Free - Beyond Collapse

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Ground Zero Mosque and American Freedom


by NewAmericaNow

It seems that, Ron Paul and I have the same view on the ground zero mosque. The United States of America ideally is supposed to be a nation with laws that apply to everyone equally. The reason why this country was founded as a Republic and not a Democracy is because; our founding fathers in their infinite wisdom did not want tyranny of the majority.

If we should allow government to tell the owners of the property in question that they can not build or do what the private owners of the property see fit with their own private property then we condemn everyone of us, to a country that allows government more power over the individual and his or her private possessions.

The reason that many of us protest and resist today is because, government has slowly overstepped its bounds, yet many of those same protesters, still call for government intervention when the finger points at someone else. Freedom does not work for all, if it only works for some.

The ground zero mosque is a property rights issue and nothing more. Should we ban the building of churches near the Oklahoma City Federal Building because, Timothy McVeigh was a Christian? Of course not.

There is some evidence that this controversy was stimulated covertly by elements of US intelligence, but whether that's true or not, can not be supported. It wouldn't be the first time that emotional issues turned into bad legislation. My biggest point is that in a free country everyone must be allowed the same rights. I think that pursuing this type of Islamophobia is dangerous to our own freedoms and shows a level of intolerance that I, as a freedom loving American, can not support. Thank You.

http://www.newamerica-now.blogspot.com

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Purpose Behind Engineered Economic Collapse


By Giordano Bruno

“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.” — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

Everyone loves money. Even people like myself who abhor the abuse of money and commerce, who understand the fraudulent nature of the system we live in, still work hard and save so that we might attain a sense of stability within that system. Many people see money as a focal point to their existence. But is it really money that they are after, or is it something else entirely? In truth, money represents ‘security’ in the minds of the masses. Money affords us the ability to survive, and the more of it we have, the safer we all feel. Because we subconsciously associate the extension of our very life with the variable health of the economic structure in which we live, we tend to become unwitting devotees to its continued existence, even if it is corrupt and condemned to failure. We gullibly deny the system or the currency that supports it is doomed to the contrary of all evidence because, even though it has beaten us bloody, we have never known anything else.

In light of this entrenched way of perceiving things, especially in the U.S., it is difficult enough to convince some people that the economy is in fact not providing the security they desire, but is actually destroying their future completely. To explain to them that this is deliberate, that the economy is designed to self-destruct, that is another prospect altogether.

Many people hit a proverbial wall on this issue because they simply cannot fathom that certain groups of men (globalists and central bankers) view money and economy in completely different terms than they do. The average American lives within a tiny box when it comes to the mechanics and motivations of finance. They think that their monetary desires and drives are exactly the same as a globalist’s. But, what they don’t realize is that the box they think in was BUILT by globalists. This is why the actions of big banks and the decisions of our mostly corporate establishment run government seem so insane in the face of common sense. We try to rationalize their behavior as “idiocy”, but the reality is that their goals are highly deliberate and so far outside what we have been taught to expect that some of us lack a point of reference. If you cannot see the endgame, you will not understand the steps taken to reach it until it is too late.

In the past we have covered numerous instances in which global bankers have admitted to fraud on a massive scale, fraud which is now crushing our already fragile economy. We have covered the private Federal Reserve and how it knowingly facilitated the creation of the housing bubble, as well as how it is now inflating a Treasury bubble which is soon to implode. We have covered Goldman Sachs and its efforts to promote and sell toxic derivatives all over the world while at the same time betting against those derivatives on the open market. We have covered the manipulation of gold and silver markets by companies like JP Morgan, which have recently been exposed by whistleblowers and GATA investigations. And, most importantly, we have executed in-depth analysis on the growing weakness of the U.S. dollar in preparation for severe currency devaluation. These revelations raise questions, which is natural, but they also illicit misconceptions and reckless knee-jerk reactions, especially when broaching the fact that the illegal strategies of international banks are part of a greater agenda.

Below, we will examine some of the most common narrow minded responses to the issue of engineered economic collapse, as well as why people think the way they do when the “semi-sacred” subject of money is involved…

1. The economy is too complex to be controlled by just a handful of people…

This response often comes from people who make presumptions on economics, rather than actually educating themselves on how the system works. From the outside looking in, the world of finance appears chaotic; a mixture of mathematical and legal standards swirling in a void of mass psychology. Many Americans are either frightened off by the seemingly complicated field of study, or they find it rather boring and not worth their time. This, however, does not stop them from assuming that they know how money works.

The problem is that just because a person participates in his economy daily, it does not mean he has any understanding of how it operates. Many watch television on a daily basis, but few have any idea how the picture actually gets onto the screen, or how to fix a television once it is broken. Sadly, our egocentric culture has led a substantial portion of the public to imagine that they are experts on EVERYTHING, and thus, true researchers in the fields of economics and globalism get reactions like the one above constantly.

At bottom, once all the quasi-technical biz-babble used by mainstream talking heads is removed from the equation, economics is rather simple. Supply and Demand will always be at the center of any and every economy, regardless of the political atmosphere it exists in. These two fundamental factors can be manipulated to a point, by the creation of artificial supply, or the conjuring of false demand. This is achieved in many ways by global bankers, but primarily through domination of the issuance of currency, the ability to change interest rates at will, as well as the ability to inject or remove incredible sums of money from any market.

A perfect example is the suppression of silver prices by JP Morgan:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/whistleblower-exposes-jp-morgans-silver-manipulation-scheme

Gold and silver represent competing currencies to the fiat dollars created by the Federal Reserve, and suppressing the value of these commodities helps to ensure that the public will never see them as a viable alternative to paper assets. JP Morgan, who along with other international banks has the ability to throw around massive quantities of capital wherever they please, suppresses the value of physical silver by issuing paper securities for silver that doesn’t actually exist (creating an artificially high supply), and naked short selling silver markets to drive them lower (creating the false impression of low demand).

Another good example of economic manipulation is the private Federal Reserve’s strategy during the 90’s under Alan Greenspan to artificially lower interest rates, allowing banks to issue credit at historical levels for over a decade. Linked below is an article from Ron Paul’s ‘Texas Straight Talk’ dated March, 2007, before the housing market even began its full swan-dive. In it, he discusses the Federal Reserve’s direct role in the creation of the housing bubble:

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst031907.htm

Men like Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, Gerald Celente, Jim Rogers, and many others were able to predict long before hand that the Federal Reserve’s actions were creating an explosive mortgage and credit bubble, yet, we are supposed to believe that the Federal Reserve had “no idea” that their actions would result in a debt implosion?

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Commissioner of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the first Bush Administration stated conversely that the mortgage bubble was absolutely not an accident, and that she had witnessed outright and deliberate fraud on the part of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Bank in creating the bubble. The fact that disturbed her most, however, was her discovery that only a small handful of international banks were responsible for the perpetuation of toxic mortgage debt, not just in America, but around the world:

http://solari.com/blog/?p=2058

Goldman Sachs (one of the primary globalist banks involved in the igniting of the debt crisis) was caught red-handed selling toxic derivatives to investors and governments all over the planet while at the same time betting against those derivatives on the market. Goldman even bet against mortgage securities the bank itself created!

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-26/goldman-sachs-bet-against-its-own-deals-senate-s-levin-says.html

This is sort of similar to a car maker selling vehicles without brake lines, then placing bets that their clients will crash and burn. Essentially, it is blatant and sociopathic fraud! Goldman’s actions directly contributed to credit collapses in numerous countries, including Greece, and here in the U.S.

The idea that global banks can turn the economy on and off like a light switch may be a stretch, but the vast majority of evidence shows that they do have the ability to shift the direction of markets to a point, as well as the ability to spur the growth of bubbles that eventually lead to recessions, depressions, and beyond. In fact, if one examines the U.S. economy from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, they would find that the past century has been nothing but a series of engineered equity bubbles designed to slowly hobble, but not completely cripple, our financial system and our currency, at least, until recently. Like a steam locomotive on a collision course with a bottomless canyon, globalist banks can slow or speed up the pace of our descent, but the final destination never changes.

Now that we have established that market collapses can be created by a small handful of bankers and done knowingly, lets move on to the next most common sheeple-like talking point.

2. Yes, international banks triggered the meltdown, but the “greed of Capitalism” is truly to blame (i.e. Its all the Republican Party’s fault)…

First off, if you’re parroting the fiscal debate points of two dimensional socialist gatekeepers like Michael Moore, then you’re already hopelessly lost in the mind warping hedge maze of the false left/right paradigm. You should stay as far away as possible from adult conversions on economics, especially if you plan on associating the “greed” of capitalism and corporatism with the Republican Party alone.

News Flash! Barack Obama received far more in corporate campaign donations (including donations from BP and Exxon) than McCain did. Both Bush Jr. and Obama increased government spending to record levels meaning Neo-Conservatives are in no way “conservative” (as a true Republican is supposed to be). Obama has consistently surrounded himself with banksters and corporate lobbyists, including various hobgoblins from the bowels of Goldman Sachs. BOTH major parties are owned and operated by global banks. This is a cold hard undeniable truth of our political system. There is no way around it. Learn it, accept it as reality, and stop trying to blame one side or the other for problems that both sides created! If you cannot do this, your view of our cultural state of affairs will always be horribly skewed and your insights on our social problems will be utterly worthless.

While wannabe socialists desperately clamor to point fingers at the free market ideology as the cause of all our ills, the fact is that none of us have ever lived in a truly free market system. Since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913, all markets and even our own currency have become more and more vulnerable to manipulation by the banking elite. We have lived our entire lives in a rigged market, not a free market. To blame the very concept of Capitalism for our current dire circumstances is not only naïve, it is dangerous. Globalists would like nothing better than to promote the illusion that “too much freedom” led us to this disaster, and that severe controls must be put into place to ensure that it “never happens again”.

3. Global banks would never engineer the collapse of the U.S. economy or the Dollar. It makes them too much money…

This often heard song and dance ties in with the number two comment above. Again, the assumption is that the globalists only do what they do out of an “uncontrollable greed for money”. This perpetuates a couple fallacies. First, it encourages the false belief that the end concern for the Elite is the accumulation of riches. Central bankers have the ability to PRINT all the money they want from thin air! Remember, the Federal Reserve has never been subjected to a full audit, meaning they could easily create billions if not trillions without any oversight whatsoever. Greed for money, to them, is surely an absurd notion. What they do want, more than anything else, is social power. They want control over every living human being without question. All other concerns are secondary.

The next fallacy underlying the above argument is the conjecture that the U.S. economy is somehow indispensable to global banks. This is simply not so. Where we see the economy as an extension of our culture and ourselves, the Elites see financial systems as mere tools in the pursuit of a greater goal: World Government. Imagine you are building a house. Once your saw has fulfilled its intended role of cutting the wood, do you cling to it, or do you throw it aside and pick up a hammer? This is how globalists look at financial systems. They are perfectly willing to cast off the U.S. economy like a snake shedding skin if it brings them closer to attaining their ultimate aim.

The same goes for the Dollar. The Greenback may be the premier world reserve currency now, but that can and likely will change very quickly over the next couple years. The Dollar is a device that has outlived its usefulness as far as global bankers are concerned. The IMF has on several occasions made it clear that they eventually intend for the SDR (Special Drawing Rights) to replace the Dollar as the world reserve currency, and they have openly admitted that it will one day be established as a global currency. IMF press releases make this development sound far off and away, but SDR accumulations by countries around the world have risen dramatically in the past year. This along with other factors we will cover (namely China’s preparations to dump their U.S. T-bond holdings) show that IMF actions indicate they are preparing for a collapse of the Dollar now!

4. China would never dump U.S. Treasuries because it would hurt them as much as it hurts us…

The theory that China is somehow fused to the U.S. in a kind of symbiotic seesaw relationship that can never be broken is so ingrained among mainstream American financial analysts it simply will not die, regardless of how much contradictory evidence you show them. It really is like a mental disease which causes MSM pundits to go into involuntary Tourettic convulsions every time you mention the words “Treasury bond dump”. America and China are not conjoined twins, and one can survive without the other. We have covered the China issue over and over again, and I will not rehash all that evidence here. To lay it out simply: China has re-engineered its economy towards consumption and importation rather than relying on exports. The IMF has talked about this on many occasions with apparent excitement:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2010/tr072910c.htm

China has also finalized the ASEAN trading bloc which has combined export markets at least equal to that of the U.S. Meaning, China already has another place to send its exports besides America.

Most importantly, China must increase their currency’s value if their new consumer based system is to survive. Allowing the Yuan to rise sharply in value will revitalize the buying power of the Chinese populace making greater consumption possible. Indeed, China MUST dump their Treasury holdings and pump up the Yuan if they are to hold their economy together. And, the Federal Reserve has given China every reason to turn its back on Treasuries through never ending liquidity injections. This is not to say that a U.S. collapse will not affect them, it would negatively affect the entire world. However, China has positioned itself to survive, and perhaps even thrive with their economic expansions into Africa, and their new financial agreements with Germany.

Finally, the Chinese have been very forthcoming over the past week about plans to drop Treasuries. China has dumped over 7.7% of their U.S. T-Bond holdings since January, including the biggest T-bond dump on record this month. They have openly admitted to a plan to diversify away from the Dollar:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-17/china-cuts-long-term-treasury-holdings-by-most-ever-as-u-s-yields-decline.html

I’m always fascinated by those economists who vehemently deny China will ever turn away from the U.S. Dollar while they are doing so right in plain view. Are MSM analysts simply crazy? I don’t know, but it would explain a lot…

5. Sure, bankers took advantage, but it’s really the American people’s fault for getting suckered…

Yes, a sizable portion of the American public can be gut wrenchingly stupid. It hurts my head and my feelings to see people act so idiotic, it really does. The problem with this argument though is that when it is taken too far it becomes an attempt to divert blame away from the criminals and place it on the victims. If you knowingly leave your front door unlocked in a bad neighborhood and you find your home ransacked the next day, then you are partly responsible. But, we cannot forget that the neighborhood is “bad” in the first place because of the criminals, not the people who don’t lock their doors.

Just because global banks can sucker the public doesn’t mean they should, or that they cannot be judged for it. The crime ultimately rests on those men who made the conscious effort to destroy this country, and the blame rests with them as well. I see the attempt to parlay the economic collapse into the lap of the American people very often lately, especially from bankers who now claim that it’s the American public’s fault entirely. Why? Because they will not spend more, they will not take on more debt, they will not take on more risk, and they will not believe hard enough in the recovery that never was. Imagine a serial rapist behind a podium admonishing women for carrying pepper spray. It’s eerily similar…

6. Ok, maybe the banks are causing a collapse, but to say the government is helping them is just crazy conspiracy theory…

Why is it that the Federal Reserve has never been fully audited? Why is it that when Ron Paul tried to pass HR 1207 Federal Reserve Transparency Bill, it was muddled in committees and then eventually derailed? Why is it that banks like Goldman Sachs have been caught, yes caught, setting the stage for an economic implosion in this country, yet no government indictments have been formed to criminally prosecute them? Why are these men still roaming free like locusts to continue pillaging at will? Are we supposed to feel lucky that we get table scraps like Bernie Madoff behind bars while the Federal Reserve commits Ponzi fraud on a scale that dwarfs his?

Our government, both major parties, is owned lock stock and barrel. This is why there are no satisfactory answers for the questions posed above. Elements of the U.S. Government including almost every president since 1912 have not only turned a blind eye to Globalist activities, they have offered their full support to the bankers.

Nixon removed the Dollar from the gold standard in 1971 giving the Fed free reign to print as much fiat as they wished without limitations. In 1980 the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act was passed placing all banks essentially under the rules of the Federal Reserve. The Glass-Steagall Act which kept investment banks and depository banks separate was repealed under a Republican majority in the Senate, and then finalized by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1999. 30 years ago, banks that held your home mortgage were for the most part required to keep that mortgage until it was finally paid. But, a series of government decisions spanning that period and influenced by global banks allowed for the “securitization” of mortgages, leading to the creation of “derivatives”, which were then used by corporate mobsters like Goldman Sachs to destroy our financial system. Last, but certainly not least, both the Bush and Obama Administrations pressured Congress into passing highly unpopular bailout legislation which basically rewarded the same banks that created the credit crisis with trillions in taxpayer dollars (yes, the bailouts are now actually in the trillions, not billions). This led to the coining of the term “too big to fail” (or “too big to jail”). Our Government has been nothing but complicit in the banker takeover of this country. To debate otherwise is to invite embarrassment.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of government involvement in the collapse of our economy. Cases like the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980’s led to serious prosecutions and jail time for more than 1100 criminal bankers, but this only caused the government to respond by changing investigation rules to make it even more difficult to catch the high level fraudsters in the act! Linked below is an interview between Max Keiser and bank regulator Prof. William K Black who outlines our government’s complicity in the breakdown of the country it is mandated to protect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bf5Frx1lZk

Elites destroy cultures to make way for new philosophies; their philosophies. Its not so much “conspiracy theory” as it is a widely admitted methodology. Corporate globalists believe in global government on their terms and they barely try to hide it. If someone thinks this sounds “fantastical” then they haven’t been paying the slightest attention. When one understands how Elites view economy, and realizes their primary motivations, the fact that they purposely triggered a collapse is perfectly logical. Nothing besides all out war inspires more fear and desperation in a society than a financial upheaval. Such elements on a mass scale allow changes in our collective psychology that were never possible before. Most people tend to falter under such an overwhelming threat and turn towards any authority (or fake authority) to save them from harm. Some people scoff at this idea, but it is likely they have never actually been in the wake of a real national catastrophe before. Men, especially those who know little of themselves, can change quickly in the face of calamity. The Elites recognize this, engineer tragedy, then waltz into the aftermath to merrily lord over the rubble.

Will their plan work? I think not, but I’m an optimist (no, really). The pursuit of total control and total power seems rather infantile to me, be it on an impressively psychotic level. Although, if we are made to forget who the real enemy is, then I think they do have a chance at success. That is how they have remained successful to this point. Only now does the average man have such immense knowledge at his fingertips, the knowledge to bring down a line despots and tyrants that have reigned for centuries. If only the average man was not so easily deterred by WMD’s (Weapons of Mass Distraction). The Elites will likely ignite some wars, tempt us into in-fighting, and fabricate enemies like Al Qaeda out of the ether. As the slogan goes, “Order Out Of Chaos”. Whatever happens, our eyes must remain fixed on the root of the problem; the bankers, and nothing else.

Globalists are not invincible, they are not untouchable, they are not even all that brilliant. They are human, and they have made many mistakes. The engineering of an economic meltdown really changes nothing. Hired thugs, useful idiots, corrupt officials, even hyperinflation, all tiny obstacles when considering the world we could have if the Elites were finally made to face the reckoning they deserve. Americans once took on the greatest empire on Earth. We once took a feared king to task. Are a bunch of frothing corporate bankers really so daunting? All that is needed is a principled movement with the will to see justice done, and I believe we have that already.

Original Article

U.S. Dollar Now Ripe For Catastrophic Devaluation


By Giordano Bruno


Normally when I cover subjects in the economy, I try to take a “macro” approach, giving an overall view of various financial elements around the world and how they are clearly connected to one another in a greater synchronous social force. That is to say, in Chinese domestic consumption, or European debt obligations, or Russian gold reserves, and in many other factors, is encoded the very future of our own American economy. Showing others how to decipher that code is my primary mission.

In this instance, however, I would like to focus chiefly on the U.S. Dollar, the private Federal Reserve currency which is now the basis for our entire financial system, not to mention a substantial basis for trade around the globe. For decades, the dollar (and by extension U.S. Treasury bonds) has been the standard by which foreign nations safeguard capital reserves, denominate debt, and in some cases have even pegged their own currency to maintain advantageous trade deficits. In the past, the Greenback has been treated as good as gold. Though many see this as a windfall for Americans, it is actually a very unfortunate circumstance.

The “world reserve” status of our currency created a demand for dollars, but through this, it also created a glut of Treasury bond holdings in foreign central banks, and an unserviceable national debt here at home. The combination of removing the dollar from the gold standard in tandem with gaining world reserve advantage allowed our government along with central bankers to create the most precarious illusory fiat currency in history. Could this process continue indefinitely? Its possible, but only if the demand for dollars continues to rise annually. As long as people want dollars in greater and greater amounts, we could continue to expand our debt into infinity. But what happens if demand for the dollar falls, or disappears entirely? The massive liabilities we have already accrued will no longer have the crutch of perpetual Treasury investment. We no longer would receive the busloads of foreign capital we need to continue functioning. The system we have staked the future of our culture on would disintegrate.

Anyone who uses common sense would easily conclude that it is highly unreasonable if not outlandish to expect that other countries will continue to pump more and more money every year into our very unstable system. Even if Treasury bond investment simply plateaued, remaining steady for years, we would still be crushed under the weight of our debt obligations. As our government expands, and our wars expand, so do our costs, and our interest payments. Eventually, every undisciplined debtor hits a state of critical mass; a point at which he runs out of options in extending his ability to outrun bankruptcy. We are seeing this right now in the U.S., most prominently in municipal debt in states such as California and Illinois. These are not just “local problems”. The growing insolvency in states is a direct reflection of the growing insolvency in the Federal Government.

Many people have at one time or another been caught up in their own debt race, trying to dodge bills and pay off one credit card with another credit card. They understand well that this terrible circle ends in ruin. This is the situation we are in as a nation.

Strangely though, some mainstream economists and analysts still contend that America will never face consequences for its fiscal debauchery. Why do they believe this despite all the evidence to the contrary? Because of a magical machine called a “printing press”.

“If foreign investment in our debt ceases”, they say, “The Federal Reserve can just PRINT the money our government needs to function out of thin air.” That is to say, these economists (which include men like Ben Bernanke) either truly believe that capital can be created out of nothing with no sacrifice attached, or, they KNOW there is a serious sacrifice attached, but intend to keep this fact from the American public. Regardless, the end result is the same; massive liquidity injections which continually monetize debt as it defaults, and Federal Reserve purchases of our own T-bonds. We are buying stock in our own dollar just to prop up its value and keep our country afloat!

The inflation vs. deflation debate has been raging for nearly three years, but I suspect that when all is said and done, we will find that both sides in a sense were correct. The people who consistently miss the mark on what is truly going on in the economy are those who blindly insist that this is an either/or situation. The fact is, we are seeing symptoms of BOTH deflation and inflation simultaneously. Deflation in jobs, stocks, real estate, and wages. Inflation in energy, food, and commodities. At bottom, we are seeing the worst of both worlds colliding to make a financial mutation, an aberration of the natural processes of supply and demand. Our economy has become a frothing rampaging Frankenstein’s monster bent on the destruction of its former benefactors; the American citizenry. Anyone who alleges otherwise is either a liar, or a fool.

At the very heart of this nightmare, we find the U.S. Greenback; perhaps the number one reason the economic meltdown was engineered by global banks in the first place (yes, I said ‘engineered’). The sovereign ideology of the U.S. is the only thing left standing in the way of complete centralized economic control, and by extension, political control, by the top 2% wealthiest people in the world, who now hold around 50% of all the world’s assets. The dollar, though a fraudulent fiat currency, is still a representation of that sovereign drive, at least in terms of finance. Its position as the foremost traded currency on the planet affords us great leeway in our ability to spend without fear. It is the glue holding absolutely everything together. With most of our industry shipped overseas, and our communities completely reliant on a 70% service based system, the Dollar is the only homemade “product” America has left to lean on.

Unfortunately, the strength of our currency is waning, and nearing outright collapse. It is something we have been talking about for the past two years at least, which has drawn some into a false sense of security. The signs have been muddled in the MSM fog, but now the picture is becoming clear. Will the dollar crash tomorrow? That’s hard to say. What I do know, is that all the elements necessary for a catastrophic dollar devaluation have moved into place, especially in the past month. That is to say, there is now nothing preventing a steady and precipitous fall in the Greenback over the next six months or more. Below are many signals which indicate such an event is near:

Dollar Index Plummeting: Interestingly, there has been very little coverage in the mainstream news of the dollar’s continuous 9 week decline, the longest straight weekly decline since 2004. One would think this is something that might concern the general public, and not just investors:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dollar-consolidates-as-markets-await-payrolls-2010-08-06

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-07/dollar-index-falls-a-ninth-week-longest-since-2004-as-fed-meeting-looms.html

The dollar is also nearing a 15 year low versus the Japanese Yen:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6713HB20100806

Only in the past few days have some MSM analysts ventured a response to this issue. So far, their primary excuse is that the dollar decline is due to the coming Federal Reserve meeting on August 10th, in which many suspect that the Fed will announce further stimulus measures and further inflation of the dollar. Of course, most Fed stimulus has remained undisclosed to the public, so there is really no way of knowing if they ever actually stopped their injections at all. Also, this excuse does not explain the 9 week duration of the dollar slide, especially since two months ago very few people even considered the possibility that the Fed would openly announce more liquidity measures.

Some economists might argue that the dollar has declined severely in the past, but has always come back. That is true, however, in those instances the dollar was not falling at the same time as stocks! Yes, the traditional inverse relationship between the DOW and the dollar seems to be ending, and this is a dour sign for the Greenback. In the past, the dollar has benefited as a safe haven investment. When stocks went south, investors would throw their money into dollar backed securities like Treasuries in order to protect their savings. This caused the dollar to go up in value. In the past few months, though, the dollar has begun to fall in tandem with stocks, meaning, people no longer trust the dollar as a safe haven investment as they used to. If this trend continues over the next few months, it may be a sign of nearing dollar collapse.

For those who want to keep tabs on the dollar index, go here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=DXY:IND

China In Position: We have been warning at Neithercorp Press for years that China was positioning itself to dump its vast holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and allow its currency, the Yuan or RMB, to appreciate in value. China has aspirations of world reserve status, and they have openly stated their goal of replacing the dollar as the premier internationally traded currency. I received a lot of ridicule back in 2008 and 2009 for suggesting that China was morphing its financial system away from exports and becoming a consumer based hub for the East in preparation to dump the dollar. Needless to say, China has indeed done this, all while MSM talking heads and their parroting followers continued to deny it was occurring. Now, members of China’s financial community, including former central bank advisers, are openly calling for the Chinese government to end its investment in American debt:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/treasuries-lack-safety-liquidity-for-china-yu-yongding-says.html

This news is compounded by an announcement from the Chinese Central Bank which set the gold investment community ablaze; China’s government is now fully opening markets to support gold investment and is even helping its banks to begin diversifying into gold:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6743ZF20100805

In China’s strictly controlled economy, such a change of policy is tremendous news with serious implications. China is the largest gold producer in the world, yet, the demand for precious metals is so high (especially by their central bank) that they are increasing shipments from overseas sources. This is good news for gold investors, but bad news for the dollar. China suddenly opens the gold floodgates (gold is the primary hedge against dollar collapse) while at the same time openly discussing the liquidation of their U.S. Treasury reserves? This is not a coincidence.

Another factor of some weight is the issue of weak spending power within China. Some argue that China’s low interest rates are creating a savings shortfall for Chinese consumers, making their move towards a consumption based economy difficult. What they don’t realize though is that this is yet another reason for the Chinese government to dump T-bonds and create a surge in the Yuan’s value. This would be an ideal method for increasing the buying power of the Chinese consumer:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-06/china-rates-seen-robbing-consumers-to-help-banks-as-5-growth-risk-looms.html

Whether or not China’s goal is to help global banks deliberately destroy the dollar, they have the perfect alibi: The U.S. government demanded that China let the Yuan rise in value, China’s new consumer based economy needs a stronger Yuan if they are to survive, and the U.S. dollar is no longer a safe investment anyway. I’ll say it again; China is now ready to dump the dollar at anytime.

Housing Market Threatens Dollar: Remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? You know, the mortgage agencies which hold $5 Trillion in sinking real estate securities? The companies that our Treasury has promised a never-ending bailout to? Well, they are back again. Fannie Mae has asked for yet another bailout after continued shortfalls. I have lost track of how many bailouts this makes:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fannie-taps-treasury-again-after-quarterly-loss-2010-08-05

These bailouts drag directly on our national debt, and are costing the American taxpayer billions. Why do Freddie and Fannie still need money? Because the housing market is still falling apart! The Treasury and Barack Obama recently admitted that they had “underestimated” the number of homeowners who were still behind on their mortgage payments by two months or more even after receiving government help through the HAMP program:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67553520100807?type=politicsNews

Nearly 20% of homeowners who received government aid are re-defaulting on their mortgages or are near re-default. The government originally reported that the number was only 7.7%. I remember well when the skewed numbers were released and the stock market rallied in jubilee at the success of the HAMP measures. It seemed to me that the government numbers did not jive at all with the rising rate of foreclosures. According to the Obama Administration and Treasury officials, it was an “error” on the fault of Fannie Mae. I suspect it was not error at all, but a deliberate effort to artificially pump up the so called recovery, just as the Labor Department has done in the past with unemployment statistics.

What does housing have to do with the Dollar? First, the Treasury’s commitment to Fannie and Freddie has placed the U.S. taxpayer at the edge of an endless debt vacuum. As long as real estate continues to crumble, as long as people continue to lose their jobs and default on their mortgages, we will have to continue bailing out Fannie and Freddie. This creates the potential for trillions of dollars of debt that will be monetized by the Federal Reserve, putting even more strain on the dollar. Second, the further into debt our country goes, the more tempted other countries will be to back out of U.S. Treasury investment. Currently, the vast majority of Treasury purchases by foreign buyers are short term, maturing in a matter of weeks. The U.S. cannot sustain itself on short term investment. I believe that our nation’s debt issues including the endless fallout from the mortgage crisis will cause a detrimental loss of faith in the dollar and I believe this will occur soon.

States Will Ask For Their Own Bailouts: States have accumulated over $2.4 Trillion in municipal debt (official number) over the past two years alone:

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/debt-state-governments-local-trillion-federal-rich-states-poor-states/2010/08/01/id/366260

Local bond debts now take up at least 22% of our country’s GDP. These figures do not include the states’ $3 Trillion in pension obligations, which means we are looking more along the lines of 50% of our national GDP tied up in state debt. This has caused some Federal programs to be implemented while others are diminished. For instance, $14 billion has been taken from ‘future’ 2013 food stamp programs to help pay for teachers and school lunch programs now:

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/08/food_stamps_or_teachers_congre.html

How this works, I’m not really sure. It sounds very similar to the government method of “borrowing” from future Social Security accounts to pay for other programs today. It’s not surprising that Social Security is now (officially) in the red, and it is guaranteed that my generation will not see a penny of it when we retire (Retire?! Ha! I crack myself up!):

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/5/social-security-red-first-time-ever/

The point is, not only California and Illinois, but many other states as well, are on the verge of municipal default. Some agencies still rate municipal debt very high, but they also rated subprime mortgages very high, and look what happened! No one in their right mind wants to touch municipal bonds today, and this will invariably lead to insolvency in cities and states, I believe we will see this begin before the year is out.

The response will be predictable; states will ask for Federal assistance to the tune of billions, leading eventually to trillions. States did receive some bailout funds up until December of last year, but it was nowhere near the capital they needed to survive. States are also rapidly losing revenues due to lower property taxes, lower consumer activity, etc. They have nowhere else to turn except a new Federal bailout specifically designated for municipal debt (unless the states want to actually grow some courage and assert 10th Amendment rights, taking back full control of their economies).

Again, the issue is and always has been DEBT. No government in the world has the ability to truly solve debt problems with more debt. There is always a price in making the attempt, and the price is usually steep. In our case, the price is the destruction of our currency. State debts will translate to Federal debts, which will translate to fiat creation and monetization, which will translate to loss of dollar faith, which will translate to loss of the dollar, period.

Turning Point For The Dollar, And For Us…

If you feel like you are looking out over the ocean at the towering black anvil cloud of an approaching tempest, that’s because you are. There are always indicators. The air electrifies, the waters whip and swell, the atmosphere grows heavy. Economics is the same way. After a time, you begin to feel the intensity of the financial stratum. The imbalances of the markets crackle, and thunderous roar of the typhoon grows near.

I and many other researchers hear this sound in terms of the U.S. dollar. The potential for a monetary breakdown has arrived.

I find there is persistent confusion amongst analysts as to what constitutes inflation. In my humble opinion, any event which causes the dollar to devalue and prices to rise is inflation. This does not necessarily require “overprinting” of physical money to take place, though I do believe overprinting is happening behind closed doors. The dollar can be compromised in many ways, not just through runaway fiat creation. Any loss of our world reserve status will result in a major devaluation. Any extended dumping of U.S. T-bonds by other countries will result in major devaluation. The endless accumulation of national debt without the backing of foreign capital will result in major devaluation. All of these problems are active in our economy right now. The end result; simultaneous inflation and deflation, and they don’t cancel each other out!

Some people regard this kind of information as “fear mongering”, or “doom and gloom”. Fear mongering suggests an exaggeration or even fabrication of facts in order to frighten the reader towards some particular end. It’s supposed to somehow benefit the fear monger. Nothing written above is an exaggeration, only a relay of the cold hard reality we face as a society, and frankly, I gain nothing by frightening anyone with these facts, not even notoriety, since I report under a pen-name. At bottom, if someone is terrified by the truth, that is their problem, not mine. The accusation does make me grin sometimes…

I have even come across a few people in the survivor and preparation field who seem strangely bothered by our efforts. The behavior is puzzling, but I suspect that some see the realm of collapse information as their own personal domain, one they would like to keep to themselves. And some, perhaps, feel that we are dwelling too much on the activators of collapse, when we should just make a few preparations and then go on with our day.

I and other researchers do what we do because we want others to be aware and organized. We give you the difficult data because we want you to stay informed and up to date on the latest developments, developments we feel you have a right to know about and the strength to take. Our goal is to fill the void of information that the MSM has left in its wake. There is a difference between paranoia, and vigilance. The paranoid only see threats in truth, threats they feel they can do nothing about. The vigilant see opportunities, ways of using the truth to deal with the dangers ahead. By keeping track of economic developments, the vigilant are far more mentally prepared than any survivalist who chooses to ignore them.

The gravity of the coming currency crisis is a crucial issue. According to the data, it is no longer a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’ it will reveal itself completely. We aren’t dealing with hypotheticals here, we are dealing with eventualities. The sooner the American public accepts this, the sooner we can confront the trouble head on.

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