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charles hugh smith-Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity?
March 15, 2014 9:21 am / Leave a comment
charles hugh smith-Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity?.
I recently discussed the Deep State and "throwing Wall Street under the bus" with my friend and colleague Jim Kunstler.
When we speak of The Powers That Be or the Deep State, this ruling Elite is generally assumed to be monolithic: of one mind, so to speak, unified in worldview, strategy and goals.
In my view, this is an over-simplification of a constantly shifting battleground of paradigms and political power between a number of factions and alliances within the Deep State. Disagreements are not publicized, of course, but they become apparent years or decades after the conflict was resolved, usually by one faction winning the hearts and minds of decision-makers or consolidating the Deep State's group-think around their worldview and strategy.
History suggests that this low-intensity conflict within the ruling Elite is generally a healthy characteristic of leadership in good times. As times grow more troubled, however, the unity of the ruling Elite fractures into irreconcilable political disunity, which becomes a proximate cause of the dissolution of the Empire if it continues.
I recently proposed the idea that Wall Street now poses a strategic threat to national security and thus to the Deep State itself: Who Gets Thrown Under the Bus in the Next Financial Crisis? (March 3, 2014)
Many consider it "impossible" that Wall Street could possibly lose its political grip on the nation's throat, but I suggest that Wall Street has over-reached, and is now teetering at the top of the S-Curve, i.e. it has reached Peak Wall Street.
Consider what the extremes of Wall Street/Federal Reserve predation, parasitism, avarice and power have done to the nation, and then ask if other factions within the Deep State are blind to the destructive consequences:
How The Fed Has Failed America, Part 2 (March 12, 2014)
The Fed Has Failed (and Will Continue to Fail), Part 1 (March 11, 2014)
Can anyone not in Wall Street or the Fed look at this chart and not see profound political disunity on the horizon?
source: Poll Shows Why QE Has Been Ineffective (STA Wealth Mgmt)
I recently discussed the Deep State and "throwing Wall Street under the bus" with my friend and colleague Jim Kunstler: here's the resulting podcast, which you can download or listen to on whatever device you are using at the moment: KunstlerCast 250 — Chatting with Charles Hugh Smith
Jim's trademark wit and clarity guide the discussion, and he kindly lets me blather on about the Deep State. I think you'll find the discussion of interest; you certainly won't hear this topic being aired elsewhere.
I have covered the Deep State and profound political disunity for many years:
Going to War with the Political Elite You Have (May 14, 2007)
The Shape of Things To Come (July 8, 2011)
The Master Narrative Nobody Dares Admit: Centralization Has Failed (June 21, 2012)
FOURTH TURNING: THE PEOPLE vs BIG BROTHER « The Burning Platform
FOURTH TURNING: THE PEOPLE vs BIG BROTHER « The Burning Platform.
"The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind's willingness to use it." – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
"In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." – Frank Church on Meet the Press regarding the NSA – 1975
Ever since Edward Snowden burst onto the worldwide stage in June 2013, I've been wondering how he fits into the fabric of this ongoing Fourth Turning. This period of Crisis that arrives like clockwork, 60 to 70 years after the end of the previous Fourth Turning (Civil War – 66 years after American Revolution, Great Depression/World War II – 64 years after Civil War, Global Financial Crisis – 62 years after World War II), arrived in September 2008 with the Federal Reserve created collapse of the global financial system. We are now five and a half years into this Fourth Turning, with its climax not likely until the late-2020's. At this point in previous Fourth Turnings a regeneracy had unified sides in their cause and a grey champion or champions (Ben Franklin/Samuel Adams, Lincoln/Davis, FDR) had stepped forward to lead. Thus far, no one from the Prophet generation has been able to unify the nation and create a sense of common civic purpose. Societal trust continues to implode, as faith in political, financial, corporate, and religious institutions spirals downward. There is no sign of a unifying regeneracy on the horizon.
The core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to propel this Crisis: debt, civic decay, global disorder. Central bankers, politicians, and government bureaucrats have been able to fashion the illusion of recovery and return to normalcy, but their "solutions" are nothing more than smoke and mirrors exacerbating the next bloodier violent stage of this Fourth Turning. The emergencies will become increasingly dire, triggering unforeseen reactions and unintended consequences. The civic fabric of our society will be torn asunder.
In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action." – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe
The core crisis element of debt is far worse than it was at the outset of this Crisis in September 2008. The National Debt has risen from $9.7 trillion to $17.5 trillion, an 80% increase in five and half years. It took 215 years for the country to accumulate as much debt as it has accumulated since the start of this Crisis. We continue to add $2.8 billion a day to the National debt, and the president declares it is time for this austerity to end. The total unfunded liabilities of the Federal government for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, government pensions and now Obamacare exceeds $200 trillion and is mathematically impossible to honor. Corporate debt stands at an all-time high. Margin debt is at record levels, as faith in the Federal Reserve's ability to levitate the stock market borders on delusional. Consumer debt has reached new heights, as the government doles out subprime auto loans to deadbeats and subprime student loans to future University of Phoenix Einsteins. Global debt has surged by 40% since 2008 to over $100 trillion, as central bankers have attempted to cure a disease caused by debt with more debt.
All of this debt accumulation is compliments of Bernanke/Yellen and the Federal Reserve, who have produced this new debt bubble with their zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing that has driven their balance sheet from $935 billion of mostly Treasury bonds in September 2008 to $4.2 trillion of toxic mortgage garbage acquired from their owners – the insolvent Too Big To Trust Wall Street banks. This entire house of cards is reliant upon permanently low interest rates, the faith of foreigners in our lies, and trust in Ivy League educated economists captured by Wall Street. This debt laden house of cards sits atop hundreds of trillions of derivatives of mass destruction used by the Wall Street casinos to generate "riskless" profits. When, not if, a trigger ignites this explosive concoction of debt, the collapse will be epic and the violent phase of this Fourth Turning will commence.
Civic Decay
The core crisis element of civic decay is evident everywhere you turn. Our failed public educational system is responsible for much of the civic decay, as a highly educated critical thinking populace is our only defense against a small cabal of bankers and billionaires acquiring unwarranted influence and control over our country. Our children have been taught how to feel and to believe government propaganda. The atrocious educational system is not a mistake. It has been designed and manipulated by your owners to produce the results they desire, as explained bluntly by George Carlin.
"There's a reason that education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it. Be happy with what you've got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the big, wealthy, business interests that control all things and make the big decisions. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want—they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest."
The urban ghettos become more dangerous and uninhabitable by the day. The inner cities are crumbling under the weight of welfare spending and declining tax revenues. The very welfare policies begun fifty years ago to alleviate poverty have hopelessly enslaved the poor and ignorant in permanent squalor and destitution. The four decade old drug war has done nothing to reduce the use of drugs. It has benefited the corporate prison industry, as millions have been thrown into prison for minor drug offenses. Meanwhile, millions more have been legally addicted to drugs peddled by the corporate healthcare complex. The culture warriors and advocates of new rights for every special interest group continue their never ending battles which receive an inordinate amount of publicity from the corporate media. Class warfare is simmering and being inflamed by politicians pushing their particular agendas. Violence provoked by race and religion is growing by the day. The fault lines are visible and the imminent financial earthquake will push distress levels beyond the breaking point. Once the EBT cards stop working, all hell will break loose. Three days of panic will empty grocery store shelves and the National Guard will be called out to try and restore control.
Global Disorder
The core crisis element of global disorder is evident everywhere you turn. The false flag revolution in the Ukraine, initiated by the U.S. and EU in order to blunt Russia's control of natural gas to Europe, has the potential to erupt into a full blown shooting war at any moment. The attempt by Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S. to overthrow the Syrian dictator in order to run a natural gas pipeline across their land into Europe was blunted by Russia. Iraq is roiled in a civil war, after the U.S. invaded, occupied and destabilized the country. After 12 years of occupation, Afghanistan is more dysfunctional and dangerous than it was before the U.S. saved them from the evil Taliban. Unrest, violent protests, and brutal measures by rulers continue in Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, Venezuela, Bahrain, Brazil, and throughout Africa. American predator drones roam the skies of the world murdering suspected terrorists. The European Union is insolvent, with Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal propped up with newly created debt. Austerity for the people and prosperity for the bankers is creating tremendous distress and tension across the continent. A global volcanic eruption is in the offing.
It is clear to me the American Empire is in terminal decline. Hubris, delusion, corruption, foolish disregard for future generations and endless foreign follies have set in motion a chain of events that will lead to a cascading sequence of debt defaults, mass poverty, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation or deflation, depending on the actions of feckless bankers and politicians. There is no avoiding the tragic outcome brought on by decades of bad choices and a century of allowing private banking interests to control our currency. The "emergency" QE and ZIRP responses by the Federal Reserve to the Federal Reserve created 2008 financial collapse continue, even though the propaganda peddled by the Deep State tries to convince the public we have fully recovered. This grand fraud cannot go on forever. Ponzi schemes no longer work once you run out of dupes. With societal trust levels approaching all-time lows and foreign countries beginning to understand they are the dupes, another global financial crisis is a lock.
The Snowden Factor
With ten to fifteen years likely remaining in this Fourth Turning Crisis, people familiar with generational turnings can't help but ponder what will happen next. Linear thinkers, who constitute the majority, mistakenly believe things will magically return to normal and we'll continue our never ending forward human progress. Their ignorance of history and generational turnings that recur like the four seasons will bite them in the ass. We are being flung forward across the vast chaos of time and our existing social order will be transformed beyond recognition into something far better or far worse. The actual events over the coming decade are unknowable in advance, but the mood and reactions of the generational archetypes to these events are predictable. The actions of individuals will matter during this Fourth Turning. The majority are trapped in their propaganda induced, techno distracted stupor of willful ignorance. It will take a minority of liberty minded individuals, who honor the principles of the U.S. Constitution and are willing to sacrifice their lives, to prevail in the coming struggle.
Despite fog engulfing the path of future events, we know they will be propelled by debt, civic decay, and global disorder. Finding a unifying grey champion figure seems unlikely at this point. I believe the revelations by Edward Snowden have set the course for future events during this Fourth Turning. The choices of private citizens, like Snowden, Assange, and Manning, have made a difference. The choices we all make over the next ten years will make a difference. A battle for the soul of this country is underway. The Deep State is firmly ingrained, controlling the financial, political and educational systems, while using their vast wealth to perpetuate endless war, and domination of the media to manipulate the masses with propaganda and triviality. They are powerful and malevolent. They will not relinquish their supremacy and wealth willingly.
Snowden has revealed the evil intent of the ruling class and their willingness to trash the Constitution in their psychopathic pursuit of mammon. The mass surveillance of the entire population, locking down of an entire city in pursuit of two teenagers, military training exercises in major metropolitan areas, militarization of local police forces by DHS, crushing peaceful demonstrations with brute force, attempting to restrict and confiscate guns, molesting innocent airline passengers, executive orders utilized on a regular basis by the president, and treating all citizens like suspects has set the stage for the coming conflict. Strauss & Howe warned that history has shown armed conflict is always a major ingredient during a Fourth Turning.
"History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured." – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997
It appears to me the Deep State is preparing for armed conflict with the people. Why else would they be utilizing Big Brother methods of surveillance, militarization of police forces and Gestapo like tactics of intimidation to control the masses? This doesn't happen in a democratic republic where private individuals are supposed to know everything done by public government servants, not vice versa. They know the cheap, easy to access energy resources are essentially depleted. They know the system they have built upon a foundation of cheap energy and cheap debt is unsustainable and will crash in the near future. They know their fiat currency scheme is failing.They know it is going to come crashing down.
They know America and the world will plunge into an era of depression, violence, and war. They also know they want to retain their wealth, power and control. There is no possibility the existing establishment can be purged through the ballot box. It's a one party Big Brother system that provides the illusion of choice to the Proles. Like it or not, the only way this country can cast off the shackles of the banking, corporate, fascist elites, and the government surveillance state is through an armed revolution. The alternative is to allow an authoritarian regime, on par with Hitler, Stalin and Mao, to rise from the ashes of our financial collapse.This is a distinct possibility, given the ignorance and helplessness of most Americans after decades of government education and propaganda.
The average mentally asleep American cannot conceive of armed conflict within the borders of the U.S. War, violence and dead bodies are something they see on their 52 inch HDTVs while gobbling chicken wings and cheetos in their Barcalounger. We've allowed a banking cartel and their central bank puppets to warp and deform our financial system into a hideous façade, sold to the masses as free market capitalism. We've allowed corporate interests to capture our political system through bribery and corruption.
We've allowed the rise of a surveillance state that has stripped us of our privacy, freedom, liberty and individuality in a futile pursuit of safety and security. We've allowed a military industrial complex to exercise undue influence in Washington DC, leading to endless undeclared wars designed to enrich the arms makers. We've allowed the corporate media and the government education complex to use propaganda, misinformation and social engineering techniques to dumb down the masses and make them compliant consumers. These delusions will be shattered when our financial and economic system no longer functions. The end is approaching rapidly and very few see it coming.
Glory or Ruin?
The scenario I envision is a collapse of our debt saturated financial system, with a domino effect of corporate, personal, and governmental defaults, exacerbated by the trillions of currency, interest rate, and stock derivatives. Global stock markets will crash. Trillions in paper wealth will evaporate into thin air. The Greater Depression will gain a choke-hold around the world. Mass bankruptcies, unemployment and poverty will sweep across the land. The social safety net will tear under the weight of un-payable entitlements. Riots and unrest will breakout in urban areas. Armed citizens in rural areas will begin to assemble in small units. The police and National Guard will be unable to regain control. The military will be called on to suppress any and all resistance to the Federal government. This act of war will spur further resistance from liberty minded armed patriots. The new American Revolution will have begun. Leaders will arise in the name of freedom. Regional and local bands of fighters will use guerilla tactics to defeat a slow top heavy military dependent upon technology and vast quantities of oil. A dictatorial regime may assume power on a Federal level. A breakup of the nation into regional states is a distinct possibility.
With the American Empire crumbling from within, our international influence will wane. With China also in the midst of a Fourth Turning, their debt bubble will burst and social unrest will explode into civil war. Global disorder, wars, terrorism, and financial collapse will lead to a dramatic decrease in oil production, further sinking the world into depression. The tensions caused by worldwide recession will lead to the rise of authoritarian regimes and global warfare. With "advances" in technological warfare and the proliferation of nuclear warheads, this scenario has the potential to end life on earth as we know it. The modern world could be set back into the stone-age with the push of a button. There are no guarantees of a happy ending for humanity.
The outcome of this Fourth Turning is dependent upon the actions of a minority of critical thinking Americans who decide to act. No one can avoid the trials and tribulations that lie ahead. We will be faced with immense challenges. Courage and sacrifice will be required in large doses. Elders will need to lead and millennials will need to carry a heavy load, doing most of the dying. The very survival of our society hangs in the balance. Edward Snowden has provided an example of the sacrifice required during this Fourth Turning. How we respond and the choices we make over the next decade will determine whether this Fourth Turning will result in glory or ruin for our nation.
"Eventually, all of America's lesser problems will combine into one giant problem. The very survival of the society will feel at stake, as leaders lead and people follow. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers' visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin." – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
Click these links to read the first two parts of this three part series:
Do No Evil Google – Censor & Snitch for the State
Google, China, the NSA and the Fourth Turning
The Animal Spirits Page: How monetary policy drives foreign policy
The Animal Spirits Page: How monetary policy drives foreign policy.
It should now be evident that America's foreign policy is to an extent being driven by our banking mess. Again and again, we see Washington, including Wall Street's handmaiden, the Fed, exporting monetary chaos implicitely in order to weaken the status of potentially competing reserve currencies:
Wall Street sent a tsunami of bad AAA-rated mortgage debt to Europe, much to Germany, the locus of power for the Euro (and again, implicit admission of guilt is seen in the apparent fronting of billions of bailout dollars to the European banks by the Fed after the crisis);
Washington has apparently fomented or supported a coup in the Ukraine that increases the likelihood of war in Europe dramatically therefore sending the gigantic pools of liquid financial assets in the world scurrying into the greenback and US Treasuries, which the Chinese have stopped gobbling up;
the other factor is that the military-industrial complex needs war to get its funding, and when drone-bombing rag-heads can't provoke a serious attack, destabilizing a former Eastern bloc nation and provoking a somewhat justifiably paranoid Russian leader into military action guarantees at least a shot in the arm of crisis funding.
Russia has repeatedly stated over the past decades that an EU move on the Ukraine crosses a red line. The EU ignored the warning, and with the US's help and the ire of Ukrainians sick of a corrupt government crossed Putin's red line. What the Ukrainians want is democracy and relief from their corrupt plutocrats (see previous post's article by Paul Craig Roberts).
The US has no compelling strategic interest in the Ukraine, or in the Crimea remaining part of the Ukraine. Yes, the Ukraine has been looted by its oligarchs, just as Russia was, and just as the US is being looted by its oligarchs right now; incomes of a majority of American households are falling so the banks can collect on bad debts. It would be nice for people everywhere if they could break the grip of the plutocrats over their livelihoods. In the Ukraine, to substitute debt servitude to Western banks for the domination of the oligarchs would only accelerate the collapse of the EU. And it's not clear the EU, if it offers help, won't be ripped off by the oligarchs as well. The new government in the Ukraine has already increased the power of the oligarchs by giving them provinces to rule, so it's not clear the Western "rescuers" are even able to help solve the fundamental problem at all, and might end up losing their shirts again, as they have in Greece, Portugal, et al.
Until democratic governments around the world become strong enough to counteract the power of the plutocratsby taxing them, both their income and their wealth (as Sweden does) the revolving looting of sovereign governments and demolition of middle classes by the plutocrats and their corporations will continue.
A couple of posts ago I said the scariest thing I've heard recently was Catherine Anne Fitts saying what the world needs now is a global debt for equity swap. I should say I generally like Ms. Fitts' analysis and suspect she may even have misspoken when she made this comment. Such a move would concentrate ownership of the world's assets sufficiently to create even more of a Plantation Earth than we have currently.
She identified the problem, but not the solution. What the world needs now is a global jubilee, debt forgiveness. The debt that the Fed is shoving under the carpet via QE is what is known in banking circles as "bad debt." It is loans that never should have been made because they will never be repaid. In honest not crony capitalism such debts come out of the profits (as losses) of the banks that made them. In crony capitalism, with a central bank controlled by the banks, such debts are "paid back" by being monetized and put on the backs of the taxpayers either directly or through inflation.
The austerity programs Europe has put in place so that Wall Street and European banks can be paid back bad debts have destroyed more than one economy and more are probably yet to fall. (The idea promoted ten plus years ago of "convergence" of interest rates in the EU between periphery and core caused me to gag at the time.) Debt slavery to Western banks is not the answer. (China is apparently making similar mistakes; it will be interesting to see what they do with the bad debt. I suspect their strong central government will tell the bankers to go stuff it.) Ms. Fitts suggests that sooner or later the plutocrats will destroy the banks in order to buy them cheap and collect the rents themselves, canny suggestion indeed.
Chaos in the world = a strong dollar. Until it doesn't. Chaos has a way of being unpredictable.
Capitalism has killed democracy. "Free" markets dominated by monopolies and oligopolies are not what Adam Smith had in mind. It's time for democracy to be reborn. There are degrees of economic inequality that are simply immoral and destructive and humankind has the right to reject them. When the top 85 families own as much as the bottom 3.5 billion people, as recently reported, we have reached such a point.
Bruce Berkowitz's Bogus Bombast | David Stockman's Contra Corner
March 5, 2014 3:45 pm / Leave a comment
Bruce Berkowitz's Bogus Bombast | David Stockman's Contra Corner.
by David Stockman • March 5, 2014
The Fed's serial bubble machine has not only bestowed massive speculative windfalls on the 1%, but it has also fostered a noxious culture of plunder and entitlement in the gambling casinos of Wall Street. After each thundering sell-off during the bust phase, crony capitalist gamblers have been gifted with ill-gotten windfalls during the Fed's subsequent maniacal money printing spree.
Worse still, this trash-to-riches syndrome has unfolded so consistently since the late 1980s that there now exists a marauding gang of permanent vulture-speculators who impudently claim entitlement to any and all action by the state that might be needed to quickly reflate their gleanings from the bottom. The passel of hedge funds led by Elliot Capital which blackmailed the Obama White House into paying billions for the worthless debt of Delphi during the GM bailout is only one especially odious example.
In this context comes Bruce Berkowitz "scolding" and firing "salvos" at Washington from the front page of the Wall Street Journal. As it has happened, the usually craven denizens of the beltway have so far managed to ignore his petulant demands for a multi-billion payday on the worthless Fannie and Freddie preferred stock that his fund scooped up after the housing bust. Recall, these were the securities issued in 2008 at $25 per share to shore up the tottering housing finance agencies just before Hank Paulson's bazooka sputtered.
Not inappropriately, when the Republican White House nationalized Freddie and Fannie in September 2008 these preferred shares plunged to 25 cents—-their true value all along. The fact is, the so-called GSEs do not "earn" profits; they merely book bloated accounting margins that reflect nothing more profound than the fact that Freddie and Fannie drastically underpay for renting Uncle Sam's balance sheet. As finally became official when the U.S. Treasury threw them a $180 billion lifeline, the GSEs are now—and have always been—a branch office of the U.S. Treasury Department.
The only reason Freddie and Fannie are not prosecuted for filing fraudulent accounting statements, therefore, is the beltway fiction that they are "off-budget". This convenient scam was first invented by Lyndon Johnson to magically shrink his "guns and butter" fiscal deficits, but it has since metastasized into a giant business fairy tale—namely, that behind the imposing brick façade of Fannie Mae there is a real company generating value-added services that are the source of its reported profits and current multi-billion pink sheet valuation. In fact, there is nothing behind those walls except a stamping machine that embosses the signature of the American taxpayer on every billion dollar package of securitized mortgages it guarantees and on all the bonds it issues to fund a giant portfolio of mortgages and securities from which it strips the interest.
If we wanted to have honest socialist mortgage finance, a handful of GS-14s could run Freddie and Fannie out of the U.S. Treasury building. Civil servants could emboss the taxpayers' guarantee on every family's home mortgage just as proficiently as the make-believe business executives who populate the GSEs today; and in the process we could dispense with the sheer waste involved in applying GAAP accounting to the operations of a mere government bureau.
In an alternative political universe not corrupted by crony capitalist mythology about the elixir of homeownership, of course, there would be no need for a Treasury Bureau of Home Mortgage Finance. The decision to own own or rent would be made by 115 million American households based on their best lights, not the inducements and favors of the state. Markets would clear the interest price of mortgage debt and set credit terms and maturities consistent with the risks involved. Undoubtedly, rates would be a few hundred basis points higher and 30-year fixed rates mortgages quite rare. And like in the seemingly prosperous precincts of Germany, the home-ownership rate might be 55% or any other number not selected by pandering politicians of the type who pinned the 70% disaster on the wall during the Clinton-Bush era.
At the end of the day, having 40 million renter-households and 25 million mortgage-free owner-households provide (in their capacity as taxpayers) trillions of subsidized credit to upwards of 50 million mortgage-encumbered households is absurd. Yet it could be dismissed as just another expression of the capricious and random shuffling of income among American citizens that is the tradecraft of the Washington puzzle palace.
Unfortunately, the reality is not so anodyne. In order to hide this random redistribution mischief, the Treasury Bureau of Home Mortgage Finance has been gussied-up to form the simulacrum of a profit-making enterprise—otherwise known as a GSE. In that posture, the GSEs have been repeatedly plundered by insiders like Franklin Rains, the 90 million dollar man who drove Fannie off the cliff; and by fast money stock speculators who managed to drive the combined market cap of Freddie and Fannie to the lunatic level of $140 billion during their hay-day at the turn of the century; and by the Wall Street dealers and so-called fund managers who inventory trillions of GSE debt securities in order to scalp profits from the economically pointless spread between regular treasury bonds and the GSE variant of the same thing.
All of these hundreds of billions were pocketed by adept cronies and speculators in the various debt, equity and preferred securities of the GSEs during the decades culminating in the 2008 financial crisis. Given the trauma of those events, Secretary Paulson's desperate and ill-disguised nationalization of Freddie and Fannie should have put an end to the plunder.
But it hasn't because there is no end to the zero cost-of-goods carry trades by which speculators scoop-up and fund financial assets—busted and not—during the Fed's money printing marathons. Likewise, there is no end to crony capitalist marauders like Berkowitz, who have the temerity to demand make-wholes from the state, and K-Street hirelings—lawyers, accountants and consultants— who are skilled at the manufacture of specious public policy rationalizations for outright thievery.
So now comes the patented crony capitalist rush. The worthless Freddie and Fannie preferreds have lately erupted from $0.25 per share to $12, meaning that some speculators have already garnered a paper return of 48X. And why did this revival miracle transpire? Quite simply because Berkowitz's Fairholme Capital and his posse of punters—-John Paulson, Perry Capital and Pershing Square, among others—have taken turns bidding up the paper.
Meanwhile, their deplorable plan to do the American people a favor and swap these bogus securities for those of a new tax-payer underwritten, mortgage guarantee stamping machine, has but one objective—that is, to put a statutory floor under the current $12 per share price and enable them to dicker with Capitol Hill staffs for an ultimate take-out at par($25) under the guise of "privatization". The larceny intended here is not modest: the payday for Berkowitz and his hedge fund posse would amount to $35 billion on toxic paper which was purchased for rounding errors.
To be sure, Berkowitz and his sharpies blather that Freddie and Fannie have now returned $200 billion to the US Treasury, thereby repaying the original $180 billion drawdown, with some change to spare. But what hay wagon do they think even the clueless officialdom of Washington rides upon? Roughly $50 billion of that was for writing-up a "tax asset" that had earlier been written-down, owing to the fact that absent nationalization the GSEs had no prospect of booking even accounting income in the future. And the remaining $150 billion represents dividends paid to the Treasury since 2009 based on using Uncle Sam's credit card to issue the bonds and guarantees which fund the assets from which these so-called GSE dividends are scalped.
In other words, the Berkowitz Gang wants to be paid a king's ransom for ownership shares in what amounts to a bureau of the US Treasury. And yet these con men pound the table demanding to "wake up the (GSE) boards" so that they will execute their "fiduciary responsibility". Indeed, so shameless are Wall Street's princes of plunder that Berkowitz told a skeptical CNBC questioner last fall "we've helped before with AIG", and that he now merely seeks a "win-win" to "help with jobs, help with the economy, help with the dream of homeownership"!
That gibberish is the measure of the crony capitalist deformation that has infested the nation's financial markets and system of political governance. The obvious thing for Washington to do is close the doors at Fannie and Freddie and allow their $5 trillion portfolio to run-off in the manner of any liquidation. And if it must subsidize home mortgage credit, just bring back the metal filing cabinets in the Treasury Building where the so-called "secondary mortgage market" was birthed in 1938. Yet what it dare not do is succumb to the bogus bombast of the punters and sharpies who troll the financial wreckage inexorably created by the Fed's serial bubble machine.
If it does, the people will find their pitchforks and torches—–one of these days.
Bruce Berkowitz's Bogus Bombast | David Stockman's Contra Corner
DO NO EVIL GOOGLE – CENSOR & SNITCH FOR THE STATE Washington's Blog
February 25, 2014 6:59 am / Leave a comment
DO NO EVIL GOOGLE – CENSOR & SNITCH FOR THE STATE Washington's Blog.
Posted on February 25, 2014 by JimQ
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind." – Edward Bernays – Propaganda
I find the quote above by Edward Bernays to be a perfect synopsis for everything that has come to pass over the last century. The world has become increasingly controlled by an invisible government of greedy Wall Street bankers, shadowy billionaires, immoral big business, crooked politicians, and the military industrial complex, with mammoth media conglomerates, purposefully using propaganda to manipulate and mold the minds of the masses in order to exert power and control over our lives. He wrote those words in 1928, when the only available forms of manipulation were newspapers and radio. Bernays would be ecstatic and delighted with the implements available today used by our corporate fascist state controllers as they deliver the electronic messaging guiding the public mind.
He never dreamed of television, the internet, social media, and the ability of corporations like Google, in full cooperation with the government, to censor the truth, while feeding misinformation and state sanctioned propaganda to the masses in such an efficient and effective mode. Compelling the masses to worship at the altar of technology, while idolizing the evil men running our largest banks and corporations, has been a prodigious success for the shadowy ruling power and their mass media propaganda agents. Mike Lofgren, former congressional insider and author of The Party Is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless and the Middle Class Got Shafted,describes these mysterious perfidious men as the Deep State:
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.
My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposé of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately termed an "establishment."
All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said, it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched.
Far from being invincible, its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape the consequences of their frequent ineptitude. – Mike Lofgren, Anatomy of the Deep State
The techno-narcissistic American public has been manipulated into falsely believing their iGadgets, Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of Apps have made them smarter, freer and safer. As Goethe proclaimed, the majority of willfully ignorant Americans are hopelessly enslaved, while falsely believing they are free. Our controllers, through relentless propaganda and misinformation pounded into our brains by the government controlled education system and unrelenting messaging by their mass media co-conspirators, have molded the minds and opinions of the vast majority into believing government and mega-corporations are beneficial and indispensable to their well-being.
The overwhelming majority have been conditioned like rats to believe anything their keepers feed them. In order to keep society running smoothly, with little dissent, thought, opposition or questioning, the Deep State utilizes all the tools at its disposal to manipulate, influence, coerce, bully and bribe the populace into passive submission. They've trained us to love our servitude. The Inner Party sees this as essential to their continued control, power and enrichment, while keeping the Proles impoverished, ignorant, fearful and distracted with bread and circuses.
The key weapon in their arsenal of obedience is technology and the mega-corporations that control the flow of information disseminated to the hypnotized mindless masses. The United States has devolved into a society where a few powerful unelected unaccountable men, controlling the levers of government, education, finance, and media are able to formulate the opinions, tastes, beliefs, and fears of the masses through the effective and subtle use of technology. They have tenaciously and unflinchingly fashioned a technology addiction among the masses in order to keep them distracted, entertained and uninterested in thinking, gaining knowledge, or comprehending their roles and responsibilities as citizens in a purportedly democratic republic.
The mass media, along with their corporate compatriots – Microsoft, Apple, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Yahoo, Facebook and Google, gather vast amounts of data, emails, phone calls, texts, internet searches, spending habits, credit information, passwords, videos and private personal information from an agreeable, gullible and trusting populace. Americans have a seemingly infinite capacity for blindly counting on the government and the corporatocracy to use this data in an honorable and ethical manner. But, as Edward Snowden has revealed, the corporate fascist state is collecting every shred of data on every American in a systematic and thorough way. We have voluntarily surrendered our privacy, liberties, and freedoms to mega-corporations like Google and their techno-brethren, who then willingly collaborate with Big Brother NSA and allow unfettered access to this private information.
The U.S. Constitution along with the First and Fourth Amendments are meaningless to these deceitful entities. Our freedoms have dissipated at the same rate we have adopted the technological "innovations" of Facebook, Twitter, and Google. We are being monitored, scrutinized, tracked and controlled by the technology we have exuberantly purchased from the mega-corporations stripping us of our freedom. Technological "progress" has actually resulted in a colossal regression in freedom, liberty, independence, choice, and intelligent questioning of authority. We having willingly submitted to the google shackles of tyranny in exchange for being entertained and amused by Angry Birds, Words with Friends, facebooking, texting, tweeting, posting selfies and statuses, and linking in.
"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."– Aldous Huxley – Ends and Means
David versus the Nameless, Faceless Goliath Robot
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." – Upton Sinclair – I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
My enlightening encounter with the nameless, faceless $52 billion "non-evil doing" behemoth entity known as Google, over the last month, has clarified my understanding of how the invisible governing body of the Deep State uses the power of the all-mighty dollar to suppress dissent and obscure the truth. My inconsequential libertarian minded blog that attracts 15,000 visitors per day has been up and running for the last five years. I started my own blog because I didn't want to deal with ongoing censorship of my articles by Wall Street sellout blogs such as Seeking Alpha, Minyanville, and Financial Sense.
Their salary/living depended upon them not publishing articles critical of Wall Street and the government. My intention has never been to make a living from my blog. Any donations or incidental advertising revenue allowed me to upgrade my server capacity to handle more visitors. I'm certainly not averse to making money, but the sole purpose of my blog has been to try and open people's eyes to Wall Street criminality, political corruption, media propaganda, and the perilous financial state of our country. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised when Google approved my website for ads in December.
I will admit my site has been essentially an un-moderated free for all going back to the very beginning in 2009. I do not believe in censorship or false civility. I attempt to induce anger and outrage with every article and post. These are desperate times and anger is the appropriate reaction. The country is on a burning platform of unsustainable policies and practices which threaten the future of our society. I'm pissed off and I want others to be just as pissed off. The regular commenters are intelligent, critical, opinionated, and not afraid to unload with both barrels on fellow regulars or newbies. The language is often strong and the posting of pictures and images adds to the frat house like atmosphere. Regular contributors include doctors, farmers, engineers, business owners, accountants, teachers, waitresses, students, homemakers, soldiers, spies, and retirees. The wild-west nature of the site is not a secret to anyone who has ventured a peek. I assume Google did a review of the site before approving it for their Adsense program.
I started running Google ads on my site in early December. My site operated as it always had. The $30 per day in ad revenue was welcome, as it helped defray my server and security expenses. I experience a surge in visitors whenever I publish an article that gets picked up by fellow truth telling alternative media websites like Zero Hedge, 321 Gold, Washington's Blog, Steve Quayle, Monty Pelerin, Doug Ross,Market Oracle, Dollar Collapse, TF Metals and several others. I published an article called The Retail Death Rattle on January 20 which obliterated the false government and mainstream media recovery storyline and skewered the delusional incompetent CEOs of mega-retailers. It struck a nerve as it generated the highest visitor count in history for my site. It was even picked up by Wall Street Journal owned Marketwatch. My articles are highly critical of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, corrupt Washington politicians and the feckless captured legacy media, but they usually fly under the radar of the ruling class. On January 22 Google disabled my ads for "policy violations". This is the vague non-specific description provided by the non-human policing bot:
Scraped content
It's important for a site displaying AdSense to offer significant value to the user by providing unique and relevant content, and not to place ads on auto-generated pages or pages with little to no original content. This may include, but is not limited to:
·copying portions of text content from other sources
·websites dedicated to embedded videos from other hosts
·websites with gibberish content that makes no sense or seems auto-generated
·templated or pre-generated websites that provide duplicate content to users.
Google ads may not be placed on pages with adult or mature content. This includes, but is not limited to, pages with images or videos containing:
·Strategically covered nudity
·Sheer or see-through clothing
·Lewd or provocative poses
·Close-ups of breasts, buttocks, or crotches
Over the last five years I have received exactly ZERO complaints from other websites or authors about re-posting their articles, with full attribution and links, on my website. No one can accuse my site of not having unique and relevant content. I have permission to post articles from Zero Hedge, Charles Hugh Smith, Michael Snyder, Jim Kunstler, David Stockman, John Mauldin, Doug Casey, Paul Rosenberg, Fred Reed and dozens of other brilliant truthful journalists detailing our societal decay. Was there some Kate Upton bikini Gifs and provocative Salma Hayak pictures scattered within the 200,000 comments made on the site in the last five years? Guilty as charged. It seems Google reviewers can't see the hypocrisy of running ads to meet young bikini clad Asian girls, while disabling ads because there a few bikini pictures on the website. I suspected my article had drawn the Eye of Sauron in my direction and this was the response.
Speaking truth to power during these perilous times has repercussions. But I decided to make a good faith effort to follow their rules.
I had made almost 15,000 posts over the last five years. Over the next week I scanned the site and archived posts that included articles from mainstream media websites, along with a hundred or so bikini pictures. You never deal with a human being when attempting to satisfy the Google Gestapo. Identical canned appeal denial responses are issued from Google Central with no clarification or effort to help you understand their reasoning.
Thank you for providing us with additional information about your site. However, after thoroughly reviewing theburningplatform.com and taking your feedback into consideration, we're unable to re-enable ad serving to your site at this time, as your site appears to still be in violation.
When making changes, please note that the URL mentioned in your policy notification may be just one example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of your website. Appropriate changes must be made across your entire website before ad serving can be enabled on your site again.
If you'd like to have your site reconsidered for participation in the AdSense program, please review our program policies and make any necessary changes to your webpages.
We appreciate your cooperation.
The Google AdSense Team
There must have been some miscommunication within the Google Gestapo, as the ads were re-enabled after one week and my third appeal. A newbie, who didn't get the memo, must have mistakenly activated my ads. Regular commenters and contributors were confused by what they could and couldn't post on the site, as was I. The iron fist of the Google Stasi came down once again within a week, with the identical policy violation notice. I made the assumption that since the site was declared in compliance as of January 29, I only had to address anything posted since that date.
I had purged the site of any and all risqué pictures, so I knew that wasn't a real issue. I thoroughly reviewed every post made since January 29 and archived or edited them to leave no doubt I was meeting Google's vague guidelines. I continued to have my appeals rejected. I then went back a year and archived hundreds of other posts. By the fourth appeal rejection, I realized I would never meet their standard because it wasn't really about violating Google content policies. It was my libertarian, anti-government, anti-Wall Street, anti-Mega-Corporation, anti-Surveillance State views that were the real issue. They were attempting to make me "not understand" or write about the creeping corporate fascist paradigm overtaking the country by making my Google salary dependent on "not understanding".
Once I understood this truth, I was set free to provoke and prod the nameless, faceless Google entity and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt their true purpose. Their appeal form allows 1,000 characters for your response. Along with the actions I had taken, I began to question the integrity of the Google apparatchik "reviewer", as it was clear the site was not in violation. I had archived over a thousand posts and tens of thousands of comments. I challenged the man behind the Google curtain to provide me with proof the site was still in violation. I must have struck a nerve, as out of the blue I received a new violation notice.
Violent or disturbing content
AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with violent or disturbing content, including sites with gory text or images.
Now this was funny. My site focuses on the financial, political, and social decay of our country. It in no way advocates or promotes violence. It has no graphic images or gory videos. If Google is attempting to suppress videos of revolutions occurring in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Syria from being seen by citizens of the world, their credibility is zero. If Google is attempting to suppress videos of police brutality against citizens or the police state locking down an entire city while violating the Fourth Amendment, they prove themselves to be nothing more than a fascist propaganda tool of the State. This violation notice was laughable, but I decided to call their bluff one last time. I spent three days and archived 14,000 out of the 15,000 posts ever made on my site. All that remained were my main articles, published on dozens of other sites with Google ads active, and original content produced by myself or other approved contributors. There was no violent content, scraped content, or sexual content on my website.
My ninth and final appeal was denied. I then proceeded to write an FU Google post on my website and inform my readers and contributors they were unshackled from the Google Evil Empire of Censorship. I'm in the process of restoring all of the posts I had archived. Some might argue that Google is just exercising their rights under our free market capitalism system. I would argue free market capitalism does not exist today. The unholy alliance of big banks, big corporations, big military and big media has created a state run by the few for the benefit of the few. They use their control of the purse strings to manipulate minds, crush dissent, and censor through bullying and bribery.
Once I mentally liberated myself from their financial control, I was able to see their game. They essentially wanted me to purge the site of every anti-establishment example of free speech and First Amendment rights I had ever written, in order to kneel before the altar of $$$ in the Church of Google. Google would be perfectly fine if I converted my website into a chat-fest where I discussed the details of the upcoming Kim and Kanye wedding, pondered deep issues regarding the benefits of gay marriage, conducted polls on who The Bachelor will choose to be his betrothed this season, mused about what Hollywood stars will wear at the Academy Awards, and debated who will win the fourteenth season of American Idol. The Google money would flow freely as I contributed to the dumbing down and sedation of the masses. I have chosen not be a Judas that sells out my readers and the American public for 30 pieces of fiat to the Google Pharisees and the American corporate fascist surveillance empire.
This was not the first time the Deep State attempted to silence my anarchistic viewpoint. On June 5 Edward Snowden, American hero and patriot, released the first of thousands of documents detailing the traitorous actions of the NSA, Obama, Congress, the Judicial branch, and the corporate media. Snowden revealed the government, in cooperation with Google, Verizon, Facebook and a myriad of other technology/media companies, was collecting metadata and conducting mass surveillance of every American in violation of the Fourth Amendment, a clearly illegal form of search and seizure.
On June 19 I penned an article titled Who Are the Real Traitors? In the article I declared Obama, James Clapper, Dick Cheney, Diane Feinstein, Peter King and a plethora of other politicians, faux journalists, and talking media heads as the real traitors of the American people. The article achieved wide distribution through my usual channels and must have again drawn attention in Mordor on the Potomac. Two days later anyone with McAfee or Norton security were receiving false warnings about a malicious virus on my site. Long time readers in the military informed me the site was now blocked by the Department of Defense as a dangerous website. Other long-time readers informed me their corporations were now blocking access to the site. The site was inundated by denial of service attacks. It slowed to a crawl and was virtually inaccessible. I'm sure it was just a coincidence.
I was forced to switch server companies and hire an anti-hacking company to protect the site, thereby increasing my cost to run the site by a factor of 10. Even though the companies I hired confirmed there were no malicious viruses on the site, Norton continued to scare Internet Explorer users from reading my site for the next eight months. How the $8 billion Symantec (owns Norton) entity could rationalize this false warning on only $80 billion Microsoft's Internet Explorer, seems suspicious to me. The warning would not appear if you accessed the site with Mozilla Firefox, even if you employed Norton security. Norton makes it virtually impossible to appeal their false danger rating. I'm sure thousands of people were scared away from my website by these unaccountable corporate entities, working on behalf of the all-powerful state. Lofgren's Deep State or Bernays' Invisible Government hate the truth. They despise anyone who attempts to open the eyes of the public to their deception, criminality, and propaganda.
Google has become a tool and partner of the Deep State. Enrichment of the state within the state is their sole purpose. Google's Don't Be Evil motto, originated when they were a fledgling company in 2000, has become a farce as they have descended into the netherworld as the information police for the ruling despots. They are now a humungous corporation with near monopoly control over the flow of information, searches, emails, and internet advertising. They know more about you and your habits than you do. They attempt to control freedom of speech at the point of a wire transfer. Fall into line or no advertising blood money for you. Not only do they suppress viewpoints through advertising revenue bullying, they manipulate their search engine results to hide the truth from the masses. Google search engines filter, block and bury blog posts that contain content or information it deems incompatible with the message of its corporate fascist co-conspirators. Its oppressive corporate practices on behalf of its evil partners are an abridgment of the freedom of speech, perversion of the truth, and active attempt to mold the minds of the masses.
One of the most intelligent and cleverest contributors to my website, Nick (aka Stucky), summed up the evil entity known as Google in this pointed comment on my website:
There is an Entity out there who knows every search you ever made.
The Entity knows all about your emails, the content and address.
The Entity knows what you buy online and how often.
The Entity is developing software to predict what you will buy next.
The Entity can now even watch you, and know where you are, and what you are doing.
The Entity even knows your habits.
The Entity has enormous resources and stacks of cash.
The Entity shares your information with Lesser Entities … and also The Big Evil Entity that rules us all.
The Entity makes the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and their ilk look like Lightweight Chumps.
The Entity hates you. You are just a means to an end.
The Entity is building a Profile all about you.
The Entity will soon know you better than you know yourself.
Welcome to Google, the most evil Entity on the planet.
As a society we have fallen asleep at the wheel. We've allowed ourselves to be lulled into complacency, distracted by minutia, mesmerized by technology, turned into consumers by corporations, pacified by financial gurus and Ivy League economists, and fearful of our own shadows. Surveillance, censorship and propaganda are the tools of the oppressive state. Free speech and truthful revelations about the Deep State are a danger in the eyes of our oppressors. Words retain power and can change the hearts and minds of a tyrannized citizenry willing to listen. V's speech to London in the movie V for Vendetta, with slight modification, captures the essence of how Google fits into the evil matrix we inhabit today.
Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?
Cruelty and injustice…intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told…if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.
I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.Fear got the best of you and in your panic you turned to the government and their banking/corporate patrons. They promised you order. They promised you peace. And all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.
I choose not to silently and obediently consent to the will of the Deep State. Google will not silence me. We are in the midst of a Fourth Turning and I will try to do my small part in sweeping away the existing social order and trying to replace it with a system that honors and follows the U.S. Constitution. In Part 2 of this expose of evil, I'll provide further proof of Google's hypocrisy, censorship, and willing participation in spying on the American people. I'm beginning to understand the major conflict which will drive thisFourth Turning – The People vs The Corporate Fascist State.
WARNING: The National Security Agency is recording and storing this communication as part of its unlawful spying program on all Americans … and people worldwide. The people who created the NSA spying program say this communication – and any responses – can and will be used against the American people at any time in the future should unelected bureaucrats within the government decide to persecute us for political reasons. Private information in digital communications is being shared between Google, Facebook, Verizon and the government. It will be used against you when it suits their purposes.
FX Traders Facing Extinction as Computers Replace Humans – Bloomberg
FX Traders Facing Extinction as Computers Replace Humans – Bloomberg.
By Ambereen Choudhury and Julia Verlaine Feb 17, 2014 7:01 PM ET
A widening probe of the foreign-exchange market is roiling an industry already under pressure to reduce costs as computer platforms displace human traders.
Electronic dealing, which accounted for 66 percent of all currency transactions in 2013 and 20 percent in 2001, will increase to 76 percent within five years, according to Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm that reviewed Bank for International Settlements data. About 81 percent of spot trading — the buying and selling of currency for immediate delivery — will be electronic by 2018, Aite said.
"Foreign-exchange traders are much like stock floor traders: a rapidly dying breed," said Charles Geisst, author of "Wall Street: A History" and a finance professor at Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York. "Once the banks realize they are costing them money, the positions will dwindle quickly."
At least a dozen regulators are investigating allegations first reported by Bloomberg News in June that traders colluded to rig benchmarks in the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency market. That scrutiny may give banks an opportunity to cull more staff, say analysts including Christopher Wheeler of Mediobanca SpA in London. It's also boosting demand from clients for greater transparency in pricing and transaction charges, accelerating a longer-term shift in trading onto electronic platforms.
Photographer: Ben Torres/Bloomberg
Electronic dealing, which accounted for 66 percent of all currency transactions in 2013…Read More
'Very Skinny'
"The margins are very, very skinny in foreign exchange because it's easy to move onto a trading platform," said Wheeler, who tracks European lenders. "The move by banks into electronic trading in other areas has cost a large number of jobs, and we've seen revenue come off sharply. The foreign-exchange probe won't help this."
The push toward electronic trading probably will lower costs for customers and boost transparency of pricing, according to Cormac Leech, an analyst at Liberum Capital Ltd. in London. It may also squeeze margins for banks, he said.
Broken Benchmarks
Human traders have maintained their role in the foreign-exchange market while disappearing in areas such as equities because most trading takes place away from exchanges. That means clients don't have a central repository showing the flow of completed orders, forcing them to piece together information about the direction of rates from traders and salesmen with knowledge of other clients' orders. People were also needed because early computerized trading systems weren't reliable and couldn't handle larger transactions, according to dealers.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Employees work at a foreign exchange brokerage in Tokyo. Human traders have maintained… Read More
'Egg Timers'
"Many algorithms in previous foreign-exchange platforms were very, very basic — not a lot more than egg timers," Chris Purves, London-based global head of foreign-exchange, rates and credit electronic trading at UBS AG (UBSN), said in an interview. "The equities world, on the other hand, had advanced algorithms with gaming technology inside of them — they would randomly split up clip sizes to provide best execution. A lot of that technology has now been brought into the foreign-exchange world."
Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Citigroup Inc., Barclays Plc and UBS AG are the four biggest currency-trading banks, according to a May survey by Euromoney. The investigation of alleged manipulation already is reducing the number of spot traders at these and other firms. At least 21 traders have been fired or suspended as a result of the probe. Some are leaving of their own volition. Banks including UBS, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup have banned dealers from using multiparty chat rooms.
Firms such as London-based Barclays (BARC) have started to cut employees amid a wider squeeze in revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities, according to people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.
'Information Advantage'
"A handful of traders in a few banks have a huge information advantage they can transform into profits," said Andre Spicer, a professor at Cass Business School in London. "They know what order flows are, and research shows order flow is one of the few decent predictors of price in this market. Ongoing inquiries may erode this information advantage by restructuring the market. This will kill off opportunities for relatively easy profit."
Banks' income from foreign exchange already has been squeezed. Volatility, a key driver of revenue, is declining as concern that Europe's sovereign-debt crisis would trigger the breakup of the euro eased and central banks provided unprecedented liquidity to stabilize markets.
Deutsche Bank's Currency Volatility Index, which measures the market's expectation of future price swings for nine currency pairs, slumped to 7.53 percent on Feb. 17. The index was as high as 15.8 percent in September 2011.
Crimping Revenue
That decline is crimping revenue at firms including Citigroup (C) and UBS. New York-based Citigroup said last month that revenue in its rates and foreign-exchange business was down slightly in the fourth quarter from the previous period. UBS said this month that foreign-exchange revenue declined in the fourth quarter because of "lower liquidity and reduced client risk appetite."
Regulators are helping push more trading away from humans to electronic platforms by making some transactions more expensive for banks. The latest rules from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will make foreign-exchange derivatives — contracts with values derived from changes in currency rates — less attractive for banks by imposing charges for holding positions and products that aren't cleared through exchanges.
"No matter how you slice it, foreign-exchange options will be more expensive for clients to trade and for banks to take on," said Kevin McPartland, head of market-structure research at consulting firm Greenwich Associates. "Shrinking profits from higher operational costs and the increased cost of capital may cause banks to focus on generating revenue from their traditional cash business and redirect money into technology that facilitates trading through an agency model."
European regulators are also pushing firms to move more currency trading onto regulated exchanges to boost transparency. German Deputy Finance Minister Michael Meister this month gave his backing to such an overhaul after it was suggested in January by Bafin, the country's financial regulator.
The Basel rules are spurring the development of a currency futures market, based on exchanges. In 2005, the volume of such futures traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was less than one-third of daily spot trading on EBS, an electronic trading platform owned by ICAP Plc. In 2013, CME surpassed EBS for the first time, and by December, the volume of futures traded on the CME was almost 30 percent greater than that logged through EBS.
'Clear Shift'
"The aggressive growth of the futures model demonstrates a clear shift in the landscape, with market participants looking at alternative sources of liquidity and hedging tools alongside the over-the-counter market," said Derek Sammann, a managing director at the CME.
Two of the biggest currency-trading banks are taking different approaches to defend their share of the market. Barclays has developed an addition to its electronic platform that gives clients foreign-exchange rates aggregated from external sources. Zurich-based UBS is trying to retain the human element in its platform, allowing clients to connect directly with its sales and trading desks, in addition to accessing research covering fixed income, credit, equities products and foreign exchange.
Barclays, the U.K.'s second-largest bank by assets, last year started Gator, which allows clients to trade foreign exchange with the same technology its traders already used internally to quote prices. Gator, an extension of Barclays's earlier BARX platform, is the first offering from an investment bank to aggregate currency prices from external sources such as EBS, Currenex and FXall, which is owned by Thomson Reuters. EBS was started by a group of banks in 1990 before being acquired by ICAP, the world's largest interdealer broker, in 2006.
Officials at Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup declined to comment on their trading operations. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, competes with Thomson Reuters and EBS in providing news, information and currency-trading systems.
In October, Switzerland's largest bank started UBS Neo, a platform that replaced almost 100 internal systems with one that allows institutional clients to trade a range of asset classes. The system, which enables clients to connect with traders and salespeople, mimics the way Twitter lets users to follow one another.
While the system uses computer algorithms to complete client orders, a service for which clients once relied on dealers' judgment, some trades are still passed on to the dealing desk in Zurich. The firm still has about 25 spot currency traders, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
Electronification Risk
About 70 percent of Barclays's trading is electronic today, compared with less than half when it opened its first currency platform in 2005, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
"A good chunk of spot traders, maybe 30 percent to 40 percent of them are at high risk of electronification eating their lunch," said Javier Paz, senior analyst at Aite.
A decade ago, France's BNP Paribas SA (BNP) employed about 15 spot traders and one electronic foreign-exchange team member in Paris. Today, the team has moved to London and includes six spot traders and eight people dealing with electronic trading, according a person with knowledge of the matter.
The shift to electronic trading may concentrate trading at an even smaller number of banks, forcing out competitors with a lower market share, according to Chirantan Barua, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. in London. Some firms also may move toward the equities sales-trader model, where salesmen handle orders as well as provide market information.
"The old model is going away," said John Taylor, founder of New York-based FX Concepts LLC, once the world's biggest currency hedge fund before it went bankrupt last year. "But it's better to say the old model has gone away several times. This is just the latest of those times."
To contact the reporters on this story: Ambereen Choudhury in London atachoudhury@bloomberg.net; Julia Verlaine in London at jverlaine2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net
Following the Bodies: "We Are at the Precipice of Something So Big, It Will shake the Financial World"
February 16, 2014 10:30 am / Leave a comment
Following the Bodies: "We Are at the Precipice of Something So Big, It Will shake the Financial World".
Douglas J. Hagmann
Northeast Intelligence Network
Editor's Note: In the investigative report below, Douglas Hagmann of the Northeast Intelligence Network delves deep into a world that most only believe exists in the realm of cinematic thrillers. It's one of intrigue, corruption and murder, and it involves some of the world's most influential firms, business leaders and politicians. There are billions, if not trillions, of dollars on the line. When the nefarious agendas of these sycophants are threatened it's not much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that those involved will do whatever is necessary to protect their wealth, power and influence. For them, the only way to deal with the problem is to silence it – permanently.
One can chalk off the recent string of banker suicides to coincidence, but what if there were more to it? What if, for example, 39 year old Vice President of JP Morgan Gabriel Magee, who emailed his girlfriend to tell her he was "leaving the office and would see her shortly," didn't actually throw himself off of a 33-story building in what police claim was a "non-suspicious" fatal fall? What if the circumstances surrounding many of the deaths of these bankers and a Wall Street Journal financial reporter were the result of, as one financial insider noted a week before the deaths unfolded, a "clean up" of people who knew too much and posed a threat to the overall agenda? Much of this may be difficult to stomach for some, but considering that the people responsible for collapsing the global economy five years ago not only never faced justice for their crimes, but were rewarded with billion dollar bank deals as a result, is it foolish to suggest that there's much more going on here than the mainstream media and Justice department officials would have us believe?
It all just seems… a bit too convenient.
Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers and what lies ahead for us
By Douglas Hagmann
I feel that this is one of the most important investigations I've ever done. If my findings are correct, each of us might soon experience a severe, if not crippling blow to our personal finances, the confiscation of any wealth some of us have been able to accumulate over our lifetimes, and the end of the financial world as we once knew it. The evidence to support my findings exists in the trail of dead bodies of financial executives across the globe and a missing Wall Street Journal Reporter who was working at the Dow Jones news room at the time of his disappearance.
If the bodies were dots on a piece of paper, connecting them results in a sinister picture being drawn that involves global criminal activity in the financial world the likes of which is almost without precedent. It should serve as a warning that we are at the precipice of something so big, it will shake the financial world as we know it to its core. It seems to illustrate the complicity of big banks and governments, the intelligence community, and the media.
Although the trail of mysterious and bizarre deaths detailed below begin in late January, 2014, there are others. Not only that, there will be more, according to sources within the financial world. Based on my findings, these are not mere random, tragic cases of suicide, but of the methodical silencing of individuals who had the ability to expose financial fraud at the highest levels, and the complicity of certain governmental agencies and individuals who are engaged in the greatest theft of wealth the world has ever seen.
It is often said that life imitates art. In the case of the dead financial executives, perhaps death imitates theater, or more specifically, the movie The International, which was coincidentally released in U.S. theaters exactly five years ago today.
We are told by the media that the untimely deaths of these young men and men in their prime are either suicides or tragic accidents. We are told what to believe by the captured and controlled media, regardless of how unusual or unlikely the circumstances, or how implausible the explanation. Such are the hallmarks of high level criminality and the involvement of a certain U.S. intelligence agency intent on keeping the lid on money laundering on a global scale.
Obviously, it is important that this topic is approached with the utmost respect for the families of those who died, that they be allowed to grieve for the loss of their loved ones in private. However, it is extremely important that the truth about what is happening in the global financial arena is not kept from us, as we will also be victims of a different nature.
The missing and the dead: a timeline
The following is provided as a chronological list of those who have gone missing or been found dead under mysterious circumstances. It is important to note that this list consists of names of the most recent incidents. There are more that extend back through 2012 and beyond.
MISSING: David Bird, 55, long-time reporter for the Wall Street Journal working at the Dow Jones news room, went for a walk on Saturday, January 11, 2014 near his New Jersey home and disappeared without a trace. Mr. Bird was a reporter of the oil and commodity markets which happened to be under investigation by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for price manipulation.
DECEASED: Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG, was reportedly found dead under undisclosed circumstances.
DECEASED: William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank, was found hanging in his home from an apparent suicide. It is important to note that Deutsche Bank is under investigation for reportedly hiding $12 billion in losses during the financial crisis and for potentially rigging the foreign exchange markets. The allegations are similar to the claims the institution settled in 2013 over involvement in rigging the Libor interest rates.
DECEASED: Karl Slym, 51, Managing director of Tata Motors was found dead on the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok. Police said he "could" have committed suicide. He was staying on the 22nd floor with his wife, and was attending a board meeting in the Thai capital.
DECEASED: Gabriel Magee, 39, a JP Morgan employee, died after reportedly "falling" from the roof of its European headquarters in London in the Canary Wharf area. Magee was vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co's (JPM) London headquarters.
Gabriel Magee, a Vice President at JPMorgan in London, plunged to his death from the roof of the 33-story European headquarters of JPMorgan in Canary Wharf. Magee was involved in "Technical architecture oversight for planning, development, and operation of systems for fixed income securities and interest rate derivatives" based on his online Linkedin profile.
It's important to note that JPMorgan, like Deutsche Bank, is under investigation for its potential involvement in rigging foreign exchange rates. JPMorgan is also reportedly under investigation by the same U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for its alleged involvement in rigging the physical commodities markets in the U.S. and London.
Regarding the initial reports of his death, journalist Pam Martens of Wall Street on Paradeastutely exposed the controlled, scripted details of the media accounts surrounding Magee's death in an article written on February 9, 2014. Ms. Martens writes:
"According to numerous sources close to the investigation of Gabriel Magee's death, almost nothing thus far reported about his death has been accurate. This appears to stem from an initial poorly worded press release issued by the Metropolitan Police in London which may have been a result of bad communications between it and JPMorgan or something more deliberate on someone's part." [Emphasis added].
Ms. Martens also notes:
No solid evidence exists currently to suggest that the death was a suicide. In fact, there is a strong piece of evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Magee had emailed his girlfriend, Veronica, on the evening of January 27 to say that he was about to leave the office and would see her shortly. [Emphasis added].
Based on information she developed, it appears likely that Magee did not meet his fate on the morning his body was discovered, but hours earlier. Considering the possibility that Magee might now have died in the manner publicized, Ms. Martens offers speculation, and notes it as such:
If Magee became aware that incriminating emails, instant messages, or video teleconferences were not turned over in their entirety to Senate investigators or Justice Department prosecutors, that might be reason enough for his untimely death.
Looking at the death of Magee in the context of a larger conspiracy, it is difficult not to suspect foul play and media manipulation.
DECEASED: Mike Dueker, 50, who had worked for Russell Investment for five years, was found dead close to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State. Dueker was reported missing on January 29, 2014. Police stated that he "could have" jumped over a fence and fallen 15 meters to his death, and are treating the case as a suicide.
Before joining Russell Investments, Dueker was an assistant vice president and research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 1991 to 2008. There he served as an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and was editor ofMonetary Trends, a monthly publication of the St. Louis Federal Reserve.
In November 2013, the New York Times reported that Russell Investments was one of several investment companies that were under subpoena from New York State regulators investigating potential "pay-to-play" schemes involving New York pension funds.
DECEASED: Ryan Henry Crane, 37, was the Executive Director in JPMorgan's Global Equities Group. Of particular relevance is that Crane oversaw all of the trade platforms and had close working ties with the now deceased Gabriel Magee of JPMorgan's London desk. The ties between Mr. Crane and Mr. Magee are undeniable and outright troublesome. The cause of death has not yet been determined, pending the results of a toxicology report.
DECEASED: Richard Talley, 57, was the founder and CEO of American Title, a company he founded in 2001. Talley and his company were under investigation by state insurance regulators at the time of his death. He was found in the garage of his Colorado home by a family member who called authorities. Talley reportedly died from seven or eight "self-inflicted" wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head.
The enormity of the lie
One must look back far enough to understand the enormity of the lie and the criminality of bankers and governments alike. We must understand the legal restraints that were severed during the Clinton years and the congress that changed the rules regarding financial institutions. We must understand that the criminal acts were bold and bipartisan, and were designed to consolidate wealth through the destruction of the middle class. All of this is part of a much larger plan to establish a one world economy by "killing" the U.S. dollar and consequently, eradicating the middle class by a cabal of globalists that existed and continue to exist within all sectors of our government. The results will be crippling to not just the United States, but the entire Western world.
What began decades ago is now becoming more transparent under the Obama regime. Perhaps that's the transparency Obama promised, for we've seen little else in terms of transparency with regard to the man known as Barack Hussein Obama. For those not locked into the captured corporate media, we're starting to see the truth emerging. The truth is that we've been living under a giant Ponzi scheme and we, the American citizens, are the suckers. As illustrated by the list of dead bankers above, however, the power elite need a bit more time before the extent of their criminality is revealed. The need a bit more time to transfer the remaining wealth from middle-class America to their private coffers. Timing is everything, and a magic act only works when all props are in place before the illusion is performed. Only when their timing is right will the slumbering Americans realize the extent of the illusion by which they've been entranced, at which time they will be forced into submission to accept a financial reset that will ultimately subjugate them to a global economy. I contend that this is the reason for the recent spate of deaths, for those who met their tragic and untimely end had the ability to expose this nefarious agenda by what they knew or discovered, or what they would reveal under subpoena and the damage they could cause to the globalist financial agenda.
It is an insult to the public intellect that the media so readily pushes the official line that the deaths were all suicides given the unusual circumstances surrounding nearly all of those listed. This itself should be ringing alarm bells with anyone of reasonable sensibilities, or at last those who are paying the slightest bit of attention to the larger picture. The media is either complicit or completely inept. While incompetence is evident in many areas, even the most inept journalist or media company cannot possible deny what exists directly in front of them. They can only withhold the truth.
To understand what is taking place, I contacted a financial source who has accurately predicted many events that we are now seeing taking place, including the deaths of certain financial people for an explanation. In fact, he actually predicted that we would see a "clean-up" of individuals who posed a serious threat to certain too-big-to-fail-or-jail banks and "banksters" a full week before the events began to unfold. Truth be told, I initially greeted his prediction with some skepticism, for such things don't really happen in the real world, or so the obedient and well-managed media tells me.
"V, The Guerrilla Economist" as he is known in the alternative media, has provided numerous insider alerts for Steve Quayle's website and has appeared as a regular guest on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report. He has an undeniable track record for accuracy, which has earned my respect. However, I thought that he had taken temporary leave of his senses when he twice suggested that there will be some house cleaning done of anyone posing a threat to the agenda of certain banks and the globalist agenda on our broadcasts of November 20, 2013 and again on January 10, 2014. In a separate venue, he described what was about to take place by using the analogy of the movie The International. Several dead bodies and a missing journalist later, that analogy has been proven accurate.
The fact is that we are seeing a clean-up where JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank seems to appear at the epicenter of it all. In January, JPMorgan admitted facilitating the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme by turning its head to his activities. Despite this admission, the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder declined to send anyone to jail under a deferred prosecution agreement. Yet this is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
In March, 2013, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a heavily redacted 307-page report detailing the financial irregularities surrounding the actions of JPMorgan and the deliberate withholding of critical financial information by JPMorgan. Prominent in the mix are the actions of Bruno Iksil, who earned the nickname the "London Whale," for his "casino bets" of others money that caused billions of dollars in losses. Yet, no cooperation was provided by Dimon's foot soldiers as they failed to testify or otherwise cooperate with Senate investigators.
Remember the damage control and the deliberate downplaying by Jamie Dimon, who maintained that there was nothing to see here with regard to the "London Whale" criminal activities? What was originally described as a loss of perhaps $2 billion ultimately turned into many more times that, yet the actual numbers are still hidden from the public. Such events occurred under the noses of numerous financial executives who had knowledge that went undisclosed.
As we fast forward to today and the current spate of mysterious deaths, we begin to see that many of those who died existed on the periphery of events in the criminal actions of the financial industry. Moreover, it is reasonable to conclude that they possessed knowledge that if disclosed, could have interrupted the magic act taking place for the awestruck audience, captivated by the carefully crafted words of Yellen, her predecessors and the operatives within government who's duty it is to regulate whatever is left of our current financial system.
That regulation is now a thing of the past. What we have today is a system of facilitation and co-operation between the largest corporations and financial institutions and the U.S. and our intelligence agencies. We now have the "too-big-to-fails" operating with impunity as a result of an incestuous, if not outright unconstitutional relationship where the banks are acting as operational assets for the CIA, the NYPD, and other intelligence and police agencies.
The JPMorgan-CIA-NYPD connection
Perhaps one of the best kept secrets, at least from the majority of the American public, is the integration and overlap between the "too-big-to-fail-and-jail" banks and the most advanced system of surveillance in the U.S. Would it surprise you to learn that the very banks that brought the United States to the brink of financial collapse in 2008, who looted the American public and continue to engage in what most perceive as criminal behavior in the financial venue not only have ties to the CIA, but are actually partnered with the CIA and NYPD surveillance of all of lower Manhattan? That's right, the big banks such as JPMorgan, Citigroup and others have their own desks and surveillance monitors at a facility known as the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, located at 55 Broadway, deep in the center of New York's financial district.
The big banks—the very banks that have been the focus of fraud and corruption investigations have their own system of cameras, more than 2,000 in number, and operate them in tandem with NYPD surveillance cameras at a center that was funded with taxpayer money. Every square inch of lower Manhattan is under surveillance 24/7, not just by NYPD, but by JP Morgan and other members of the so-called "one percent." Carefully consider the implications of this pact.
JPMorgan Chase and others have had long and quite intimate ties with the CIA. Today, however, the line between the banks that control our financial present and future and police and intelligence agencies no longer exist. This relationship of mutual benefit permits the CIA to use the financial institutions to "handle the money" for their various global initiatives, while it provides the banks a stable of "professional assistants" to handle their "security," whether such security issues arise in the U.S., London, or elsewhere. Highly trained and skilled CIA operatives now work within the system of interlocked financial institutions that have been at the epicenter of the most egregious crimes involving the theft from our bank accounts and retirement savings.
Please stop and consider this for a moment. The very banks and their top executives who have not only brought the U.S. to the brink of financial collapse and Martial Law, engaged or facilitated in various criminal actions that resulted in fines (but no jail time) for the perpetrators, are working hand-in-hand with the CIA. Not only that, they are working in tandem with the NYPD at their surveillance centers, watching and videotaping every move made by anyone—including potential whistleblowers within their vast purview. By the way, this is no ordinary surveillance or surveillance cameras. You won't find these cameras on the shelves of your local spy shop. These cameras can focus on the footnotes of a book you might be reading, or the words written on a piece of paper being held by an unwitting person. They employ facial recognition and other advanced visual and data aggregation capabilities, and the extent of their technological abilities is increasing every day.
Additionally, the data is collected and maintained, and files are created of people and groups who are merely going about their daily lives. Equally important, files are created and maintained of problem children and groups, like the Occupy movement and others who lawfully exercise their constitutional rights to protest the actions of the one-percent. Consider this in the context of the Occupy Wall Street protests. where the protesters were not only under police surveillance, but surveillance by the banks and their corporate officers against whom they were protesting. And it was all done with the approval and assistance of the police, in this case the NYPD, and U.S. intelligence agencies.
Now consider the plight of a whistleblower who wants to expose criminality within the ranks of a too-big-to-fail. The institution who is engaged in purported criminality based on the findings of the whistleblower can observe the whistleblower's every move. Where they go, who they meet and what they are carrying to such a meeting. They can be tracked to a residence, a business, or even to their psychiatrist's office, place of ill repute, or the residence of some significant other outside of their marriage, all of which would be invaluable for blackmail.
Perhaps the potential whistleblower is clean and free from anything that might dissuade them from revealing what they know, their case could be turned over to the in-house security of former CIA agents for proper disposition. It makes the movie The Firm look like child's play by comparison.
This is not some fanciful delusion. There is proof of this that exists. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has documented the increasingly extensive surveillance being conducted in lower Manhattan and throughout the city. They have verified that not only are our constitutional rights being violated every minute of every day, but the fruits of surveillance by police and corporate entities are shared between the police, the intelligence agencies and private financial institutions, without restraint on the distribution on such findings.
Are you engaged in a protesting against the criminality of the one-percent? Well, they one-percent are watching you, and they are literally seated right next to the police. Are you a journalist following up on possible "bankster" corruption by meeting a potential whistleblower? You better understand that the bankster target of your investigation is watching you, in real-time, with the complete approval and cooperation of the police. As documented by the NYCLU, you are likely now "on file," and all data compiled is maintained and accessible not just to law enforcement, but to the very target of your investigation—in real time.
Such surveillance and integration between big banks, law enforcement and spy agencies is not just limited to lower Manhattan or even the United States. It is also most prevalent in London and other cities where international banking is conducted.
Real-time surveillance and the close working relationship between the "one-percenters," police and the intelligence agencies gives the targets of criminal probes the ability to be pro-active when necessary. It's all being done under the pretext of national security when it would appear that the real objective is to insulate the banksters from potential problems that exposure of their criminal actions might cause.
Oh, and don't forget that it is us who are paying for this.
Perhaps we would be well advised to not only consider the capabilities of the surveillance apparatus that exists where the big banks and police are working at adjacent surveillance terminals at 55 Broadway and other locations, but the incestuous working relationship between the banks and the CIA when we read about banker suicides.
Do not expect to see any exclusive report on this in the corporate media, for they, as requested have dutifully maintained their code of silence by not showing pictures of the brass name plates that identify the bankster terminals situated adjacent to the police terminals during photo shoots of this super-secret surveillance complex a few years ago. As detailed by the tenacious and indefatigable Pam Martens, journalist for Wall Street on Parade in this article, the captured media took a pass on revealing the whole truth about what's really going on at 55 Broadway.
What has been revealed here is merely the tip of the iceberg. The tentacles of the corporate elite, facilitated and empowered by the CIA, the NYPD top brass, and other agencies have now covertly and effectively succeeded in invading everything you do. The fruits of this operation are being used to advance their global financial agenda and silence the opposition.
Knowing this, is it possible that the dead bodies that are increasing in number are the results of this joint surveillance operation? You will not find any answers in the mainstream media. The big banks have chosen to remain silent, even in the face of subpoenas, and have yet to face any legal consequences for their contempt. It's not, however, merely contempt of congress or pseudo-investigative bodies. It's their contempt of humanity, of you and me, and the victims that lie dead, leaving their families broken and wanting for the truth.
This article has been reprinted with permission from the Northeast Intelligence Network.
Please visit SteveQuayle.com and RogueMoney.net for headlines, reports and updates on the growing threat to our financial future. Also, tune in the The Hagmann & Hagmann Report on Monday, February 17, 2014 from 8:00-11:00 PM ET as we welcome "V, The Guerrilla Economist" and Steve Quayle to discuss this topic in-depth.
Do more to prevent war | www.timesrecord.com | The Times Record
Do more to prevent war | www.timesrecord.com | The Times Record.
BY DAVID SWANSON
David Swanson
Polls showed a large percentage of us in this country supporting the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and even — though somewhat reduced — the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But not long after, and ever since, a majority of us have said those were mistakes.
We've opposed attacking Iran whenever that idea has entered the news. We opposed bombing Libya in 2011 and were ignored, as was Congress. And, by the way, advocates of that happy little war are rather quiet about the chaos it created.
But last September, the word on our televisions was that missiles must be sent to strike Syria. President Barack Obama and the leaders of both big political parties said they favored it. Wall Street believed it would happen, judging by Raytheon's stock. When U.S. intelligence agencies declined to make the president's case, he released a "government" assessment without them.
Remarkably, we didn't accept that choice. A majority of us favored humanitarian aid, but no missiles, and no arming of one side in the war. We had the benefit of many people within the government and the military agreeing with us. And when Congress was pressured to demand approval power, Obama granted it.
It helped more that members of Congress were in their districts with people getting in their faces. It was with Congress indicating its refusal to support a war that Obama and Kerry accepted the pre-existing Russian offer to negotiate. In fact, the day before they made that decision, the State Department had stressed that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would never ever give up his chemical weapons, and Kerry's remarks on that solution had been "rhetorical."
The war in Syria goes on. Washington sent guns, but refrained from air strikes. Major humanitarian aid would cost far less than missiles and guns, but hasn't materialized. The children we were supposed to care about enough to bomb their country are still suffering, and most of us still care.
But a U.S. war was prevented.
We're seeing the same thing play out in Washington right now on the question of whether to impose yet more sanctions on Iran, shred a negotiated agreement with Iran, and commit the United States to joining in any war between Israel and Iran.
In January, a bill to do all of that looked likely to pass through the Senate. Public pressure has been one factor in, thus far, slowing it down.
Are we moving away from war?
The ongoing war in Afghanistan, and White House efforts to extend it beyond this year, might suggest otherwise. The military budget that still eats up, across various departments, roughly half of federal discretionary spending, and which is roughly the size of all other countries' military spending combined, might suggest otherwise. The failure to repeal the authorizations for war from 2001 and 2003, and the establishment of permanent practices of surveillance and detention and secrecy justified by a permanent state of war, might suggest otherwise. As might the ongoing missile strikes from drones over a number of nations.
But you'll notice that they don't ask us before launching drone strikes, and that their assurances that no innocent people are harmed have proven highly misleading.
War may be becoming acceptable only as what its advocates have long claimed it was: a last resort. Of course if we can really make that true, we'll never have a war again.
DAVID SWANSON will be speaking at 3 p.m. Feb. 15 at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick.
The 4 Pillars of Poverty
The 4 Pillars of Poverty.
by Marc Faber.
Posted Feb 5, 2014.
Ithink it is remarkable that, despite the growth the US has enjoyed since the 1960s, the poverty rate has barely changed. Writing for the Wall Street Journal last month under the title "How the War on Poverty Was Lost", Robert Rector notes that: "Fifty years and $20 trillion later, LBJ's goal to help the poor become self-supporting has failed." He writes further:
On Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson used his State of the Union address to announce an ambitious government undertaking. "This administration today, here and now," he thundered, "declares unconditional war on poverty in America."
Fifty years later, we're losing that war. Fifteen percent of Americans still live in poverty, according to the official census poverty report for 2012, unchanged since the mid-1960s. Liberals argue that we aren't spending enough money on poverty-fighting programs, but that's not the problem. In reality, we're losing the war on poverty because we have forgotten the original goal, as LBJ stated it half a century ago: "to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities."
…LBJ promised that the war on poverty would be an "investment" that would "return its cost manifold to the entire economy." But the country has invested $20.7 trillion in 2011 dollars over the past 50 years. What does America have to show for its investment? Apparently, almost nothing: The official poverty rate persists with little improvement.
My impression is that there are far more "poor" people today as a percentage of the population than there were in the 1960s, because lower middle-class and middle-class people have moved into the ranks of the poor. (Since 2007, the bottom 50% by wealth percentile lost more than 40% of their net worth and their debts are up 16%.) This may be a factor that explains the still muted consumer confidence at a time when stock investors' sentiment is at its highest level since 1987.
In my opinion, the increase in poverty rests on four pillars: cultural and social factors, educational issues, excessive debt, and government handouts, which encourage people not to work. Other factors include: international competition, which keeps wages down; and monetary policies, which create bubbles and impoverish the majority.
As an example, social factors and government handouts led to a sharp increase in out-of-wedlock births. In the 1960s in the US, out-of-wedlock births comprised only 5.3% of total births; in 1980, 18.4%; and today, over 40%. Babies born out of wedlock are likely to have fewer educational opportunities than those raised in two-parent families.
This is one reason; educational standards have also slipped – certainly relative to the rest of the world – due to poor policies. Of course, by far the worst cause of rising poverty rates is monetary policies that have encouraged credit growth, enslaving poor people with debts and financing an increase in entitlement programs by the government.
According to Rector, "The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Government spent $916 billion on these programs in 2012 alone, and roughly 100 million Americans received aid from at least one of them, at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient. (That figure doesn't include Social Security or Medicare benefits.) Federal and state welfare spending, adjusted for inflation, is 16 times greater than it was in 1964. If converted to cash, current means tested spending is five times the amount needed to eliminate all official poverty in the U.S."
It is no wonder, therefore, that with these generous social programs, largely financed now by the Fed, single women have been encouraged to have babies without the "inconvenience" of having a husband.
The problem, however, as I mentioned above, is that (again according to Rector) the Heritage Foundation has found in a study that "children raised in the growing number of single-parent homes are four times more likely to be living in poverty than children reared by married parents of the same education level. Children who grow up without a father in the home are also more likely to suffer from a broad array of social and behavioral problems. The consequences continue into adulthood: Children raised by single parents are three times more likely to end up in jail and 50% more likely to be poor as adults."
Now, I realise that it would be unfair to place the entire blame on the Fed for the failure of entitlement programs. However, the Fed and other central banks around the world have been enablers of Big Government and poor economic policies. As John Taylor (a professor of economics at Stanford University, and one of the few economists who appears to be sane) opined in the Wall Street Journal about the various secular stagnation hypotheses:
In the current era, business firms have continued to be reluctant to invest and hire, and the ratio of investment to GDP is still below normal. That is most likely explained by policy uncertainty, increased regulation, including through the Dodd Frank and Affordable Care Act, about which there is plenty of evidence, especially in comparison with the secular stagnation hypothesis.
I suppose the emergence of the secular stagnation hypothesis shouldn't be surprising. As long as there is a demand to pin the failure of bad government policies on the market system or exogenous factors, there will be a supply of theories. The danger is that this leads to more bad government policy [emphasis added]
Concerning increased regulation it is clear that "Big Business" loves increased regulation. Take, as an example, the increasingly complex tax laws (click the chart to enlarge). Large corporations can hire an army of accountants, lawyers, tax consultants, and lobbyists in order to reduce their tax burden. But, what about the small business owner?
He is at the mercy of some tax collector who can waste his time endlessly with repeated audits. The same goes for other regulatory requirements, which lead to less competition and favour large business groups.
Many of my friends who own independent small money management firms are being forced to close down their businesses, merge, or sell to larger financial institutions because of increased regulation. The more regulation there is, the more likely it becomes an inhibiting factor for innovation.
Furthermore, I am certain that the secular stagnation hypothesis is another attempt by the government to justify more interventions with fiscal and monetary policies into the free market.
The question is, of course, who are the governments? Will Durant opined in The Age of Louis XIV that the "men who can manage men manage the men who can only manage things, and the men who can manage money manage all". In Lessons of History, he wrote:
…the bankers, watching the trends in agriculture, industry, and trade, inviting and directing the flow of capital, putting our money doubly and trebly to work, controlling loans and interest and enterprise, running great risks to make great gains, rise to the top of the economic pyramid.
From the Medici of Florence and the Fuggers of Augsburg to the Rothschilds of Paris and London and the Morgans of New York, bankers have sat in councils of governments, financing wars and popes, and occasionally sparking a revolution. Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, they know that history is inflationary, and that money is the last thing a wise man will hoard [emphasis added].
I suppose that one solace for poor people, in view of this rather sobering fact, may be these words of Frank McKinney Hubbard:
"It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed."
for The Daily Reckoning
Ed. Note: Not discounting the point Mr. Faber is trying to make with this final thought, even if wealth can't bring you happiness, it can – at the very least – help offer a little piece of mind to those in search of happiness. And that's why we write the Daily Reckoning – to try to help you live a wealthier, healthier, and happier life than you could ever imagine. And it doesn't take much. The Daily Reckoning offers you regular chances to discover some of the world's most lucrative and overlooked investment plays. And it is completely FREE. So you've got nothing to lose by signing up. Click here now to see what all the buzz is about.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl