Transfers excluded, JPMorgan Chase is Wired

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The rumblings of capital and currency controls are causing a stir among perceptive financial observers. You do not have to be a business-banking customer to fear the consequences of restricting the transfer of money. Both domestic and international wires no longer being available to be sent from a business savings account, may seem unimportant to the average Chase customer. Many do not have enough money on deposit to pay the wire fee. However, the kicker is that you can still receive wire transfers.

Such a restriction on commerce reminds of the liquidation-only restriction on COMEX silver future contracts back in the days when Bunker Hunt needed to be taught a lesson. Today, the message is that the U.S. banks are broke again, and need another bailout. A good way to increase liquidity into the Federal Reserve System is to repatriate U.S. Dollar deposits stored in foreign banks. Maybe this is just one more sweetheart deal to allow the Chinese to keep recycling their worthless dollar holdings by buying more New York City real estate.

Bloomberg reports, Chase Manhattan Plaza Sale Sets Record for Chinese Buyers.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s deal to sell 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza to Fosun International Ltd. would be the largest purchase of a New York building by a Chinese buyer.

Chinese buyers are expanding U.S. property investments, seeking yield and a safe haven while the government maintains curbs on domestic purchases. This year, a group including Zhang Xin, the billionaire co-founder of Soho China Ltd. (410), took a stake in midtown Manhattan’s General Motors Building. Greenland Holding Group Co., a Shanghai-based, state-owned developer, agreed this month to buy a 70 percent share of Atlantic Yards, a residential and commercial project in Brooklyn.

No wire transfer restriction for the globalists!

The noise about JPMorgan Chase new wire transfer policy has hit the financial press, with understated fanfare. The expected cheerleading apologists, like Forbes, are walking back all the bad vibes from Drudge featuring an InfoWars breaking report, Chase Bank Limits Cash Withdrawals, Bans International Wire Transfers, that published a Chase letter to a customer.

If there ever was a misleading headline, No, JPM Isn’t Banning International Wire Transfers, No Limits On Withdrawals Either, is it. “The bank’s basic business account, Chase Total Business Checking, does not allow outgoing international wire transfers (it does allow them to come in) and cash activity is indeed limited to $50,000 per month. Cash activity means withdrawals and deposits.” Has the English language changed that much to allow such direct contradictions to be shrugged off as the price for Jamie Dimon’s ad revenues to keep flowing? Forbes – shame on you.

Could the recent, JPMorgan Chase reaches tentative $13B settlement with Justice Department, be part of the motivation to raise the wire fees on Chase’s Performance and Platinum Business Checking accounts?

JPMorgan Chase at first was discussing an $11 billion settlement to the Justice Department over mortgage-backed securities, The Associated Press reported.

Earlier this week, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a $100 million penalty and admitted that its traders acted “recklessly” during a series of London trades that ultimately cost the bank $6 billion, AP said. That settlement was announced Wednesday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The bank agreed last month to pay $920 million and admit fault in a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other U.S. and British regulators, AP reported.

Is JPMorgan Chase a bank in trouble? Well, JPMorgan reports quarterly loss as it grapples with legal woes, might sound like a run on the bank is no longer unthinkable. However, the biggest bank in the U.S. is one of those “too big to fail” criminal syndicates.

To help cushion against those legal costs, JPMorgan Chase set aside $23 billion in litigation reserves — a figure that the bank has not previously disclosed. That pot of money includes the $9.15 billion, which the bank added during the third quarter.

It would be easy to conclude that the restrictions on wire transfers are just part of a management decision to raise higher profits. Even so, how do you enhance your cash flow revenue when you eliminate the flow of capital to pay creditors?

Stopping an international outgoing wire, no doubt is a capital control restriction. So what is the rationale to limit domestic wires and cash deposits?

Paul Joseph Watson in the original source article provides the most plausible assessment.

It is clear that these regulations are being enacted for three different but equally plausible reasons, all of which contribute to the ultimate goal of sacrificing the global economy on the altar of derivative monster zombie banks.

1) Capital controls to prevent money leaving the country as the US dollar continues to devalue. Note that Chase will allow international wire transfers coming in, but not going out of the accounts. Note that they are only concerned about “risks” when the money is being moved out of the account.

2) Forcing businesses to abandon cash and switching everything over to digital currency that can be more easily tracked, traced and controlled.

3) Part of the preparatory phase for Cyprus-style bail-ins where the government announces a new “tax” to gouge out a percentage of people’s savings.

Consumers, savers and small businesses have a mutual concern. They are all being set up for a dramatic confiscation of their money and the value of their capital.

The Banks Make The Laws, offers this conclusion.

It seems that the US banks are beginning to write the laws and enact them as they see fit. But that’s par for the course in a crony capitalist fascist scenario in which businesses buy regulatory favors from legislators. The major banks have not only made Bitcoin de facto useless within the banking system by closing accounts, but now JPMorgan Chase is implementing de facto capital controls on its customers.

When the wired commercial banks were allowed to become megabanks, business commerce was transferred into a déclassé customer.

Original article archived here

James Hall is a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce. Hall is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact batr@batr.org