Two of the Most Powerful Lobbies in DC are the Fed and the Pentagon: "One of the Benefits of Being an Extremely Powerful Lobby in Washington is the Ability to Live Off the Taxpayers Without Ever Having to Tell the Taxpayers What You Do With Their Money"

April 5, 2017

(Mises.org) - One of the benefits of being an extremely powerful lobby in Washington is the ability to live off the taxpayers without ever having to tell the taxpayers what you do with their money. This includes two of the most powerful lobbies in DC: the Fed and the Pentagon.1

In recent years, thanks to Ron Paul, the "Audit the Fed" movement has gained a high profile in Washington and continues to be an election issue. Far less salient, however, is the issue of Auditing the Pentagon. And, unfortunately, like the Fed, the Pentagon is able to quash efforts to make the massive military establishment more transparent and more accountable in its spending.

In fact, the Pentagon's refusal to submit to any sort of full or meaningful audit has become so intransigent that Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders co-sponsored the "Audit the Pentagon Act of 2015" to force the Pentagon to submit to auditors.

Needless to say, the legislation went nowhere. Nevertheless, as The Guardian reports, the GAO and Office of the Inspector General (IG) have published an endless stream of reports documenting financial mismanagement: $500m in aid to Yemen lost here, $5.8bn in supplies lost there, $8,000 spent on helicopter gears that really cost $500.

Meanwhile, according to sparse internal audits, the Pentagon doesn't know what happened to more than $6 trillion dollars spent in recent years. And, the Pentagon's own report admits the Pentagon wasted $125 billion (more than one-sixth of an entire year's budget) in "administrative waste."

In spite of its inability to submit to any sort of department-wide audit, the Pentagon likes to make a big show of things when it manages to pull off even the smallest bit of accountability. But even that usually turns out to be a matter of smoke and mirrors:

In 2014, the Pentagon celebrated the Marine Corps’s success at being the first military agency to pass an audit. But a year later it was found that the private accounting firm hired to carry out the audit, Grant Thornton, had not been thorough. The Marine Corps had desperately wanted to achieve a "clean" status, due to pressure from then defense secretary Leon Panetta to get its books in order. In a scathing response to the debacle, Republican senator for Iowa Chuck Grassley said that the actions of the DoD IG showed a "lack of independence and flagrant disregard for audit ethics," calling the deputy IG for auditing "a Grant Thornton lapdog."

When information leaks out showing some of the extent to which the Pentagon can't keep track of the many taxpayers' dimes it's spending — as was the case with the report on that missing $125 billion — the Pentagon attempts to bury the evidence. According to the Washington Post, the Pentagon hid its report on waste because it feared Congress might "use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos."

The Week reports how "a summary report had been made public, but was removed from the Pentagon's website, and they placed secrecy restrictions on the data."

Rothschild Family Wealth is Five Times That of World’s Top 8 Billionaires Combined

Rothschild Family Wealth is Five Times That of World’s Top 8 Billionaires Combined

January 20, 2017

Waking Times - A recent report by Oxfam International highlights the dramatic rise in income equality by noting that the combined wealth of the world’s top 8 individual billionaires is more than the lower half of the world’s population, some 3.6 billion people. The intention of the report was to bring awareness to the unfairness and injustice inherent in our global economic system.

“It calls for a fundamental change in the way we manage our economies so that they work for all people, and not just a fortunate few.” [Oxfam]

Listed below are the 8 billionaires along with their estimated wealth, which combined equals $426.2 billion.

Bill Gates – $75 b
Amancio Ortega – $67 b
Warren Buffett – $60.8 b
Carlos Slim Helu – $50 b
Jeff Bezos – $45.2 b
Mark Zuckerberg – $44.6 b
Larry Ellison – $43.6 b
Michael Bllomberg – $40 b

Oxfam’s assertion is that world economies are mismanaged in favor of the wealthy, which is largely true, however, the report failed to hit the mark on this serious issue by not acknowledging the greatest problem with the world’s economy, which is the global central banking model of privately owned debt-based fiat currencies.

The current banking model is the product of hundreds of years of planned development, structuring, manipulation, force and trickery which began in earnest with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who first established banking and finance houses in Germany in the 18th century.

The careful cultivation of his wealth with the assistance of his five sons allowed Rothschild to profit immensely during the French Revolution by providing financing and war materials to Austria, which in turn allowed the budding family empire to evolve into a multi-national organization, henceforth becoming a major financier of industry and war.

“Around that time, Rothschild sent his five sons to live in the capital cities of various European countries. His goal was to have each of his children establish a banking business in Frankfurt, Naples, Vienna, Paris, and London, and throughout the 1800s, they did. With Mayer Rothschild’s children spread across Europe, the Rothschilds became the first bank to transcend borders. Lending to governments to finance war operations for the past several centuries provided ample opportunity to accumulate bonds and shore up additional wealth in a range of different industries.” [Source]

Fast forward to 2016, the Rothschild family is a dynasty of unimaginable wealth which manages to somehow conceal it for the most part, never quite being publicly credited as the richest and most influential family in the world. By dividing their capital and holdings up amongst the many members of the family, including numerous descendants and heirs, occasionally a single member of the family will appear on a list of the world’s top individuals, however, the family as a whole represents the largest fortune ever known.

“Traditionally, the Rothschild fortune is invested in closely held corporations. Most family members are employed by these corporations directly or invested in operations that generate family wealth. The remarkable success of the family has largely been due to a strong interest in cooperation, being entrepreneurs and the practice of shrewd business principles.” [Source]

Investopedia estimates the family’s total wealth at over $2 trillion in assets and holdings, including some of the world’s oldest living corporations:

“…their holdings span a number of diverse industries, including financial services, real estate, mining, energy and even charitable work.There are a few Rothschild-owned financial institutions still operating in Europe, including N M Rothschild & Sons Ltd in the United Kingdom, and Edmond de Rothschild Group in Switzerland. The family also owns more than a dozen wineries in North America, Europe, South America, South Africa and Australia.” [Source]

At $2 trillion plus, the family’s reported wealth is closing in on five times as much as the combined wealth of the world’s top 8 individual billionaires, meaning that the Rothschild family alone controls more wealth than perhaps three-fourths or more of the world’s total population.

World War Three Would Be Fought Between Eastern Communism and Western Internationalists: Both Intend to Bring into Effect a Totalitarian Dictatorship

Harry Browne's 2004 or 2005 interview of Richard Maybury, author and publisher of "The Thousand Year War" and the Early Warning Report. They discuss mostly foreign policy and middle east history. At the 23:40 mark, a caller proposes a valid solution to the perpetual war for perpetual peace.

Excerpted from Chapter 18, "The Present Dangers" of the Book "Pawns in the Game"

By William Guy Carr (1895-1959)
First Published in 1954

World War Three if started by the Eastern Communist dictators will begin without any preliminary warning:

1. An international general strike will be called in all capitalistic countries. This action is calculated to produce the paralysis previously referred to. 
2. The Communist planes will bomb all industrial centres to knock out the war potential of the United States and Canada and kill as many of the population as possible in order to bring about speedy surrender and subjugation. Britain will likely get the same treatment. 
3. Nerve Gas may be used on industrial areas the enemy do not wish to destroy. 
4. Soviet forces will occupy the mining districts of northern Canada from coast to coast. The occupied areas will be used as bases of operation against the southern objectives. 
5. The international general strike will tie up shipping in every port in the world making it impossible for supplies to reach the people of Great Britain. A blockade of the British Isles by Soviet submarines will stop any leaks. The people of Britain will be starved into submission four weeks after the outbreak of hostilities. 
6. The members of the Communist underground in all cities in the western world will evacuate target areas immediately before the attacks. The underground armies will return and take over the devastated areas as soon as the “All-Clear” has been given. 
7. The Communist 5th Column will round up and liquidate all people whose names are on the black list. Thus will the directors of the Western internationalists be gotten rid of in much quicker time than they got rid of their Nazi opponents by means of the Nuremberg Trials.

On the other hand, if the Western internationalists become convinced that an attack is to be made upon them by the Communist dictators, then they will force the western democracies into another World War in order that they may get in the first blow:

1. As a prelude to their attack, the public will be made aware of the dangers of international Communism. 
2. The danger to Christian democracy will be emphasized. The atheistic-materialists, who have the western world in economic bondage, will call for a Christian Crusade. 
3. They will justify their atomic attacks upon Russia and China as Churchill justified his attack on Germany. They will say it was necessary to save our civilization. 

But don’t lets fool ourselves. Regardless of how the case may be presented to the public, the fact will remain that if World War Three is allowed to take place it will be fought to decide whether Eastern Communism takes over the entire world or whether the Western capitalists will continue to rule the international roost.

If World War Three is permitted to take place, the devastation will be so extensive that internationalists will continue to justify their contentions that ONLY a world government, backed up by an international police force, can solve the various national and international problems without resorting to further wars. This argument will appear very logical to many people who overlook the fact that both the Eastern Communist leaders, and the Western capitalist leaders, intend to ultimately bring into effect THEIR ideas for an atheistic-totalitarian dictatorship.

Probability of U.S. Recession in 2016 Will Reach 65 Percent and Interest Rates Could Be Slashed to Zero Says Citibank

Watch for U.S. recession, zero interest rates in China next year, Citi says

December 2, 2015

Reuters - The outlook for the global economy next year is darkening, with a U.S. recession and China becoming the first major emerging market to slash interest rates to zero both potential scenarios, according to Citi.

As the U.S. economy enters its seventh year of expansion following the 2008-09 crisis, the probability of recession will reach 65 percent, Citi's rates strategists wrote in their 2016 outlook published late on Tuesday. A rapid flattening of the bond yield curve towards inversion would be an key warning sign.

"The cumulative probability of U.S. recession reaches 65 percent next year," Citi's rates strategists wrote in their 2016 outlook published late on Tuesday. "Curve inversion will likely come more quickly than the consensus thinks."

Normally, short-dated yields such as two-year yields are lower than longer-dated ones like 10-year yields, as investors demand a premium for taking on risk several years into the future. The curve has inverted before each of the last five U.S. recessions since the mid-1970s.

In China, deflationary pressures and downside risks to growth will force Beijing to loosen fiscal policy, let the yuan depreciate and perhaps become the first major emerging market economy to cut interest rates to zero, Citi said.

The Illuminati’s Secret $20 Trillion Bank; the Estimated Value of the Rothschild Family’s Total Holdings is $500 Trillion

The Illuminati’s Secret 20 Trillion Dollar Bank

February 9, 2011

Zen Gardner - Of all the scams, the worldwide banking system is one of the most mind-boggling. Never mind the entire false premise of fiat money and the debt system, that vast amounts of this illusory “currency” get shifted every micro-second just begs deceit and piracy.

Trouble is, if you “buy into it” you’re already ensnared, and it’s either eat, or be eaten. That’s their design.

Ownership by Whom?

The estimated value of the Rothschild family’s total holdings is at 500 Trillion dollars. So what. The entire planet is supposedly “owned” by a very small percentage of people. So?

Can anyone “own” anything? Ownership is a temporary power trip for the unenlightened—everything always gets passed on. Like the temporary unit we all live in called our body, it’s an illusion that anyone can “live forever” physically, never mind truly “possess” anything if we look at things truthfully.

However…

That would be fine if it was just a matter of perception. Trouble is, these ultra-possessive creeps called the global elite or Illuminati impose their system of temporal power beliefs on the rest of us. Either we play the game their way, or we’re locked out of the playground and cut off from supplies by their hired thugs.

It’s a beautiful planet with lots of beautiful people, but the world “system” is very ugly and run by non-empathetic psychopaths.

But again, it’s all temporal.

Banking Scams Coming to Light

The recent economic manipulations have made a lot of things very obvious. While the MSMedia has tried to downplay or ignore these revelations, the globalist central bankster cartel is being exposed regularly.

While people are pounding on the obvious manipulation of and by the private Federal Reserve Bank hoax and Goldman Sachs and the like, there’s another part of that story few have noticed.

It’s a little known off-shoot of the FED called the DTCC aka “Cede and Co.”

What is the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation?

There is a busy little private company you probably never have heard about, but which you should. Its name is the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. See their website. Looks pretty boring. Some kind of financial service thing, with a positive slogan and out there to make a little business. You can even get a job there.

Now, go and take a look at their annual report. Starts with a nice little Flash presentation and has a nice message from the CEO. And take a look at the numbers. It turns out that this company holds 23 trillion dollars in assets, and had 917 trillion dollars worth of transactions in 2002 alone. That’s trillions, as in thousands of thousands of millions. 23,000,000,000,000 dollars in assets.

As it so turns out, it is not because DTCC has a nice website and says good things about saving their customers money that they are trusted with that kind of resources. Rather it is because they seem to have a monopoly on what they do. In brief, they process the vast majority of all stock transactions in the United States as well as for many other countries. And—and that’s the real interesting part—99% of all stocks in the U.S. appear to be legally owned by them.

How did this happen?

And why is this mega-monopolizer so hidden from public scrutiny? It turns out it’s part of the Federal Reserve Bank. Big surprise. These same owners and players mandated that all transactions have to go through their subsidiary. And not just go through it for all the profits and asset holding interest the transaction will bring, but they are given ownership of everyone’s assets in the process!

In the old days, when you owned stocks you would have the stock certificates lying in your safe. And if you needed to trade them, you needed to get them shipped off to a broker. Nowadays that would be considered very cumbersome, and it would be impractical to invest via computer or over the phone. So the shortcut was invented that the broker would hold your stocks instead of you. And in order for him to legally be able to trade them for you, the stocks were placed under their “street name.” I.e. they’re in the name of the brokerage, but they’re just holding them in trust and trading them for you. And you’re in reality the beneficiary rather than the owner.

Which is all fine and dandy if everything goes right. Now, it appears the rules were then changed so the brokers are not allowed any longer to put the stocks in their own name. Instead, what they typically do is to put the stocks into the name of “Cede and Company” or “Cede & Co” or some such variation. And the broker might tell you that it is just a fictitious name, and will explain why it is really more practical to do that than to put it in your name.

The problem with that is that it appears that Cede isn’t just some dummy name, but an actual corporation that DTCC controls. And, well, if you ask anybody about this, who actually knows about it, they will naturally tell you that it is all a formality. To serve you better, of course. And, well, maybe it is.

DTCC seems like a nice and friendly company. It is a private company, owned by the same people (major U.S. banks) who own the Federal Reserve Bank. And if they all stick to their job, and just keep the money and your stocks flowing smoothly, I’m sure that is all well and good. But if somebody at some point should decide otherwise, and there’s a national U.S. emergency and/or the U.S. government becomes unable to pay its debts, well, they might just not give you your stocks back. Because legally they own them. Something to think about. (source)

Sound impossible?

Here’s an explanation from another researcher:

Almost Every Modern War Was Started by a False Flag Operation

"With 99.8% certainty in the Jackass mind, 9-11 was an inside job to convert the United States of America into a fascist nation, to move the National Security Agency into a strong position of power, and to put the CIA in control of the White House. It was an event with at least five principal groups involved. The United States has been transformed into a giant police state. The event was a celebration of fascism, a magnificent bank heist and bond-sealed deal, and climax of the narco lineage of presidents. Despite all the big clues, which would result in considerable reasonable doubt in any grand jury court room session, the pattern is clear for over half the nation: they accept the official story, then work backwards, dismissing evidence, ignoring the cornucopia of data that contradicts the 9/11 Commission Report, which is a fairy tale and fascist concoction and pure drivel. The reality goes beyond 9/11, as the USGovt has been under fascist control for 50 years. The death of Kennedy marks the beginning of the fascist lineage of USGovt and its selected presidents.

"Nixon made a deal with the devil to cooperate with the coup d'etat and in return dropped the Gold Standard. Recall that Nixon was dead political timber until revived by a cooperative press. Nixon then established the NSA, set up as the uber-Gestapo. The war theme has become part of the US social, commercial, and sport fabric. Even the USOpen tennis tournament had an honor guard and giant flag folding ceremony. The regular war footing is evident with every hot spot on earth, with 170 USMilitary bases scattered around the globe. The military drones killing civilians (in foreign nations and soon possibly inside the US), pervasive eavesdropping (overseas and at home), constant high security alert, the alienation will all nations including allies, the airport checks, the difficulty to renew passports, the theft of private accounts, these are the tell-tale signals of a fascist regime in power. Freedom of speech and assembly have been shattered, as has due process. The treatment of Occupy Wall Street as terrorists, the torture in Guantanimo, the viruses hidden in vaccines, the Monsanto chromosome devices with food, the constant propaganda, the chemtrails in the sky, the contamination of groundwater systems from Halliburton fracking, the thefts from central banks, the gigantic $23 trillion in gift loans to cabal bankers around the world, these are the tell-tale signals of a fascist regime in power.

"The link to gold from the entire 9/11 event is direct and indirect. The $100bn in gold bar thefts depleted foreign nations and foreign companies of their legitimately held gold assets, held in the WTCenter vaults. It was mainly a gold heist. However, what followed was a path created by the Fascist Business Model. The model merges the major corporations with the state, permits fraud and thefts, allows the big banks to write legislation in the Congress, puts bankers in regulatory posts to monitor banks and stocks, and generally leads to elite corruption, fraud, malfeasance, murder, lawlessness, and indescribable inefficiency within the capitalist system.

"The 9/11 tragedy set events in motion which gave the Fascist Business Model a full official blessing, resulting in annual $1 trillion deficits, a USGovt deficit that cannot be financed, a QE disastrous monetary policy resembling those in Africa, and an assured death of the USDollar. Its demise, which is in progress by means of the dismantled Petro-Dollar machinery, will usher in the return to the Gold Standard. The hidden derivative losses are in the multiple $trillions. Since the United States is the least likely to produce a valid gold-backed currency, the risk is greatest for the US to fall into the Third World.

"The naive sheep among us actually wonder why, if it really was an inside job, people do not come forward and speak from the stump. Because they are jailed and killed and threatened and disenfranchised, that is why. The targets are for prevention of disclosure in the mainstream, not the alternative media, like internet journals. We net gurus in the alternative press are supposedly the kooks. Ok, except we have the data, the evidence, the logic, and the forensic conclusions on our side. Call me a Truther." - Jim Willie CB

9/11 Memory: Fascism & Gold

September 14, 2015 
 

Jim_Willie_CB - The ultimate patriotic act is to invest the life savings in Gold & Silver, which does honor to real money, shows disdain for paper merchants who rule the central banks, and forces nations to put forth honest sound money in usage. It is important to recall the 9/11 event, however based in reality, not the official story. Honor should be given to the 2500 victims of the mass murder event. The official story makes far less sense than the Kennedy assassination, while the two events appear to be front and back bookends of the same Fascist takeover of the United States Govt.  

The Patriot Act was a fascist manifesto, much like the Enabling Act installed in Germany over seven decades ago. The two acts have a 90% correlation and overlap, yet the American public remains largely in the dark on the similarity in template.

The USCongress passed the controversial Patriot Act, which has totally opposite direction to patriotism, under threat of anthrax in their ventilation system (rumored to be engineered by the FBI).

The creation of the Homeland Security Agency should ring loud gongs about the Gestapo similarities.

That the US & London & Swiss bankers are fascists with roots to 1930 fascists should also be brought to public attention. The US bankers on Wall Street actually had loans extended to the German Nazis, a fact the public seems to overlook. Operation Paperclip, which opened the US gates to the several hundred bankers, scientists, and industrial captains, should have been a wakeup call to Americans, but they remain asleep.

Imagine a nation that makes a mockery of citizens seeking the truth on the event, calling them disparagingly the Truthers. Recall that truth is the enemy of fascist regimes, and the early victim of any war.



The 9/11 event was the coming out party for the American Fascists. It was also a complex sequence of criminal events to abrogate $230 billion in Russian bonds, to wipe clean the Black Eagle Fund on gold obligations.

China Admits That Its Stock Market Was a Bubble That Has Burst

China just gave the game away

September 8, 2015

Business Insider - Chinese leaders expressed deep concern for their country's economy last weekend at a meeting of G-20 nations in Ankara, Turkey.

That is weird for two reasons.

First, China's leaders are normally incredibly confident about their economy in public.

Second, amid the worry — despite the Chinese economy's visible slowdown and dramatic action over the past month — officials maintained that the economy would continue to grow at 7% annually.

Basically, that means Chinese officials just gave the game away: They expect us to believe that the country's economy will close this year growing the same way it did last year: 7%, always 7%.

Something here doesn't fit.

Here's what they said

The reports started leaking out on Friday, when Japan's finance minister, Taro Aso, revealed that Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, had repeated several times in a meeting that the Chinese stock market bubble had "burst."

This is the same stock market that the government helped inflate and has since been trying to prop up. Goldman Sachs strategists estimate that China's "national team" of state-backed brokerages and funds has pumped about $240 billion into the stock market since June.

It is also the same stock market that China has been trying to "purify" and that has been falling because foreign investors don't understand China's growth model, according to Chinese media.

Admitting that the market was a bubble, and that it has now popped, is a big step.

Of course, that's just the stock market — a stock market in which only 5% of Chinese people are invested. Far worse is what was reportedly said about the country's real economy.

According to Japan's Nikkei news service, Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei told a group of delegates that China would face up to 10 years of tough economic conditions. The next five years, he said, would most definitely be painful.

That doesn't tally with the 7% growth target China keeps repeating, a target that China's richest man has dubbed a fantasy.

Contrast what was said this weekend with what you read in China's state media and you get a picture of policy going forward. It's not pretty at all. It is the picture of the government whose carefully laid plans have gone awry.

The plan goes awry

Right now, China is trying to move its economy from one based on foreign investment to one based on domestic consumption. Leaders knew that as this happened, the economy would slow down.

The Case for Keeping Interest Rates as Low as Possible for as Long as Possible

A dangerously misleading idea threatens to derail the American economy

August 27, 2015

Vox - The US economy got some great news Thursday morning when revised numbers indicated that the economy grew 3.7 percent in the second quarter. That same report carried zero indication that inflation is getting out of hand, but nonetheless was greeted with speculation that it might induce the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. After all, good news indicates that the economy can survive without life support.

When you see a person in the hospital with oxygen tubes in her nose and a saline drip in her arm, you assume the doctors have done this for some good reason. Most likely, if the tubes were removed the patient's health would be in serious jeopardy. But all else being equal, having tubes stuck in you is a pretty crappy situation. It's uncomfortable, and it limits your mobility. As soon as it's safe, you'd want to pull the tubes out. Now that the emergency created by the 2008 financial crisis is over, some people are anxious to pull the tube out and let the patient get back to living a normal life.

But there's actually no reason to think low interest rates are a problem for the US economy. Low interest rates reduce the federal deficit, encourage entrepreneurship, and boost economic growth. As long as inflation stays low — and right now, it's extremely low and likely to stay that way for a long time — we should relax and enjoy the benefits.

The perverse urge to normalize

As of a couple of weeks ago, the overwhelming conventional wisdom was that at its next meeting in September the Federal Reserve would finally raise interest rates for the first time since house prices started to collapse more than seven years ago. Then the financial trauma coming out of Asia cast doubt on that. William Dudley, the influential president of the New York Fed, said recent events made a rate hike "less compelling," and, partly as a result, US markets have been soaring ever since.

But Dudley also said, "I really do hope we can raise interest rates this year," and, most of all, that there's no reason to be thinking about new efforts at monetary stimulus: "I’m a long way from quantitative easing. The US economy is performing quite well."

This central analytic mistake is repeated daily on financial television shows, on "finance Twitter," in the business press, and apparently in staff-level discussions in the Federal Reserve. The conceit is that raising interest rates is a good thing, and the Fed should do it as soon as possible. Debate is entirely focused on whether higher rates would be catastrophic. Any good economic news counts as a reason to think they wouldn't be and therefore should come sooner.

In order to make it seem more obvious that higher interest rates are good, proponents of higher interest rates have taken to calling higher interest rates "normalizing" monetary policy. Normal things are good, right? Who could be against normal?

The case for low interest rates

But this is both totally wrong and a remarkably recent idea.

Federal Reserve Might Not Raise Interest Rates in September Due to China's Slowing Economy

China is the biggest holder of reserve assets in the world, holding a combination of bonds, currencies and commodities like gold. It held $1,271 billion in U.S. Treasurys at the end of June 2015, according to data from the Treasury Department. Societe Generale analysts estimate that the People's Bank of China (PBoC) has sold at least $106 billion of U.S. reserve assets since announcing its currency devaluation on August 11, 2015. China had cut its holdings of U.S. Treasurys to raise the U.S. dollars needed to support the yuan. [Source]

China has officially ruined everything for everybody [Excerpt]

August 27, 2015

Quartz - We know China is big. By some measures, China is now a bigger chunk of the global economy than the US.

But it’s also slowing.

This slowdown matters. A lot. China is the world’s largest consumer of—in no particular order—copper, steel, iron ore, automobiles, aluminum, mobile phones, nickel, rice, tobacco, meat, Swiss watches, television, rubber, potash, energy, robots, beer, machine tools, red wine, flavored milk, rare earths, wheat, coal, as well as plenty of other raw materials and products.

And because of China’s seemingly endless demand for such sundries, companies—and entire countries—have built their business and economic strategies around catering to the People’s Republic.

That means China’s problems are the world’s problems.

The US economy is not built around supply exports to China. So, in that sense, the country enjoys a bit more insulation from China than many others.

But the US does import a lot of stuff from China, and one of the most important imports—at least lately—has been deflation.

Because of slack conditions in the Chinese industrial sector, producer prices—prices of goods as they leave the factory gate—have been tumbling.

That, along with the devaluation of the Chinese currency, should put further downward pressure on US import prices.

Ostensibly that’s a good thing for consumers.

On the other hand, that deflationary pressure will make it even more difficult for the Federal Reserve to achieve its goal of getting inflation up to a level where it feels like it can raise interest rates. Inflation remains abnormally low, largely due to low oil prices. But the Chinese situation won’t help matters either.

Markets are now much less sure that the Fed will finally start raising interest rates for the first time in roughly nine years in September.

Ultimate Goal of the New World Order: "A Supranational Sovereignty of an Intellectual Elite and World Bankers"

Many of the people on earth today, especially those in charge of society, are materialists and atheists, consumed by fear, selfishness, violence, egotism, militarism, and greed, spiritually either deeply asleep or dead, destroying through negligence whole nations and even perhaps the planet we live on. A world where war is viewed as normal, where human beings knowingly and willingly torture other human beings to death then lie about it, where governments terrorize their own populations, where millions are deliberately subjected to addictive legal and illegal drugs, where the food supply is degraded for profit, where radiation is purposely introduced into the environment through devices like depleted uranium, where space is viewed as the ultimate high ground for weapons deployment, where assassination is official policy, where pandemics are declared to market dangerous vaccines, where trillions are lavished on financial institutions while families are denied adequate income, where initiative is smothered by taxes and regulations, where justice is bought and sold, where the laws favor mainly the rich, where the media put people to sleep with pablum and nonsense, and where the intellectuals justify the status quo is a world whose time is up. - Richard C. Cook, July 17, 2009

Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?

By Richard C. Cook, Global Research
Originally Published on March 27, 2008

"They make a desolation and call it peace." -Tacitus

Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down?

Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, "accidentally on purpose"?

And if so, why?

Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.

David Rockefeller at Harvard in 2006

The lengthy Wikipedia article on Rockefeller provides the following version of a celebrated statement he allegedly made in an opening speech at the Bilderberg conference in Baden-Baden, Germany, in June 1991:

"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 these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries."

This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an "us." This "us," he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years; if you add the 17 years since he gave the speech, it was 57 years ago—two full generations.

Not only has "us" developed a "plan for the world," but the attempt to "develop" the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of "us" is to create "the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers." This will lead, he says, toward a "world government which will never again know war."

Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and "us" have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.

Therefore by examining these decisions and events we can determine whether in fact Rockefeller is being truthful in his assessment that the Utopia he has in mind is on its way or has at least come closer to being realized.

In no particular order, some of these decisions and events are as follows:

Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department Operate Like a Vast Crime Syndicate

Guaranteed US Dollar Death Dynamics

July 2, 2015 

Jim_Willie_CB - The USDollar is on a collision course with imminent death.

It is utterly amazing that so many supposedly smart analysts and highly paid wealth managers cannot see the obvious path on which the USDollar treads, limps, and struts — proudly, dangerously, and abusively — suspended by numerous false cables and tethers.

The USDollar cannot be sustained in its current form or on its present course. The abuse of its management and stewardship will be told in history books (possibly with certain chapters scribed by the Jackass).

The aggressive defense of the USDollar includes criminal activity on a widespread scale never witnessed before. It is a veritable global money war, not so much a global financial crisis.

The system, centered upon the USDollar, is collapsing under its own insolvency and corrupt underpinnings amidst the din of war. The truth is almost nowhere to be seen.

The USGovt is demanding that allies support the global currency reserve, even though doing so guarantees a financial structure collapse and an economic breakdown. The safe haven is Gold & Silver, in the form of bars & coins, kept secure outside all nations that speak English, and outside nations that are closely allied with the USFed and USDept Treasury, which operate like a vast crime syndicate.

The current system is destined to failure. Time is running out.

The only assets to thrive in the coming climax will be precious metals, property containing commodity resources, and certain commercial property, surely farmlands, maybe some collectibles.

The year 2015 will not end with any basic resemblance to the beginning of 2015. The interior structures are fracturing, seizing, cracking, rupturing, and convulsing. The banking masters are having an increasingly difficult time to conceal the damage, corrosion, ruin, and breakdown.

Meanwhile the Chinese are wresting control of the Gold market. They will liberate when they feel like it and not a moment before.

Flashback to a 2011 Report on Greece, the Central Banking System, the Euro, and Big Government Debt

Americans can also learn from Europe. Borrowing and printing money to finance big government  policies makes the problems worse. And bailing out banks with tax money after the system fails isn’t just wrong, it’s self-destructive. Yet even as these facts are being acknowledged in Europe, the U.S. government is growing faster than ever before in history — financed by massive debt and out-of-control currency creation. While it’s almost unthinkable that America would end up like Greece or Portugal, on our current path, there are few long-term alternatives. Of course, there is one difference: When nobody will lend the United States any more money, and when running the printing presses leads to an inevitable currency crisis, a bailout for our own federal government will be impossible to find.

Lessons in Statism from the European Crisis

“By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.” - John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1919

By Alex Newman, Crisis Magazine
June 30, 2011

Europe is a mess. 

The ongoing economic crisis has sparked violent riots and growing turmoil, particularly in harder-hit nations like Greece, where demonstrators have taken to throwing home-made bombs at police. And the worst may be yet to come.

Analysts now say there is a real chance that the Greek government will default on its obligations. Former U.S. Federal Reserve boss Alan Greenspan recently said it looks like there’s no other way out for the beleaguered regime in Athens. Ratings agencies have already downgraded Greek bonds to “junk” status and are warning that they could go down even more.

A default, or whatever the government might try to call it, would make the bad situation worse. First, Greek banks — having been essentially coerced into buying loads of government debt — would all be wiped out and become insolvent. Analysts predict that the regime would have no alternative but to nationalize the entire banking sector and declare a “bank holiday.” Such a scenario would make the current clashes in the streets look moderate by comparison as furious depositors demanded their money.

The implications for world markets, and especially for the Euro, could be catastrophic. French and German banks are said to be among those heavily invested in Greek bonds.

Experts have been warning for more than a year that if Greece goes down, a domino effect might topple the whole region. The single currency could even collapse, and the economy of the European Union (EU) may go down with it, as banks and governments exposed to Greece’s government debt began to tumble.

Other indebted European governments — Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, among others — might start defaulting on their own obligations. Even without the problems in Greece, more than a few governments in the region are precipitously close to the edge. A Greek default could be the push.

To avoid that scenario, the EU establishment has been working to paper over the problem by throwing taxpayer money at it. Thus far, it doesn’t seem to be working. The socialist regime in Greece is still devouring money like a black hole and effectively holding the region hostage.

The first Greek bailout last year, orchestrated by Euro-zone governments and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), totaled almost $150 billion. It was supposed to last for three years, but it wasn’t even close to enough. Greece is now begging for another handout, and it appears virtually certain that a second rescue package — estimated as high as $170 billion — will soon be on the way.

Even with the next round of bailouts, however, analysts say it’s only a matter of time before the inevitable default arrives and bond holders are forced to take a big cut. Indeed, the Greek government’s debts are growing faster than the economy is. If something doesn’t change, it will be impossible for Greek taxpayers to end the cycle without a default.

Greece, of course, is just one of many European countries grappling with staggering amounts of debt. And while the Greek tragedy may be dominating the financial headlines, the situation in several larger economies is equally grim.

China is Hoarding Gold; Is the U.S. Dollar About to Collapse?

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Iran and its leading oil buyers, China and India, found ways to skirt U.S. and European Union financial sanctions on the Islamic republic by agreeing to trade oil for local currencies and goods including wheat, soybean meal and consumer products. The second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Iran said in February 2012 that it will accept payment in any local currency or gold as new sanctions make it harder for trading partners to pay in dollars and euros. [Source]

First, let’s backtrack. In March 2012, the United States and European Union beefed up their economic sanctions on Iran, shutting Iran out of the global payments network called SWIFT. Also in March 2012, Turkey’s gold exports to Iran doubled from the month before and exploded 37 times over the March 2011 figure. “Natural gas is the source of almost all electricity in Turkey. I wrote in Apogee Advisory. “More than 90% of Iran’s gas exports go to Turkey. Iran furnishes 18% of Turkey’s natural gas. Without Iran, Turkey would depend almost entirely on a single gas supplier to keep the lights on — Russia. Under the sanctions, Turkey can’t pay for Iranian gas with dollars or euros. So it pays with gold.” India likewise paid with gold for Iranian oil. Iran could then use the gold to buy food or manufactured goods from Russia and China. “The United States,” Rickards writes,” had inflicted a currency collapse, hyperinflation, and a bank run and had caused a scarcity of food, gasoline and consumer goods, through the expedient of cutting Iran out of the global payments system.” Gold had become Iran’s lifeline...When Iran agreed to resume nuclear talks, a conceit took hold in Washington that “the sanctions worked” — the Iranians had been more or less starved to the negotiating table. Not so, says former Ambassador William Miller, who was stationed in Iran during the 1960s and is in contact with the current regime. “Sanctions only made them more defiant,” he tells the Los Angeles Times. Want proof? Iran put the same offer on the table in 2003 — only to be spurned by the United States. Actually, it was a better offer from Washington’s perspective. Back then, Iran had only 164 nuclear centrifuges; by 2013, it had 19,000. That’s a heck of a lot more bargaining chips to hold once negotiations begin in earnest. [Source]

Soon the feds will seize all retirement accounts, and redemptions will be blocked. Many who are around 60 years old and possessing gigantic “paper wealth” and close to retirement seem absolutely frozen, immobilized, stuck in neutral gear, either unwilling or unable to make that 401K—IRA—Keogh—pension account redemption call. Obama will pitch as an annuity or “guaranteed” income stream from that Mother of All Safe Financial Instruments... U.S. Treasury Bonds!! And how coincidental / convenient that it turns out that the sum total of all retirement accounts is right around 17 trillion…close to at least the federal debt figure quoted in the mainstream media. Neat and tidy and more digestible…..when of course (without regard to derivatives losses of one-and-a-half quadrillion)….America’s REAL debt — including unfunded liabilities like Social Security, Fannie, Freddie, Medicare, et.al — is a staggering $240 trillion. TO ANYONE READING THIS—Please take aside those you care about and do whatever it takes to just “get over” the 20% early withdrawal penalty and CALL THEIR MUTUAL FUND ADVISOR, stock broker, etc. The window of opportunity to re-invest those soon-to-be-worthless dollars into things with high intrinsic value closes a little more each day. [David Carswell]

The global rejection of the Petro-Dollar is well along, which began with the introduction of QE, then QE2, then Operation Twist. But the global rejection took flight after Taper Talk failed in its trial balloon, and achieved supersonic speed with the recognition of QE to Infinity was implicitly endorsed. The global rejection saw the prototype built in the hangar with the Iran sanction workarounds, where India bought Iran's oil and gas, but paid with Turkish gold, delivered to Tehran banks. The global rejection will achieve escape velocity with the acceptance of Russian Rubles for its energy products. The global rejection will achieve additional escape velocity with the acceptance of Chinese Yuan payments for Saudi crude oil (then all OPEC oil). Coming is the launch of both the gold-backed Russian Ruble and the gold-backed Chinese Yuan. The global rejection will be final, and the funeral will be announced. They will enter the financial airspace first, followed by others. When the US Military defense of the US Dollar is recognized as blatant, dishonorable, toothless, and ineffective, the other gold-backed currencies will follow. The isolated paper tiger was revealed in Syria. The toothless rampaging tiger will be revealed in Ukraine. The Kiev Govt is almost ready to collapse already. The Russians and Chinese might put the first daggers in the USDollar heart, but numerous death blows will come from other parties. [Source]

Is China Hoarding Gold to Challenge the U.S. Dollar?

November 19, 2014

WallStCheatSheet - In a world filled with fiat currencies, how important is gold’s role in the financial system? Proponents often view the precious metal as a hedge against economic chaos, while critics typically claim gold is hardly more than an unproductive rock. Interestingly, some countries appear to believe gold is quite important, and one former Fed chair explains why.

Alan Greenspan, who served at the helm of the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades, recently penned an op-ed for the Council on Foreign Relations discussing gold and its possible role in China, the world’s second-largest economy. He notes that if China converted only a “relatively modest part of its $4 trillion foreign exchange reserves into gold, the country’s currency could take on unexpected strength in today’s international financial system.”

Greenspan also believes the downside risks for China stockpiling gold are limited, at least from a pure investment point of view. “It would be a gamble, of course, for China to use part of its reserves to buy enough gold bullion to displace the United States from its position as the world’s largest holder of monetary gold,” he wrote. “But the penalty for being wrong, in terms of lost interest and the cost of storage, would be modest.”

The People’s Bank of China has not formally disclosed any changes to its gold holdings in years, but it’s believed that the central bank is purchasing gold to diversify its reserve holdings. In 2009, China announced that it boosted its gold reserves by 454 tonnes via acquiring gold quietly over the previous five years. That represented an impressive 76 percent increase in gold reserves. Today, China still shows that it holds 1,054.1 tonnes in reserves, but it’s speculated by analysts to actually have around 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes.

Some market participants also believe China is building up its gold reserves to challenge the U.S. dollar, which is currently the world’s reserve currency. A few years ago, China’s official news agency, Xinhua, said, “International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country.”

Gold already plays a significant role in China’s economy. In 2013, China’s gold consumption surged 41 percent year-over-year to 1,176.40 tonnes, exceeding 1,000 tonnes for the first time on record, according to the China Gold Association. Demand for jewelry was the biggest contributor, with an increase of 43 percent to 716.50 tonnes, while bullion demand rose 57 percent to 375.73 tonnes. China is the largest gold consumer and producer in the world.

China faces an uphill battle if it’s going to challenge America’s gold stockpile. According to the most recent data from the World Gold Council, the U.S. holds 8,133.5 tonnes of gold, representing 71.8 percent of reserves and the most held by any one country in the world. Furthermore, a behind-the-scenes look from Greenspan reveals that the U.S. is not likely to sell its gold stash anytime soon.

“In 1976, for example, I participated, as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, in a conversation in which then U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon and then Federal Reserve Board Chair Arthur Burns met with President Gerald Ford to discuss Simon’s recommendation that the United States sell its 275 million ounces of gold and invest the proceeds in interest-earning assets,” said Greenspan. “Whereas Simon, following the economist Milton Friedman’s view at that time, argued that gold no longer served any useful monetary purpose, Burns argued that gold was the ultimate crisis backstop to the dollar. The two advocates were unable to find common ground. In the end, Ford chose to do nothing. And to this day, the U.S. gold hoard has changed little, amounting to 261 million ounces.”