The Language of Looting – By MICHAEL HUDSON

Must read of today, from Counterpunch, or: “What “Nationalize the Banks” and the “Free Market” Really Mean in Today’s Looking-Glass World”. Extracts:

“…the rhetoric of “free markets,” “nationalization” and even “socialism” (as in “socializing the losses”) has been turned into the language of deception to help the financial sector mobilize government power to support its own special privileges. Having undermined the economy at large, Wall Street’s public relations think tanks are now dismantling the language itself.

Exactly what does “a free market” mean? Is it what the classical economists advocated – a market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests – a market protected by the rise in public regulation from the Sherman Anti-Trust law of 1890 to the Glass-Steagall Act and other New Deal legislation? Or is it a market free for predators to exploit victims without public regulation or economic policemen – the kind of free-for-all market that the Federal Reserve and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) have created over the past decade or so? It seems incredible that people should accept today’s neoliberal idea of “market freedom” in the sense of neutering government watchdogs, Alan Greenspan-style, letting Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide, Hank Greenberg at AIG, Bernie Madoff, Citibank, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers loot without hindrance or sanction, plunge the economy into crisis and then use Treasury bailout money to pay the highest salaries and bonuses in U.S. history.

Terms that are the antithesis of “free market” also are being turned into the opposite of what they historically have meant. Take today’s discussions about nationalizing the banks. For over a century nationalization has meant public takeover of monopolies or other sectors to operate them in the public interest rather than leaving them so special interests. But when neoliberals use the word “nationalization” they mean a bailout, a government giveaway to the financial interests.

Doublethink and doubletalk with regard to “nationalizing” or “socializing” the banks and other sectors is a travesty of political and economic discussion from the 17th through mid-20th centuries. Society’s basic grammar of thought, the vocabulary to discuss political and economic topics, is being turned inside-out in an effort to ward off discussion of the policy solutions posed by the classical economists and political philosophers that made Western civilization “Western.”

Today’s clash of civilization is not really with the Orient; it is with our own past, with the Enlightenment itself and its evolution into classical political economy and Progressive Era social reforms aimed at freeing society from the surviving trammels of European feudalism. What we are seeing is propaganda designed to deceive, to distract attention from economic reality so as to promote the property and financial interests from whose predatory grasp classical economists set out to free the world. What is being attempted is nothing less than an attempt to destroy the intellectual and moral edifice of what took Western civilization eight centuries to develop, from the 12th century Schoolmen discussing Just Price through 19th and 20th century classical economic value theory.

Any idea of “socialism from above,” in the sense of “socializing the risk,” is old-fashioned oligarchy – kleptocratic statism from above. Real nationalization occurs when governments act in the public interest to take over private property. The 19th-century program to nationalize the land (it was the first plank of the Communist Manifesto) did not mean anything remotely like the government taking over estates, paying off their mortgages at public expense and then giving it back to the former landlords free and clear of encumbrances and taxes. It meant taking the land and its rental income into the public domain, and leasing it out at a user fee ranging from actual operating cost to a subsidized rate or even freely as in the case of streets and roads.

Nationalizing the banks along these lines would mean that the government would supply the nation’s credit needs. The Treasury would become the source of new money, replacing commercial bank credit. Presumably this credit would be lent out for economically and socially productive purposes, not merely to inflate asset prices while loading down households and business with debt as has occurred under today’s commercial bank lending policies…” Read all here

The best you can do is go where the governments are so unorganized that they can’t control you effectively

Some original opinion mixed with predictions, wit and tips from an interview with Doug Casey published today on Goldnews. Extracts: “…what I describe as the Greater Depression. It’s not coming; it’s here. It’s going to get much, much worse as far as I’m concerned and unfortunately, it’s going to last a long time. It doesn’t have to last a long time, but the root cause is government intervention in the economy and everything they’re doing now is not just the wrong thing, it’s the opposite of what they should be doing. It’s almost perverse…

…Europe is going to be hurt much worse than the US Europeans are much more heavily taxed and much more heavily regulated. The average European is much more reliant upon the state psychologically as well as economically. So it’s all over for Europe and this doesn’t even count the problems that they’re going to have in the continuing war against Islam, which are much more serious for Europe than they are for the US.
So, no, Europe is fated to be nothing but a source of houseboys and maids for the Chinese in the next generation…

…I’ve been to 175 countries and lived in 12. My feeling is that the best thing that you can do is set your life up so that you’re not to be considered the property of any one government. You might have a passport or several passports and, therefore, that government thinks they own you. But if you don’t spend time in a country, practically speaking, there’s nothing they can do about it.

So no, there is no real haven for freedom in the world today. The best you can do is go where the governments are so unorganized that they can’t control you effectively. That’s one reason I like to spend time in Argentina. They have an incredibly stupid government, but they’re also very inefficient and ineffective. So it’s wonderful as a place to live.

I also spend time in Uruguay, because it’s a tiny little country with no ambitions to conquer the world. The nice thing about New Zealand, where I am now, is that it’s a small country, only 4 million people, lots of open land. It’s got some severe problems, but it’s pleasant. I think the US is going to be the epicenter of a lot of problems in the years to come…

…the most intelligent thing you can do is to own a lot of gold, including Gold Coins in your own possession. And I think speculation in Gold Mining stocks makes sense at this point, because gold stocks are about as cheap as they’ve ever been relative to other assets, really, in history. Now is an excellent time to do that as well. But that’s in terms of speculation…

…Owning real estate in some foreign countries is a very good idea – from a lifestyle point of view, an asset diversification point of view, and a possible capital gains point of view, too. They can’t make you repatriate foreign real estate. Having some US Dollar cash while we’re going through this deflationary period is very wise as well, but that’s not going to last. Eventually the US Dollar is going to reach its intrinsic value…

…the US should default on this debt. It’s impossible to pay it back, and it won’t be paid back. It’s more honest to acknowledge that bankruptcy now as opposed to pretend it’s going to be paid back. Defaulting even might forestall runaway inflation in the dollar, which would be a catastrophe of the first order. So it’s the smart and moral thing to do, and it’s going to happen eventually anyway. All the real wealth will still be here; a lot of it will just change ownership. The big losers will be those who lent to the State, thereby enabling its depredations, and they deserve to be punished.

But even a default tomorrow will do no good unless you put the US government into reverse and disband all of these ridiculous, destructive agencies that have grown like a cancer for years. Taxes should be cut 50% to start with, just out of hand. And the defense establishment – it’s a misnomer; it’s not defense at all but rather foments wars around the world – should be cut hugely. Not with a butcher knife; but a chain saw. But none of this is going to happen; in fact, just the opposite. That’s why I’m so pessimistic now that the tipping point’s finally been reached…” Read all here

Another solution coming: The Fed as last instance warranty for consumer credit

Just in from Richard Moore: “Under the program, the Fed will lend to investors who acquire new securities backed by auto loans, credit card balances, student loans and small-business loans at rates ranging from roughly 1.5 percent to 3 percent.

Depending on the type of security they are borrowing against, investors will be able to borrow 84 percent to 95 percent of the face value of the bonds. Investors would not be liable for any losses beyond the 5 percent to 16 percent equity that they retain in the investment.”

NYTimes February 20, 2009 U.S. Tries a Trillion-Dollar Key for Locked Lending

My comment: to me, it seems just another big gift to the bankers no-questions-asked.

US stolen military hardware market in Peshawar – Kyrgyz Parliament Approves Closure of Strategic US Air Base

This is a must read on the real situation on the ground in the quagmire called Afghanistan.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, there is a massive free market of stolen U.S. Military equipment (included laptops with classified information). There you find also Taliban commanders riding Humvees. LOL – I can’t wait for when they will learn to fly choppers.

This should help to shorten the agony of this crazy, pointless invasion, though: Kyrgyz Parliament Approves Closure of Strategic US Air Base … or maybe not: The United States is looking for alternatives to win back its airbase in Kyrgyzstan after Bishkek moved to close the vital facility

Great Moments in Labor Relations

From 1877, a letter to the President of the B & O Railroad in Baltimore from the Gatling Gun Company, urging the railroad to buy, and use, more gatling guns on the strikers. The original handwritten letter, on very ornate Gatling stationary, is scanned and there is a transcription.

http://groups.google.com/group/maryland-labor-history

(I wonder about current equivalents, like crowd control and “non-lethal” technologies marketing)

Bailed-out banks to add £1.5 trillion to public debt

Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB, the two banks bailed out by the Government, are to add between £1 trillion and £1.5 trillion to the public debt, the equivalent of between 70 and 100 per cent of GDP, the Office for National Statistics indicated this morning.

Britain’s public sector net debt is already a record high, hitting 47.8 per cent of GDP in January, official figures show. This is the highest level of debt recorded since the ONS started recording data in 1993.

The ONS said that it had decided to add the banks to the Government’s books because “the Government has the ability to control the respective banks’ general corporate policy through the conditions associated with the agreements signed relating to recapitalisation.”

However the dismal figures do not paint the whole picture, as all the liabilities of the banks are added to the public books, and only the liquid assets are taken into account. The capital assets are not included….” Read all here (hat tip to dotconnector) More here: UK Public Finances Deteriorate Dramatically and here: EU Fights Plans To Fence UK Banks Toxic Debt

Nationalization: Code Word for transferring their insolvency to the tax payers

Just in from Kurt Nimmo on Infowars on the big news of today: “It is now a mantra in the corporate media — the only way to fix the banking system is to “nationalize” the banks. “A touchy word has entered the public debate about the future of America’s economy. It’s a word that would shock the nation in normal times, but as even Republicans begin to whisper it, temporary ‘nationalization’ of troubled banks is increasingly seen as our last best hope for fixing our financial system,” declares Thomas Kelley, writing for Yahoo News. …

…Bank nationalization is merely a code word for a banker scheme to “socialize” the insolvency of certain banks. In other words, the government — the bankers — are transferring this insolvency to the tax payers who are confused on the issue, thanks in part to the diligent work of Thomas Kelley, Michael Hirsh of Newsweek, Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman of the New York Times, and no shortage of “economists” from the IMF and the banker controlled Treasury. Even so, most Americans smell a scam in the works.

The reason all these corporate scribes are chanting nationalization (banker takeover) in unison is quite simple — the American people are steadfastly against it. “All sorts of big government solutions are being proposed to combat the country’s economic troubles, but Americans are clear on one thing: 75% say the federal government should not take over the U.S. banking system,” notes Rasmussen Reports. “Only nine percent (9%) think nationalization of America’s banks is a good idea, and 16% are undecided in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey,” published on February 10.

Not that it matters. Congress is listening to former Fed mob boss Alan Greenspan, who “may have given Republicans the political cover they need to consider nationalizing U.S. banks when the former Federal Reserve chairman joined a growing list of experts who suggest nationalization is inevitable,” reports Reuters. “Republicans typically stand for small government and deregulation, but ideology has a way of being put aside in a crisis. Greenspan has acknowledged he was wrong to oppose some forms of market regulation.”

Republicans “stand for small government”? Is this why the size of government increased substantially under Republican president George Bush? He was the “Mother of All Big Spenders,” spending even more than Democrat Bill Clinton and rivaling Jimmy Carter. “No president since FDR — who offered a New Deal to pull the nation out of the Great Depression and then fought World War II — has presided over as rapid a growth in government when measured as a percentage of the total economy,” writes Jon Ward.

In fact, both Republicans and Democrats stand for increasing the national debt to the point where the economy will implode — and soon.

The debt-driven bubble economy was engineered by the bankers for a specific reason — to create a global economic blowout followed by consolidation. It is no mistake the Federal Reserve overleveraged the financial system, leading to a collapse in asset prices. “It is not that the free market failed,” writes Marc Faber for the Wall Street Journal. “The mistake was constant interventions in the free market by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury that addressed symptoms and postponed problems instead of solving them.” However, this was no mistake. The credit bubble is a deliberate and skillfully orchestrated scheme cooked up by the private bankers that own and run the Federal Reserve.

“Further interventions through ill-conceived bailouts and bulging fiscal deficits are bound to prolong the agony and lead to another slump — possibly an inflationary depression with dire social consequences,” Mr. Faber continues.

Indeed, and precisely as planned. So-called nationalization of the banks and financial institutions will not accomplish the miraculous feats advertised and supported by the likes of Lindsey Graham and the Democrats and Republicans. It will, however, allow offshore bankers to consolidate wealth and turn the world into a feudalist police state.

Once again, let us return to the CFR historian and author Carroll Quigley, who wrote: “The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.”

Now they need to sell it to the American people, but the American people are not in the mood to buy. And that’s what Northcom and newly encamped combat brigades in America are all about — if Americans resist the bankster plan for global domination, they will deliver it to them at gunpoint…” Read all here

Putin: Post-US World Blueprint

Must read of today, from Jim Willie CB: “…The Chinese and Russians are burying the US alive. The Japanese, Germans, and Gulf States keep a very low profile for the moment. The decisions have been made: wait for 2010. They will use the unfolding chaos to introduce the new currency basket and trade rules… There is a brand new system being designed that will borrow from the past and apply 21st century tools for barter / counter trade / excess capacity etc. An Exchange Platform will cut out the banks altogether… [Chinese Premier] Wen delivered his speech in Davos and went straight to Berlin where they put the final touch on the new world currency basket, sponsored by Berlin-Moscow-Beijing-Tokyo-Riyadh. Moscow and Berlin already have a massive counter trade / barter trade agreement in place, and Beijing was eager to joint that platform as well.” The new global currencies are planned for launch in January 2010. They will be launched amidst growing chaos. Events up to that time will be tumultuous…

…The USDollar should not be the true focus of attention. Paradoxically, as it dies a horrible death, its reserve currency status ensures it might be last to crumble. All other currencies are at risk, except perhaps the Japanese yen. The focus of attention should be directed to gold & silver. The pundits, anchors, and supposed experts believe that the rise in the gold price means that price inflation is an imminent but hidden threat. THEY ARE SO WRONG. The threat is of a collapsed global financial foundation, complete with rising chaos from no current viable alternative, as the Untied States finds itself tossed into a dungeon. The process is slow, but the pace is accelerating. The signpost in the dungeon is marked ‘Third World’ with full shame. The charges will go without trial, as the marketplace is brutal. But bank ruin, institutional corruption, exported bond fraud, permission of counterfeit rings, protection of crime syndicates, and abused global reserve currency custodial responsibility lie at the core. Most scrutiny of charges will be conducted much later, when too late, in an examination of the wreckage.

THIRD WORLD INTRODUCTION
My analysis has been very consistent in its message. The broken bank system, crippled households, endless housing decline, corporations in retreat, and federal debt that cannot be financed by foreign creditors, these work together to guarantee that the Untied States does not just enter the Third World, but that the US will be thrust quickly into the Third World…

…At a time when the US, UK, and European banks face dire need for bailouts and rescues, one might consider the specter of entire nations requiring bailouts, not just their banks. Iceland gave notice. Watch in horror as the risk rises for failures of states.

As a reminder, the USGovt federal budget deficit this year should hit 15% of the national GDP size, more than double anything ever witnessed, and more than double what usually causes a 25% to 30% currency correction. This time will be no different. The gold price has responded. Given the turmoil in foreign lands, with their own attendant currency threats, the USDollar is the not concurrent indicator of gold anymore, a topic addressed two weeks ago. GOLD IS RESPONDING, ALONG WITH SILVER. Even the knucklehead financial media and lamebrain financial sector managers have noticed…

..The reality is that foreign creditors have already announced to key USCongressional members that they will not be purchasing any USTreasury Bonds for several months. Whether active boycott or inability from lack of trade surplus, it does not matter. Dire straits come to the US shores very soon.

OBAMA’S FIRST FOREIGN POLICY BLUNDER
If the retarded Stimulus Bill is Obama’s first blunder of domestic policy, then refusal to attend the Davos Forum himself was his first foreign policy blunder. Newly inaugurated Barack Obama could have traveled to Switzerland and met numerous finance ministers, bank leaders, and iconic individuals, even Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and Wen Jiabao. Instead, he sent greenhorn Timmy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary. Timmy shot his mouth off right away and lost global respect instantly. He repeated the oft-used and extremely old tired saw that China was manipulating its yuan currency. This angered the Chinese again, at a time when the US leaders need their creditors in full gear. Recall that Geithner’s stupid comment came only a couple weeks after an even more stupid comment was made by outgoing Treasury Secy Henry Paulson. Hanky told the Chinese that they are mostly to blame for the global banking meltdown because their trade surpluses had grown too big, and they invested too much in USTreasury Bonds and USAgency Mortgage bonds. The Chinese shot back in anger and defiance to call that ‘Gangster Logic’ rightly. The integrity of US leaders is declining as fast as their judgment exercised. Already, the Chinese have no respect for the new US Financial Dream Team.

…Putin was the only bright spot in Davos. Putin offered a Blueprint for the next decade, for the ‘Post-US World’ where the US-UK corrupt tag team does not control the helm or sit at the catbird seat. Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev served as dominant figures over a gloomy forum…

…The overriding theme of the Putin plan is a new multi-polar world, where power is shared and no longer concentrated in a dangerous fashion. Putin was as specific as required for a blueprint, which typically does not need to go into great detail. It requires a new structure. When an entire system is shattered, one needs a foundation with large structural descriptions as planks. Putin gave it. He is not a hero, but rather a man who realizes the disorder in progress and the dire need for new direction. The USDollar-based system is dead. Within the vacuum, the global financial and economic system is slowly collapsing. Actually, my view is that the USEconomy is accelerating in its breakdown, unlikely to last through the summer without some very clear evidence of failure. The untold story is that the global system failure has pitted two groups of powerful billionaires against each other. Putin represents a force that pursues greater equitability in commerce, trade, and banking with multi-polar power centers. His opposite force pursues greater concentrated power, more fascist towers, and a beneficial reduction in world population. This thorny topic is given occasional coverage in the Hat Trick Letter, yet is highly controversial and risky to discuss. Broad strokes rather than detail are my choice…

…He was not going to offer up details of his ‘End Run’ plans. But he offered four main recommendations that make a great deal of sense, a starting point:

1) Get real and declare hopeless debt securities as bad assets, and write them off. The current crisis will only be prolonged unless the balance sheets are cleaned up. A liquidation process is essential. (The refusal for banks to come clean has resulted in extreme constipation for the credit system, while the patient slowly falls into mud.)

2) Get rid of virtual money, exaggerated reports, and dubious credit ratings on financial securities. He wishes for fundamental asset values to be determined by the ability to generate added value, apart from subjective models. (He refers indirectly to credit derivatives and futures contracts, the artificial mechanisms to control price structures, those onerous devices that act as pseudo-money.)

3) Get away from the single reserve currency system, which he regards as dangerous. Instead, install several strong reserve currencies in a smooth and irreversible switch. (This is the unofficial death knell of the USDollar itself, for alternatives in usage.)

4) Get currency reliability for foreign reserves management, which can be used by other states. This can be achieved by enabling more open monetary policies, and enforcing economic and financial discipline. (This will enable regional stability and cooperation.)

…Putin urged a new system of global regulators, an obvious slap at the unspeakably corrupt Securities & Exchange Commission (for stocks) and the unspeakably corrupt Commodity Futures Trading Commission (for commodities). Each is a lapdog steeped in conflict of interest, paid to look the other way to criminal activity, with no urge to prosecute their friends. The SEC and CFTC have been team players for the four major US-based crime syndicates in order for them to conduct their business. They are parasites to the system, while the syndicates spread cancers. Putin all but said to eliminate the Intl Monetary Fund and World Bank. Putin wants to see shared technology across borders. This is a slap against the US, which refuses to export advanced computer technology and telecommunications technology.

Putin made a comment about possible energy shortages and obstructed growth prospects, but urged constructive inter-dependence. This could be regarded as a threat, and should be taken as a claim for leadership. Putin reminded the group of his recommendation in 2006 for cooperation among energy suppliers, consumers, and transit countries. These suggestions fell on deaf ears over two years ago, but now after the Ukraine incidents, their time has clearly come. Putin wants a new international legal framework for energy security, with clear-cut legal statutes. Some of what Putin mentions comes as a reaction to US financial sources that are exerting extreme force on energy prices with political motive. Putin openly called for a balanced price determination system free from the vagaries of financial derivative instruments.

One might detect a theme in much of what Putin urges for new systems. Putin pursues a new energy framework to possibly serve as the foundation for a new financial structural foundation. This is a natural progression, based upon a solvent foundation, that would play into Russian strength. See the February reports for details. However, hard assets and natural resources must supplant the corrupt networks that control price systems in the current broken apparatuses. Putin is attempting to fill a dangerous vacuum. The Western leaders are caught in a vise, caught in a policy pattern toward more of the same ineffective elixirs. Putin also delivered stern warnings about NATO, whose broken treaties cause great stress. The nettlesome trend toward NATO inclusion for former Soviet Republics has also caused great stress. Expect extremely loud backfires on this front, as Ukraine will probably be used as a display case for Russian power. They will destroy the Ukrainian political structure, punish them for permitting themselves to be used as US puppets, and probably carve the nation into territories. Other Eastern European nations had better take notice.

BARTER SYSTEMS INITIATED
New important barter systems are soon to spring up. Just this week, China entering the on-ramp to the barter system highway by lending Russia $25 billion in return for a guaranteed 20 years of energy supply. It is not so much a loan, as an initial stake in a new trade system. My sources indicate that two bilateral barter accords are in progress, soon to be made public. The Russians have another bilateral barter plan with Germany, soon to be hatched. These plans will catch the Untied States off guard, and isolate the US. The pricing for commodity resources will circumvent the US-UK corrupted systems. In the process, the US will find itself outside looking in. Commodity supply routes will be redirected from Russia to China, from Canada to China, from Australia to China, and from Venezuela (as well as the Andes region) to China.

CHINESE LEADER WEN FIRMS BARTERS
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was more clever in his acute criticism of the United States. He made scathing comments at Davos about the ‘inappropriate macroeconomic policies’ and the ‘unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption’ of some unnamed countries. Wen attacked ‘blind pursuit of profit’ by financial institutions and their ‘lack of self-discipline’ by them. After speaking at the World Economic Forum, where he echoed the criticism laid out by Putin, he went on an important trip across Europe. Wen traveled to four major European capitals, whose significance is enormous. He met with Swiss leaders in Bern, with German leaders in Berlin, with Spanish leaders in Madrid, and with European Union leaders in Belgium. One should interpret this not as an endorsement of the status quo, as reported by the US press media, but rather as an announcement of the new structure to conform to the Putin Blueprint for a Post-US World. The entrenched and defensive US-based and UK-based press media have no interest in mentioning a new framework. Loss of the current framework represents an invitation to the Third World. China has no interest in furthering the status quo. Wen served notice to European leaders.” Read all here

The United States: The Largest Ponzi Scheme in the World

A good read for today, from Bill Bonner. Extracts: “…What is odd is that while gold goes up, so does the dollar. And so do U.S. Treasury bonds. It is as if investors couldn’t make up their minds. They bid up the price of U.S. Treasuries…and bid up the price of anti-Treasuries at the same time. What gives?

On the right side of their brains, they figure that U.S. Treasury bonds are the only place you can put your money and be sure of getting it back. Stocks are a disaster. Bonds – except for U.S. Treasuries – are too risky; heck, even England could go broke.

Commodities? We’ve seen what can happen there…just look at oil! Even gold could easily take a 20% haircut. That’s why U.S. Treasury bonds are the place to be.

But wait… the left side of the brain is sending a message too. Buy gold, it says; something fishy is going on in the Treasury bond market, it tells us. How it is possible that the feds can borrow trillions of dollars without causing interest rates to rise? How can they increase the quantity of something so much…without lowering its quality? Where’s the point of diminishing returns?

One question leads to another one: ‘How are they going to pay this money back?’ the left side wants to know.

The more the left side thinks about it, the more it doesn’t understand what is going on. Let’s see…the biggest spendthrift on the planet issues trillions more in IOUs…with no obvious way to pay back the money…

…and let’s see…this same spendthrift actually has the right to pay off its IOUs with more IOUs that it prints up itself….

…and it actually WANTS to make its IOUs less valuable…so that people won’t hold on to them. It wants people to spend its IOUs on goods and services…as fast as possible…in order to “get the economy moving again.”

‘What am I missing here?’ asks the left side of the brain of no one in particular.

“The rest of the world has queued up to lend America as much money as it might wish to borrow in order to get its consumers to spend again,” writes Spengler in the Asia Times. “It won’t work, but that is another matter…”

Spengler is a clever guy. Unfortunately, many of his thoughts are unworthy of a clever man.

“A fearful world is buying trillions of dollars of securities from the US Treasury,” he continues. “Of all the cash flows in the world, nothing is more reliable than the tax revenues of the American state, the longest-lasting government on Earth presiding over the world’s largest economy.”

Yes, and General Motors was the world’s most successful automobile company – until it wasn’t. The fearful world is buying Treasuries, but not because the tax revenues of the American state are so reliable; they’re buying Treasuries because the United States is the only substantial debtor in the world that can make good on its debts with money of its own making. Tax revenues in the United States are falling sharply. Already, they’re far short of what is necessary to cover America’s public expenses. That’s why both Republican and Democratic administrations have run deficits – real deficits – since the Nixon administration. And it’s why the United States is now the largest Ponzi scheme in the world. The only way to pay off the old lenders is to bring in new ones – or run the printing press. That’s all lenders have to worry about – inflation. And for the moment, prices are going down. They’ll keep going down too – until they go up…

…Byron King, offers some more insight:

“Congress collects a lot of funds through taxes. But not nearly enough to pay for all the spending. It’s not even close. So will Congress raise taxes? And do it during a recession? I don’t think so. Herbert Hoover tried that in 1930. Didn’t work too well.

“What about the federal government borrowing? OK, it borrows a lot. But can it borrow even more? Trillions of dollars? From whom? Who has an extra trillion dollars lying around that they want to loan the U.S.? Will China and the oil-exporting nations continue to buy up U.S. Treasury paper? If so, with what? Chinese exports are down. Oil income is way down as well. (Oil is selling at $34 per barrel today.) So good luck with borrowing.

“That leaves the U.S. government with only one choice. The U.S. is about to embark on the greatest currency-creating binge in modern history (excluding that of Zimbabwe, perhaps.) A lot of that trillion dollars is going to come right out of nothing. The Fed is just going to monetize the debt. So we’ll have new dollars chasing the same amount of goods. That’s the basic definition of inflation.

“The bottom line is you need to own precious metals. Own gold. How much? For now, the more, the better. Own coins, if you can get ’em. Own bullion, if you can get it. Own shares in good miners with reserves in the ground while you can buy ’em. Just get some gold.”…” Read all here

NATO’s Secret Armies (Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe)

Someone posted Daniel Ganser’s ground-breaking work on Nato’s secret terror units on Scribd. It is an essential reading to understand the historical background of U.S. and “western” false flag terrorism, or the context for the 9-11 big op. You may be interested in giving a look here.

P.S. Another great book just found on Scribd: The Complete Social History Of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, And Beyond