billion and another €750 billion for Italy, which will have to be rescued afterwards.”/ Spain informally asks for €100 billion bailout/ EU Finance Ministers OK the bailout.
• Sunday June 10^th: Rajoy states that the bailout is a “victory” before commenting, “This year is going to be a bad one: Growth is going to be negative by 1.7 percent, and also unemployment is going to increase.”

Thus, in just one month’s time, Spain implements the largest bank nationalization in its history and requests €100 billion from the EU to recapitalize its banks. And yet, throughout this time, Spanish politicians maintain that Spain’s banking system is “solvent” or in great shape… right up until they get the €100 billion at which point the truth comes out: “This year is going to be a bad one.”

Also note that Rajoy sealed the deal and which he proclaimed a “triumph”  (along with the above statement about 2012 being a bad year) before hopping a plane to watch Spain’s soccer team play Poland.

Fast forward to December 2012, and Bankia is again in the news, this time with Spain revealing that despite receiving the largest bailout in Spanish history, the bank still had a NEGATIVE value.

Bankia’s shareholders have received a nasty new year’s surprise. They may lose most of their investments or even all of them says the Spanish bank rescue fund in its latest report.

According to FROB, the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, Bankia has a negative value of 4.2 billion euros, and its parent group BFA is 10.4 bn in the red.

Valuation is key in the recapitalisation of Spain’s banking system, weighed down by massive bad loans accumulated in a property bubble that burst in 2008. Bankia/BFA is set to receive 18 bn euros of European aid, and become the country’s biggest bailout recipient.

http://www.euronews.com/2012/12/27/bankia-worthless-says-new-report/

At this point the following is obvious:

1)   Europe’s banks are in far far worse shape than anyone publicly admits

2)   The political class in Europe has no idea how to solve this mess

3)   No one has quantified the bank’s actual losses or their capital needs

4)   Everyone is lying about just about everything related to Europe’s financial system

You could honestly end the story here and know everything you need to about Europe. But then you’d be missing out on Bankia’s newest achievement: setting the record for corporate losses in Spanish history.

Nationalised Spanish lender Bankia is expected to reveal a €19bn loss next week, the largest in the country’s corporate history.

On Thursday Bankia will report full-year earnings, including a €12.6bn provision taken at the end of last year. The writedown is a result of the lender moving assets into Spain’s “bad bank” at heavy discounts.

Bankia, which is seen as a symbol of Spain’s financial woes, was created through the merger of seven smaller savings banks before being listed on Madrid’s stock exchange. When the company failed, hundreds of thousands of people who had been sold shares saw their savings wiped out. The collapse forced Spain to ask Europe for a bailout for its banking sector, which has meant the lender is subject to tight controls.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9887116/Bankia-to-reveal-largest-loss-in-Spanish-corporate-history.html

It’s a little known fact about the Spanish crisis is that when the Spanish Government merges troubled banks, it typically swaps out depositors’ savings for shares in the new bank.

So… when the newly formed bank goes bust, “poof” your savings are GONE. Not gone as in some Spanish version of the FDIC will eventually get you your money, but gone as in gone forever (see the above article for proof).

This is why Bankia’s collapse is so significant: in one move, former depositors at seven banks just lost virtually everything.

And this in a nutshell is Europe’s financial system today: a totally insolvent sewer of garbage debt, run by corrupt career politicians who have no clue how to fix it or their economies… and which results in a big fat ZERO for those who are nuts enough to invest in it.

Be warned. There are many many more Bankias coming to light in the coming months. So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses all of them have soared this week. And I expect BIG GAINS in the coming months.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

In the second half of 2012, the media, Federal Reserve, and various Governmental economic bean counters engaged in what we call Great Global Rigging of 2012 in an effort to make the US economy look better to help the Obama campaign re-election bid.

Now that the election is over, the ugly economic realities have begun to creep out from where they were swept under the rug. And while the official economic data is bad (a negative GDP in the fourth quarter of 2012), it’s nothing compared to what real-time indicators are showing:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) had the worst sales start to a month in seven years as payroll-tax increases hit shoppers already battling a slow economy, according to internal e-mails obtained by Bloomberg News.

“In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster,” Jerry Murray, Wal- Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales. “The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.”

Wal-Mart and discounters such as Family Dollar Stores Inc (FDO). are bracing for a rise in the payroll tax to take a bigger bite from the paychecks of shoppers already dealing with elevated unemployment. The world’s largest retailer’s struggles come after executives expected a strong start to February because of the Super Bowl, milder weather and paycheck cycles, according to the minutes of a Feb. 1 officers meeting Bloomberg obtained.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-02-15/wal-mart-executives-sweat-slow-february-start-in-e-mails

Here’s Wal-Mart, the single largest retailer in the US, reporting that it just had the single worst start to any month in over seven years. Indeed, the company missed just revenues expectations as families adjust to a “reduced paycheck and increased gas prices.

The increased gas prices is most important. Inflation is already seeping into the system in a big way. Indeed, if you account for real inflation (not the Fed’s phony CPI measure), the US economy contracted by over 1% last quarter.

Make no mistake, we are heading into a stagflationary collapse. The time to prepare is NOW before stocks “get it.”

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from the economy taking a massive downturn, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into financial system right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

At this point it is clear that Europe is totally finished. The house is burning. It’s just a matter of time before it collapses.

Indeed, we get a clear signal of this from Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who just announced the following: “It is not enough, there are no green shoots, there is no spring.”

To understand the significance of this statement, you need to know a bit more about Rajoy and European politics in general.

Rajoy is the same political leader who, throughout 2012, stated time and again that the Spanish banking system was in great shape. Indeed, he was still claiming, “there will be no rescue of the Spanish banking sector,” a mere week before Spain’s entire banking system collapsed.

Rajoy then demanded a €100 billion bailout from the EU (Spain’s entire banking market cap is just a little over this). It was only then that he admitted that 2012 would be a “bad year.” Of course, he also claimed that the bailout was a “triumph” and celebrated by hopping a plane to watch Spain’s soccer team play Poland, but that’s a story for another time.

Given that Rajoy has only admitted Spain is screwed at times when the entire system is going under, we have to ask ourselves… How BAD are things that he just admitted, “there are no green shoots, there is no spring”?

The short answer: HORRIFIC.

Spain only just squeaked through 2012 by using 90% of its social security fund to buy Spanish debt. The country now has over €200 billion in new debt to issue in 2013.

Where on earth Spain will get this money from remains to be seen, given that even Spanish banks became net sellers of Spanish debt last year as they sold assets to return money to fleeing depositors.

Indeed, the country now is attempting to find idiots, I mean investors, in the US, by offering a Dollar-denominated bond. After all, who wouldn’t want to invest in a country where the formal bailout fund is tapped dry, social security is tapped dry, and banks still have negative value?

At the end of the day, we all know how this mess will end: Spain will default which will suck several hundred billion Euros worth of collateral out of the system at which point we’ll experience a Lehman-type event times ten.

What happens between then and now is anyone’s guess. But the fact that Rajoy is admitting “there are no green shoots, there is no spring” indicates that things are likely about to get very ugly once again.

You can choose to ignore this and believe that Europe’s Crisis is fixed just as EU political leaders claim. But Europe in general is out of options in terms of solving its debt crisis. The only thing that held things together in 2012 was the promise of unlimited bond buying by ECB President Mario Draghi… but then again this “buying” would only come with a formal request for a bailout, rampant austerity measures, and a look at the books for any country requesting it

Trust me, Spain doesn’t want ANYONE taking a closer look at its books.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

One of the primary focal points of our writing is the corruption that has become endemic to the political and financial elites of the world. When we refer to corruption we are referring to insider deals, cronyism, lies and fraud. Since the Great Crisis began in 2008, these have become the four pillars of the financial system replacing the pillars of trust, transparency, truth and reality that are the true foundation of capitalism and wealth generation.

As we regularly note, corruption only works as long as the benefits of being “on the take” outweigh the consequences of getting caught. As soon as the consequences become real (namely someone gets in major trouble), then everyone starts to talk.

This process has now begun in Spain.

MADRID — Spain’s governing Popular Party was drawn deeper into a web of corruption scandals this past week, after the Swiss authorities informed the Spanish judiciary that the party’s former treasurer had amassed as much as 22 million euros, or $29 million, in Swiss bank accounts.

The treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, resigned from his job in 2009, after being indicted in the early stages of an investigation, which is still ongoing, into a scheme of kickbacks and illegal payments allegedly involving other conservative party politicians…

Nonetheless, the revelations have brought a fast-growing list of corruption investigations, which have unspooled across Spain, to the doorstep of the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has so far remained silent. About 300 Spanish politicians from across the party spectrum have been indicted or charged in corruption investigations since the start of the financial crisis. Few have been sentenced so far.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/world/europe/corruption-scandals-widen-in-spain.html?_r=0

Outside of Spain, corruption scandals have also erupted in Greece. There it was revealed that the very Greek political parties that were negotiated the Greek bailout had received over €200 million in loans from the Greek banks.

Greek prosecutors have ordered the two main ruling parties to testify in an investigation into more than 200 million euros in loans they received from banks, officials said on Friday.

The investigation – which is examining whether the loans are legal and whether any wrongdoing was involved – could embarrass the fragile conservative-led government, which relies on aid from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Last year a Reuters report revealed the conservative New Democracy and the Socialist PASOK parties were close to being overwhelmed by debts of more than 200 million euros as they face a slump in state funding because of falling public support.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-greece-parties-idUSBRE91010O20130201

Here again, we find that politicians were “on the take” via questionable if not illegal funds. The fact that this story is coming out now does not bode well for Greece, which is barely holding together as a country.

The consequences of this discovery will not be positive for the Greek political class:

Greece’s finance minister was sent a bullet and a death threat from a group protesting home foreclosures, police officials said on Monday, in the latest incident to raise fears of growing political violence.

The package was sent by a little-known group called “Cretan Revolution”, which warned the minister against any efforts to seize homes and evict homeowners, police sources said. The group sent similar letters to tax offices in Crete last week.

http://news.yahoo.com/greek-finance-minister-sent-bullet-mail-165717734.html

Italy is also facing a major scandal implicating key political figures including the biggest player for European financial system, ECB President Mario Draghi:

Back in mid-January, Bloomberg’s Elisa Martinuzzi and Nicholas Dunbar reported that Deutsche Bank helped Italy’s third-largest bank, Monte Paschi, cover up a 367 million euro loss at the end of 2008 with a shady derivative deal. That swap helped the bank look better than it really was just before taxpayers bailed it out—echoes of Goldman Sachs’s deal to hide Greece’s national debt.

The Italian papers followed Bloomberg’s scoop days later with news that Nomura had structured a derivative for Monte Paschi along similar lines. The Italian central bank then disclosed Monte Paschi executives had concealed documents on the trades from them. Reuters reported that JPMorgan also did a sketchy derivative for the bank.

But the scandal only continued to grow. So far, the bank may have lost a billion dollars on the deals, and it turns out that the Bank of Italy knew about the allegedly fraudulent deals back in 2010, when Mario Draghi was its chief. Draghi is now head of the European Central Bank, and has been critical in tamping down the euro crisis in the last several months.

Now, the scandal threatens to change the course of Italian national elections being held later this month, giving a leg up to Silvio Berlusconi…

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/bloomberg_unearths_an_italian.php

The key item in the above story is Mario Draghi’s involvement. As head of the European Central Bank, Draghi is arguably the most powerful man in Europe. Indeed, it was his promise to provide unlimited bond buying that stopped the systemic implosion of Europe last summer.

In this sense, the entire EU has been held together by Draghi’s credibility as head of the ECB. The fact that we now have a major scandal indicating that he was not only  aware of fraudulent deals in 2010, but gave them a free pass will have major repercussions for the future of the Euro, the EU, and the EU banking system.

We hope by now that you see why we have remained bearish on Europe when 99% of analysts believe the Crisis is over. The only thing that has the EU together has been the credibility of politicians who we are now discovering are all either corrupt, inept or both.

To use a metaphor, if Europe were a single house, it would be rotten to its core with termites and mold. It should have been condemned years ago, but the one thing that has kept it “on the market” was the fact that its owners were all very powerful, connected individual. We are now finding out that the owners not only knew that the home should have been condemned but were in fact getting rich via insider deals while those who lived in the house were in grave danger.

As we stated at the beginning of this issue, corruption only works as long as the benefits of being “on the take” outweigh the consequences of getting caught. As soon as the consequences become real (in that someone gets in major trouble), then everyone starts to talk.

The above stories about Greece, Spain, Italy reveal that we have entered the stage at which people have begun to talk about Europe’s corruption.

013 is going to be a very interesting year for Europe.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

Those EU leaders who have yet to be implicated in scandals are not faring much better than their more corrupt counterparts. In France, socialist Prime Minister Francois Hollande, has proven yet again that socialism doesn’t work by chasing after the wealthy and trying to grow France’s public sector… when the public sector already accounts for 56% of French employment.

France was already suffering from a lack of competitiveness. Now that wealthy businesspeople are fleeing the country (meaning investment will dry up), the economy has begun to positively implode.

The first sign of this came actually came from Germany. As we noted a few months ago, Germany had prepared a working group to examine the impact of an economic collapse in France.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has asked a panel of advisers to look into reform proposals for France, concerned that weakness in the euro zone’s second largest economy could come back to haunt Germany and the broader currency bloc.

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters this week that Schaeuble asked the council of economic advisers to the German government, known as the “wise men”, to consider drafting a report on what France should do…

“The biggest problem at the moment in the euro zone is no longer Greece, Spain or Italy, instead it is France, because it has not undertaken anything in order to truly re-establish its competitiveness, and is even heading in the opposite direction,” Feld said on Wednesday.

“France needs labour market reforms, it is the country among euro zone countries that works the least each year, so how do you expect any results from that? Things won’t work unless more efforts are made.”

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/11/09/uk-germany-france-economy-idUKBRE8A80MN20121109

This German concern has proven to be well founded, as the recent spate of French economic data has been truly horrific.

Auto sales for 2012 fell 13% from those of 2011. Sales of existing homes outside of Paris fell 20% year over year for the third quarter of 2012. New home sales fell 25%. Even the high-end real estate markets are collapsing with sales for apartments in Paris that cost over €2 million collapsing an incredible 42% in 2012.

Since the EU Crisis began in 2008, France and Germany have been the two key countries backstopping the implosion. The fact that France is now facing an economic implosion does not bode well for the future of the Euro or the EU.

The other sovereign backdrop for the EU, Germany, is also experiencing an economic slowdown.

The German economy was hit hard by the euro zone crisis in the final quarter of last year, shrinking more than at any point in nearly three years as traditionally strong exports and investment slowed, the Statistics Office said on Tuesday…

Gross domestic product shrank by 0.5 percent in the final three months of 2012, the worst quarterly performance since Germany fell into a recession during the global financial crisis in 2008/2009 and only the second contraction since it ended.

The parlous fourth quarter pushed overall growth for the year down to 0.7 percent, a sharp slowdown from the 3.0 percent registered in 2011 and a post-reunification record of 4.2 percent in 2010. The 2012 figure was a tad below a Reuters consensus forecast for growth of 0.8 percent.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/15/us-germany-gdp-idUSBRE90E09Q20130115

Thus, we find that Europe’s primary political market props (EU leaders including ECB head Mario Draghi) are coming unraveled at the precise time that EU banks are showing warning signs and the most important EU economies are heading sharply south.

2013 is going to be a very interesting year for Europe.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

Let’s play a little game.

The game is called “Name That Insolvent Banking System.”

The way you play the game is by trying to guess which the countries whose Bank Assets to GDP ratios are in the below chart. There are only seven countries and I’ll tell you that they’re all western economies in the developed world.

If you win this game, you win the knowledge of knowing which countries’ banking systems are leveraged beyond any credibility. You can then invest accordingly, sheltering your assets from these banking system disasters. You can also ignore the tripe being spewed by the various political leaders and Central Bankers about everything being great in the global financial system.

Ready? Let’s play!

As you can see, the seven counties listed here have banking asset to GDP ratios ranging from 90% to an incredible 400%. Five of the seven have banking asset to GDP ratios above 250%, which is simply extraordinary given the implications of this horrific metric.

Having trouble?

OK, I’ll give you a hint, one of these countries is the US. We’re often cited as the debt nightmare of the world, which makes all other countries look good in comparison. So which one is the US?

Did you guess number 6?

Wrong!

OK, here’s another hint, the other six countries are all based in EUROPE.

Give up? Here’s the answer:

As you can see, the US’s banking system is in fact dramatically smaller relative to its GDP than the big players in Europe. As much grief as I and others have given our financial system about being overleveraged and filled with toxic debts, the US is NOTHING compared to Europe, including the allegedly rock solid banking system of Germany.

It’s also worth noting that France, which is considered to one of the essentially sovereign backstops of the EU is in fact one of the worst offenders when it comes to having a totally out of control banking system. Remember this when you hear French politicians talking about the EU crisis being “over.”

So… the next time you hear someone on the TV talking about great things in Europe are, remember the above chart and ask yourself… how can a country be in great shape when it’s banking system is over 200% larger than its economy? Just what are all these “assets.”

And the multi-trillion Euro question: how much of them are in fact garbage?

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

In 2008, as the financial crisis picked up steam, one by one the big bank Wall Street CEOs came forward to assure everyone that “everything is fine” and that their banks were “well capitalized.”

Anyone who did a bit of actual research knew this was not the case. But a large component of corporate (and political) leadership is to maintain confidence and calm no matter how bad things get.

As a result of this, in May 2008 alone, executives at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch all stated that the worst was over for financials.  That’s right, in just one month executives at ALL of these firms issued proclamations that everything was just dandy for the banks.

The market took about five months to realize the truth, at which point these firms imploded taking the market with them.

I bring this up because we’re seeing this same game played out on a much larger scale in Europe today. Starting in November, various political bigwigs from the EU, whether it be Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, France’s Prime Minister Francois Hollande, of Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy have all stated that the EU Crisis is either over… or that at least the worst of it is over.

It’s rather incredible when you consider the complete and utter failure of these folks to solve the debt problems for a country as small as Greece (which makes up only 2% of the EU’s GDP).

Greece entered a crisis in 2010. Three years later, its major banks are STILL insolvent, the Greece economy has contracted over 20% (the sort of collapse Argentina saw in 2001 when its entire financial system failed), and nothing has been fixed.

So… the EU, with the help of the ECB, IMF, and the US Fed (QE 2 and 4 were basically EU bank bailouts in disguise), COULDN’T SOLVE GREECE’S PROBLEMS. And we’re supposed to believe that these folks can solve Spain, Italy or even France’s!?!

Let’s cut through the crap here.

The European banking system is a complete and total disaster. Remember how bad Wall Street was in 2008? Europe’s banks are many multiples worse than that. The US at least recapitalized its banking system after the Crisis.

Europe hasn’t. At all. That’s right, the banks in Europe have not raised capital to bring down their leverage rations, which is why the ENTIRE EU BANKING SYSTEM IS LEVERAGED AT 26 TO 1.

Lehman, which was a total sewer of garbage debt, was leveraged at 30 to 1. Europe’s ENTIRE SYSTEM is leveraged at 26 to 1.

Let’s take Spain by way of example.

In the run up to the Spanish banking crisis, Spain sported a housing bubble that DWARFED the US’s. Spain is the DARK blue line in the chart below. The US housing bubble is the little green lump below it.

How does a housing bubble get that out of control? By banks lending to anyone with a pulse. Indeed, a little know fact is that the banks sitting on 56% of the Spanish mortgage market were TOTALLY unregulated up until about 2010. As bad as US lending standards leading up to our housing bust, Spain had us beat by many multiples as the above chart illustrates.

The Spanish Government’s solution to this mess was to merge one garbage bank with another. They’ve been doing this for three years… but the Spanish banking system remains screwed up beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Take Bankia for example.

Bankia was formed in December 2010 when the Spanish Government merged seven bankrupt smaller banks in

The bank was touted as a success story, posting a profit in 2011 and even considering paying a dividend. Then the following happened in 2012…

• May 9^th: Bankia requests €4.5 billion loan, Spanish Government states that the bank is “solvent.”
• May 21^st: Spain meets Bankia’s request for loan and takes a 45% stake in the bank thereby instigating a partial nationalization.
• May 23^rd:  Bankia’s bailout needs grows to €11 billion
• May 24^th: Bankia’s bailout needs grow to €15 billion
• May 25^th: Bankia’s bailout needs are now €19 billion (2011 profits revised to €4 billion loss)…
• December 27^th: Spanish bailout fund announces that Bankia still has a “negative value of €4.2 billion” and will need another €13.5 billion in capital
• January 2^nd (2013): Bankia shares halted on Spanish stock exchange.

As a summary… Bankia was considered profitable in 2011… it was actually talking about paying out a dividend in April 2012. And in the following eight months, it was discovered that the bank was not only un-profitable, but completely and totally insolvent.

Today, nine months later, the bank has swallowed up over €19 billion in bailouts and still has a NEGATIVE value. With the additional €13.5 billion Spain claims it needs (assuming that is the actual limit… which I doubt) the bank will have consumed over €32 billion in bailouts.

If you think Bankia is an isolated incident, you’re out of your mind.

The point of this? Europe’s banks are totally insolvent and have not been fixed. No EU leader is going to tell you this because their jobs depend on convincing people that everything is fine. Bankia was supposedly “fine” right up until the truth came out. Just like the Wall Street banks were “fine” going into 2008.

Just like Europe is “fine” today.

I know the markets have yet to fully realize this…the S&P 500 is approaching its all-time highs. But back in late 2007, the last time the markets were at this level… did stocks get what was coming then too? Nope. And by the time stocks “got it” things moved VERY quickly.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers

I want to issue a major warning to investors: the EU Crisis is going to get worse in the coming months.

I realize that most investors and analysts believe that the EU Crisis is over. Then think that because the S&P 500 is closing in on its all-time highs that things are fine in the system.
They are wrong.

The only item that held Europe together in 2012 was the credibility of EU politicians and ECB President Mario Draghi. Please note that nothing fundamental improved for the EU’s financial system: EU GDP has since re-entered a recession and EU unemployment has a hit a new record.

Indeed, the only reason things even looked better was because various Government engaged in massive interventions. In the case of Spain, this included raiding 90% of their social security fund to buy Spanish bonds so that yields would fall.

So… when you entire financial system is held together by the credibility of the political class… corruption scandals can implode the system.

MADRID — Spain’s governing Popular Party was drawn deeper into a web of corruption scandals this past week, after the Swiss authorities informed the Spanish judiciary that the party’s former treasurer had amassed as much as 22 million euros, or $29 million, in Swiss bank accounts.

The treasurer, Luis Bárcenas, resigned from his job in 2009, after being indicted in the early stages of an investigation, which is still ongoing, into a scheme of kickbacks and illegal payments allegedly involving other conservative party politicians…

Nonetheless, the revelations have brought a fast-growing list of corruption investigations, which have unspooled across Spain, to the doorstep of the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has so far remained silent. About 300 Spanish politicians from across the party spectrum have been indicted or charged in corruption investigations since the start of the financial crisis. Few have been sentenced so far.

 Source: NY Times

The above story illustrates some key elements that all investors need to be aware of:

1)   EU politicians are so corrupt they make their US counterparts look clean by comparison.

2)   Having been put off for years, investigations into corruption are now reaching the point at which the rich and powerful are actually at risk of serious consequences.

Note in the above story that former Spanish Treasurer Luis Bárcenas has been under investigation since before 2009. The fact that the real smoking gun (his hidden Swiss bank account containing over $29 million) is only just coming to light should give you an idea of how corrupt the system in Europe has become (there is no way on earth it would take four years to find this information).

That this information is coming out now also tells us that things are getting so bad in Spain that heads are going to start to role. As we stated earlier, corruption only works until the consequences outweigh the benefits of being “on the take.” The above story tells us that we have finally reached that point in Spain. It’s taken five years for this to happen (the Crisis begin in 2008). But the system has finally reached the inflection point at which key players will face real consequences for their corruption.

With that in mind we can expect more and more such cases to begin to emerge in Europe. The fallout from this will be major both for the political class and for the financial markets.

Indeed, later in the same story we find the following tidbit:

On Wednesday, amid another property investigation, the president of Madrid’s regional government, Ignacio González, revealed that he and his wife purchased a penthouse last month in the holiday resort of Marbella for 770,000 euros, or more than $1 million. Mr. González, who earns 4,800 euros a month, about $6,380, is denying any wrongdoing, as well as any link between his acquisition and the property investigation undertaken by a local judge.

A regional President, earning less than $80K a year just bought a $1 million penthouse in a country where youth unemployment is above 50%, workers have gone over six months without being paid, and pharmacies are running out of medicine due to having not been paid some €500 million by the government.

The reason this is so important is because politics, not economics, drives everything in Europe. Please note that the entire EU banking system was pulled back from the brink of collapse last summer by Mario Draghi and other EU officials promising to do whatever it takes to end the crisis.

Since that time, the economy has actually worsened in Europe. Unemployment has hit a new record and the vast majority of the EU has re-entered recessionary territory. Thus, it has been the credibility of various EU officials, not any fundamental improvement in things that has made the whole system work

Now that major corruption scandals are breaking out regarding key EU figures, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for the EU political class to continue to convince the markets that the “everything is OK.”

Indeed, it’s time that we get really honest about things and state that Europe is done. Finished.

The powers that be over there are rapidly losing control of the system. Spain’s banking system is collapsing at a rate worse than that of the Asian nations during the Asian Contagion of the late ’90s. Italy’s bonds are imploding. Germany is finding its economy teetering on the edge of a cliff. And France is seeing auto sales and apartment deals collapse at a rate just as bad as that of 2008.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The debt contagion has now spread to Spain, Italy, and even France: all three of them are countries too big to be bailed out.

Which means… it’s the End Game. No matter what, the defaults are coming and the Euro will implode.

This is the reality for Europe. The whole system will be going down, it’s only a matter of time. And when it does collapse, it’s going to make Lehman Brothers look like a joke.

I know the markets have yet to fully realize this…the S&P 500 is approaching its all-time highs. But back in late 2007, the last time the markets were at this level… did stocks get what was coming then too? Nope. And by the time stocks “got it” things moved VERY quickly.

So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We’re literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe’s banks imploding, potentially taking down the financial system with them. Think I’m joking? The Fed is pumping hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars into EU banks right now trying to stop this from happening.

I’ve already alerted Private Wealth Advisory  subscribers to 6 trades that will all produce HUGE profits as this mess collapses.

We’ve also taken steps to prepare our loved ones and personal finances for systemic risk with my Protect Your Family, Protect  Your Savings,  and Protect Your Portfolio Special Reports.

With a total of 20 pages, these reports outline:

1) how to prepare for bank holidays
2) which banks to avoid
3) how much bullion to own
4) how much cash is needed to get through systemic crises
5) how much food to stockpile, what kind to get, and where to get it

And more…

I can do the same for you. All you need to do is take out a subscription to my Private Wealth Advisory newsletter.

You’ll immediate be given access to the Private Wealth Advisory archives, including my Protect Your Family,Protect Your Savings, and Protect Your Portfolio reports.

You’ll also join my private client list in receive my bi-weekly market commentaries as well as my real time investment alerts, telling you exactly when to buy and sell an investment and what prices to pay.

So you get my hard hitting market insights, actionable investment recommendations, and real time trade alerts, for one full year, for just $299.99.

To take out an annual subscription to Private Wealth Advisory now and start taking steps to insure your loved ones and personal finances move through the coming storm safely…

Click Here Now!!!

Best Regards,

Graham Summers