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Wednesday 12 February 2014

Bank Tests, SS Closed in US and Australia: This weekend

Earlier last week I wrote about "The "Debt Ceiling" aka: "special manouvers" of the Fed... I mean, "Treasury" "  In the article I reviewed a few previous articles that have all been relevant to this moment and what seems to be the groundhog day template that we keep seeing over and over again. 

Specifically I talked about the Debt Ceiling "Crisis" and about the coming banking closures due to "testing the system".   These bank closures are purported to be taking place on Feb 15-16- this coming weekend.   At the moment I was writing that article, Jack Lew had announced that the Treasury was going to be in serious trouble if the debt ceiling wasn't "raised" by Feb 27th....

Well very interestingly, yesterday at the drop of a dime, Lew put the Debt Ceiling mess to a vote in congress and they voted to Raise the Debt Ceiling without ANY strings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/us/politics/boehner-to-bring-debt-ceiling-to-vote-without-policy-attachments.html?_r=0


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-11/house-passes-clean-debt-ceiling-221-201-vast-majority-republicans-voting-against


It was commented on in various news reports that even Congress was caught off guard by the sudden vote and the Republicans had to seriously scramble to try to stop the vote from going through (without their extra rules).

Two days ago I was sent another very interesting news clip that I reported on Transpicuous News:

U.S. says Social Security computer outage to affect HealthCare.gov

Reuters- 13 hours ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Monday said people hoping to enroll in health coverage for March 1 may have trouble applying by Saturday's deadline because of a planned 62-hour maintenance shutdown of a Social Security Administration computer system.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), the lead Obamacare agency, said the shutdown will prevent applicants from verifying their Social Security numbers and other data through the federal website, HealthCare.gov. Those unable to enroll because of the outage can request special enrollment for coverage beginning March 1, CMS said.

The Social Security computer system will be down from 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) on Saturday until 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) on Tuesday, February 18, CMS said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/10/us-usa-healthcare-outage-idUSBREA191VR20140210


And it's not just the US!!!  Austrailian Social Security will ALSO be closed this weekend!

http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/centrelink/centrelink-online-services/service-availability-for-centrelink-online-services

Scheduled maintenance

Centrelink Customer Online Services and Business Online Services will be unavailable on the following dates due to scheduled maintenance. We apologise for any inconvenience.
DateDayTime
15 February 2014SaturdayFrom 8 pm
16 February 2014SundayUntil 6 pm


Things that make you go "hmmmmmmm".....  Banks testing their computer systems on the 15-16th of Feb,  Social Security computer system shut down from the 15-18th of  Feb.   Oh and a couple of other interesting articles in the last two days:

Some European banks need to 'die in an orderly fashion’– new bank supervisor

http://rt.com/business/eu-banks-die-nouy-347/ 

 

Bitcoin Flash Crashes, Drops By 80% In Seconds

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-10/bitcoin-flash-crashes-drops-80-seconds 

 

As China Orders Its Smaller Banks To Load Up On Cash, Is The Biggest Ever "Unlimited QE" About To Be Unleashed?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-10/china-orders-its-smaller-banks-load-cash-biggest-ever-unlimited-qe-about-be-unleashe 

 

This article has some very very interesting things to say about the current financial system and where the gold is:

5th. Wall Street Banker Suicided: Taken Out To Prevent Forex Fraud Transparency ~ U.S. Being Drained.

http://politicalvelcraft.org/2014/02/09/5th-wall-street-banker-suicided-taken-out-to-prevent-forex-fraud-transparency-u-s-being-drained/ 


One of my personal favs, which was vaguely interesting when it was published in January 2013....

1/07/2013 @ 3:59PM |15,410 views

U.S. Treasury To Run Out Of Money By Feb. 15, Study Says


They may have been off by a year, but....

 


And now...... we have HUGE storms hitting the US and England, shutting down roads, cancelling flights by the thousands and keeping people at home.

UK Storms: Met office issues red warning for damaging winds – live updates

  • Met Office warns of destructive 100mph winds
  • Hurricane force winds expected in four shipping area
  • New concerns about flooding on the Wye, Severn and Thames
  • Army deployed to Thames Valley without wellies

UK weather: Met Office issues red alert as floods, gales and rain hit London on 'Wild Wednesday'



http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-12/historic-catastrophic-winter-storm-paralyzes-atlanta-pax-creeps-east-coast


"Historic", "Catastrophic" Winter Storm Paralyzes Atlanta As Pax Creeps Up East Coast




 
Not a week seems to pass without yet another "historic" winter storm assuring that virtually all winter economic data so far in 2014 can be ignored... if it is bad that is - if the data is good, it's thanks to the "recovery" which however is not strong enough for the Fed to end its "unconventional" policy. The latest one - Pax. Weather.com's description of what is about to be unleashed on Atlanta and the entire Eastern Seaboard is nothing short of a review of the movie The Day After Tomorrow: "Potentially "catastrophic" Winter Storm Pax began unfolding before dawn Wednesday in the Atlanta area as temperatures dropped below freezing and sleet and freezing rain began to fall."
The National Weather Service's warning was not exactly cheery: "Let’s just start by saying this winter storm may be of historic proportions for the area,” the agency said in a forecast analysis. “We’re looking at significant snowfall totals north and significant, crippling ice totals, especially along the Interstate 20 corridor.” Eli Jacks, a meteorologist with National Weather Service, said forecasters use words such as "catastrophic" sparingly. Not in this case.
"Sometimes we want to tell them, 'Hey, listen, this warning is different. This is really extremely dangerous, and it doesn't happen very often,'" Jacks said.

The service's memo early Wednesday called the storm "an event of historical proportions."

It continues: "Catastrophic ... crippling ... paralyzing ... choose your adjective."
So... not good?
The forecast drew comparisons to an ice storm in the Atlanta area in 2000 that left more than 500,000 homes and businesses without power and an epic storm in 1973 that caused an estimated 200,000 outages for several days. In 2000, damage estimates topped $35 million.
Ice will make travel in central Georgia impossible, and downed tree limbs might cut power for days, the agency said. As many as 300,000 homes and businesses in the state will probably lose power, according to Tim Oram, the Meteorological Services Branch chief for the weather service’s southern region in Fort Worth, Texas.

“At this point, everything is lining up,” Oram said. “It’s from a once-in-every-10- to a once-in-every-20-years type of event. There’s pretty high confidence we’re going to see some pretty high accumulations of ice in the Georgia area.”

The worst of the ice will probably stretch from Atlanta to Columbia, South Carolina, and Fayetteville to Raleigh in North Carolina, according to Anderson. “It is going to be a bad situation down there,” he said.


As a reminder, ice on the road in the South means instant paralysis:
Elected leaders and emergency management officials began warning people to stay off the roads, especially after 2 inches of snowfall caused an icy gridlock two weeks ago and left thousands stranded in vehicles overnight. It seemed many in the region around the state's capital obliged as streets and highways were uncharacteristically unclogged Tuesday.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed in a news conference at the Georgia Emergency Management Agency's special operations center Tuesday evening implored people to get somewhere safe and stay there.

"The message I really want to share is, as of midnight tonight, wherever you are, you need to plan on staying there for a while," Reed said. "The bottom line is that all of the information that we have right now suggests that we are facing an icing event that is very unusual for the metropolitan region and the state of Georgia."
This also means the local aren't taking any chances, and have already raided the local grocery stores. From (the ironically named) KPAX:
If you're an Atlantan making a last-minute grocery run, here's hoping you love corn and asparagus. Because that's all that may be left on most shelves as residents stock up and hunker down for the ice storm.

Gone are the loaves of bread. The gallons of milk. The cans of beans and beer.
It won't be just Atlanta though:
A potentially historic winter storm threatens to coat Georgia with ice, knocking out power and grounding thousands of planes, before bringing snow to Northeastern cities including Washington and New York.

New York may get 2-4 inches (5-10 centimeters) of snow tonight, and Washington as much as 4 inches, according to the National Weather Service at 3:51 a.m. New York time. Atlanta is forecast to receive half an inch of ice today.

“When the snow comes, it is going to come in fast and furious,” said Brett Anderson, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania. “The initial batch of snow that comes in before any changeover is going to be quite heavy.”

Closer to the coast, the storm will start as snow before changing to rain, Anderson said. While the rain may hold down snow accumulation, the rapid onset will still mean heavy snowfall for the cities along the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington to Boston.

The snow moving to the Northeast is expected to leave a “catastrophic” blanket of ice across the South, especially Georgia, the weather service said.....

.......If readers are traveling by plane over the next 24 hours, our advice is: don't.
Across the U.S., 1,576 flights were canceled yesterday, and 2,697 were scrubbed for today, said FlightAware, a Houston-based tracking service. About 5,500 homes and businesses from Arkansas to North Carolina were without power, utility websites show.

Governors in seven Southern states declared emergencies as the ice and snow moved eastward from Texas. The storm is expected to strengthen off the coast of North Carolina and drop heavy snow from Virginia to Maine.

The worst-hit areas may be the Interstate 81 corridor from western Virginia into central New York, as well as northern and western New England. Anderson said those areas may receive as much as 12 inches of snow, with some places getting 18 inches.




Thousands of flights canceled as 'catastrophic' storm slams into South

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