TimeLine as of 10/12/08

MELTDOWN TIMELINE AS OF 10-12-08:

Timeline of "Fannie/Freddie Big Bang" leading to worldwide, systemic financial collapse

1. September 7th, 2008: Treasury takes over the failed Fannie and Freddie and Federal Home Loan Banks.

2. September 7th, 2008: All counter parties to the multiple tens-of-trillions of dollars of Credit Default Swaps (CDS) positions are instantly thrown into chaos since many of these OTC private contracts are poorly documented and the gamblers are poorly capitalized and unable to pay up on the bets. (Many players immediately start failing that very week).

3. September 8th, International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) issues an emergency press release confirming that there are huge (but undisclosed) amounts of CDS trades outstanding on Fannie/Freddie debt. ISDA urges emergency conference call with Federal Reserve New York in attendance be undertaken immediately. The call takes place that very morning.

4. September 8th to present: The failed gamblers scramble to construct a list of the failed trades.

5. September 16th: The Fed, feds, and ISDA step in and try one last ditch attempt to make a market in all the destroyed derivatives positions during the emergency "ISDA Sunday Swap Meet", which is a complete, abject, utter failure

6. Immediately after this failed "Sunday Swap Meet", the following players instantly are ruined (but not all topple over immediately):

a. Lehman Brothers
b. Merrill Lynch
c. AIG
d. Morgan Stanley
e. Goldman Sachs
f. WaMu topples less than three weeks later
g. Wachovia bit the dust exactly three weeks later

And the Grand Total of just the top financial institution failures so far:

1. Fannie Mae failed ($2.5 tril.)

2. Freddie Mac failed ($2.5 tril.)

3. FHLB system failed ($1.3 tril)

5. Merril failed ($800 bil.)

4. Lehman failed ($700 bil)

5. AIG failed ($500 bil. in CDS)

6. Goldman Sachs effectively failed ($2 tril)

7. Morgan Stanley effectively failed ($1.5 tril)

8. WaMu failed ($300 billion)

9 Wachovia failed ($800 billion)

Sub Total: Approximately $13.1 trillion

And now the simultaneous collapse of virtually ALL of Europe's biggest banks, followed by the unprecedented move to nationalize all the fallen financials by the European governments.

Time elapsed for this epic collapse of virtually every major financial institution in the U.S. AND now Europe:

Less than five weeks ...which clearly is a record.

On October 2nd, ISDA held an "auction" to attempt to settle failed CDS positions on Fannie/Freddie underlying debt. Actual notional amounts were NEVER released, so we don't know how high the losses actually were to the parties who wrote the CDS "insurance". However, given the ratios of CDS-to-underlying debt of 10-to-1 and the supposed 90% percent recovery rate, I estimate that hundreds of billions of dollars are owed by the losers.

A similar auction was held on October 10th on Lehman CDS positions. Again, my estimate is at least $400 billion is owed by the losers.

Grand total all losses currently owed but not yet paid: $1 trillion.

However, that's not all: also vaporized were virtually every:

1. Hedge fund
2. Pension fund
3. Insurance company
4. Mutual fund
5. Money Market funds, both in the U.S. and in all other major countries, worldwide.

ALSO crushed, and even more dangerously so:

1. Some percentage of the $62 trillion credit default swaps market

Immediately after the "Fannie/Freddie Big Bang", ISDA began reporting that the swaps market was $54 trillion instead of the former $62 trillion--$8 trillion in positions evaporated--and offered NO explanation for this stunning drop.

2. Some percentage of the $650 trillion overall derivatives markets

Sub Total: Who knows?

WARNING: SPECULATION!!
What will happen even though the "Bailout Bill" was enacted

1. As of October 12th, I am no longer sure that bank runs won't be coming soon to a neighborhood near you. Especially since the U.K., Germany and France are this weekend set to announce the effective nationalization of their banking systems and the U.S. expressed similar intentions this weekend. These governments would not be making these unprecedented moves in unison if they were not concerned that the banks were about to experience a panic run on them, in my opinion.

2. I am also no longer sure that the Federal Reserve will be the first one lined up at Treasury's window to start trading in the now-almost-one trillion or so dollars worth of totally dead assets it took on its balance sheet from failed financial institutions around the world. This is because the entire U.S. banking system is on the brink of failure and Hank Paulson is now stating that he will use the TRILLIONS of dollars authorized by Congress to try to stave off collapse and a run on the banks. So, the Fed may have to wait--perhaps forever--to ever deal off these dead "assets".

3. One thing is for certain: The U.S. government has made it a top priority that house prices will not fall any further. Instituting everything from outright foreclosure forbearance to the authorizing of Fannie and Freddie to start purchasing dead, toxic Mortgage Based Securities (MBS), the feds are desperately trying to keep the housing collapse from continuing unabated. Whether or not they will be successful remains to be seen. However, if these latest actions fail, you be absolutely assured they WILL resort to even more radical measures--even including the federal government literally buying empty houses outright and moving people into them at no cost.

4. Clearly the U.S. automobile industry has failed and will be nationalized in one form or another. Whether GM absorbs Ford and Chrysler first and then is absorbed by the federal government or whether they are all nationalized individually (with perhaps one of them allowed to be dissolved), it is absolutely guaranteed that there will be a government bailout of the U.S. auto industry.

5. Sorry to have to report this, but I still see tens of millions of people thrown out of work and/or losing their business. Especially in the bloated, useless "F.I.R.E" (Financial, Insurance and Real Estate) sector.

6. I am now fairly confident that that the people's 401(k)/IRA mutual funds are going to be destroyed one way or another. Either through the continued stock collapse (as of this writing the DJIA, S&P and NASDAQ have all crashed approximately 40%) , through confiscation/taxation of their funds/gains, or the forced conversion to Government bonds. There are already discussions going on in Washington D.C. as to how the feds might start tapping into the trillions of dollars currently trapped in the 401(k)/IRA system.

7. I still can't decide whether the U.S. bond market crashes or skies. If our Asian and OPEC debt-enablers keep buying up the multiple-trillions-more dollars of Treasury debt we will be issuing to fund all the bailouts, then perhaps interest rates stay low.

However, if our debt-enablers demand higher interest rates to compensate them for the risk, or the Federal Reserve have to step up and fling some fresh dollars to buy the debt, then all bets are off and we could see a full-blown bond crash.

8. While the U.S. dollar has been on an upward rocket shot these last few weeks as other currencies collapse, I cannot make a confident prediction that this trend will continue. I just don't know how the debt funding will play out and this will be a large determinate as to the relative value of the U.S. dollar going forward.

All government and central bank efforts to date to combat the systemic, global financial system collapse

Government and Central Bank efforts from March, 2008 to present to fight the financial Collapse:

Federal Reserve efforts undertaken to fight the credit collapse:

1. Dropped Fed Funds rates a total of 375 basis points, some of these moves being surprise rate cuts.

2. Also pounded down discount rates by similar amounts and means.

3. Created unprecedented, even borderline Constitution-contravening, now-trillion dollar TAF, TSLF, PDCF, "Fed,LLC", "Fed, AIG", "Fed Euro-swap" programs Then, extended time-frames, amounts and frequency of many of those programs.

4. Instituted the stunning "Fed-FDIC" program on Friday, September 19th, whereby the Fed backstops ALL money market funds (total dollar exposure amount: over $4 trillion by itself), accepting worthless ABCP paper with NO-RECOURSE to try to stop a run on the funds by panicked bag holders.

5. Accepted hundreds and hundreds of billions (and now perhaps trillions) of dollars of totally dead "assets" from failed Wall Street firms and will not disclose what those "assets" are, nor from whom they were accepted.

6. Offered JPM "sweetheart $75 billion loan" as part of Lehman liquidation (probably to square up some failed CDS positions)

7. Suspended "Rule 23(a)", allowing commercial banks to fling dollars to their failed investment banking arms

8. Began outright purchases of Agency debt on Friday, September 19th

9. Allowed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to--with no waiting period--change from investment banks into commercial banks. Changed "rules" so that Morgan Stanley can continue to perform investment banking functions. Changed the "rules" regarding minority ownership of these giants

10. Did a special $25 billion "TAF" to Goldman and Morgan

11. Raised "SOMA" account credit limits by 25% from $3 billion to $4 billion

12. In an unprecedented move, on September 29th, the Fed committed to injecting $630 BILLION in "liquidity" into the world's financial system. This injection took the form of increased "TAF-like" injections (also extended in duration) as well as MASSIVE "Fed Euro Swap" injections--probably to help fight the collapse of all the European institutions that are stuffed to the gills with bad paper sold to them by Wall Street.

13. Announced, on October 7th, that the Fed will be acting in concert with foreign central banks to extend the size and duration of the previous "TAF-Like" program. Also announced an unprecedented coordinated overnight funds rate cut in conjunction with the ECB, BofE, Canadian central bank, Sweden and Swiss national banks.

14. In a move that can only be described as "Crossing the Rubicon" the Fed, for the first time ever, announced on October 7th that it will create a Structured Investment Vehicle (SIV) and directly loan dollars to corporations that participate in the commercial paper market. NO "collateral" is even necessary for the players to borrow from the "Fed SIV". Furthermore, NO limit to the amount of dollars provided by the Fed was announced. However, not even this ground-breaking, breath-taking step taken by the increasingly-panicked Fed lowered LIBOR rates. In fact, LIBOR rates actually ROSE on the day of the announcement.

15. On October 8th, The Fed pumped an additional $38 billion into AIG, raising the total to an astounding $123 billion so far. This latest, massive, injection coincidentally was made just twenty-four hours before the ISDA's scheduled auction to settle perhaps as much as hundreds of billions of dollars of failed CDS positions. AIG is reported to be sitting on $500 billion-plus in CDS "insurance" they sold to counter parties.

Treasury/Administration/Congress/SEC/FDIC efforts:

1. Congress proffered "Economic Stimulus Checks for Taxpayers" program of $150 billion

2. Treasury floated various failed "Super SIV" programs before turning to the "big gun" efforts described below

3. Treasury (Hank Paulson) demanded, and received, from Congress an $800 billion (so far) "Bazooka" to nationalize Fannie, Freddie, FHLBs

4. Within six-weeks, Hank used that bazooka to take over the GSEs, injecting an initial $200 billion into these fallen frauds and also instituted a Federal Reserve-like function of monetizing GSE MBS. Also, offering "liquidity" for MBS

5. Treasury pulled off two emergency funding Treasury auctions totaling $200 billion to give Federal Reserve more ammo to fire at collapsing financial institutions worldwide

6. Treasury demanded "Bailout Bill" emergency legislation from Congress, giving Treasury literally dictatorial powers over the entire financial system. Further demanded authority to keep shuffling dead assets from Wall Street banks into government (and taxpayer's) lap.

7. Treasury/FDIC/SEC arranged "shotgun weddings" between failed Wall Street banks, commercial banks and major mortgage originators

8. On Friday, September 19th., Treasury announced they were turning the GSEs loose to once again start snapping up dead MBS from the failed financial system

9.The FDIC quietly allowed banks and S&Ls to practice "foreclosure forbearance" which gives these failed institutions the authority to pretend that all their deadbeat real estate loans are "performing". Also, have quietly shut down or married off failed banks (And are just beginning this last effort, with perhaps thousands more to go.)

10.The SEC ruled that "Short-Selling Seditionists" are a financial threat and released a 799-member "untouchable" list of failed financial institutions which cannot be shorted. This action came after a smaller version of same was instituted in July. Have continually added to this list, including many non-financial stocks

11. The FDIC arranged an unusual THURSDAY NIGHT takeover of WaMu, dealing off its deposits to JPM. Additionally, and no surprise at all, WaMu's derivatives positions were also transferred to JPM

12. FDIC decided that the collapse of WaMu did NOT constitute a "Credit Default" therefore no CDS payments need be triggered. This is a HUGE event because the FDIC just basically negated ALL CDS contracts, in my opinion.

13. On September 29, the FDIC authorized that Citi take over the failed Wachovia. And, in what is becoming par for the course, Citi was allowed to "cherry pick" Wachovia's deposits and some of the debt, and the rest of the rotting carcass will be strewn across the backs of the taxpayers to be carried like so much rotting meat, similar to the recently-failed WaMu.

And who knows what further CDS bombs were set off by this latest failure of one of Wachovia, which is the world's largest financial institutions? My sense is that Wachovia's collapse was "not helpful" to the already devastated credit default swaps market in particular and the whole derivatives space in general.

14. ON September 30th, in yet another stunning move by the increasingly-desperate TPTB, the SEC and FASB decided to make it even easier for the failed gamblers holding dead, toxic "assets" to completely abandon any and all pretense of "mark-to-market" and just allow the mortally-wounded institutions to literally make up any "value" for these "assets" they deem necessary to shore up the ol' balance sheet.

15. The SEC has extended the "Anti Short Selling Seditionist" emergency rule has been so successful in fixing all stock, bond, currency, debt-derivatives problems that they are extending it for another few weeks or so.

16. IRS rules were changed to make the deal more palatable tax-wise for Wells Fargo. Here is the actual ruling:

"For purposes of Code Sec. 382(h), any deduction properly allowed after an ownership change of a corporation that is a bank with respect to losses on loans or bad debts, including any deduction for a reasonable addition to a reserve for bad debts, shall not be treated as a built-in loss or a deduction attributable to periods before the change date. This guidance does not affect the application of any provision of the IRC except Code Sec. 382. Banks may rely on this guidance until further guidance is issued."

...which, according to calculatedrisk blog, allows Wells to accelerate the tax write-offs associated with absorbing the failed Wachovia's "assets".

17. The Treasury is allowing Fannie and Freddie to buy FHLB MBS. I'm not sure why they are doing this since all the GSEs have been effectively nationalized, but there must be some nefarious method to this madness.

18. October 8th:The Treasury Department announced a "technical correction" that would allow them to backstop additional money market funds under Treasury's "Temporary Money Market Fund Guarantee Program". According to Treasury, MMFs that have a "policy of maintaining a stable net asset value or share price that is greater than $1.00 and had such policy on September 19, 2008" are now eligible to participate, provided the fund meets all of the other original requirements, which basically translates to: they haven't folded up shop yet.

19. October 10th: The G7 goons are at it again. After a reportedly contentious meeting on Friday, they released a statement, which can be found here:

www.treasury.gov...

And here is the "Money Quote Paragraph" from the statement:

"We are developing strategies to use the authority to purchase and insure mortgage assets and to purchase equity in financial institutions, as deemed necessary to promote financial market stability.

As we develop plans to purchase equity, as in the approach we are taking to broad mortgage asset purchases, we are working to develop a standardized program that is open to a broad array of financial institutions.

Such a program would be designed to encourage the raising of new private capital to complement public capital.

Consistent with the legislation, any equity the government purchases through a broadly available equity program would be on a non-voting basis, except with respect to the market standard terms to protect our rights as investors."

20. Since Fannie and Freddie did such a bang up job of destroying the world's economy, the U.S. Treasury decided to reward these two Frankenstein monsters by allowing them to snap up $40 billion A MONTH in dead dog mortgages from failed financial institutions and then hold the toxic trash in their own portfolios, according to Bloomberg.

Congressional efforts:

1. Passed the proposed $150 billion "economic stimulus" program suggested by Treasury/Administration

2. Passed the "The Housing and Economic Recovery Act" with an estimated cost of $300 billion (but will surely be much more)

3. Then tacked on the "Bazooka" provision to allow Treasury to nationalize Fannie/Freddie for another $800 billion (so far)

4. Passed the afore-mentioned "Bailout Bill" act, giving Treasury unprecedented dictatorial powers over the failed financial system and perhaps multiple-trillions of dollars to do so.

5. Just passed $25 billion aid to auto manufacturers

European Efforts to Fight the Financial Collapse:

In addition to the nationalization of Northern Rock in 2007, Europe has been in a mad scramble to try to revive their equally-as-collapsed-as-the-United states' financial system.

And the governments have responded with unprecedented moves to nationalize the broken banks.

1. Monday. September 29th Germany's biggest bank bail-out, putting together a €35 billion loan package to save Hypo Real Estate.

2.Belgium, changing their stance from a mere "liquidity injection" decided that nationalized Fortis, a 300-year old institution that survived everything except the "Great Real Estate Bubble" of 2002-2008, was a better idea.

3. And a day later, a bail-out for Dexia took place.

4. The Irish government issued a blanket guarantee of the deposits and debts of its six largest lenders in the most radical bank bail-out since the Scandinavian rescues in the early 1990s.

5. The government of Greece followed Ireland and announced that it was guaranteeing all deposits in all banks.

6. On October 7th, Iceland's entire banking system failed. Russia stepped in and provided a five billion dollar injection to try to revive the Iceland banking system. Alas, but this emergency measure was to no avail. The Icelandic government had to step in and shut down all the banks and has announced they will nationalize the entire banking system.

7. Again, on October 7th, the Russians stated that they were pumping in thirty-six billion dollars into their failing banking system.

8. Spain revealed their version of the American "TARP", a fifty billion Euro fund to soak up dead "assets" from failed financial institutions.

9. Australia's central bank, in a surprise move, dropped their overnight funds rate by 100 basis points. Hong Kong followed shortly with a rate cut of their own.

10.On October 8th, the U.K. allocated 500 billion pounds sterling to help in the economic crisis, it immediately pumped the equivalent of 87 billion U.S. dollars into their failed banking system in a desperate attempt to revive their failed financial institutions. At least the U.K. was kind enough to their taxpayers to demand preferred stock which MIGHT one day pay some paltry dividend back to their Treasury--unlike the U.S. TARP plan, which will basically offer nothing to U.S. bag holding taxpayers.

11. Various halts to trading on indices around the world have taken place in the first week of October as stock indices crash upwards of ten-percent per day.

12.On October 8th, The People's Bank of China dropped their overnight lending rates twenty-seven basis points--sneaking in under the cover of the excitement generated by the massive, unprecedented, coordinated move by the Fed and other European (and the Canadian) to drop overnight lending rates fifty basis points. Not to be outdone in creating more fire to burn their currencies to the ground along with everyone else, On October 9th, the central banks of Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan also dropped their overnight rates twenty-five basis points.

13.On Oct. 9th, The European Central Bank is offering banks "unlimited cash" and pumped an unprecedented (there's that word, "unprecedented" again!) 100 billion dollars in overnight funds into the financial system. This latest panic move came the one day after an interest-rate cut failed to soothe tensions in money markets.

14. October 9th: Iceland's government froze trading on its stock exchange for two days and took control of the country's largest bank (the third one in a row).

15. October 12th: UK announce that HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland will be nationalized with Lloyds TBS and Barclays also being partially nationalized.

[edit on 10/12/08 by redhatty]

[edit on 10/12/08 by redhatty]

Okay, let me start by saying that I'm not too brite. I have next to no financial knowledge, but seem to have some common sense.

In essence, what our leaders are doing is attempting to avoid the inevitable, correct? Our system is broke. Most everyone is in debt. Not only individuals, but large corporations, too. The stock market is a sham, a scheme which enables the rich to get richer, and the poor to get poorer.

People were allowed and encouraged by means of advertised conditioning and political jackasses, to live beyond their means. The truth has finally come out that we can't go on like this. People don't want to accept responsibility. The government doesn't want to accept responsibility. So we are just pointing the finger around, when in reality most everyone is to blame, for either consciously following and allowing, or just being an ignorant fool, right?

So I get it that by pumping more money we are devaluing the dollar. That the idea is insane, and won't work in the long run. Why would they do that, then? Some people say global elite agenda, while others say it's the only short term plan that will keep us from completly bottoming out, ie global armageddon. So, from what I gather we are in for one heck of a global change no matter what. Either the system collapses next week or next year, but it will never be anywhere close to what it is now.

reply to post by unityemissions

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Judging from your post, I'd say you are much brighter than you give yourself credit for

You have managed to sum it up quite clearly.

reply to post by redhatty

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Well, thank you!! I'm hard on my self at times. My memory isn't the best, but I do see the big picture easily. I'm overwhelmed by the high brilliance of the many people here on ATS, but am getting used to not being the brightest in the room anymore.

My question is to those brilliant people here who seem to be integrating large sums of facts, including you. Does this really seem to be a coordinated global plan, or just a bunch of near-sighted psychopaths that are blinded by their greed and need for control?

reply to post by redhatty

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Flagged and starred.
So do you have a future time line?
Say going out 18-24 months?
Does the election and next President have any influence on the future time line?
When does the high interest credit start? In the early 80's the interest on a mortgage with good credit was the high teens will we see that again? Is that even feasible?
When does high inflation start?
Will the dollar collapse?

Nice breakdown.

Let´s however not remember the real reason for the meltdown...

Nationalisation of all major banks is the final step towards a One World Bank, which ofcourse is one of the main goals set by the NWO.

One World Army
One World Bank
One World Order

MoonMine

This is a great chronicle and it's jaw dropping how much money's been thrown at the problem globally with so little response.

But what about the hundreds of small mortgage lenders that failed in the first few months of this year, followed by Countrywide and Bear Sterns? Isn't that the real starting point?

Great work red hatty, starred and flagged. Great job. The sytem is dying and anyone who says otherwise is living in denial.

Thank You
Nope, no future timeline, I am not able to see the future yet
Much is changing, I personally think that the "fix" will be something most people were not expecting, but will be offered in such a way that most will gladly accept it. I think it will be a rough, tumultuous ride before we see that happen though.
election? No bearing at all, Rep or Dem, it's 2 sides of the same coin. No one gets to the point where they are on the ballot in those 2 parties without the real movers and shakers endorsing them.

Well I guess this answers my question. I have been hearing talks of a one world bank on the news and AM radio this week. I think it's not much of a question of who and why anymore, and now it's just how soon, and what will humanity do to stop this from happening. I'm not going out without my voice being heard and fists in the air.

Thanks! and good point - throw a dateline together & U2U me it & I'll add it to the OP

Realistically we could go all the way back to legislation that was enacted in the Clinton Era, but this timelime is enough of a novel already

WARNING SPECULATION!

I can imagine a global situation where we "reset to zero"

How much of a fight will people put up if they are offered debt forgiveness along with a new currency system?

Most of the world will beg for it, it won't have to be shoved down any throats.

Very few people live truly debt free.

reply to post by redhatty

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Does that mean credit scores get reset as well?

Seeing it all laid out like this is scary. Thanks for the work!

Which would pretty much make David Icke go: "I bloody told you so."
Problem - Reaction - Solution.

Have a nice day.

I used to think perhaps I was a bit off-center or getting to caught-up with those that speak of a "one world government."

But this past week, folks and anaylsts can be heard on CNN, CNBC, and random AM radio shows suggesting the best solution is to start over the banking system and move toward a one world currency.

Amazing.

I actually am strongly believing there is such a thing as the New World Order.