From:
http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2007/11/criminal-collapse-of-citibank-and.html

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By the fourth week of January 2008, the USA Federal Reserve Board was under strict instructions from the global financial authorities not to let the American stockmarket crash as the Bush White House wished. One of the Bush-Cheney endgame scenarios at this time was to crash the markets deliberately, declare martial law, and clean up with bank, property, land, data and gold grabs. In contradistinction, the Federal Reserve was charged with the task of holding the markets steady until the new Global Banking System was fully in place and fully funded. In this connection, on Tuesday 22nd January 2008, the Fed announced an unscheduled, emergency interest-rate reduction of three-quarters of a percentage point, bringing its key lending rate down from 4.25% to 3.5%. It was the most aggressive one-time cut in more than two decades, and brought a semblance of stability to volatile and nervous international markets.

What the Fed did not know at the time it took its decision, was what was happening at Société Générale's HQ in Paris. The French bank had discovered a Nick Leeson-style rogue trader. Leeson had brought about the collapse of Barings Bank (UK) in 1995. But at SocGen, the rogue trading was on a much larger scale. A thirty one year-old equity derivatives trader, Jérôme Kerviel, was blamed for losing the bank €4.9 billion in a fortnight. He was trading futures on European share indices. In fact, Kerviel lost the bank about €1.5 billion; the SocGen Board themselves lost the other €3.4 billion as they panicked and prematurely unwound Kerviel's positions into a down-spiking market on Monday 21st January 2008. Had they waited two or three days until the markets bounced and stabilised, most of the losses could have been avoided. The SocGen Board was jinxed by the perception that the total value of Kerviel's trading positions was greater than the market capitalisation of the entire bank. SocGen Internal Audit and Compliance had not spotted this until it was too late. Perhaps they should be selling onions in Montmartre. Daniel Bouton, the Chairman and Chief Executive of Société Générale was bouncing off walls trying to deal with a crisis which was beyond his ability to comprehend. He was expected to be discarded by SocGen within five or six months. Separate from the Kerviel affair, Société Générale was already facing a major money-laundering fraud case in the courts and is now thought likely to be broken up or taken over. A possible course in the current climate would be to sell off SocGen's investment banking division to someone like Crédit Agricole or, further afield, to the Qatar Investment Authority which is developing a predatory interest in European banks. There is some derivative speculation that Jérôme Kerviel may be associated with the Sarkozy trading circle operating in and around BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Banque Saudi Fransi. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the middle of January 2008.

On Wednesday 23rd January 2008, an attempt was made at BNP Paribas in Paris to frustrate the release of The Wanta Plan funds. President Nicolas Sarkozy was said to be the prime mover behind this obstruction of due process. On Thursday 24th January 2008, BNP Paribas was ordered by the World Court to release a related and enabling tranche of funds to the attorney of one of the major USA trustees, or the bank and its assets would be seized by the World Court. A further delay was engineered by BNP Paribas, placing the bank in contempt of the World Court. When this became known to the BNP Paribas Board, they finally caved in, defied the wishes of Nicolas Sarkozy to manufacture more retarding frictions, and released the due monies to the USA trustee.

In America, The Wanta Plan funds had still not been released by Citibank and Morgan Stanley by the end of Saturday 26th January 2008. An informed back-of-an-envelope calculation indicated that in addition to the primary agreed sum of $4.5 trillion, as much as a further $2.0 trillion could now to be due from Citibank. This latter sum would be the total penalty interest payable by Citibank, on the basis of compounded overnight interest rates, under Article 4A-305 of the Universal Commercial Code concerning liability for late or improper execution, and/or failure to execute a payment order.

By the end of January 2008, in excess of six thousand corrupt banksters, accountants, corporate lawyers and ICT moneymovers had been arrested across the world. In the power vacuum left behind at the banks and financial institutions concerned, people were changing sides by the hour, and the resistance to the new Global Banking changes was diminishing exponentially.

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