Not paranoid, just repeating the words of a former Fed staffer who recently noted that recent FOMC policy meetings consisted of 1/3 time spent on data and policy and 2/3 on wordsmithing and coordinating the messaging efforts.
No surprise there, as that is a legacy function (feature?) of the Greenspan era.
Putting more money into the system risks no less than the dollar itself.Mr. Martenson,
Could you expand the fact that all this money is only being put into circulation as interest bearing debt and it’s the fact we all have to collectively borrow from the banking system before we can spend that hurts?
I have to say that this is flying 10,000 feet above my understanding level, but it just look to me like another one of this very dangerous gambling that is taking place in the financial system. Could anybody explain this ?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/will-repo-reserve-carry-trade-blow-force-bernanke-pull-liquidity-and-kill-stock-market-rally
Hi Thomas and All,This article fits into the discussion. I found it over on Carolyn Baker’s web site, http://carolynbaker.net/ where she has posted CM’s “…Mortal Wound…” video. Scroll down to see the article on financial totalitarianism
I say End the Fed. Spend money into existence at 0% interest.
Broadspectrum
“How do I invest my money for it to survive financial, political and commercial collapse?” The short answer is: “Nohow. Money will not survive collapse; not yours, not anyone else’s.” But that answer is not acceptable, because accepting it would require a profound loss of faith—faith in money… http://carolynbaker.net/2011/04/04/financial-totalitarianism-by-dmitry-orlov/
Certainly the whirling printing presses of the Federal Reserve here and those of other countries which are trying to keep up, that is, destroying their own currencies in order to prop up their export trade, is responsible at least in large part, for the rise in value of gold and silver. Gold and silver are real money which retain their purchasing power against an inflated paper currency whether that currency is redeemable or not.
There is an oft quoted story that in 1910 one could purchase a three piece suit for twenty dollars. A twenty in those days would be a gold certificate, that is one could redeem to paper for a twenty dollar gold piece, such as a St. Gaudens Double Eagle, thought to be by many the most beautiful coin in the world.
The creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 was the result of a stealthy move by the banking cartel. You must read G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature From Jekyll Island for a detailed presentation of this act of power lust, as J.P. Morgan arranged for a secret meeting at his hunting lodge off the coast of Georgia in 1910, not to hunt ducks rather to write what became the Federal Reserve Act.
Since the Fed was created it expanded the currency reducing the purchasing power of the dollar by over 95%. Nowadays a three piece suit could easily cost as much as $1500. Notice that is the value of a coin of the barbarous relic.
But in the case of silver its rise in value is not dependent entirely on the printing presses. We do not yet know the true free market value of silver because we have not had a free market in silver. Its value has been artificially held down for decades by manipulation in the form of sales of “naked” short silver futures contracts. In this regard read Ted Butler’s articles archived at Investment Rarities (www.investmentrarities.com). A link on the home page is entitled: The Biggest Factor in the Future Price of Silver.
Recent attempts to have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Gary Gensler set position limits have not yet materialized and J.P. Morgan continues to sell silver contracts representing a holding exceeding all the silver mined in a year.
Industrial demand for silver has been and will continue to grow and there is evidence of silver shortages which will cause the price to continue to rise toward its free market value. Not that an end to Fed’s QE2 will not cause a ripple but there are other factors in the silver price in my opinion.
Here is a link to the latest commentary by the silver analyst Ted Butler:
http://goldsilver.com/news/silver-metal-investment-a-presidential-bombshell-by-theodore-butler/
These booms and busts have been a particular part of the system for a long time, at least since nixon removed the gold standard.
These guys running the various central banks around the world are not so so stupid they don’t understand how it all works. Even if clowns like Bernake and Trichet truely believe in what they are doing and saying… they are just puppets, feeding on BS and there are CEOs and bankers behind the scenes pulling the strings.
For a period of time the central bankers play nice guy, keeping interest rates low, keeping money supply fluid and economy booming. Then they play bad guy, jam on the breaks, slow the money supply, and the economy takes a hit.
Of course its never as bad as it seems since people will always need food, fuel, homes, furnishings, technology etc. and life goes on…
But when they jam on the breaks, its shakes the passengers… businesses fail, other businesses get bought out for pennies in the dollar. Jobs dry up, the labor market becomes tough… and what is the result ? … It keeps the general population guessing and struggling, it keeps medium businesses as prey for larger ones, and it keeps the banks and corporations in the driving seat.
If I have a bus full of passengers and I keep jamming on the breaks every time someone stands up to get me to stop or change or replace me as a driver, well guess what I get to remain the driver.
If you ask me its a pump and dump scheme, and even the level of Govt. debts around the world is exactly where these bankers and corporations want the level to be at, because a bankrupt Govt. struggling, especially into a sea of rising interest rates, that’s a Govt. you can control.
Imagine if things had continued and countries like Portugal, New Zealand, Greece, Hungary etc. had their finances in order and no public debts… they would become independant from the system. They could pick and chose their own rules and be free. Not good if you are Exxon Mobile or Microsoft or etc. wanting to sell products and have a free run of the market…
Its not a conspiracy theory as such, its simply the easiest explanation. The one that benefits the powerful few at the expense of everyone else.
The dollar is not going to collapse, they will run interest rates back up again, and screw everyone, gold bugs included. Look at what happened in the 70s, in the face of total debasement, and loss of gold standard, this huge commodities boom and economic turmoil … resulted ultimately in interest rates running to the moon and gold prices collapsing.
It worked so well they are doing it all over again… and why not, its like a jackpot machine…
Its not so much about money or wealth, or rigging the markets, its about power… the biggest drug…is power… not money…
If you don’t believe it, then just take a look at the latin american model of governace, because that’s where the world is headed. A country that puports to be badly run and massively in debt. and have terrible government, but quietly supporting a small masively weathy elite class, that have servants and huge houses etc. etc… Some lucky few entertainers, actors, business people, the chosen few to make it look like you can suceeed, and an enormous population living in abject squalor. America is already 75% of the way there, so is the UK and alright they are a little more socialist in EU, but with all the cut backs and debts, pretty soon it will be the same too…
Welcome to the reality people… which tin shack did you prefer… the one next to the drug dealers or the one next to the old lady dying of some horrible disease with no medical assistance ?
All the gold and silver in the world ain’t going to help you when they jam up interest rates… Govt. debt be damned, no one cares about that… that’s just the honey trap the Govts. have all fallen in to, it will leave them at the mercy of the corporations.
It doesn’t matter even if you have the most amazing zen monk, dali lama as president, with all the debts he will take on, you can control him better than any string puppet…
The one who pulls the plug on the debts and tries his hand at playing outside the system will be hung from the lampost outside the whitehouse by his own stupid citizens who will rebel when all their ideals of savings and pensions etc. dry up and disappear like they did in Argentina…
Until then expect more of the same and that means in time, interest rates going to the moon.
If gold takes over the paper money, no one wins, the bankers and corporations lose and we have a level playing field and a real economy… no one is going to let that happen, way too much power at stake. !
Even if they have to bankrupt the US Govt. and default on its debts and crash everything, release a new US dollar with interest rates at 20% … anything they will do to maintain power and avoid the gold standard.
Isn’t there a theoretical possibility that the FED just has to keep using the capital repayments due from QE2 to keep QE3 going without actually printing any more money?
technet:
Welcome to the club.
So basically what you’re saying is that the parasite wants to kill the host. The problem with the parasite is that its too greedy. Kid of like Aesop’s fable of the turtle and the scorpion, how the turtle was going to swim to the dry land and the scorpion wanted a ride on its back. When the scorpion bit the turtle, the turtle asked “why did you bite me, dont you know its in your interest not to have me die as we now will both die?” To which the scorpion responded “its my nature.”
In a way I agree with you’re analysis. The ones in control of the situation are the uber wealthy, and since they are so greedy (Gerald Celente calls them money junkies) they care not that they will kill the host (95% of US households), all they care about is more power and wealth. Eventually however, without a vibrant middle class the corporations themselves go bust as no one can afford their products.