Political Economy & Finance
Donald J. Trump – The Fall Guy?
Now that the furore regarding the election of Donald Trump, has died down a little, even if the American (and some of Britain’s) mainstream media are still pointing the finger of blame at that reluctant bastion of Rothschild Banking – Russia for supposedly meddling in American Politics…
I’m surprised that the Russians haven’t been accused of somehow manipulating the British electorate into voting to leave the EU. And don’t get me started on Tony Blair’s calls to “ignore the Brexit vote” in the most undemocratic statement to come out of any politician’s mouth since, Mein Kampf. But I digress…
As we settle into the dog-days of summer, and pieces of the jig-saw are given to us, we are slowly building a picture of this Brave New World, but it won’t be the New World Order, of which so many in the west have spoken in the tail end of the last millennium. When George Herbert Walker Bush talked of his New World Order. He spoke of a world in which Bankers, and those they funded were in control, a place where financial manipulation, and “fiat money” were the norm, a place controlled by the few. But this world that is being fashioned today, is by opposing forces, and the control is slowly moving east, and their ideals are in the ascendancy.
The change has been a long time coming, and those planning this takeover of the world, had almost managed it, but some of those who were not too keen on being ruled by a cabal of Banksters with Zionist tendencies, and a plan, some think, to rid the world of 6½billion souls, decided against it.
To that end, they constructed a complete system to match the Western Banker Cabal’s.[See Pic:]
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), The BRICS Bank, The Special Drawing Right (SDR) and the Shanghai Gold Exchange, are all designed to end control by those parallel systems in the west. Even the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) system, has a replica – CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) but the first thing that needs to be done, is to reconcile the global accounts. The SDR was first set up in 1969. During the 1970s, as the IMF began managing world currency flows, the SDR was a basket of five original currencies of the American Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, and originally the French Franc, and German Mark. These latter two were replaced by the Euro, in 1999, and in 2016 the Chinese Renminbi also joined the fray, but China wants Gold to be part of the mix too – upto 40%. And sitting astride this new system, the old order – The Bank of International Settlements, headquartered as it is in Switzerland.
Switzerland, independent for over 500 years, and with its mountainous land-mass impregnable to all but the most foolhardy. Every citizen is a member of the armed forces, and is required to hold firearms at home. And that’s where most of the world’s gold has been stored at some time or other, including, some say, the gold taken by Nazis during the second world war.
So, as part of this global reconciliation, all debts national and global, are to be settled. Chinese bonds issued in 1913, which were not honoured following the takeover by Chairman Mao, in Communist China. Bond Debts of the Federal Reserve issued in the 1929-36 period, for the purchase of Silver from the People’s Republic of China, Indonesian Gold, stolen from Asian nations during WWII by the Japanese; Gold perhaps taken by Germany during the Pogrom, and the Gold taken by President Ferdinand Marcos, which he found during his time in the Philippines, that was stashed there by the Japanese, and perhaps even the Gold taken from Middle-eastern nations following the American and NATO incursions into the middle-east in the last two decades. All Global debts will be reconciled, and a clean slate wiped.
But this means that America loses its “Hegemonic Power”, in the world, and has to close most of its more than 130 Armed Force bases around the world, but how will the strength of a nation’s currency be calculated. How will a country whose only export is Rice, be compared say, with a country who exports are many and varied? Those where the sweat of years of study, and foregone pleasures, to learn the intricacies and curious characteristics of the many metals and rare-earths that make up modern electronic products? And to add to this mix of uncertainties, there’s these new currencies emerging in the crypto currency world.
What of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and the other crypto-currencies?
As things stand, the Banks, at first didn’t know what to make of crypto-currencies, and were sceptical of them. But, now some of of the biggest U.S. and even British Banks are trying to see where they can make use of them. this has led to a plethora of alt-coins and technologies making use of the blockchain. Barclays Bank, even used the blockchain in International Trade Finance, when it assisted in a Butter and Cheese trade, between Ireland and the Asian island nation of Seychelles worth $100,000. The Deal according to Bill Bonner’s Agora Finance, changed 400 years of Banking supremacy, and arcane paper based systems. The deal which normally would take weeks, was settled in just 4 days. But in time, this could be reduced from circa 20 days, to just an afternoon.
So, as blockchain technology takes off, what will happen in the future. In 2016, here’s what happened…
Cryptocurrencies in 2016
Currency -Annual Gains
- Bitcoin 126%
- Ether 741%
- Monero 2,759%
- Dash 228%
- NeosCoin 7,092%
- MaidSafeCoin 598%
- ShadowCash 1,041%
- Coin(0) 5,047%
- Emercoin 143%
- SysCoin 1,964%
- Gulden 1,920%
- Bitcrystals 354%
- SIBCoin 2,649%
- Counterparty 178%
- ShadowCash 1,041%
- Storjcoin X 724%
- Nexus 903%
- Potcoin 2,326%
- Synereo 478%
- LoMoCoin 309%
- SuperNET 148%
- NAV Coin 1,816%
- SolarCoin 389%
- Boolberry 549%
- SIBCoin 2,649%
- Expanse 395%
- Aeon 459%
- BitBay 498%
- CureCoin 324%
- Burst 624%
- Viacoin 835%
- CloakCoin 396%
- CorgiCoin 11,664%
And 2017, is looking to be just as good, as every national and international financial calamity pushes more and more people into these electronic, digital currencies. As details of the Brexit, vote came through, Bitcoin rose. Venezuela’s financial mayhem? Bitcoin rose… China’s attempt to strangle Bitcoin via trading rules? You guessed it.
As money continues to flood out of China, the communist government just announced new crackdowns. It plans to limit gold imports… force Chinese companies to check with a regulator before moving $5 million overseas (it was $50 million)… and force citizens to report any money transfers over $10,000.
Banking regulators the world over, are trying to squeeze the monetary system, and like silly putty, it just emerges somewhere else, between slippery fingers. But the banks are not resting on their laurels. Nor the Venture capitalists.
Some of the top venture capitalists have invested over $1.3 billion in crypto-currency startups. That includes people like Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook… Marc Andreessen – a Netscape co-founder and one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capitalists. Richard Branson, Yahoo Founder Jerry Yang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Google Ventures.
Over 80% of the world’s biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are starting to invest in crypto-currency technology. JPMorgan alone is putting up as much as $9 billion.
So hear what Clif High is saying about it
So what does all this have to do with Donald J Trump?
To my mind, as we look at the U.S. and British stock-markets, we are at all time highs, and the amount of air in this bubble, is stretching the balloon to the point of the big POP…
Here Peter Schiff, who predicted the last “Great Recession” before those who are supposed to know better would admit that a recession was coming. Just months before that last recession, Ben Bernanke was telling the Americans, how great things were.
And here below, Schiff gives a little bit of history of the problems of the 1970s, and then goes on to say WHY the problems remain, and have still not been addressed, but also why the next downturn, will be as big, if not bigger, than the 1930s American depression, because the world is now so inextricably linked, in ways that it wasn’t 80 years ago. And the antidote for many Americans, is to go to Crypto-currencies. But whilst I have crypto-currencies and some PMs, I believe that ultimately, the stock-market, housing market, and bond market will fall perhaps 60-80% in two stages. first they will fall circa 25-40%, before a small recovery, then a further 30-40% taking us towards the final denouement.
And it will probably happen on Trump’s watch. THAT’s why Trump is the “Fall Guy”, and crypto and gold and silver will be the people’s saviour, as the world monetary system resets, and Gold once more becomes part of the monetary system. But silver will be what it has been for generations – millennia even – once more it will be the “people’s money”.
However, if you want to hedge your bets, and get crypto currencies… Which ones? That is a little harder to predict. No doubt Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum are probable winners, though we can’t be absolutely sure, so the answer is to get several – and you can get 11 crypto-currencies – including Bitcoin and Litecoin – FREE with daily deposits, (and learn a little more about them)
Here –>>> Https://www.qoinpro.com/.
If you like this piece, please share it, and like us on Facebook, Twitter or wherever you hang out.
Share this:
A Letter to a Central Banker
Warrington, Cheshire, UK.
25th June, 2017
Dear Central Banker,
I was searching through my e-mail inbox recently, in the hope of finding a reply to a sent email, a few days’ ago and in searching for it using his name as search criteria, I found an e-mail several years old – still unread.
I won’t take it personally, because this reader receives in the region of 150 e-mails per day, and hasn’t time to fully read them all, so I scan the header, and read and digest but a few, so have to be selective.
What struck me most though fom this e-mail, was the price of Gold, which had been predicted to rise inexorably, yet, 8 years’ on, the price is currently, pretty much where it was in 2009, despite it’s subsequent 2 year rise and 5-6 year bear market fall.
Not that I am chastising the sender of this e-mail – for his, or many others wrong predictions (at least so-far?) but what I found interesting is that the powers that be, (TPTB) to use a Mogambo Guru (aka: Richard Daughty) expression, they (and you) have managed to keep the lid on its obvious under-value. We know from their admission, that Deutsche Bank was found guilty of manipulating the market, but others, have a bigger hand in it, and their fingerprints all over the crime.
I suggested, approximately 12 years’ ago, that Gold would ultimately achieve circa $8,500/ozt, and Silver circa $500 in the blow-off phase…The rises in price, I predicted would, go to circa $2,000, then fall back to just above the $1,000/ozt mark, and would not rise to achieve their ultimate price (at least in this bull market) until around the 2018-20 period.
My reasons were (and are) several.
I looked at Gold charts from the 1970’s of the rise, fall and rise again, and of income levels, and prices, and using deductive reasoning, came to the conclusion that it was, in the final analysis, demographics and the financial system of the era, that was affecting the price, and the concerns economic of retirees , of course along with U.S. government spending on its overseas wars.
My father, born in the early flapper era of 1922, and like others reaching retirement age during the 1970s and early 80s decades had, just as many others, who had been born in the post-WWI era, saved for their retirement, and no doubt their saving, spending and investing habits, faced similar analysis, emotions and results as today.
So, what has changed in the intervening time period? Let’s look shall we…
The first thing to change, is that women are leaving it later to procreate. Most educated women (by educated, I mean graduate or equivalence) leave giving birth until they are in their early 30s (some ten years later than early 20th century folk). They also have fewer children. Back then, having three or four was a typical small family, with some, having 6 or 8. These days, many women have at most two, except where they divorce and re-marry, and the new couple have a further child or two.
Secondly, spending patterns and thus saving and investing patterns have changed, and are also being left later, because children are expensive, and more is needed to buy first and subsequent homes. Back in the 1970s, most people could borrow only 3 times, the annual earnings of the husband (main earner) or even 2½ times, and if both parents were working, this was increased to 3½ times earnings. This kept house prices at modest levels.
Thirdly, increased debt levels: today’s young families (and this may be just an Anglo-Saxon trait) are more likely to spend more on holidays, their homes and families to live more comfortably.
And fourthly, people are living a whole lot longer.
My father, was a working man who spent 44 years in the glass industry, just 4 miles away from where we lived. He never needed a car, as the bus service was every 6 minutes at peak times, and 10 or 12 minutes at off-peak. He was forced into retirement aged 58, and given access to his pension, when the company reduced its workforce, as inflation ripped into their profitability, and they strove to reduce costs, but he died just 5 short years later aged 63… Today’s retirees, are likely to live ten to twenty years plus, post-retirement.
Fifthly: Their pension plans were totally different than today, based as they were on Defined Benefits, rather than today’s DC (Defined Contribution) plans, but the drivers are the same; their search for yield, amid rising inflation and a legal requirement to buy Bonds, which would lower interest rates, while government costs would rise, as pensioners began drawing their government pension money.
Interest rates went lower post 1974, until bond prices collapsed, but before the oil spike of 1980 when on the back of the Iranian Revolution, rates were forced up again particularly in the U.S. by Fed Chairman – Paul Volcker, to qwell rising inflation once more. Of course back then, in Britain, we had to go “Cap in hand”in 76, to re-use a well-worn phrase, to the IMF as Britain’s bond holders, sold off Britain’s debt and this raised interest rates driving up government’s costs.
But despite these differences, the parallels are obvious: Ongoing Overseas War(s), a search for yield, a spike in oil prices (2007) and subsequent fall, the collapse of the Banks, (1973) and also, the bailout of them, and a major economy that has stalled and needs a QE intravenous drip – back then it was Britain.
The baby-boom births of post WW2, from 1947-62, rose to a peak in the U.S. in the period 1955-58 and totalled 75 million, plus 8 million migrants. I suspect there were slightly more in Europe and that it occurred slightly later, but those are driving the west’s economy. Changes in penson law in the 1990s with amedments to ERISA in 2014, – and regarding when (or in the UK case – HOW) people could take their pension (and thus postpone tax payable) to 70½ yrs in the U.S., and also recently in the U.K. now allowing people to withdraw their whole pension and use it as they see fit, is likely to cause problems in itself, as people use that money, and in some cases, mal-invest, but that’s a story for another day too. All this means that the falling retirement numbers post 2018, will probably mean rising output, and total demand, at the same time as the millennials, begin their own baby boom, which should begin to affect inflation, and demand for oil at a time of rising extraction costs. BUT, as the price of oil has fallen, and will likely fall further, and remain in the $30-50/bbl range, for the next couple of years, this means those fracked wells that were profitable at perhaps $60+ are closing and new wells that have not been spudded will have been postponed, just as corporate bonds go bad which will lead to lower oil output just as demand begins rising. This will ultimately lead to a price spike again.
The rise in the oil price will cause inflation to spike again too, which will probably again lead to further unrest overseas like the Arab Spring in 2010 (and maybe here in the UK and U.S.too), as food costs, which are so linked to oil prices, rise once more.
The current and previous quantitative easing, will no doubt finally begin to push inflation up around the world, as that money leaks into the economy, and a spike in interest rates to circa 10% are not outside the bounds of possibility – if you react too slowly – as is likely. A hyper-inflationary event is the likely outcome, as all the QE injected over the last 8 years, leaks into the economy and begins bidding for increasingly scarce raw materials, and THAT is when the system collapses..
That will, I believe, mean Gold and Silver prices will explode, but governments and Central Banks will do exactly what they did over 40 years’ ago, and try to cap the PM’s prices – and fail.
But, as Gold approaches the $10,000 per ounce price, you and the rest of the west’s Central Banks will as a block, throw everything at the derivatives and physical markets to stop the price breaching the psychologically important 5 figure sum, of that I am sure. Whether that will work I don’t know for sure.
But, IF, I am wrong, you can send this back to me in 5 year’s time, and tell me so with a wry smile and a jaunty wave.
Yours VERY sincerely,
Your humble serf.
PS: IF you do like this, please like it, and link to it via social media or re-tweet
Share this:
When the Music Dies…
Long, Long time ago,
I can still remember,
How the music used to make me cry.
I can’t remember if I cried,
when I read about that widowed bride,
but something touched me deep inside,
the day the music died.
So, “Bye Bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my Chevvy to the Levy but the Levy was dry.
Them good ol’ boys are drinking whisky and rye.
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.
The day, the music died.”
The Gold market is at the moment a bit like the old parlour game of yesteryear, when we all played ‘Musical Chairs’ after dinner on sundays, before wall to wall TV, and other distractions began to isolate us from each other – except via digital means.
The game – for those who don’t know – involves putting together enough seats for all the participants, while playing music, and then removing one chair.
When the music stops, the last one to sit, is out.
The game continues until all the participants are out as each turn gradually reduces the number of chairs to one.
The gold market is gaily playing the game, blissfully unaware that the gold (Chairs) are being continually reduced and one day soon, the Bullion Bank Gold Vaults, will be empty, and one of the big players will want to walk away from the game, with their chair, (Gold) and the chair won’t be there.
The day that that happens, will be like the day in the song above.
For those unaware, the song was a reference to the crash in 1959, when Buddy Holly, and the other musicians Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. They disappeared off the radar on a snowy journey on February 3rd.
The evidence is stacking up for all to see. Those with even a small stash of Gold and silver will be the lucky ones.
Exhibits A, B, C, and all the rest are from a web-site I visit on occasion, but which in recent days has been just full of evidence that the number of chairs is quietly, and incessantly being reduced, as the Chinese take all the chairs east.
The day the music stops, will be like the story of the Emperor who was wearing no clothes, until the small boy pointed out the truth.
Gold (and silver) will be worth a whole lot more, no matter what Harry Dent Junior says:
Share this:
Global Capitalism, in the Age of No Capital
This piece began out of musings on how the current world economic system, could be overturned (or if we were starting from a clean slate) beginning with a new system. to develop a system, that serves everyone.
Some people have been speaking of the end of Capitalism, as though what we have now is Capitalism.
(Like HERE in the UK Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun.
But, I just think many people don’t really understand what Capitalism is…
The word, “Capitalism”, derives from the word “Capital”. This word is just a posher, more accountant friendly version of the word for “savings”. And to have savings, you have to have a monetary system, that means that the money in everyday use (currency) retains its value over very long periods of time, and is garnered from the excess production by workers, or businesses who save that money.
This money can then be pooled, typically by Banks in individual savings accounts, to allow larger projects to be funded, and corporations to borrow this, to grow their business, or to finance those larger projects.
Of course, there can be savings made by corporations too, who produce in excess of current demand, and this “Retained Earnings” to use accountant speak, is then available for investment in new products or services, which adds value to the business, and enriches the lives of the many.
But, going back over 45 years to the 1970s, when I was a teenager, and just starting out in life, there were two forms of accounts. The type of account where money was deposited for immediate use (a current account) and money that was “saved for a rainy day” and was typically deposited into a “Savings Account”. In some instances, these were 90 day accounts. These accounts paid a higher rate of interest, than normal savings accounts, which were called “time deposits”, because these funds were deposited for a period of time – in this case 90 days.
That meant that the depositor, had to give 90 days’ notice, to get access to their savings, or forfeit interest earned.
However, back on 15th August, 1971, the last link between real money (Gold and Silver) was severed, when Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the U.S., closed the “Gold Window” temporarily, which meant that foreign nations could no longer demand Gold in exchange for dollars at the Bretton Woods rate of $35.00 for 1 oz of Gold.
That day ushered in Corporataucracy, though we didn’t realise it at the time. In a world where a Bank can just press a few keys on a computer, or have its Central Bank (owned by these ultra-large corporate banks) create funds out of thin air by “Computer Keystrokes”, or the “Printing Press”, the large corporations and governments, can borrow increasingly larger sums of currency, without others having to make those savings out of current production or consumption. This disconnect, means that current consumption, does not have to be forgone to pay for some new project, which reduces the need for savings – but also reduces interest rates, as capital is no longer needed, but it also tends over time to lead to increasing concentration of the means of production, into the hands of those with access to this line of credit, and the desire for huge capital sums.
The rise of these mega-corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, Walmart, and here in the UK, BAe, TESCO, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons, have all risen, by building large concentrated infrastructure, which is capital intensive. Most of these corporations can borrow large sums cheaply, because their revenue streams, are constant, and thus they quickly create surpluses in their respective bank accounts.
For these large corporations, that money going into their current accounts, which is vulnerable to loss – IF – their Bank has financial difficulties so needs to be used or given back to shareholders, but is vulnerable, until such time.. So for many companies, this almost forces them to invest in newer premises, and growth in newer overseas markets, to use that currency, or risk financial loss as it sits there earning next to zero interest.
The alternative would be to return that surplus to the investors, which would raise share-prices, and distribute income, but in a world where money is too cheap because it is limited only by the bank’s willingness to hit the right keys on their computers, corporations who have large and dominant shareholdings by the families that created them, have little need for raising risk capital from shareholders, and thus the risk is transferred from the company, (and its shareholders) to the lending institution, while the share price rises, increase the power and wealth of these family shareholders. VW/Audi, Porsche, TESCO, Morrisons, and Sainsbury, are all businesses, where the original family owners are still large shareholders of the business. This is particularly true where the huge sums borrowed jeopardize the stability of the Bank doing the lending and a Black Swan event places a strain on the Banking system.
This risk, is later transferred to the State as Banks use their own freely created Capital, to acquire other smaller banks, consolidating markets, and then when they become systemic, they transfer that risk to the tax-payers as they become “Too Big to Fail”, “Too Big to Jail”.
I believe, that a number of events in the economic, political and financial spheres, may be about to undermine this.
Banking – Politics – Economics – Changes Making the World a Different Place…
The rise of Islam, as I mentioned HERE: , threatens the wider economy, as religious doctrines amongst its followers, limit the number and range of economic activities which in themselves, could destabilise the western world’s economies to the point of failure.
However, this post is about the other events.
Bullion and Bitcoin.
The last eight years, has seen the rise of Crypto-currencies, like Bitcoin, and a concern among many about the extra $3.5Trillion, put into the monetary system, by the Federal Reserve, driving the rise in demand for precious metals Gold and Silver.
Bitcoin, and other crypto-currencies, could be about to usurp the power of the Bankers (See: My Post on this topic HERE , which if it occurs, means that because the Banks can’t just lend more and more money (currency) into existence, they have to earn the trust of depositors, and use their limited funds wisely. But inevitably, these inventive Bankers will use their political influence to ensure that they get the outcome they need. Probably outlawing crypto-currency trading, and using it for certain purposes.
The East, has for the last one and a half decades, been accumulating Gold in Central Bank Vaults, while the West, has been ridding itself of this substance, that Keynes according to legend discussed as a “barbarous relic”.
However, Gold as the final arbiter of the value of money (See This: or This – ) can stem the flow of funds to large corporations, who would have to rely on available funds from savers, and increased economic activity, would have to produce those surpluses, which means the increasingly automated world, will need more savers, driving up real wages, to buy the products and services of automation, their prices would need to be more competitive too growing sales, and as Henry Ford recognised, salaries would need to rise encouraging savings to accrue.
And for those past the first flush of youth, or perhaps in retirement, the savings rates paid would go up, and that would help those having to live on retirement incomes.
But, it might also mean, that for the first time in a long time, America, would not be able to rampage around the world, laying down the law, and interfering in all those countries, that require expensive military hardware, that the U.S. can just buy with the funny money, that is hot off the computer or printing presses.
Mike Maloney’s take on things is that the printing presses will drive the world to take up the SDR sooner rather than later. The SDR, for those who don’t know it, is the “Special Drawing Right”. It was first created by the IMF during the 1970s, as a certificate for a basket of the major currencies. And the Yuan, has just been added to that basket, but the Chinese are pushing to add Gold to it too, and that will drive demand for Gold.
You can see Mike Maloney with David Morgan, precious metals dealer, and financial guru, discussing matters here:
And for when this happens, Silver will ride on Gold’s coat-tails, But the rush for silver will probably overtake the price rise in gold, by a factor of 5 to 1… And this explains WHY…
Share this:
Beware The Ides of March…
Students of Literature, will recognise the title from the warning given to Julius Ceasar, as epitomised in the Shakespearean play of that name.
It was a warning to the general, to beware, by a soothsayer (who remains nameless). A warning that apparently he ignored. Of course, as the conspirators – the Senators, stabbed at Ceasar, and Marcus Brutus a former long-time friend plunged his knife into the man, Shakespeare’s Ceasar uttered those now immortal words – “Et tu Bruté” (And you Brutus?)
Of course, in the modern era, the last major play, that resembles this drama, is the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22nd 1963, as he was brutally slaughtered by a conspiratorial cabal operating in the upper echelons of the power political scene in America.
Who all these conspirators are, has remained largely unspoken… But some people, are doing what should have been done 50+ years ago, by the Dallas Police, before the CIA and the FBI took over the post assassination conspiratorial machinations, to cover up their involvement, and to plant the idea in the public’s mind, that “it was a lone gunman” a Russian Sympathiser, who spent three years in Russia, but who was in receipt of $200 per month from the FBI as an informer, and who received special training by the CIA to learn Russian, before he allegedly dropped out by going to Russia and staying there for three years…
Those invoved in the Conspiracy carefully massaged the images and the Warren Commission headed up by the very man, that Kennedy had fired just a few months earlier as Head of the CIA to ensure the story remained “on message”.
Of course George Herbert Walker Bush, when asked where he was at the time of the shooting, had vague recollections of where he was, despite someone of that name making a call to J. Edgar Hoover’s office – Head of the FBI just hours after the shooting proving he was in a hotel in Dallas. And his recollections apparently varied on subsequent questioning of the same incident, The same George H. W. Bush who went on to be Carter’s head of CIA, and then Vice President, during the 8 years that Ronald Reagan was President, and almost made it to the presidency when President Reagan was shot, by a lone nutter… But the President in true Cowboy hero fashion, survived.
JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy who also later ran for political office also met a sudden death when yet another lone nutter (CIA – MK-Ultra participant?) allegedly shot him at close quarters as he emerged from the hotel kitchen into the glare of waiting reporters, TV cameras and waiting dignatories – and CIA operatives?
Here is the best documentary I’ve seen on this and other subjects…
JFK Jr., had his 3rd birthday just three days after his father’s death, and after growing up and becoming by, all accounts, an honourable man, handsome, suave, considerate and latterly a pilot and publisher of a magazine called “George” – Was this a clue to the mystery surrounding his father’s demise?
And of course, John F Kennedy Junior ALSO met an untimely demise, when his plane came down late in the evening, as his plane disappeared off his flight path and plunged into the Atlantic, just 1 minute after he called in to the Martha’s Vineyard Airport, to say he was at 2,500 feet and ready to descend to the airport… But he never made it, falling out of the sky almost vertically just 60 seconds later… Meanwhile, George Bush Junior, for the three days, was nowhere to be found… Hmmmm… “Curiouser, and Curiouser”…cried Alice…
You can get a better description of events here…
So what does this have to do with the Ides of March?
Well, as President Trump has already made known to the world, some of the things he wants to do is to “Drain the swamp”, and began the process, though CIA leaks have been made to discredit him, but even the MSM have had to eat some of their words. However, many things seem to be happening that suggests he won’t see out his full-term – one way or another…
Already people are setting Trump up for a fall… Here’s how Zero-Hedge put it
…
Roberto Gualtieri, chairman of the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee, also criticized Trump. “Some first concrete confirmations of a new more unilateral policy stance by the new U.S. administration, including on sensitive financial markets regulatory issues, raise concerns and require both thorough reflection and action from the EU side,” he told the committee.Meanwhile, Draghi deflected accusations lobbed at him over the weekend by German finmin Schauble, who said not Germany, but the ECB and Mario Draghi, are responsible for the undervaluation of the euro:
…
And SGTReport who holds views similar to my own, regarding the economy, believes much the same with regard to Trump’s likely outcome, as those behind the scenes are attempting to undermine, discredit, or if they can’t impeach him, probably develop a plan to slay him, when they produced this video…
And of course #Pizzagate is just another FAKE News story…
Err.. Maybe.
And of course, it was Trump and those Russian hackers who stole the election… Except it wasn’t…
BUT, at least Trump is fighting back, and so are the Americans…
Those evil Bankers, Oil-men, Military Corporate CEOs and multi-million share-holders, and those working for them in the secretive security organisations – all 16 of them, are now going to have their teeth pulled as the fight-back begins…As Ron Paul, that arch-enemy of the Federal Reserve has already had his £0.02 worth..
So, if you’re in the markets, now might be prudent to lower your risk somewhat… Events have a habit of coming out of the blue, and given recent rises to bubble territory… and Cliff High’s, Jim Rickards’ and Bill Bonner’s and JIm Willie’s and Peter Schiff’s, David Morgan’s and Dr. Paul Craig Robert’s warnings a pull-back is long overdue.
UPDATE
This is an important adjunct to the above piece, as events come into focus:
The 15th March (Ides) is the day that Netherlands goes to the polls to elect a new leader. One in which the populist Geert Wilders is steadily making progress in the polls and is looking increasingly likely to win. BUT as Turkey and the Dutch go head to head over the latest political intrigue, will this mean Wilders gets more of the sympathetic vote, against the population concerned about the (as they see it) invasion of Islamists guaranteeing him the vote?
The second concerning thing is the reaching of the $20 Trillion debt ceiling in the U.S. on that date, while also the Federal Reserve on that day too will decide whether to raise interest rates for just the 3rd time in 10 years.
And, in the UK, after the House of Commons rejected the amendment voted for by the House of Lords, this frees the PM’s hands to announce the formal Brexit process.
And finally, Clif High – researcher, has been announcing over the last two months that March onwards is likely to be tumultuous, and after all that, I found this…(below)
Anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time, will know my feelings on Precious metals, and this just threw petrol on the bonfire.
If you think this piece is good, and would like to post it or link to it, as long as we’re quoted as the originators, please do so.
And don’t forget to like us, or post a link on your facebook or twitter feed…
Share this:
Lazy Sunday Afternoon… How The Corporataucracy is Losing Its Grip
It’s late Sunday, 26th February, and the oligarchy is fuming…
The large Corporate behemoths are concerned, because the Free Media – that’s the media, that doesn’t have corporate sponsorship, or control by the legacy media channels, are winning, and the legacy media are losing their power to control us, and that’s really pissing them off..
The old News media channels, the main-stream media, such as here in the UK – BBC, and ITN, and the 6 major U.S. news channels, are pissed off, because the so-called FAKE News channels, are in reality more in tune with what is really going on in the world, than the mainstream media channels would have you think.
For example:
Did you know that last year, President Obama and Secretary of State, John Kerry, BOTH visited Antarctica? Now why is is that news? And if not, WHY not?
So, what was the Presidential interest in Antarctica all of a sudden? Is it because back in 1512, Turkish Admiral Piri-Reis, produced a map of Antarctica, which accurately showed the land-mass including rivers and lakes under the 1 mile deep sheet of ice? Did, President Obama, want to check it out for himself – just to be sure?
Or was it because back in 1946/7 the U.S. had Operation High-jump, which was organised by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Jr., and led by Rear Admiral Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer, Task Force 68.
Operation High-jump commenced 26 August 1946 and ended in late February 1947. Task Force 68 included 4,700 men, 13 ships, and 33 aircraft. Operation High-jump’s primary mission was allegedly, to establish the Antarctic research base Little America IV.
High-jump’s objectives, according to the U.S. Navy report of the operation, were:
Training personnel and testing equipment in frigid conditions;
Consolidating and extending the United States’ sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent (even though this was publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended);
Determining the feasibility of establishing, maintaining, and utilizing bases in the Antarctic and investigating possible base sites;
Developing techniques for establishing, maintaining, and utilizing air bases on ice, with particular attention to later applicability of such techniques to operations in interior Greenland, where conditions are comparable to those in the Antarctic;
Amplifying existing stores of knowledge of electromagnetic, geological, geographic, hydrographic, and meteorological propagation conditions in the area;
Supplementary objectives of the Nanook expedition (a smaller equivalent conducted off eastern Greenland). {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Highjump}
However, what was the real intention of this task force? According to some reports, and at least one guarded comment by Admiral Byrd, the U.S. Task Force, was involved in a military expedition, and ultimately involved in a battle… exactly 70 years ago today.
This particular operation returned early after only two months, allegedly after having a battle with Unidentified Flying and Submersible Objects, which cost this particular task force several ships, men and aircraft.
Was this the first interstellar battle? Or where these flying machines a legacy of work done by German Researchers, who had also allegedly had contact with extra-terrestrials and fled to the Antarctic region to continue their research? This Russian video (with English sub-titles) suggests the former…
So, if the President of the U.S.A goes to Antarctica, via a stop-over in Argentina, why did this not make the evening news? And for the Secretary of State?
It has been stated by some in the Financial elite, that they fear what is coming, and that if they could, they would get “Off Planet”. In fact so many have sought hiding places in far away places such as in New Zealand, or in the Argentinian Andes. That it has driven up land and farm prices. They also have been buying gold, silver and bitcoin, in ever larger quantities, pushing prices up, and stashing large sums in currency in an attempt to minimize the worst affects of what is to come. Some of these “preppers” have even bought space in what used to be nuclear facilities in what are known as DUMB bases (Deep Underground Military Bases) The Russians, have also allegedly provided sufficient space underground for their whole population, but the U.S. has rather selfishly, only provided sufficient space for approximately 200,000, of its population – those senior military, political and financial elites and their families. In towns near these bases, demand for essentials has sky-rocketed.
But what if any of the above is the reality, and we have been fed a lie, for 70 years, that we are alone in the Galaxy, and that the July 1947 incident in Roswell New Mexico, which was reported originally as a UFO, before it was retracted, was in fact a real inter-stellar craft (or two) that crashed and this was retrieved, along with several alien bodies?
We have been told it never happened? Yet the officer involved in the cover-up confided in retirement, to his son, that it really was a cover up and that it really was an extra-terrestrial craft that crashed, and elements of it were taken to PhD students in several universities to examine, in attempts to reverse engineer the technology…
What if the post WWII technological revolution that brought about the Integrated Circuit, the Ceramic silicon wafer that made the PC and smart-phone revolutions that took place 50 or so years later possible, but were in reality reverse engineered technology from alien space-craft?
What would widespread acceptance of this fact mean for established religions when their whole edifice is placed on the crucible of scientific research and found wanting? What will happen to people if the Vatican, or the Mullahs in the middle-east have to re-design their religious texts to explain the unexplainable?
We can but imagine.
But in this WooWoo world, where the previously unscientific paradigms, are over-turned as the implications of this sink in…we could see this world turned upside down, and its finances along with it
Nikola Tesla, dreamed of a world where free energy could be distributed via high-towers such as the Wardencliffe Tower, that was unintentionally funded by J.P Morgan, until he realised what Tesla was upto and had it torn down. And extra-terrestrial space-craft, will obviously require another paradigm shift, as our oil based economy suffers its own implosion, and the financiers that funded the industry along with it… After all… if these beings are travelling distances measured in light-years, they aren’t using rockets or burning fossil fuels… So the oil coal and nuclear industries have much to lose from this paradigm shift…
So… get with the program…
Prepare for the change – Disclosure.
Share this:
Why Bitcoin could go to $1,000,000+
Time to get your Bitcoin, Gold and Silver?
Ever since I first heard of Bitcoin, my moods have oscillated with emotional highs and lows between optimism, and pessimism. I got involved about thirty months ago, mostly out of mere curiosity. However, I first learned of Bitcoin, about 7 years ago, and perhaps because back then, there was a lot of hype, I was highly suspicious of it. I asked myself… What was this new technology? What are its implications? What are its strengths or weaknesses? Will it succeed?
Like you I had so many questions. But I didn’t know enough to commit to it.
However, I had some experience of cryptographics when, as a former software developer, early in my studies, I wrote cryptography software using a simple alphabetic replacement system. For those not familiar with this, it was the simplest form, which involves letter substitution.
Let’s take the Alphabet.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
GHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdef
As you can see from the above, you can shift each letter a number of times. In the above example from A to G, from B to H, etc. etc., to encrypt or decrypt the text.
As long as you know the shift count, you can simply unscramble the text. This however would be laughed at by any modern cryptographer, worth their salt. We know which letters in the English language are used most frequently, so having a few guesses at the piece of text would quickly, reveal the key (the number of letters shifted – 6 in the above example)
During the second world war, the Germans of course used two characters to denote a character in their encrypted messages, with random coded substitution, and it wasn’t until the British managed to get hold of an Enigma machine from a captured U-boat, to send to Bletchley Park where they worked on the decryption that they were finally able to decrypt the messages, and listen in on German U-boat communications, so helping bring the war to a speedier close. And cryptography is at the heart of global communication, and Bitcoins and other Alt-Coins. It is also at the heart of Apple’s attempts to restrict U.S. authorities from gaining information from devices, that are encrypted, by fighting a court decision forcing it to build software for the authorities to allow access – Apple of course designed its software because of increasing concern at the intrusive political and authoritarian institutions of all Governments, some of whom appear to have carte-blanche access to whatever communication traverses the globe – at least according to Edward Snowden.
Lately however, I have been doing further research into Crypto-Currencies, and both the theory and the practice.
What fired my enthusiasm for this research was listening to an interview, between a sceptic, and an enthusiast.
As a result, I began looking at a number of Web-sites, and following up on this conversation. To see what’s happening in the Bitcoin and crypto-currency space. After much thought, and research, I realised that there are at least 7 Network Effects which might lead to wider acceptance:
1. Speculation –
People buying to make a fast buck. This drove early adoption, taking the price to almost $1200 at one point.
2. Merchants –
Companies accepting it for goods, simply because people hold them, and they are convertible into fiat-currency or money at known rates. In the world there are over 100,000 merchants already accepting the coins, including major providers such as Microsoft, and Target in the U.S..
3. Consumers –
These are using it because merchants are accepting it, and they are now doing so in ways that allow consumers to gain discounts of upto 35%, even on web-sites such as Amazon.
4. Miners –
There are a number of crypto-currency miners, with computing power approaching 1 Exahash, which is about the equivalent of 10,000 of the top 5 supercomputers in the world
5. Developers –
These will use the above processing power to build out the infrastructure, to produce software that is more secure than all the others and to build functionality in the hope of receiving Bitcoins or Fiat.
6. Financialisation –
The Banks and CFTC have already discussed using the Bitcoin Network and blockchain technology for transfer of financial instruments denoted in Bitcoin. And one of Max Keiser’s former regulars, decided to invest heavily in building out the technology for this process almost eliminating Brokers and brokerage fees.
7. World Reserve Currency –
IF, or rather, WHEN the US. Dollar crashes, then people will hold their reserves in an alternative or alternatives. Gold and Silver are obvious candidates, but also increasingly Bitcoin crypto-currency, is a candidate rather than some other Fiat currency, because of the current currency wars, which could turn into trade wars, and then hot wars..
This is still to happen but, the instability in the Middle-East and around Africa, is a sign of things to come.
If the price of Bitcoin, begins to rise towards, four, five, then six figures, more and more people will hold their reserves in Bitcoin, and other fiat currencies will recede in value – including other currencies such as: British Pounds, Euros, Japanese Yen et-al..
This will accelerate the acceptance and expand the wider use of crypto-currencies in general, and Bitcoin in particular. The rise of Bitcoin, and the fall of the U.S. Dollar therefore, will be as much an opinion of the dollar, as it is of Bitcoin
So, as more and more of these people and organisations, developers, merchants, financial organisations, miners and finally those who hold their nation’s reserves increase their use of Bitcoin, then the value will explode exponentially, and the price speculated in the header will be a distinct possibility.
But, the alternatives to Bitcoin – Alt-coins – and of course Gold and Silver may take up some of that slack. Gold appears to be in increasing demand, at least amongst 4 particular countries. India, China, Russia, and Turkey alone out of the world’s 200+ nations, currently (according to Mike Maloney quoting a Zerohedge article on 3/3/2016) are already consuming the entire planetary output of gold – and then some. The excess demand is currently being met by Western Central Banks reserves.
Canada which has suffered in recent months as the oil price has tanked, perhaps made pledges to its people, that were based – at least in part – on an expected almost permanent high oil price, so the fall to circa $30/bbl, and subsequent rise to around $54/bbl is causing problems for those states with Tar-sand production, which is a high production cost energy item, and thus costs may already be exceeding revenue from such operations. Those modest Canadian Gold reserves were apparently sold off in one month or less. The reserves stood at a mere 1.7 tonnes according to February 2016 reports, but by Feb 29th, the remainder was just 77 ounces, which is a pitiful amount. This is down from 1,000 tonnes that the Canadian Central Bank reported in 1965, but since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement (15/8/1971) these have been replaced by U.S. Dollars in the main. It took Canada, 20 years from 1965 to reduce those reserves by 50%, and the last 30years to rid themselves of the rest of this Keynesian Barbarous relic. Which begs the question… What will the Canadian Government use for currency/money, when the dollar collapse occurs?
But what might trigger this Tsunami? Anyone who is not a Keynesian, has to study – observe – what happens in the real world. Economics is one of those dry dusty subjects given to study by essentially – Nerds – I count myself amongst them. The original economists: Adam Smith, John Gresham, Ricardo, and the other early economists, studied markets and what happened in them. They then formulated ideas based on those observations.
But since the dawn of the Federal Reserve, and the end of WWI, economists have been looking for ways to manipulate the economy to serve politicians, who as the old saying goes – “Don’t want it to happen on my watch.” IT, being a recession or a depression.
But what causes depressions? Think about it for a second. A new idea comes along. Lots of people begin to provide that service or product. Lots of small businesses are built. Over time, these small businesses get swallowed up by competition, over decades ultimately half a dozen huge corporations provide that product or service, freeing up people to do other things – (unemployment) and concentrating the industry into a few corporate hands.
When this happens, the unemployed inventive ones with access to capital invent new products or services, to replace, or make better what went before. Perhaps even to the point where what went before, gets replaced almost completely – such as cars replacing trains, which replaced horses and canals. But for the additional products, you need additional consumers, not hundreds of millions, retiring, or on the verge of retirement, looking to save, rather than spend.
Since the end of WWII, the computer has gone through several metamorphoses – from Mainframe, to mini-computer, to PC, to Laptop, to smartphone and tablet computer. They each in their turn improved on previous designs, made them smaller, more productive, cheaper and widely available due to cost reductions.
But for industry to grow (so they can grow the share price) they need new products, new markets, or lower costs, and it is this last item, that means doing either more with the same, or the same with less that is causing the problem… As that means fewer workers. We are at one of those inflexion points. Apple, and Samsung, Sony and just a few others in China and the Far-East, now dominate the smartphone and tablet industry. HP, IBM and other American behemoths have shrunk or got out of the computer business altogether. Britain’s Computer industry has gone from a handful to one, producing designs for chips in smartphones, and tablets (but also increasingly servers for server farms).
The capital sitting in corporate bank accounts should be going into research, but research can take years to produce anything, and corporate execs need to deliver share price rises today, tomorrow, next week, next month, and at the end of the financial year. Not maybe, in three years time if the research proves fruitful. Much easier to buy up a new corporation that has already proved up the technology, and can be tacked on to existing business.
And so to force companies and large holders of capital to invest, we have the prospect and reality of NIRP – Negative Interest Rates Policy – already in place in 3 countries in Europe: Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. The ECB and Japan too is trying them, but none of them appear to be working to the extent they would like. In Switzerland, the Tax collecting service even told its taxpayers not to pay up-front, so that the money held on deposit at the banks wouldn’t be “charged”. This is monetary madness. Anyone with 6, 7 or 8 figures in a bank account should be worried. And those living from week to week, or month to month, will need to grow their income rapidly as the dollar declines.
JP Morgan (according to Satyajit Das, finance expert and author of “A Banquet of Consequences”) has speculated – sorry modelled – that -3% (negative 3%) might be necessary for the dollar. But with Bank notes, people can just take that cash out of the bank and keep it under the mattress so to speak. So Central Banks want to get rid of banknotes, and that is why they are starting with large denomination notes – the €500 note, the $100 bill et-al.
India has edged towards this by eliminating the 1,000 and 500 rupee notes, which in a country that still largely uses cash for transactions, and hundreds of millions still don’t have a bank account. This has led to mass demonstrations and mass hysteria. It may lead to social unrest as people rebel against this edict.
The Bankers use euphemisms, and downright lies to attempt to achieve this, but the moment that the U.S. does that, all those dollar bills overseas will return to U.S. shores, and the trickle of deals away from the dollar – the 30 countries that now have bilateral trade deals with China, Russia, India, and the middle-east, for oil, and commodities outside of the dollar, will become a flood – fleeing from the dollar. To what?
We can but speculate, but to my mind, Bitcoin will be one of them, and of course Gold and Silver. Of course, we may yet see governments attempt to outlaw the ownership of Bitcoin, Gold or Silver, just as was tried once before in 1933. THAT moment may arrive far sooner than many think.
Bitcoin – are there any drawbacks? What are the Risks? What if…?
The total number of Bitcoins is limited to 21,000,000, so I hear, which sounds a lot, until you realise how many transactions there are in the world, and how much economic value people have added to the planet over the centuries. Money therefore is used to value those objects – Buildings, Corporations, and the time value of Labour, to all the products and services we take for granted in our modern world. So a modern money must be the measure we use to assign our value to these. IF therefore, Central Banks can just conjure up currency out of their printing presses, or computers, they are esentially stealing value to be created out of human labour. Whether that is a corporation that took 50 years to build, or it is someone’s work, the value of the currency itself therefore, should also reflect its time value to produce. THAT is why both Gold and Silver served our purposes so well over the millennia.
Think of the worldwide number of large corporations, sky-scrapers, huge mines, roads, motorways, bridges and tunnels built since the dawn of the Industrial age, together with their cost in materials, time, energy, and lives lost. That value runs into the hundreds or even thousands of trillions of U.S. dollars.
$200,000,000,000,000 – is reputedly, the total currency debt of the world – divided by 21,000,000 Bitcoins is 9,523,809.5238095 per Bitcoin, and that is in dollars alone.
This assumes that all other currencies go to zero, and we only use Bitcoin for our financial transactions.
Which means theoretically, it could go higher, when you add in Pounds, Yen, Euros, Rubles, Yuan, Dinar, Riyahls etc. etc.
Of course this is perhaps unrealistic, but not outside the bounds of possibility.
We also need to consider what are the pitfalls.
As Bitcoin is more widely adopted, over time there will be inevitable losses – people storing their coins on a smart-phone or flash-drive and losing it, or not backing it up, or finding out that electronic storage and strong magnets are not a good mix, or someone dying with their coins held in a smartphone, that no-one else knows about, which gets wiped and re-sold on, or given to a partner, relative or someone, who has no real interest in such electronic coins. There will be other ways that currency could be lost, so shrinking the pool of available coins, which might also lead people to not adopting them, out of fear of loss. There are those who speculate the earth could receive an Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) which could lead to a major fault in the global telecomms infrastructure, killing digital coins – but with the Banks and Governments so keen to rid the world of ALL paper currencies, there is little choice except for those stand-bys of the last 5 millennia – Gold, Silver and Bronze.
Could Bitcoin go higher? Will it?
Could Bitcoin really go higher than the $1,000,000 speculated on? These are unknowns. The theoretical maximum of 21 million coins assumes that all the coins are mined, but which according to Trace Mayer, Bitcoin Expert, would take upto 140 years, as the mining rate halves every 4 years. The first such halving was in 2013 – Did this cause a price spike? (Basic law of Supply and Demand?) We don’t know for sure, but possibly; the next such halving is next year in 2017. It is possible that this time, people will front run it this time, to try to maximise their positions ahead of the reduction causing another price spike.
As I have said several times, there are about 80 different crypto-currencies. I hold over 10, and receive daily interest into my crypto-currency accounts – as can you (See below). I also have an app on my smartphone, in which I have deposited some of these coins to spend, with a QR Scan Code to make using them easier, just like I might with ApplePay(®) or the PayPal App and it is possible that I will be able to do this with all the others shortly.
There are already ways to exchange these different crypto-currencies, on exchange sites (listed below)
So, now do you think it is time to maybe check out this new currency system?
Where do I get Bitcoin, or these crypto-currencies?
Bitcoin, is available in so many places now it is almost impossible to recommend one or two sites over others, but the one site I do recommend, mostly because they set-up a number of crypto-currency [Alt-coin] accounts, simultaneously, for the price of an e-mail address, and you receive FREE daily deposits into them – albeit very small sums to begin with, but with loyalty bonuses, increasing with time and other ways to improve deposits. For those keen to promote or evangelise the site, additional bonuses are given in increasing amounts for more referrals.
You can earn upto 10 crypto-currencies, including Bitcoin, and Litecoin FREE at… Qoinpro.com, for the price of an e-mail address. Backing both horses in a two horse race may seem like wasting money or effort, but it depends on your view of risk…and the potential rewards. And in investing circles, NOT losing money is the first rule to financial security.
You can buy Gold and Silver with your crypto-currencies at: https://www.vaultoro.com or with Fiat at https://www.bitgold.com or https://www.libertysilver.ee. At Liberty Silver, because it is based in Estonia, which does not charge V.A.T. on silver coins, as long as you purchase and arrange collection from their site (done via a courier) you can still legally buy your coins VAT free.
And you can trade between different crypto-currencies here at: https://shapeshift.io or at https://btc-e.com or even learn how to trade from your fiat to BTC here http://www.coindesk.com/information/how-can-i-buy-bitcoins/
