Showing posts with label THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Show all posts

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Peter Schiff: ‘The Fed Is Like Mr. Magoo! We Are Headed For A Massive Financial Crisis’


Peter Schiff has been saying that even though the stock market is on a slow downward slide, the biggest problem is actually in the bond market. Last week, Schiff warned us to be wary of the calm before the storm, and this week, he said most, including the Federal Reserve, are oblivious to the upcoming crash.


Yields have risen to levels not seen since before the 2008 crash. More significantly, the yield curve is flattening, according to Schiff. 



According to Seeking Alpha, Schiff pointed out, if you go back to the Second World War and look at average bond yields, these low rates are an aberration. They’ve been low for a long time, but they aren’t going to stay low forever. And yet the market seems to think it’s going to go on for another 30 years.


“Clearly, the market assumes that interest rates on 10-year government bonds are going to stay just barely over 3% for the next 20 or 30 years. I mean, that is crazy. Why would anybody think that?”


Just consider the deficits as well. The federal government is running $100 billion per month budget deficits – and this is during a supposed economic expansion. What’s going to happen when we hit a recession? And of course, rising interest rates just compound the problem. As Treasuries come due, the government has to replace them with higher interest rate bonds. This expands the deficit even further.


Also compounding the problem is the money printing scheme the Federal Reserve has taken to.  Why in the world would any rational person assume inflation will remain low?


We also have interest rates at around 3% and there is already some handwringing and nervousness. But as Peter said, they could easily blow through four or even 5%. The Fed keeps saying it plans to reduce its balance sheet, but it hasn’t sold very many bonds to date. What happens if they follow through with tightening plans and start dumping bonds on the market?


If [the Fed] continues to stay on this path, or at least the rhetoric is on this path, rates could blow through 3% like a hot knife through butter.”


Schiff then discussed Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, who said they [the elite globalists that run the Federal Reserve] can’t find any signs of an impending crisis. He said there are no warning signs at all.


“Well, of course, that’s exactly what they said in 2007 and 2008. In fact, even when there was the mother of all warning signs – the crash of the subprime market – the Fed looked at that and said, ‘That’s nothing. It’s contained.’ We’re not worried about that.’ So the Fed has already proved when it comes to warning signs and seeing them in advance, they’re like Mr. Magoo. They have no idea what’s going on. And in fact, just like Mr. Magoo, they create all kinds of havoc all around them as they blindly move through the economy having no idea what’s going on, and there’s just all kinds of carnage.We are headed for a massive financial crisis.”


Schiff has yet to change his mind: we are headed for some major problems in the economy and most are unaware and unprepared.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Iran Dumps The US Dollar: ‘The Dollar Has No Place In Our Transactions Today’


The nation of Iran has dumped the United States dollar in favor of the European euro amid tensions with Washington.  Tehran’s supreme leader has proclaimed that the “dollar has no place in our transactions today.”


According to RT, The governor of Iran’s central bank (CBI) Valiollah Seif said that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the dollar has no place in our transactions today. The new policy could reportedly encourage government bodies and firms linked to the state to increase their use of the euro at the expense of the American currency.


The dollar’s downward spiral continues as financial analyst Peter Schiff predicted in 2008 and has been warning of ever since.  Schiff pulled no punches when saying that the long-term trend for the dollar is essentially a slow death.


They’re going to print money until they revive the economy. You can’t revive the economy by printing money. They’re going to suffocate it to death. It’s going to die by hyperinflation. –Peter Schiff


France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods later this year to keep its trade out of the reach of US sanctions, said the head of state-owned French investment bank Bpifrance. According to CBI’s Director of Foreign Exchange Rules and Policies Affairs Mehdi Kasraeipour, the share of the greenback in Iran’s trade activities is not high. As part of a trade embargo, US banks are banned from dealing with Iran.


Last month, Tehran announced that purchase orders by merchants that are based on US currency would no longer be allowed to go through import procedures. The step followed an official request by the CBI and was specifically meant to address fluctuations in market rates of the US dollar. –RT


Iran is also seeking to develop cryptocurrencies to beat the United States at their own sanctioning game.




Tehran, which has long sought to switch to a non-dollar-based trade, had already signed agreements with several countries. It is also currently in talks with Russia on using national currencies in settlements.


While meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in November, Khamenei said the best way to beat any US sanctions against the two countries was joint efforts to dump the American currency in bilateral trade. He told President Putin that, by using methods such as eliminating the US dollar and replacing it with national currencies in transactions between two or more parties, the sides could isolate the Americans.”


But Peter Schiff says that it’s the Federal Reserve that will crash the dollar.  Iran’s decision to no longer use the dollar will only add a small scratch to the gaping wound that’s the problem. Schiff holds firm that the consequence of the Federal Reserve manipulating the economy will be the crash of the dollar.


They [the Fed] actually made the bubbles bigger than the ones that popped. So now, the dollar’s collapse is going to be that much bigger, because it’s now a bigger bubble with more air to come out of it. And I think they have no more tricks up their sleeves. When this happens – it’s over.Peter Schiff

Friday, April 20, 2018

Peter Schiff Economy Warning : ‘Enjoy The Calm Before The Storm’


Financial analyst Peter Schiff is warning to “enjoy the calm before the storm.” Schiff, who predicted the 2008 recession says that inflation and interest rates are about to go up much more than expected.


In his most recent podcast, Schiff basically said to enjoy things now, because the storm will eventually hit. With the United States missile strike in Syria, rumblings of a trade war and a generally weak dollar, gold briefly flirted with $1,365 last week. But the anticipation of Federal Reserve rate hikes continues to create strong headwinds against the yellow metal. Many people now think the Fed will nudge interest rates up again in June, leaving six months to get in the much-anticipated third hike of the year, and possibly even get in a fourth.


The Fed is not going to be able to deliver the rate hikes the Fed is expecting, and again, it’s the expectation of more rate hikes that is what is keeping the lid on the price of gold. But it’s only a matter of time before the market blows the lid off and the price of gold goes up. –Peter Schiff



Peter said gold is basically trading sideways right now, in advance of a breakout. Meanwhile, the dollar is doing the same thing in the other direction. The greenback is weak but not breaking down. On the other hand, it isn’t recovering any of its losses. Peter thinks it’s treading water right now before it heads lower again, according to Seeking Alpha. 


Of course, the economic growth was supposed to help “pay for” the tax cuts and the massive amounts of deficit spending. If the economic growth doesn’t materialize, the deficits will be even bigger and they are already going sky-high. On top of that, rising interest rates are going to increase the annual payments on the debt.


So, these deficits are blowing through the roof and this is going to be the driving force in moving the dollar substantially lower and moving gold substantially higher.


We are in the perfect storm, I think, of massive explosion in deficits, not just the budget deficit but the trade deficit, these tariffs or a trade war is only going to compound the problem. We’ve got the economy weakening. We’ve got the dollar teetering on the brink of collapse. We’ve got gold about to break out and the bond market is in the same thing.


Right now, everything seems pretty calm on the horizon, but we are in the calm before the storm.


The three major markets – bonds, gold, and the dollar – are all moving sideways, getting ready to continue their most recent moves, which for gold is up, for the dollar is down, and for bonds are down, which means interest rates are up – and it’s one, two, three strikes and you’re out.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Stocks Post WORST April Start Since The Great Depression


The S&P 500 closed down more than 2.4% Monday and the broad market index posted its worst April start since 1929.  This slide in the markets caused the worst start since the Great Depression, sparking fears we are on the same path.


The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.9 percent (or 458 points) as China’s retaliatory tariffs against United States agricultural goods stoked fears of a global trade war. Dow stocks with large international markets now exposed to global tariffs such as Boeing and 3M, led the decliners.


Many market analysts have predicted we will live through another Great Depression, and Peter Schiff says this next one will be far worse than one our ancestors lived through. “The bad news is, we are going to live through another Great Depression and it’s going to be very different. This will be in many ways, much much worse, than what people had to endure during the Great Depression,” Schiff says. “This is going to be a dollar crisis.”


“The Fed thinks they create economic growth…by [saying] ‘let’s jack up the stock market and then the economy’s going to grow and people are going to go out and spend more money.,’” says Schiff. “It’s actually doing damage. If you create a bunch of phony wealth, and people end up spending money that they otherwise would have saved, you are undermining economic growth.”


And Schiff, who accurately predicted the 2008 recession, has now predicted the dollar crisis.  The dollar is now in a downward spiral thanks to China’s petro-Yuan.


Bespoke Investments Co-Founder Justin Walters, who also noted the historic nature of the close, said in an email that equity fears aren’t likely to abate until earnings arrive. “Based on recent market action, the bears clearly have control right now,” Walters wrote. “The path of least resistance is lower until something comes along to reverse that trend.”


Schiff, in contrast, says the deep state (those who operate the Federal Reserve) is not afraid to crash the economy on Trump’s watch.


Schiff says “it’s not a good thing” that the economy is going to crash and burn. “Unfortunately, that’s what Trump has inherited from Obama. But it’s not even really just Obama, it’s the federal reserve. It’s the monetary policy that has been passed like a baton from Clinton to Bush to Obama and now to Trump. And we’re near the end of the game and unfortunately, Trump’s gonna be the fall guy.  This thing is all gonna collapse while he’s president.


The tax cuts will give Democrats a reason to blame the collapse all on the Republicans, says Schiff.And we are getting close to this collapse. –SHTFPlan


The trade wars with China is also the perfect smokescreen for an economic crash and will allow the mainstream media to wholly blame Trump when it happens.


I’m hitting readers with all of this because I am growing rather tired of the contingent of Trump apologists in the liberty movement scrambling to defend every single Trump action no matter how illogical. These people should know better. Sorry, but Trump is not “playing 4D chess” against the globalists. His primary actions have only served so far to create a useful distraction away from the globalists.


The disturbing key to all of this is the fact that many of Trump’s policies are things that I and many others have argued for in the past. The problem is, he is implementing them out of order and with bad timing, which will only make such policies appear destructive in the end, rather than constructive.Alt Market.com


Trump is looking like he will be fall guy, and when the economy does crash; and it will, Trump won’t be able to do a whole lot to stop it – in fact, he will be seen as the cause.  His policies are slightly dangerous, but he and his “ride or die” supporters won’t state the truth and just like the mainstream media, they will tow the line with no real blame from either side going to where it belongs: The Federal Reserve.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

The Real Reason Why Stock Markets Will Continue To Crumble This Year

This report was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com



Public sentiment on the economy is generally influenced by to two false indicators — the national unemployment rate and stock markets. This is not to say the average person tracks either of these numbers very vigorously; they don’t. What they do is hear these numbers on the morning news, the radio news on their way to work (if they are employed) or they hear them on the evening news just before bed. If the jobless rate is low and the Dow is high, then all is right with the world, at least financially.


When it comes to the economy, most people are lost.


The average American, in particular, is not as oblivious to the world of political and social discourse as they are on economics. Whether on the left or the right of the political spectrum, most citizens know that lines are being drawn and ideological battles are accelerating into realms of the extreme. Conservatives and the liberty activists that stand at the front line of the culture war understand quite well the threat of globalism and the “philosopher king” elitism of international financiers. They know that these criminals must eventually be dealt with if freedom and stability are to return to the world.


There is a rather common disinformation tactic used to manipulate people within conservative circles that has made a resurgence lately in the wake of the Trump election win. It is the idea that Americans within the “working class” aren’t interested in “high-minded” debates over philosophical conflicts, such as the conflicts between individualism versus collectivism and globalism. There is also the notion that “real” Americans could not care less about the elitist culprits behind the political theater of the false left/right paradigm.


This attitude is presented as a superior one. That is to say, disinformation agents play to people’s egos, suggesting that the working class should be focused on putting food on the table and money in their wallets and that the rest of this “intellectual nonsense” should be ignored as frivolous.


I have seen this working-class cultism before. When I lived in Pittsburgh for a time, there were many people who adopted the image of the steel mining working man, even though steel mining was almost non-existent in the region. People were extremely proud of the idea that they came from a tradition of industrial production, and technical and intellectual pursuits were predominantly ignored in the hopes of perpetuating the mining town mystic. The problem was, all of these folks were wage slaves now in the midst of Pittsburgh’s garbage economy. There were too many people scrambling for too few low wage jobs and production was a thing of the distant past.


And they were supposed to be proud of this?


The working class hero meme is nonsense. It is not a real thing; not anymore. It is something that appeals to many of us conservatives in particular, and it is a subject that politicians use to lure us with a pied piper song of reconstruction and reformation promises that they never intend to keep.


And, the idea that working Americans struggling to survive “do not care” about the bigger picture is a lie, perpetuated by disinformation peddlers trying to appeal to any misplaced sense of superiority. They want us all not only to remain ignorant, but to be prideful of that ignorance. They want us to look down our noses at anyone offering in-depth insight into why the world is becoming a harder place to live. In fact, they want us to revel in the struggle; to revel in self-flagellation and sing songs of how good we are at suffering and barely scraping by.


I mention this within an economic article because I do not see this disinformation tactic being successful, at least not yet. What I do see are millions upon millions of Americans who want answers, and many of them are well aware that the root of the problems they face today comes from globalism and globalists. All that is left is for them to understand the causes of the economic disasters they will soon face, so that they can prepare more effectively to counter them and change their own fates for the better.


The working man is smart enough to care about the bigger picture. So, with that in mind…


If you have not been tracking economic activity for the past several years then the frenetic movements of markets recently might have you a bit confused. I’ll summarize the “great stock market recovery” that many people have grown accustomed to in a single quote from former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:


“What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.


It’s sort of what I call the ‘reverse Whimpy factor’ — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.”


Fisher went on to hint at his very reserved view of the impending danger:


“I was warning my colleagues, Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10 to 20 percent correction at some point… Everybody you talk to… has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.” [In reference to interest rate hikes]


I want to break down the situation in the clearest terms possible so that there are no misconceptions here. The bottom line is this — the Federal Reserve through monetary stimulus packages and near zero interest rates engineered an artificial economic recovery from thin air. But, just as they print money from thin air, everything the central banks create has fleeting value and will eventually crumble.


The Fed not only pumped trillions of fiat dollars into banks and corporations, they also purchased over $4 trillion (officially) in various assets. These purchases coincided with interest rates so low that loans through the Fed were essentially free for corporate borrowers. But what did corporations do with these loans?


Well, they poured that cash into their OWN stocks, of course. They did this through something called “stock buybacks” which is basically a legal form of stock market manipulation. Companies purchase their own stocks and reduce the number of stocks circulating on the market, thereby elevating the value of the remaining stocks and pushing the Dow to new highs every year… until this year, that is.


The Fed’s control of stock market prices is made perfectly clear in this chart, which shows the S&P 500 rising in exact tandem with the Fed’s balance sheet purchases:


Fed Balance Sheet


As I continually warned before the Fed pushed forward with balance sheet reductions, if stocks rallied in close relation to the rising balance sheet, then it only follows that stocks will crash as the balance sheet falls.  It appears as though this is exactly what is now happening.


You see, there is a problem with this model of economic alchemy. It only lasts so long as the central banks perpetually increase the ability of nations and corporations to take on debt. Ultimately, even central banks do not have the power to facilitate debt forever. They have limitations. That said, they never intended to continue with this farce anyway.


Giving the Federal Reserve the power to dictate the terms of the economic “recovery” also gave them the power to dictate the terms of an economic collapse. And now with Donald Trump in office an economic collapse can be achieved without the central bankers even getting any blame.


Donald Trump’s trade war activities set in motion by numerous tariffs have now provided a convenient cover for the banking elites. I do not believe it is a coincidence that Trump announces new trade measures (or fires an economic adviser) every time the Federal Reserve raises interest rates and cuts its balance sheet.


I also do not believe it is a coincidence that the Dow suffers a 1,200 to 1,500 point loss every time the Fed dumps more assets from its balance sheet. Recognize that the mainstream media barely mentions the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes and balance sheet cuts as being the cause of the renewed instability in stock markets. They blame Trump’s trade war rhetoric as the cause.


Again, I want to make this clear — Trump’s tariffs have little or nothing to do with the falling stock market. What Trump’s tariff theater does do is act as a smokescreen to hide the Fed’s culpability in the crash to come.


I warned of this distraction dynamic in January of this year in my article ‘Party While You Can – Central Bank Ready To Pop The ‘Everything’ Bubble‘.


It is not just the Fed that is pulling the plug on stock market support. Central banks around the globe are tightening policy, raising interest rates and halting purchases of new assets. It is important to remember that the fiscal bull run that the central banks conjured up since the crash of 2008 cannot continue unless the central banks continue to expand debt through purchases and easy credit. They are now doing the reverse.


And if you think the central bankers are somehow ignorant of what they are triggering here, then I suggest you read the new Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s thoughts in 2012 on the matter. He states unequivocally what will happen if the fed raises interest rates and dumps the balance sheet.


Powell made these comments in 2012, yet in 2018 he is implementing the exact measures he warned about. The Fed is perfectly aware that it engineered a recovery and now it is perfectly aware that it is engineering a calamity, and Powell is as big a part of the banking cabal as Yellen or Bernanke ever were.


A pattern appears to have developed in the past few months in terms of the ongoing decline in stocks. Every time the Fed cuts the balance sheet or raises interest rates stocks plunge by around 1,200-1,500 points within a few days. Then, there is a smaller rebound about a week later, which then fizzles out going into the next month as stocks return to a slower grinding downward trajectory. Then the cycle starts all over again.


New monthly highs are being replaced with new monthly lows as stocks are being steam valved down with each fresh balance sheet cut.


While stocks in the grand scheme of things are generally irrelevant, they still represent a psychological marker for the public. As go stocks, so goes the economic sentiment of the masses. It is an unfortunate thing, but also a true thing.


I expect that as the balance sheet cuts increase in size, it will become more difficult for stock markets to produce meaningful rebounds. Which means the bankers will need even greater distractions from the Trump administration and other political assets to hide the true source of the economic breakdown. A trade war alone will probably not be enough. Some regional wars are likely in the making. As these events unfold, it is vital that as many people as possible are made aware of the real reason and the real criminals behind them. A time of reckoning is required, and a reckoning requires accountability.


The banking elites hope to cause so much confusion and catastrophe that the masses will forget who was truly behind it all. We might not be able to stop the greater crash from taking place, but we can prepare accordingly, and we can educate others so that we can stop the culprits from fading back into the fog.


If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here. We greatly appreciate your patronage.


You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com


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Friday, January 12, 2018

Mnuchin: “We Want To Make Sure Bad People Can’t Use Bitcoin To Do Bad Things”

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge


bitcoin


Back in September 2015, when we first predicted that Bitcoin would enjoy an exponential price increase as first the Chinese and then everyone else realized that the cryptocurrency is nothing less than the digital equivalent of borderless Swiss account, bypassing capital controls with ease and enabling money laundering anywhere and everywhere, its market cap was $3 billion. It is now $230 billion.


Today, a little over two years later, the US Treasury has finally this figured out, and on Friday Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he will work with the Group of 20 nations to prevent cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin from becoming the digital equivalent of an anonymous Swiss bank account.


“We are very focused on cryptocurrencies,” Mnuchin explained, pointing to discussions with other regulators within the U.S. government and later stating: “We want to make sure that bad people cannot use these currencies to do bad things.”


Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Mnuchin said that the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a government body that assesses financial system risks, has formed a working group focused on cryptocurrencies, and explained that “In the United States — and people may not realize this — under our laws, if you have a wallet to own bitcoins, that company has the same obligation as a bank to Know Your Customer. So, in the United States, we have rules for anti-money-laundering, for all different types of entities, we can track those types of [transactions]. The rest of the world doesn’t have that. So one of the things we are working very closely with the G-20 on is making sure that this doesn’t become the Swiss numbered bank account.”


During the remarks, Mnuchin also suggested that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to develop its own digital version of fiat currency – a topic under discussion at a number of central banks worldwide – in the near future.


“The Fed and we don’t think there’s a need for that at this point,” Mnuchin said.


Mnuchin added that he was worried about heightened levels of speculation in the bitcoin market. “The other concern I have is, there’s a lot of speculation in this, and I want to make sure that consumers who are trading this understand the risks,” Mnuchin said. “I am concerned that consumers may get hurt.”


Apparently he was far less concerned about consumers buying the S&P at all time high valuations.


More to the point, yes the US will gladly tax crypto trading now that the total market cap of all “coins” is $700 billion, and no, it has no intention of cracking down on Bitcoin or other cryptos.


Mnuchin also said that he is “not at all” worried that Russia may use cryptocurrencies to help its banks avoid international sanctions. An adviser to President Vladimir Putin is reported to have said that sanctions against Russia have created a need for digital currencies as officials there fear expansions in 2018.


As we reported in December, Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree allowing the government to classify purchases by the Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service as state secrets.


“This idea that Russia or Venezuela can thwart the pressure from sanctions just by developing their own cryptocurrency is silly,” lawyer Erich Ferrari of Ferrari & Associates told Bloomberg. “It’s like trying to do it by using cash. Yes you can do it more easily with cash, but it doesn’t mean you’re evading. It’s harder to get caught.”


Full remarks below


Monday, October 30, 2017

Will America’s Prosperity Be Completely Wiped Out By Our Growing Debt?

This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse


Sinking Economy


The federal government is now 20.4 trillion dollars in debt, and most Americans don’t seem to care that the economic prosperity that we are enjoying today could be completely destroyed by our exploding national debt. Over the past decade, the national debt has been growing at a rate of more than 100 million dollars an hour, and this is a debt that all of us owe. When you break it down, each American citizen’s share of the debt is more than $60,000, and so if you have a family of five your share is more than $300,000. And when you throw in more than 6 trillion dollars of corporate debt and nearly 13 trillion dollars of consumer debt, it is not inaccurate to say that we are facing a crisis of unprecedented magnitude.


Debt cannot grow much faster than GDP indefinitely. At some point the bubble bursts, and when it does the pain that the middle class is going to experience is going to be off the charts. Back in 2015, the middle class in the U.S. became a minority of the population for the first time ever. Never before in our history has the middle class accounted for less than 50 percent of the population, and all over the country formerly middle class families are under a great deal of stress as they attempt to make ends meet. The following comes from an absolutely outstanding piece that was just put out by Charles Hugh Smith


If you talk to young people struggling to make ends meet and raise children, or read articles about retirees who can’t afford to retire, you can’t help but detect the fading scent of prosperity.


It has steadily been lost to stagnation, under-reported inflation and soaring inequality, a substitution of illusion for reality bolstered by the systemic corruption of authentic measures of prosperity and well-being.


In other words, the American-Dream idea that life should get easier and more prosperous as the natural course of progress is still embedded in our collective memory, even though the collective reality has changed.


The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where many are working two or three jobs just to make it from month to month.


The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where debts never seem to get repaid and credit card balances just continue to grow.


The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where we work day after day just to pay the bills, and yet we never seem to get anywhere financially.


The truth is that most people out there are deeply struggling. The Washington Post says that the “middle class” encompasses anyone that makes between $35,000 and $122,500 a year, but very few of us are near the top end of that scale


It’s also situation specific. “The more people in a family, the more money they typically need to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle,” writes the Post. Likewise, the more expensive your area, the more you need to make to qualify. Overall, “America’s middle-class ranges from $35,000 to $122,500 in annual income, according to The Post’s calculation” approved by the Pew Research Center.


“The bottom line is: $100,000 is on the middle-class spectrum, but barely: 75 percent of U.S. households make less than that,” writes the Post.


In a previous article, I noted that the bottom 90 percent of income earners in the U.S. brought home more than 60 percent of the nation’s income back in the early 1970s, but last year that number fell to just 49.7 percent.


The middle class is shrinking year after year, and the really bad news is that it appears that this decline may soon accelerate. In fact, one major European investment bank is warning that the U.S. economy will “slow down substantially” in 2018.


But we can’t afford any slow down at all. As it is, there is no possible way that we are going to be able to deal with our exploding debts at the rate the economy is growing right now. According to Boston University professor Larry Kotlikoff, we are facing a “fiscal gap” of 210 trillion dollars over the next 75 years…



We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt. We’re focused just on the official debt, so we’re trying to balance the wrong books…


If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $210 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap. That’s our true indebtedness.



Where in the world is all of that money going to come from?


Are you willing to pay much higher taxes?


Are you willing to see government programs slashed to a degree that we have never seen before in U.S. history?


If your answer to both of those questions is no, then what would you do to solve the fiscal nightmare that we are facing?


According to Brian Maher, author Robert Benchley once sat down to write an article about this fiscal mess, and what he came up with sums up the situation perfectly…


Benchley sat at his typewriter one day to tackle a vexing subject.


He opened his piece with “The”… when the full weight of his burden collapsed upon his shoulders.


He abandoned his typewriter in frustration.


He returned shortly thereafter and resumed the task anew…


With only “The” to work with… Benchley immediately knocked out the article, presented here in its entirety:


“The hell with it.”


Unfortunately, we can’t afford to say that.


Our exploding debt is a crisis that we must tackle, and the first step is to understand that our current financial system was literally designed to create as much debt as possible. Once we abolish the Federal Reserve, our endless debt spiral will end, but until we do our debt problems are only going to continue to grow until the system completely implodes in upon itself.



GetPreparedNow-MichaelSnyderBarbaraFixMichael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream


If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming.


Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Brandon Smith: “Next Phase of Collapse Will Include the End of the Dollar as We Know It”

This article was originally published by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com.


money-bomb


The Federal Reserve Is A Saboteur – And The “Experts” Are Oblivious


I have written on the subject of the Federal Reserve’s deliberate sabotage of the U.S. economy many times in the past. In fact, I even once referred to the Fed as an “economic suicide bomber.” I still believe the label fits perfectly, and the Fed’s recent actions I think directly confirm my accusations.


Back in 2015, when I predicted that the central bankers would shift gears dramatically into a program of consistent interest rate hikes and that they would begin cutting off stimulus to the U.S. financial sector and more specifically stock markets, almost no one wanted to hear it. The crowd-think at that time was that the Fed would inevitably move to negative interest rates, and that raising rates was simply “impossible.”


Many analysts, even in the liberty movement, quickly adopted this theory without question. Why? Because of a core assumption that is simply false; the assumption that the Federal Reserve’s goal is to maintain the U.S. economy at all costs or at least maintain the illusion that the economy is stable. They assume that the U.S. economy is indispensable to the globalists and that the U.S. dollar is an unassailable tool in their arsenal. Therefore, the Fed would never deliberately undermine the American fiscal structure because without it “they lose their golden goose.”


This is, of course, foolish nonsense.


Since its initial inception from 1913-1916, the Federal Reserve has been responsible for the loss of 98% of the dollar’s buying power. Idiot analysts in the mainstream argue that this statistic is not as bad as it seems because “people have been collecting interest” on their cash while the dollar’s value has been dropping, and this somehow negates or outweighs any losses in purchasing power. These guys are so dumb they don’t even realize the underlying black hole in their own argument.


IF someone put their savings into an account or into treasury bonds and earned interest from the moment the Fed began quickly undermining dollar value way back in 1959, then yes, they MIGHT have offset the loss by collecting interest. However, this argument, insanely, forgets to take into account the many millions of people who were born long after the Fed began its devaluation program. What about the “savers” born in 1980, or 1990? They didn’t have the opportunity to collect interest to offset the losses already created by the Fed. They were born into an economy where saving is inherently more difficult because a person must work much harder to save the same amount of capital that their parents saved, not to mention purchase the same items their parents enjoyed, such as a home or a car.


Over the decades, the Fed has made it nearly impossible for households with one wage earner to support a family. Today, men and women who should be in the prime of their careers and starting families are for the first time in 130 years more likely to be living at home with their parents than any other living arrangement.


People are more likely to be living with their parents now than back during time periods in which young people actually wanted to stay close to their parents to take care of them. That is to say, most young people are stuck at home because they can’t afford to do anything else, not because they necessarily want to be there.


This is almost entirely a symptom of central bank devaluation of the currency and its purchasing potential. The degradation of the American wage earner since the Fed fiat machine began killing the greenback is clear as day.


The Fed is also responsible for almost every single major economic downturn since it was established. As I have noted in the past, Ben Bernanke openly admitted that the Fed was the root cause of the prolonged economic carnage during the Great Depression on Nov. 8, 2002, in a speech given at “A Conference to Honor Milton Friedman … On the Occasion of His 90th Birthday:”


“In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn.


Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.”


Bernanke is referring in part to the Fed’s program of raising interest rates into an economic downturn, exacerbating the situation in the early 1930’s and making the system highly unstable. He lies and says the Fed “won’t do it again;” they are doing it RIGHT NOW.


The Fed was the core instigator behind the credit and derivatives bubble that led to the crash in 2008, a crash that has caused depression-like conditions in America that we are still to this day dealing with. Through artificially low interest rates and in partnership with sectors of government, poor lending standards were highly incentivised and a massive debt trap was created. Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan publicly admitted in an interview that the central bank KNEW an irrational bubble had formed, but claims they assumed the negative factors would “wash out.”


Yet again, a Fed chairman admits that they either knew about or caused a major financial crisis. So we are left two possible conclusions — they were too stupid to speak up and intervene, or, they wanted these disasters to occur.


Today, we are faced with two more brewing bubble catastrophes engineered by the Fed: The stock market bubble and the dollar/treasury bond bubble.


The stock market bubble is rather obvious and openly admitted at this point. As the former head of the Federal Reserve Dallas branch, Richard Fisher, admitted in an interview with CNBC, the U.S. central bank in particular has made its business the manipulation of the stock market to the upside since 2009:


“What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.


It’s sort of what I call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.”


Fisher went on to hint at his very reserved view of the impending danger:


“I was warning my colleagues, Don’t go wobbly if we have a 10 to 20 percent correction at some point… Everybody you talk to… has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.” [In reference to interest rate hikes]


The Fed “front-loaded” the incredible bull market rally through various methods, but one of the key tools was the use of near-zero interest rate overnight loans from the central bank, which corporations around the world have been exploiting since the 2008 crash to fund stock buybacks and pump up the value of stock markets. As noted by Edward Swanson, author of a study from Texas A&M on stock buybacks used to offset poor fundamentals:


“We can’t say for sure what would have happened without the repurchase, but it really looks like the stock would have kept going down because of the decline in fundamentals… these repurchases seem to hold up the stock price.”


In the initial TARP audit, an audit that was limited and never again duplicated, it was revealed that corporations had absorbed trillions in overnight loans from the Fed. It was at this time that stock buybacks became the go-to method to artificially prop up equities values.


The problem is, just like they did at the start of the Great Depression, the central bank is once again raising interest rates into a declining economy. This means that all those no-cost loans used by corporations to buy back their own stocks are now going to have a price tag attached. An interest rate of 1% might not seem like much to someone who borrows $1000, but what about for someone who borrows $1 Trillion? Yes, borrowing at ANY interest rate becomes impossible when you need that much capital to prop up your stock. The loans have to be free, otherwise, there will be no loans.


Thus, we have to ask ourselves another question; is the Fed really ignorant enough to NOT know that raising rates will kill stock markets? They openly admit that they knew what they were doing when they inflated stock markets, so it seems to me that they would know how to deflate stock markets. Therefore, if they deliberately engineered the market rally with low interest rates, it follows that they are deliberately engineering a crash in markets using higher interest rates.


Mainstream economists and investment “experts” appear rather bewildered by the Federal Reserve’s exuberance on rate hikes. Many assumed that Janet Yellen would hint at a pullback from the hike schedule due to the considerable level of negative data on our fiscal structure released over the past six months. Yellen has done the opposite. In fact, Fed officials are now stating that equities and other assets appear to be “overvalued” and that markets have become complacent. This is a major reversal from the central bank’s attitude just two years ago. The fundamental data has always been negative ever since the credit crisis began. So what has really changed?


Well, Donald Trump, the sacrificial scapegoat, is now in the White House, and, central bank stimulus has a shelf life.  They can’t prop up equities for much longer even if they wanted to. The fundamentals will always catch up with the fiat illusion. No nation in history has ever been able to print its way to prosperity or even recovery. The time is now for the Fed to pull the plug and lay blame in the lap of their mortal enemy – conservatives and sovereignty champions. They will ignore all financial reality and continue to hike. This is a guarantee.


In the Liberty Movement the major misconception is that the Fed is attempting to “catch up” to the next crash by raising interest rates so that they will be ready to stimulate again. There is no catching up to this situation. The Fed has no interest in saving stock markets or the economy. Again, the fed has raised rates before into fiscal decline (during the Great Depression), and the result was a prolonged crisis. They know exactly what they are doing.


What does the Fed gain from this sabotage? Total centralization. For example, before the Great Depression there used to be thousands of smaller private and localized banks in America. After the Great Depression most of those banks were either destroyed or absorbed by elite banking conglomerates. Banking in the U.S. immediately became a fully centralized monopoly by the majors. In a decade, they were able to remove all local competition and redundancy, making communities utterly beholden to their credit system.


The 2008 crash allowed the banking elites to introduce vast stimulus measures requiring unaccountable fiat money creation. Rather than saving America from crisis, they have expanded the crisis to the point that it will soon threaten the world reserve status of our currency. The Fed in particular has set the U.S. up not just for a financial depression, but for a full spectrum calamity which will include a considerable devaluation (yet again) of our currency’s value and resulting in extreme price inflation in necessities.


The next phase of this collapse will include the end of the dollar as we know it, making way for a new global currency system that uses the IMF’s SDR basket as a foundation. This plan is openly admitted in the elitist run magazine ‘The Economist’ in an article entitled “Get Ready For A Global Currency By 2018.


It is important to understand what the Fed actually is — the Fed is a weapon. It is a weapon used by globalists to destroy the American system at a given point in time in order to clear the way for a new single world economy controlled by a single managerial entity (most likely the IMF or BIS). This is the Fed’s purpose. The central bank is not here to save the U.S. from harm, it is here to make sure the U.S. falls in a particular manner — a controlled demolition of our fiscal structure.


After 8 long years of ultra-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, it’s no secret that inflation is primed to soar. If your IRA or 401(k) is exposed to this threat, it’s critical to act now! That’s why thousands of Americans are moving their retirement into a Gold IRA. Learn how you can too with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals the little-known IRS Tax Law to move your IRA or 401(k) into gold. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.


If you would like to support the publishing of articles like the one you have just read, visit our donations page here. We greatly appreciate your patronage.


You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

State Deals Blow to Federal Reserve, House Passes Bill To Treat Silver and Gold as Money

As central economic planners at the Federal Reserve continue their vision of “prosperity” through crushing debt and dollar devaluation, some states are fighting back. The Arizona House took a major step toward sound money by passing a bill to eliminate penalties in the form of taxes on gold and silver specie.


The move would be an important step toward currency competition and help undermine the Fed’s monopoly on money.



“Rep. Mark Finchem (R-Tucson) introduced House Bill 2014 (HB2014) on Jan. 9. The legislation would eliminate state capital gains taxes on income “derived from the exchange of one kind of legal tender for another kind of legal tender.” The bill defines legal tender as “a medium of exchange, including specie, that is authorized by the United States Constitution or Congress for the payment of debts, public charges, taxes and dues.” “Specie” means coins having precious metal content.



In effect, passage of the bill would “legalize the Constitution” by treating gold and silver specie as money.



HB2014 passed the full House by a 35-24 vote.”



Capital gains tax on gold and silver is an insidious disincentive based on intentional dollar devaluation. When the dollar’s purchasing power goes down, the metals’ nominal dollar value goes up, triggering a “gain” which is taxed.


The U.S. Mint is charged with protecting the value of money, but the Federal Reserve creates nothing but debt. Yet Congress authorized a tax when making the exchange of precious metals for dollars. It’s illegal and they know it, this bill is an effort by one state to protect the people from such confiscation,” said Representative Finchem.




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The Arizona bill would allow people to “deduct the amount of any net capital gain derived from the exchange of one kind of legal tender for another kind of legal tender or specie (gold and silver coins) from their gross income on their state income tax.”


Finchem argues that any perceived capital gain from gold and silver is not actually a gain, but a protection against losing money in the inflationary federal reserve system.



“Finchem’s theory of economics and currency, however, is that people buy gold coins not to make money but to keep from losing it in what he says is a flawed federal reserve system where federal reserve notes — the bills we carry in our wallets — actually lose value.



“Let’s say it takes 1,200 of them to buy a U.S. Mint gold coin today, but tomorrow it takes 1,300 of those federal reserve notes,” he explained.



From Finchem’s perspective — and that of House members who gave his measure preliminary approval this past week — selling that coin for $100 more is not a profit.



“You’ve actually experienced a loss,” he said.




It’s called inflation,” Finchem continued. “The Internal Revenue Service for many, many years has been taxing inflation as though it was a gain.



If more states can manage to remove punishments such as unjust taxation on gold and silver “gains,” currency competition could return, bringing us toward sound money and away from fiat currency that brings unchecked debt and contributes to financial disasters.



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This isn’t going to end the fed’s monetary monopoly overnight, but it sets the foundation and opens the door for more market activity by the people,said Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center. “This is an important part of the overall strategy, and activists in Arizona should continue working to get both bills passed.


Forces at the state and federal level will be working to kill the Arizona bill in order to preserve the Fed’s monopoly on money and the influx of unjust taxes into state coffers. Opponents of the bill are fear-mongering about money traders coming into Arizona and making “a lot of money” without giving their “fair share” in taxes to the state. In 2013, then-governor Jan Brewer vetoed a similar bill on such grounds.


Other states have staked their position too. Utah and Oklahoma have declared gold and silver legal tender in their state, free from any taxation. Such moves are critical in dispensing with the idea that gold and silver are merely investments and speculation.


Several other rules exist around the country that provide further disincentive for sound money through specie.





As the Tenth Amendment Center points out, dealers who buy gold and silver from the public are required to collect personal information from sellers and upload this information daily into law enforcement databases. Some dealers are barred from selling gold and silver to anyone for seven days, forcing them to tie up large amounts of capital and absorb market risk.


Such rules rig the system in favor of the Fed’s monopoly on money and create the perception that gold and silver are nothing more than commodity investments.



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According to William Greene, professor of economics at New York University:


Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Senator Rand Paul Just Reintroduced Corruption-Killing Legislation to ‘Audit the Fed’

When mentioning the Federal Reserve, most Americans have no idea that it even exists. Those that do know of its existence think it simply sets interest rates and helps the economy — but they are wrong. And, thanks to the efforts of Ron Paul over the last few decades, that ignorance about what the Fed does is diminishing. Now, his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), is going to carry on his father’s legacy.



Paul is now calling for an audit of the federal reserve. But the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 wasn’t introduced as a bill by Congress. Instead, the bill was drafted in secret on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1910. Often the retreat for billionaires, Jekyll Island was the playground for the nation’s richest 1 percent.


According to one source, those in attendance were, “Senator Nelson Aldrich, his personal secretary Arthur Shelton, former Harvard University professor of economics Dr. A. Piatt Andrew, J.P. Morgan & Co. partner Henry P. Davison, National City Bank president Frank A. Vanderlip and Kuhn, Loeb, and Co. partner Paul M. Warburg.”



These elite men had five objectives, all bad ideas reminiscent of a drug cartel, or an oil cartel like OPEC, but focused more on monetary control. The following five objectives were used to establish the Federal Reserve.


  1. Stop growing competition from banks

  2. Obtain franchise to create money

  3. Get control of all banks’ reserves

  4. Shift losses to taxpayers

  5. Convince Congress of its purpose

There are no elected officials in charge of running the Fed. Also, the Fed is privately owned but no one knows by whom because the Fed is not accountable to anyone, not even the government of the United States.


Paul wishes to end all of that and expose the Fed for what it really does, and how it really manages the country’s money supply. So far, he hasn’t had any luck, even though both he and his father have been calling for accountability for years.


According to ZeroHedge, Senator Rand Paul, together with Rep. Thomas Massie on Wednesday “called for the re-introduced legislation to ‘Audit the Fed’, after a similar effort stalled in the last Congress.”


Paul feels he may have a better chance of seeing an audit of The Fed, now that Republicans control not only a majority in both the House and the Senate, but also control the presidency as well. It’s a long-shot to think that the establishment will go against their corporate employers and political masters, but Rand has fired the warning shot across the bow of the Fed’s big ship. Rand reportedly said, “The U.S. House has responded to the American people by passing Audit the Fed multiple times, and President-elect Trump has stated his support for an audit. Let’s send him the bill this Congress.”


As The Free Thought Project has reported on several occasions, the world’s power and influence are in the hands of just five wealthy families and their descendants, many of whom were responsible for creating The Fed. For more information about The Fed, click here to read our archives. In the meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed that this Congress will have enough guts to audit the world’s most secret money club, that truly affects every American’s financial budget, whether they are aware of it or not.