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.