The situation in Greece boil down to the single most important issue for the finacial system, namely collateral.

Modern financial theory dictates that sovereign bonds are the most “risk free” assets in the financial system (equity, municipal bond, corporate bonds, and the like are all below sovereign bonds in terms of risk profile). The reason for this is because it is far more likely for a company to go belly up than a country.

Because of this, the entire Western financial system has sovereign bonds (US Treasuries, German Bunds, Japanese sovereign bonds, etc.) as the senior most asset pledged as collateral for hundreds of trillions of Dollars worth of trades.

Indeed, the global derivatives market is roughly $700 trillion in size. That’s over TEN TIMES the world’s GDP. And sovereign bonds… including even bonds from bankrupt countries such as Greece… are one of, if not the primary collateral underlying all of these trades.

Lost amidst the hub-bub about austerity measures and Debt to GDP ratios for Greece is the real issue that concerns the EU banks and the EU regulators: what happens to the trades that EU banks have made using Greek sovereign bonds as collateral?

This story has been completely ignored in the media. But if you read between the lines, you will begin to understand what really happened during the previous Greek bailouts.
Remember:

1) Before the second Greek bailout, the ECB swapped out all of its Greek sovereign bonds for new bonds that would not take a haircut.

2) Some 80% of the bailout money went to EU banks that were Greek bondholders, not the Greek economy.

Regarding #1, going into the second Greek bailout, the ECB had been allowing European nations and banks to dump sovereign bonds onto its balance sheet in exchange for cash. This occurred via two schemes called LTRO 1 and LTRO 2 which happened in December 2011 and February 2012 respectively. Collectively, these moves resulted in EU financial entities and nations dumping over €1 trillion in sovereign bonds onto the ECB’s balance sheet.

Quite a bit of this was Greek debt as everyone in Europe knew that Greece was totally bankrupt.

The president of the Spanish region of Catalonia in Spain looks set to strain further relations with the country’s political establishment by calling a snap vote on independence as a general election approaches in September.

Artur Mas, the president of Catalonia, told CNBC Monday that a referendum was needed to see if the majority of Catalonians still wanted independence. The region has long pushed for independence from the rest of Spain and, despite being dealt a blow when Scotland chose to remain a part of the U.K. last year, Mas is still confident an independent Catalonia would prosper.

“Catalonia would probably be comparable to Denmark. Denmark has more or less the same population, and Austria too. Both those countries are outstanding from the economic point of view and Catalonia could be at the same level,” Mas told CNBC.

“It could have an open economy, a foreign-market oriented economy (and a) cutting edge research and innovation system”, he said, speaking to CNBC on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the “capital” of Catalonia.

Kosovo is falling apart at the seams, with it thousands of its citizens seeking desperately to escape life there by any means possible.

Haven’t heard about that one?

Perhaps that’s because the U.S. is almost wholly responsible for creating an independent Kosovo, and from there, the brutal and corrupt power structure that lords cruelly over the life of its people. The creation of an independent Kosovo in the name of democracy and humanitarianism is considered by the Clinton crowd to be one of the U.S.’s first post-Cold War foreign policy successes.

Under the direction of the late egotist Richard Holbrook, intellectual – if we can use that word – godfather of today’s Susan Rices and Samantha Power, a new U.S. protectorate was created in the heart of the Balkans, one of the more historically unstable regions of the Western world.

Of course, it had nothing to do with democracy and humanitarianism and everything to do, as has been the case with most major moves the U.S. has undertaken in the world since 1989, with the need to give the U.S. the ability to a) project power into every corner of the globe b) disrupt the possibility of any country or bloc of countries impeding its economic and military designs.

More concretely, it was part of the U.S. plan to make sure that the then newly unshackled countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe would essentially be beholden to it, and not their EU neighbors.

Once this dependence was established, as it was in Kosovo, Bulgaria, Poland (which did not need much coaxing) and the Baltic Republics, the U.S. could, as Rumsfeld famously let slip in 2003, play the new Europe off against the old Europe and, in this way, neuter any ability the Old Continent might have to act as a check upon U.S. prerogatives.

The program has worked like a charm. How do we know? Just look at the way the more important European countries (to call them "powers" today would be to strain credibility) like Germany and France have, until quite recently, completely acquiesced to a foreign policy on Ukraine that was wholly designed in Washington, and that is completely inimical to their economic and strategic interests.

Russia needs Europe and Europe needs Russia.

H&R Block’s entire lobbying group was comprised of six separate lobbying firms involving 29 individual lobbyists, including Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta and his group — though there’s no public evidence Podesta’s firm lobbied for the Affordable Care Act on H&R Block’s behalf.

H&R Block lobbyists were seasoned tax policy veterans from both major political parties.

Twenty-five of the 29 had previously held government jobs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Next to the Podesta Group, H&R Block’s second-highest paid lobbying firm was Capitol Tax Partners, a highly touted lobbying team with Democratic and Republican tax policy veterans. Capitol Tax Partners did work to shape Obamacare on behalf of H&R Block, according to public disclosures.

WASHINGTON — Congress ended its seven-week impasse on funding the Department of Homeland Security as the House voted Tuesday to pass a $40 billion spending bill that does not derail President Obama's immigration programs.

The 257-167 vote prevents a partial shutdown of the agency, which was set to run out of money at midnight Friday. The bill funds the department through Sept. 30. The Senate approved the bill last week, and Obama is poised to sign it into law.

Immigration hard-liners were angry that the bill did not contain provisions to bar funding to carry out Obama's executive orders to shield about 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation. The House passed a bill in mid-January that would have defunded those orders, which also allow some undocumented immigrants to apply for work permits.

"I believe this is a sad day for America," said Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., who called Obama's actions unconstitutional. "If we're not going to fight now, when are we going to fight?"

But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told his GOP caucus Tuesday morning that it was clear that Senate Democrats would continue to block the House bill and he did not want to let the Department of Homeland Security shut down.

Republican leaders said during debate on the House floor Tuesday that there was little choice left but to pass the Senate bill.

"It is clear that the bill before us ... is the only way forward to prevent a potentially devastating shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security," said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee.

...

At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), red tape is preventing the removal of a top level employee accused of viewing porn two to six hours a day while at work, since 2010. Even though investigators found 7,000 pornographic files on his computer and even caught him watching porn, he remains on the payroll.

...

A CBS News analysis of cases under review by the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB), an appeals board for federal workers, found other instances of employees who had committed seemingly fireable offenses who were later reinstated to their jobs, often with back pay and interest.

Highly publicized cases are no exception.

Five years ago, the General Services Administration (GSA) spent more than $800,000 on a lavish conference in Las Vegas. They were served 1,000 sushi rolls costing $7 each and a clown and mind reader were hired for entertainment. Two managers were initially fired but got their jobs back after the MSPB reversed the decision.

At a Congressional hearing in 2012, Chairman of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Jason Chaffetz asked GSA Chief of Staff Mike Robertson what it takes to be fired from the GSA.

"There is a long-standing due process that career employees are entitled to as part of their employment," Robertson said. "We have begun that process, among other disciplinary actions, for several individuals that were involved in the planning and execution of this conference."

The appeals board found that while the conference's level of extravagance has "no place in government," the GSA did not convincingly prove that the two managers "knew or had reason to know of these ill-advised planning and purchasing decisions." The GSA was ordered to "cancel the appellants removals" and give them back pay plus interest. Meanwhile, the organizer of the convention was never technically fired. He was allowed to retire.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested that President Obama is considering raising taxes unilaterally. Townhall reports (emphasis added):

“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.

“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.

Let’s just hope that the President is simply getting a little too into the third season of House of Cards and will slow down on the whole bypassing Congress thing once he finishes his binge watch.

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.

When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants.

When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet.

When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness.

Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.

The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.

In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny, the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood.

It has sacrificed our welfare to the state of Coahuila, by which our interests have been continually depressed through a jealous and partial course of legislation, carried on at a far distant seat of government, by a hostile majority, in an unknown tongue, and this too, notwithstanding we have petitioned in the humblest terms for the establishment of a separate state government, and have, in accordance with the provisions of the national constitution, presented to the general Congress a republican constitution, which was, without just cause, contemptuously rejected.

It incarcerated in a dungeon, for a long time, one of our citizens, for no other cause but a zealous endeavor to procure the acceptance of our constitution, and the establishment of a state government.

It has failed and refused to secure, on a firm basis, the right of trial by jury, that palladium of civil liberty, and only safe guarantee for the life, liberty, and property of the citizen.

It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources, (the public domain,) and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for self government.

It has suffered the military commandants, stationed among us, to exercise arbitrary acts of oppression and tyrrany, thus trampling upon the most sacred rights of the citizens, and rendering the military superior to the civil power.

It has dissolved, by force of arms, the state Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and obliged our representatives to fly for their lives from the seat of government, thus depriving us of the fundamental political right of representation.

It has demanded the surrender of a number of our citizens, and ordered military detachments to seize and carry them into the Interior for trial, in contempt of the civil authorities, and in defiance of the laws and the constitution.

It has made piratical attacks upon our commerce, by commissioning foreign desperadoes, and authorizing them to seize our vessels, and convey the property of our citizens to far distant ports for confiscation.

It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God. It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.

It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of extermination.

It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers.

It hath been, during the whole time of our connection with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrranical government.

These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, untill they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain. Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are, therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therfor of a military government; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self government.

The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.

We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.

The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas in General Convention at the town of Washington on the 2nd day of March 1836.

NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden wants to return to the United States from Russia if he's guaranteed a fair trial, his Russian lawyer said Tuesday.

Anatoly Kucherena told a news conference Tuesday that he has teamed up with U.S. and German lawyers to work on the issue, but gave no further details.

Snowden was stranded in a Moscow airport in 2013 on his way from Hong Kong to Cuba, shortly after he released extensive documentation about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. Russia has granted him asylum, attracting the ire of the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that the nation's security agencies had worked with Snowden.

Snowden's whereabouts have not been made public. Kucherena said Snowden moves freely but is accompanied by guards. "He goes shopping, he visits museums and theaters under escort," he said.

He said Snowden's longtime girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, visited him in Moscow. "They have a very good relationship," he said, adding that he rejects other potential dates offered for Snowden.

The lawyer, who presented his book about Snowden, praised him as a "heroic and open person," who has "principles and convictions" and didn't hesitate to defy the U.S. government.

Edward Snowden won at the Oscars, but he’s losing in RL.

We don’t hate the surveillance state. We’re embracing it more and more.

Citizenfour may have won at the Oscars, but its subject, Edward Snowden, has lost.

That’s the big takeaway from last week’s CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

When it comes to mass surveillance—despite the strenuous efforts of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and others—establishment Democrats have simply shut down internal political opposition to the spying state.

On the right, where libertarian idealism and conservative paranoia still thrive, Snowden’s spirit, if not always his means, stood more of a chance to catch on.

Until, it would seem, now.

At one CPAC panel, former National Security Agency head Gen. Michael Hayden drew cries of disbelief when he called himself “an unrelenting libertarian.” Astonishing as his remarks may be, it’s hard not to think the groans and shouts arose because no one and nothing was there to stop Hayden from saying them.

Heckle in vain, partisans of liberty. The worm of freedom has turned. “Judging by this afternoon at CPAC and the rhetoric around ISIS,” National Review chief Rich Lowry tweeted from the conference, “the party has left behind [its] flirtation w[ith] Rand Paul-style foreign policy.”

Republicans are returning to the surveillance fold for the same reasons everyone is, worldwide. Last year, Angela Merkel warned the German Parliament that her country’s trust with the United States would have to be slowly repaired. “But the cooperation never really stopped,” as The Washington Post reported. “The public backlash over Snowden often obscured a more complicated reality for Germany and other aggrieved U.S. allies. They may be dismayed by the omnivorous nature of the intelligence apparatus the United States has built since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but they are also deeply dependent on it.”

Aren’t we all. Online, we lack the kind of robust self-defense culture that led, in meatspace of yore, to constitutional protections for those bearing arms. Helplessly dependent on government spies to combat enemies we cannot see, we have little choice but to opt in to one form or another of surveillance state. Since Snowden’s revelations, a Pew study reveals, the NSA’s approval ratings have cracked 50 percent. And in a sign of what’s to come, just over two-thirds of respondents aged 18 to 29 gave the NSA the A-OK. Fifty-five percent of those aged 30 to 49 did too.

A lot of self-esteem is on the line, here, and a lot of comfortable illusion. Surely a people resigned to data serfdom must not have their libertarian self-identification taken away, too. If the Constitution can be a living document, why can’t liberty be a living doctrine?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans don't know who runs the Federal Reserve, but they do believe that elected officials should stay out of its business, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll.

Just 24 percent of those polled said Congress should be allowed to have detailed oversight of the Fed, the poll shows. More than double that amount said the central bank should be left alone.

The poll of 1,388 Americans was conducted from Feb 20-24 to measure whether people supported proposed legislation that would expose the Fed to a full government audit, a move being led by Rand Paul, a likely 2016 presidential candidate.

The Republican Senator from Kentucky held an "Audit the Fed" rally in Iowa last month, and his spokesman told Reuters that polls showed Americans want the central bank to be audited.

Supporters of the campaign say the Fed needs more transparency and accountability. Opponents say the Fed is already audited, and that exposure of internal policy discussions could lead to political influence over decisions on interest rates and damage market confidence.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen came under pressure from conservatives in Congress this week, with some accusing her of bias towards Democrats.

When asked about who should be responsible for setting interest rates, 66 percent of the participants said independent experts, while 34 percent said elected officials.

"There ought to be some review but I don't know that a full public disclosure of every comment attributed to every Fed member for the whole world to see is necessarily the best option," said David Webb, 64, a former labor relations specialist for the U.S. Army.

I thank whoever crashed Bitcoin to sub 300 to give us a second opportunity to amass as much Bitcoin as humanly possible.

This is buy time for sure, you'd be crazy not to buy while it's still sub 300 given what's going on in the bitsphere at this very moment.

did not-lambo-chopsy commit suicide?