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The Neoconservatives’ Hegemonic Goal Of Making Sovereign Countries Extinct Is Bringing Instead The Extinction Of Planet Earth

December 14, 2015

The Neoconservatives’ Hegemonic Goal Of Making Sovereign Countries Extinct Is Bringing Instead The Extinction Of Planet Earth

My warning that the neoconservatives have resurrected the threat of nuclear Armageddon, which was removed by Reagan and Gorbachev, is also being given by Noam Chomsky, former US Secretary of Defense William Perry, and other sentient observers of the neoconservatives’ aggressive policies toward Russia and China.

Daily we observe additional aggressive actions taken by Washington and its vassals against Russia and China. For example, Washington is pressuring Kiev not to implement the Minsk agreements designed to end the conflict between the puppet government in Kiev and the break-away Russian republics. https://www.rt.com/news/325687-ukraine-rhetoric-sabotage-churkin/ Washington refuses to cooperate with Russia in the war against ISIS. Washington continues to blame Russia for the destruction of MH-17, while preventing an honest investigation of the attack on the Malaysian airliner. Washington continues to force its European vassals to impose sanctions on Russia based on the false claim that the conflict in Ukraine was caused by a Russian invasion of Ukraine, not by Washington’s coup in overthrowing a democratically elected government and installing a puppet answering to Washington.

The list is long. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF), allegedly a neutral, non-political world organization, has been suborned into the fight against Russia. Under Washington’s pressure, the IMF has abandoned its policy of refusing to lend to debtors who are in arrears in their loan payments to creditors. In the case of Ukraine’s debt to Russia, this decision removes the enforcement mechanism that prevents countries (such as Greece) from defaulting on their debts. The IMF has announced that it will lend to Ukraine in order to pay the Ukraine’s Western creditors despite the fact that Ukraine has renounced repayment of loans from Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The IMF Joins the New Cold War

December 9, 2015

The IMF Joins the New Cold War

On December 8, the IMF’s Chief Spokesman Gerry Rice sent a note saying:

“The IMF’s Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors. We will provide details on the scope and rationale for this policy change in the next day or so.”

Since 1947 when it really started operations, the World Bank has acted as a branch of the U.S. Defense Department, from its first major chairman John J. McCloy through Robert McNamara to Robert Zoellick and neocon Paul Wolfowitz. From the outset, it has promoted U.S. exports – especially farm exports – by steering Third World countries to produce plantation crops rather than feeding their own populations. (They are to import U.S. grain.) But it has felt obliged to wrap its U.S. export promotion and support for the dollar area in an ostensibly internationalist rhetoric, as if what’s good for the United States is good for the world.

The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century. In the past, it has been able to take thelead in organizing bailout packages for governments by getting other creditor nations – headed by the United States, Germany and Japan – to participate. The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financialarrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments.

This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.

But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Global Economic Reset Has Begun

December 9, 2015

The Global Economic Reset Has Begun

In my last article, I outlined the deliberately engineered trend toward the forced “harmonization” of national economies and monetary policies, as well as the ultimate end goal of globalists: a single world currency system controlled by the International Monetary Fund and, by extension, global governance, which internationalists sometimes refer to in their more honest public moments as the “new world order.”

The schematic for the new world order, according to the admissions of the internationalists, cannot possibly include the continued existence of U.S. geopolitical and economic dominance. The plan, in fact, requires the destabilization and reformation of America into a shell of its former glory. The most important element of this plan demands the removal of the U.S. dollar as the de facto world reserve currency, a change that would devastate our current financial structure.

I outlined with undeniable evidence the reality that major governments, including the BRICS governments of the East, are fully on board with the globalist agenda. There is no way around it; the BRICS, including Russia and China, have openly called for a global monetary system centralized and dictated by the IMF using the SDR basket. This same plan was outlined decades ago in the Rothschild-owned magazine The Economist. We are witnessing that plan being implemented in front of our very eyes today.

For the past couple of years, the current head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has used the phrase “global economic reset” often in her speeches and interviews. There is some (deliberate) ambiguity to this notion, but after sitting through hours upon hours of her most boring and repetitive discussions in globalist think tanks such as the Council On Foreign Relations, the consistent message is pretty straightforward. If anyone can stand to listen to this woman’s carefully crafted prattle and well-vetted half-truths for more than five minutes, I suggest they watch this particular speech given in January at the CFR:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Yuan Ascends to World Reserve Status: “Dollar System Being Done Away With”

December 2, 2015

The Yuan Ascends to World Reserve Status: “Dollar System Being Done Away With”

Yuan vs. Dollar

Today’s news is a historic milestone. The dollar’s days are numbered, and the new global economic order is shifting into place.

As many insiders have expected, China has now officially gained status among the world reserve currencies, taking place alongside the dollar, the euro, the pound and the yen.

The IMF decided to grant this upgrade as a result of financial and monetary benchmarks that Chinese leaders worked towards during the past several years. Its implications run deep.

Via Reuters:

The International Monetary Fund on Monday, as expected, admitted China’s yuan into its benchmark currency basket in a victory for Beijing’s campaign for recognition as a global economic power.

The IMF executive board’s decision to add the yuan, also known as the renminbi, to the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket alongside the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen, is an important milestone in China’s integration into the global financial system and a nod to the progress it has made with reforms.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who along with in-house experts has previously backed the move, made it clear she did not expect Beijing to stop there.

“The yuan’s inclusion is a largely symbolic move, with few immediate implications for financial markets. But it is the first time an additional currency has been added to the SDR basket and the biggest change in its composition in 35 years.

Below is IMF chief Christine Legarde’s statement on the new benchmark of global currency, and what will inevitably be a resettling for the people affected by it – not least the American people who could see a significant decline in their living standard after an era of economic supremacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of WWII:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The FED v Bias & Prejudice

December 2, 2015

The FED v Bias & Prejudice

COMMENT: If the Fed is so smart and understands the problem with low/negative interest rates, then why didn’t it hike rates in September? Better yet, why didn’t they raise rates YEARS ago? The Fed has kept rates near zero for seven years but now suddenly realizes that this is a problem?

I am surprised that you think so highly of them. The Fed consists of a bunch of academics with no real-world experience, no different than the ECB.

REPLY: Your bias and prejudice blind you. The ECB is run by Mario Draghi who is ex-Goldman Sachs. Mario Draghi faces a currency that is collapsing and a power structure that is fundamentally flawed. This is entirely different from the problems facing the Fed. Europe is in deep recession that is intensely deflationary. That is not the case yet in the USA.

Yellen has inherited a nightmare. It was Ben Bernankewho made the mess we are in today. He lowered rates, bought in long-term bonds the Fed cannot now sell and must wait for them to simply mature. Yellen is trapped for she cannot reverse QE and sell the bonds Bernanke bought and she is facing a meltdown in pension funds because rates are too low for too long. Yellen has no escape. You are also blind to how politics functions and all you are doing is listening to the bullshit that is spun by pretend analysts who know nothing about what really goes on behind the curtain.

The mere fact that the IMF came out publicly to ask the Fed not to raise rates in June was a political maneuver to counteract Yellen. Things of this nature are discussed behind the curtain – never in front. The IMF turned to the press to STOP Yellen because she would have raised rates back in June. It was Ben Bernanke who listened to the bankers and created insanity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Good-Bye To Western Living Standards

December 1, 2015

Good-Bye To Western Living Standards

My column, “Capitalism At Work,” about Greek women being forced into prostitution by banksters and the IMF produced a number of responses from women, who report that austerity is having the same effect all over Europe.

This is from a letter from Portugal:

“Your article ‘Capitalism At Work’ shows absolutely what’s happened here in Portugal. It is common for young women to sell their body to pay the University fees and for food.

“About the submarines, we had also that experience. The person responsible for this purchasing was Dr. Paulo Portas, who, despite that ‘affair’, was nominated Vice Prime Minister until recently. Now they are Socialists at the Government but believe me, they are so corrupt, even more than the previous right-wing government. In fact all left parties are, even the PCP. They are interested only in self benefit and they give some crumbs to the people. We are a banana republic governed by bastards. We deserve this situation as long as we tolerate it.”

The European socialist parties, which over decades of struggle humanized European capitalism and European society, are no more. Europeans are experiencing a modern version of the Enclosures of the past when they were uprooted from the land in which they had use rights in order that land could become private property and be financialized with debt instruments.

This time Europeans are being dispossessed of the social welfare systems that made life under capitalism liveable. Simultaneously, the most heavily indebted countries are being looted. The living standards of the populations are being squeezed to death in order to pay off the fraudulent debts incurred by corrupt governments.

Look around Europe. Where do the people have a leader? Jeremy Corbyn is the only remaining socialist or semi-socialist who heads a traditional party, and the British Labour Party is not firmly behind him.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Right Price for Preserving Our Climate

November 30, 2015

The Right Price for Preserving Our Climate

WASHINGTON, DC – When world leaders convene in Paris this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, their task will be to reach a global agreement on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions. A successful outcome, demonstrating that countries can work together for the good of the planet, would send a powerful message of hope to the world – and to the people of Paris, who remain unbowed after the recent terrorist attacks.

Climate pledges will be made on the basis of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), or commitments to the reduction of emissions worldwide. I believe that the price of emissions should be at the center of these pledges.

Achieving a decline in greenhouse-gas emissions at the lowest possible cost requires a revolution in energy use and production. Gradual, predictable, and reliable increases in energy prices would provide strong incentives for consumers to reduce their energy bills. At the same time, the right carbon price would enable a smooth transition away from fossil fuels by encouraging investments in technological innovation.

That is why the International Monetary Fund’s staff have recommended a three-part strategy on carbon fuel: “price it right, tax it smart, and do it now.” Each component is essential.

First, setting the right price for fossil fuels means taking into account their true environmental costs. Prices should pass on to end users the full cost not only of production and acquisition, but also of the damage – including air pollution and climate change – caused by intensive reliance on fossil fuels. A fairer carbon price will drive energy savings and boost demand for cleaner fuels and “greener” investments.

Second, the necessary change in prices would be achieved by taxing energy, using tools that are both practical and efficient. The best option is to build a carbon charge into existing fuel taxes and apply similar charges to coal, natural gas, and other petroleum products.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Puerto Rico Is About To Default: Your Complete Guide To An Island Debt Debacle

November 25, 2015

Puerto Rico Is About To Default: Your Complete Guide To An Island Debt Debacle

Last week, we brought you the latest from Puerto Rico’s debt debacle. The commonwealth is desperately trying to restructure some $72 billion in debt while staring down a $354 million bond payment due on December 1.

As we discussed at length on Friday, some $270 million of what’s due next week is GO debt guaranteed by the National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. Defaulting on that is bad news and as Moody’s warned earlier this month, a missed payment on the commonwealth’s highest priority obligations “would likely trigger legal action from creditors, commencing a potentially drawn-out process absent swift federal intervention.”

Make no mistake, federal intervention is likely to be anything but “swift.”

A Senate judiciary committee headed by Iowa Republican Charles Grassley will meet on December 1 to discuss a legislative proposal to assist the Padilla government, but it’s hard to imagine that a decision will be made in time to avert at least a partial default.

Ultimately, the decision will be between paying bondholders and ensuring that the government can continue to provide public services, and just as Greece prioritized pensions over IMF payments last summer, Padilla isn’t likely to sacrifice the public interest at the altar of the island’s debtors.

So, as the clock ticks, we bring you the following helpful guide courtesy of Bloomberg who has made a “list of the island’s debt, how much is outstanding, when major monthly payments are due, and the source of funds that back the securities.”

* * *

From Bloomberg

Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corp.: $15.2 billion. The bonds, known by the Spanish acronym Cofinas, are repaid from dedicated sales-tax revenue. A $6.2 billion portion of the debt, called senior-lien, is repaid first. The remaining $9 billion, called subordinate-lien, get second dibs. $1.2 million of interest is due in February and again in May. Senior Cofinas maturing in 2040 last traded for an average yield of 9.5 percent, while subordinate ones yielded 18 percent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

USA Losing Sovereignty to World Fiscal Mismanagement

November 21, 2015

USA Losing Sovereignty to World Fiscal Mismanagement

The IMF and many economists (domestic and foreign) are now warning that a rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve, no matter when, will spark a major economic crisis in the emerging markets. They see this crisis being ripe for countries with high budget deficits, such as Turkey, as well as commodity-based economies. This includes the oil exporters such as Russia and even Saudi Arabia who has now begun to issue debt.

This is holding the Federal Reserve’s feet to the fire to the point that they are losing control of their own domestic policy objectives as a consequence of the dollar becoming the WORLD’S ONLY RESERVE CURRENCY no matter what the IMF inserts into the SDR. The emerging economies have issued debt worth nearly half that of the USA without the economic strength to back up that debt. True, there is going to be a debt explosion by 2017 and this is not going to look very nice at the end of the day. Clearly, the Fed is being pressured externally to give up its domestic policy objectives to help the debt burden of everyone else. And people keep saying the dollar will go into hyperinflation? Obviously, they do not understand the world economy or that what is taking place is OUTSIDE of the United States. Sorry, the dollar is not quite ready to burn to ashes.

The Federal Reserve has called a meeting on Monday. This issue of sovereignty will come to a head. The Fed has called this emergency meeting to perhaps change interest rates. The question becomes for who? The lobbying against the Fed to raise rates has been intense. My recommendation is to eliminate the 0.25% paid to banks on excess reserves and raise rates.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

OPEC’s Bad Bet By The Numbers

November 18, 2015

OPEC’s Bad Bet By The Numbers

As the December 4, 2015 OPEC meeting in Vienna approaches, OPEC members have the tools to assess the impact of “lower for longer” crude prices on their countries. Serendipitously, the IEA in its recently published World Energy Outlook 2015 describes a low price scenario in which crude stays around $50/barrel through the current decade’s end. It is based on four assumptions: lower near-term global economic growth, a less unstable Middle East, continued OPEC emphasis on market share, and resilient non-OPEC supply. Equally serendipitously, the IMF October 2015 World Economic Outlook projections are premised on $51.62 crude in 2015 and $50.36 crude through 2020 and therefore show the impact ~$50 crude through the end of the decade would have on OPEC in general and the economies of individual OPEC members.

It’s not very pretty with crude at ~$50 per barrel—and therefore is likely to be uglier since the OPEC basket crude price in 2015 will average ~$47 and OPEC basket crude, which generally trades at a discount to Brent crude, would average below $50 in the IEA scenario.

Economic Consequences of a Wager Gone Bad

In national currencies, it appears that OPEC members will show steady, if not spectacular, growth through 2020 with “lower for longer crude,” and that the GDP of each member will exceed 2014 levels before the end of the decade.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

50 Ways to Leave the Euro: Greece and the Global Crisis

November 16, 2015

50 Ways to Leave the Euro: Greece and the Global Crisis

A sticker reads “No” on the palm of a protester during a demonstration calling for a ‘No’ vote in the upcoming referendum in Athens on Jul 3, 2015. (Photo: AFP/Aris Messinis)

The problem is all inside your head, I told the Greeks
The answer is easy, you need only stop the leaks
The power is yours to claim the freedom that you seek
There must be fifty ways to leave the Euro
(Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Following the resounding “NO” vote by the Greek people on the bailout conditions in the July referendum, the negotiations between the Greek government and “the institutions” resumed with the expectation that a better deal for Greece would ensue. The outcome was quite the contrary. Greek negotiators ended up agreeing to a bailout deal that was far more onerous than the one the voters had rejected. Why?

The harsh reality is that the Greek government is insolvent. Having been lured into the debt-trap and the shared euro currency by western oligarchs using a combination of measures, including outright fraud, Greece was forced to accept the onerous conditions attached to the first two bailouts. Now it has been bludgeoned into accepting a third. The weapon of choice is the euro currency itself which is being wielded by the European Central Bank (ECB). By throttling the flow of euro currency into the country, the ECB last summer created near chaos in the Greek economy. This, and the threat of even more severe punishment in the future, was enough to bring the Greek government to heel.

With sovereign debt up around 180% of GDP, there is no way that the Greek government will ever be able to grow its way out of the current mess. The draconian measures demanded by the creditor institutions will just make it worse. Even the IMF has acknowledged (with apparent reluctance) that some debt relief is necessary for the Greek economy to recover.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF’s Lagarde Anoints Chinese Yuan. Will it Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

November 15, 2015

IMF’s Lagarde Anoints Chinese Yuan. Will it Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

IMF boss Christine Lagarde is gung-ho about it. IMF staff is too. The Executive Board will consider it on November 30 and in all likelihood approve it. It will take effect in October 2016. Then it’s a done deal: the Chinese yuan will be added to the IMF’s currency basket, the Special Drawing Rights (SDR). A step toward becoming a major global reserve currency.

IMF staff had determined that the yuan meets the requirements of being a “freely usable” currency, Lagarde said in a statement, so a currency that is “‘widely used’ for international transactions and ‘widely traded’ in the principal foreign exchange markets.”

China also overcame other hurdles the IMF had put before it, after numerous reforms to liberalize its currency and credit markets and offer more transparency. The IMF’s Executive Board has the final say, but Lagarde will chair the meeting. And the rubber stamps are lined up on the conference room table.

Some countries, including France and Britain, have already expressed support for the change. According to Reuters, a Treasury spokesperson said the US government has always backed the yuan’s inclusion if it met the IMF’s criteria, and would “review the IMF’s paper in that light.”

The yuan has arrived – at the elite club for the biggest currency warriors: the dollar, the yen, the euro, and the pound.

China has long sought to give its currency more global weight, both as payments currency and ultimately as reserve currency, given the enormous size of its economy. By being included in the SDR, the yuan moves a big step closer, becoming more palatable for central banks to add to their foreign exchange reserves.

Currency analysts peg central-bank demand for the yuan at over $500 billion, according to Reuters. But global foreign exchange reserves have been shrinking since last year, as this chart by NBF Economics and Strategy shows:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will the Chinese Yuan Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

November 14, 2015

Will the Chinese Yuan Now Demolish the “Dollar Hegemony?”

She said IMF staff had determined that the yuan meets the requirements of being a “freely usable” currency, “which is defined as being ‘widely used’ for international transactions and ‘widely traded’ in the principal foreign exchange markets.”

Some countries, including France and Britain, have already expressed support for the change. Reuters reported that a Treasury spokesperson said that the US government has always backed the yuan’s inclusion if it met the IMF’s criteria, and would “review the IMF’s paper in that light.”

The yuan has arrived – at the elite club of big sinners and currency warriors: the dollar, the yen, the euro, and the pound.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Social Explosion” Begins In Greece As Massive Street Protests Bring Economy To A Fresh Halt

November 12, 2015

“Social Explosion” Begins In Greece As Massive Street Protests Bring Economy To A Fresh Halt

One thing that became abundantly clear after Alexis Tsipras sold out the Greek referendum “no” back in the summer after a weekend of “mental waterboarding” in Brussels was that the public’s perception of the once “revolutionary” leader would never be the same. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what Berlin, Brussels, and the IMF wanted.

By turning the screws on the Greek banking sector and bringing the country to the brink of ruin, the troika indicated its willingness to “punish” recalcitrant politicians who pursue anti-austerity policies. On the one hand, countries have an obligation to pay back what they owe, but on the other, the subversion of the democratic process by using the purse string to effect political change is a rather disconcerting phenomenon and we expect we’ll see it again with regard to the Socialists in Portugal.

After a month of infighting within Syriza Tsipras did manage to consolidate the party and win a snap election but he’s not the man he was – or at least not outwardly. He’s obligated to still to the draconian terms of the bailout and that means he is a shadow of his former self ideologically. As we’ve said before, that doesn’t bode well for societal stability.

On Thursday, we get the first shot across the social upheaval bow as the same voters who once came out in force to champion Tsipras and Syriza are staging massive protests and walkouts. Here’s Bloomberg:

As Greek workers took to the streets in protest on Thursday, Alexis Tsipras was for the first time on the other side of the divide.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Next Level of John Law Type Central Planning Madness

November 7, 2015

The Next Level of John Law Type Central Planning Madness

Cries for Going Totally Crazy are Intensifying

What are the basic requirements for becoming the chief economist of the IMF? Judging from what we have seen so far, the person concerned has to be a died-in-the-wool statist and fully agree with the (neo-) Keynesian faith, i.e., he or she has to support more of the same hoary inflationism that has never worked in recorded history anywhere. In other words, to qualify for that fat 100% tax-free salary (ironically paid for by assorted tax serfs), one has to be in favor of central economic planning and support policies fully in line with today’s economically illiterate orthodoxy. Meet Maurice Obstfeld, who has just taken the mantle.

For all we know the man is merely misguided and otherwise a nice person (in fact, he’s laughing a lot in photographs and seems a personable enough fellow). But his proposals could eventually affect the lives of countless people in the whole world, so he is fair game for robust criticism. We personally believe that he and other members of our “enlightened” technocratic ruling class should resign without delay and start looking for productive work instead of parasitizing and hampering the ever shrinking class of genuine wealth producers, but it seems unlikely that they will be interested in our opinion.

There once was a time when monetary cranks of the sort in charge nearly everywhere today were laughed out of the room. Today they are perfectly free to drive what is left of the market economy over the cliff. Mr. Obstfeld turns out to be yet another in a long list of luminaries belly-aching about (non-existing) “deflation” – this is to say, the alleged danger that the purchasing power of consumer incomes and savings might increase at some point. Allegedly, this remote eventuality has to be guarded against at all costs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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