Chomsky Cuts Through the Brain-Washing

Unfortunately, the predictions that this blog has made all seem to be coming true.

Stating the Obvious

Capitalism Hits the Fan

Interesting Quotations

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the carrier of the plague..."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero 106 BC - 43 BC

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith - from spiritual faith to great courage - from courage to liberty - from liberty to abundance - from abundance to selfishness - from selfishness to complacency- from complacency to apathy- from apathy to dependency - from dependency back to bondage.

-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)

Original Link

Huh?!?

Could this be true?  The Russian news source 'Pravada' excoriating Marxism and extolling the value of individuality and personal freedom?

Read the article for yourself.

The interesting thesis of the article is that the American people are accepting the Marxist onslaught because they are lazy, stupid and ignorant--unlike the Russians who fought back and eventually booted out the Communist bastards.  Certainly, an incendary thesis.  But who can dispute the following points (and I quote from the article and follow each up):

"It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people."

Question dear "Citizen": How much is the U.S. taxpayer on the hook for given all of the recent banker/government measures?

Answer: If you think it is in the billions you are a sheeple (i.e., someone who does not take the duty of citizenship seriously).  Who said, "We gave you a Republic, if you can keep it"?  It's worse than this.  Most people think that politically the United States of America is a 'Democracy'.  It is decidedly not and this is was a major sticking point in the Constitutional Convention.  But who cares?...  A 'Democracy' just means you can vote right?  Wrong.

"[T]he population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish."

Question: If you think this is false can you please enumerate the rights that are supposedly guaranteed by the United States Constitution?  Can you explain the difference between a right and a privilege?  What is the basic substance of Plato's 'Republic'?  What is John Stuart Mill's argument for freedom of speech in 'On Liberty'?  Why weren't you taught this?  Was it better to memorize useless trivia and be judged accordingly?

One's mind is only as good as its ammo.  Put differently, knowledge is indeed power.  The power to understand oneself and one's environment.  Bereft of that others can construct your reality.  Have fun in DisneyLand (TM)!

"[T]heir faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers..."

So you go to Church and make your payments in the open and pray together.  Didn't Christ say something about giving alms in such a way that the "right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing?"  Hmmm... and what did he say about praying???  

None of this hypocrisy would exist if people actually read the "Good Book" and used it to lead their lives--but that would involve serious work.

Anyway, the article is a good one and ought to spur self-aware Americans to think long and hard about these issues if they have not.

Did you hear this in the mass-media?:

"Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride."

Nuff said.

Financial Times: If China Loses Faith, the Dollar Will Collapse

If China Loses Faith, the Dollar will Collapse

Excerpt:

The global environment is extremely negative for savers. The prices of property and shares are not yet good value and may decline further. Interest rates are near zero. The Fed is printing money, which will inflate away the value of dollar holdings. Other currencies are not safe havens either. As the Fed expands the money supply, it puts pressure on other currencies to appreciate. This will force other central banks to expand their own money supplies to depress their currencies. Hence major currencies may take turns devaluing. The end result is inflation and negative real interest rates everywhere. Central banks are punishing savers to redeem the sins of debtors and speculators. Unfortunately, ethnic Chinese are the biggest savers. Diluting Chinese savings to bail out failing US banks and bankrupt households will eventually destroy the dollar's status. Ethnic Chinese demand for it is waning already. China's bulging foreign exchange reserves reflect the lack of private demand for the US currency.

China Finally Does the Obvious

China has 'canceled US credit card'
It was just a matter of time. How could the world's largest industrial base keep extending credit to a country with an economy based on consumer spending predicated on debt-expansion and an artificially propped up currency by the end of a gun?

All the stars are aligned. Now it is just a matter of time for the chickens to come home to roost.

Kirk said he was the first member of Congress to tour the Bureau of Public Debt, which trades bonds, and was alarmed at how much debt was being bought by the US Federal Reserve due to absence of foreign investors.

"There will come a time where the lack of Chinese participation may have a significant impact," Kirk said.

"We should track that, because up until last month they were the number one provider of currency to the United States and now they're gone."

By the Balls...

401(k)s Hit by Withdrawal Freezes: Wall Street Journal

Out of work? At least you can liquidate your 401(k) to survive for a year or so, right? Yeah, you have to pay a 10% penalty to the government. And you have to pay taxes based on this income plus everything that you may have made up until now this year. But at least you can rest assured that this money that had voluntarily... and sometimes involuntarily (i.e., mandatory deduction) been taken from your paycheck is yours, right?

Guess again.

The American public has lost its balls. Here is a quote from a man in exactly the situation I mentioned from this article who has been informed that he cannot withdraw his cash:

"I hate to be whiny, but it is my money," Mr. Dursky said.

Whiny? Why not furious?

And it gets worse. The money isn't there because it was gambled.

So while the tax payer is being fleeced to the tune of trillions of dollars and generations of debt for no good reason, a hard working person trying to get a mere 12K out of her retirement account is left hanging.

Some investors have lost hope of recovering their money. Judith Sterner, a 69-year-old part-time nurse, had more than $12,000 in the fund when she tried to transfer that balance to a money market last fall. But her transfer was denied, and her stake has since declined to less than $10,000.

"This $12,000 represents a year of my retirement money that I don't have," said Ms. Sterner, of Morton Grove, Ill.

It is amazing that a population can get fleeced wholesale like this but they resort en-mass to wishful thinking, a defunct nationalism, cultural myths, etc. in order not to see the truth that is right around the corner.

True Traitors

According to the Christian Science Monitor a recently published book on the Bush family:

“Family of Secrets by Russ Baker is an essential book for anyone seeking to understand the connections between the unseen forces of money and power that have brought the nation to the brink. Meticulously researched and thoroughly documented, Baker’s book delves into the Bush political dynasty like no other book of its kind. Baker is a serious investigative journalist who writes with clarity and precision. His book should be read by anyone seeking to understand the current national downturn and how the Bush family and its operatives have undermined democracy. ”

For those of us who have been hip to the Bush families history we know that the elder Bush's grandfather was convicted of trading with the enemy (Hitler) in WWII and that each son has been a member the ultra-elite Skull and Bones society at Yale.  

For an excellent introduction to this material please consult an interview with the author, Russ Baker, here.  The interviewer said that after reading this book he got physically sick.

Hysteria

Some of the more interesting sources trying to explain why the death rate in Mexico is higher than the rest of the world from this hyped-flu claim that (1.) it may be weaponized and (2.) in a race specific manner.

Before you reject the idea of race specific bio-weapons you might want to consider that you would have to consider at least some of the following people as conspiracy freaks:

Project for a New American Century (PNAC)

"PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
Roger Barnett
U.S. Naval War College
Alvin Bernstein
National Defense University
Stephen Cambone
National Defense University
Eliot Cohen
Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Devon Gaffney Cross
Donors' Forum for International Affairs
Thomas Donnelly
Project for the New American Century
David Epstein
Office of Secretary of Defense,
Net Assessment
David Fautua
Lt. Col., U.S. Army
Dan Goure
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Donald Kagan
Yale University
Fred Kagan
U. S. Military Academy at West Point
Robert Kagan
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Robert Killebrew
Col., USA (Ret.)
William Kristol
The Weekly Standard
Mark Lagon
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
James Lasswell
GAMA Corporation
I. Lewis Libby
Dechert Price & Rhoads
Robert Martinage
Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessment
Phil Meilinger
U.S. Naval War College
Mackubin Owens
U.S. Naval War College
Steve Rosen
Harvard University
Gary Schmitt
Project for the New American Century
Abram Shulsky
The RAND Corporation
Michael Vickers
Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessment
Barry Watts
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Paul Wolfowitz
Nitze School of Advanced International
Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Dov Zakheim
System Planning Corporation

The above list of individuals participated in at least one project meeting or contributed a paper for discussion. The report is a product solely of the Project for the New American Century and does not necessarily represent the views of the project participants or their affiliated institutions."


From the PNAC document "Rebuilding America's Defenses":

"...[A]vanced forms of biological warfare that can "target" specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."

Food Security

In the latest edition of the Futurist in an article entitled "The Disappearance of Food: The Next Global Wild Card?" no less than John Rockefeller writes:

Driving costs down and profits up is well and good, but not when we fail to attend to the safety or sustainability of local supplies. We need to consider the consequences of an interruption in the global food supply chain. Since our sources of food are primarily a shrinking number of centralized and distant corporations, rather than numerous and widely distributed suppliers, our food-supply system is inherently fragile. A single failure would engender a large market interruption. Add political and financial uncertainty into this mix, and the risk increases exponentially...

A single failure in our food production and distribution chains could eliminate a large percentage of our available foods, while driving costs up on the remaining food source options. In this situation, the attraction of reduced consumers’ costs in the short run has set up as much of a risk as did subprime mortgages. Unlike losing a home, however, where we have alternative supplies locally (renting a temporary apartment, staying with friends or family), losing a singular, centralized food supply with no alternative sources available locally would mean widespread hunger and hardship. Therefore, I see an urgent need to bolster local food sources.

As we learned from the economic collapse of 2008, risk management was a game being played with a stacked deck by profit-seeking entities, without regard to economic realities. To avoid a similar outcome in the food sector, we need full and accurate information on the consolidation, vertical integration, and contingency plans for producing and distributing food to consumers in the event of a disruption. This is a global imperative.

The question that must be asked when entrusting survival to a small group of profit-based mechanisms is, What happens if profit disappears? Are there structures and fail-safes in place that will provide safety in times of crisis? What are the contingency plans for supplying food in the event of economic and political crises?


A well documented but largely unknown fact is that the world's food supply is now almost completely controlled by five multi-national corporations.  This is placing an inordianate amount of power in the hands of a few.  As Henry Kissinger said, "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people" (from the 1974 National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests).

The crazy thing about this is that aside from creating large profits for a few it is not clear what good any of this mass-produced and largely genetically modified food is doing.  Its main selling points were increased yields at a lower price with no adverse health consequences.  According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Agricultural biotechnology is basically an industry that develops products, often expensive products, priced to cover the costs of research and development. In general, new products are of minor importance to sustainable agriculture. Moreover, such products may pose risks, some unique, to human health and the environment.


This is accurate and an understatement.  For an excellent and well-documented book on this see William F. Engdahl's Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Adjenda of Genetic Manipulation.

As a side note, shouldn't soverign nations get to decide if they'd like to roll the dice on this issue? Monsanto doesn't think so.

Mind Control

The most elementary form of mind control, obvious to any of us who have had a basic exposure to Roman history, is: divide and conquor.

Why do we throw our towels in with an Obama or a Bush?  Why do we feel an emotial pang when someone questions our "candidate"?  Put differently, why do we invest our self-identities with strangers?

The Black Hole!

It can be fun to gamble.  But at least have the decency to gamble with your own money...  Or the Casino's own money (that is, comps)!

Thanks to the lack of global regulation on the financial market our entire planet has been waged against paper wealth. 

What is the total outstanding set of wagers?  According to this article 1 quadrillion is on the line. That is 190K for every person on the planet!

Now as the article notes, and people who are responsibly reporting this issue, this is merely the notional value which can be much less than the actual value. But still... if this is reduced to a small percent of the total risk it still seems crazy.

The virtue of the article just quoted is that is spells out how certain possible scenarios would result in a global economic explosion that would make the current crisis, apparently based merely on bad loans, look like a walk through the rose garden.

Here is the author's conclusion:

In the context of the USD 700 billion rescue plan -- still being finalised in Washington, DC -- the following is worth considering step by step. Decision makers are rightly concerned about alleviating immediate pressure points in the global financial system, such as, the mortgage crisis, decline in consumer spending and the looming loss of confidence in financial institutions. However, whilst these problems are grave, they are acting as a catalyst to another more massive challenge which may have to be tackled across many nation states simultaneously. As money flows slow down sharply, confidence levels would decline across the globe, and trust would be broken asymmetrically, ie, the time taken to repair it would be much longer. Unless there is government action in concert, this could ignite a chain-reaction which would swiftly purge trillions and trillions of dollars in over-leveraged risky bets. Within the context of over-leverage, the biggest problem of all is to do with "Derivatives", of which CDSs are a minor subset. Warren Buffett has said the derivatives neutron bomb has the potential to destroy the entire world economy, and is a "disaster waiting to happen." He has also referred to derivatives as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Counting one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one Quadrillion. The numbers we are dealing with are absolutely astronomical and from the realms of super computing we have stepped into global economics. There is a sense of no sustainability and lack of longevity in the "Invisible One Quadrillion Dollar Equation" of the derivatives market especially with attendant Black Swan variables causing multiple implosions amongst financial institutions and counterparties! The only way out, albeit painful, is via discretionary case-by-case government intervention on an unprecedented scale. Securing the savings and assets of ordinary citizens ought to be the number one concern in directing such policy.

Real Unemployment

Typically cited unemployment rates failt to take into account (1.) discouraged workers who are not longer actively seeking jobs and (2.) the underemployed who may work a few hours a week and are thus counted as employed.

If these people are added to the count the number of people unemployed is about one in six (15.6%) according to the U.S. departments of labors March figure.

But it is really even worse than that (quoting from this article at MSM Money):


Even the Department of Labor's expanded unemployment measure doesn't fully capture how difficult the job market is for American workers. It doesn't include self-employed workers whose incomes have shriveled. It doesn't look at former full-time staff employees who have accepted short-term contracts, without benefits, and at a fraction of their former salaries. And it doesn't count the many would-be workers who are going back to school, taking on more debt, in hopes that an advanced degree will improve their chances of landing a job.

Here's another way to look at the unemployment figures: More than 5 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007. And more than 13 million people are unemployed. That's the highest number the U.S. has seen since it began tracking unemployment after World War II. For every job out there, more than four people are competing for it, says Boushey.


The article goes on to point out that lawyers are now taking paralegal jobs and Ivy League professionals are taking contract jobs.  This blog has a link to an interview with a former CEO who is now delivering pizza.  

And it is hard to see how things will get better anytime soon.  To put it simply; the United States economy is now (1.) predicated on consumer spending rather than manufacturing and (2.) dependent on foreigners buying up our fiat confetti.  As people loose jobs, consumer spending dries up, lending contracts and this results in a negative feedback loop as more and more jobs are shed. Combine this with the dollar becoming increasingly unattractive due to its recent and continuing dilution and the IMF development an alternate world currency...  You do the math.

The Dumbing Down of America

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
--Adolf Hitler

www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
www.johntaylorgatto.com

David Rockefeller

On page 405 of David Rockefeller's 'Memoirs' we find:

For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.

The IMF's Historical Role

Here is the strategy the IMF (International Monetary Fund) have used in the so-called 3rd world:

1. Convince the government to take a loan whether they need it or not.  If they aren't in economic trouble "prove" that certain investments will "expand" the economy, bring future benefits, etc.

2. If the government leaders are smart and smell a fish, try to bribe them.

3. If they are ethical and stand up for the interests of their people send in the CIA "jackels", i.e., kill them.

4. Once the loan is accepted the trap is sprung.  The interest rate is set based on the phoney estimations of economic expansion.  Ooops!

5. Also, the cash gets funneled to first world nations (read: the United States) to build the infrastructure that will "expand the economy."

6. Once the country defaults on its payments (small scale: think credit cards) it must "restructure" via "shock therapy."

7. The net effect is to slash public programs, drive down the cost of real assests and allow the banks to swoop in like a vulture and confisacte the Countries assets--oh, I mean "privatize."


Ignorant and self-satisfied Americans this same strategy is about to be applied to us with an equal lack of mercy.

Obama is bought and sold so there is no need for the Jackels, and if he should become a JFK just wait for the bullet(s).  

Where will the money be funneled to?  This is the only variation on the strategy.  It has ALREADY been stolen where the new promise is economic stability so that economic institutions that are "too big to fail" won't collapse the economy as a whole.

In reality this is a massive transfer of wealth to the few in expectation of what is coming...

Death Agony of the U.S. Dollar

Though the lamestream media does occasionally out and out lie and unquestioningly pass on dubious information completely fabricated by Propaganda Agencies...uhhh, I mean 'Public Relations Firms' they usually lie by omission.

A case in point of this is a recent article in Time magazine entitled, "Down with the Dollar!" which introduces and synthesizes a lot of key information without drawing the obvious consequences.

Let me explain.

The article does a great job of explaining what SDRs are (the so-called 'Special Drawing Rights' of the International Monetary Fund) and their history. Originally the Bretton-Wood's global financial system was founded on the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency backed by gold. As the article points out the economist John Maynard Keynes, the head of the British delegation to Bretton--and thus one of the architects of the Bretton system--had wanted to give the IMF the power to create a "supranational bank money" and thus the role of currency creation.

Ultimately, the United States won the day with reassurances that the dollar would always be redeemable for gold. However, due to the cost of the Vietnam war, Nixon was forced to de-couple the dollar from gold in 1971 and the world entered into the very fiat system that has (my words, not the article) divorced the money supply and paper wealth from any semblance of real wealth.

In any event, this de-coupling of the dollar from gold and the resulting crash of the dollar:

...led to talk of establishing the SDR as global reserve currency. That faded when the high interest rates set by Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to throttle inflation lured foreigners back to the dollar in the early 1980s.


Having given the background the article then goes into explain why a transistion to a global currency regulated by a world central bank would be a good thing.

The question I'd like to ask at this point is, "How does the article try to sell its readers on this global banking system?" and "What is (intentionally or not) being left out?"

Consider the following:

...[W]e've had an international monetary system in which the dollar is the main store of value. When countries want to protect themselves from the vagaries of global financial markets, they stockpile dollars the way nations in previous eras hoarded gold. This stockpiling has enabled the U.S. government to borrow almost without limit in global markets and until recently allowed American consumers to do the same.

Over the short term, this can seem like a positive; we can get away with running a federal deficit that could hit $2 trillion this year only because of the dollar's status as global reserve currency. But borrowing trillions isn't really a ticket to long-run prosperity. In fact, the current economic crisis may have been spawned by huge imbalances in global trade and capital flows that are in part the product of the dollar's special status. Global demand for dollars supplanted demand for U.S. products and services, argues Columbia University economist and longtime SDR fan Joseph Stiglitz, resulting in trade deficits, the decline of U.S. manufacturing--and years of supereasy mortgage credit.


We got fat and lazy.

This is all well and good and quite correct, but it implies that it is in the interest of the long-term health of the United States to abandon this system. [As an aside, it would have been worth mentioning: (1.) The decline in U.S. manufacturing was largely due to Volker's rate increases of the 70's which protected the dollar at the expense of the U.S.'s economic base and in favor of globalization as companies who couldn't afford to produce in the U.S. anymore fled abroad (that is, beginning the "race to the bottom" for the workers of the world) and (2.) this massive borrowing has favored the central banks who collect interest on all of this lending.] What isn't mentioned here is the pain that would be felt if the dollar did loose its status. Since the dollar as the reserve currency has--artifically and unfairly, to be sure--propped up the U.S. economy, the loss of the dollar's role coupled with the lack of a manufacturing base spells serious trouble.

Now the rosy-eyed may say this spur a revitalization as the U.S. recreates the fundamentals of an economy that is now based almost entirely on consumption (70%) and militarism. But where are the loans to drive this revitalizaion going to come from?

Well, perhaps home banks in the U.S. will start lending again instead of hoarding the trillions that they have been injected with. But this would mean pouring dollars into the U.S. economy just as foreigners begin dumping their dollars (since it no longer has the same global role). This is the Weimer scenerio.

Or maybe the loans will come from the IMF as dollars get translated into new global currency on terms dictated by the bank.

And we can trust them right? As Rockefeller himself said:

"We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.

Surely! Just look at the IMF's track record in third world countries. (This is described in detail in John' Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman). More on this in a later post.

The article concludes:

The G-20 decision to create $250 billion in new SDRs marks a "major step" toward establishing the SDR as a global reserve currency, says Stiglitz. It's only a step, albeit enough of one to prompt Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota to make the claim that Obama was out to ditch the dollar. Actually, the dollar would live on in an SDR-dominated world. It would no longer reign supreme, but neither would the yen or the euro or the yuan. Which might be the best long-run outcome the U.S. can hope for.


What evidence has been given for that? In short, this article seems to arrive at its cheery conlusion only by neglecting any discussion of the hyper-inflation that would likely result from dollar dumping (exacerbated by the rampant money creation presently under way) and by assuming that the IMF will treat the U.S. favorably.

Those Were the Days

That the hard metals speculative/ paper market and the real market have been divorced for some time now has been evident to anyone trying to physically obtain precious metals. The most reliable place to ascertain the real value of gold and silver is here. If you doubt this take the buy price and see if you can beat it on E-bay, or better yet, check the recently completed auctions and compare the values for any given day.

It seems that a similar dislocation is now occuring between the stock market and the real economy: The Current [and Coming] Disassociation Between Economics and Stock Markets.

As this article points out, "many of the greatest runs in the stock market came during the Great Depression. That didn't mean the economy was in any state of health."

The Oldest Trick(s) in the Book--Babylon

The banking institutions are ancient and their scam is simple. What makes it hard to detect is scale. They tend to infuse economies with "paper" (i.e., fraudulent) liquidity (i.e., bubble growth) let the real economy grow (houses built, gold extracted) and then implode the system via hyper-inflation. Since they control the mechanism of both credit and monetary expansion (essentially the same thing these days) what this amounts to is putting the real economy into their coffers and creating a population of debt slaves. This scam is hard to detect because the cycle tends to range from fifty to one-hundred years. Without a savvy and well-spoken elderly population no one is the wiser.

A free history of this cycle is available by searching for "The Babylonian Woe." This book is translated from Hungarian so it reads a little choppy but don't let that disuade you.

Here is what one reviewer had to say:

David Astle's "The Babylonian Woe" is the finest book on the history of money in antiquity that I've ever read. In this scholarly work, he has presented to the world a history of the effects of monetary mechanics in very ancient times. It illustrates how, even in the earliest times of which written record remains, the days of Babylonia or before, a so-called monetary science undoubtedly existed; being then, as in today, never more than as instrument by which its secret and cynical controllers wittingly influenced the destinies oindividuals, nations, and empires as to (temporary) glory or final disaster.

The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

The idea that "regulation", i.e., 'fair rules for competition' is essential for the successful operation of any complex and dog-eat-dog process should be elementary was dismissed by both our recent Republican and Democratic governments (Adam Smith insisted on this even though he advocated the "invisible hand" doctrine of the market). A bill of goods was sold to the public that boggles the mind.

The line was: complete deregulation will lead to a Darwinian struggle in which the cream will rise to the top and the massive gains will trickle down and stabilize society.

No. The law of the jungle is a constant and history teaches us this.

Click here for an interview with William K. Black.

The Black Hole?

Deep in the article Banks lose $9.2B in derivatives trading in 4Q one finds the following:

The total value of derivatives at commercial banks jumped 14 percent to $200.4 trillion as financial firms changed their operating status to commercial banks after the collapse of Lehman in an effort to stay in business. Among those changing their status were investment banking giants Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley.


$220.4 Trillion? And that is just the amount held by commerical banks? To put that into perspective the total global GDP for 2008 was $69.49 Trillion according to the CIA Factbook (scroll down to the section entitled 'Economy World').

Now before one thinks the sky is falling, one should note a key fact is missing from the quotation above--the $200 trillion represents the "notional" value of the derivatives and not the total liability. The actually amount that the banks are on the hook for can be far less than the notional value. For example, last year a $454.5 trillion notional value of over the counter derivitives translated into a $2.3 trillion gross credit exposure (source).

Still, the mere fact that there is in effect an unregulated "shadow" banking system tossing around even notional numbers like this should give one pause until there is a general understanding of what is really at risk here and who the players are.

New World Order--Conspiracy Theory?

Barak Obama's New World Order--Time Magazine

G-20 Shapes New World Order With Lesser Role for U.S., Markets--Bloomberg

G20 ushers in a 'new world order--Globe and Mail

A 'Truly New World Order' Emerges; Global Currency Closer--Le Monde (Translation)

The first bricks in a new world order--Financial Times

Now, of course, this is only significant if the term 'New World Order' is being used by the "conspiricy theorits" and the G-20 in a similar way. It seems that there are at least two significant connections between what the conspiracy theorists were/are predicting will happen and what is being called for by the G-20. (1.) The creation of a global currency, and (2.) the consolidation of all monetary power within one central world bank.

Economic Suicide

Now the looting of the country, uhh... excuse me, "rescue" package (Orwell rolls in his grave) has risen to just about the total GDP of the United States.

Imagine taking out a loan for your entire year's salary and purposely investing it in worthless paper that is literally called "toxic" in the hope that it will one day pay a return. Great deal right? But it gets worse.

One thing the lame stream media tends to forget to mention is that the all of this money has an interest rate attached to it just like any other loan.

And this additional money goes to the banksters.

Wait? Could that be right? We are essentially swiping the Nation's credit card to "bail out" the banksters, and they get to collect an APR on top of it? That's right.

Hmmm... I wonder whose interests are really being protected here? Could it be that all of this talk about "saving jobs", creating jobs, stimulating lending, etc. is a giant distraction?

Could it be the media hype about the AIG bonuses totaling in what used to be considered a substantial amount--millions--is just a way of tugging at the Nation's emotions to distract it from the real issue?

I wonder what is going to happen if and when China dumps the dollar and all of that money comes home to roost?

Oh and by the way, this "financial rescue" (I'm quoting from the above link now) "...works out to $42,105 for every man, woman and child in the U.S."

Mainstream Media Admits "Conspiracy" Theorists Had it Right

Dick Morris and Hannity agree that so-called conspiracy theorist predictions about the leadership of the United Nations and a One World Currency were spot on. In particular, Morris points out that in the draft plans for the G20 meeting control of the dollar is to come under an international European body--the International Monetary Fund.

Predictive Programming

Cobra commander prepares children for the New World Order and the new One World Currency.

How Deep Will the Recession Go?

The optimistic are claiming that the economic downturn could right itself in a year or so. However, this may very well be missing the big picture. If this crisis was engineered, then obviously it was engineered for a purpose. What could that purpose be?

In an article entitled 'Will U.S. financial woes lead to a new world order?' in Haaretz.com a possible explanation as to what that purpose may be is spelled out. (View the complete article here).

The concept of a global elite bringing about a New World Order headed by the United Nations that will usher in a global currency and a one world central bank is a crucial component of a story that has been touted by so-called "conspiracy theorists" for at least a few decades. However, this notion has always been denied by mainstream sources.

Until recently.

From the article:


One possibility is that the United Nations will take on the role of a global government. This theory seems to be supported in a speech by then-president George H. W. Bush before Congress on March 6, 1991, following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

"...We can see a new world coming into view," said Bush. "A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a 'world order' in which 'the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ...' A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations."

Until recently, the advent of a global government seemed unrealistic, and reserved for conspiracy theorists. But since the acknowledgement by then-president George W. Bush in September 2008 that the United States is indeed "in the midst of a serious financial crisis", there have been numerous calls for a "new world order" by global leaders and prominent intellectuals.

In January, Henry Kissinger told CNBC reporters that the current world economic crisis is a "great opportunity" for President Barack Obama to help form a "new world order."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown actually began the call for a new world order before the acknowledgement of the current financial downturn.

Speaking in June 2007, Brown said: "I believe it will be said of this age, the first decades of the 21st century, that out of the greatest restructuring of the global economy, perhaps even greater than the industrial revolution, a new world order was created."

The British leader has continued to press for a new world order since that speech. Even a few weeks ago he declared the need for a "global new deal."

"Britain and America may be separated by the thousands of miles of the Atlantic, but we are united by shared values that can never be broken. And as America stands at its own dawn of hope, I want that hope to be fulfilled through us all coming together to shape the 21st century as the first century of a truly global society."


The scary thing about this becomes evident if one thinks about what conditions would have to be in place before the general public in the United States would accept effective de-nationalization and a world currency.

Again from the article:


So how would a new world order emerge? It seems that the global population would only be willing to accept the implementation of a new world order, in either form, in the event of a major global crisis, such as the complete economic collapse of the United States of America.

The U.S. is at the heart of the global economy because the U.S. dollar is currently the reserve currency of the world. Oil, gold and all major commodities are measured in U.S. dollars. If the U.S. were to collapse in the same way that Iceland and Latvia already have, the whole world would be affected. A new world order would need to be formed that no longer relied on U.S. global hegemony.

Many experts believe that this is not only possible, but likely. According to Professor Willem Buiter, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee who is now at the London School of Economics, "There will, before long ... be a global dumping of U.S. dollar assets, including U.S. government assets... The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the U.S. materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally."

Other economic gurus agree. Peter Schiff, an American economic commentator and president of the stock brokerage firm Euro Pacific Capital Inc. was mocked by economist Art Laffer, when he accurately predicted, in 2006, that the U.S. housing market "bubble" would burst. Schiff now predicts that gold will climb to $2,000 per ounce in response to the U.S. dollar dropping "like a stone" and losing its status as the global reserve currency.


More:


It is certainly possible, but would be rather difficult to implement. The government of every nation in the world would either have to willingly surrender sovereignty to the United Nations or be forced into doing so by the use of military force. Both options are utterly improbable -unless an unpheaval on a massive scale resulted in a new-found willingness by the big players in the global arena to submit to an international body. (My emphasis).


Finally:


Looking at history, there is only one circumstance under which a very large and diverse population would be willing to accept such a massive override and restructuring of the global order. That circumstance is chaos.

The collapse of the United States of America would certainly create the chaos necessary to justify the formation of a new global reserve currency and ultimately a new world order, with its central power residing in Eurasia.


Those looking forward to a quick upturn may be missing the big picture. "Conspiracy theorists" have a name for the technique they claim the global elite use to engineer large scale social change, namely, the Hegelian Dialectic otherwise known as Problem-Reaction-Solution. That is they engineer the Problem, wait for the predictable Reaction and then offer the predetermined "Solution." If times get rough enough people will beg for anything that puts food back in their mouths and makes the streets safe again.

Neel Kashkari

"I didn’t know I was going to be the referee for an internal G.O.P. ideological civil war,” Mr. Frank said, according to The A.P.Thursday, in the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal."

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Source

2 plus 2 =

Strange Consensus

"If countries start doing it [engineering a new financial world order] bilaterally instead of multilaterally, the system will fall apart and we'll end up in depression."

Source

Global Currency, Global Bank

The move is on for the destruction of state sovereignty and the development of a central world state bank operating with a single currency.

All of this seems sporadic and local until you start to think globally.

In any case if you want to see the plan look at the translation of China's proposal for a world currency from the People's Bank of China here.

The degree to which our politicians must be two-faced about this is evident. To say they are against it will freak the holders of dollars who are looking long term. To say that they are for it immediately depresses the value of the dollar. Link

But the fact is that it is only a matter of time. In terms of the dollar the gun is held to everyone's head and the only question is when it implodes. Put differently, we are looking at a bubble at the global level.

So, as always, follow the money. If the world goes into a deep depression with no safe haven who stands to gain? Who can offer the solution? Might they be the same?

Honest Abe

"I have two great enemies, the southern army in front of me and the financial institutions, in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy..... I see in the future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"If the American People ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied. The issuing power of money should be taken from the bankers and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs. I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies."
--Thomas Jefferson

"The Federal Reserve Banks are privately owned, locally controlled corporations"
--Lewis vs. U.S., 680 F.2d 1239, 1241 (1982)

"From a legal standpoint these banks are private corporations, organized under a special act of Congress, namely, the Federal Reserve Act. They are not in the strict sense of the word, 'Government banks'."
--William P.G. Harding, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board (1921)

"It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
--Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.... Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth.... [Gold] stands as a protector of property rights."
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
--Alan Greenspan

"Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national ban with State capital and an exclusive monopoly."
--Karl Marx, 5th Plank of the Communist Manifesto, 1848

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
--Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815

Obvious in October of 2008

Glenn Beck is a watered down version of Alex Jones.  Anyway, if you want to predict what stories Beck will feature just visit www.infowars.com and see where his "research staff" leech their material.  In any case, the truth is the truth independent of motivation and that is all anyone should care about.

Weimar America

A young woman in Weimar Germany using the currency at the time to heat her home. Their bills look larger than ours...

The latest article from Bob Chapman's "The International Forecaster" is entitled 'America Potentially The Next Weimar or Argentina.'

Here is an excerpt:

"These policies will continue to extend the time line for a collapse. Even Alan Greenspan says $1 trillion is not enough to remedy the financial system and economic ills. Here we are on the threshold of going Weimar, as free trade and globalization, collapses perpetual currency devaluations take place and virulent inflation stalks the world, a hyperinflation that will destroy all but the very rich, who will in the end beg for their lives."

The last bit rests on Chapman's conviction that if things get bad enough a country with nine firearms for every ten people will prove to be the solution to this whole mess. Wishful thinking? Who knows? Sometimes this sounds like tough guy posturing to me. On the other hand no less than George Washington said:

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

Chapman's article can be found here.

Pour in a Few Trillion and the Market Rises!

At 1:00

"We had a strong rally, we are up 23% from the lows. I think that this rally might still have some legs for the simple reason that if you print money, let's say we all add a zero to our bank notes, and to our savings and credits it liquifies the system for awhile and asset prices move up accordingly."

At 3:43

..."I think what the government is doing and its economic dream team under Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Geithner and Mr. Summers are going to be from a longer term point of view rather negative. But you understand, I think we can all sit there and say it will all end in disaster. That I'm sure. But in the meantime we can have big moves in markets."

Prediction Verified: The Market Will Go Up (But You Will Be Raped)

On 3/21/09, well before the last rally a certain internet web-site predicted the surge--but he has an explanation. No wonder he has been so good about predicting the movement of the markets.

If you want to see his complete explanation please go here.

Here is a relevant quotation:

Gee, do you think that if we could show a profit after being given a $50 billion handout from taxpayers, that we could help ignite a stock market rally? How utterly ridiculous. The current rally in stocks is like a siren song, luring people back into the market so they can be dashed on the rocks once again later when the rally fizzles and they suffer losses anew. This classic bear market rally is a place where even angels should fear to tread, so we suggest you just keep accumulating precious metals stocks while they are kept artificially low. Only insiders know when the current rally will be allowed to fizzle, so unless you are an insider, you will get burned and become a crispy critter. Anyone who participates in this bogus rally is empowering the Illuminists, and is making their game much easier, and more profitable, to play.

A few days later on 3/24/09 the DOW jumped 500 points.

Another relevant quotation:

U.S. stocks staged their biggest rally in five months yesterday, led by an 18 percent surge in financial companies, on speculation the administration’s plan to rid banks of toxic assets will revive the economy. The gain pushed the S&P 500’s increase since sinking to a 12-year low on March 9 to 22 percent, the fastest two-week advance since 1938.

Crazy Conspiracy Theorist Kissinger Calls for NWO (Scroll to 2:00)

For those who don't know the NWO is an abbreviation for the "New World Order." The basic idea is that things would be much easier for the bankers if the world was united under a single currency.

A second idea worth thinking about is the fact that Kissinger views the current crisis as an "opportunity." If this makes you wonder at all Google 'Problem-Reaction-Solution.'

Sign of the Times

For those who are angry at Wallstreet remember that most of the workers, even those who raked in some nice cash, were just trying to do a good job in what they perceived as honest work.

Now many of them are just as screwed as the rest of us.

Here is a relevant statistic: In 2006 1% of the U.S. population accounted for 25% of the total income. These guys are not feeling the economic stress, or if they are, I can't imagine their "sacrifice." Damn, I really wanted that third island...

Schiff Predicts The Financial Collapse

Notice how the lamestream media attempts to discredit Schiff. At one point they literally resort to laughing at him without argument. Talk about intellectual bankruptcy...

Give It a Year or So

China, who holds about a trillion in U.S. debt and continues to finance
U.S. debt is looking for a way out.