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An exclusive excerpt from the hot new financial and legal thriller “The Spider Network” by David Enrich

The small ski resort town, nestled in the mountains outside the city of Karuizawa, was a popular destination for day trips for Japanese families. Bustling during the day, it was mostly quiet this Saturday night. Clouds cloaked the moon.

A chartered bus pulled up outside a bar, its windows aglow. A light snow was falling. Out into the peaceful evening stumbled dozens of rowdy bankers, some toting tall cans of Asahi and Kirin. Most of them were drunk. They quickly took over the small bar.

The drinkers were employees of the American bank Citigroup, one of the world’s largest and most troubled financial institutions. A year earlier, at the beginning of 2009, American taxpayers had finished pumping a staggering $45 billion into Citigroup to bail out the collapsing behemoth. Now the transfused recipient was treating dozens of its investment banking employees to a weekend getaway. The bankers were housed nearby in a sprawling luxury hotel, each employee’s room designed in Japan’s typical spare style.

These festivities weren’t so spartan. The point was to foster camaraderie, and that was happening in spades. The party had begun on the hundred-mile ride on the bullet train out from Tokyo. After a day of hitting the slopes, Citigroup ferried the bankers to a bowling alley, where they drank and bowled and drank some more. Their bus had then deposited the intoxicated crew at this bar, before leaving the partiers behind to fend for themselves.

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

Sometimes You Just Have to Go With the Flow When Nothing Flows

June 18, 2016

Sometimes You Just Have to Go With the Flow When Nothing Flows

The central banks are clueless and have no control over the economy. This whole thing reminds me of Australia. I loved going into the Outback, driving through rivers, and seeing ant hills that were taller than the Jeep. I was invited to go to the Todd River Regatta in the middle of the desert. I thought it was a joke. They said, “No mate! Come on!”

Armstrong Palm Valley Australia

I was perplexed at first. How can you have a regatta in the middle of a desert? Well, only Australia could figure that one out. They raced in pretend boats down an ancient river bed where no white man has ever seen water flow. They held the pretend boats up around their waist and raced down the riverbed. It was good fun. I actually joined in on the camel races.

We have the same thing going on now in politics and finance — just living the dream. Negative interest rates punish savers, and bankrupt pensions are creating a collapse in socialism that threatens civil unrest on a grand scale beginning next year (2017). Then we have politicians raising taxes and creating mountains of regulations that nobody can figure out without a lawyer and an accountant preventing small businesses from forming. Those who want to always rule the world are brain-dead and it is impossible for them to figure out why small businesses are not expanding to create jobs. Duh! They craft pretend theories and run down dried-up riverbeds where there is no water and proclaim to the world they are “stimulating” the economy when they encourage bankers not to lend paying them for excess reserves and then raise taxes because they want to be “fiscally responsible” to the bond holders. You really cannot reconcile these actions and theories. It is just the Todd River Regatta on a grand scale.

Criminal Bankers Control US Government Push War-Paul Craig Roberts

March 28, 2016

Criminal Bankers Control US Government Push War-Paul Craig Roberts

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, contends it is no accident why bankers do not get jail time for constantly committing fraud by stealing documents and committing fraudulent, criminal insider trading and market manipulations. Dr. Roberts explains, “Look at Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. They claim they stole documents, and we are determined to destroy them. One of them is hiding out in Russia, and one of them is hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This again shows the immunity of the banks. They are not held accountable because they are in control. Who controls the Fed? Who controls the Treasury? Where do all the Treasury Secretaries come from? They come from the big New York banks. Look at the financial regulatory agencies that are supposed to be regulating the banks. They are filled with executives from the banks. The banks control the government. There isn’t a government, there’s the banks. . . . We have the entire economic policy in the United States concentrating on saving five banks. We had 10 million people who lost their homes, and nothing was done for them, but five banks are saved.”

On the 2016 election, Dr. Roberts says, “The United States is controlled by powerful private interests groups, and these groups don’t trust outsiders because they don’t have their hooks in them. How would they have their hooks in Trump? He’s a billionaire. He doesn’t need their money. They can’t tell Trump, hey, look we will give you a $153 million in speaking fees like we did Bill and Hillary Clinton. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t need $153 million. He’s got billions. So, they can’t control him, and it’s the same for Bernie Sanders, even though he is a Democratic Senator. He is not really part of the Washington Democratic establishment.

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

Helicopter Money: Global Central Banks Consider Distributing Money Directly To The People

March 23, 2016

Helicopter Money: Global Central Banks Consider Distributing Money Directly To The People

Should central banks create money out of thin air and give it directly to governments and average citizens? If you can believe it, this is now under serious consideration. Since 2008, global central banks have cut interest rates 637 times, they have injected 12.3 trillion dollars into the global financial system through various quantitative easing programs, and we have seen an explosion of government debt unlike anything we have ever witnessed before. But despite these unprecedented measures, the global economy is still deeply struggling. This is particularly true in Japan, in South America, and in Europe. In fact, there are 16 countries in Europe that are experiencing deflation right now. In a desperate attempt to spur economic activity, central banks in Europe and in Japan are playing around with negative interest rates, and so far they seem to only have had a limited effect.

So as they rapidly run out of ammunition, global central bankers are now openly discussing something that might sound kind of crazy. According to the Telegraph, central banks are becoming increasingly open to employing a tactic known as “helicopter money”…

Faced with political intransigence, central bankers are openly talking about the previously unthinkable: “helicopter money”.

A catch-all term, helicopter drops describe the process by which central banks can create money to transfer to the public or private sector to stimulate economic activity and spending.

Long considered one of the last policymaking taboos, debate around the merits of helicopter money has gained traction in recent weeks.

Do you understand what is being said there?

The idea is basically this – central banks would create money out of thin air and would just give it to national governments or ordinary citizens.

So who would decide who gets the money?

Well, they would.

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

The G-30 Group Of Central Bankers Warn They Can “No Longer Save The World”

October 11, 2015

The G-30 Group Of Central Bankers Warn They Can “No Longer Save The World”

In a detailed report by the Group of Thirty, central bankers warned that ZIRP and money printing were not sufficient to revive economic growth and risked becoming semi-permanent measures. As Reuters reports, the flow of easy money has inflated asset prices like stocks and housing in many countries but have failed to stimulate economic growth; and with growth estimates trending lower and easy money increasing company leverage, the specter of a debt trap is now haunting advanced economies. “Central banks have described their actions as ‘buying time’ for governments to finally resolve the crisis… But time is wearing on,” sending a message of “you’re on your own” to governments around the world.

The G30 begins their report rather pointedly…

Central banks worked alongside governments to address the unfolding crises during 2007–09, and their actions were a necessary and appropriate crisis management response. But central bank policies alone should not be expected to deliver sustainable economic growth. Such policies must be complemented by other policy measures implemented by governments.

At present, much remains to be done by governments, parliaments, public authorities, and the private sector to tackle policy, economic, and structural weaknesses that originate outside the control or influence of central banks. In order to contribute to sustainable economic growth, the report presumes that all other actors fulfill their responsibilities.

Roughly translated… central bankers are saying “you are now on your own.”

Central banks alone cannot be relied upon to deliver all the policies necessary to achieve macroeconomic goals. Governments must also act and use the policy-making space provided by conventional and unconventional monetary policy measures. Failure to do so would be a serious error and would risk setting the stage for further economic disturbances and imbalances in the future.

And the “need to exit” appears to be front and center for The G30 bankers…

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

Bankers Will Be Jailed in the Next Financial Crisis

September 15, 2015

Bankers Will Be Jailed in the Next Financial Crisis

Screen Shot 2015-09-14 at 1.40.18 PM

Jesus College, Cambridge hosted, once more, the world’s leading Symposium on Economic Crime, and over 500 distinguished speakers and panelists drawn from the widest possible international fora, gathered to make presentations to the many hundreds of delegates and attendees.

What became very quickly clear this year was the general sense of deep disgust and repugnance that was demonstrated towards the global banking industry.

I can say with some degree of certainty now that a very large number of academics, law enforcement agencies, and financial compliance consultants are now joined, as one, in their total condemnation of significant elements of the global banking sector for their organised criminal activities.

Many banks are widely identified now as nothing more than enterprise criminal organisations, who engage in widespread criminal practice and dishonest conduct as a matter of course and deliberate commercial policy.

– From the excellent article: The Banking Criminals Exposed

My prediction is that bankers will be jailed in the next economic/financial crisis. Lots and lots of bankers.

It may seem to many that those working within this profession will remain above the law indefinitely in light of the lack of any accountability whatsoever since the collapse of 2008. It may seem that way, but extrapolating this trend into the future is to ignore a monumentally changed political environment around the world. From the ascendancy of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders here in the U.S., to Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour leader in the UK, big changes are certainly afoot.

I have become convinced of this change for a little while now, but we won’t really see evidence of it until the next collapse. However, something I read earlier today really brought the point home for me. Rowan Bosworth-Davies recently attended the 33rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime and provided us with some notes in an excellent piece titled, The Banking Criminals Exposed. Here are a few excerpts:

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

A Question of Money – Interest – Bankers

September 8, 2015

A Question of Money – Interest – Bankers

QUESTION:

Mr Armstrong, interesting article today, the story of the store of value (at least long term) has always confused me. One can look at saving accounts also as an asset as it yields the interest payment and one relinquishes the access to the money. No difference to bonds.

But your article causes some questions: as you stated before the FED buying bonds does not increase real money supply, so what caused the decline of purchasing power of money in the asset class of equities? Is it that the manipulating of interest rates distorted the actual confidence and time preference in the economy which can be measured by the velocity?

You posted earlier that the velocity has declined. People do not want to invest but save which is not an option for big money as it doesn’t yield any or very little return. Hence enterprises buy back shares and smart money has no other option.

Interest rate hike by the FED, eventually increasing retail participation, a cooling world economy, sovereign debt crisis and the flight to the Dollar. The outcome of your computer, a rise in US stock markets including a possible phase transition, seems comprehensible.

The only thing what leaves me with amazement is what do they really intend? I don’t believe that the families who run the banking system, operating for centuries in money business, do not understand that. I can only assume that for being protected by government the banking cartel buys the governments time and keep financing the deficits.

Best regards,

ANSWER: The problem in so many areas is that we can focus on one issue, but the answer is a complexity of variables.

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

The Suicide of the American Left

August 6, 2015

The Suicide of the American Left

Regular readers of this blog know that I generally avoid partisan politics in the essays posted here. There are several reasons for that unpopular habit, but the most important of them is that we don’t actually have partisan politics in today’s America, except in a purely nominal sense. It’s true that politicians by and large group themselves into one of two parties, which make a great show of their rivalry on a narrow range of issues. Get past the handful of culture-war hot buttons that give them their favorite opportunities for grandstanding, though, and you’ll find an ironclad consensus, especially on those issues that have the most to say about the future of the United States and the world.

It’s popular on the disaffected fringes of both parties to insist that the consensus in question comes solely from the other side; dissident Democrats claim that Democratic politicians have basically adopted the GOP platform, while disgruntled Republicans claim that their politicians have capitulated to the Democratic agenda. Neither of these claims, as it happens, are true. Back when the two parties still stood for something, for example, Democrats in Congress could be counted on to back organized labor and family farmers against their corporate adversaries and to fight attempts on the part of bankers to get back into the speculation business, while their opposite numbers in the GOP were ferocious in their opposition to military adventurism overseas and government expansion at home.

Nowadays? The Democrats long ago threw their former core constituencies under the bus and ditched the Depression-era legislation that stopped kleptocratic bankers from running the economy into the ground, while the Republicans decided that they’d never met a foreign entanglement or a government handout they didn’t like—unless, of course, the latter benefited the poor.

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

Capitalism, Engineered Dependencies and the Eurozone

July 26, 2015

Capitalism, Engineered Dependencies and the Eurozone

Greece

As fact and metaphor the ongoing crisis in Greece is the vanguard of broad social disintegration across the capitalist West. IMF Director Christine Lagarde is being put forward as the voice of reason calling for writing down Greece’s debt to manageable levels. But her actual public statements have paid deference to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s suggestion, a slight variation on Barack Obama’s mortgage ‘rescue’ packages, that maturities be extended but that people be left with debts far greater than they can reasonably pay. As attractive as permanent debt servitude might appear to those demanding it, it is a form of economic extraction, a transfer of economic production from nominal borrowers to banks and bankers.

Current IMF tactics are being placed in a neo-Cold War frame with the U.S. trying to maintain European political stability on the side of the U.S. against Russia and China. But the broader tendency is toward collective suicide through imperialist revival economics, a global race to replicate Western consumption through increasingly ‘managed’ capitalism and through renewed competition for resources that led to the catastrophic wars of the twentieth century. The geopolitical frame understates the crudeness of the economic logic that gives banker / creditor ‘workouts’ the appearance of geopolitical machinations. The economic relations in play are ‘political,’ but they derive from economic ideology that preceded the Cold War by a half-century or more.

The practical problem with the neo-Cold War frame is that it takes the underlying economic relations as given when they are in fact causal. The euphemistically-called ‘trade’ agreements being pushed by the ‘developed’ West grant broad authority over civil governance to multi-national corporations, the point being that the ideology that drives corporate actions is economic, not ‘political’ in the Western liberal sense of the term.

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

Local Currency–Money For Us, Not the Bankers

July 24, 2015

Local Currency–Money For Us, Not the Bankers

“Back in the 1930s on the Olympic peninsula, people were paying their taxes in alternative money…The banks shut them down. This is an example of the monopoly the banks have, and the level of control they have over peoples’ economic lives… People need to know [local currency] is a possibility, an option, a realistic tactical and powerful way to take back your economic power from the bankers.

” Fourth Corner Exchange co-founder Francis Ayley says the current debt-based global money system is an unsustainable Ponzi-scheme that will crash. By contrast, local currencies are unlimited, based on whatever members want to exchange. He and director Lia Ayley share the nuts and bolts for new members starting to exchange, how values are set, and exchanges involving both Life Dollars and US dollars. The biggest challenge, they say, is changing our mindset from the scarcity built into the existing monetary system to one based on relationships, cooperation and plenty. [fourthcornerexchange.org]

Watch our 2006 interview of Francis Ayley: Local Currencies – Replacing Scarcity with Trust (episode 49).

– See more at: http://peakmoment.tv/videos/local-currency-money-for-us-not-the-bankers-292/#sthash.tdRFH7VS.dpuf

All Hail Our Banking Overlords!

July 18, 2015

All Hail Our Banking Overlords!

We work for them, plain & simple

You really have to be paying attention to see what’s truly going on these days. The keepers of the system, that is the banking elites, now openly control everything — though you’d never know that by listening to the media.

Consider this:

Eurozone backs €7bn bridging loan

Jul 16, 2105

Eurozone ministers have agreed to give Greece a €7bn (£5bn) bridging loan from an EU-wide fund to keep its finances afloat until a bailout is approved.

The loan is expected to be confirmed on Friday by all EU member states.

In another development, the European Central Bank (ECB) agreed to increase emergency funding to Greece for the first time since it was frozen in June.

The decisions were made after Greek MPs passed tough reforms as part of a eurozone bailout deal.

How generous of the finance ministers of all those EU member states to agree to a “bridge loan” that will help Greece “keep its finances afloat”. This should provide the people of Greece with a bit of breathing room, right? Maybe access to their bank accounts (finally!), perhaps?

No, not at all. Here’s what the entirety of the “”loan”” will go towards instead:

The bridging loan means Greece will be able to repay debts to the ECB and IMF on Monday.

Ummmm…that “money” will not ever go anywhere near Greece.

This is all merely electronic window-dressing for entirely esoteric bookkeeping purposes. Servers will blink at one location in Europe as digital 1s and 0s are transmitted to another. The electronic balances at the ECB and the IMF will change, but not much else.

The people of Greece will see none of it. Nor will they see their bank accounts unfrozen.

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

Financial Shenanigans Should Have Trained Me For This

July 18, 2015

Financial Shenanigans Should Have Trained Me For This

So there I was, caught in a bramble of sharp blackberry thorns coming from every direction. I’d been snagged first by the swooping thorn from high up that caught my hair, then by two more barbed branches that grabbed my pants and arm as I tried to retreat. Having left the house in an overconfident manner, thinking it was like any other day, I had no urgency to remember my phone, a sidearm or my small pruning shears to cut my way out. Cog was at work and there was no one for miles to hear me scream should the black bear come by for a late blackberry lunch.

Obviously I survived to tell the tale, but not without several important lessons learned which I would like to share with you all today.

Just as people save and invest for their retirement down the road, we seek to store our picked berries by jamming or freezing them for the winter months ahead. Like the banks and government agencies, there are many middle level workers whose job it is to tend to the ecosystem of blackberry growth who never intend to harm another. They are simply doing their job. The spider who resides in the berry patch and eats the smaller bugs which would decimate the berries was just doing what he does when he bit me.

In life it is not the sole fault of bank tellers or courthouse clerks that the systems of banking and government morphed into something we don’t want. Sure, these employees help hold up the system by working where they do, but no more than we ourselves support the beast with banking business to transact and payment of local tax and municipal bills. Like the aggressive bugs in the berry thickets, we ultimately all want to get through the performance of our respective roles there and fulfill our goals.

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

Banker Occupied Greece: Requiem for a Failed State

July 17, 2015

Banker Occupied Greece: Requiem for a Failed State

It’s all over but the obituary. Rubber-stamp Greek parliamentarians overwhelming approved transforming the nation into a banker run colony – by a 229 – 64 vote. Six lawmakers abstained.

Coalition partner Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos and likeminded party members voted “yes” after rhetorically rejecting Troika terms.

The vast majority of bailout funding goes to pay bankers and other creditors – nothing for economic recovery and growth. The price is deeper punishing austerity, greater poverty and unemployment than already, and far more human misery ahead with no end in sight.

Only 32 of SYRIZA’s 149 parliamentarians voted “no” – including banished Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, Finance Ministry Secretary General Manos Manousakis, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafanzanis, Deputy Labor Minister Dimitris Stratoulis and ousted Speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou.

She called the bailout proposal “social genocide.” Other austerity opponents denounced it as “a new Versailles Treaty.”

Sovereign Greece no longer exists. Troika bandits own its soul. Democracy’s denouement became official in its birthplace.

Meanwhile, police clashed violently with thousands of anti-austerity protesters outside parliament demanding promised relief – social justice, not sellout.

Prime Minister Tsipras rubbed salt on the wound he inflicted saying he “does not believe in (the) irrational” capitulation plan he demanded and voted for.

He lied claiming he had no choice. Terms were forced on him, he said. Responsible leadership would have rejected them outright, walked away and stood tall ahead of being welcomed home as a national hero – challenging Troika bandits courageously, saying “no” when it matters most.

Instead he showed he’s like all the rest – pledging one thing, doing another, betraying his constituents in the process, proving he and likeminded SYRIZA officials are pretense populists, more contemptible than right-wing austerity supporters.

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

What’s Wrong with Our Monetary System and How to Fix It

July 14, 2015

What’s Wrong with Our Monetary System and How to Fix It

Something’s profoundly wrong with our global financial system. Pope Francis is only the latest to raise the alarm:

“Human beings and nature must not be at the service of money. Let us say no to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.”

What the Pope calls “an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules” is widely evident. What is not so clear is how we got into this situation, and what to do about it.

Most people take our monetary system for granted, and are shocked to learn that the government doesn’t issue our money. Almost all of it is created by loans made “out of thin air” as bookkeeping entries by private banks. For this sleight-of-hand, they charge interest, making a tidy profit for doing essentially nothing. The currency printed by the government – coins and bills – is a negligible amount by comparison.

The idea of giving private banks a monopoly over money creation goes back to seventeenth century England. The British government, in a Faustian bargain, agreed to allow a group of private bankers to assume the national debt as collateral for the issuance of loans, confident that the state would be able to service the debt on the backs of taxpayers.

And so it has been ever since. Alexander Hamilton much admired this scheme, which he called “the English system,” and he and his successors were finally able to establish it in the United States, and subsequently most of the world.

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

Guess How Many Nations In The World Do Not Have A Central Bank?

June 9, 2015

Guess How Many Nations In The World Do Not Have A Central Bank?

Central banking has truly taken over the entire planet. At this point, the only major nation on the globe that does not have a central bank is North Korea. Yes, there are some small island countries such as the Federated States of Micronesia that do not have a central bank, but even if you count them, more than 99.9% of the population of the world still lives in a country that has a central bank. So how has this happened? How have we gotten the entire planet to agree that central banking is the best system? Did the people of the world willingly choose this? Of course not. To my knowledge, there has never been a single vote where the people of a nation have willingly chosen to establish a central bank. Instead, what has happened is that central banks have been imposed on all of us. All over the world, people have been told that monetary issues are “too important” to be subject to politics, and that the only solution is to have a group of unelected, unaccountable bankers control those things for us.

So precisely what does a central bank do?

You would be surprised at how few people can actually answer that question accurately. The following is how Wikipedia describes what a central bank does…

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages a state’s currency, money supply, and interest rates. Central banks also usually oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base in the state, and usually also prints the national currency, which usually serves as the state’s legal tender. Examples include the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve of the United States and the People’s Bank of China.

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

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