The Corporate media lies to us, all of the
time. This is not an assertion, merely an elementary observation. With a real
“free press”, we see occasional moments where different media outlets may agree
on the interpretation of particular events and/or the relative importance of
events. All other times, we see a divergence of opinion between media outlets.
This is what we would expect to see. Homo
sapiens are a contrarian species. We all have our own ideas – or at least we
used to.
What do we see with the Corporate media
today? We see a small collection of gigantic corporations which control
everything we see and hear. That’s called an
oligopoly.
It is not even legal. And with rare exceptions, we see these gigantic
corporations saying the same thing, all the time.
That’s not a free press. That’s a
propaganda machine. And when a propaganda machine repeats the same message over
and over, we have a name for that too. We call it brainwashing.
For example; for many, many decades,
marijuana was supposedly one of the Demon Drugs. Not only did it pose several
grave perils to our health, but it was a “gateway drug”. Let little Johnny or
Janey get their hands on a joint, and next thing you know they would be
shooting heroin.
Was any of that true? Of course not. It was
all propaganda.
Today, we know that marijuana’s active
ingredients have many
benign and even
therapeutic applications. As jurisdictions across North America now begin
legalizing the recreational use of
marijuana, the only difference being noticed by the governments of those
jurisdictions is more tax dollars in their coffers – and less-crowded jails.
We’re not only fed legal propaganda and
brainwashing, we’re also subjected to economic brainwashing. And nowhere do we
see more intense brainwashing than with respect to the Mighty U.S. Economy.
For many, many years, when the U.S. economy
was genuinely prosperous, successive U.S. governments had an overt and explicit
“strong dollar policy”. A strong currency was
good. Having each dollar in a consumer’s wallet stretch farther was
good, because that consumer could buy
more goods.
However, when the evil Alan Greenspan and
his successor B.S. Bernanke were ordered by their
oligarch
Masters
to begin to rapidly dilute
and debase
the U.S. dollar, the
elementary logic of a strong-dollar policy became inconvenient for the
oligarchs. New propaganda had to be invented.
Suddenly, a strong currency was bad. “Competitive
devaluation”
became the new mantra of the U.S. government and the
subordinate puppets across the Western world. It was
good to have a weak currency. It was good for each dollar in a consumer’s wallet to be devoured by
inflation. It was
good for consumers
to buy less and less goods because their dollar was shrinking – not stretching.
It never made any sense. But the
brainwashing has been repeated to us over and over, year after year, and so we
(most of us) believe it.
Then these same oligarchs decided to manipulate
the U.S. dollar upward
, pushing it to absurd heights versus almost every
currency on the planet. Has the (new) “strong dollar” hurt the U.S. economy?
Apparently not, because what we hear every minute of every day is that the
Federal Reserve is on the verge of pulling the trigger on higher interest rates
because the U.S. economy is so damn strong.
Then we have oil.
For many, many years; we have been told
that high oil prices are bad. Why? Because we use oil (directly or indirectly)
in almost all human economic activity. Dramatically pushing up the price of a
primary economic input is like a tax on the economy. Indeed, the mainstream
media has often uttered
precisely
that phrase: “higher oil prices are a tax on the economy.”
Just as it is elementary logic that a
strong currency is good, it is also elementary logic that high oil prices are
bad – bad for everyone except oil producers. But this logic is suddenly no
longer convenient for the oligarchs, so once again they have ordered their
media foot soldiers to invent new propaganda. Note the speed with which this
new propaganda message has been injected into the Corporate media megaphone.
The crazy idea that higher oil prices might be good
for the economy right now
That propaganda headline was rolled out less than a year ago at the
Washington Post. See how audacious this propaganda machine has become. It
acknowledges that the mere suggestion that high oil prices might be good is
crazy. Then the propaganda mouthpiece who wrote this propaganda goes on to
“explain” to the insipid sheep reading the article why high oil prices are
actually a good thing.
Scarcely more than six
months later; we see this
propaganda headline from the hardcore brainwashing machine known as
Bloomberg News.
What
Will Lift World Economy? Goldman Says Higher Oil Prices
Suddenly, the “crazy” idea that
higher oil prices are a good thing is no longer being introduced in a sheepish,
almost apologetic manner. Now it is being presented to us as
the new wisdom, uttered by none other
than the economic sages (i.e. compulsive liars) of Goldman Sachs.
We’re brainwashed with various
forms of ludicrous mythology on a regular basis. The point of this article is
not to merely point out that the Corporate media has once again been caught
passing off ridiculous lies. That’s nothing more than another “dog bites man”
story.
The real importance of pointing
out the New U.S. Economic Mythology comes in looking past the mere propaganda
itself. There could be no possible reality where imposing a “tax on the
economy” could be good for the economy. It might be good for the government
collecting the tax, but it’s certainly
never good for the economy itself.
How has the propaganda machine
endeavoured to pass off this ridiculous lie? Why has the propaganda machine
been told to pass off this ridiculous lie?
First the “how”. Why are high oil
prices now supposedly “good for the economy”, when this could never possibly be
true? It’s because – get ready for this – there is “not enough inflation”.
There’s nothing at all new about that lie. The prostitutes of the Federal
Reserve have been peddling this nonsense for years. From 2013, and once again
from
Bloomberg
:
Why the Fed Worries
Inflation Is too Low
Regular readers already know that this is a heinous
lie. Inflation is
economic
cancer
. Inflation is exactly like “a tax on the economy”
because as with a tax, it claws away our purchasing power. It is impossible for
a human being to have “not enough cancer”. It is impossible for an economy to
have “not enough inflation”.
Making this lie especially heinous is that we have
much too much inflation. Food prices are soaring at a double-digit rate, with
only brief lulls between the next explosion in prices. Housing prices are soaring
higher at a rate never before seen in our lifetime. We have far too much
inflation, yet the liars of the Corporate media and the liars of the Federal
Reserve and the liars of our puppet governments tell us there is “not enough
inflation”.
So why bring oil into this? Why try to pass off two
utterly absurd lies together, simultaneously? We
need higher oil prices because there is not enough inflation.
To understand the necessity for the Corporate media
to attempt to pass off two ridiculous lies simultaneously requires turning back
the clock a few years, back to when the U.S. government chose to manipulate the
price of oil to a rock-bottom level. That’s what we were told.
Barack Obama publicly
boasted
that lower oil prices were “part
of the U.S. strategy” to punish Russia. Of course in reality the actual
manipulation of oil markets was carried out by the banking crime syndicate,
known to regular readers as
the
One Bank
. But the bankers kept oil prices
too low for too long.
Russia is still standing. However, a few more months
of $30/barrel would have completed the vaporization of the much-hyped U.S.
shale oil sector. That would have been embarrassing for the oligarchs. Shale
oil had to be saved. Oil prices had to rise. But now another problem.
How does the Corporate media continue to pretend
there is a “U.S. economic recovery” as oil prices rise significantly? How can
the Federal Reserve continue to pretend that it’s “about to raise interest
rates” with oil prices rising? More potential embarrassment for the oligarchs
and their lackeys.
New mythology was necessary. Higher oil prices are
good (a lie) because there is not enough inflation (a lie). And those lies are
now necessary because the Corporate media has been ordered to continue to
pretend there is
a
U.S. recovery
(a lie) and pretend that the
Federal Reserve is
“about
to raise interest rates”
(a lie).
Oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practice to deceive.
One caveat on the last of the Big Lies currently
being passed off about the U.S. economy. It is possible that the Federal
Reserve may suddenly begin to normalize interest rates – once their oligarch
Masters give them the word that it’s time to torpedo the U.S. stock market
bubble.
Warren Buffett is 86 years old, and currently
sitting on
a
cash hoard
of $85 billion vampire-dollars.
Those two numbers both tell us that the Next Crash is coming sooner, not later.
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Jeff Nielson is co-founder and managing partner of Bullion Bulls Canada; a website which provides precious metals commentary, economic analysis, and mining information to readers and investors. Jeff originally came to the precious metals sector as an investor around the middle of last decade, but with a background in economics and law, he soon decided this was where he wanted to make the focus of his career. His website is www.bullionbullscanada.com.
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The views and opinions expressed in this material are those of the author as of the publication date, are subject to change and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprott Money Ltd. Sprott Money does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness and reliability of the information or any results from its use.
