Tag Archives: ABA

“I Call It Stealing” – Pensioner Shock At Bank Savings Grab

22 May

From the Herald Sun (h/t reader Richo):

Adrian Duffy emerged from a quintuple heart bypass only to find his wife's $20,000 Suncorp account empty because the bank gave it to the government. PIC: David Kelly Source: The Courier-Mail

Adrian Duffy emerged from a quintuple heart bypass only to find his wife’s $20,000 Suncorp account empty because the bank gave it to the government. PIC: David Kelly Source: The Courier-Mail

A QUEENSLAND pensioner emerged from a quintuple heart bypass only to find his bank had emptied his account, handing more than $22,000 to the Federal Government.

Legislative changes rushed through Parliament late last year mean money can now be identified as “unclaimed” after an account has been inactive for more than three years, instead of seven years.

Banks have already begun searching for inactive accounts that fit the new definition and transferring the cash to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, as required. ASIC then passes the money to the Commonwealth of Australia Consolidated Revenue Fund.

This scheme is not dissimilar to the government’s new Small Business Superannuation Clearing House system. A (for now) optional system, news of which was broken right here on BiR*, where employers are now being “encouraged” to send all their employees’ SGC Superannuation payments, along with their company BAS payments, direct to the A.T.O., and not direct to the employees’ super fund. In effect, the government is trying to use employers, and now ASIC, to do its dirty work; enabling the government to earn extra usury by diverting millions / billions in citizens’ superannuation via the ATO, on the way (hopefully) to their super fund; or, in the case of “unclaimed” bank accounts, using the banks to steal citizens’ money outright.

The Australian Bankers’ Association has accused the Government of putting its “own financial circumstances” ahead of customers’ needs, leaving them facing “months of delays trying to reclaim their own money”.

Er … the ABA would say these things, wouldn’t they; the banks can hardly be thrilled at having the government confiscate those “unclaimed” bank savings, four years earlier than was their previous practice. I wonder how much in the way of additional earnings (usury) the banks expect to lose out on as a result of the government’s greed overriding their own?

ASIC says the money can be claimed “at any time by the rightful owner”, but banks have pointed out the process can take as long as six weeks.

Toowong resident Adrian Duffy is now looking at a lengthy battle to have his savings restored.

The 75-year-old spent 21 days in hospital following quintuple heart bypass surgery and a second operation in April.

When he and his wife, 57-year-old Mary-Jane, went to check their Suncorp account, they discovered their balance had plummeted from $22,616 to zero. A note on the May 1 entry read: “Closing WDL Govt unclaimed monies.”

The couple had saved for 14 years in preparation for major health-related costs.

Suncorp claims a letter was sent at the end of March notifying the account – held in Mrs Duffy’s name – had been inactive for more than three years and would be closed if no action was taken.

It says attempts were made to call the couple on April 16, followed by an “account closed” letter on April 30.

Mr and Mrs Duffy are adamant they received no warnings of the closure of the account.

“I called it stealing,” Mr Duffy said.

“My understanding of the definition of stealing is to take something without somebody’s knowledge and not tell them. As far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly what happened – (the Government) took it without telling us.”

The couple are working to recover the money, but say they were lucky to have other savings.

“If we didn’t have the money elsewhere, we would now have to be paying for cardiologists, visits to surgeons, ECGs, x-rays, whatever is involved in the follow up,” he said.

“We would have to find money to pay them, because those people aren’t going to say to you, ‘we’ll wait six weeks’.”

While many people believe they have until May 31 to act on their dormant accounts, banks in fact must finalise their lodgements by that date.

A Treasury spokesman said the reforms were designed to “help reunite Australians with their lost money sooner, and protect them from being eroded by fees, charges and inflation”.

Oh?

To “help” “reunite” Australians with their “lost” money sooner?

So, that is what this “reform” is really all about.

Hello George Orwell.

As I have warned for years, look around the globe at what governments have been doing in other nations since 2008, and expect ever more of these kinds of creeping, sneaky government schemes. All designed to steal your money, under the smokescreen of “reform”, or “helping” someone.

* See also: It Has Begun – Labor Steals Liberal’s Idea To Steal Your Super

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Bankers’ Chief – Carbon Price Is “Essentially Creating A New Market”

16 Jul

From news.com.au (emphasis added) –

Revealed: The real winners of Gillard’s carbon price plan

Big banks, accountants and lawyers are among the big winners to cash in on the carbon plan, as companies wrestle with reporting requirements arising from the tax.

Banks will be involved in trading carbon permits when emissions trading starts in 2015, and will develop new products to help polluters reduce their carbon exposure.

Australian Bankers’ Association chief executive Steven Munchenberg said the Government’s carbon price was “essentially creating a new market“.

“We would therefore expect to see a range of instruments developed to help companies manage their carbon exposure,” he said.

Indeed.

There you have it.

Straight from the Australian Bankers parasites’ mouthpiece.

The grand Scheme scam to “price carbon” is “essentially” – meaning “in essence” – the creation of a new market.

A bankers’ paradise.

The key thing that bankers’ want – an underlying “market” of carbon permits, on top of which they can then create a whole new carbon “securities” (ie, “derivatives”) casino – is actually built into the Government’s Scheme scam from Day 1 –

Table 6 Compliance

Carbon permits

The domestic unit for compliance with the carbon pricing mechanism will be the ‘carbon permit’.

Each carbon permit will correspond to one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions.

The creation of equitable interests in carbon permits will be permitted, as will taking security over them.

Confirmed.

The carbon permits can be used as the basis for bankers to create other, new financial “securities”.

Carbon derivatives, in other words. Derivatives (or “securities”) are the toxic financial “products” that were at the heart of the GFC.

It’s worth noting that the above article is wrong in one very important detail.

Like all mainstream media, this story incorrectly reports that –

Banks will be involved in trading carbon permits when emissions trading starts in 2015…

Au contraire!

As I detailed in “Our Bankers’ Casino Royale – ‘Carbon Permits’ Really Means ‘A Licence To Print'”, banks will be able to benefit from fees and commissions from trading in carbon permits, right from the beginning. Even during the so-called “fixed price period”.

How’s that?

Because … it is only “purchased permits” that are not tradeable in the first 3 years.

“Freely allocated permits“, on the other hand, are tradable.

As with the now-notorious European ETS scheme, many of our so-called “500 biggest polluters” – 201 of whom may not even exist – will receive lots of “free permits”.  To “assist” and/or “protect” our “trade-exposed” industries, you see.

And those “freely allocated” permits are tradable:

Scheme architecture

Table 1: Starting price and fixed price period

Permits freely allocated may be either surrendered or traded until the true-up date for the compliance year in which they were issued. They cannot be banked for use in a future compliance year.

What’s more, Brown-Gillard’s grand design also allows “polluters” to sell their “freely allocated” permits back to the Government.

That’s right.

Lucky “polluters” will get lots of free permits, which they can either “surrender” back again to “pay” for their “excess” emissions – which they report themselves(!). Or, trade their free permits (for profit). Or, sell their free permits back to the Government … who will use your money to buy those free permits back again:

Buy‑back of freely allocated permits

The holders of freely allocated permits will be able to sell them to the Government from 1 September of the compliance year in which they were issued until 1 February of the following compliance year.

Moreover, the Government is not only “essentially creating a new market” for banks to profit from fees on the simple trade in the carbon permits themselves.

And create their new galactic-scale carbon “derivatives” market, leveraged on top of the simple trade in permits.

The news gets even better for the bankers.

Because the Government’s scheme scam will also set up an “advance auction” system, during the so-called “fixed price period”, where carbon permits valid for the later “flexible price” system can be purchased in advance.

Which is essentially nothing less than a Futures trading system for the bankers and speculators to exploit:

Auctions of permits

The Government will advance auction future vintage permits. There will be advance auctions of flexible price permits in the fixed price period.

It’s easy to see why the banksters’ are pleased right now.

The Government’s scheme allows them to:

1. Begin creating and trading in carbon “securities” (ie, derivatives of carbon permits) from Day 1.

2. Earn fees and commissions from trade in “freely allocated” permits during the “fixed price” period.

3. Earn fees and commissions from Futures trading in the “advance auctions” of “flexible price” permits during the “fixed price” period.

4. Create other derivatives products on top of the Futures trade in advance auctions of permits.

And all this before the all-singing, all-dancing “free market” scheme kicks in three years later.

Any suggestion that this is somehow not a mechanism designed to allow banksters’ to begin creating the Australian arm of their new global derivatives monster – the true goal of the push for global “emissions trading” – is simply a blatant lie.

There is nothing in the Government’s scheme that prevents the banksters from doing everything they have wanted, from the moment the scheme begins.

In fact, as anyone can easily see from a careful reading of the Government’s own documentation, it is perfectly clear that the scheme is purposefully designed to grant the banksters’ free reign. All hidden behind the curtain of the misleading and deceptive name of “tax” or “fixed price ETS”.

Prior to the announcement of the Government’s “carbon pricing mechanism”, I argued extensively – including with Opposition Climate Action spokesman Greg Hunt MP – that the scheme is simply “the bankers’ CPRS by another name”.

Now that the scheme details have been announced, almost every passing day reveals new confirmations that I was right.

The strongest argument for my position comes from the Government’s own official documents.

But it is certainly nice to see the head of the Australian Bankers Association come out within days, and tacitly confirm the truth as well.

I rest my case?

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