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For the past decade, the U.S.
government navigated the treacherous waters of a collapsing economy with its
printing press. Many cite GLOBAL MELTDOWN I in 2008 as the commencement
of its economic malaise, but that is simply not the case.
THIS is what actually happened, all in
a measly decade…
America’s FINAL era of prosperity
ended with the Tech Wreck of 2000, yielding the first major recession since
the Greenspan-led Fed started juicing the money supply in the late
1980s. Pandora’s Box officially opened when Glass-Steagall was
repealed in 1999, urging banks to create dangerous investment products, and
investors to take the bait. Allowing commercial banks to invent risky
investments was like allowing Dr. Jekyll into a lab, an intoxicating
opportunity to create “free money” by experimenting with
financial fire. Even the world’s “leading minds”
believed the internet would render WORK obsolete and WEALTH ubiquitous, a
fitting end to a period in which the Eastern Hemisphere was handed a
century’s worth of U.S. manufacturing jobs. Most of them by U.S.
companies themselves, VOLUNTARILY, by the way.
To wit, General Electric,
‘America’s greatest company,’ at least before Apple emerged
as the smart phone king of the world. Over the past decade, GE has shed
34,000 U.S.-based jobs, while adding 25,000 overseas. More than half
its employees are now internationally-based, a percentage expected to
continue climbing. In 2010, GE’s $5.1 billion of U.S.-based
profit was not only untaxed, but the firm received a $3.3 billion tax
REFUND. To add insult to injury, GE was BAILED OUT from sure bankruptcy
in 2009 by a COVERT U.S. government bailout, fronted by its favorite
propaganda puppet, Warren Buffett. Those losses were 100% due to
DERIVATIVES EXPOSURE via its toxic finance unit, GE Capital, and you can be
sure GE Cap will be back in the news when the derivatives monster consumes
its next meal.
After the Tech Wreck, the U.S. was
faced with a recession and, simultaneously, enormous secular job
losses. The national debt had skyrocketed from $2.6 trillion when Alan
Greenspan took over the Fed in 1987 to $5.6 trillion at the peak of the
internet bubble in 2000, but no one was asking how that could occur if times
were so “prosperous.” The reason, of course, was the dollar
was peaking, and with it a frenzied period of borrowing and spending, ending
the strongest era of American purchasing power in its history. The
world thought the dollar was so strong due America’s
“greatness”, when in fact it had more to do with the collapse of
the Eastern Block than anything else. But Russia and Eastern Europe
eventually recovered, and with their resurgence the ERA OF CHEAP COMMODITIES
was over, FOREVER.
Around that same time, circa 2000,
Greenspan learned his printing press could be used to stave off recessions,
the consequences be damned. Sure, he was a disciple of the ultimate
capitalist, Ayn Rand, and wrote Gold and Economic Freedom in
1966. But why go with your gut, or the lessons of history that made him
write that piece, when it’s so much easier to PRINT MONEY and espouse
theories of new banking paradigms?
Simultaneously, Sir Alan was exposed to
the growing strength of OTHER manipulation schemes (aside from money
printing), such as the “President’s Working Group on Capital
Markets”, i.e. the PPT, and the Gold Cartel, while “sects”
of “Greenspanism” emerged on the scene, such as Robert
Rubin’s “Strong Dollar Policy” and Larry Summers’
“Gibson’s Paradox.” The POWER of these manipulative
tools surged through his veins, and his journey to the DARK SIDE was complete
when Wall Street infiltrated Washington with its ill-begotten, post-Glass
Stegall profits.
Then came 9/11, the most important
inflection point in U.S. history, in my view. This was the day the
government OFFICIALLY took over our lives, under the pretense of
“national security.” Was it a false flag attack, of which
such evidence grows stronger each day, or a band of 20 highly talented,
borderline GENIUS Moslem terrorists? I’m not sure we’ll
ever definitively know. Irrespective, the loss of American FREEDOM was
far more damaging than 2,996 lives in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the
four downed planes. Not to mention, the 10,000 dead American soldiers,
and more than 1,000,000 civilians either directly or via terrorist bombings.
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq
I know many people don’t care about
these deaths, or practically anything that doesn’t prevent them from
watching reality TV, playing video games, or texting gossip. However,
more than a million people have died because the Bush Administration attacked
Iraq with no credible reason, which REALLY PISSES ME OFF. And not to
show political favoritism, Obama campaigned heavily on a promise of bringing
soldiers home, lying through his teeth and proving to be just as warlike as
George Bush.
Back to my RANT, 9/11 represented the
time when the government took over our LIVES. The Patriot Act, the the
Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, you name it. Anything to
subvert the constitution in the name of “national security”, and
they did it. Moreover, with America’s quality jobs gone to China
(principally due to U.S. government policy, by the way), citizens started to
believe the government teat was its only hope of survival, as well as its
RIGHT. America’s work ethic withered with its manufacturing base,
and government entitlement programs literally EXPLODED, funded by an even
bigger EXPLOSION of lobbying dollars, particularly from Wall Street and the
military.
By the time the “American Dream
Downpayment Act” was signed in 2003, Greenspan had successfully usurped
the economic cycle by substituting industrial production with MONEY PRINTING,
creating a housing bubble far larger, and with far greater ramifications,
than the tech bubble. European central banks figured this game out as
well, and thus the age of government and banker controlled markets
began.
The U.S. had a leg up on Europe because
the dollar was the “world’s reserve currency”, and thus
added incentive to blow its bubble up larger, greedily putting tens of
billions of bonuses and perks into the laps of Washington and Wall Street’s
“leaders.” The populace went on an UNPRECENDENTED borrowing
and spending spree, and was encouraged to do so by government decree, such as
the aforementioned “American Dream Downpayment Act,” and
corporate greed, via monstrous, essentially unregulated mortgage companies,
supplemented by Wall Street-engineered derivative products that
“leveraged” the expansion of the real estate bubble. Of
course, that all ended when its “weakest link,” the subprime
segment, showed the real estate boom to be the Ponzi scheme it was, and, in
turn, the Wall Street banks to be the naked emperors they really were.
By now, Ben Bernanke had taken over the
Fed, leaving Greenspan to slink into the shadows and spend his remaining days
rewriting history by warning of the things HE CREATED AND PRACTICED.
Bernanke had not a shred of private sector experience, but from DAY ONE
claimed to be an expert on the Great Depression, POSITIVE it could have been
avoided if only more money were printed. In this famous 2002 speech, he
suggested that, like Greenspan, he would ignore the Fed’s primary
mandate of PRICE STABILITY, in lieu of creating nominal GDP gains and
inflated stock prices.
The U.S. government has a technology
called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent) allowing it to
produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By
increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even credibly
threatening to do so, the U.S. government can reduce the value of a dollar in
terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising prices of those
goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a
determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive
inflation.
It didn’t hurt that the means of
MEASURING GDP was mangled beyond recognition, nor the accounting rules
governing how corporations accounted for such. In other words, Bernanke
realized he not only had a printing press at his disposal, but “fully
armed and operational” manipulation teams in the PPT and Gold Cartel,
as well as full cooperation of Federal regulation groups such as the FASB,
SEC, and CFTC. Furthermore, by then Wall Street had COMPLETELY taken
control of the government, allowing it to UNITE its selfish, destructive
goals with that of the Fed, which, by the way, it already OWNED!
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/contrib.php?cid=N00008072
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
Throw in the EXPONENTIAL growth in
derivatives, High Frequency Trading programs, and the heightened belief that
ANYTHING can be papered over with freshly printed money, and the stage was
set for the coup de grace, the EXPLOSION of sovereign debt
(which, of course, trickled all the way down) that pushed the GLOBAL,
dollar-based fiat currency past the point of no return. As my readers
are well aware, no currency in HISTORY has survived this long without a major
devaluation, or full-out collapse, and thanks to the above “witches
brew,”, the GLOBAL monstrosity built over the past 40 years has been
pushed to the precipice.
The ball started rolling downhill
during GLOBAL MELTDOWN I in late 2008, when the Fed, ECB, BOE, BOJ, et al MAXXED
their balance sheets in the name of SURVIVAL, pushing us so far past the
Maginot Line, it can no longer be seen in the rear-view mirror. This
brazen act of Weimar Era MONEY PRINTING, a slap to the fact of “Mother
Financial Nature”, bought TPTB two years of phony market calm.
Unfortunately, this deal with the devil ensured the END GAME will occur
SOONER rather than later.
http://www.nationofchange.org/first-federal-reserve-audit-reveals-trillions-secret-bailouts-1314633089
The MONEY PRINTING Ponzi Scheme must
mathematically end, and is doing so NOW. This is not your typical game
of musical chairs, in which one person is OUT while the rest remain IN.
In this case, “the 99%” will financially DIE while “the
1%” LIVE. And I do mean “LIVE” and “DIE”,
as the ramifications of a collapsed currency are certain to include shortages
of food, energy, and other vital life necessities.
In my mind, only one questions remains
– WHAT will be the flashpoint ending this lethal experiment in
UNFETTERED, GLOBAL MONEY PRINTING?
Will it be an Italian default…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/10-year-btp-666-italian-treasury-cancels-november-10-bill-auction
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/five-times-not-charm-ecb-btp-intervention-today
…or chinks in China’s
armor…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/meanwhile-global-bailout-fallback-plan-b-china-pumping-1-trillion-rmb-its-banks
…yielding PHYSICAL buying
powerful enough to destroy the Gold/Silver Cartel…
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/china-takes-advantage-september-gold-price-drop-imports-record-amount-gold
…or a “black swan
event” such as an Iranian military confrontation with Israel or the
U.S.?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/fears-iran-nuclear-weaponizing-lead-brent-break-out
Who knows, as what ACTUALLY happens
could be a “sixth-sigma event” one no one was even aware of (such
as MF Global)?
When it comes to LIFE and DEATH
financial matters, I don’t take UNNECESARY RISKS. That is why I
ONLY own PHYSICAL precious metals, which I view as the lowest risk investment
class in the world. PROTECT
YOURSELF, and do it NOW!
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