In 2017, some headway from outside Deutsche took hold. New York prosecutors accused the Donald J. Trump Foundation of operating as a political slush fund as it was associated with the new president and his dozens of legal entities and shut it down.
“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”
“5” Steve Kerr, 54: “Belief is a first step. But if you don’t or can’t believe, it’s fine. Then stepping is the first step. Your mind will catch up later. It does help to have good people around you.” Libra
Hi and welcome to Saturday’s 11th Episode in Season 4 of “Our Disruptively Resilient Year” on this 19th day of March in the spring of 2022.
We concluded the three-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed — during the “normal” pre-pandemic year compared to the pandemic year, and more recently to the paradoxically normal year.
Season Four continues now within domestic and global chaos.
Previously in Season Four, The Disruptively Resilient Year
S4 E10 — Who’s the First Person You Wanna Tell?; S4 E9 —Did the Luck of the Irish Run Out This Time for Old Orange Hair?; S4 E8 —A Suicide and an Epic Trail of Destruction
Related from Season Three, the Paradoxically Normal Year
S3 E11 — Looking for a New Predictive Belief System?; S3 E10 —Feeding the Beast for Sheila in Fantasyland; S3 E9 —Melancholy and Undercover Brooklyn Moms Know Best; S3 E8 — Wait, You’re Saying I Should Read It Again?
Related from Season Two, the Pandemic Year
S2 E11 — Waiting for the 3rd Shoe to Drop; S2 E10 — Cats, Ladders and Shaking Salt …; S2 E9 — Blame It On Your D4DR Gene, Not Me!; S2 E8 — How Does the Entangled Fish Hook Theory of Creativity Work?
Related from Season One, the Normal Year
S1 E11 — Day 11 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E10 — Day 10 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E9 — Day 9 of My 1-Year Experiment; S1 E8 — Day 8 of My 1-Year Experiment
Context
David Enrich puts the pieces together in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction”
On one particular day in the fall of 2013 a spreadsheet captured a network revealing the matrix of money laundering.
In the one DBTCA unit of Deutsche. tens of millions of dollars outstanding with VTB. Alfa-Bank—another large, oligarch-controlled Russian lender—was on Deutsche’s list, too. (VTB and Alfa both were under American sanctions.) Also, Russian International Bank and Russian Joint-Stock Commercial Roads Bank and Russian Mortgage Bank and Russian Commercial Bank (Cyprus) Limited
Was this the rumored evidence exposing how Trump was supposedly being in Putin’s clutches? Maybe Deutsche was what connected Trump to the Russia rumor.
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- Deutsche acting as a conduit for dirty money. Deutsche was the only reliable connection that Trump had to the mainstream banking world.
- Deutsche’s Russian oligarchs and other Putin cronies routinely practiced the Russian mirror-trading scheme.
- Deutsche Bank’s money had built the Trump International Hotel.
- Deutsche Bank had helped stabilize Trump’s floundering business and indirectly, helped stabilize his floundering presidency.
After leaving Zurich Insurance in 2014 in shame, according to Enrich, Joe Ackermann took a new job opportunity in Cyprus.
Bank of Cyprus, new owners: Wilbur Ross, Trump’s future Commerce secretary, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch with ties to the Kremlin. Even after the collapse of its economy and financial system, Cyprus was a portal for Russians to launder money into the European Union and the eurozone.
Deutsche’s Cypriot work in general lasted much longer. Well into Trump’s presidency,
Deutsche’s anti-money-laundering offices in Florida on behalf of various Cypriot lenders had been pushing uphill with their internal investigation.
Days before Trump was sworn in as president, the Obama administration’s Justice Department pummeled Deutsche Bank with a $7 billion penalty—among them MortgageIT, tricking investors and misleading customers.
In early 2017, the previously undisclosed Russian money-laundering scheme was revealed by British and German journalists.
The internal watchdogs were reaching the breaking point.
They’d been chafing for years under a succession of regional executives whom many staff members perceived as imperious and incompetent. And, instructed to stop highlighting transactions involving companies exposed in the massive leak known as the Panama Papers.
In 2017, some headway from outside Deutsche took hold.
New York prosecutors accused the Donald J. Trump Foundation of operating as a political slush fund as it was associated with the new president and his dozens of legal entities and shut it down.
Evidence
But enough, what about you and me?
“3” Steve Zahn, 51: “Focusing too intently and too small is a danger now that can prevent you from seeing the many opportunities that exist around you. For perspective, talk to people who are different from you.” Scorpio
I suppose, but my weakness stems from focusing too intently on the macro picture and struggling with making those opportunities more concrete and practical for others to take.
Random ones that make me want change my sign.
Today’s Holiday Birthday:
It’s no accident when your life falls into beautiful balance, it’s a direct result of your choices. The most important one is to surround yourself with people who are good for you. You’ll approach basic needs like nutrition, exercise and sleep with an intelligent response. Work will be stimulating and empowering.
“3” Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “You could easily take on something small and finish it by the day’s end. However, things get exciting when you go bigger. What’s worth doing can’t be done alone. Tasks that force you to reach out are favored.” Virgo
Does research count? I’ve collected so much documentation and data that most often getting excited about big things tend to confuse me in the moment.
“5” Steve Kerr, 54: “Belief is a first step. But if you don’t or can’t believe, it’s fine. Then stepping is the first step. Your mind will catch up later. It does help to have good people around you.” Libra
Emma the Baroness and I engage in an ongoing conversation about the playbooks Trump and Putin follow. She asks how people who seem so smart fall for these cult-like lies and misinformation. And, I try to explain what I’m understanding about how susceptible we humans are.
“4” Steve Aoki, 41; Steven Spielberg, 74: “You’ll accomplish what needs doing if you disallow distraction. It’s time to crack down. Don’t let yourself do anything else until the main thing is finished.” Sagittarius
Thanks for the permission to put everything else on hold until I finish this 11th Episode in Season 4 of “Our Disruptively Resilient Year”.
“4” Steve Nash, 45: “What happened long ago is still part of your inner scenery, drifting on a lake of thought. Eventually it will wash up on a far shore. But for now, you have better things to think about. Direct your mind to do just that.” Aquarius
Emma the Baroness and I viewed Jane Fonda in Five Acts last night. Reflecting on it helps me organize my “Volume Three Manuscript.” One comment so true about me remained with me. Each time Jane entered a new act, she moved on leaving those she knew in a previous act without looking back as she transformed into the start up of a new life. Guilty here, too.
What’s Going On …
Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll
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- @KnowLabs suite of 36 digital magazines according to my analytics, grew from 12148 this week to 12252 organically grown followers.
- Orange County Beach Towns 236 viewers stopped by the week before.
Foresight
Quality-of-Life
Long-Form
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- “Here, Right Matters: An American Story” by Alexander Vindman. “We’d long been confused by the president’s policy of accommodation and appeasement of Russia, the United States’ most pressing major adversary. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seizing the Crimean Peninsula, attacking its industrial heartland, the Donbass, from the capital, Kyiv. By 2019, little had changed, Russian military and security forces and their proxy separatists continued to occupy the Donbass. The biggest change was to Ukraine’s importance as a bulwark against Russian aggression weeks earlier, the White House had abruptly put a hold on nearly four hundred million dollars.”
- David Enrich begins his book with a suicide in “Deutsche Bank Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction” and then meticulously details the bank’s Russian money laundering operations. Deutsche’s Russian business surged after revenues had fallen 50% due to the 2008 financial crisis. Putin’s Russia, poured in to Deutsche from deals it did with VTB Bank, linked to the Kremlin’s intelligence apparatus. Deutsche positioned itself as a crucial cog in “The Laundromat” by doing what couldn’t be done — processing cross-border transactions for banks that were too small and didn’t have offices outside their home countries.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Inspired by Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate
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