In light of recent events, I am republishing.]
By Catherine Austin Fitts
In the fall of 2001 I attended a private investment conference in London to give a paper, The Myth of the Rule of Law or How the Money Works: The Destruction of Hamilton Securities Group.
The presentation documented my experience with a Washington-Wall Street partnership that had:
- Engineered a fraudulent housing and debt bubble;
- Illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the U.S.;
- Used “privitization” as a form of piracy – a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder.
Other presenters at the conference included distinguished reporters covering privatization in Eastern Europe and Russia. As the portraits of British ancestors stared down upon us, we listened to story after story of global privatization throughout the 1990s in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Slowly, as the pieces fit together, we shared a horrifying epiphany: the banks, corporations and investors acting in each global region were the exact same players. They were a relatively small group that reappeared again and again in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia accompanied by the same well-known accounting firms and law firms.
Clearly, there was a global financial coup d’etat underway.
The magnitude of what was happening was overwhelming. In the 1990’s, millions of people in Russia had woken up to find their bank accounts and pension funds simply gone – eradicated by a falling currency or stolen by mobsters who laundered money back into big New York Fed member banks for reinvestment to fuel the debt bubble.
Reports of politicians, government officials, academics, and intelligence agencies facilitating the racketeering and theft were compelling. One lawyer in Russia, living without electricity and growing food to prevent starvation, was quoted as saying, “We are being de-modernized.”
Several years earlier, I listened to three peasant women describe the War on Drugs in their respective countries: Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. I asked them, “After they sweep you into camps, who gets your land and at what price?” My question opened a magic door. They poured out how the real economics worked on the War on Drugs, including the stealing of land and government contracts to build housing for the people who are displaced.
At one point, suspicious of my understanding of how this game worked, one of the women said, “You say you have never been to our countries, yet you understand exactly how the money works. How is this so?” I replied that I had served as Assistant Secretary of Housing at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the United States where I oversaw billions of government investment in US communities. Apparently, it worked the same way in their countries as it worked in mine.
I later found out that the government contractor leading the War on Drugs strategy for U.S. aid to Peru, Colombia and Bolivia was the same contractor in charge of knowledge management for HUD enforcement. This Washington-Wall Street game was a global game. The peasant women of Latin America were up against the same financial pirates and business model as the people in South Central Los Angeles, West Philadelphia, Baltimore and the South Bronx.
Later, courageous reporting by several independent investigative reporters confirmed in detail that the privatization and economic warfare model I discussed in London had deep roots in Latin America.
We were experiencing a global “heist”: capital was being sucked out of country after country. The presentation I gave in London revealed a piece of the puzzle that was difficult for the audience to fathom. This was not simply happening in the emerging markets. It was happening in America, too.
I described a meeting that had occurred in April 1997, more than four years before that day in London. I had given a presentation to a distinguished group of U.S. pension fund leaders on the extraordinary opportunity to re-engineer the U.S. federal budget. I presented our estimate that the prior year’s federal investment in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area had a negative return on investment.
We presented that it was possible to finance places with private equity and re-engineer the government investment to a positive return and, as a result, generate significant capital gains. Hence, it was possible to use U.S. pension funds to significantly increase retirees’ retirement security by successfully investing in American communities, small business and farms — all in a manner that would reduce debt, improve skills, and create jobs.
The response from the pension fund investors to this analysis was quite positive until the President of the CalPERS pension fund — the largest in the country — said, “You don’t understand. It’s too late. They have given up on the country. They are moving all the money out in the fall [of 1997]. They are moving it to Asia.”
Sure enough, that fall, significant amounts of moneys started leaving the US, including illegally. Over $4 trillion went missing from the US government. No one seemed to notice. Misled into thinking we were in a boom economy by a fraudulent debt bubble engineered with force and intention from the highest levels of the financial system, Americans were engaging in an orgy of consumption that was liquidating the real financial equity we needed urgently to reposition ourselves for the times ahead.
The mood that afternoon in London was quite sober. The question hung in the air, unspoken: once the bubble was over, was the time coming when we, too, would be “de-modernized?”
In 2009 — more than seven years later — this is a question that many of us are asking ourselves.
Part II: Rethinking Diversification
Related Reading:
Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Stock Profits
Thanks Catherine for your hard work and honesty I am still reading “dunwalke” and understand better the world. Yes, there are other ways to head for real progress. Here one:
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/default.aspx
Yes, we can do it if we change our perspectives. I think you have helped a lot to change many people minds/perspectives on how to approach truth of money and how to change our day to day lives.
Hi Catherihne.
I have grown increasingly intersted in your work. Above, you write:
“Slowly, as the pieces fit together, we shared a horrifying epiphany: the banks, corporations and investors acting in each global region were the exact SAME players. They were a relatively small group that reappeared again and again in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia accompanied by the SAME well-known accounting firms and law firms.” (Emphasis mine – Sam).
I’m not inetersted in family names. But when others have asked about names, maybe they were asking who these “SAME” players are. Which companies, that is. If I look at today’s headlines, I see the names of banks. OK. But Banks are only part of the process. Which companies are privatizing national assests? No one has smoked-out these rascals to my satisfaction.
What can you tell us? How can I boycott what I haven’t identified? I will be moving on to the “Come Clean” series, now.
Love,
Sam
If every one of the following attacks on our liberty, free speech, sovereignty, and right to not be ruled over by an unelected banking dictatorship is not fiercely opposed and crushed…The United States will enter its end.
For those who will scoff, and say that they have been hearing this for decades…
The wholesale looting of America and the transfer of wealth and power over to a private banking elite has already happened.
TPTB who are setting up a world government, along with the means to label those who stand up and speak out against this agenda as terrorist!
Our future is a road to tyranny if we do not act now.
RED ALERT 1
The passage of the “Climate Bill” by the House and its likely approval by the Senate represents the entrée for the complete and total subjugation of any freedoms we had left and the beginning of nightmare regulation and suffocating control over every aspect of our personal lives by millions of green stasi tasked with enforcing impossible to attain goals of 80% carbon dioxide reduction – all based on the manufactured threat of global warming.
This bill will also sink the economy and create a new great depression, effectively obliterating America’s first world status. It represents a transfer of power and wealth from both the U.S. government and the American taxpayer over to the system of world government…
Cap and Trade can still be defeated in the Senate
Congress Contacts
To oppose contact the SENATE. there are only 100 senators and we have a WEEK to do it.
We have July 4th weekend to do it.
http://www.senate.gov...
RED ALERT 2
The seemingly endless economic “bailouts” represent the wholesale looting of the American taxpayer and the grand theft of trillions of dollars by private banking interests who refuse to even disclose where the money went.
Not satisfied with stealing tens of trillions, under the Obama administration’s new regulatory reform plan, the Federal Reserve is now trying to enrich itself with dictator powers that will give it complete control over the U.S. economy, handing them the authority to “regulate” and shut down any company whose activity it believes could threaten the economy and the markets.
We must rally now and lobby more members of Congress to support Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve and highlight the fact that Bernanke is spewing financial terrorism when he threatens an economic collapse should the Fed be opened up to scrutiny.
Information on Audit the Fed
RED ALERT 3
Federal hate crimes legislation, which in reality would criminalize “thought crimes,” has cleared the House and now faces the Senate as S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act).
S.909 is a direct violation of the First Amendment. It allows the federal government to prosecute people involved in “hate speech” transmitted over television, radio, and the internet
Information on Hate Crimes Bill
RED ALERT 4
The Senate bill S.787, otherwise known as the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA), would replace language in the regulatory act currently using “navigable waters” with “waters of the United States.”
What this means is that “the government would essentially be able to regulate everything from standing water in floodplains to creeks that run behind business and residences,”
They will not even let you collect rain water for your garden, seriously, a woman has already encounterd this problem.
Information on S 787 Water Bill
RED ALERT 5
Amongst the myriad of assaults on the Second Amendment rights of American citizens undertaken by the Obama administration during the course of its first year in office, the one that stands out as the most alarming is the attempt to ban people who appear on the terrorist watch list from buying guns.
But isn’t stopping terrorists from buying guns surely a sensible measure to take? The problem is that the terrorist watch list, sometimes called the no fly list, is not a list of likely terrorists, it is a sprawling database of of innocent people that contains the names of over one million Americans.
Information on HR45 Petition Citizen Disarmment Act
RED ALERT 6
Our right to protest against any of the egregious assaults on the Constitution that are listed above is itself being removed by new law enforcement and Pentagon training manuals and guidelines that define protesting as domestic terrorism.
Current Department of Defense anti-terrorism training course material states that the exercise of First Amendment rights in the U.S. constitutes terrorist activity.
ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT
If we don’t stand up in unison and exercise our right to protest and free speech now more than ever before, while pointing out that the real terrorists are those who would seek to destroy the freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, then we may find ourselves doing our protesting behind the barbed wires and the concrete blocks of an internment camp.
The hour is late, the clock stands at one minute to midnight, and the federal government, through all the examples documented above, is on the verge of implementing nothing less than a total environmental, financial and societal dictatorship and killing what once was the United States of America.
Catherine, I heard you on coast to coast and read your article. Yours is the best explanation by any ‘expert’ I have seen. A coup de tat indeed! Thank you.
Thanks Catherine, I sure wll print all Dunwalke.com and read carefully.
Ricardo:
Publically traded stocks generally trade as a multiple of earnings. Hence, when a stock trades at multiples of 20-30X earnings, a $100,000 annual increase in earnings will result in the outstanding stock market value increasing by 20-30X, or $2-3MM
To understand the phenomenon, read http://www.dunwalke.com
As stock market P/E (price-earnings) ratios change over time, one would expect that as the P/Es rise, the pressure to find “earnings” grows.
For people who are not familiar with market leverage (of which PE is only one kind) it is hard to fathom how much money can be made from destroying a neighborhood of children.
So, yes, the $2-3MM is an appropriate number for the example.
Catherine
Catherine, I been reading “slowly” the “Myth of the Rule of Law or How money works” and cant really understand clearly how you come to such big numbers from kids dealing drugs in corners of cities. I know drug money laundering is in the bilions throughut USA and world, but for sake of a better understanding I think numbers your throw there maybe in a typo? Excuse my ignorance but I am trying to get this picture and since my english is not that good maybe need more explaining how could they generate 2-3MM in stock market value etc..? Sorry to bother..
Thanks (I am printing all your “Myth..” to read it more carefully many times..
Check this, maybe interesting to read (bailouts are wrong headed by Gordon Ringoen):
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/featuredcommentaryview?art_id=10207
Ricardo
I am assuming everyone has seen this?:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_bi_ge/us_freddie_mac_official_dead
There is no “claw back” provision in Section 8 housing that would go back and recover money from earlier periods just because you have earned more in later periods. This assumes that you have accurately reported your income as required. When your income increases above certain levels, your rent increases on a going-forward basis. I can’t quote the percentages off the top of my head. There actually are some people who do not qualify for Section 8 (because they earn too much) but who chose to live in Section 8 housing. They just pay the full market rate.
Catherine,
I may have to move into a Section 8 HUD housing……I’m on Soc.Sec…….there sure are doing alot of checking into everything about me! Which is OK. But, I’m not so sure I want to go under the control of the government housing at this time in my life. Plus, what if I do go back to work somehow, somewhere, if I earn too much will they just increase my rent or would they make me payback the vouchers? Your the HUD lady…please advise…..I just checked out all our Scoope comments, love it! Jan
THE FIRST 10 AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION AS RATIFIED BY THE STATES
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Exploring Constitutional Law
Below are some members of the CFR. Judge for yourself if they are involved in running our government:
1952 *Eisenhower and *Stevenson
1956 *Eisenhower and *Stevenson
1960 *Kennedy and *Nixon
1964 Johnson and Goldwater
1968 *Humphrey and *Nixon
1972 *McGovern and *Nixon
1976 *Carter and *Ford
1980 Reagan and *Carter
1984 Reagan and *Mondale
1988 *Bush and *Dukakis
1992 *Clinton and *Bush
1996 *Clinton and *Dole
2000 *W Bush and *Gore
2004 *W Bush and *Kerry
2008 *Obama and *McCain
It really didn’t matter which candidate won those elections ..did it?
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense *John White
Former State Department official *Wendy Sherman.
Former Deputy to National Security Adviser *Sandy Berger
Former Treasury Secretary *Robert Rubin,
Former Defense Secretary *William Perry,
Former Secretary of State *Madeleine Albright,
and some currently work at consultancies run by those Clinton administration principals.
Others are old Obama allies who also have Clinton ties, like
*Michael Froman, a transition adviser who was Obama’s
classmate at Harvard Law School and served as Robert Rubin’s
chief of staff at the Clinton Treasury Department, and
*Christopher Edley, who taught Obama at Harvard
* Tim Geithner, Secretary if the Treasury
*Bill Richardson, Secretary of Commerce
*Hillary Clinton Secretary of State
All the above denoted with a * are or were members of The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
as are the Financial Institutions big wigs and the banks and about 90% of Obamas Administration are also members as is V.P. Biden and his staff.
All the Chiefs of Staff, the media, both print and T.V. and the Deans and Professors at our
Universities are also dominated by members of the CFR which explains the dumbing down of the
children.
There is also a good list of U.S.Congressmen and Senators who are members of the CFR and the
Trilateral Commission.
Financial Coup d’Etat at The Catherine Austin Fitts Blog great artice thankyou
..
I’m not sure about posting this….I read it all.but, Its very dishearting. I hope Catherine will read it and tell us if its true. How sad…….. “The Smoking Argus Daily Information Analysis Center” You’ll have to key it in to view it in a PDF file…
Leaked Unclassified Pro-Constitution Report Outlines Tyranny Movement in America
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, March 27th, 2009: An anonymous internet user leaked to RestoreTheRepublic.net a secretive pro-liberty report documenting the modern tyranny movement in America. The 14-page report published by “The Smoking Argus Daily Information Analysis Center” (SMIAC) lists the growing wave of tyranny stemming from 1913 up to today (March 26,2009), which seeks to threaten the American Constitutional Republic. The report further details specific symbols used by the movement to promote their tyrannical agenda as well as multimedia frequently used by members to ferment wide spread contrived polarization of their electoral base.
About RestoreTheRepublic.com and RestoreTheRepublic.Net – “Restore the Republic!” is the cry from the lips of those Americans who have learned the truth about the land in which we live. It is the movement of those people to action to complete the call. It is real, it is organic, it is grassroots, it is the epicenter. It is the most powerful force for change our republic has ever seen.
For more information or to download and comment on this report please visit:
http://www.restoretherepublic.com/top-stories/leaked-unclassified-pro-constitution-report-outlines-tyranny-movement-in-america
Soros saying truth about oil price
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrrmBM9jDzw
World Bank scam here:
http://www.brasschecktv.com:80/page/493.html
Don’t know where to put this but thought it worthy of mention, Go Kucinich! he wants to nationalize the Fed!! http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/580.html
Soros, the so-called billionaire philanthropist, is probably busy starting another “color revolution”, in the tradition of Jewish financiers who financed Hitler and Lenin.
“He brings down governments via subversion, moral rot and revolution through financial patronage, akin to what Jacob Schiff the New York banker did to Russia through the funding of revolutionary propaganda.1 However Soros’ revolutions are far more widespread than that of Schiff.”
http://www.rense.com/general83/soros.htm
It would appear that Mr. Soros is proposing to lead us into the next “fix.”
https://futurefinance.wsj.com/participant.php?bio=35
where is george soros now?
Great thread! No one has answered the question “Who’s behind this?” I’ve always heard it was Soros.
http://www.anti-communistanalyst.com/12222004.html
Catherine’s recommendation to watch Captains and the Kings early on in this thread sent me to my public library where I checked out (and am currently reading) Taylor Caldwell’s novel.
In case it’s useful, I’m posting here what Caldwell says in her introduction, as well as the pieces she lists in her bibliography (this is the first novel I’ve come across that contains a biliography!). Many commenters have asked for names; perhaps some of Caldwell’s sources can satisfy your curiosity.
“There is indeed a ‘plot against the people,’ and probably always will be, for government has always been hostile towards the governed. It is not a new story, and the conspirators and conspiracies have varied from era to era, depending on the political or economic situation in their various countries.
But it was not until the era of the League of Just men and Karl Marx that conspirators and conspiracies became one, with one aim, oneobjective, and one determination. This has nothing to do with any ‘ideology’ or form of government, or ideals or ‘materialsm’ or any other catchphrases generously fed to the unthinking masses. It has absolutely nothing to do with races or religions, for the conspirators are beyond what they call ‘such trivialities.’ They are also beyond good and evil. The Caesars they put into power are their creatures, whether they know it or not, and the people of all nationas are helpless, whether they live in America, Europe, Russia, China, Africa, or South America. They will always be helpless until they are aware of their real enemy.”
I do not agree with that final statement of Calwell; love is more powerful than fear. There is no more powerful force in the universe.
Here is the bibliography:
Allen, Frederick Lewis: Morgan the Great, LIFE magazine, April 25 1949
Bryan, William “John”: The United States Unresolved Monetary and Political Problems
Budenz, Louis: Bolshevik Invasion of the West
Courtney, Phoebe: The Council on Foreign Relations
Dall, Curtis: FDR, My Exploited Father-in-Law
DeGoulevitch, Arsene: Czarism and the Revolution
Flynn, John: Men of Wealth
Forbes, B. C.: Men Who are Making America
Gitlow, Benjamin: The Whole of Their Lives
Gorseclose, Elgin: Money and Man
Hansl, Proctor: Years of Plunder
Huddleston, Sisley: The Tragic Years
Hull, Cordell: Memoir
Lundberg, Ferdinand: America’s 60 Families
Mises, Ludwig von: Human Action
McFadden, Louis T: On the Federal Reserve Corporation, Remarks in Congress
Myers, Gustavus: History of the Great American Fortunes
National Economy and Banking System, Senate Documents, Volume 3, No 23
Noyes, Alexander Dana: The Market Place
Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States–Russia, House of Representatives,
Document No. 1868, Volume 1
Patman, Wright: Newsletter, June 6, 1968, also congressional record, March 21, 1962
Quigley, Carroll: Tragedy and Hope
Rothbard, Murray: Economic Depressions, Causes and Cures
What has Government Done to Our Money?
Senate Silver Hearings– Testimony of Robert L. Owen
Seymour, Charles: The Intimate Papers of Colonel House
Sparling, Earl: Mystery Men of Wall Street
Spengler, Oswald: Decline of the West
Sutton, Antony: Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development
Viereck, Geroge: The Stragest Friendship in History
Warburg, James: The Long Road Home
Warburg, Paul: The Federal Reserve System
White, Andrew: Fiat Money INflation in France
Especially Recommended:
Allen, Gary: C.P.R. Conspiracy to Rule the World
The Bankers and teh Federal Reserve
Skousen, W. Cleon: The Naked Capitalist
Report from Iron Mountain
Here is a link to Report from Iron Mountain:
http://www.projectcamelot.net/Report_from_Iron_Mountain.pdf
I was hoping to get some comments/replies on the question I posted about 3 weeks ago: “Why is Israel the one common thing on which the MOTU and its slaves have absolute agreement?” The MOTU or the Global Elite never seems to have a conflict over its support for Israel or the Zionist ideology which controls this country and Europe.
Israel is based on a LIE:
http://www.rense.com/general83/schol.htm
the most parasitic group are th eenglish race and all evil leads to england if you examine closely.
the jews are just a small cog in the wheel of anglosaxon thuggery since 1650s but the english have been parites from a date much earlier than that.
just kill some prominent enlgihs bastards and theirstooges like kinnsinger, like editors of most of the enlgish media.
for gods sdake the english have ruined even al jareeza sicne that english abstard frost was rbought in.
31st jan.2007.
it is very important to realize and understand the trickery of the english race in manipulating usa to wage wars on behalf of britain which gains most from Iraq war and any war that usa imposes on the third world and even on Europe.
Here are some of the writings done years ago to give a global picture of what is REALLY happening in the world and by WHOSE agency.
The modus operandi of Britain is to make country and regions unstable and install british stooge with explicit instruction to bring the money -looted ones -to Britain from where it is not going to go anywhere else.
Some oligarch Jews (like thee criminal U.K.-based fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky)
were the stooge of British in Russia and they brought so many ill gotten money to uk. So did the Kuwaitis-who brought 4 billions of pounds within a week of first Iraq war problem in august 1990 -so has continued the massive loot of the rest of the world by the English .race through this money protection racket . It is money protection racket in the sense that those eliete’s money is protected only when it is made to be lodged in British London banks. The witness, who appeared on the Rossiya channel with his face hidden and was referred to as Pyotr, accused 61-year-old Berezovsky of killing Alexander Litvinenko because the former security officer knew how the exiled tycoon had obtained political asylum in Britain in 2003. This thief boris berezosvky is a terrorist as well who calls for violet end to Putin-the president who is one of the most loved of his countrymen compared to any in the world.
As someone said “We live in a world where criminals are good guys and patriots are villains: where Berezovsky is a liberal “human rights” activist and Putin is a moral monster.” that putin who is one of the most popular leader of any in the world.
In fact Britain is running a protection racket in the world through the help of american army-(because Britain is a third rate country with fourth rate army so it cannot do it on its own).
What Britain does is let the other countries be made instable (Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan etc) then let the british stooge be installed there-those people who have no following in own country and with strict instruction to those stooges that they will bring the money to britan,-that is how London has enriched itself in last 15 years after fall of soviet union. Billions of soviet money have flown illegally to London and the british court -kangaroo court if ever there was any -have not let the money go citing “it will harm england’s balance of payment”?
That is why british media gets incensed if the traitors like soviet spies are not left safe in Britain -because then the whole business of protection money racket and money that Britain gets is in jeopardy. That is what explains influx of foreign money to London and how London has overtaken new York in stock market. Forget about service industry -british are the most ill mannered race what service can they provide except protection racket on back of american arms? Britain is looting even usa. Through it is usa which has worked hard (through illegal invasions ) to make other countries unstable so that Britain can get money from protection of stooge elites of those countries..
the modus operandi of Britain is to make country and regions unstable and install british stooge with explicit insturction to bring the money -looted ones -to Britain from where it is not going to go anywhere else.
Some oligarch jews were the stooge of British in Russia and they brought so many ill gotten money to uk. So did the kuwaits-who brought 4 billions of pounds within a week of first Iraq war problem in august 1990 -so has continued the massive loot of the rest of the world by the English race through this money protection racket . it is money protection racket in the sense that those elite’s money is protected only when it is made to be lodged in British London banks.
“In the aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln’s defeat of the London-backed slave-holders’ Confederate insurrection, the London-linked New York faction of U.S. finance unleashed a predatory looting of the physical assets of the territory formerly ruled by the defeated Confederacy. That operation, which was described then as “carpetbagging,” is a term that pointed to the style of the personal baggage, in which the travelling, locust-like predators carried their personal effects.”
“ When this English edition of Professor Stanislav Menshikov’s book has been printed, Russia’s President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will have delivered his landmark May 10, 2006 “state of the union” address. The President’s address will have marked the probable close of what had been the demographically murderous, greatest carpetbagging swindle in history. The carpetbagging which Professor Menshikov’s book describes, is the post-1989 looting of the territory of the former Soviet Union, a looting that, in fact, has also been the predatory ruin of most of the East European territory of the Comecon outside Russia then and now.”-from
To see a good story on the “House of Saud”. (Talking about Who (may) control part of the world ecnomics/politics). Talk about “freedom”, democracy and all those “high” americans values, go here to get to know your good “friends”:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1o9jg_pbs-frontline-the-house-of-saud-1-o_politics
Saludos desde Ecuador
So here’s the big question… After reading Catherine’s online book, at http://www.dunwalke.com/ and half-way through a front-to-back re-read of Rupert’s “Across The Rubicon”, how much of the results of what is occurring with regards to the new (additional) Taxpayer debt is manufactured?
In other words, there is little doubt that the Economy is totally in the toilet, but how much of the “bailout” is just another manufactured rape of some of the last available wealth in the the world, the American Middle Class?
If it wasn’t for the fact that it feels like we’re (again) getting robbed blind, I could be accused of being paranoid 🙂
Regards,
John C.
Hmmm…
Almost turning out to be more of a group ‘therapy’ session around here as well. All concerns having relative consequence that appears to support our present situations, finding common ground with what we’re experiencing of the economic and financial environments we are facing today.
Did that explain things right?
I dunno.
Historic elements as the World Trade Center (which had previous attempts of destruction) now appear as an ironic/iconic event which reflects the frustrations and misaligned behaviorisms of those who most propably had been influenced by geneations of western attitudes and subjective culture shock both through economics and ‘imperialism’ enterprize. They found an avenue in which to vent their impatience, bigotry and ignorance.
Had this become such an iconic event, as mentioned, to represent an exercise in efforts to halt Americanism? To bring down the industrial and a major world power giant as the ‘financial coup d’ etat’ was well underway? While then, in the menatime, the ‘War in Iraq’ provided a distraction and provide a shield for what was to further take place behind the scenes of such global, unification of such a conspiracy?
Wars have a way of taking center stage, while other projects are taking place within less prioritized and attention getting environments. At least, from the common man, the masses in general. Who then, haven’t the foggy-est of what’s really going on and… why. It hardly became headliners or coffee shop conversations. (How bourgeois, the financial, coup d’etat. It does fit so well.)
Many of us have been ‘skunked’. Be it on the international level between world leaders, or border-sharing governments and nationalistic (prejudiced and pro-ethnic) peoples, or that of those with only local and personal concerns as an economy or industrial status.
We have been distracted, haven’t we?
Even to the extent of our own personal finances, as example, re-financing of our homes and businesses. Hey, recall the mortagage folks offered up 125+% of what your propperty was REALLY worth? Not clear economics but a period of licensed financial freedoms and greed, for both parties.
Here we are today, huh.
A new reality check, for everyone, at all levels and finding a common ground together. Making a ‘feel good’ moment for everyone who writes in and shares their view. (Any solutions?)
Like this therapy session here, we call a blog. Like other blogs? What IS a ‘blog’, really?
(Soapbox derby.)
Maybe it should be called, a blah-blah. Think? Or, have I just made an oximoronic comparison? Eh.
Whatever. Its still bigger than all of us, isn’t it?
Harry
Human nature.
The seven deadly sins.
Awareness and the lack thereof.
Beliefs.
Seems like the whole problem derives from that human propensity to either believe or disbelieve.
Belief or disbelief in a God.
Belief or disbelief in the goodness of man.
Belief or disbelief in the idea that there is enough for everyone and greed is not necessary.
Belief or disbelief in the idea that there is not enough to go around.
Belief or disbelief that greed is good, or bad.
Are not all human “sins” merely human desires that get out of control?
Are not hoarding, packing away for the future, and “getting it all” just ways to manage fear that there isn’t enough for everyone?
Isn’t there an irony in the fact that “hedge” funds were a gamble against failure, and brought about that failure?
Isn’t there an irony in the fact that fear exercised seems to always bring more to fear?
The Gold Standard? I like the quote, “He who has the Gold, Rules.”
Isn’t money really a product of human productivity?
As each new person comes into the world, he/she brings his/her value as a member of society, contributing the talent, labor, genius, whatever that he/she brings to the mix, and that is worth something more than gold, silver or other pieces of metal.
Get rid of the Fed, but forget the Gold Standard.
What America needs is a return to the Constitution. It worked for a long, long time.
It can work again.
If we can find a way to clean our own house and treat each other with the respect, dignity and honor that we each owe each other as human beings and fellow American Citizens, we can re-gain our freedom, and the respect of the world, as well as our own respect, which we seem to have lost.
“The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.”
— Picard to Lily Sloane
First Contact
In fifty years, it seems greed of money/currency will be replaced by hoarding of energy and drinkable water, both which have a limited supply and insatiable demand.
Just one last note. We here in Ecuador have been experiencing pretty much all in a nutshell from 90s to present revolution of citizens who said enough. Banks going broke and taking with them pretty much half or more of the economy. All this Bankers are now in USA and happy ever after protected by US government. John Perkins book is completely right as we ecuadorian citizens have lived it all and seen it all happen in front of our eyes!.
Bankers here did not even respected olders and youngsters (kids) saving accoutns. My kids savings account was wiped out. An old lady last savings ($400-600USD) also wiped out. She was in front of me at Bank line trying to get her money. They just said: Sorry. No money in this Account. Many people lost all including myself and family. We had to start over luckily we own our business and thank God a good steady one (beer distribution territory).
I yeeled at then and to wind: “SCOUNDRELS, THIEVES!” right in Bank offices. That was all to it.
All this happened in the mid late 90s in Ecuador. Then came dolarization as only hope and inflation of 100%. Acumulated inflation before dolarization also around same number in less than a decade. Interest in Banks now (dolarized economy) 10 spread. 5% for your CDs or less. 15% or more for a mortgage loan on 10 -12 years..
Average income around $500 USD per capita. Cost of energy 10-12cts USD KW/hr. Gas regular $ 1.60 USD. National Debt to IMB and WB 14 billion.
This is what 30 years of exploiting oil left us.
Do you think we dont know what real reality is in Ecuador?..
Neoliberism is gone…
And we dont want Socialsm worst communism or drugs. Ecuador exports pretty much everything but drugs. Anyway, we were bombed cause Farc guys come inside our territory since Uribe cant control their army wors their terrorist. Push them to our border and expect us to do the dirty job..and if we dont do it. Get bombed!. Great. If they have means to find somebody in middle of jungle why they dont find them in Colombia territory? Is the goddamm same jungle for christ sake.
And if south america is such a bunch of bad guys. Then what about Saudis. Royal antidemocratic country. Home of Osama B. Women treated like animals there. And nobody sayd or does anything. WHY?.
You know damm well WHY.
To finish just say that I forgot this: instead of trying to find the WHOS. Try better WHYS, WHATS AND HOWS.
Best luck to all and God bless us.
The Eagle must meet the Condor soon.
Watch this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUi2eDq3Fs&feature=related
PEACE
I appreciate the wisdom that Anastacio is passing along as it is the type of information that will be much in need and very much helpful to survive. What stands out is the human connection through it all as opposed to the spiritless living of the rich and elite. Two of my children spent some time living in the Democratic Republic of Congo and when visiting there it occurred to me that it takes much skill to survive in poverty and there is much to be learned and gained from those who perservere through disadvantage.
Speaking of paying off the debts so there is little or no debt burden on our shoulders, I wish to point out that Money is debt, debt is money. We borrow money from banks in order to get it created. When we pay off the debts, it is money UN-CREATED.
Consider the following quotes:
“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.” Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board
“If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible — but there it is.”
Robert Hemphill. Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
In other words, if we pay off all the debts, there will be no money in circulation.
“Under the existing fractional reserve banking system, when a loan is made, both the principal of the loan and the deposit that appears in the borrowers checking account are created at the same time out of nothing but a computer entry. And when the loan is repaid, both the principal of the loan and a previously created deposit disappear.
What needs to be clearly understood is the fact that our present “debt-money” disappears when it is repaid and we MUST replace it or we would have a severe deflation because of the lack of money to exchange our goods and services.” Richard D. (from email)
Catherine,
Thanks for the link. I agree with you wholeheartedly on your assessment of Perkins. A public confession, but it does personalize and bring home to the average reader a believable experience that readers can empathize with and understand, so it has value in that regard.
As for Marjorie Kelly, I did not take your perspective away from my reading of “The Divine Right of Capital” at all. Although she definitely does not take covert revenue streams into account (she actually believes in “Business Ethics” – go figure), She also did not say that free markets are the problem. My take was that she strongly felt that the “rules” are the problem, i.e. Corporate Governance rules and the laws regarding Corporate Charters in all U.S. States are problematic, if not flat out fixes that ensure Corporations have all the rights and none of the responsibilities or accountability that individual citizens have to deal with.
Admittedly her solution lives in the world of imagination – rules can be modified such that Corporation actually are “owned by stockholders”, transparency is enforced, Corps have to pay for everything they use or trash just as we do, and, finally, if they have the rights of individuals under the law, they must also bear the same responsibilities.
I know the odds of Government allowing these changes are somewhere between Slim and None, but again, like Perkin’s book, it is explained in such a way that the average thoroughly indoctrinated person can read and quite possibly have the “lightbulb” light.
Are people like Palast better at their jobs? Yes, but if I were teaching a few courses on “How Corporate Business Works”, both these books would be reading material for the “101” Intro.
Your columns would be saved for the Upper Level Courses 🙂
Regards,
John
This is really getting interesting. Almost a group session really, when you read between the lines. (And as a person with blended-bifocals, I’d appreciate some use of more paragraphs.)
It’s not a search for solutions but more of an outline of opinion and what-ifs.
There is an exposure of diverse subcultures to be recognized and… respected. It is of our fears of ‘tommorow’, hopes for our own and description of what we have experienced during our lives, now being shared.
My thoughts go out to Mr. Reyes, who, has the gutts to express what lifestyle that’s being faced and how a system of survival and tolerance has been dealt with over the years. Apparently we do live in a variety of ‘worlds’ and that is my reference to our subcultures of these United States.
The thing is to learn and understand the creation, history and expectation of these lifestyle and social-economic situations. Lifestyle, because that is what we have if we want it as such, being conditioned, or preference over change. Change, is thought, brought about by individual volition (willingness to do so), self-help and ‘practical’ education or taking advantage of the systems provided by either staying the system’s parameters, or going beyond it as a stepping stone to better the individual. And to define, what is better or progressive and contributing to a quality of life or social reform.
(Whew. Sorry ’bout that.)
Mr. Reyes tells us all of his present condition and how’s he’s been able to manage, well enough, for his immediate needs. A survivor’s story without the bologna of one of those rediculous, ‘survival-reality’ TV shows. It is basic, clear and sincere in what he has written.
And, I might add… intellegent. And relative to many of us, if we can see this in his words.
I too take care of my own father of 89 years, I am 58 and positioned myself for retirement shortly afer the death of my wife over a dozen years ago, as I had seen and done enough. We are surviving as well. Bankruptcy and Social Security has taught us much and given us some tools in the meantime. We at least still have a home over these 20 years. (Thanks to a third party dealing with the mortgage holders.)
Such levels of cash exchange and barter transaction has been experienced (personal) through typical garage sales, flea markets, secondhand stores and earlier adventures with swap-meets and trade centers. One can truely learn from these opportunities of trade relationships and discover what it can mean what may be of material value to one another. As well, that can be a lifestyle in itself, as an independant business. And it is growing.
(Notice the number of Salvation Army stores or new locations of St Vincent Depaul’s? Anyway, that’s what’s been happening arounf the Detroit area here.) More, ‘signs of the times’.
Thank you once again, Anastacio (someone was a romantic to name you that) and in what you shared with the rest of us.
By the way, I have a ’95 Grand Am that runs great and I work on it myself. At least I owe nothing on that. Good luck with the truck and any ‘future’ success, and good health for your family and friends.
Stay the good course and continue to create new bonds. Better than money, right?
Harry
Dear Catherine: May I then be of service to your readers? What are the demographics of your readers? Are they of the real world of the masses of which we speak? My world is one of cash, poverty, families living at the edge. I have no bank account neither do many of my friends. We are literate in the sense that we read the daily papers with vigor but at the local library. We even talk about the Constitution of the United States, the socialism in Europe, the promise of Obama and laugh at the issues now faced by the elite. Yes, you home is Hickory Valley and on Google it says the median income for a household in the town was $15,313, and the median income for a family was $22,500. Males had a median income of $21,875 versus $14,688 for females. The per capita income for the town was $8,935. There were 18.4% of families and 16.2% of the population living below the poverty line, including 16.3% of under eighteens and 16.7% of those over 64. This sounds like the real world. Where there is no money for a 401K and thus no risk of “destroyed wealth”. Yes, poverty is colorless, and poor whites in my humble opinion are the most forgotten of all in the United States just as forgotton as poor others. As a man of colour, I think how sad that poor whites are so forgotten. But the same goes with poor anything. So readers please allow me an example of barter: My cousin lost his car and was thumbing it to work at a local company. My other buddy told me about my cousin thumbing it to work “‘cuz they p’cked’em up n took’em to work” when they see him on the road. Upon hearing this I said a prayer to my Dear Lord and asked Him to give me strength to help my cousin. I then saw a truck selling for $2,000 in my city (I live 270 miles nearby) and bought that truck with money I was saving because I needed that truck for my job but not quite yet. So I bought that truck and called my cousin that he shouldn’t be thumbin-it to work and I lent him my truck for only one year in exchange that he would watch over my 83 year old father who lived in a house one block from my cousin. He agreed to watch my father and his son mowed the lawn. We solved two problems – I had someone take care of my fathers home; and my cousin got to work. He saved money to get his own truck, I got my truck back a year later. And we have a bond that lasts longer than any bank loan. And we both rent…and bring up our families. I have countless stories of people at the edge. Now you tell me readers…is this the world that you know?
Rep. Kanjorsky, during his recent appearance on C-Span, assuming he is correct in the dates, described Paulson’s statements to Congress in September concerning an event that took place “last Thursday”, in which a run was made on the money market that nearly crashed the American economy on the spot, and came within a couple of hours of crashing the global economy. The “last Thursday” he spoke of would have been September 11, 2008 between the hours of 9:00 and 11:00. If it had not been shut down and stabilized by changing the limits of insured deposits to 250,000, it is estimatad that 5.3 trillion dollars would have been sucked out of the system, collapsing the world economy, and who know what else.
Had you heard of this new “Sept. 11” and what do you make of it?
Great post.
1st, we should begin by calling the FED, exactly what they are: “Private, Central Bankers”; this would peak the curiosity of the reader, and prompt them to read and investigate further, on their own.
2nd, everyone should be encouraged to read anything they can about the ‘History of Money’, or the ‘History of Banking’; this will inevitably lead the reader to todays Federal Resrve System, their relationship to England, Germany, the CFR, etc. There are numerous online papers, articles and books. You do not need to leave your computer.
It will then become clear, the relationship of industry, banking and government to each other.
I believe the current state of our economy was known, in advance by the ‘FED’, and the plan all along was for the big banks to take over the little banks. The loose money policy was to expose banks to the credit defaults, and ultimately eliminate smaller banks as competitors, at the tax payers expense. Sort of a ‘Controllled Depression’.
Finally, you need to EDUCATE your elected representatives, 1ST at the State level, and then the Federal Level. Because, I believe most if not all of them, do not have a clue.
John:
You may want to read several pieces I have written re Perkins and Kelly:
Will the Real Economic Hit Men Please Stand Up
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503/S00090.htm
along with the two posts here called “Material Omissions”.
Best,
Catherine
This is a first time visit for me and I’ll be coming back. However, regarding the subject of this post, I think that for anyone who has been paying attention to FrontLine over the last 8 years or for anyone that has read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (John Perkins), this is old news, obviously not so for Ms. Fitts since she started seeing these things take shape since the mid-90’s.
I strongly recommend the “Confessions…” book as well as Marjorie Kelly’s book, “The Divine Right of Capital”. Although they can be a little depressing, it’s nice to know what you need to prepare for, modern Corporate Feudalism and whatever that will entail.
In response to..The truth:
And you are…?
I am hoping your reply is…”I am Muerte!” : )
I have just read this wholeblog and my thoughts have to be to ask you all, what do you think happens when you die? You have no more thoughts! That’s it! The end! So, what is the most important thing that you can do right now? Can you change any of these economic, greedy, ponerological schemes and make the world a better place? The answer is Yes! But you have to get up and go somewhere and hug someone. Yes, you have to show them that you mean what you say that you love them.
I have seen by these blogs that all of you are very learned and bright individuals, as I myself am not. I am just a simple man and I do good as much as feasible, I take nothing from no one without paying for it, and I spend most of my awakened time making other people smile. I don’t know how to solve the problems you all have mentioned. I don’t know what to do about any of it. As I stated, I am just a simple man. Tomorrow I may be dead, or living in a very dark world. However, I will not stop making people smile just because I have no food or electricity or a job.
My point is this: We haven’t, as people, evolved to a level of understanding why we are here on earth, nor have we understood the power of good and evil, nor have we seen the Light. But we will! Until then, hug your neighbor, smile, and walk on!
As John Merryman said, how do we know what is past and what is future? We may be looking at it as in a mirror…dimly! The Past may very well BE our Future! But as for “Bad” people, they’re here. As for “Good” people, where are they?
And last suggestion on links to read is:
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/
PEACE!
Anastacio:
I agree. I live in Hickory Valley, Tennessee. The bubble never quite got here, so we are very much still a barter culture.
There is an entire pyramid collapsing. You have been operating in a real world and real economy while many have been living in a dream world — a bubble society subsidized by government money. That means you know much that many people are going to need to learn – and quickly.
So, an opportunity to be of service if you can forgive them for being spoiled…
Catherine
I also want to thank very much CHRIS for his explanation on CDO, SVP, CDOs and all the things involved in this so called “valuable papers/documents-transactions”..devilish or desperate transacions? is the same..
Thanks again Chris
To Rob B. So basically what you are saying is that “all is pretty much fine” and we should reassume “B.A.U.” business as usual and think nothing and do nothing?. YAWN…!
If you are so bored with comments on this blog why bother?
The real thing is that of course, I think and agree, Banks, Politicians, “Illuminati”, whatever.., in themselves are not full-time-devils (few may well be I tell you..thinking they do good!) thinking to do harm all the time to humanity. The thing is that YOUR MIND CAN PLAY YOU AROUND and all we need to TRY to DO is to see through this MIND problems and get a better idea to next time not be so FOOLED by OUR OWN and OTHERS MIND GAMES…
Anyway, I dont think knowing “WHO” this people are will make things better and even think its irrelevant. SEE THROUGH and read BETWEEN LINES and you will find more THRUTH than the other way around.
Better try to find “WHY” & “WHAT”..than WHO; to solve problems..solving meaning getting better, actually “SOLVING” economic/political problems (I think) is impossible. We just get better systems. We LEARN and GO ON…but with a different frame of mind/spirit..thats HISTORY. And I am a optimistic in evolution, so far..
Thanks Bryan for those suggestions on link. Mines:
http://survivingpeakoil.com/
http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/
PEACE
(I am from Ecuador so excuse my bad english)
Geez-O-Petes.
Someone’s getting by, receiving royalties around here.
So much material to choose and research (if I had the time) and so much intrigue of information and history (if I really cared), to learn from and be motivated by (if I were that professional or career motivated), and follow up on such campaign and try to convince others of my quest for the truth (if I was convinced things would change).
[Ha. “…the truth, and you are?” But at least one who has the right to free speech.]
Oh, but if it IS all so going to make such a difference, how many more generations will have to tolerate these kinds of actions from people with real power and influence over the masses? How long but enough for those to say their piece, feeling as they had contributed? And praise those for being more informed, enlightened and outspoken through their particular skills and experience, realistic and imagined as being so learned, prophetic and inspiring?
(Wouldn’t be interesting if those of the Taliban and other ‘terrorist’ groups thought as we do here, and applied themselves to realize such potential in the 21st Century of thought and experience. No? Because they are convinced of their own worlds of reality as we of what we have come to believe as a free and equitable societal structure. Snarf-snarf. “Trade you a pack of gummy bears for that AK-47?”… “O-kay, Western-Dog!”)
Would we vote for these people in an election? Promote them to heads of finance or state? Are they the future of corporate America, or be their watchdogs of a society? If they preferred this rather than real leaders of responsibility, commitment and service. To play it safe, in other words, and reap the consequences?
What are we getting through all of this in the meantime?
A place to be heard. To write an opinion. To be a part of something greater than ourselves. Maybe even, the gang mentality and family unit you cannot experience by what has been handed to you in life in general. (Opps, psychoanalytical slip!) Another soap box opportunity! Be it as it may, we’ve done exposed ourselves with these lines. Of our ignorance as well as our curiosity, and of our fears.
Oh man, talk about entertainment by the way!
(Anybody see the irony in all of this? Remember the history of Lloyd’s of London? Wasn’t that back in the 16th or 17th Century? Stock market stuff. Remember the ‘crash’ before WWI? Forget the gas crises of the 70’s? Oil company buy-ups? Bank mergers and changes these past 20 years? Retail failures since the 70’s? The ‘big refinancing’ of homes in the 90’s? Big oil profits? Change from the gold standard? Enron?!? American Motors, Studebaker, DeSoto, Packard and Hudson? We’ll still need diesel fules for semitrucking and trains.
I say… where are the new two-bedroom homes we need and the new car for under 8 grand? When we have the 4-day workweek and all our insurance butts are covered. Think? Taxes too? Uh, dream on patriot!)
Well, looky that… more research to do. Ahhhh!
God, I’m having too much fun around here. (Whew.)
Harry
Catherine and readers: I somewhat agree with the recent YouTube postings “Catherine Fitts IRTA Barter Convention”. However, when I look at the audience of the YouTube postings most people are not reflective the the “real world”; meaning the struggling masses without access to the financial issues you discuss. Let me provide and example: the “decentralization” you discuss already exists in the “street-cash-market” of the favelas, barrios and ghettos of the world. The “barter” you advocate already exists in the street market of the favelas, barrios and ghettos of the world. The “stockpiling” of perishables already exist. The culture of fraud is something that all poor people are aware of and why we most humbly depend on eachother and not the life of those around you. The culture of fraud is the “good ol boy network” which is now the “good ol girl network” where the commoner is not recognized because of our look, upbringing, unpretentiousness, and humility towards life. Look at the oommon Oaxacan, Chinese, Thai, Indigenous Mexican, Ukranian, caste Indian, the African, and the poor whites and you will see the culture of fraud staring at you in the face. No wonder the masses don’t believe in the school system, nor the banking system, nor the government system. There should be no surprise because history has shown us the response of the commoners and that is the French Revoloution, the American Revolution, and worse the Dark Ages. The hope is we the common people are humble by virtue of our struggle and our belief. Therefore the sustanance is primal in our approach and belief in God, the Holy Spirit, the Yaweh, the Tao, the Way, and may I say the Son of Man. The decentralization is and always will be the trust we put in each person in our immediate surroundings. So let us
surprised at downfall of the markets; it has alwaays existed in the “real world”.
Dear Catherine: I’m remiss to presume you are not from a poorer neighborhood and apologies in order. However, I read the the document posted on your weblinke http://www.dunwalke.com. I also read Naomi Klien (The Shock Doctrine), and reviwed Greg Palast. While I certainly get what they are saying my response as a man in the streets is “tell me more”. You see, as stated before, our world, the real world for people at the edge is all in cash, and the brown market, which in essense is insulated from the elitists you all talk about. I laugh in the faces of the discussions above because plesase go to each “barrio”, “favela”, “slum”, “ghetto”, “market street” of the world and you will find a world dealing in cash, barter, exchange, small loans, people supporting people, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, common masses huddling together to survive. We don’t look like the people you write about with as you stated “there tall looks and piercing blue eyes”. Does that look intrique you? Why do you even presume to think we care? Give me the cracked wrinkled skin of the poor white man, the rough calloused hand of the brown farmworker, the entrepeneurial skill of the cook in the backroom, the market place in the Chinatowns of the world, the people living at the edge who don’t live in your world your write about, nor do we really care. We already know the real world. And we don’t need an MBA to understand. Welcome all to the real world.
The truth:
And you are…?
Catherine
NEWS;Banking giant UBS admits to helping defraud IRS, will pay $780M, open secret Swiss records
Catherine, I understand the need for fines and penalties. But some of these look more like a payoff to continue doing business in our country, at the expense of shareholders, account holders..and of course the gnomes of zurich. So much for my numbered account.
Wel catherine i am who you think i am, therefore i am. Decifer that in your books. Now answer this, if what you are saying and your books are saying are true as you state, then why doesnt the government try to shut you up(no disrespect), like they do with every other person who claims these groups exist.
I think too many people will fall prey to those awful dystopia movies. Can world wide socialism be far behind? This is like a bad dream, a real bad dream!
Socialism on the surface could be a good thing; however, greed and socialism sometimes can mix just like oil and water. Just add a little soap with both and the tension can breakdown. But the slickness of the oil is still there slithering around just like a snake.
Now is the time not to run around yelling that the sky is falling.
Dear “the truth:’
Looks like you have not read my website and are not familiar with my work.
Here is an online book that describes my experience working in Washington and on Wall Street:
http://www.dunwalke.com
Here are thousands of pages of documents documenting my experience litigating with the federal government:
http://www.dunwalke.com/gideon
At the archives at http://www.solari.com you will find numerous stories and stories where I describe lots of experience and my history.
If you look up the Kemp Tapes on the blog, you can access hours of dictated history of working in the Bush Administration. Years ago, these had quite a camp following on the internet as a “tell all” that helped people understand what it is like to work in a high level position in a federal government agency.
My detailed resume is posted at “about us” at http://www.solari.com
There is no story about my seeing a UFO because I have never seen one. I have driven across the Great Plains on many occasions and see lots of lights in the sky that seemed closer than stars. Not sure that qualifies.
And you are….?
Catherine
ok ok
so dont give us names but how experiences you had catherine (working on the inside) and even that ufo you saw (mikey).
when and where? how and who? answer these questions…because if you dont it just leads us to believe that these sensationalist and inflammatory remarks meant to scare (we know how well that works b&c) or sell books etc.
so if you really want us to get out there and find the truth – start sharing yours…rather than vague tantalizing snippets that are no better than a politician`s promises of a better tomorrow.
Yes the Illuminati exists, and there are a few names we know (Rothschild being one of the main ones) and others we don’t, because they have made it one of their main goals to rule covertly, not overtly, ‘Skeptic’ and others. Any person with average intelligence can tell you that overt dictatorships are doomed to failure, usually sooner than later, but hidden dictatorships, where middlemen are used and placed into apparently ‘powerful’ positions, is much more efficient to those with real power and bad intentions. Thus you have the same force behind all the apparently ‘good’ guys as well as the ‘bad guys’ in the world, from bush to obama to saddam Hussein, etc.. these people are all middlemen and ‘mid management’, when it comes down to it. I recommend any work by David Icke, yes, the most controversial speaker in the world, but there is a reason why he is so controversial, and if you take time to read at least a part of some of his books you will see the world in a different light, and all the apparently unrelated pieces will start to fall into place. All I ask is that before condemning him based on what the illuminati controlled media has led you to believe, just read at least a few chapters in any of his books.
PS: Rob B, you might be perfectly content in living in such an unequal global society, and you may believe this is the best that so called ‘civilization’ can achieve, that is fine, however there is a lot of us out there, growing daily, who see a better future for all of us, a real civilization that is not based on a illuminati pyramidal hyerarchy at every level, from the family to school, corporations etc.. , a civilization based on equality and progress for all, not just a few wealthy elites at the expense of the rest of humanity. Just because I (and others) point these facts out, does not make us ‘crazy’ either.
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Anastacio:
Perhaps you should say “welcome back.” I grew up in a poorer neighborhood. My period of enjoying wealth in the bubble was relatively brief.
And I would say, “glad to be back.” I had a choice. Truly, the real world is a much better place to be.
In ‘cahoots”
Catherine
I never thought I’d hear another person in this country say anything remotely close to what my mother has been preaching for 30 years+. Others including myself have laughed at her “dementia”. We have called her “crazy” when she has stockpiles of food and water and jewelry(gold and silver). We called her a “packrat” when she would keep an old 2X4 and remove the nails for future use. I actually have gotten angry when she would come to my house with a bag of hand-me-down clothes. I have something to say to my mother…I am sorry for insulting your intellegence. You were right!
I am very glad to have stumbled upon this website, and I have instantly bookmarked it. I will spend more time here tonight, when I get off work (not layed off yet).
I recommend this website for some excellant information:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meltdown/
PEACE
*YAWN*
What we have here are two distinct groups, the tin foil hat group that is convinced that there is a secret conspiracy going on involving the Rothchilds, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Illuminati, et al. and the wealth envy crowd. Neither is very credible. Are the mega banks involved in dirty deeds and ripping off consumers, absolutely, but they are also an intregal part of the economy and if they were to disappear, you would see chaos that makes today’s financial downturn look like a drop of water on an ocean. These banks touch every sector of the economy and if just one, such as Bank of America, were to tank it would take hundreds of billions of dollars and over 1 million jobs with it. Because let’s remember, the bank itself may have on a few tens of thousands of employees, but millions of consumers and businesses are negatively affected. Apart from bank employees, you have mortgage brokers, investment advisors, heck even the guy at the hot dog stand outside the corporate offices would all lose their jobs. Then there are the people who own businesses who can’t make payroll because their line of credit with BoA is gone. I worked for an insurance company who issued health savings accounts in partnership with BoA, what happens to those people and their money? Like it or not, the mega banks have a hold on everything, but it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. They do things that we would not be able to do on our own like provide jobs and allow us to afford medical care, plus they allow us to build wealth for ourselves through investments. A mega bank is not an evil entity with an independent mind of its own. It’s a collection of individuals (admittedly most of which are selfish and self-serving – looking to enrich themselves) but nothing more. It’s not a perfect system, but those who are most successful in this world learn to work within that imperfect system.
How do you ‘know’ that this Illuminati exists? Isn’t it possible that you are delusional? Without knowing their names and the exact details of what they did, it seems quite silly to assume such a group exists. To me, it sounds like you are first assuming there is this Illuminati and you are hunting and pecking for facts to support your previous bias… such as the wackos do with the 911 or JFK conspiracies. Of course there are wealthy people out there that want to have as much money and power as possible, but that is just normal. Research has shown, that is what people normally do. People always want a little more… that does not mean that this imaginary group is real.
get a life stop worrying about shit, in the time it took you to write your 50 page comments you could have spent that time with yor child or dying parents, or did somethin for yourself, stop being wory worts and just live
Check out Columbia U’s land grab in NYC>
Dear Catherine: I read your expose,”The Myth of the Rule of Law or How the Money Works: The Destruction of Hamilton Securities Group”. As a minority and man of color, all I can say is welcome to the real world. As you said, “As a white, Anglo-Saxon protestant I had been counting on the rule of law to protect meOne day I was a wealthy entrepreneur with a beautiful home, a successful business and money in the bank….The next day I was hunted…” You are simply experiencing what many poor whites, brown, yellow, black, red, minorities and people of color experience every single day of their lives; many until they die. Especially those born into poverty or without access to an edcuation. And while I can appreciate your hurt the experiences in your expose is nothing new to us. Don’t be surprised by my diatribe. Are you seeking condolences? Are you seeking pity? What does it mean to lose millions? What does it mean to lose pennies when that is all you have? What does it mean to be a poor person without hope? You had everything going for you and still you seek to get in. Some of us simply don’t care or form our own bonds of survival> We loan money to eachother, we worship together, we meet in coffeehouses, we visit the public libraries to use the few online computers, we share wine and cry together. So what you express is nothing new. Welcome to the real world.
It will be ok. Do you know why? Disasters like this have definite winners and losers, then some in between. The winners are the powerful. The losers are the generation near retirement. They will suffer for the next decade, crying as their dream of retirement dies along with them. In between will be the rest of us that are young enough to limp through it because we are young enough to keep working. The winners will need labor to keep enriching themselves. That is really all there is to it.
Greed is like any other vice of the mind. Something that has its own energy. We can call it Devil or whatever but in the end is just basic MIND games which went out of proportion. It all started as a game of ego and then it turned into something else as usual. A vice ends up being something not rational or logical. Thats why many people goes crazy and more usual in rich countries than in poor ones. Dealing with your own mind is the most complicated thing in the world thats why we are in this situation to begin with. And many times in history.
Man was given a tremendous paradise to live in. He is ending this with too much mind and ego thinking he is the best thing created!..EGO.
I want you to picture Mr Bush and all his fellow friends with Tons of green cash around them and surrounding them a colapsed destroyed world; ecologically and economically!.
I knew this when he said to all the world this 2 things:
“..I KNOW how the world works”, and “..we know on what side GOD IS..”
You just gave more importance to one green than to another more, much more important as when you think you have to work and work and forget about your own family…!
Is the old Story..man being materialistic and leaving the world of the spirit for material stuff. Thats all in the end and the game turned into a real bad game as it was taken too seriously (EGO). No fun, just chaos and problems as when people play something and start betting on it and end up killing each other..! of course!…how stupid!..it was only a game, a distraction of the MIND…but it was taken seriously and that changed everything.
Now this people (called what you want..illuminati etc) are just greedy , frightened and scared which turns them VERY DANGEROUS NOW..like an TERRIFIED animal!. You can imagine what they could be doing in the end when they realize that there is NO ESCAPE…As Yolanda asked…with what purpose? They no they cant escape they are just buying time as much as possible..just to try to escape from hell, hell they know they created. Hell, the have inside.
We all know what we have and have not done. We all KNOW. And that will be surely be our each and only HELL..or HEAVEN..
We must pray this time we learn another lesson and that humanity goes one step further from LIES to OURSELVES AND TO OTHERS to TRUTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. IS THE ONLY WAY.. Thats our only salvation the rest is nuances.. I think …anyway.
Be true, be a warrior of Truth and you will surely change this world.
THANKS! Catherine, for being one more WARRIOR to beleive in.
God bless you and others who are doing the same to really change INSIDE for future generations to live in a better world.
Maybe the illusive answer to who is behind this and why are they doing it is best pulled from Hollywood. After reading through this blog and the comments, I was reminded of The Devil’s Advocate movie from the 90’s, and found this in the IMDb review of it (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118971/) “….the fact that the Devil is never really pulling the strings by himself — he’s giving people their choice, their free will to decide — a demon whose world is our own, with all its mundane events. He appears in human form and presents human choices, and his greatest lure is what we have in common with him: our greed, ego, jealousy, competitiveness, lust, dishonesty…..Hell is here not a blackness, haunted by ghosts and monsters, but the rarified world of New York’s ultra-wealthy and privileged society.”
So yes, there are actual people behind the happenings…but the ultimate enemy is Satan, he wishes to destroy us and separate us from God for eternity. He is the only one that has an ultimate plan for humanity’s destruction, the people carrying out the financial manipulations in the world markets are merely his servants. Going after the people doing this would serve to only delay things, maybe. Someone new would be more than willing to step into their place.
Dr Clifford,
Thank you! I have been preaching the same thing for months…and you coined the right phrase!
“I tell my friends in Mexico, that the reason we don’t have corruption in the USA is that we legalized it. ”
I have been saying, “… in Mexico, they steal from you using guns and kidnapping….int he US they steal from you with the book in their hands!!”
Mandrake
I see a lot of intellectual chickens running around with their heads cut off around here.
Not only of ‘showing me the money’ and where its all gone, but should I be preparing for a revolution of some kind, or moving to a warmer climate and to a less expensive neighborhood during my retirement years?
At least on a smaller scale, personal in suruvival, I can have power and resources enough to be self sustaining.
There are so many who write their critical views, while offering up reference material (on and on) to back up these hidden truths and real example of reality checks. Knowing, knowledgable or theory, it continues to be expressed but still leaving the reader and researcher to dig further and become stressfully challenged.
Ain’t history great!
And how it so repeats itself, and yet, never changes as the behaviorisms and fears of mice and men. Even honest men so become tempted and corrupt as they once thought they’d never become, only to give in through the concept of either family, being acceptance or egotistical goals.
When is enough, enough?
We bring upon ourselves our own suffering and contemplations. Don’t we.
We are what we eat, desire and seek for in trying to obtain some levels of understanding what it really means to be at peace and content with oneself and of our worlds. Inside and outwardly.
It begins there, doesn’t it?
What more does a man do after he’s won the gold medal? He teaches and becomes a mentor.
The sky is falling. But not on my island.
But, I am no rock. And a rock never cries.
Thanks, that was a very interesting read. The history behind the facts…
Speaking of returning to constitutional money (i.e. gold/silver), it would help to read the following article “Brief US Monetary History” http://www.monetary.org/briefusmonetaryhistory.htm
When the US Constitution was drafted, there was confusion on what is the nature of money. It is ironic that our Founding Fathers fought against England for one simple reason – the colonies wanted to control their own money rather rely on debt-based Bank of England money system, but by the time they drafted the US Constitution, they forgot the real reason they fought against England. It took Thomas Jefferson 20 years after US Constitution was adopted to finally understand what we should be using as money. Hint: it ain’t gold and silver. One could read the article “Fools’ Gold” by Robert Carroll for more understanding.
This confusion of what is the nature of money is still with us today. Because of this the crooks at the highest government levels take advantage of this ignorance and confusion of money to manipulate markets to their advantage, much to our detriment, as evidenced by the current financial mess (or, as Catherine aptly put it, “Financial Coup d’Etat”) today.
Chris, you’re right – truth is stranger than fiction. That’s why I enjoy news and blogs better than movies or TV. Nice to meet another Ron Paul guy, too. Congratulations, you’re doing the right things!
Whoops – I might have sounded too critical in the above post. All I wanted to do was provide us with a comeback if anybody accuses us of being conspiracy nuts. Like a couple years ago I warned my family about coming economic problems and they rolled their eyes. (Too bad – if they listened they might still have a pile of money that is no longer there.) If I had added that the problems were caused by conspiracy A and group B, they would have laughed out loud. So my comeback would be, “It doesn’t matter if you think there’s a conspiracy or not. The results are the same as if there IS a conspiracy.” Which there probably is, as American points out. I just don’t get too bogged down in the details.
And Catherine, no criticisms to you. Love your articles, including the latest. SOMEBODY needs to point out what is really happening and you’re doing a super job – keep it up! Thanks!
I have to laugh when I see anyone state “there is no conspiracy”, LOL, conspiracies are a dime a dozen and have gone back into the furthest reaches of time. The main one played over and over is simply a form of “social Darwinism” which means often the meanest and nastiest and deadliest often end up near the top of the power structure dictating to all of those not willing to sell their soul to satan how to live. And of course extorting a never ending untold price in blood and treasure to help finance it all.
For Yolanda and Ellen who brought up the topic of why all this by The Elitists and mentioned Aaron Russo and Rockefeller I post his fine summary and a link to some of his last words. I am comfortable those who want to look deeply into the Belly of the Beast will come away with just a little more light.
“I used to say to him what’s the point of all this,” states Russo, “you have all the money in the world you need, you have all the power you need, what’s the point, what’s the end goal?” to which Rockefeller replied (paraphrasing), “The end goal is to get everybody chipped, to control the whole society, to have the bankers and the elite people control the world.”
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/290107_rockefeller_microchipped.html
Gary, no need for conspiracies, “Truth is stranger than fiction”! I would also point out that whether the economic collapse is conspiratorial or not, we can certainly point to failed government policy in step with wallstreet banks/financial service firms. In 2004 my wife and I moved our family across the state to a new job and away from our parents. It was truly the first time I can point to when I began to think for myself, I was 33 years old. What I too used to term conspiracy theory began with asking my wife one day…do you think Magic Johnson really has HIV and Pamela Anderson Hepatitus C?, or are they walking government sponsored public service announcements? Then I moved into the political spectrum with the IRAQ (undeclared) war, and began to study currency stability, GAO, Irwin Schiff’s tax protest, and in 2007 as a Ron Paul Supporter I was introduced to Peter Schiff and his book Crashproof which lead me to convert the remainder of my savings to precious metals (I began this in 2004). My wife now appreciates the food pantry we have accumulated and continue adding to. Call me crazy if you will, if the worst case scenario occurs we will fair well, if it does not, nothing lost and my wife sleeps well. Catherine has certainly opened my eyes to the possibilities and direction of a more sustainable lifesyle that will benefit all who participate.
Is there really a conspiracy? As Catherine says, I couldn’t prove or disprove it, either. This is a big subject – we all know how it is the favorite tactic of those who don’t like us to label us “conspiracy theory wackos”. It’s an easy and effective tactic against us and I have a solution to it. It’s effective because there are some simple minded wackos who are into conspiracy theories and it’s the easiest way to discredit someone. Example: I myself was at the home of an old, fat, emotional, unintelligent person on her last leg when the news flashed across the TV screen of an earthquake in California. She points to the TV and says “Boy, there isn’t any doubt about it, you know that Al Queda is behind that.” “Huh, you mean you think they caused the earthquake?” I replied incredulously. “Well of course!”, she replied emotionally, her voice rising. “Can’t you see where it is? Right in the MIDDLE of the the state! You think that’s just a COINCIDENCE?!!” I smiled, rolled my eyes to myself and soon left. “Conspiracy Wacko” is such an easy smear to make.
I used to laugh at Conspiracy Theories but now find myself believing many of them (though not all). Are there really conspiracies? Here’s the great news: It doesn’t matter! The only thing that matters is that events are unfolding AS IF THERE WERE CONSPIRACIES. Example: In high school I was a staunch conservative and got on the school newspaper to combat the paper’s liberal bias. I found out that nobody was giving orders to the other student writers. They all wrote liberal articles because liberal kids were attracted to being writers on the school newspaper. What about the charge that dark, evil committees send out orders to all the major media about what to cover and not to cover? True? I don’t know. But it could be that the same types of people who own, control, and write in the media have the same kind of human bias to talk about some subjects in cetain ways and avoid mentioning other subjects. Or there may be a real conspiracy in which any reporter who strays into the truth gets fired and they know it and want to keep their jobs.
Is the stuff that is going on now in the financial world a giant conspiracy of the CFR, the bankers, the Builderbergers, perhaps in league with some evil UFO forces? I don’t know. It might be just the natural result of what happens in human nature when a giant economic bubble forms and then pops. But it really doesn’t matter. What is happening is that the real world is performing AS IF there really was a conspiracy. The conspiracy might be a dark, sinister group of elitists pulling the levers to create economic chaos that enriches themselves while depopulating the world. Or it might be the natural progression of events as human nature interacts with the physical world.
Bottom line – don’t be obsessed with a possible conspiracy pulling the levers forming a calamity coming toward us. The calamity might be caused by evil geniuses and their minions or it might be caused by natural economic forces. Maybe some of each. Maybe caused by some criminal higher ups and the result of their crimes on the economy (most likely). But don’t give detractors ammunition to shoot at you. It’s enough to know that the calamity is coming, caused by whatever, and prepare for it. Make sure you and your loved ones come through it OK.
Folks. They have the reigns. It will be a bumpy ride. Follow the money. Right before your eyes. Does it get any more cliche. They count on you continuing your incurious way.
I missed iting the author in the above piece. 19 Nov 2008 Alan Kohler, A tsunami of hope or terror?
Chris,
Which goes to the essential flaw in Capitalism. Saving money, i.e. value on paper, is like saving electricity. Either it has to be used as it’s generated, (thus the effectiveness of Social Security), it can be stored in the process of circulation, or small amounts can be packaged.
The banks were simply fulfilling our desire for lifetime security by creating the illusion of stored value, but was an enormous bubble of circulation. Now we are going to have to go back to the real world and store value in things like personal relationships and a healthy environment. Is it too late? The ones in charge can’t admit they cooked their own golden goose.
A synthetic CDO is a collateralised debt obligation that is based on credit default swaps rather than physical debt securities.
CDOs were invented by Michael Milken’s Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s as a way to bundle asset backed securities into tranches with the same rating, so that investors could focus simply on the rating rather than the issuer of the bond.
About a decade later, a team working within JP Morgan Chase invented credit default swaps, which are contractual bets between two parties about whether a third party will default on its debt. In 2000 these were made legal, and at the same time were prevented from being regulated, by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which specifies that products offered by banking institutions could not be regulated as futures contracts.
This bill, by the way, was 11,000 pages long, was never debated by Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton a week after it was passed. It lies at the root of America’s failure to regulate the debt derivatives that are now threatening the global economy.
Anyway, moving right along – some time after that an unknown bright spark within one of the investment banks came up with the idea of putting CDOs and CDSs together to create the synthetic CDO.
Here’s how it works: a bank will set up a shelf company in Cayman Islands or somewhere with $2 of capital and shareholders other than the bank itself. They are usually charities that could use a little cash, and when some nice banker in a suit shows up and offers them money to sign some documents, they do.
That allows the so-called special purpose vehicle (SPV) to have “deniability”, as in “it’s nothing to do with us” – an idea the banks would have picked up from the Godfather movies.
The bank then creates a CDS between itself and the SPV. Usually credit default swaps reference a single third party, but for the purpose of the synthetic CDOs, they reference at least 100 companies.
The CDS contracts between the SPV can be $US500 million to $US1 billion, or sometimes more. They have a variety of twists and turns, but it usually goes something like this: if seven of the 100 reference entities default, the SPV has to pay the bank a third of the money; if eight default, it’s two-thirds; and if nine default, the whole amount is repayable.
For this, the bank agrees to pay the SPV 1 or 2 per cent per annum of the contracted sum.
Finally the SPV is taken along to Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch’s and the ratings agencies sprinkle AAA magic dust upon it, and transform it from a pumpkin into a splendid coach.
The bank’s sales people then hit the road to sell this SPV to investors. It’s presented as the bank’s product, and the sales staff pretend that the bank is fully behind it, but of course it’s actually a $2 Cayman Islands company with one or two unknowing charities as shareholders.
It offers a highly-rated, investment-grade, fixed-interest product paying a 1 or 2 per cent premium. Those investors who bother to read the fine print will see that they will lose some or all of their money if seven, eight or nine of a long list of apparently strong global corporations go broke. In 2004-2006 it seemed money for jam. The companies listed would never go broke – it was unthinkable.
Here are some of the companies that are on all of the synthetic CDO reference lists: the three Icelandic banks, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, American Insurance Group, Ambac, MBIA, Countrywide Financial, Countrywide Home Loans, PMI, General Motors, Ford and a pretty full retinue of US home builders.
In other words, the bankers who created the synthetic CDOs knew exactly what they were doing. These were not simply investment products created out of thin air and designed to give their sales people something from which to earn fees – although they were that too.
They were specifically designed to protect the banks against default by the most leveraged companies in the world. And of course the banks knew better than anyone else who they were.
As one part of the bank was furiously selling loans to these companies, another part was furiously selling insurance contracts against them defaulting, to unsuspecting investors who were actually a bit like “Lloyds Names” – the 1500 or so individuals who back the London reinsurance giant.
Except in this case very few of the “names” knew what they were buying. And nobody has any idea how many were sold, or with what total face value.
Chris,
I am of a mind that the deregulation and failure to curtail the power of the black pool hedge funds created an opportunity for parties to sell fraudulent paper. If you follow the latest article by Mark Mitchell http://www.deepcapture.com/bernard-madoff-the-mafia-and-the-friends-of-michael-milken/ the same names keep coming up.
Who more likely to sell worthless paper than someone who was the king of selling worthless paper? Wall Street knew that these instruments were worthless and supported the market in them until they got scared. The market collapsed when those selling the bonds didn’t want to hold them. These criminals and those they put in office all need to be held accountable.
More bonds (or something like bonds) were sold than assets to support them. Had these been regulated, they would have never been approved for sale because they are frauds. Here is the comparison:
Imagine a creative fellow who is a property manager and sells a rental property to 10 different parties with fraudulent documents. The prudent buyers, to protect their investment, buy insurance on the house. The insurer sold insurance to all these folks without noticing that it was all on the same property. The seller knew that the property couldn’t support 10 owners and his plan was to burn the house down all along. Being a property manager, he pays back “the rent” from the proceeds of the sales until he runs out of buyers. He also bought insurance on the house. The loss of one house is magnified for the insurer 11 fold.. and the insurer is insolvent. Would it be prudent for the government to bail out the insurer so that the fraud can go undetected? If you were in charge of the government agency that decided to bail out the insurer, as well as being the one who perpetrated the fraud, that is exactly what you would do. Not only would you get to keep all the money from the sale of the property, you would get to keep the insurance money. Where is the loss? All the buyers got compensated and the property manager is way ahead.. but the taxpayer is taking it in the teeth. The shareholders of the insurer now have negative equity as they owe the government. If the insurer folds, the taxpayer eats it all and the shareholders lose everything. With inflation from the deficit that the government acquired, the taxpayer, the shareholders, and the buyers of the house all watch as there living standards decline… but not the property manager.. He is still living high on the hog. He’s moved his money to the Caymans.. and is giving money to the Nature Conservancy. He’s a well-respected benefactor.
I found this a very chilling but highly informative article. It kind of creates a meaninful context for all the incidentals that have happened over the last 20-30 years. However, I was disappointed not to see specific individuals and entities named. These crooks have names and addresses. Which banks, corporations, investors, politicians, government officials, academics, intelligence agencies, government contractors are involved or guilty? Who ultimately received the money and what was done with it? Also, I liked the quote in the article by the President of the CalPERS fund, where s/he says, “They have given up the country and are moving the money to Asia.” Who are “THEY” and which Asian countries or entities/individuals in Asia received these stolen funds?
P.S.
Nodes(centralization) are bottlenecks of input and output from the larger context.
Catherine,
I think biology and computer sciences are currently leading the way in modeling a bottom up web based view of reality, as opposed to the traditional top down centralized view. I think it will take some time for this to really manifest itself as the dominant view. Besides the monotheistic religious assumptions and the political tendency toward centralization, I think even the physical sciences are biased toward this view. Consider the concept of three dimensional space. Essentially it is the coordinate system of the center point. Logically you could have any number of coordinate systems defining the same space. In a very real sense, that is the situation in Israel/Palestine. Two coordinate systems defining the same space, each with their own set of reference points. It is something of a dichotomy, as we function as individual points of reference, but since we are communities of individuals, we need to understand that en mass, this centralized view isn’t as effective as the distributed, web perspective. Nodes and network, not just nodes in a network. Neurobiology has come to understand the brain as more of a network than having any centralized source of consciousness, so these perspectives re-enforce each other at many levels.
Catherine, good read, thanks.
I like your answer in identifying the prime movers and your not feeding the tape worm comment.
I posted the following poem (below) earlier today at naked capitalism. I have been in the financial coup camp for a long while now;
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/a
Some cross linking might be beneficial I think …
Regards …..
Double Trouble – Coup Bubble
Credit leads money by a country mile,
Said the ruling elite with a knowing smile,
And they set their puppets to flooding the land,
Putting easy money in everyone’s hand …
Shop till you drop said the commander in thief,
As he instilled in the marks a false belief,
That Scamerica the beautiful could never fail,
That there was no end to the credit trail …
And Greenspan and Ben allayed the public fears,
With their soothing calmness they greased the gears,
That made their ruling elite’s coup bubble grow,
This was after all not their first rodeo …
They knew easy credit is just counterfeit money,
And so they opened the spigots and let it flow like honey,
As derivatives spread throughout the world’s financial halls,
They soon had the world by the credit balls …
The ruling elite now broadened their grin,
The marks were fooled and could not see their sin,
To consolidate power and eliminate the middle class,
Eliminate population and have all kiss their ass …
Tighten,
Relax,
Swing the ax …
Squeeze,
And release,
Remove some fleece …
Pump.
And dump,
Kill off a chump …
Inflate the bubble,
Exhaust it slow,
Billions of people,
Starve with no dough …
Bumbling idiots,
Or clever elite?
The marks never question,
The truth at their feet …
If you want to find,
The cause of the trouble,
You have to pop,
The deception bubble …
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
i on the ball patriot
Peter:
I did not say you should go to court, I said that you or I could not prove or disprove the top of the global governance structure to those evidentiary standards.
The need to create one common enemy or to oversimplify or to create certainty where there is none is a powerful urge that does not serve us well. Because I have functioned on the inside and have seen how these desires are manipulated, these are not mistakes that I tend to make.
To the extent I have been privy to global hierarchies, my personal experience is that goals are defined and boundaries are set. Within those constraints, there is great latitude for cartels and factions to compete and collude in very organic ways.
It is a big planet. Governing requires lots of cooperation in a highly centralized system — all the way from the bottom to the top.
My personal experience is that the folks at the top do not yet have “lock down.” However, they sure want it. Which is why we are enjoying this debate in the first place.
John and Ikonos:
Yes, we are witnessing the death of an old order. My prayers for the new is that it is truly decentralized and “out of control”
For anyone who is interested, you might want to watch the documentary Phoenix Lights and ponder what a faction that controlled that technology might be able to do.
Catherine
Hi Catherine,
I heard an interesting interview with Dylan Ratigan on Goldseek radio this weekend. Dylan spoke of the enormous insurance heist through credit default swaps as well as discussing SIV’s, CDO’s and CMO’s. He called for those responsible in congress and banking to be held accountable. We need to interrupt primetime television (heaven forbid) and play this over and over agin until Americans GET IT!! Only then will the economic and political rape of our country cease!
We are witnessing the death of the Old Order as people are beginning to realize the destruction of nations and their economies for the benefit of the few, and the enslavement of many.
The New World Order will not be the one envisioned by those engineering the collapse of human endeavour to enrich those paltry few that will benefit; it will awaken the masses who slumber in precarious safety to the perils brought before them by unbridled avarice.
The truths written here by Catherine and others like her are the tools that the debt-enslaved will use to throw off their chains of bondage they so willingly took up in service to their masters. They are the leaves of grass striking a mighty oak; one blow will not fell the massive tree, but a hundred million strikes by one just one blade will bring it to earth.
Until we realize that within our lifetimes resources we currently take for granted to sustain life will be used as weapons of warfare by those that would wish to diminish the human population so that the few may enjoy more for themselves, our future on this planet is in peril.
We, as a species, must evolve past the acquisition of limitless power by the few, to the detriment of the many, or we will fail as a race.
Catherine you are obviously an ordered and rational person who understands and respects chains of command, but there is a profoundly different reality on and in which that worldview exists. Is your mind in control of your body? Obviously yes. Has it always been and will it always be? Obviously no.
Yes there are people who are “in control.” Some of them visible and some not so visible. Some who genuinely have the greater good in mind and some who quite obviously do not. Is there some ultimate group controlling these elites, or is it a power play among them, with some rising and some falling? I think it safe to say the latter.
The interesting question is what will define those rising in the future. There are a number of power centers, politics, religious affiliations, sectors of the economy, especially those most likely to be enhanced by crisis. Organized crime can never be overlooked. What might also be worth considering are those sectors which have been riding high, but are now crumbling, leaving assets to be acquired by those who can more effectively use them. I think we will find the banking sector falls in this category and while government has been left holding the bag, it could be a blessing in disguise. The military usually benefits, but much of it currently is being wasted and this undermines its political effectiveness. Many of the currently wealthy are in freefall as it becomes increasingly obvious that the amount of paper wealth far exceeds the underlaying assets.
I think the future world, if it is functioning, is going to be structured much differently. Necessarily more communal and local. The power structures could be authoritarian, but they don’t have to be. It will be a matter of the philosophies by which people function. That’s what I think is important to focus on at this point.
If the new world order is to be forestalled, methinks two heads need to roll: both the private central banks and the military industrial complex must be addressed for one is attached to the same body as the other. Now we witness the animal screeching and waving its heads about, feverishly arming subservient nations and engineering economic crises worldwide while screaming for a single world government in the same breath.
Catherine,
It seems a strange request, I should go to court and say “I’m here to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, that there is no one in charge.” What would be the point of that and if I won my case, against whom?
You, with many, many others wish to have a single “enemy” that you can blame for all the trouble now plaguing us. Someone who has deliberately, over many years, carefully plotted out the accumulation of world dominating power, to the detriment of all others. “They” have a “Plan” that they are faithfully executing.
My main thrust is that there is no such over-arching, world girdling, objective. There are tens of thousands of players who have acted, and continue to act, in their own self-interest.
Are George Bush and Dick Cheney in charge? What about the Pope, the leader of the most successful corporation ever invented?
Bush and Cheney should certainly be tried for war crimes, but I would argue that they are simply tools who have done little to advance their country’s purposes.
I think it could be successfully argued that the Catholic church would prefer to be world dominant, but is there a Plan? Is that the objective?
The logical conclusion of the pursuit for those to blame is to arrive at the “One” who is in charge. I regard that sort of exercise as a waste of time and a distraction. What would you do if you found this ultimate person/body that is in charge? Say harsh words to them, arrest them, kill them? Then what?
I would contend that the majority of those who are looking for these people are doing so to ask permission to make changes. They would do so because they remain trapped within societal norms that ascribe a particular hierarchy.
While we certainly should have as much information and be continuously vigilant of those groups and individuals who wield dispraportionate global influence, what we should be doing is not waiting for permission, take the responsibility on our own shoulders and change the rules.
Dear Catherine –
Thank you for your bravery and your excellent example of displaying your personal power. This is what we all must do now, and the “Illuminati” have simply done us a great service by waking us up out of our collective slumber. Their astounding fraud has jolted us awake. 2012 is a very real concept – the most powerful people on both sides of the fence are aware of how extraordinary the next 4 years will be. Open your hearts and minds, think for yourself, meditate, raise your consciousness and get ready for one heck of a ride. be the change that you seek. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. love is the answer.
Peace…Jason
What a great group and writing by Catherine! I still cant read enough…and happy to know that there is such a group out there discussing these things.
To add on Catherine’s comment about political psycopaths, here is a great article:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/groves/groves1.html
Who are these people? I dont think families and bloodlines matter in modern times. What defines the MOTU is the common actions and interests they share. One of the best tests is whether they support or condemn Israel and its atrocities. The fact that not one person in the West who is in a position of power can even criticize Israel speaks volumes. The fact that key power positions in this country are occupied by supporters of Israel is evident to those who see. That most Americans are oblivious and ignorant of the fact that they have lost control of their country, and their men and resources are used for promoting the power of the MOTU is also evident. So the question I have is: Why is Israel the one common thing on which the MOTU and its slaves have absolute agreement?
Peter:
You say, “no one is in charge.” But could you prove that in a court of law? I could not prove it or disprove it.
It is essential to say that we don’t know when we don’t know. Everything I have experienced at the highest levels of government or business says that indeed there are folks in charge, including at the very top.
So, I don’t know. If you do and have hard evidence that can prove that no one is in charge, I would love to see it.
Otherwise, what you are saying is that you can not fathom that someone really is in charge.
Catherine
There is no one “in charge”.
While many people wish to ascribe all our troubles to someone or some group, I don’t believe it does or can work that way.
Sure, there are dynastic powers who wield enormous influence across the globe, but they are not in control. Nor do they have to be.
Their objectives are as impersonal as that of a predator striking a herd. Is the predator in control? No, it reacts to opportunities and does what it was designed for without conscious planning, or remorse.
As such, there is no global plannning, no documentation of a grand stategy, no ultimate goal. There is no single point at which we can focus a defense.
Shakespeare knew how it worked ” Is there no one who will rid me of this turbulent priest”. An unguarded comment by a King leads to a death he did not really wish to occur.
What I am illuding to is that, rather than complex, ancient conspiracies, great consequences arise from very simple conversations. When you wield enormous power, a mere suggestion will ripple out from a single person and act upon huge resources and impact vast numbers of people. And those people will react in quite predictable ways ( in a general sense ).
There is no objective, no plan. The people wielding power do so because that is what they were raised to do, what they were trained to do.
I think it was Rhett Butler, in Gone with the Wind, who said something along the lines of, ” There is much profit in building society. There is even more in destroying it.”
I don’t think it really wise to say evil cannot be comprehended though. That only further empowers those who are and encourages those who desire to be.
Stalin and Hitler both came from the fringes of society and normally would have remained there, but for the fact that their respective societies were totally upended and their lack of civil and social concerns enabled them to climb to the top of what remained because they had no compunction in destroying whatever structures blocked their path. Then again, Hitler’s greatest strategic mistake was to attack Russia. Having signed a non aggression pact, Stalin would have been likely to give Hitler whatever oil he needed to finish conquering the rest of western Europe and spent his time building up his own armies and focusing on Middle Eastern oil and whatever parts of China the Japanese didn’t want. Instead it was their very pathologies which prevented them from reaching compromises with each other. That is the political limitation of such people, that in their distrust and inability to connect and network, they cannot build larger civil structures beyond what they can control by brute force.
People have conquered the world because of their ability to cooperate, more than their ability to compete. We go from predator to parasite when we take much more than we give back. So now it is us vs. nature. We need to learn to reconnect to our environment and not just assume we are above and better than everything else. That means understanding how nature functions and not allowing our mythologies of our own divinity to get in the way.
Sorry, Gumnann, your spin does not hold. If I want to control all the people and tangible assets in the world, I don’t care what the price is in paper dollars. Indeed, my control increases on the dumps. Yes, tons of people are laid off. They are only needed in the pumps. They are expendable in the dumps.
You should read the European Union lawsuit motions against RJR Nabisco in http://www.dunwalke.com
What financial Coup d’etat? Who hatched it and who benefited from it? You guys are all subscribing to a myth. There is no organized conspiracy going on. Who has reaped any rewards when wealth has been destroyed at an unprecedented scale? The reasons for the present malaise are pretty clear and well documented by now. There is plenty of blame to go around. We don’t have to look for any puppet master hiding behind the curtain.
If unfettered free market capitalism is left to its shenanigans, like it has been, we are bound to see excesses and busts. It is human nature and free market capitalism, without sensible oversight, mimics human nature. Money has gone global. It will travel to wherever it finds good returns with safety. International money quickly finds local partners who command political clout. If unfair advantages have been taken, it is because of the complicity of power and money. Both walk hand in hand.
In the present financial meltdown, the smartest financiers around the world have lost their shirts and the Ivy league graduates running things are loosing their jobs. The global crisis has spared no one. So, can somebody please tell me who are the ringleaders of the so-called Coup D’etat and where are they hiding their plunder?
Interesting, especially the references tot he Bilderberg group. Dutch papers have recently complained bitterly about the staff of the Dutch Queen – daughter of Prince Bernhard – running her relatives’ tax evading trusts. A further interesting point is that the Dutch Crown Prince is constructing a palace in Mozambique….. Any other hints that the end is nigh?
Very interesting analysis connecting the dots.. FDR once said “Nothing in politics ever happens by accident.”
As big/global as this problem is, the only people that continue to profit from the taxpayer bailouts are some but not all of the financials. The taxpayers are being herded into bigger government programs by ever growing debt.
Just as I upheld my Constitutional oath in Iraq, I am prepared to uphold it here at home. We loose this fight her, we have nowhere else to go. Let’s rock-n-roll!
I-feel-“de-moderized”-already!
But,I-LOVE-eating-grubs-and-earthworms,great-protein!
Don’t-you-even-THINK-’bout-takin’-my-worms,man,I-gots
me-a-shotgun,don’t-cha-know.
http://markinthepark.net/blog/?p=96
Ignotas Nulla Curatio Morbid – A Review of Political Ponerology by Andrzej M. Lobaczewski
Ignotas nulla curatio morbid – do not attempt to cure what you do not understand – is the opening theme in this study of evil. Political Ponerology is “a science on the nature of of evil adjusted for political purposes.” The author, Andrzej Lobaczewski, describes himself as a Polish psychologist who — with many other colleagues — found meaning living through Nazism and then Communism by studying how evil happens and triumphs in a wider political and economic system.
Lobaczewski’s hypothesis is that a small percentage of humans are born psychopaths. He describes the research to back up that data that was destroyed and supressed. Another minority percentage are of a nature to go along with psychopaths while the vast majority of people are essentially healthy. The majority who are healthy have a difficult time understanding that some people are not — they can not fathom being a psychopath or acting like one.
No one has worked harder in the last five years to understand the Tapeworm than Harry Blazer. It was Harry who discovered Political Ponerology and sent it to me. I found it chock full of deeply useful insights that can inform organizing to shift our situation. For example, Lobaczewski discovered that dealing with psychopathic systems made healthy people neurotic. However, they could heal very quickly when he gave them a scientific framework for understanding what had happened and why. With a sound framework, they could start to differentiate who was healthy and who was not and to devise strategies to deal effectively with psychopaths in power. Rather than having their relations with all humans destroyed, they were able to discriminate between healthy and unhealthy and increase their immunity to the drain of unhealthy culture and systems.
I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is managing human or financial risk in this environment or is looking to create healthy change. Traditionally, the Tapeworm’s greatest advantage is that healthy people can not fathom what they are up against and so keep inviting the Tapeworm back into their intimate spaces. This book helps you understand why that will not work. It helps you understand why conspiracies of the healthy and ‘coming clean’ are essential.
Political Ponerology is a book to read slowly. Lobaczewski uses a lot of academic and long words. The insights are deep and rich — they require focus and concentration. And the point comes home again and again:Â Ignotas nulla curatio morbid — do not attempt to cure what you do not understand.
Political Ponerology is available from:
Red Pill Press
http://www.redpillpress.com/
To Snowman:
In answer to your question re. Hitler, read THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT by Carroll Quigley. Hitler was, at least in part, pushed forward towards his conflict with Russia by the elite British Milner group and by powerful pro-Nazi elements of the British aristocracy.
They cleared the way at every step in his consolidation of power.
I’ve always been intrigued by the statement in Albert Speer’s biography that one day he saw Hitler emerge from behind the closed doors of his bedroom, white-faced, repeating distractedly to himself that his “voice had gone silent”. Then he he saw Speer, and abruptly changed the subject. Immediately following that incident he suffered his first catastrophic defeat in a massive tank battle in Russia, and the tide of war swung irreversibly against him. What “voice had gone silent”?
Was Hitler instructed and led by radio step by step, until his scornful generals came to deem him a military genius who seemed to never get it wrong? Until, that is, he was “instructed” to turn away from Moscow and set up for defeat before his radioed guidance went unexpectedly silent…?
Interesting that I read through all sixty-some comments without seeing one reference to psychopaths, those who inhabit human bodies but lack any form of conscience. Figured I had better remedy that lack. Those who don’t understand the concept of psychopaths (no, not psychotics) would do well to do a web search for the word “ponerology”. It will all start to make sense.
Sometimes reality makes more sense if you reverse it.
Here is an example. Time goes past to future, right? How obvious is that! The very history of humanity is bound up in it.
Consider; If two atoms strike each other, they create an event. While these atoms go from past events to future ones, the event goes the other way. First it is in the future and then in the past.
So which is the real direction? Do we travel along this fourth dimension from the past into the future, or is time simply a consequence of motion, similar to temperature and each event is replaced by the next and fades into the past? Are we traveling this fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates?
If time is simply a measure of motion, it would be meaningless to ascribe a dimensionless point to it, as that would be a cessation of motion, like a temperature of absolute zero. Temperature is an average of motion. Time is a unit of motion and fuzzy at that, since delineation can’t be instantaneous.
Now consider monotheism, the all-knowing absolute, as Pope John Paul II described it. This is a contradiction, as the absolute, the universal state, is neutral, lacking any definition or distinction, while knowledge is a feedback loop of distinction and judgement. The universal perspective monotheism implies is an oxymoron. It is subjectivity which creates perspective in the first place. Think in terms of one frame of film being re-exposed many times over. Quickly any and all details of any particular exposure are lost. The absolute is that blank slate. So a spiritual absolute wouldn’t be a intellectual or moral ideal from which we fell, but the raw essence of consciousness from which we rise. So any potential God, ie, universal perspective, could only be the raw awareness of which we as individuals, give personality. It doesn’t matter if you are an atheist or theist, since understanding consciousness is like staring into the abyss. There is no way to fathom how far down it goes, whether there is some material connection from which it originally formed, or whether it is actually the material reality which fades away first, or whether they both fade together. It should be noted that physics has spent millennia trying to comprehend the material basis of reality and only finds sub-levels of activity and connectivity. It’s more network than nodes. So the dynamic is upward and any top down structure, institution, complex being, etc. is just providing form until it too breaks down and is consumed.
These elites are simply the emergent top predators in a complex eco-system and top predators are especially vulnerable to a collapse of that eco-system.
The next step is from top predator in the collapsing planetary eco-system, to central nervous system of the emerging planetary organism. This will require a fundamental reassessment of many of our basic assumptions. One is to understand and accept the necessity of death as a function of life. You can’t have tomorrow until today is past. Life is a process of creation and consumption, as it bootstraps itself upward. Adults are the shell that forms as life hardens to protect the next generation and must be shed for the next generation to expand and have its day. It is that elemental being that shines through us all, Rich and poor. Top and bottom. The elites have developed ways to perpetuate themselves, but when they reach the point of being more burden than guide, they too get shed like an old shell.
Going back to the point about time, we as distinct individuals and the details of our lives fade away into the past, in order to push the essential consciousness forward and upward into the future.
Good and bad are not a dual between the forces of light and darkness, but are the binary code of biological calculation. Even the most basic life forms distinguish between beneficial and detrimental. Between light and dark are not just shades of grey, but all the colors of the spectrum.
P.S. For those advocating returning to a gold standard, read up on William Jennings Byron and his Cross of Gold speech. The problem with a gold standard, or any commodity based currency, is the “Golden Rule.” Those with the gold, rule. That’s the real advantage of a tax based currency. It really does work best when it’s understood to be the property of the taxpayers, just like a public road system.
If you want to get a good visual insight to these people google The Fabian Window, with its wolf in sheep clothing sheild and the picture of the planet being hammered into a new shape and the slogan Pray devoutly and hammer stoutly it says it all.
Thanks, Catherine, for your blog, which I only just discovered today (Feb. 7, 2009). The comments offered by all of you are also fascinating.
Certainly, the speed of the meltdown of the American AND global economy lends fuel to conspiratorial speculations. How can the U.S.–and the world’s–economy just fall apart so suddenly, and so catastrophically? Surely, SOMEone or some group is behind this, for if there’s no such group, then we truly in a random, utterly incomprehensible world.
My problem with conspiracy theories is a simple one: How do we verify it, if the conspiratorial group–those Masters of the Universe (MOTU)–is, by definition, so secretive that they cannot be uncovered? Several commentators here have asked Ms. Catherine to name these MOTU, but no names are forthcoming. Nor can they be, because if their identities are known, then it wouldn’t be a secret conspiracy…. Do you not see the conundrum?
And so, conspiracy theories are by their very nature unverifiable.
Perhaps there is another way to verify Catherine’s thesis, which is to act on her prescriptions — of withdrawing all our monies from the banking institutions, stock market, investment firms, etc. etc., so as to “deny the MOTU their lifeblood.” But the problem is this: won’t doing this immediately hurt us more than the MOTU because, surely, the MOTU have more fallback resources and plans than we pathetic little people? And how would doing this unmask the MOTU anyway? Do we expect all the MOTU to immediately fess up?
In the end, I’d like to ask Ms. Catherine a simple and direct question:
Please tell us what concrete steps YOU have taken, e.g., have YOU withdrawn all your money from our financial institutions? And if you have, what did you do to the money? Convert all your cash to gold or silver?
I agree with Catherine that the ‘cabal’ is ideologically driven. This is clearly necessary to allow for an effective, cohesive, self-healing, and (long-term) goal oriented organization that is (quantitatively) largely composed of ‘servant’ (for lack of a better word) members.
I further agree that we need to critically understand the fundamental tenants of this ideological view point, in order to undermine organization cohesion, morale, and ultimately loyalty of the workers in this global cabal.
Sri Gandhi is the thought leader to follow. Please understand that his non-violence was also a strategic position. He understood that the cabal that he was facing (British Empire) was also ideologically driven. He understood that the officer class and soldiers believed in the moral cause of the enterprise that was the British Imperialism.
His brilliant and decisive strategy to counter the British Imperialist (System) was to attack the very thing that held the various members of that overall system together: their sense of moral superiority.
We shall triumph in the same exact manner.
(Now: Know that the masses have shown themselves to be thoughtless. Should global affairs be left to the whims of thoughtless? That’s a compelling argument to recruit intelligent workers into a global order …)
Catherine: You are one hell of a courageous, talented woman. Along with attorney Ellen Brown, you are two of my heroines. Too few women (I am a female) GET or delve into how the financial parasites captured control of our monetary/banking system.
I encourage everyone to read patriot extraordianaire’s Andrew Hitchcock’s compelling “Synagogue of Satan: The secret History of Jewish Domination” available for free here – http://www.iamthewitness.com/ and also his online radio interviews from Patriot Daryl Bradford Smith’s incredibly important website – NOTE: Please support our Patriots financially.
Folks,
Get a clue. The wealthy have always wanted it ALL, evil wants it ALL. Now, having worked for ‘The Wealthy’ before, they are far superior to ‘pedestrians’, they will make better use of YOUR resources, they will make this a better world for ‘all’, they know more than you, they have always used governments as tools, we, on the other hand, buy into the bullsh*t, you know…conspiracies and UFO’s and such, are painted as ‘jokes’ and we then laugh. (I used to think UFO’s were a joke, then I saw one, up close enough to know, the joke was on me. I started rethinking a lot of things.)
Now, lookup Georgia Guidestones, and you will see what the agenda is. ‘The Earth can support no more than 500 millions’….their agenda is a controlled DIE OFF. Leaving the best and brightest and whats left of the depleted oil and resources for THEIR PROGENY to rule and control. Is there one group that controls ALL? I doubt if China and Russia will go along with that plan, the Final War will most likely be the battle for supremacy of ALL by the control of OIL in the ME. Deal with it, since part of the plan must be a another War of proportions sufficient to cause people to submit to ‘denationalization’. The Bible gives the answer, extract yourself from ‘The System'(come out of her), hide(go into the wilderness), and wait it out by teaching and clinging to old fashioned concepts of good vs evil, because in the end, evil does lose.
This time was predicted long ago, and it is coming true now. I didn’t believe this, until I saw the light, literally a UFO, we must recognize that this time coming is tantamount to a Great Tribulation, a convergence of crises, a Global Modified Malthusian Event if you will. If you keep your money in the system, you’re dead. If you don’t have a farm, and woods to hide in, and a collective of folks who are decent, hard working and ready to face the future, you’re dead. The Great Tribulation will start with economics:
“…a measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny, and spare ye not the oil and the wine.” Rev 6:6…this speaks of the elimination of the middle class. Only two classes of people left, the very poor and the very rich. Next comes a ‘new money’, it is already in progress, its called Chip Credit. You receive a biochip, and your global credits are stored, so you can no longer ‘buy or sell without The Mark’. The Bible also gave the answer to all these financial problems, its called a JUBILEE. All debts are forgiven, global bankruptcy. Reset the economies and start over, the poor are made whole, but the rich are hurt, so it won’t happen. But there is a movement building for it, and they will be branded as Religious Nuts/Christian Economic Terrorists. The Future will end up being a dark scifi novel, those of us in the wilderness, will continue to watch with interest. I never believed any of this until I saw an article on the mark, the original Greek word in the Bible was ‘stakos’, to stake, or stick. The new bio chips, are injected, with….a hypodermic, you are are ‘stuck’. Hmmm….a 2000 year old prophecy, says that money will go away, and be replaced by something stuck in your palm or forehead? Then I read, where they are working on this new system of credit based on biochips, that will ONLY WORK IN YOUR PALM OR FOREHEAD(due to chip ‘migration’)!. Now how does some guy in a cave, 2000 years ago, see technological developments that are occurring, now? So if he was right about that, then things are going to get real bad, especially if your church or God is subsumed into their new one world religion (its gotta happen to have a one world government/’culture’). If you don’t believe, then, you’ll remain lost among the stars anyway. That is what LOST originally meant, we are lost in the Universe, and are trying to Return to the Source, God, from whence we came. But you must lighten yourself, and be free of dark energy in order to ascend. All religious doctrines are subsets of hyper dimensional truth, turn away from anger at those doing what they must do, and turn towards empathy for all, love your enemy as yourself, only then, will you be safe from the coming storm by hiding and rising above it. Likewise, the ‘infinite growth on a finite planet’ economic paradigm must end, but, they, are in control of this paradigm shift, for now.
All:
Wow! What a terrific original article by CAF and a great bunch of commentators! I am the only person I know of in all of so-called West Texas who is on to CAF, but I see she indeed has her admirers. Her own comment on the “names” of the prime rats is brilliant and moral. These days that is getting to be a rare combination. I tend to see “the Jews” (see Israel Adam Shamir’s site for more on this) as among the arch baddies about money (as Ezra Pound said), but I also think Henry Makow is on to something with his emphasis on rich anglos like the Queen. But Catherine has the concept of action right: stop feeding the tapeworm. My bottom line is mostly old Brother Lawrence’s modus op: God could fix it if he choose, so not to worry about anything, but try to take God’s guiddance in all things, and fasten seat belts.
Yolanda’s questions are interesting. They point toward that old question: if money is no longer an issue, what do people want? Many of us would say, family, hobbies, do what you love, giving something back, taking care of those less fortunate, something like that. However, there are people out there that would say, “if money is no longer an issue, then what I want next is POWER.” Hence, you see these grossly paid executives and politicians of every stripe.
But you can ask the question again, “why power?” As Yolanda pointed out, both power and money come with a lot of headaches, and, for the most of us, just don’t end up supporting a happy life.
The answer I come up with is, simply, EGO. The people that do this stuff simply believe that it is their right and maybe even their divine duty, to have absolute control of everyone and everything, and to be served at their beck and call by everyone on the planet. And they believe that it is necessary for *their* happiness. So are these people actually, truly, happy? I would say no, and in addition I actually doubt that this is the path to happiness.
gepay
I am intrigued by your comment:
“Like Hitler who did do what he was set up to do (Go east young man – ravish Russia – destroy Germany) before he slipped his leash, this present financial meltdown has evaded the control of ‘the powers that be’.”
After reading John Toland’s biography of Adolph Hitler, I have begun suspecting just exactly that which you contend. It seems similar to the Saddam Hussein story.
Hitler, in his 1939 Danzig speech, mentions that he brought Germany back without foriegn capital, and I think that was his undoing.
Could you elaborate or recommend some sources?
For those friends who have been asking about the identity of individuals, corporations, and organizations playing ‘masters of the world”, the clue to answers is found in ‘following the money’. More often than not, those at the pinnacle of global financial powerhouses are directly or indirectly yet intentionally involved. The task of identifying these ‘players’ is made easier by their overlapping and cross-institutional involvement. For example, banking giants who also sit on the boards of industrial behemoths and/or media conglomerates and are members of ‘elite’ organizations like CFR, Trilateral Group, and such.
I write about many of these topics from an astrological/meta perspective and I have a number of posts in a series called, “The Melting Economy.”
People ask what we can do.
Here are my answers:
1) Unplug from the dominant paradigm. Begin to view life and it’s interconnected relationships from a vastly different perspective. When enough of us hold the view that the consensus reality we mostly agree upon is a massive illusion and a lie, then it begins to hold less and less power over us. We can actually shift reality itself by disconnecting in simple, yet very consistent ways. Question your assumptions about everything and hold true to what you do know to be real.
2) Love life. Even in the midst of the financial chaos that seems as though it is about to engulf us, make it a point to appreciate beauty and love in some aspect of your living. If you do not “they” have won.
3) Stay calm and clear. On my site, I wrote about The US AIR jet that crashed into The Hudson, which btw, was filled with bank employees (B of A) and Wells Fargo, including a retired fraud investigator. That plane should have gone down, but Sully stayed cool, calm and collected, piloting USA IR to a safe landing. I’m convinced that plane was supposed to go down and yet through the steady presence of one man, utter disaster was averted.
4) Be kind to people going through hard times. This period will challenge the best of us and test our mettle like no other.
Here is my website if you want to know more.
http://www.yahoo.com
There is no monolithic ‘they’. ‘They’ are mostly families – intergenerational control gives ‘them’ a longer time span. Control of land (food) was the original wealth. Buckminister Fuller speculated that those involved with sea voyages (given the long time spans involved in the age of exploration) began to think long term which gave them an advantage. Modern day insurance arose from the fact that those ships that were successful returned immense profits while there was the risk one could lose everything. Insurance started as a socialization of the risks of sea voyages – socialism for entrepeneurs. Every participant pays a little so nobody loses big.
The present power structure still has elements from the Royal famlies of Europe. The German Prince Bernhard who married into Dutch royalty started the Bilderbergers. Not every Bilderberger or CFR or Trilateral Commission member is in the inner circle but you can be sure some of them are.
When I lived on Nantucket Island, I noticed that the town houses became fancier the further up the hill one ventured. People with names like Starbuck would have owned a nice house. It came with a widow’s walk and was only a short walk up the hill from town center. Beyond the captain’s houses would be even bigger houses, some with walls around them. These belonged to the merchants of Nantucket. In the era of whaling ships, before electric lights, the homes of America were illuminated with whale oil lamps. The merchants outfitted whaling ships and merchandised whale oil. They made a fortune and never went to sea.
So you have the royal families and the merchants and then the bankers with occasional warrior kings added making up the Renaissance power structure. But wait I forgot the priests and the Pope and the Knights of Malta (Sovereign Military Order of Malta SMON) which still exists today – Members you might have heard of in its American chapter are Prescott Bush Jr. (brother of George Sr) or Alexander Haig. Many former CIA directors were Knights of Malta – William Casey (under Reagan), John McCone (JFK), Allen Dulles (Eisenhower), and other intelligence types such as James Jesus Angleton and William Donovan. JFK’s father was a Knight of Malta but the boys didn’t join even though the right to join is hereditary. I guess they wanted to pledge allegiance to the US of A rather than to the Pope. In the old days, one had to have a history of nobility for at least 300 years before you could join. As late as the 1940’s, Evita Peron was not allowed to become a Dame of the Knights of Malta because she was too common. The late Clare Booth Luce, mistress to Allen Dulles and publisher of Time magazine with her husband (right wing doesn’t begin to describe where her politics started) was a Dame of the Knights of Malta. There are no official royal familes in the US so an exception was made for the United States. Some of its founding (1927) American members joined with the DuPont family (among other rich Americans) in an aborted plot to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt. The plot was foiled when they picked the wrong military man, Gen. Richard Smedley Butler. He had grown tired of being a lackey for the plutocrats who run America. Too many American boys under his command had lost their lives in Latin America so that big NY banks could get paid back the bad loans they made to corrupt dictators. He played along and then turned them in. Think about the fact that you didn’t learn about this conspiracy of rich Americans to overthrow the elected government in your public school history class. I know I didn’t.
To these were added the industrial barons, railroad magnates, the printing press media types. Later came radio and TV and now IT types like Gates. Then the military-industrial complex as Eisenhower warned us of (notice how he warned us as he was leaving office) are the merchants of death that the progressives warned us about in the interwar period of the 20th century. Since WW2 the intelligence types who came out of these power families morphed into a power segment of their own. Outsiders like Shackley could use the power of the intelligence agencies to orchestrate the overthrow of the Whitlam Gough government in Australia in the 70s.
Cathereine has done much work in showing how Narcodollars have been used to corrupt the government and the financial system. The CIA began using narco dollars since WW2. Elements of the Russian military (after their involvement in Afghanistan) have joined with the CIA and the Russian Mafia (which is rapidly becoming the dominant global organized crime organization) to run the heroin trade from Afganistan. The deep state of Turkey is also involved. The drug trade was a large factor in why Kosovo was recognized as an independent country. Why it came into existence. The US military base, Camp Bondsteel and the Trepca leadmine were other reasons. Although the drug trade pales in comparison to oil. Exxon shatters profit records
Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007.
The profits of the drug trade however are tax free and not traceable. Pablo Escobar was rich enough to join but for some reason did not make the grade. As in the Godfather movies, some organized crime families are joining. As we are noticing, businessmen (especially on Wall Street) are acting more like gangsters and gangsters are acting more like businessmen,and politicians are using the revolving door to join the business world while the security operators are torturing like gangsters and…
These are the macroparasites. The most prominent nowadays are the ‘masters of the universe’ on Wall Street and the rest of the top echelon of FIRE. Notice how the bailout and the loan guarantees now involve more money then was spent on all the wars the US has been involved with and still hasn’t fixed the problem. The oil and resource barons. Those still powerful from the manufacturing world. The new IT types along with the old media barons of Press, radio TV Hollywood. Politicians, gangsters, businessmen, It is now a global community with the 500 hundred families from Mexico, the Japanese keitetsu types, or people like Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, the brother of Fritz Thyssen (one of the earliest backers of HItler) who is the major owner of Krupp-Thyssen – one of the largest conglomerates in Germany.
What is impoertant to them is dependent on where their wealth or power comes (came) from. The communists of Russia were out of the system which explains the animosity of the West. The people who run Exxon have different ideas on how to run the world than say Bill Gates or the Pope. Jewish names are found out of all proportion to their numbers in the world but are still a minority. There is some evidence of the power elites in Belgium using pedohilia and human sacrifice in power rituals but talk about a murky area. Another area hard to discern is separating the science of Peak Oil and global warming from the control aspects these concepts give to the elites if they were acted on like there was a grizzly bear in the back yard. 99% of the adherents still drive cars and use jet planes. An area where there is quite alot of evidence is mind control. It is just so much easier if people go along with the program willingly than – “if you don’t falsify this intelligence we’ll have an ex-seal come into your house at night and kill your children”. Or -Around 1961 Aldous Huxley (author – Brave New World) said at a U.S. State Department-sponsored conference at the California Medical School in San Francisco: “There will be in the next generation or so . . . a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak. Producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel — by propaganda, or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”
The elites are are always scared because there are always so many more of us than them. They are richer than greed and they know that it aint right. While they live a life of luxury and ease, billions of humans don’t even get the necessities of enough food and clean water, a nice place to live with a future for their children.
In response to the request that I give names…
The answer is that I do not know. Sure, I can guess, but that is conjecture. And guessing the names of the “twelve people” who run the world or the various cartels, syndicates and secret societies bypasses the point that this system takes millions of people implementing the most forceful parts of it and hundreds of millions financing it. We get our greatest power when we see the betrayal that occurs at the most intimate levels. (BTW, where’s your money?)
I have found the ability to find the truth on any particular issues requires both the speedy admission that we don’t know, the ability to search for real facts and to do so with an open heart without anger. After all the time that I have invested to try to know the answer to these questions, I don’t know. Somehow, I am no longer frustrated by having to live in a state of ignorance about things I need to know to use my time and serve others effectively in this world.
Anger gives energy to evil. We need to channel all of our energy to ourselves and those who help and protect us.
oh…by the way,
Its not about finding the missing money. All fiat currencies are worthless, and will be more so when “they” get finished with us.
Find the names of the shareholders of the central banks, and you will have the ringleaders.
Its not the money that’s important, its the heads of those that have had a satanic grip on this planet for many centuries. They are sick people…inbred. Our world is run by maniacs…as if you couldn’t tell. LOL.
you want to break them. here’s something everyone can do.
TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY OUT OF THE BANK
TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY OUT OF INVESTMENT FIRMS
DO NOT SHOP AT BIG-NAME, OR NATIONAL, STORES
DO NOT WATCH TV
DO NOT READ THE MAIN REGIONAL NEWSPAPER
DO NOT SUPPORT YOUR CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT AND ITS OFFICIAL
DO NOT BUY STUPID CRAP, BUT ONLY ESSENTIALS
SHOP AT LOCAL STORES THAT KEEP MONEY IN THE COMMUNITY
COORDINATE WITH LOCAL FARMERS FOR PROVIDING FRESH PRODUCE TO COMMUNITY MEMBERS
DO NOT SUPPORT WAR
DO NOT SUPPORT ISRAEL…EVER
THAT’S A START. GOOD LUCK!
Well Catherine…give us some names, companies and the like. Who are they? Let the world know so we can stop this. Why the hiding behind the curtain?
Or is it simply about writing books, redirecting peoples energies, busy work…
if you are an honest person, and truly committed to helping…please give us the information we need.
Thank you.
The right question is, of course, who is in charge. The answer is that I do not know.
My personal experience is that there is a handful of families — intergenerational wealth– who run things. Yes, the Rockefellers are the most prominent in the US, although outside of David it seems to be mostly outside the bloodline at this point. Yes, there are also coordinating bodies used for management — both bureaucracies like G8 or various secret societies or policy bodies like the Trilateral Commission and the CFR. For my story on the CFR, read http://www.dunwalke.com .
The question is what is driving the current behavior. Is it the power of technology that gives extraordinary ability to centralize and kill?Is it the belief that war is essential to ensure control and a sustainable economy? Is it the perversion in culture that the black budget and organized crime breads? Is it thousands of years of intergenerational mind control? Is it the prisoner’s dilemma caused by the economics in which humans are easy to manipulate (See my article Narco Dollars for Beginners.) Or is it the belief that the only way to achieve sustainability on planet earth is significant depopulation? Or are the stories of aliens really true? Or an out of the box event, such as a pole shift that is anticipated to make the planet uninhabitable.
I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that we are dealing with leadership who are behaving rationally according to the rationale in which they are operating. That is why it is very important to understand their point of view, how they view their risks and why they are so afraid.
Which leads me back to the same question I have been asking for many years…where is the money and how do we get it back?
Find the money and we find the logic of the behavior as well as who is pulling the strings.
Step one is that the rest of us withdraw our money. We stop financing criminal enterprises and shift to the most competent, ethical that we find. That shift will reveal a great deal about who is who and what is really going one.
If you have a “tapeworm” best to stop feeding it what makes it grow and you die.
good post.
excellent comments by John Merryman, Jason Mutch, Brian, trisha, etc…
humanity’s three biggest problems:
(1) fraudulant money, coupled with usury;
(2) patents; and
(3) copyrights
all three stem from the same abominable human vice – GREED
these in turn are rooted in the original sin – ARROGANCE
have you ever met a greedy bastard who wasn’t arrogant???
most recognize the first as the root source of our problems, so it’s easier to tackle than the second and third which many believe to be vanguards of human ingenuity
Bullshit.
patents and copyrights, like our fraudulent and parasitic money system, are simply two additional ways for greedy arrogant bastards to leach off the labor and lives of the humble masses
no system of servitude is more efficient than that which is self-administered…
“the end is near” or so the sign of the man on the street corner read 30 years ago. But we all we thinking this guy was talking about god’s return and the end of the world. But now we know what he meant. And it is now the end and it’s too late.
your god will not save you now
Tonk Y asked who these groups are….names and backgrounds of those companies and individuals are detailed in two well documented articles found on the web: 1) describes the Russian coup: Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001; 2) describes the US coup: Collateral Damage (Part 2): The Subprime Crisis and the Terrorist
Attacks on September 11, 2001.
very good comments,
one think that did click,
the mentioning of people hiding with there *stuff* in gated community’s with bodyguards.
added to the state of the engineered economy and the mercenary scum formally known as “police”.
it just made me think of the film “soylent green” with charlton heston.
celebrating a teaspoon of jam whilst the rich hide in buildings with concrete motes around them!
To Yolanda and anyone who wants to know what the end goals are of this small group of people, you need to read “The Singuarity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil. It lays out with a time frame where all of mankind is heading. It involves a future where the labor is performed by artificial intelligence. He can be viewed at youtube giving a talk at the stanford summit on the singularity in 2006. He very briefly lays out most of the book for those who want to get an overview of just what the singularity is and the projected dates for achieving it. His predictions have proven to be precient for over 30 years. The Georgia guidestones also lay out what the endgame is including massive depopulation of this planet. It would seem that there are those in this world that think they are destined to become Gods and that they have been chosen by the God to lord it over those who are not smart enough or talented enough or born to their social level. Aaron Russo also can be viewed at youtube talking about the Rockefellar family and how they are part of this small group.
“The indication that they are highly satisfied is that they are not only not doing anything to relieve the world situation, but are apparently willing to have it made worse. The privations which are scheduled for it (unless Gentile flabbiness before the Jewish power, high and low, receives a new backbone), will bring the United States to the verge, if not across the very line, of Bolshevism.”
–Henry Ford, 1921
The same guys are stealing the money. First from Russia to NY, then from Europe and USA to where? Where is the missing 4 T dollars? I bet the money is in custody of Israel and being channeled to alternative countries to purchase banks, businesses etc. I’ll tell you what. The guys who study economics are just wasting their time. You can never learn economics unless you have a complicated brain like that of Hebrews. And one more thing. If you cant find to eat bread, EAT SOME CAKE!
Catherine. Have you ever read the Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom? I think it dealt mostly with social decay. Please keep up the stupendous work. Todd
What can we do to fight back? FIRST STRIKE AT THE ROOT OF IT ALL — THE FEDERAL RESERVE.
The only answer is outlaw the fractional reserve banking system, which is how these elites gain (the most) power in the first instance. Seize the Federal Reserve Bank and repudiate all the government debt it holds. This is the bank that controls the money supply of the people of the United States via an unconstitutional monopoly.
Then we return to a sound money system, which is gold and/or silver, as the constitution of the U.S. sets forth. With the medium of exchange being metals, the banking/government cabal cannot a) track every exchange, and b) make metals out of thin air, so c) they can no longer depreciate the currency and use this to steal the laborer’s purchasing power from them.
Watch America: From Freedom to Fascism, read the Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard, read/watch anything you can get your hands on that Ron Paul has written about “inflation tax” and the Federal Reserve, visit End the Fed, read Creature from Jekyll Island, all of these things if you want to understand the ROOT MECHANISM for it all. Destroy that root, and most of their edifice will collapse.
Simply stating that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, because a group of greed sodden ne’er do wells wants it to happen is pointless. We already knew this. We’ve always known it. What people are looking for is what they can do about it – not to engage in revenge, but to protect themselves from these bozos as much as possible. What about reversing U.S. Patent Law, for instance, which permits corporations like Monsanto and Genitech to patent portions of human and animal genomes? The control of food and seed supplies will enrich the elite beyond even THEIR wildest dreams and result in the deaths of millions – maybe billions. But, no. So-called investigative journalism keeps repeating the same old same old.
Another place for info is articles “Change the Mortgage Math” and “Private vs. Public Finance” – it is found in http://www.hourmoney.org (click on left-side column with this heading “Mortgages, Government, and Money Facts” to get to those two articles (both are brief one-page articles).
it was a good article but i find it interesting that although Catherine replied to a few posts she did not answer the question of ” who were these small groups of players whose names came up again and again?”. Pete Brewton wrote a book connecting the S&L loan scandal of the 80s to the mob and the CIA (shortly thereafter he was no longer a reporter). He named names but it did not make for great reading. It was diligently researched reporting but so many names made it hard to keep track. It was centered on Texas so locals there might have made the connections. Anyway, are the names not mentioned because they would not mean anything to most of us readers – the purveyors of the ‘hot money’ running around the world that can switch location at the speed of light. The ‘hot money’ tha governments can’t control and the Central Banks barely kept from collapsing the whole system with the Mexican peso crisis, Russian, Asian, etc. – were probably just the flunkies – the names of the people behind the operators whose money it actually was. Even with only 1 % of the 6 billion plus humans of the world, there are just too many to name. We only notice the Kissingers or the Bremers or the Soros or the Madoffs, the corporations like Goldman Sachs…
I don’t have trouble believing the thesis. Hopsicker recently pointed out that Carlos Slim, maybe the 2nd richest man in the world who recently gave a large cash infusion to the NYT after taking decades to make 5 billion made 10s of billions over the last decade or is it believable that La Ki Shing becames the 2nd richest man in Asia by starting out with plastic flowers (I imagine that his net wealth increased logarythmicallly after he gained control of ports and shipping) or the owner of Chelsea soccer… The nexus of oil, arms, drugs is only the most vile extension of the ‘Octopus’.
What has happened is that ‘we’ are suppoerting layers and layers of macroparasites. Queen Elizabeth is still one of the richest women in the world. The Rockefellers and the Rothchilds, the Agnelli’s etc… I imagine ‘we’ will be supporting the heirs of Gates for centuries.
Like Hitler who did do what he was set up to do (Go east young man – ravish Russia – destroy Germany) before he slipped his leash, this present financial meltdown has evaded the control of ‘the powers that be’. It has happened so fast that even the big guys at Citibank, Merrill lynch, AIG, et… got caught holding.
Just like the coup d’tat of the Kennedy assassination, ‘they’ try these things out in foreign countries (Argentina for a financial example) before bringing them home to you and me.
What we really have to worry about is – the perfection of robots or androids. You see, the British Emmpire outlawed slavery in the early 1800s but ‘they’ still needed someone to do the dirtywork. That is why decendents of Indian indentured servants are the largest ethnic majority in Guyana (former British Guiana). Once a substitute is perfected, then ‘they’ will proceed with the rumored plan B – getting the population down to hundreds of millions. Just as after chernobyl, highups got the iodine supplements and not the children in Belarus, you know who will get the ‘good’ vaccine that works and who won’t.
John Merryman, that was very insightful. If you haven’t read about it, you may wish to read about The Venus Project (just google). There are people out there looking beyond the tired concepts of left vs right, capitalism vs socialism and instead viewing us as people and positive societal evolution as a goal.
Yolanda, you are raising interesting questions–mainly, if there is a small group of players, “What is their ultimate purpose in doing this?”
My guess is, this small group is seeking absolute world domination through consolidating all power and money into their own hands. It’s a little hard to fathom why they would want to do this–since this small group of people must surely already be unimaginably wealthy and powerful. Yet you get the impression from history that this is what the wealthy and powerful invariably do–that getting more, and ultimately gettting it all, is the whole impetus of their existence.
As for the little problem you mentioned–“Even if one has lots of money to purchase bodyguards, buy gas, or whatever else one needs to survive, ultimately a person living such a life is living in paranoia and in constant fear for one’s life and in fear of being robbed of one’s “stuff” and one’s money or being killed for one’s stuff or money. How can that be a life? How can isolating oneself in a gated community to self-segregate oneself from the hungry riff-raff be a life? What kind of living is that?”–this is how such people have always lived.
I suppose there must be great satisfaction in having food while others are hungry, heat while others are cold, palaces while others are homeless, and wearing haute couture while others are in rags. In fact, if you look around your own neighborhood, you will notice that there are plenty of people who feel that way–and whose appetite for more is insatiable.
Why? I think it’s because, as the Book of Job says, “Man that is born of woman is few of days and full of trouble. He ariseth as a flower and is cut down; he fleeth even as a shadow and continueth not.” At some level, some people believe that if you could just get an infinite supply of everything that sustains life, you could be secure–maybe even somehow overcome this basic human condition and cheat death. This kind of thinking doesn’t make sense, but you can see it at work everywhere.
Hello Catherine:
Great and interesting post. I always find your posts informative. I have some questions that perhaps you could answer.
OK, let’s assume that there is a small group of players that surface again and again in different parts of the world and that are sucking the money out of different countries’ economies. What is their ultimate purpose in doing this?
OK, so they end up with lots of money. So what, if there are no places where one can live due to a)global warming, b)environmental degradation, c)social instability and lack of the rule of law due to extremes between the rich and poor (e.g. Sao Paolo), d)Peak Oil, e)extreme civil unrest, revolts, and revolution due to volatile economic situations, lack of food, overpopulation, etc. Any one of the events I just mentioned would be difficult to live through. Imagine trying to navigate them all.
Do you think that these individuals are stockpiling as much money and precious metals as possible to be the survivors after the de-industrialization and de-capitalization (i.e. if the capitalist system collapses)of human civilization as we know it? Do you think these individuals have chosen a “Last Man Standing” strategy? Or are they just greedy and thinking in the short term about how much they can amass?
I’m puzzled or perhaps I’m just naive or I ask dumb questions. But, apart from lots of money what do these players engineering the financial coup d’tat gain? Even if one has lots of money to purchase bodyguards, buy gas, or whatever else one needs to survive, ultimately a person living such a life is living in paranoia and in constant fear for one’s life and in fear of being robbed of one’s “stuff” and one’s money or being killed for one’s stuff or money. How can that be a life? How can isolating oneself in a gated community to self-segregate oneself from the hungry riff-raff be a life? What kind of living is that? Or am I missin the point somewhere? What do your other readers think?
Marsha:
Thanks for the suggestion. I will check it out. I agree with you about knowledge. I used to have a pastor in Washington who would always say, “If we can face it, God can fix it.”
As we are facing the facts, much positive power is unleashed.
Catherine
Catherine, thank you. I recently read a book entitled COMPRADOR by David R. Cudlip, 1984. He was with Brown Brothers, Harriman & Co. and before that had served in Europe with U.S. Army Intelligence. The book describes a small group of people evolved from the Portuguese comprador system in Asia, now international, who control regions of the worlds economies. The U.S. economy had been bled nearly dry, Russia was unstable and China was rising, all rigged by the small group. The book blew my mind considering where we find ourselves today. Now your article really brings it into perspective. Hard to believe and yet very easy to believe. I’m glad I came across your website. If we are destroyed it is at least worth while knowing what hit us.
Life is a state of nature; it is the getting of it.
I first began questioning economic orthodoxy by trying to figure out how Paul Volcker cured inflation by raising interest rates. Yes, inflation is caused by loose money, but higher rates hurt demand, ie, the borrower, while rewarding supply, ie, the lender. How do you cure an oversupply with perverse incentives? You don’t. What cured inflation was Reagan’s deficit spending. Not only was it direct demand for capital, but the public spending had a multiplier effect in the private economy. Meanwhile those loaning the money have its value supported and get paid interest. Interesting how a surplus of capital gets blamed on those lacking wealth, while those with a surplus of capital get rewarded. So I’m concerned that Volcker is now President Obama’s financial guru.
One of my arguments over the years has been that money has become a tax based public utility and our current financial system is a transition state between private banks issuing private currency, to now a publicly supported currency leased out to a private banking system and the next step will be a public banking system that will be incorporated at all levels of government, so that profits are re-cycled back through the communities which created them and depositors would naturally bank with those institutions that support the services they are most likely to use. Competition would be a function of the various communities trying to provide the best environment for people and business.
That is why I find it interesting to watch the banking system being rapidly nationalized. Rather than spending untold wealth to restore it to health and return it to the private sector, it needs to be broken up and distributed to the various levels of government, from counties and towns, to cities and states, with some degree of federal oversight of the banks and control of the currency. Though even the function of currency might be dispersed as well, with state and regional currencies supplementing a broad national currency.
The problem with Capitalism is that money is saved by investing it. This means loaning it to someone else. Therefore total savings are determined by how much can be prudently loaned, not by how much can be reserved from earnings. In order to accommodate surplus savings, loan standards were lowered and fantasy investment vehicles were created, creating an old fashioned credit bubble, enhanced by modern technical proficiency. That is why it is necessary to understand money as the public commons/wealth that it is, not the private property we have been led to believe. As an analogy, you own your house, car business, etc. but not the roads connecting them. Money is similar to the roads. It’s the interchangeability that makes it work. It is both medium of exchange and store of value, but as store of value it amounts to fat cells in the economy. Necessary in moderation and broadly dispersed, but dangerous in excess and concentration.
Viewing money as a public utility would incline us to store wealth in our communities and environment, rather than drain value out to put in a bank. Like democracy, it’s about strengthening the bottom up growth process, while defining the top down control mechanism to its most efficient functions.
Think of the current system as a world wide hurricane that has been sucking value out of resources and regions for the benefit of those riding it, while a broadly dispersed public banking system would be about local weather systems trained to deposit the liquidity of abstracted public wealth where it is most useful. Those systems which are corrupted and waste their resources would fall behind better run communities.
Obviously there are potential problems with any model, but this seems to me to be what the next step up the evolutionary ladder entails.
I’ve been reading articles on Huffington Post about creating new money. ok, so the old game is over…and fuel is the link in modern society. if people do not develop the will to rebuild their lives right now, they are lost. Global warming is happening and these people will be trumped by changes in nature. the banana is now infected with a virus that kills it…despite all the corporate money Chiquita has…..these corporations are also dependent on the systems for their control. the people in Mexico, South America and US can rise up, like Iceland and replace the systems. But we must have the personal will to do it.
Hi Catherine,
I like your stuff.
This certainly supports what I tell my friends in Mexico, that the reason we don’t have corruption in the USA is that we legalized it. Federal laws were undoubtedly broken, but very few will go to federal prison where they belong.
I was really surprised to hear Alan Greenspan say that he thought the financial institutions would self-regulate. I thought, gee, he must have had a different education than me, and he must have forgotten about Enron, the 1980s Savings and Loan scandal, and 1980s HUD scandal.
I have an answer for your question >> “was the time coming when we, too, would be “de-modernized?”
My original article with links is here: http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/2009/02/peak-oil-and-global-economy.html
“Peak Oil and the Global Economy”
Recent news headlines reveal that the U.S. economy is deteriorating rapidly: “Be Prepared for More Cutbacks,” “Mass Layoffs Continue at Rapid Pace,” and “Economy’s Plunge is Worst in Quarter-Century.”
The Work Bank forecasts that the recession of 2008 will extend into 2009 and probably to 2010:
“A pronounced recession is believed to have begun in mid-2008 in Europe, Japan, and most recently, the United States. This recession is projected to extend into 2009. The possibility of a serious global recession cannot be ruled out. Even if the waves of panic that have inundated credit and equity markets across the world are soon brought under control, the crisis is likely to cause a sharp slowdown in activity stemming from the deleveraging in financial markets that has already occurred and that is expected to continue.”
The World Bank sees some signs of optimism for 2010, but concludes that “global recession is likely to be protracted” and “an even sharper recession is likely.”
A variety of analysts of The Wharton School, forecast a deep recession extending through 2010 and possibly beyond.
Gerald Celente, Editor and Publisher of “The Trends Journal,” forecasts a global economic collapse beginning in 2009 (interview summary, not quoted directly):
The global economy will collapse in 2009, resulting in the worst recession in the post WW II period. The commercial real estate sector is highly leveraged and will collapse beginning in late February or early March as major retailers fail, leaving vacant rental space that will not be filled. This will lead to further failures in the finance and banking sectors and higher unemployment which is at 13% and growing.
Some two-thirds of the U.S. economy is based on consumerism, which is declining rapidly due to increasing unemployment. Declining personal income means a shrinking tax base and a need to raise state, local, and federal taxes and user fees.
This economic collapse, Celente believes, will lead to the “Greatest Depression,” more corporate fraud, increased street crime, taxpayer revolts, rioting, and revolution. Survival is now a real concept as people lose investments and jobs. A return to frugality and self-sufficiency will characterize the economy in years to come.
Financial analyst Gail Tverberg explains the economic crisis in terms of a “Tower of Debt.” Because most debt ultimately rests on personal income, as personal income declines most debts are at risk: unfunded pension liabilities, unfunded Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security debt, publicly held federal debt, government sponsored enterprises (such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), state and local government debt, financial businesses, businesses, and household debt (mortgages, credit cards, and education loans). This supports Gerald Celente’s forecast. When personal income declines (due to increasing unemployment), consumerism declines, retails businesses fail, highly leveraged commercial centers fail and default on loans, causing banking and financial institutions to collapse.
ASPO-Ireland examines the economy in light of Peak Oil (excerpts from the ASPO Newsletter [not copywrited):
“Oil demand had begun to outpace supply around 2005, when the production of Regular Conventional Oil passed its peak. The shortfall was however relatively small and was partly met without undue difficulty by a modest reduction in consumption.
But as prices began to firm, oil traders and other speculative financial institutions began to take a position in the market, which had the effect of driving up the price. Gradually the process built momentum as huge notional profits were reaped from the appreciating asset. In a conventional market such movements would soon be countered by increased production, but in the case of oil, there was no spare capacity to release, and the speculative surge fed on itself leading to an extreme escalation in price which reached about $150 a barrel by July 2008. However as this peak [in prices] was approached, the traders began to conclude that a limit was close and began to buy future options at lower prices, which began to undermine the price in a self-fulfilling process. In parallel the high prices began to undermine many other aspects of the economy with for example airlines and automobile manufacturers facing difficulties. They themselves relied heavily on debt, which itself was traded between banks without adequate genuine collateral, and were forced to unload their speculative oil positions in order to try to shore up their failing businesses. Gradually the whole edifice collapsed, and oil prices fell to around $50 a barrel, although nothing particular had changed in the actual supply/demand relationship.
The flaw in the system was to treat a finite resource whose production was largely controlled by the immutable physics of the reservoir as if it were a normal commodity capable of responding to ordinary market pressures. If the price of potatoes increases, farmers can grow more and the market responds, but oil is different.
Governments responded to the crash by pouring yet more money, itself lacking genuine collateral, into the system in the mistaken belief that this would restore the position of assumed eternal growth, and quite possibly the stock market will respond positively as traders sense a new upward direction. They have no real interest in reality: their job being to try to reap rewards from short term movements.
But if there is an economic recovery, that would serve to increase the demand for oil, which is in a sense the lifeblood of the modern world, and oil prices would again begin to surge. Probably, it will take several such vicious circles before governments and, more important, people at large at last come to grasp the reality of the situation, which will likely prompt radical changes in the human condition.
Meanwhile, desperate efforts are being made around the world to shore up the crumbling financial system. For example, the Bank of England has radically reduced interest rates in a country facing a severe recession, effectively taking money from savers to give to spenders.
The Government has evidently failed to grasp the underlying causes of recession and hopes that pumping a bit of money into the system will restore it to its previous condition. That was premised on eternal economic growth, which is a somewhat unrealistic proposition for a Planet of finite dimensions, but Governments subject to re-election are by nature short-term in their thinking.
One is led to conclude that the entire Stock Market, including especially the oil market, has become a thoroughly debased speculative institution. In earlier years, investors clubbed together to build a specific project, such as a canal or railway, with the resulting dividend being the prime motivation. Things seemed to have gone wrong when such investments were traded on markets by financial institutions which naturally can have no serious knowledge of the underlying business or the true value to be placed upon it.”
Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, like ASPO-Ireland, notes that today’s low oil prices and credit shortage will reduce investments needed for oil production, resulting in lower oil production in the future, followed by increasing oil prices as demand out strips supply, which will then cause another economic downturn in the future. Simmons also notes that the aging oil infrastructure of drilling rigs, rusting platforms, pipelines, and refineries must be renovated, requiring trillions of dollars in investments at a time when credit is tight..
Independent studies indicate that Peak Oil occurred between 2005 and 2008 and that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil the U.S. conserves will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly. More and more oil is expended in oil production and processing as lower grades of oil are extracted from an increasing number of smaller oil fields that are located in hard to access ocean depths. These factors will increase the oil production decline rate above the six percent that is forecasted in a few years
These Peak Oil factors suggest that there will be no economic recovery following the economic collapse of 2009 and that the recession will deteriorate into a permanent economic depression that will worsen over time.
In 2007, the U.S. General Accountability Office (advised by a panel of 13 scientists of the National Academy of Sciences) examined the potential of alternative energies for replacing liquid fuels (that are vital for transportation and food production):
“An imminent peak and sharp decline in oil production could have severe consequences. The technologies we examined [ethanol, biodiesel, biomass gas-to-liquid, coal gas-to-liquid, and hydrogen] currently supply the equivalent of only about 1% of U.S. annual consumption of petroleum products, and DOE [U.S. Department of Energy] projects that even under optimistic scenarios, these technologies could displace only the equivalent of about 4% of annual projected U.S. consumption by around 2015. If the decline in oil production exceeded the ability of alternative technologies to displace oil, energy consumption would be constricted, and as consumers competed for increasingly scarce oil resources, oil prices would sharply increase. In this respect, the consequences could initially resemble those of past oil supply shocks, which have been associated with significant economic damage. For example, disruptions in oil supply associated with the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 and the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 caused unprecedented increases in oil prices and were associated with worldwide recessions. In addition, a number of studies we reviewed indicate that most of the U.S. recessions in the post-World War II era were preceded by oil supply shocks and the associated sudden rise in oil prices. Ultimately, however, the consequences of a peak and permanent decline in oil production could be even more prolonged and severe than those of past oil supply shocks. Because the decline would be neither temporary nor reversible, the effects would continue until alternative transportation technologies to displace oil became available in sufficient quantities at comparable costs. Furthermore, because oil production could decline even more each year following a peak, the amount that would have to be replaced by alternatives could also increase year by year.”
There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and surface mining equipment.
The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
“By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair.
When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances.
With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
Governments, business and individuals should prepare for the impacts of Peak Oil. END OF ARTICLE.
Peak Oil is documented here: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
This is a catastrophic situation, but I have a life boat waiting for anyone who has resources to buy land here, (I don’t sell land). clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or call me at 603-668-4207 which is my old US number, but connects here in a small town in the State of Veracruz, Mexico, and a really nice place to live.
Catherine,
I absolutely LOVE your language “Financial Coup d’Etat”!!!! Your anecdote about the three South American women struck a personal note with me, as I have spent much of my life working in South and Central America. The process of economic and cultural colonization has nearly robbed these proud people of their land and heritage, but I believe they are a shinning example to the rest of the modern world, including us here in the USA, that people can reclaim their natural inheritance from the forces of greed and corruption. I was pleased to see you give credit to the work of Naomi Klein and Greg Palast. Are you familiar with the writings of Robert Parry?
Having recently retired, for the third time, I am now doing some consulting work and languishing in northern California. If you need a “soldier” in the fight against “de-modernization” let me know. You have my eMail address, and I will respond promptly.
Thank you for your commitment to economic justice.
ta
Tom:
Good for you!
Centexn
Yes. I just finished watching it. It is still quite relevant to our current situation.
Catherine
Captains and the Kings. Is this the mid 70’s series with Patti Duke?
Catherine, I recently ran for Congress, thought I would not do it again. You helped change my mind – I will try again…because there is no one else who is willing and able…and I must “ride to the sound of the guns” one more time. I hope to be better armed this time($).
Regards,
Tom
215-230-5330
THANKS CATHERN — YOU ARE ONE COURAGOUS GAL IN A WORLD FULL OF COWAEDLY BLIND GREEDY MALES HIDING IN THEIR ” GOOD OLE BOY” SUPER SECRET CLUBS —- and yes — another gutsy gal —TAYLOR CALDWELL — TRIED DESPERATELY TO WARN US YEARS AGO —- THRU HER MANY NOVELS ( CAPTAINS AND KINGS — etc ) — about what was really going on —– the people who should be most alert to dangerous enimies are sound asleep — I am speaking of most of christianity — and REFUSE TO BELIEVE IN ANY SORT OF A CONSPIRACY going on in this country — and yet JESUS covered this problem with one simple statement — ” BEWARE OF THOSE WHO DO THEIR DEEDS IN DARKNESS ” ( secrecy ) ———— PEACE KEN
Brilliant Article! Thank You! The “small group of players” is the Illuminati. Or, if you prefer a different name, it would be the arms of the Rothschild Banking Dynasty. Here you go:
I was wondering if you have heard anything about the Nasdaq’s “PORTAL Alliance”? This consortium of Rothschild-influenced banks was created in November of last year, but there has been a complete media blackout regarding any of its activities since it was created.
When you look at the list of financial institutions and banks that are “members”, everything that has happened in the financial markets since last November (a fascist coup) starts to make one uneasy…
From Forbes.com:
(1744-1812) Meyer Amschel Rothschild:
Meyer Amschel Rothschild helped invent modern banking by introducing concepts such as diversification, rapid communication, confidentiality and high volume. The superlatively discreet foreign-exchange banker diversified from the very beginning, selling antiques and procuring loans. Remarkably, Rothschild was willing to cut into his own profits in order to secure future business.
And, earlier than most, he understood that time and information meant money, and he pulled out all the stops to remain in constant contact with associates across Europe. That network came in handy when he helped finance England’s war effort during the Napoleonic Wars. Rothschild institutionalized his bank with a far-sighted will that ensured the continuation of his business. Considered a founding father of international finance, his banking empire–thanks to his five sons–had expanded to London, Paris, Vienna and Naples at the time of his death.
Corporate Heirs:
Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER ), Lehman Bros. (nyse: LEH ), Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC ), Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS )…
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/07/21/rothschild-banking-international-cx_0721bizmanrothschild.html
——-
PORTAL Alliance:
The founding members of The PORTAL Alliance are: Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, NASDAQ, UBS and Wachovia Securities.
(see: “PORTAL Alliance” – 144a)
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/071112/131151.html
http://ir.nasdaq.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=275224
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSN1245320920071112?sp=true
http://www.portalalliancemarket.com/
Tony:
On the recommendation of blog poster, I just finished watching the old TV series “Captains and Kings.” If you watch it, that may help you.
Catherine
Catherine,
Who are these small group of players that appear again and again? What are their names?
Hi – Two other excellent books to suplement Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and Greg Palast’s Armed Madhouse, are Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire by James Petras, 2007 and The Naked Capitalist by W. Cleon Skousen, 1970. I was a delinquent in finding a love of alternative reconstructions of history. I enjoy your insights and writings. Write On!
Is the quote below what Thomas Jefferson had in mind? The main reason the colonies rebelled was “mercantilism”. My textbooks in grade school didn’t explain the details of “mercantilism”, but I would guess it means economic imperialism — milking countries of their life and energy through the financial system. (This seems like an erie analogy to the movie, “The Matrix” because the correspondences are many and fit so well. Some are not just analogies but real falsehoods created by controlled media. (Or should I say nearly any significant source of information?)
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” –President Thomas Jefferson, 1802, letter to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin
Incredible!
Thank you!
P.S.: See “Zeitgeist”
and “Zeitgeist” Addendum.