Citibank Cuts Off Gun Businesses but Does Business With Iranian Terrorists

by Jack Davis


Citibank is being attacked for its recent actions to limit sales of legal firearms by critics who note that the massive bank was willing to do business with Iran a few years ago until it was fined by the Treasury Department.

“Citibank…they preemptively buckled under the pressure by refusing to cooperate with businesses that legally sell certain #firearms…Meanwhile, the Treasury Department found that same company, @Citibank, violated sanctions and did business with, wait for it…Iran!” NRATV tweeted, quoting spokesperson Dana Loesch.

Last week, Citibank said that it would no longer do business with legal firearms stores unless they agree to the bank’s most recent demands.

“Under this new policy, we will require new retail sector clients or partners to adhere to these best practices: (1) they don’t sell firearms to someone who hasn’t passed a background check, (2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and (3) they don’t sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines,” wrote Ed Skylar, executive vice president of global public affairs, on the bank’s blog.

Skylar insisted that the policy “is not centered on an ideological mission to rid the world of firearms.” “But we want to do our part as a company to prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands,” he wrote.

But some noted that Citibank has, in the past, been willing to do business with groups that were banned by the U.S. government.

IRAN: THE ROLE OF CITIBANK – The New York Times – https://t.co/sLLNjjYWqB
Citibank refuses to do business with Companies who sell guns to Americans but they deal with Iran? Once again "To be a Democrat, you must first be a lying hypocrite."  — Larry Nelson (@southernarcher) March 27, 2018

In 2014, Citibank was required to pay $217,841, Reuters reported.

The Treasury Department said at the time that the bank was under investigation for violating multiple sanctions programs of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It alleged that Citibank processed more than $750,000 worth of transactions to banned individuals or groups in Iran.

Loesch was not alone in criticizing the actions of the bank.

South Dakota state Rep. Kristi Noem, a Republican, said that the bank is trampling on the Americans’ rights.  “This is a constitutionally protected right. The Second Amendment is incredibly important to the people of South Dakota and what Citibank did was to come out and infringe on that right,” she told KSFY.

“I do not think it’s a business’s place to mandate to people, that they do business with, especially a bank, that they have to comply with their own set of rules and regulations,” Noem said.

RBC Wealth Management USA (Update 3/6/2019)

by Allen Williams

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is a huge conglomerate featuring global asset management which  “is the asset management division of Royal Bank of Canada” located  in Canada,  the United States, Europe, Asia-Pacific,  Middle East and Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean.   Your investments work hard to build the globalist vision of a new order.

”RBC is the 12th largest bank in the world based on market capitalization and the fifth largest in North America.”  Barron’s notes that RBC Wealth Management is looking to Grow having actively recruited a significant number of high profile investment managers over the last 8 years.

But all is not well in the RBC golden world of investment as RBC is charged with Negligence and Elder Abuse   If you have a few bucks to invest and you’re of retirement age then beware because the wealth management brokerages are going to milk you. What do you mean by that remark you might ask?   Well, older people are prime targets for abuse by investment firms because the money is there and ripe for the taking and seniors tend to be overly trusting.

We’re already seeing evidence of this in RBC’s late December 2017 User Agreement modification. RBC blocks you from viewing your own account unlessl you agree to their terms.

RBC User Agreement, Section 7C:

"IN ADDITION TO AND WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, RBC CM SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY HARM CAUSED BY THE TRANSMISSION, THROUGH THE PROGRAM, OF A COMPUTER VIRUS OR OTHER COMPUTER CODE OR PROGRAMMING DEVICE THAT MIGHT BE USED TO ACCESS, MODIFY, DELETE, DAMAGE, CORRUPT, DEACTIVATE, DISABLE, DISRUPT OR OTHERWISE IMPEDE IN ANY MANNER THE AVAILABILITY OF THE INFORMATION OR ANY OF YOUR SOFTWARE, HARDWARE, DATA OR PROPERTY."

This statement also removes liability from the transfer of erroneous information from ‘typos’ and other such glitches which may cost you money.  


RBC Capital Markets, LLC
60 South 6th Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402
Attention: Client Support Services, Mail Stop P12
Phone: 1-800-933-9946 (Weekdays 8:00am-10:00pm ET and Saturdays 10:00am-6:00pm ET)

The White law Group reports: “According to The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an all-public FINRA arbitration panel has awarded $212,000 to the estate of a former RBC Wealth Management client who had charged the firm with negligence and elder abuse.

"The attorneys of the client, the late Hazel Kitzman, charged that RBC Wealth Management engaged in the unauthorized sale of shares in the client’s account and in the unauthorized transfer of funds from an account at another firm. The attorneys requested compensatory damages of at least $1.5 million, treble  punitive damages and reimbursement of all legal costs, all of which the FINRA panel denied.”

Remember that ‘unauthorized RBC broker activity’ because we’ll see that again shortly. Think this is just sour grapes or a few disgruntled clients? Well, take a look at a host of other complaints as RBC Wealth Management Reviews compiles complaints summed  up nicely by ‘RK’ back  in January of this year with ”..Money sucking leeches. No fiduciary responsibility. Will suck you dry with fees.”

RBC Wealth Management meets that assessment.

Then there’s just the run of the mill abuse like a $140 yearly ‘account’ fee for not buying anything.  Remember interest rates are barely 3% and inflation is currently at 2.1%.  As a big or small investor you pay for not buying the financial investments a brokerage offers, even if you lose return on that investment.    The forced purchase of unwanted goods or services from corporations has become a global hallmark.  This policy causes older investors with smaller portfolios to purchase less desirable investments to keep their accounts from being pillaged by excessive and ruthless fees.

If you’re an elderly or a new retiree investor expect to be milked if you don’t know the ropes.  And, even if you do, the financial industry is structured such that there are no real penalties for fund mismanagement or cheating a client because the account holder must agree upfront to binding arbitration as a condition of getting an account   

Outside a court of law the odds swing dramatically in favor of the brokerage, so do not count on FINRA for any real relief.  The centralized global banking system is designed to extract wealth from the general populace virtually at will simply by changing the prime rate.   Fees for any alleged services are just icing on the cake.

The recent HSBC LIBOR rate fixing scandal illustrates just how easily the banks can cheat people and the Federal Reserve System has demonstrated how well its QE releases can rob the nations’ citizens of their purchasing power. 

These financial conglomerates own the various individual governments around the world and 20 trillion in debt buys a lot of favors.  Then there’s the annual revisions to Brokerage fee policies which can occur after you’ve committed significant resources to the firm.  Remember, whomever controls the money limits your options and ultimately controls you

Be sure and read the fine print in the RBC periodic account updates so you’re not surprised by the latest excursion into your back pocket.

Controlling the investor market is the key to successful brokerages because interest rates are rock bottom low in the public sector.  And, it’s risky for individuals to play the stock market or derivatives in today’s environment.  So offering investments priced slightly above what’s available at the trough guarantees a pool of people with above average financial strength. 


Managing RBC  Investments


Managing a brokerage account at RBC will tax your time as much as if you were actually a broker yourself,  from watching for mistakes in tabulated interest to your accounts to  buying financial instruments that you didn’t want  just to satisfy an order.  Here’s an example of what can happen, even if you watch, from last December as I purchased a financial instrument from BOFI federal through the brokerage:  “I did not authorize a purchase beyond the BOFI investment.  If an additional $2000 worth of BOFI was not available, you should have called me to ask if I wanted to buy something else offering the same terms.  Obviously, you didn't think it was worth asking me what I wanted to do with my own money.”

The RBC Broker’s reason for the snafu? Why a ‘typo’, what else? Note that elderly investors don’t have the time to make up losses from bad deals that their brokerage might recommend like zero coupon J.P. Morgan chase securities which can pay zero interest for months until the consumer price index increases.  

If you have more than one brokerage account, then you must be prepared to buy something within the specified time frame for each account.  If you don’t buy regularly in a calendar year then you pay an ‘inactivity fee’ under the following conditions.

First, investment maturity doesn’t count. If you have an existing security and it matures then you get no credit  for reinvesting that principal with that brokerage.  

Interest from other investments that pay into your brokerage account isn’t activity either, ‘activity’ is only new purchases that lead to the broker making a profit from your account.  So, why keep it there?  Because it will cost you another fee to close the account anywhere from $90.00 upwards. 

Pursuant to the RBC  ‘user agreement’, I bought another financial  instrument in January 2018 with an end of the month settlement date to avoid the penalty ‘for not investing’.  Sounds like the Obamacare penalty, doesn’t it?

I received the RBC purchase confirmation in the mail.  But at the end of January the capital was still in my investment account so the purchase was in doubt as my agreement with the broker stipulated the money was to be transferred after the 26th of the month. I had to call the broker to discover that they had bought the instrument with their own money. Why?  This is highly irregular. I’ve never had securities bought on credit before without my knowledge and so this experience was of some concern given the wording of their user agreement:  “..until payment is made by you, securities purchases by you or held by us for your account will be or may be hypothecated comingled with securities for other clients. If payment or delivery is not made by the settlement date, we reserve the right without further notice to charge interest on the amount due shown on the face hereof..”

And despite what the brokerage may tell you, there is a good chance that an interest charge will appear on the next statement. Also, guess who will be keeping the interest on the investment until the funds are transferred? So, if you can buy something on credit without client approval, why not double my order as well and hold me liable?

Even RBC’s instrument purchase confirmations are full of additional clauses that work against the account holder.  And there’s no recourse provision in these clauses for RBC negligence when a buy order isn’t executed because the user agreement requires client agreement to binding arbitration instead of a court of law or you don’t get the account.  So to find out what additional fees may have been dumped on you in a given transaction, you must request an explanation in writing or you get nothing: “.this transaction may have incurred other fees..a complete breakdown of fees associated with the transaction  will be provided on your written request..”

In December,of this year I transferred my account to another broker using the RBC system. RBC like many large banks earns its money by gouging clients with outrageous fees as the loan industry is no where near as lucrative. And fees aren't subject to the same scrutiny as loan interest.

I was charged a $125 fee for transferring my holdings to another financial adviser even though the funds remain at RBC. Then I was charged an additional $45.79 for electronic transfer of my records to the other adviser within the same bank.  As RK aptly noted, they are 'money sucking leaches..'

UPDATE 3/6/2019

I discovered that RBC was holding the proceeds from one of my investments, $200 plus a $125 fee.

I immediately sent off a letter of protest to Warren Bischoff, the RBC Complex Director taking issue with the transfer charge on my investments moving within the same bank to another broker. After several weeks of non response from RBC, I wrote a letter of complaint in January of 2019 to both the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Comptroller of the Currency (as the latter regulates all foreign banks) to protest this outrageous fee. Shortly after getting my letter off to the regulating agencies, RBC reversed the fee.

After I had contacted FINRA, in early March of 2019 $325 dollars was refunded to my new brokerage account. To date I have not heard from Comptroller of the Currency as apparently this case did not fall under their jurisdiction.


If you’re looking for a place to invest, look well beyond RBC‘s client satisfaction hokum.





America's Democracy is Slipping Away...

by Gerald Weston


My father used to tell me that the United States would not be a democracy within 50 years. Before he died he said he wouldn’t give it 20 years. That was ten years ago. Today we see a United States no longer united. Jesus tells us, “And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). For sure there have been difficult times in the past. The American Civil War saw brother against brother, and the death toll was greater than the combined total number of deaths from all other wars in which Americans have fought put together!

Yet we live in a very different age. The United States is the undisputed superpower and policeman of the world. Oceans no longer provide the level of security they once did due to modern transportation, technologies and weapons of war. This crisis descending on America is different. Those who cheer the fall of the United States, and those anarchists who are trying to bring it about, would do well to reconsider lest they gain what they hope for.

My father saw things from a secular perspective. He looked at history, and while he did not share my biblical perspective, he could see that our post-modern–world lifestyles would eventually bring us down. As he would say, “Our freedoms [to do anything without responsibility] will destroy us.”

But a man by the name of Herbert W. Armstrong was warning about the downfall of America and the British-descended peoples of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the democratic countries of Northwestern Europe long before I heard any of this from my father. Mr. Armstrong was seeing the world through the lens of biblical prophecy and an understanding of the KEY to those prophecies—the biblical identity of modern nations! Even when Germany was lying in rubble following the Second World War, he predicted it would rise again to challenge the Israelite- descended peoples. And now, from German-Foreign-Policy.com we read the following:  “The weekly ‘Die Zeit,’ once considered a liberal journal, carried an article on Chancellor Merkel entitled, ‘Leader of the Free World? Of Course!’ claiming the German Chancellor could even become ‘the savior of the free world’. . . major German media organs again depicted Merkel as ‘US President Trump’s adversary’” (2017/01/26).

Dr. Roderick C. Meredith was an early student of Mr. Armstrong, and he has continued to proclaim the same message:  if our modern Israelite nations do not repent, we will be overthrown and go into captivity! Once you understand the identity of modern-day Israel, not merely the tiny Middle Eastern country called Israel, but the descendants of Joseph who were given great promises of incredible prosperity and power at the end of the age, the world suddenly comes into clear focus. As a man from Colombia once passionately told me after reading our booklet, The United States and Britain in Prophecy, “Finally something makes sense. I’ve always known you guys were not smarter than us!”

I was not offended. He was correct. God tells us in His word that HE is the One who gives wealth and strength. Notice some of these statements concerning Israel, especially Joseph, at the end of the age. In 1 Chronicles 5:2, we learn about the promises that began with Abraham:  “Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a ruler [grace through Christ], although the birthright [national wealth and power] was Joseph’s.”

These birthright blessings are spelled out in a number of passages, giving ample evidence of their certainty. “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you” (Genesis 17:5-6). These promises were expanded to include control over the gates of their enemies (Genesis 22:17). In ancient times of city-states, controlling a city’s gate meant control over the whole city, but prophecy is dual and in modern times, instead of city-states, we have nations; and the control of nations is determined by controlling strategic geographical choke points, such as Panama, Gibraltar, Suez, the Khyber Pass, Hong Kong, and others that were once controlled by the British and Americans.

These amazing promises are found throughout the book of Genesis, as they are passed from one generation to another and expanded in the process. We read in Genesis 35:10 that God gave Jacob a new name (Israel) and told him that from him would eventually come a nation and a company of nations (verse 11). We see the identity of this nation and company of nations at the end of Genesis. Israel first adopted Joseph’s two sons:  Ephraim and Manasseh. We then learn the following:  “And Joseph said to his father, ‘Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ‘I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations’” (Genesis 48:18-19).

Ephraim was to become a great company (commonwealth) of nations and Manasseh a single great nation. We often refer to Britain and America as cousins. In truth, they are brothers! Right after this was spelled out, we read how Jacob (Israel) called together all his sons and prophesied what they would become “in the last days” (Genesis 49:1). To Joseph, and by extension, his two sons, he proclaimed:  “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; his branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob. . . by the God of your father who will help you, and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills” (Genesis 49:22-26).

Yes, it is God who has given us these many physical blessings and it is by HIS HAND that we’ve been made strong in a dangerous world. But today the sons of Joseph, as well as the other tribes of Israel, have forgotten our Creator. We have become filled with pride, thinking we have done all these things by our own strength and wit. This is true whether talking of the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand. It’s also true of certain northwestern European countries and Scandinavia. God warned us NOT to take all this for granted.

“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today,  lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. . . then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish” (Deuteronomy 8:11-14, 17-19).

We have become fat and satisfied! We have not only forgotten God; we have arrogantly rejected Him. As a people, we can no longer connect the dots between the rejection of God and the terror that will descend upon us. “But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you:  I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (Leviticus 26:14-16).

It is no longer politically correct to speak in public discourse of husbands and wives. Instead it is the generic partner, because we must not assume that two people are married. We almost assume they are NOT married, especially if they’re celebrities! We cannot even assume the partnership is made up of a man and a woman! Pronouns such as he or she are being replaced by ze, hir, and other strange pronouns. Murder of the most innocent is now referred to as a choice. All of this carefully crafted discourse is promoted by an elitist class that hates the traditional rules of behavior and promotes moral anarchy.

Dr. Meredith, the Presiding Evangelist of the Living Church of God, has for more than 64 years fearlessly and powerfully warned where we are heading.  However, he put in place a fine team of men and women to continue this warning, as well as to proclaim the wonderful news of the coming Kingdom of God, the time when Jesus Christ will return to straighten out this mess. That is the time when the true servants of God will be resurrected to assist in solving mankind’s fundamental problems.

This Work will continue with that mission.

God is incredibly patient, and He gives mankind more time than we deserve, but time IS running out. Even though my father foresaw the coming downfall, I doubt that he understood just how morally degraded we have become. Storm clouds are on the horizon for any who have eyes to see. A time of darkness is coming and our time to finish this Work is limited. Please pray that God will open the doors and give us the strength and the courage to walk through them.

May God the Father and Jesus Christ be with us to finish the Work He has commissioned us to do!



The End of Bretton Woods

by Peter Coyne

Please, no more of this 'Nixon took us off of the gold standard' garbage!" writes one reader in response to yesterday's reckoning. If you missed it, we learned about two precursors to our present monetary woes in that episode:

First, we learned from our founder, Addison Wiggin, that 70 years ago, during the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the world left the gold standard. The United States, being the world's undisputed hegemon, was able to snag a role as the world's reserve currency -- the most widely held and used currency. To maintain trust in the greenback, foreign nations would be able to trade $35 for an ounce of U.S. gold upon request.

Second, in our first featured video -- an interview we conducted with Mr. Lewis Lehrman last year -- we learned that the U.S. abused this privilege by running massive trade deficits. That is, by spending more money that it had to buy more than it produced. Finally, instead of worrying about balancing the books, President Nixon decided 43 years ago this Friday to remove the one hurdle to unlimited government spending -- convertability of the dollar into gold.

That brings us back to our dear reader. "FDR was the one who removed us from the gold standard when he issued an illegal executive order that prohibited citizens from owning gold":



© 2014 Agora Financial, LLC

 

QuotesHe ordered them to turn in gold, and made it impossible for any American to convert gold notes to actual gold. Nixon in fact made gold ownership legal again by ending FDR's prohibition, and protected America's gold stores, (whatever we had then), from being taken by the British, etc., by doing as this writer describes.

"If someone wants to point a finger, point it at FDR, who took us off gold, and at LBJ, who removed silver from our coinage, both unconstitutional and illegal moves that Congress went along with.Quotes

We have no qualms over your history. Our point, however, is that the global monetary system shifted on Sunday, Aug. 15, 1971. Since then, the dollar's value has been an enigma.

What is a dollar?

It's just a claim to another dollar… or four quarters… or 10 dimes. You have to pay taxes with it, so most people use them. But it has no intrinsic value.

We're reminded of the C-SPAN clip featured in Addison's documentary I.O.U.S.A. It was between Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and our former employer, Congressman Ron Paul. Greenspan agreed that no one really knows what money is today, and therefore, there was no way the Fed could hope to ever manage it:

 Alan Greenspan: As I've said earlier, the difficulty is defining what money truly is. We have been unable to define a monetary aggregate that will give us a reliable forecast for the economy. Until we find a reliable "M" we will go light on the use of monetary aggregates for monetary policy purposes.

Ron Paul: So it's hard to manage something you can't define.

Alan Greenspan: It's impossible to manage something you cannot define…

Our theme this week, the "End of Bretton Woods," was Dr. Paul's impetus for running for Congress in the first place. "I saw 1971 as the conversion from a token commodity money,  to an absolute political money."

We can tell you from working for the good doctor that he had no delusions about the mission he was on. Dr. Paul was under no impression that he alone could reverse the ship of state's course toward monetary collapse.

In the final years of his congressional tenure, he was even able to claim a small leadership position over the Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. That's one of the subcommittees that oversaw the Federal Reserve's decisions.
 
Politics, Dr. Paul notes, is, at best, a tool for education. 

Yet , one congressman can hardly alter the political situation. Politics, Dr. Paul notes, is, at best, a tool for education. Part of this week's theme is education, for sure. Understanding the ways that your elected representatives have altered the money at your expense for political reasons is the first step to realizing it can happen again.

It's important to keep in mind, however, that the likely solution is not a political one.






© 2014 Agora Financial, LLC