The London Metal Exchange revealed a surprising mix-up last week at a warehouse in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

An operator for the warehouse weighed bags that were thought to contain 54 metric tons of nickel, only to find that they were filled with stones, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The controversial rescue deal for troubled lender Credit Suisse and the continuing fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank indicates the world is sliding into a crisis “far worse” than the GFC, one analyst has argued.

Following crunch talks aimed at stopping the stricken bank from triggering a wider international meltdown, Swiss bank UBS on Sunday agreed to take over its rival Credit Suisse for $US3.25 billion ($4.8 billion) – less than half its Friday closing valuation.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced the addition of banking giant HSBC to his list of firms deemed to be "boycotting" energy companies and therefore subject to divestment of state funds.

14 years ago, the Obama administration (or rather his Wall Street lackey Steve Rattner) turned the bankruptcy process on its head with the Chapter 11 filing of General Motors, which steamrolled the bankruptcy liquidation waterfall by paying off the underfunded (and unsecured) pension plans of GM and Chrysler union workers at 40 cents on the dollar, while  cramming down secured creditors, forcing them to accept 29 cents on the dollar in recovery.

There’s absolutely no doubt that our financial system is in flux right now. We’re watching a storm approach, and it’s about to envelop the entire nation in chaotic conditions. If you think things are crazy now, just hang on to your halo…it’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Remember how we talked about CBDCs a few weeks ago, and lots of people in the comments said never, no way, and heck no? Well, unfortunately, it’s being rolled out and soon.

Of course, they’re not calling it CBDCs. Not yet.

 Based on the combination bail-in / bail-out that just took place on an emergency basis in Switzerland yesterday, we now know that the entire western financial system is a grand con. They will change the rules at any moment and steal your money, just like they did to Russia in 2022 by seizing $300+ billion in Russian deposits held at western central banks. Yesterday, as part of the panicked, illegal bailing out of Credit Suisse, they wiped out US$17 billion in AT1 (tier-1) bonds, leaving the bond holders high and dry.

At the end of January, a high level delegation from the United States travelled to the United Arab Emirates.

Led by Brian Nelson, the under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, the trip was preceded by a private diplomatic note stipulating that the US officials wanted to meet with high-level members of Abu Dhabi’s ruling al-Nahyan family. 

2023 has not been a glowing one for JPMorgan.

In mid-January, we discovered that the giant US bank was tricked into paying $175 million for some millennial's fake rolodex to enhance its college financial aid platform.