Not only did Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, he is now using her ideas and taking credit for them.
The post 5 Hard-Hitting Facts Proving Donald Trump Has Become Just Like Hillary Clinton appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(ZHE) Seemingly following Andrew Ross Sorkin’s suggestions, and echoing the virtue-signaling from Dick’s Sporting Goods et al., megabank Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers. As a reminder, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote in the NY Times that banks could control guns, if Washington won’t. Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger exclaimed that even in today’s world replete […]
This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Having explained why central banks are so nervous about cryptocurrencies, it seems the rest of the banking sector is finally admitting the real driver behind their disdain for digital currencies – they are competition and an existential threat.
As CoinTelegraph’s Molly Jane Zuckerman reports, J.P. Morgan Chase has added a segment on cryptocurrencies to the “Risk Factor” section of their 2017 annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), filed yesterday, Feb. 27.
The annual report mentions cryptocurrencies under the “Competition” subsection when describing how new competitors have emerged that threaten J.P. Morgan’s operations:
“Both financial institutions and their non-banking competitors face the risk that payment processing and other services could be disrupted by technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, that require no intermediation.”
The report notes that these new technologies, evidently including Blockchain, although they don’t mention it by name, “could require JPMorgan Chase to spend more to modify or adapt its products to attract and retain clients and customers or to match products and services offered by its competitors, including technology companies.”
This competition could potentially “put downward pressure on prices and fees for JPMorgan Chase’s products and services or may cause JPMorgan Chase to lose market share.”
J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon had made waves back in September 2017, when he called Bitcoin (BTC) a “fraud” and threatened to fire any employee that traded BTC on company accounts. Since then, Dimon has backtracked slightly, telling a Cointelegraph reporter at the Davos World Economic Forum that he is not a “skeptic” on cryptocurrencies.
In the beginning of February, an alleged internal report from J.P. Morgan Chase referred to cryptocurrencies as “innovative” and “unlikely to disappear”, also noting cryptocurrency’s potential to be successfully applied to payment system areas that are traditionally problematic or slow, such as cross-border payments.
JPMorgan is not alone, as TruthInMedia.com’s Brendan Weber reports, in Bank of America’s new annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the corporation largely reflected internally about a number of economic, geopolitical, and operational risks faced.
One of those stated risks is surrounding the increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies, which could have negative effects on the corporation’s earning potential.
In addition, technological advances and the growth of e-commerce have made it easier for non-depository institutions to offer products and services that traditionally were banking products, and for financial institutions to compete with technology companies in providing electronic and internet-based financial solutions including electronic securities trading, marketplace lending and payment processing. Further, clients may choose to conduct business with other market participants who engage in business or offer products in areas we deem speculative or risky, such as cryptocurrencies. Increased competition may negatively affect our earnings by creating pressure to lower prices or credit standards on our products and services requiring additional investment to improve the quality and delivery of our technology and/or reducing our market share, or affecting the willingness of our clients to do business with us.
Increased adaptation of cryptocurrencies also had Bank of America admitting that it may need to make “substantial expenditures” to compete with these rising technologies:
In addition, the widespread adoption of new technologies, including internet services, cryptocurrencies and payment systems, could require substantial expenditures to modify or adapt our existing products and services as we grow and develop our internet banking and mobile banking channel strategies in addition to remote connectivity solutions.
Bank of America might have already taken action to help counter these technologies by banning cryptocurrency transactions on their credit cards.
Additionally, the document stated concerns besides those directly affecting earning potential; they noted that emerging cryptocurrencies could impact Bank of America’s compliance with anti-money laundering regulations:
In addition to non-U.S. legislation, our international operations are also subject to U.S. legal requirements. For example, our international operations are subject to U.S. laws on foreign corrupt practices, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, know-your-customer requirements and anti-money laundering regulations. Emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, could limit our ability to track the movement of funds. Our ability to comply with these laws is dependent on our ability to improve detection and reporting capabilities and reduce variation in control processes and oversight accountability.
Even though cryptocurrencies were a small mention within the entire report, its brief discussion indicated that the company is both aware of and reacting to the further potential impacts of cryptocurrency.
This article was originally published by Anonymous Financial Guy at The Organic Prepper
In this economic climate, lots of folks are wondering how to protect their money. Some people are forced to invest in retirement funds by their employers, others play the market, some invest on their own, and nearly everyone has checking and savings accounts. But when the amount of money you have goes beyond something you could live off for a month or two, how do you deal with it wisely while minimizing your risk?
There is a history of government seizure or confiscation of assets. This can be found in nearly every country, including both the Federal and State level in the United States. Rather than go into the nature of politics or maintaining a wartime economy or support of an asset-based currency or filling tax revenue shortages through seizures, let’s just acknowledge that a government entity of any sort may choose to make a rule that effects a transfer of a citizen’s wealth to that government for whatever purpose. That is a political risk that will not go away.
Instead, let us focus on contracts and agreements that we can control. Namely, our relationship with banks and custodians. Those agreements can impact our ability to maintain our wealth, ourselves, and hopefully be redeemable for cash upon demand.
There are three rules for protecting your investments and we can learn those through situations that we all read about in the news. Let’s first examine some relatively recent history, here in the United States, when US citizens could watch their wealth evaporate quite legally, because of contracts they did not pay attention to.
Rule #1: Make sure you have more than a Chinese firewall in place between your financial instrument and the reporting entity.
Everyone remembers Bernie Madoff – many clients of Bernie Madoff lost a lot of money. Was this legal? No – it was a Ponzi scheme, but it’s worth examining as your protection for something Illegal as a counterpoint to what is legal. A Ponzi scheme is when a client’s withdrawals come from other client’s money.
How can this happen? Well, in order for this to be successful, you need to have a security, a sales force, and a custodian (reporting agency) all working together, in one house. Checks and balances in the US financial system virtually assure (that as long as the regulators are doing their jobs) an issuer of a security may not report on their own value while they sell their issue directly to clients. This, however, is exactly what Bernie Madoff did. He offered his own “strategy” to his own clients and made his own statements as to client value.
Knowing this, Rule #1 for protecting your bank accounts and investment accounts is to make sure you have more than a Chinese firewall in place between your financial instrument and the reporting entity that tells you what your balance is. A lot of folks with checking accounts as well as IRA or investment accounts at the same national banks should pay close attention to this. We will discuss why in detail presently.
If you own the data, and you control the asset, guess what? That is why banks and custodians call the shots. Everybody else plays by their rules. That is where the control is.
Rule #2: Read your custodial and banking agreements.
Not too long ago, there was a company named Lehman Brothers, which was a Wall Street finance firm that became heavily invested in CDOs (mortgages mostly) in 2008 and whose over-leveraged collapse heralded the 2009 market crash. Now there is quite a bit worth knowing about Lehman Brothers, but for the purpose of this article, I would like to highlight one significant aspect involving the clients of Lehman Brothers Prime Brokerage Services, whose accounts on deposit were considered assets of Lehman Brothers for firm-level financing in what is known as rehypothecation.
Since these client monies were considered firm-level collateral for lending purposes, those assets were frozen while Lehman Brothers went through bankruptcy proceedings. What is different with this scenario than with the Bernie Madoff scenario is that the rehypothecation aspect of assets on deposit through Lehman Brothers Prime Brokerage Services was in the fine print of the actual custodial agreement.
It was legal. The assets were separately accounted for on the client level and they remained in the client’s name, but the effect of client money being a “co-signer” for Leman Brothers’ open market fundraising made that money subject to the claims of creditors.
Market circuit breakers, black box algorithms and the technology underlying the stock market have changed dramatically since the year 2000, and a lot of folks do not quite realize exactly how much. Now, this topic is pretty detailed and could easily cover several pages itself, but for the purposes of our article, we’ll just cover absolute basics.
Fractional ownership of shares and omnibus trading: It used to be that a single stock was set at a price and that is what you paid for it. Now, not only can you own an account for partial shares, but block trading (also called omnibus trading) of large lots of shares with multiple owners is commonplace. It actually gave rise to major discount brokers like Etrade and Scott Trade in the late 90s. But technology on the trade routing side progressed immeasurably after the NASDAQ in the early 2000s went “public” and began to attempt to resell trade and order routing software to other world exchanges.
Circuit breakers: Sept 11, 2001, is probably going down as the last time the overall market would be shut down due to a calamitous event because now exchanges have circuit breakers in place. In the old days, market makers were required to buy or sell particular issues on demand, thus the term ‘market maker’. If there was power to the exchange and floor, traders placing orders, then stocks were changing hands.
Today, the entire market process is automated to a very large extent. Computers control large orders almost as they are confirmed by the exchanges. That is how fast the market reacts – within milliseconds. Obviously, there is potential for issues, and that is where market circuit breakers come into play. For example, a circuit breaker may look at each issue (stock) individually, and if too much momentum is experienced either up or down in too short a time, the circuit breaker engages. Then, all trades are held and may potentially be backed out. Keep in mind this is after a confirmation has been issued but before settlement. We will talk more about settlement, but for now, just be aware that major stock exchanges have the ability to halt individual issues, in addition to the actual halting of trading (giving trade confirmations) and if that happens, those frozen trades go into to limbo for a period of time (potentially days) and may be kicked back or canceled.
Now, most average investors will never experience this, because your common, the retail public has very limited, very controlled access to actual trade windows.
Rule #3: Just because you have a confirmation, it doesn’t actually mean you have a trade or anything resembling settlement.
Know your trade windows and anticipated settlement times so you can get in front of a problem before it gets exponentially worse.
Now let’s talk a little more about the settlement of securities. Another aspect to be aware of in your custodial agreements is exactly how your security gets settled and turned into cash. You place a trade and the trade happens according to schedule. Then there is a period of time for settlement where those funds may not necessarily be available to commit elsewhere. This is your estimated settlement time. It is somewhere between Trade Date +1 day and Trade Date + 3 days depending on what you are buying or selling.
After that period of time, then you have monies available in your brokerage money market fund (as long as your custodian can’t rehypothecate it right?. Well, at least not with government money market funds. Proprietary money market funds maybe not…they have their own rules.) Then you can request for those funds to go into your bank account so that you can withdraw the cash physically.
But not always. If for whatever reason, things really go sideways and your brokerage firm cannot “sell” your position, your brokerage agreement may allow your custodian to settle your trade-in kind. This means a physical delivery of the stock certificate you were trying to sell. Once again…see Rule #2 and beware of your agreements.
So you can see that with a brokerage account of any kind, the potential to have your trades held, or not settled directly before even getting to your bank might throw your planning a bit off.
So… what about big banks?
Let’s re-visit using national, well-known banks for both banking and brokerage or securities. While this is a big mess if you follow financial industry and banking industry history, rather than go into any details, now that you have a little bit of understanding of the mechanics of the industry, what do you think of this?
The five largest banks in the US could be directly described as above. Not to ring any alarms, but if there was going to be a call for capital controls to prevent a bank run, where do you think the government would be wisest to focus their efforts?
There are ways to get in front of these modern issues and red flags to be aware of.
I just wanted to paint a picture of one small piece of the current financial system. I hope this was helpful to the folks out there who aren’t privy to the nuances of modern finance.
***
About the Author
Anonymous Financial Guy is a blue jeans and flannel wearing critical-thinking financial advisor who enjoys systems and structure, understanding underlying limitations, and has a healthy dislike of authority.
This report was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com
With events like the British vote to leave the EU, the peak of the mass Muslim immigration into Europe, the “surprise” (for some people) upset win of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election and the subsequent leftist riots, it may be difficult to top the absolute geopolitical and social mayhem of 2016. However, when examining recent history and ongoing trends, it’s important to understand that these shifts are often cumulative; they tend to build upon each other like sheets of ice on a mountainside, storing up energy for a great avalanche.
We witnessed what I would consider a moderate build up and “avalanche” in the economic world in 2008, and of course this merely set the stage for an evolving form of fiscal collapse for the ten years that followed. This time around though, that ongoing collapse will surface in the form of currency crisis and treasury bond crisis, as well as all the international tensions and conflicts that come with these financial atom bombs. If I was to define the year of 2017 and its place in the grand scheme, I would say it represents the moment that the path became obvious for the next decade, at least for those that have been paying attention.
There have been some incredible revelations this year, things that will change the face of global economics and international relations, but most them have gone unnoticed in the mainstream overall. Here are just a few of the earth shattering events that will lead to unprecedented instability in 2018, probably through to the year 2030.
Coup In Saudi Arabia
I outlined the implications of this powder keg in the Middle East in considerable detail in my articles ‘Lies And Distractions Surrounding The Diminishing Petrodollar’ and ‘Saudi Coup Signals War And Global Economic Reset’. But, I don’t think that the gravity of the situation is being taken seriously by very many people yet.
The rise of prince Mohammed Bin Salman to the status of dictator in the Saudi government is disturbing enough. That said, let’s not forget some of the most important details. For example, Salman’s “Vision For 2030,” which includes the decoupling of the Saudi currency system from the U.S. dollar (perhaps sooner than many predict), thereby killing the petrodollar relationship that has sustained the U.S. economy for decades. And, the fact that Salman has the extensive backing of globalist corporations like The Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs and Blackrock through his Public Investment Fund (PIF). This indicates a blatant support by international financiers for the eventual death of the dollar’s world reserve status, yet very few people have dared to mention it.
Along with Prince Mohammed’s banker-boosted rise to power, turmoil in the region is inevitable. It is clear that a new large scale war in the Middle East is intended. War rhetoric is heating up by the Saudis against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran. War propaganda out of the oil kingdom is becoming laughably overconfident, to say the least. Just take a look at this video widely spread by the Saudi media.
Crisis in Saudi Arabia, just as with crisis in Syria, will change the face of the region forever, and it will have far reaching consequences around the globe as the U.S. dollar’s petro-status is placed on the chopping block.
Russia Pulling Troops Out Of Syria, Leaving Assad Vulnerable
I have been warning for years about the false East/West paradigm and I think the reality of it is finally starting to set in with many liberty activists as behavior on the part of Eastern “saviors” falls right in line with what the globalist banking syndicate desires.
For example, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which so many people claimed was going to “bring down” the establishment power structure is now working directly with the establishment power structure through World Bank and the IMF. China is now the flagship nation for the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket system and has openly called for a global currency controlled by none other than the IMF.
In 2017, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan became the top investment banks in Russia. Rothschild and Co. firms continue to operate in Russia as they have for at least a decade uninterrupted, despite all the nonsense we hear in the activist sphere that Putin “booted out all the bankers.”
This along with a veritable mountain of evidence led me to suggest recently that an invasion of Syria by either Saudi Arabia or their recently revealed ally Israel could be used to draw Iran into conflict. I also suggested that Russia would step aside if the globalists deemed it advantageous. And suddenly, we have Russia announcing that the war on ISIS is over and a “significant portion” of troops will be pulled out over the coming months. This leaves their ally Assad rather vulnerable and makes little sense unless you understand that this is not about Russia, Assad or East versus West. This is about geopolitical theater, and the show must go on. Act three appears to be expanded widespread war in the cradle of civilization, and the Russians are opening the door for this to happen.
North Korean ICBM launch
Tensions with North Korea are going to continue if not explode going into 2018, and the primary reason is the recent ICBM test launch by Pyongyang. One of the mainstream arguments against war in North Korea was that their missile technology was not sufficient enough to pose a threat to the U.S. mainland and that a U.S. military response would be extreme as well as disastrous for everyone involved given the minimal threat North Korea poses. This rationale has now been erased, perhaps conveniently for the neo-con warhawks advising the Trump administration.
North Korea’s missile and nuclear tech has made an astonishing quantum leap in 2017 (It’s almost as if they’ve been getting help…) and their latest ICBM has the capability to strike the Eastern U.S., or almost anywhere else in the world for that matter. So, for American citizens in particular, the threat suddenly becomes more personal. Any major U.S. city could see a quarter of its population vaporized in a flash and another quarter killed by radiation exposure in due course. With images of mushroom clouds dancing in their heads, Americans, who are predominantly tired of war after nearly two decades in the sandbox farce, now have a reason to cheer for yet another one rather than argue against it.
All that is left is a little “push” to motivate the U.S. populace to take that first terrible step into the abyss of an Asian mountain conflict.
China Leaves The Door Open To Regime Change In North Korea
It’s amazing how a few carefully placed words in a major geopolitical statement can leave the door open to considerable calamity. The state-owned Global Times is quoted as saying China will not allow regime change in North Korea by the U.S., but, if North Korea attacks first, then China will remain neutral. This to me is perhaps the most astounding statement made by the Chinese government since they called for a world currency controlled by the IMF.
The message is clear — North Korea is on the table, it is not going away and a false flag or provocation is likely. When this occurs, China has already established that it will not intervene, which means there is no political deterrent. Yes, another example of how the East/West paradigm between governments is as fraudulent as the Left/Right paradigm is between top politicians, but also an extremely disturbing development. This would indicate that a conflict in the region is near at hand, and for those that understand the strategic obstacles in North Korea, at least a decade long quagmire would follow along will millions of civilian deaths.
Federal Reserve Reducing Its Balance Sheet
The final stage of the Fed’s program to pull the rug out from under stock markets has arrived. Interest rates continue to be increased, and I hope liberty activists will finally be able to accept the fact that these hikes will continue and that the Fed does not care about the continued bull market in equities or the continued support of U.S. bonds. The results of Fed tightening are slow, to be sure, but effects have also been obscured for months now by yet another distraction — namely the Trump tax reform bill.
Trump’s bill has been acting as a placebo for markets going into the end of 2017, mostly because the assumption among investors is that corporations will use the profits from tax cuts for continued stock buybacks. For those unaware, it has been stock buybacks fueled by no-interest Fed loans that has allowed for the seemingly endless stock market bull rally the past few years. This is essentially open manipulation of equities by corporations coordinating with the central bank. However, with interest rates rising even marginally, the billions (if not trillions) of dollars required to sustain such a rally are no longer affordable. They must be free in order to be exploited.
The Fed’s balance sheet rise corresponds almost exactly with the explosion in the Dow Jones. If the correlation continues, then it only follows that the Dow will fall as the balance sheet is reduced. Faith in Trump’s bill to prop up stocks is misplaced, and the rally is purely driven by blind assumption. It would take at least a couple of years of tax cycles before tax cuts could be utilized effectively to fund buybacks, and the effect would be nowhere near comparable to that produced by zero cost fed capital.
The Rise Of The Cryptocurrency Psyop
What is interesting and also most suspicious in the sudden “explosion” in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology like Bitcoin is that the actual market volume and individual trading interest in these digital products is still rather small, yet, the global mainstream media promotion of crypto has been massive; almost unprecedented. Is perception driving demand? Is demand driving perception? Or, is it really that an all out mainstream branding campaign supported by international banks is driving perception and thus artificial demand? I think the latter option is the most likely given the evidence.
I have written extensively on the “Virtual Economy” being created by globalists using crytpocurrencies as a flagship in my articles ‘The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin’ and ‘The Virtual Economy Is The End Of Freedom’. The extensive establishment interest in crypto and the blockchain certainly refutes the farcical notion that these products are somehow a threat to the international banks. But beyond this, the rise of cryptocurrencies outlines a rather obvious trend being engineered for the next decade. Clearly, globalists want a cashless society with zero anonymity for the serf class, and this system is set to launch subversively in the next year.
Crypto is potentially the most disastrous development in 2017, exactly because so many liberty activists see it as as tool for decentralization when it is really a tool for total centralization. Many are beginning to wake up to the reality that crypto is not what activists thought it was years ago, but is this too little too late? Crypto means the death of the real decentralized and private economy as humanity begins to abandon localization and person to person transactions for a digitized phantom economy completely dependent on internet based trade under constant surveillance. If left unchecked, economic independence, localization and individual production will be crushed under the weight of the crypto-psyop, just as sound money was crushed under the weight of the central banking fiat psyop.
When historians look back on 2017, they will say that this year was the beginning of the end of the greatest economic bubble of all time, as well as the beginning of the full-spectrum digital economy and the last vestiges of fiscal independence.
To be sure, there have been many more events this past year with wide ranging implications for the future, but I felt that those listed above would have the largest impact over the longest period of time. 2017 has been a year for subversive foundation building and the lighting of geopolitical fuses. 2018 will likely be a year of actions and consequences.
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You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com
With global tensions spiking, thousands of Americans are moving their IRA or 401(k) into an IRA backed by physical gold. Now, thanks to a little-known IRS Tax Law, you can too. Learn how with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals how physical precious metals can protect your savings, and how to open a Gold IRA. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.
After nervous customers panicked and drained their accounts, ultimately causing the collapse of Spanish bank, Banco Popular, equally jittery European Union officials are debating the merits of freezing access — preventing anyone from withdrawing any money — at the first sign of a bank run.
Proponents claim measures to halt a rush of withdrawals would prevent the downfall of floundering financial institutions at their most vulnerable point — in hopes of staving off a catastrophe at least as harrowing as that of 2008 — while detractors admonish the move might have precisely the opposite effect, with investors rushing to yank funds at the slightest indication of trouble.
“The desire is to prevent a bank run, so that when a bank is in a critical situation it is not pushed over the edge,” ‘a person familiar with German government’s thinking’ told Reuters.
“Giving supervisors the power to temporarily block bank accounts at ailing lenders is ‘a feasible option,’ a paper prepared by the Estonian presidency of the EU said, acknowledging that member states were divided on the issue,” Reuters reports.
“EU countries which already allow a moratorium on bank payouts in insolvency procedures at national level, like Germany, support the measure, officials said.”
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A cursory autopsy of last month’s Banco Popular failure had economic officials scrambling to figure out how best to prevent a similar financial debacle; but the idea of cutting customers’ access to their own funds when conditions warrant, blasts apart a Pandora’s Box of potentialities — all, favoring the State and banking industry over individual customers.
While officials contend cutting off account access would theoretically prevent a bank already in distress from going under, when scores of people withdraw money at once, the proposal toes a fraught but sacrosanct line blocking government overreach from private, individual finance.
According to the Estonian paper perused by Reuters, an additional measure proposed the development of a mechanism whereby customers in such a situation could withdraw “at least a limited amount of funds.”
“We strongly believe that this would incentivize depositors to run from a bank at an early stage,” Charlie Bannister of the banking lobby group, Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), told Reuters, alluding to the possible whiplash effect described above.
Envoys of the European Union originally discussed these withdrawal restrictions on July 13, with further talks set for September, but lawmakers would have to concur before any variant of the plan could be put in place. Continues Reuters:
“The plan, if agreed, would contrast with legislative proposals made by the European Commission in November that aimed to strengthen supervisors’ powers to suspend withdrawals, but excluded from the moratorium insured depositors, which under EU rules are those below 100,000 euros ($117,000).
“Under the plan discussed by EU states, pay-outs could be suspended for five working days and the block could be extended to a maximum of 20 days in exceptional circumstances, the Estonian document said.
“Existing EU rules allow a two-day suspension of some payouts by failing banks, but the moratorium does not include deposits.”
In fact, only just now have insured deposits debuted as a target for the withdrawal moratorium, as authorities previously felt such a move “may have a negative impact on market confidence.”
Nevertheless, economic and banking troubles have hit several European nations in recent years, such as the Cyprus fiasco, as described by Bitcoinist,
“Back in 2013, Cyprus’ banking crisis was a hair’s breadth away from a total economic collapse. Cypriot banks were desperate for a bailout from the EU and IMF and many account holders feared that their deposits would vanish. This fear caused a classic bank run and people were rushing to banks and ATMs in order to withdraw as much money as they could.
“Inevitably, cash became scarce and the ATMs stopped working. Many saw Bitcoin as the last option to secure their funds.”
With severely curtailed faith in Western and central banking institutions, that European Union insiders would look first to penalize customers for a bank’s poor planning and management in the midst of a theoretical future crisis typifies the impetus for throngs of people riding the tumultuous cryptocurrency wave as far away from Big Banks as possible.
Considering officials now hope to revoke access to bank accounts at perhaps the time customers would most need it, the marriage of State and finance obviates how insignificant the needs of the so-called little guy when the government sees only green.
A bill recently introduced in Texas seeks to obliterate the Federal Reserve’s much-maligned monopoly on currency by establishing gold and silver as legal tender — but the groundbreaking legislation, if passed, would also prohibit those precious metals from being seized by State authorities.
If passed, Texans would secure stability by reclaiming their purchasing power — without being subject to the whims of The Fed — an institution widely regarded as a devious manipulator of currencies and markets.
Senator Bob Hall introduced the bill last month, which, the Tenth Amendment Center explains, “declares specifically that certain gold and silver coins are legal tender, and prohibits any tax, charge, assessment, fee, or penalty on any exchange of Federal Reserve notes (dollars) for gold or silver. The bill authorizes the payment of taxes and fees in gold & silver in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit the seizure of gold or silver by state authorities.”
Further subverting the current economy’s fealty to Dr. Ron Paul’s Enemy Number One, SB 2097, as the legislation is better known, would prevent any contracts explicitly to be paid in silver or gold to be instead paid with Federal Reserve notes — if you agree to pay in precious coins, you cannot then proffer payment in dollars.
Enforcing such contracts legally, the Tenth Amendment Center notes, would encourage their proliferation — and that of gold and silver coinage.
Constitutional tender expert, William Greene, agrees. He explained,
“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.”
Texas law currently mandates all debts and taxes be paid in Federal Reserve Notes and coins issued by the Treasury — ironic, considering Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution states,
“No State shall … make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”
READ MORE: Obama"s Advisers on Corrupt Trade Deal Found Receiving Millions From Big Banks
It wasn’t until 1913, with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act — which only came after a concerted, covert campaign by U.S. banking magnates — that the loosely hybrid system placed massive control of money in the hands of Big Banks with little oversight from the government. But the ‘central banking’ system has failed to prevent further financial crises — and has been given even a greater chokehold and increased authority as compensation.
Additionally, fiat currency has become a monster issue — once gold no longer backed U.S. dollars beginning in 1971, excuses to just print more bills naturally multiplied.
Where the public has no voice in the value of Federal Reserve Notes, Texans — and any states to follow its lead — could theoretically eschew using dollars, altogether, in favor of payment in gold and silver coins.
As it stands, officials of the Federal Reserve — a private institution — make decisions behind closed doors, where collusion and corruption can easily sway opinion away from the public’s, if not world’s, best interests.
Notably, the most efficacious watchdog against such practices in any given industry — an independent audit — has never been required of The Fed.
“While the debasement of the currency is the result of federal policy and banker collusion, the effect is broad and deep,” Tenth Amendment Center explains. “While there has been talk about reform, or at least an audit of the Fed, it is virtually a certainty that the federal government will never relinquish the power it enjoys through control of the monetary system. That said, there are practical steps that can be taken at the state level to promote the use and acceptance of sound money and undermine the Fed’s monopoly on money.”
If passed, Texas would join a smattering of states instituting sound money policies by returning gold and silver to a status as legitimate currency the metals have enjoyed throughout much of recorded history.
Last June, Texas paved the way for this new bill by establishing the first state-level gold depository, where an “account holder may transfer any portion of the balance of the holder’s depository account by check, draft, or digital electronic instruction to another depository account holder or to a person who at the time the transfer is initiated is not a depository account holder.”
Should lawmakers side with the financial interests of Texans and pass this legislation, Texas would join Utah, which began recognizing gold and silver coins issued by the United States as legal tender in 2011.
First, Iceland, and now Spain has taken on the Big Bankers responsible for financial calamity, as the country’s highest national court charged the former head of Spain’s central bank, a market regulator, and five other banking officials over a failed bank leading to the loss of millions of euros for smaller investors.
This, of course, markedly departs from the mammoth taxpayer giveaway — commonly referred to as the bailout — approved by the U.S. government ostensively to “save” the Big Banks and, albeit unstated, allow the enormous institutions to continue bilking customers without the slightest fear of penalty.
Errant bankers and financiers, it would seem, typically manage to either evade actually being charged, or escape hefty fines and time behind bars.
Spain’s Supreme Court last year ruled “serious inaccuracies” in information about the listing led investors to back Bankia in error, thus the bank has since paid out millions of euros in compensation.
But Spanish authorities could not abide the telling findings of a yearslong investigation into the failed listing, as Wolf Street explains,
“As part of the epic, multi-year criminal investigation into the doomed IPO of Spain’s frankenbank Bankia – which had been assembled from the festering corpses of seven already defunct saving banks – Spain’s national court called to testify six current and former directors of the Bank of Spain, including its former governor, Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, and its former deputy governor (and current head of the Bank of International Settlements’ Financial Stability Institute), Fernando Restoy. It also summoned for questioning Julio Segura, the former president of Spain’s financial markets regulator, the CNMV [National Securities Market Commission] (the Spanish equivalent of the SEC in the US).
“The six central bankers and one financial regulator stand accused of authorizing the public launch of Bankia in 2011 despite repeated warnings from the Bank of Spain’s own team of inspectors that the banking group was ‘unviable.’”
As AFP reports, “The National Court validated conclusions made by prosecutors who concluded that when ‘an unviable entity has been listed on the stock market, its administrators or auditor should not shoulder all the responsibility.’”
Specifics of the charges have not yet been made apparent, but as The Economist reports:
“The court is questioning why they allowed Bankia to sell shares in an initial public offering in 2011, less than a year before Bankia’s portfolio of bad mortgage loans forced the government to seize control of it. It said there was evidence the regulators had ‘full and thorough knowledge’ of Bankia’s plight. After its nationalisation, it went on to report a €19.2bn ($24.7bn) loss for 2012, the largest in Spanish corporate history.”
Internal emails and documents played a crucial role in ultimately bringing the central banking officials to task for the failure of Bankia — inspectors bringing issues to the attention of superiors were allegedly ignored. One email cited by the Economist came from an inspector who warned Bankia was “a money-losing machine,” for which an IPO would not solve.
Another report, deemed “devastating by the court,” saw an inspector advise Bankia to seek a private buyer rather than proceed with the listing.
An inquiry into “the participation of other players, such as officials in the central bank,” was also urged by the National Court.
As the Economist points out, Spanish judges are generally reluctant to sentence first-time financial criminals to prison; though five Novacaixagalicia executives had five-year suspended sentences — levied for embezzlement in 2015 — abruptly enforced in January.
Meanwhile, taxpayers in the United States have yet to see Big Bankers criminally responsible for the financial ruin of so many Americans brought to any semblance of justice for their wrongdoing.
Water protectors from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe can now declare their most tangible victory to date — one of the heftiest investors in the Dakota Access Pipeline, Norway’s largest bank, has pulled its assets from the project.
Just 10 days ago, DNB warned it might withdraw funding for construction of the contentious pipeline if concerns raised by the Standing Rock Sioux were not addressed promptly. That statement, cited by Reuters, read:
“DNB looks with worry at how the situation around the pipeline in North Dakota has developed. The bank will therefore take initiative and use its position to bring about a more constructive process to find a solution to the conflict.
“If these initiatives do not give appeasing answers and results, DNB will consider its further involvement in the financing of the project.”
Now, in a display of astonishing integrity, the bank has followed through on part of its promise — pulling assets invested in Energy Transfer Partners’ disputatious pipeline.
A statement from DNB explains an independent review has begun to assess whether Energy Transfer Partners — the conglomerate of companies responsible for construction of Dakota Access — has trampled or safeguarded the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors. Selling its assets indicates DNB intends to keep its pledge to withdraw all funding — amounting to 10 percent of the project’s total loans — should the investigation find rights of the First Nation are indeed being violated.
News of the asset selloff follows the delivery of a 120,000-signature petition by Greenpeace Norway and other advocates to DNB urging it and other financiers to yank all funding for Dakota Access. Greenpeace lauded DNB’s selling of assets in the project, but, in a tempered statement, noted the move did not fully meet demands of those concerned about human and civil rights violations.
Greenpeace Norway Sustainable Finance Campaigner Martin Norman explained:
“It is great that DNB has sold its assets in the disputed pipeline, and it is a clear signal that it is important that people speak out when injustice is committed. We now expect DNB to also terminate its loans for the project immediately.
“There should be a clause in the lending agreement that deals with human rights violations, and DNB should use it to get its money back and end all involvement in the Dakota Access pipeline. If they don’t have such a clause they must accept they have a bad contract and take the loss.”
Although that scenario would certainly be ideal for the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors — enduring the full force of an evidently callous oil interest backed by taxpayer-funded, over-militarized police from five states — DNB is the first big financier of the project to make an appreciable move to distance itself from pipeline construction.
Lilian Molina, spokesperson for Greenpeace USA, recognized the significance of the bank’s actions, stating:
“The news that DNB has sold its assets and is considering terminating its loans is a victory for the water protectors who are fighting to stop this disaster of a project. All financial institutions with a stake in the pipeline must quickly realize that financing this project is toxic. It would be smart for them to get out ahead of the growing movement of customers looking to divest from banks that finance the destruction of our planet and ignore Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Citigroup, TD Securities, Wells Fargo, SunTrust, and the other banks backing this project should see this as a sign to get on the right side of history.”
Indeed, a movement initiated in solidarity with Dakota Access Pipeline opposition and Indigenous water protectors suggests individuals withdraw money and close personal and business accounts with financiers of the project.
Several prominent figures have added their voice to this growing call to exit Big Banks, including iconic actress, Susan Sarandon, and Oscar-nominated documentary producer, Matthew Cooke.
Cooke filmed his account-closing odyssey and switch to a credit union to show how a simple move — amplified by thousands of individuals following suit — would send a direct message to parties responsible for the project.
With ongoing force employed by militarized police against largely peaceful Native American water protectors and their supporters — including Tasers, rubber bullets, pepper spray, sound cannons, and more — even the public-at-large has grown ambivalent to construction of the pipeline.
Amid pressure from Dakota Access opposition, the Army Corps of Engineers — responsible for granting an easement for ETP to route the pipeline under the Missouri River — announced this week the halt of pipeline construction and a delay in the permitting process in order to better consult with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe about its concerns.
That delay, while a definitive victory for the tribe, constitutes a double-edged sword with time quickly running low before decidedly pro-Big Oil President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. In its announcement, the Army Corps stated it would work with the Standing Rock Sioux on a timeline for that consultation, but no further statement of an agreed deadline has yet been made.
Undoubtedly, the exploding grassroots campaign of solidarity with water protectors is squeezing the vise-grip on Dakota Access Pipeline investors, as police use of excessive force and gestapo-like tactics against Native Americans has conjured the specter of past atrocities against Indigenous peoples by the U.S. government. State-sponsored, corporate-approved law enforcement ferocity in this matter have soured even the apathetic to this pipeline.
It appears at least doubtful the Standing Rock Sioux will see their ultimate goal of permanently halting the pipeline come to fruition; but, if the Army Corps refuses to grant the necessary easement under Nationwide Permit 12, Energy Transfer Partners would be faced with a formidable obstacle to complete Dakota Access.
Victories of every magnitude are tallying rapidly for pipeline opposition and protectors of the water, as Greenpeace’s Molina noted optimistically,
“The writing’s on the wall for the Dakota Access pipeline. People power is winning.”
While election madness reached full tilt in recent days, opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline experienced a quiet victory — Norway’s largest bank, DNB, will consider pulling its hefty investment in the project if concerns from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe are not addressed.
DNB, EcoWatch reports, has reportedly loaned around $350 million to Energy Transfer Partners for the construction of the pipeline — fully 10 percent of the total cost — but is worried the rights of Native Americans are being trampled in the process.
“DNB looks with worry at how the situation around the pipeline in North Dakota has developed,” the financier said in a statement cited by Reuters. “The bank will therefore take initiative and use its position to bring about a more constructive process to find a solution to the conflict.
“If these initiatives do not give appeasing answers and results, DNB will consider its further involvement in the financing of the project.”
Apprehension over solicitous violence police have employed against the Standing Rock Sioux water protectors and their supporters drove the bank to review its investment in the enormously controversial pipeline. Multiple clashes between law enforcement and peaceful opposition finally began leading international headlines after American corporate media largely ignored escalating tensions.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members — and Indigenous peoples from First Nations around the planet, as well as activists and supporters — have occupied several camps along the Missouri River near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, since spring in an attempt to obstruct further construction of Dakota Access.
In bold response, ETP hired private security mercenaries untrained in such matters, who unleashed vicious dogs indiscriminately against a crowd of unarmed but angry water protectors whose sole ‘crime’ constituted trespassing to perform a ceremonial prayer. At least six people were mauled by the dogs in the chaos, and several journalists and activists faced lengthy jail terms.
Since that time, following the mercenaries’ departure, obscenely over-militarized police with tanks better suited for a battlefield of war from at least five states were deployed to patrol on behalf of ETP — and have been no more forgiving than the private firm.
Water protectors, activists, and journalists have been pepper-sprayed, maced, beaten, shot with bean bag projectiles and rubber bullets, tasered, blasted by LRAD and sound cannons, and have been strip-searched, detained in dog kennels, had their arms marked with numbers — and generally been treated contemptibly by every law enforcement agency involved.
Police violence and tactics have been so deplorable, representatives from United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues have been amassing testimony from witnesses and victims about excessive force, unlawful arrests, and mistreatment in jail, EcoWatch reports.
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) deployed human rights observers to monitor the situation for the same reasons.
“Our observers are here to ensure that everyone’s human rights are protected […]
“People here just want to stand up for the rights of Indigenous people and protect their natural resources. These people should not be treated like the enemy,” asserted Eric Ferrero, director of communications for AIUSA. “Police must keep the peace using minimal force appropriate to the situation. Confronting men, women, and children while outfitted in gear more suited for the battlefield is a disproportionate response.”
Beyond appalling police interactions, ETP seemed to intentionally destroy a large swath of sacred land Standing Rock Sioux historians had only recently been able to assess for cultural value.
Unsurprisingly, tepid requests by President Obama and several federal officials for ETP to halt construction until a tribal lawsuit, currently languishing in court, and further permit reviews conclude, have been brazenly ignored. To wit, further construction of Dakota Access as opposition continues its fight have brought the pipeline to the banks of the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir — the exact point of contention as water protectors worry a leak or spill would contaminate tribal drinking water and that of around 18 million people downstream.
Using the chaos and distraction of Election Day, ETP announced it will move forward with drilling to begin installation of pipeline beneath Lake Oahe in just two weeks, intimating it would do so with or without appropriate permits — in a flagrant defiance requests to stop construction, potentially exacerbating further violence by police against angered water protectors.
DNB apparently views these acts as unacceptable, and if the situation worsens — as it likely will should ETP follow through on its Election Day declaration — it appears the bank stands ready to revoke its financial support.
If so, the bold move could inspire other major investors — fearful of ruining their reputations by supporting human rights abuses — to follow suit, particularly if the public applies pressure.
In the meantime, water protectors from the Standing Rock Sioux and their supporters face a particularly bitter North Dakota winter on the open plains. Viewing their prayerful movement as protection of water for future generations, none of those camped in the pipeline’s path have plans of leaving until the “black snake” is stopped in its tracks.
Amid increasingly contentious and excessive displays of force against water protectors opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, there are reports officers have had their fill of orders to crack down — and have begun to turn in their badges.
In a post to the Standing Rock Rising Facebook page, Redhawk writes:
“There have been at least 2 reports of police officers turning in their badges acknowledging that this battle is not what they signed up for. You can see it in some of them, that they do not support the police actions. We must keep reminding them they are welcome to put down their weapons and badge and take a stand against this pipeline as well.
“Some are waking up.”
In video footage shot by independent journalists and smaller media organizations, pipeline opponents and Standing Rock Sioux water protectors and their supporters have been seen pleading with heavily militarized officers to ‘find their humanity’ and cease violent actions against those attempting to preserve clean water for generations to come.
Activists and supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s blockade of pipeline construction have implored the militarily-equipped officers to consider if their families’ would approve of their belligerent actions — particularly as law enforcement in this case is essentially acting on behalf of Big Oil and wealthy pipeline stakeholders.
Officers handing over their badges as a quiet protest against orders to lash out with excessive and largely unnecessary force is no small victory for those opposed to Energy Transfer Partners’ construction of the pipeline, now commonly referred to as DAPL.
In the latest showing of unnecessarily violent police action, a group of unarmed Native Americans and activists crafted a bridge to span a section of Cantapeta Creek in order to perform a prayer ceremony — but police and National Guard troops quickly dismantled the project. When dozens entered the frigid waterway to cross on foot, police coated them with pepper spray, rubber bullets, and, reportedly, tear gas.
“It messed me up, but I’m slowly recovering,” Danyion LeBeaux, who had been at the standoff, told the Guardian. “People were standing there unarmed, and they start macing us for no apparent reason.”
Despite some reports of violence from pipeline opposition, journalists who have visited the growing movement in North Dakota say those actions have not only been against the wishes of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, but were likely perpetrated by outside agitators — perhaps paid to do so in order to smear the peaceful nature of the opposition.
Officers from at least five states and multiple agencies have consistently brutalized and intimidated the water protectors with rubber and bean bag bullets, pepper spray, mace, Tasers, sound cannons and piercing tones through Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD), batons, and other means to antagonize and then arrest anyone in the pipeline’s presumed path.
Upon arrest, water protectors are stripped, searched, and, in cases of mass arrests, are marked on their arms and detained in dog kennels.
Can it be any wonder some officers have grasped the magnitude of their actions — particularly as the world watches in horror?
Considering the brutal bent law enforcement has readily displayed, those who have visited the encampments near Cannon Ball North Dakota have come away traumatized and lacking understanding for why the Obama administration and presidential candidates haven’t sooner voiced concern.
Indeed, it wasn’t until Wednesday, just hours before the fracas at Cantapeta Creek, that President Obama merely slightly suggested in an interview the Army Corps of Engineers would be considering rerouting the pipeline again — this time to accommodate the concerns of the Standing Rock Sioux.
After being allowed to assess traditional land, which is now private property, for the first time in early September, a tribal historian filed documents with the federal court presiding over its pipeline lawsuit detailing a number of sites of both sacred and historical interest to the Standing Rock Sioux. Less than 24 hours after the filing, construction crews drove 20 miles away from current worksites and decimated that exact swath of land in what many called an act of retribution for growing opposition.
If the report of officers handing over badges in protest proves indeed true, perhaps police are finally seeing this exploitation and state-sponsored violence for how it ultimately will be seen years from now — as a stance for the corporations at the behest of the government against peoples native to this land.
In other words, maybe they don’t want to be on the wrong side of history.
Contrary to his anti-establishment stance — which supporters readily boast as a viable alternative to Hillary Clinton — Donald Trump’s establishment roots run so deep, the billionaire real estate mogul plans to appoint a former Goldman Sachs partner and George Soros Fund manager as Secretary of the Treasury should he win the election.
Steve Mnuchin came on board Trump’s campaign as finance chair in May, raising eyebrows of many who felt his 17-year history with Sachs — and affiliation with liberal globalist George Soros as an Investment Professional of Soros Fund Management — conflicted directly with the then-presumptive nominee’s conservative stance and criticisms of establishment politicians.
“It is difficult to see how a second-generation Goldman Sachs partner would secure such a prominent position in an administration delivered by a populist wind,” Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky told Politico of Trump’s curious choice for Treasury Secretary.
According to Fox Business Network, Trump’s confidence in winning the White House has fomented enough to begin picking Cabinet members, and besides the anomalous choice of Mnuchin for the Treasury, sources said he’s considering New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for Attorney General and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for Homeland Security Secretary.
Trump has, of course, expended great efforts in criticizing opponent Hillary Clinton’s deep ties to the banking and Wall Street elite; and prior to garnering the Republican nomination, extended that critique to competitor Ted Cruz, saying in one debate:
“I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton.”
Zero Hedge noted when Trump hired the left-leaning hedge fund manager and financier as finance chair that Mnuchin had previously donated multiple times to various Democrats, including Barack Obama and none other than Hillary Clinton.
Further substantiating his establishing banking insider status — the precise profile Trump claims publicly to loathe — Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years, headed OneWest Bank prior to its purchase by CIT Group in 2015, and now sits on CIT’s board while also serving as chairman and chief executive of Dune Capital Management, a private investment firm with a focus on financing big-time Hollywood movies, like “Avatar.”
If Mnuchin’s Wall Street ties don’t trouble Trump’s supporters enough, the hedge fund manager’s links to George Soros — an ardent Clinton fan — certainly will.
In fact, in terms of opposition, Soros has spent billions influencing global politics by inserting his brand of leftism wherever possible — and earlier this year even pledged, with others, some $15 million specifically to mobilize Latinos and immigrants to defeat Donald Trump.
“Steven is a professional at the highest level with an extensive and very successful financial background,” Trump said upon bringing Mnuchin into his campaign. “He brings unprecedented experience and expertise to a fundraising operation that will benefit the Republican Party and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton.”
Indeed, Trump’s campaign, quoted by the Daily Caller, said Mnuchin “has previously worked with Mr. Trump in a business capacity and brings his expertise in finance to what will be an extremely successful fundraising operation for the Republican Party.”
While business dealings certainly bring ordinarily clashing personalities into contact on occasion, these details about the relationship between Trump and Mnuchin evidence the former’s links to the left.
Despite the nominee’s many diatribes excoriating Hillary Clinton as out-of-touch with the American populace, Trump’s own status as a billionaire belies both their decades-old friendship and striking similarities — particularly as darlings of the establishment.
Should you choose to vote on the 8th, it would be prudent to keep in mind blustery campaign rhetoric — from any politician — only constitutes so much hot air.
A massive explosion of a gas pipeline in Shelby County, Alabama — near the site where the same pipeline leaked some 336,000 gallons of gasoline just last month — evidences the exact reason activists and Native American water protectors oppose the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline over 1,400 miles to the northwest.
One person was killed and at least five people were injured in the blast — tentatively described as an accident — as Colonial Pipeline shut down operations black smoke billowed, sending millions into a panic over the abrupt and unexpected coming gas shortage.
“Our deepest condolences go out tonight to the family and friends of the person who was lost today, and our thoughts and prayers are with those who were injured,” Colonial said in a statement, reported NBC News.
Cited by the Chicago Tribune, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said the explosion occurred roughly a mile west of last month’s rupture, adding of the likely crippling shortage of fuel, “We’ll just hope and pray for the best.”
“It appears to have been an accident, and they’re allowing fuel to burn,” Bentley told WBRC. “It’s about one mile west of where the repair took place on the Colonial Pipeline just recently.”
#LiveOn3340: @BrianPia3340 reports on Colonial Pipeline company history after today"s explosion in Shelby County https://t.co/6JjMNC6sce pic.twitter.com/Y8nT2Wo81s
— ABC 33/40 News (@abc3340) October 31, 2016
Refined gas poured from the pipeline as workers rushed to construct a 75-foot-long ‘earthen dam’ to contain the flaming spill, where fuel will then be allowed to burn itself out. Dry tinder from an ongoing drought in the area quickly ignited two wildfires after the explosion — which then charred 31 acres — and area residents were forced to evacuate without any indication when they would be permitted to return.
“There’s a large plume of smoke; there’s a large fire,” noted Shelby County Sheriff’s Captain Jeff Hartley, as quoted by the Chicago Tribune. “We’re not sure exactly how it started or what caused it,” he said, adding of the massive deployment of fire and emergency personnel, “We’ve got first responders entering the area, and a lot of them.”
Apart from the worker killed, subsequent reports downplayed the extent of injuries suffered by those at the blast site, AL.com reported seven of the “eight or nine” subcontractors working in the area had suffered severe burns from the explosion. According to Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego, two of those workers — all of whom had begun digging in an effort to flush one of the lines as repairs continued on the original leak — may still be missing, though that information was both unconfirmed and unclear because extreme heat from flames emanating at the site of the explosion prevented further assessment.
Colonial noted in a brief statement cited by a local ABC affiliate that both pipelines — one transporting gasoline, the other distillates, had been shut down, and, further,
“Colonial’s top priorities are the health and safety of the work crew on site and protection of the public.”
According to a later report from Reuters, the fire had been ‘contained’ by around 9 pm local time — yet no further word about the possibly-missing subcontractors has been provided.
Incredible video of the Colonial Pipeline leak from Ryan Burtis. Our thoughts & prayers to all pic.twitter.com/NUOdoaW7O5
— WBRC FOX6 News (@WBRCnews) October 31, 2016
Fears of yet another gas shortage akin to that from the September leak — as well as consequent soaring prices — spawned lengthy lines at gas stations as soon as news of the explosion hit headlines. Reuters explains:
“Colonial, the biggest refined products system in the United States, is responsible for supplying about one-third of the 3.2 million barrels per day of gasoline consumed on the East Coast, according to U.S. Energy Department data.”
Further, “It was not clear whether the explosion happened on the gasoline or the distillates pipeline, the governor said in the briefing.”
Although the aforementioned details handily summarize the facts of the explosion — occurring during active repairs of the previous, sizeable leak — the facts do little to quantify potential environmental and health impacts of an explosion and leak of this magnitude.
This explosion of a major pipeline supplying fuel to large portions of the Southeast and East coast serves an ominous portent for ongoing opposition to construction of the hotly contentious Dakota Access Pipeline slated to cross four states, traversing just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota.
Standing Rock Sioux water protectors and Native Americans and Indigenous peoples from over 200 nations and their supporters fear that pipeline’s route — undercutting the Missouri River in several places — threatens to poison the tribal water supply and that of no less than 18 million others living downstream. Indeed, the Colonial Pipeline’s tragic mishap — the second in essentially the same section of pipe in about one month — darkly parallels the hundreds of similar accidents such pipelines are prone to.
Residents of Bismarck, aware of Big Oil’s horrendous safety record, managed to thwart Energy Transfer Partners’ original plans for the pipeline to be routed near the city — so ETP, with assistance from the State, diverted Dakota Access to cross just north of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation on privately-owned land.
Rightly viewed by pipeline opponents as blatant exploitation of Native Americans — as well as a violation of an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government — Standing Rock Sioux water protectors and supporters have camped along the Missouri for months in an effort to halt construction as a lawsuit languishes in federal court.
Big Oil, Big Banks, and government backers obviously view future profiteering from the pipeline important enough to send in absurdly militarized police from at least five states to combat pipeline opponents — who have remained on the whole peaceful, prayerful, and unarmed.
ETP insists the opposition is misguided and Dakota Access offers a safe alternative to the ‘riskier’ oil transportation methods of railroad and tanker truck — but even the company’s own records listing thousands of spills in just the last six years flatly dispute such claims. Worse, although pipeline leaks and spills might technically be less frequent than those caused by railroad accidents, the International Energy Agency notes pipeline mishaps leaked three times more crude over an eight-year period.
In fact, Big Oil’s general safety record is nearly impossible to fully track, in part because such spills, leaks, explosions, and other accidents are startlingly common and no less perilous to workers, residents, the environment — and, yes, the rapidly dwindling water supply.
A report by the Center for Effective Government attempting to map and quantify crude and other industry spills found not only are “ruptures and leaks a daily occurrence,” but “Eighty people have died and 389 have been injured in such incidents in the last five years.
“Since 2010, over 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred on U.S. pipelines. These incidents have killed 80 people, injured 389 more, and cost $2.8 billion in damages. They also released toxic, polluting chemicals in local soil, waterways, and air.”
According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, as noted in the report, those spills and ruptures sent 7 million gallons of crude into the environment. Further illustrating the imperative to oppose construction of Dakota Access, one of the worst spills occurred in North Dakota — not by human error or poor maintenance — but when lightning struck a crude oil pipeline, spilling 840,000 gallons of crude into a wheat field in 2013.
While the oil and gas industry and its wealthy proponents in government would attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes about pipeline safety, using crafty language and skewed statistics, the truth is, no safe manner for transporting oil and gas actually exists.
Opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline simply isn’t confined to a Native American issue, as exploitive as that facet is — but when pipelines traverse pristine lands, farm acreage, and the rivers and waterways we depend on to sustain us, we’re all at risk.
What scant corporate media coverage of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s stand against Big Oil does exist has painted the fight as limited in scope; but thousands encamped along the pipeline’s planned route — who face an unusually bitter winter, no less — are in fact taking a stand for every person and every creature who would be devastated in the event of a future oil spill.
