A Critical Update on the Failing Global Economy

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Phillip J. Watt

The matrix-media will have us believe that the global economy is only experiencing a temporary glitch and that everything will be fine, however that is simply an outright lie. After several decades of saturating the world with unbacked currency and mountains of debt, the can we’ve been kicking has finally run out of road.

As you would know, stocks are plummeting across the globe and since their peak in around mid 2015, individual regions have lost 10-40% in stock value. In total, on the 20th of January the MSCI global stock market index reflected that the world’s markets had officially entered a bear market, which is 20% or more. This is just the beginning, too.

The exceptionally poor start to stocks in 2016 has somewhat been driven by ‘fears’ about China’s economic troubles, but really it is because many of the fundamentals of the global economy are extremely weak. For example, oil, which sustains the financial health of many countries and industries, has crashed over 70% in the last 2 years, whilst the Baltic Dry Index, which measures the amount of raw materials being shipped around the planet, is at a record low of 298 (to put this into context, just before the great recession of 2008 is was over 11,000).

More examples are that in early 2016, North Atlantic cargo shipping almost came to a halt and the U.S. orders in the trucking industry “for Class 8 trucks – the big rigs that haul freight on North American highways – plunged 48% from a year ago”. Furthermore, the retail sector is falling apart, with tens of thousands of job cuts and shop doors closing at an alarming rate.

For a deeper analysis of the data which scream that we’re steam-rolling towards a long over-due debt reset, which might even end in a sustained global depression such as that of the 1930′s, read “22 Signs That The Global Economic Turmoil We Have Seen So Far In 2016 Is Just The Beginning”.

OFFICIAL REPORTING IS FALSE

Given the ‘faith’ that stakeholders need to have in this economic system to keep it from imploding, the governmental data and the mainstream media cannot be truthful in what they report to the world, otherwise news of doom would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s ridiculous to design an economic model in this way, yet regardless of the epic failure of Keynesian economics and the Wall Street casino, any investor who doesn’t recognize this by now is unfortunately in line for some serious financial loss.

To solidify the point, all official numbers in the U.S. and elsewhere are manipulated; shadow stats have made that abundantly clear. For example, real unemployment in the U.S. is above 20% and many of those who are actually working are in low-paying, part-time jobs.

Further to the true state of the labor market in America, many university graduates are working in hospitality or an unrelated field. Something like half of all under 25 yr olds still live with their parents or grandparents. Labor participation rates are at the lowest level in 38 years. Over 45 million people are on food subsidies and poverty and homelessness is increasing not just in America, but all around the globe.

Brazil, Canada, Russia and other countries are already in recession, amplified by the collapse of oil and commodity prices. Unofficial figures suggest the US is too. Canada in particular has seen massive inflation in food and other necessities, so it is likely that we can expect that to emerge in other countries as well.

This shit is really getting serious.

WHO IS AT FAULT?

Unfortunately, the masses don’t yet understand that most central banks around the world are private companies owned by private families i.e. the oligarchs. Essentially, this and the other banking organisations that they own is a century-old scam that robs the people of their riches.

Simply, the U.S. Government has effectively been taken over by an oligarchy, as evidenced by this Princeton University study in 2014. It’s no surprise then that this small group of so-called elites benefited from the largest transfer of wealth in human history, which happened in the 2008 GFC.

The 1%, particularly the 0.1%, economically prospered from the illegal, unethical and unprecedented bank bailouts, whilst the 99% suffered with losses in superannuation, savings, homes and employment. Many also lost their lives due to overdose, suicide and other self-abuse, which was due to their loss of livelihood and economic independence brought about by the global monetary scam.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The recovery from the GFC of 2008 never occurred, particularly for the main street economy (the real economy, not the Wall street economy). It’s happening all over again because unlike Iceland, there were no incarcerations for the fraudulent bankers and no serious revolution to the banking and finance sector.

This time though, it appears the shadow order (who have monopolized the banking and corporate sectors and effectively control western foreign and domestic policy) are not quite ready for another recessionary/depressionary round because they don’t yet have all their mechanisms in place to offer ‘the solution’ (i.e. global currency, trade agreements and governance).

They’ve got processes such as High Frequency Trading that prop up stocks by buying them back with the money they manifest from nothing (Plunge Protection Teams). They’ve been in overdrive trying to keep it afloat, but to no avail, because the real economy is drying up. As mentioned, global trade is tanking and many businesses are either going into liquidation or laying off thousands of workers each, so it’s easy to imagine that we’re going to hear about a major corporation going bust any day now.

This might just be the black swan event that ‘officially’ triggers the next crisis.

History indicates what will likely happen next: war. When a superpower and their economic hegemony is in collapse (such as the end of petrodollar and the U.S. Dollar as the world’s reserve currency), going to war can distract the populace from the true reasons of an economic crash and the associated suffering that emerges as a result. Essentially, the blame can be shifted to foreign entities.

This is why a high probability exists for a massive false flag to occur over the coming weeks/months to convince the masses to go to war with Russia, China and/or Iran. Saudi Arabia and Iran’s tensions are high right now so they might use that platform; it may in fact be orchestrated for this aim.

In the very short term, however, expect more dramatic policy measures, such as more mass money creation (QE) and even negative interest rates by the Federal Reserve (just like they’ve recently done at Japan’s central bank). They might even attempt widespread bank bail-ins, as already implemented in Italy, Portugal and Cyprus.

As explained in this Reuters article:

“so-called bail-ins typically mean wiping out creditors’ investments, slashing their value or converting them into shares in the bank. Uninsured depositors could get caught along with professional investors”.

In other words, they’re once again planning to steal the hard-earned cash of the little guy, but instead of doing it via tax-funded bail-outs as they did in 2008, they’re going to do it directly by commandeering the financial assets that people house in banks.

Yet, no matter what they do in the short term, they cannot stop the massive bubbles in debt, derivatives (over 1.5 quadrillion dollars), real estate, stocks, and bonds from inevitably popping. It might happen tomorrow or it might hold off for another year, yet regardless of the exact timing, any one of these or other triggers could easily send the global economy into a severe and sustained global depression.

Preparing accordingly, therefore, is nothing short of wise.

WHAT TO DO NEXT?

The potential for it to get seriously ugly over the coming months and years is very real, so both individually and collectively, we should be taking this very seriously.

Whatever does happen though, I do feel it will be in our collective favor. Their matrix of control is crashing; so many more people are now aware of the agenda to create a global governance, as well as the propaganda narratives they convey through the mainstream media that they either own or control.

In other words, we need to accept that all ‘official truths’ are a farce and they’ve been unarguably exposed and documented for the world to see as clear as day. Excitingly, the mainstream ‘truths’ are even beginning to be viewed by the masses as the bullshit of a pathological liar.

To prepare financially, many alternative economists recommend to exit all high risk investments such as stocks. For example, do you know where your superannuation is invested? There will no doubt be massive swings in stocks in the coming weeks, but the risk is high that they will continue to decrease at the least, and dramatically crash at the worst.

Also, to prepare physically, have you secured food and water insurance? Just like we get insurance for our health, car, home contents etc., in these times we should do the same with our basic necessities. I’m sure those in Canada are wishing they stocked up on essential goods because now they’re spending all their hard earned cash on just surviving.

For a deeper discussion on how to prepare, read “70 Tips That Will Help You Survive What Is About To Happen To America”.

FINAL THOUGHTS

These are exciting times because the western world is waking up to the lies and deceptions they’ve been force-fed (much of it is of course common knowledge in places like Russia and parts of Europe etc.). The mainstream narrative in every way you could possibly imagine is a complete fabrication to elicit your consent, especially for war. Yet, even though all of this is driving the awakening needed for humanity’s evolution, there are real risks for all of us.

Organizing our lives in as many self-sufficient ways as possible is simply being street smart. Arming ourselves with the right information is not just for the benefit of ourselves, but our family, friends and community as a whole. And of course, don’t feed the fear machine; we’re electro-magnetic beings in an electro-magnetic universe and how we think and feel does ripple out into the waters.

Make sure it’s worthy energy.

And remember, the banking sector is the head of the snake. This is the fundamental control mechanism of the powers-that-will-no-longer-be that we need to disassemble, because everything else of importance will naturally follow suit. For further information on how to create a better world for our personal future, as well as the future of humanity, see the articles linked below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phillip J. Watt lives in Australia. His written work deals with topics from ideology to society, as well as self-development. Follow him on Facebook or visit his website.

Saturday Matinee: Struggle

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Reid Mukai

From MentalRev Productions:

Struggle is a case study of the 2004 Presidential Election in Ohio, the deciding swing state which delivered the presidency once again to George W. Bush. Diligently researched by the key contributors to the film, Struggle is a bold film that challenges the legitimacy of that Presidential Election and brings the entire US electoral process into question.

This gripping documentary is filmed with a mix of expert testimony and first-hand accounts of voters whose votes were suppressed or manipulated, and community members who protested for election reform and justice in the State and National Capitals. This informative, engaging and tense film is told from a grass roots perspective, from the ground up, without the filters of mainstream media framing the dialogue. Filmed with a handheld style that reflects the intensity of the moment, this film identifies the practices of Individual and State entities to silence protest and manipulate elections in the United States.

This film was made without the resources of mainstream media or a highly funded political campaign. This is a grass roots film that speaks truth to power, with your help we will magnify that voice and demand free and fair elections for all Americans.

https://vimeo.com/50791629

Zika: Why Biotech is Imperative to National Security

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Ulson Gunnar

Source: New Eastern Outlook

When we think of national security, we think of tanks, jets, missile defense systems and more recently, information space. But what about the realm of the microscopic, the biological or the genetic?

Whether you think biotechnology, genetics and microbes constitute another plane upon the modern battlefield or not is irrelevant. Someone else already does, and they have a head start on the rest of the world.

Genotype Specific Bioweapons

The Project for a New American Century or PNAC for short, penned a particularly unhinged policy paper in 2000 titled, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century.”

In it, among many other things, it specifically writes:

Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold, in time, the art of warfare on air, land, and sea will be vastly different than it is today, and “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes.

…advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

Advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes sound like the stuff of science fiction, and even if it were developed, it would be by the “bad guys,” right?

Wrong. As a matter of fact, the Western-backed apartheid government in South Africa in the 1980’s under Project Coast, attempted to create genotype specific bioweapons aimed at sterilizing the nation’s black women. PBS Frontline’s article, “What Happened in South Africa?” would recount:

In 1998 South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission held hearings investigating activities of the apartheid-era government. Toward the end of the hearings, the Commission looked into the apartheid regime’s Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) program and allegations that it developed a sterility vaccine to use on black South Africans, employed toxic and chemical poison weapons for political asssassination, and in the late 1970s provided anthrax and cholera to Rhodesian troops for use against guerrilla rebels in their war to overthrow Rhodesia’s white minority rule.

While South Africa’s entire CBW program was abhorrent, what is particularly frightening is the use of South Africa’s national vaccination program as a vector for infecting black women with viruses meant to sterilize them. Now that vaccination programs are being pushed globally, there lies the danger that such weapons could be used against entire regions of the planet.

PBS would elaborate further on the CBW program, stating that the South African government:

Developed lethal chemical and biological weapons that targeted ANC [African National Congress] political leaders and their supporters as well as populations living in the black townships. These weapons included an infertility toxin to secretly sterilize the black population; skin-absorbing poisons that could be applied to the clothing of targets; and poison concealed in products such as chocolates and cigarettes.

PNAC’s dream of genotype specific bioweapons then, is not some far-off science fiction future, it is something that has been pursued in earnest for decades, and apparently by interests aligned to the West, not enemies of it.

Zika and GM Mosquitoes

Though it is so far impossible to confirm a link between the two, it is troubling nonetheless to see the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus spreading in Brazil precisely from where GM (genetically modified) mosquitoes were released several years ago.

A 2012 entry in Nature titled, “Brazil tests GM mosquitoes to fight Dengue,” would report:

Scientists in Brazil say an experiment to reduce populations of the dengue-carrying Aedes aegyptimosquito, by releasing millions of genetically modified (GM) insects into the wild, is working.

More than ten million modified male mosquitoes were released in the city of Juazeiro, a city of 288,000 people, over a period of time starting a year ago.

The US CDC (Center for Disease Control) would report that Zika virus cases in northeast Brazil were first officially recognized in early 2015, with international hysteria finally reached early this year. The cases seem most concentrated in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, upon the borders of which the city of Juazeiro lies.

What could have happened between 2011 and 2016 that might have led to this development? Could the GM mosquitoes designed to stamp out dengue have mutated in some unpredictable way? And could this experiment have caused the Zika virus itself to mutate in an unpredictable way? It already has mutated once, allowing it to spread among humans more prolifically.

Or what if GM mosquitoes supposedly meant to wipe out dengue were serving as a vector for something else entirely? We can only imagine the sort of stories, excuses and feigned ignorance the South African government would have conjured had its genotype specific bioweapons worked, and black women began turning up sterilized in huge numbers after receiving their “vaccines.”

Mosquitoes as a Vaccine Vector

Using mosquitoes as a vector to deliver engineered genetic material to humans as a sort of involuntary, inescapable “vaccine” is already a reality. The London Telegraph in its article, “Genetically modified mosquitos could be used to spread vaccine for malaria,” reported in 2010 that:

Experts believe “flying vaccinators” could eventually be a radical new way of tackling malaria.

The new approach targets the salivary gland of the Anopheles mosquito.

Scientists in Japan have engineered an insect producing a natural vaccine protein in its saliva which is injected into the bloodstream when it bites.

The “prototype” mosquito carries a vaccine against Leishmania, another potentially fatal parasite disease spread by sand flies.

And if mosquitoes can naturally deliver viruses, and scientists can alter what mosquitoes carry and infect hosts with, it is possible to engineer viruses to deliver virtually anything into targeted populations much in the same way viruses are re-engineered into vectors in labs today through a process called gene therapy. In the wrong hands, this technology and these techniques could become terrifying weapons.

For those in the middle of the Zika virus hysteria, perhaps it already has.

How Could They? Why Would They?

To answer “how could they possibly do something so diabolical?” we need only think back to 2003 and recall how the United States intentionally lied to the world, then between its initial invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, killed upward to a million people. This includes several thousand of its own soldiers and civilians, many of whom it appears were killed by militants armed and funneled into the country by the United States’ closest regional allies, with the US’ resolute backing.

To answer “why” American and European special interests seek to render any particular population sick, weak and they and/or their offspring incapable of perpetuating a viable civilization, PNAC itself sums it up quite clearly:

The United States is the world’s only superpower, combining preeminent military power, global technological leadership, and the world’s largest economy. Moreover, America stands at the head of a system of alliances which includes the world’s other leading democratic powers. At present the United States faces no global rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.

A population racked with birth defects, diminishing health and IQs and a lack of physical vitality constitutes the enemy every hegemon throughout history has dreamt of facing both on the battlefield and upon the grand chessboard of geopolitics.

Whether the Zika outbreak is linked to some insidious biowarefare program, an experiment gone wrong or simply the forces of nature, it showcases the danger biology can pose and reminds us of what greater dangers may yet await us if we do not properly prepare and protect ourselves.

Domestic Biotech is Imperative to National Defense

It has been almost painful to watch the rest of the world attempt to catch up to the United States and Europe in the information war. For decades the West dominated information warfare without contest.

Only now have nations like Russia, China, Iran and others finally caught up and in some cases exceeded Western capabilities. Only now are nations finally investing seriously in information and cyber warfare capabilities. Only now does it seem that nations realize the folly of depending on others for both information, and information technology.

Russia recently decided to switch to local computer processor manufacturers to run on all computers used for official business. This is because foreign corporations making processors imported into the Russian Federation had been apparently compromised on the factory floor with the cooperation of these foreign corporations by US intelligence agencies.

We can easily imagine the danger of having US intelligence agencies getting into Russia’s IT infrastructure through these backdoor passes. It doesn’t take much imagination to think about the trouble US intelligence agencies could cause if they could get inside Russia’s human, natural and agricultural genomes.

Developing a viable domestic biotech industry is not only a matter of economic prosperity, but clearly also a matter of vital national security. Foreign corporations should no better be able to access a nation’s “genetic code and files” than it can its computer code and files. After all, genetic information is not entirely unlike digital information.
Brazil and other nations that have invited foreign biotech corporations to meddle with their human, natural and agricultural genomes are likened to those nations who hand their vital infrastructure over to foreign interests only to find out through Wikileaks years later the sort of invasive spying, abuses and other means of self-serving treachery this access has been exploited for.

Let’s not wait for Wikileaks to tell us 10 years from now just how bad the nations of the world had been infiltrated and exploited through biotechnology before we recognize this industry as absolutely vital to national security and begin investing in it domestically, rather than outsourcing it overseas.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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War fraud: The great lies behind imperial warfare in the 21st century

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Mark Taliano

Source: Intrepid Report

The “War On Terror” and “The War On Drugs” are both fraudulent, and they are both related. In a classic example of “reverse projection”, ”the War on Terror” is literally a “War for Terror,” and the “War on Drugs” is literally a “War for Drugs.”

Terror, coupled with the illegal trade in narcotics, particularly heroin, is enabling the orchestration, and funding, of illegal warfare which serves the interests of an international oligarch class as it destroys humanity.

The barbarity of the military operations conducted by the West is beyond the imagination of most domestic audiences, even when details are publicized.

Broadly speaking, we can decode the 9/11 terror wars using a simple formula:

Problem
Reaction
Solution

NATO imperialists engineer or exploit problems to create reactions, with a view to creating previously planned solutions. Typically, problems (i.e, 9/11 crimes) serve to engineer public consent (reaction) for illegal invasions (solution).

The “end-game” also contradicts publically stated goals. Evidence demonstrates that the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, as well as the war in Ukraine, were launched and prosecuted with a view to destroy each country through invasion, occupation, plunder, and to establish military footholds. The popular notion that the wars are being prosecuted for humanitarian purposes is absolutely ridiculous.

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, for example, drug-trafficking warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were used to create extremist “jihadist” armies (mujahideen) to destroy the Soviet-protected socialist republic. The long-standing CIA-terror group alliance, which pre-dates Afghanistan, continues to be empowered by profits from illegal drug trafficking: According to U.S sources, the production of opium (which is eventually processed into heroin) has increased “40-fold” since the initial invasion of Afghanistan.

So, the invasion destroyed a secular, socialist government and filled the vacuum with extremist drug-trafficking terrorist warlords. But imperialists gained a military foothold in the country.

Iraq

We all know now that the fraudulent “Weapons Of Mass Destruction” pretext was used for the criminal invasion of Iraq. The engineered problem was followed by mixed reactions from a less gullible public, but the invasion (solution), was launched (on the heels of genocidal sanctions) anyway.

Joe Quinn reports that in this invasion, US Death Squads manufactured a civil war to divert attention from the real culprits: the occupiers. A 10,000 strong “Shia militia” under US command is used to terrorize the population and to destroy Iraqi grassroots resistance. Often, the terrorists bomb civilian targets and falsely blame innocent groups—false flag tactics—which in turn create engineered friction and retaliation. Black propaganda operations are a CIA specialty. Consequently, Iraq is now an unstable terrorist quagmire, whereas before the invasion it was a modern, well-developed country free of any identifiable terror groups.

Libya

The NATO invasion of Libya, previously the wealthiest country in Africa, was also a product of repeated Western lies, and now, it too, is a hotbed of terrorism, vice, and drug trafficking. Erin Banco reports in “Drug And Human Trafficking In ‘Lawless’ Libya Is Funding ISIS” that the West’s “lack of foresight has enabled different groups of fighters to traffic a continuous supply of arms, drugs and people across Libya’s borders, helping to bankroll some of the world’s most violent terrorists.”

Syria

The invasion of Syria is following predictable patterns as well. A constellation of extremist, mercenary terror groups, including ISIS—all supported by the West—are trying to destroy Syria. Drug trafficking, stolen oil and artifacts are being used to finance the mass murder, and death squads, often under the cover of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) are being used to create a “civil war,” and to destroy President Assad’s government. The terror and mass murder are primarily orchestrated externally with a view to making Syria safe for Wahhabism, barbarity, and a NATO military presence.

A Wikileaks cable indicates that since 2011, more than 230,000 people have died and a million have been injured. But despite the so-far-successful alliance of Syria, Iran, and Russia in destroying the mercenary terrorists and in saving Syria, the West can take some consolation: the US already has a military foothold in the country. Only time will tell if the West succeeds in creating and sustaining yet another unstable, terrorist-infested vassal state.

Despite what naysayers might think, the NATO-perpetrated holocaust is in many respects a neocon success story: a succession of previously independent countries have been destroyed, and a NATO presence has been installed. In fact, the wars for Terror and Drugs are winning, despite ostensible setbacks.

The whole process of death and destruction is not rational or moral, and the degeneracy is beyond evil. Commentators call it imperialism.

Hang onto your wallets: Negative interest, the war on cash, and the $10 trillion bail-in

Posted on February 8, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Ellen Brown

Source: Intrepid Report

Remember those old ads showing a senior couple lounging on a warm beach, captioned “Let your money work for you”? Or the scene in Mary Poppins where young Michael is being advised to put his tuppence in the bank, so that it can compound into “all manner of private enterprise,” including “bonds, chattels, dividends, shares, shipyards, amalgamations . . .”?

That may still work if you’re a Wall Street banker, but if you’re an ordinary saver with your money in the bank, you may soon be paying the bank to hold your funds rather than the reverse.

Four European central banks—the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank, Sweden’s Riksbank, and Denmark’s Nationalbank—have now imposed negative interest rates on the reserves they hold for commercial banks; and discussion has turned to whether it’s time to pass those costs on to consumers. The Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve are still at ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy), but several Fed officials have also begun calling for NIRP (negative rates) [update: Bank of Japan implemented a negative interest rate 1/29/16].

The stated justification for this move is to stimulate “demand” by forcing consumers to withdraw their money and go shopping with it. When an economy is struggling, it is standard practice for a central bank to cut interest rates, making saving less attractive. This is supposed to boost spending and kick-start an economic recovery.

That is the theory, but central banks have already pushed the prime rate to zero, and still their economies are languishing. To the uninitiated observer, that means the theory is wrong and needs to be scrapped. But not to our intrepid central bankers, who are now experimenting with pushing rates below zero.

Locking the door to bank runs: The cashless society

The problem with imposing negative interest on savers, as explained in the UK Telegraph, is that “there’s a limit, what economists called the ‘zero lower bound.’ Cut rates too deeply, and savers would end up facing negative returns. In that case, this could encourage people to take their savings out of the bank and hoard them in cash. This could slow, rather than boost, the economy.”

Again, to the ordinary observer, this would seem to signal that negative interest rates won’t work and the approach needs to be abandoned. But not to our undaunted central bankers, who have chosen instead to plug this hole in their leaky theory by moving to eliminate cash as an option. If your only choice is to keep your money in a digital account in a bank and spend it with a bank card or credit card or checks, negative interest can be imposed with impunity. This is already happening in Sweden, and other countries are close behind. As reported on Wolfstreet.com:

The War on Cash is advancing on all fronts. One region that has hogged the headlines with its war against physical currency is Scandinavia. Sweden became the first country to enlist its own citizens as largely willing guinea pigs in a dystopian economic experiment: negative interest rates in a cashless society. As Credit Suisse reports, no matter where you go or what you want to purchase, you will find a small ubiquitous sign saying “Vi hanterar ej kontanter” (“We don’t accept cash”) . . .

The lesson of Gesell’s decaying currency

Whether negative interests will actually stimulate an economic recovery, however, remains in doubt. Proponents of the theory cite Silvio Gesell and the Wörgl experiment of the 1930s. As explained by Charles Eisenstein in Sacred Economics:

The pioneering theoretician of negative-interest money was the German-Argentinean businessman Silvio Gesell, who called it “free-money” (Freigeld). . . . The system he proposed in his 1906 masterwork, The Natural Economic Order, was to use paper currency to which a stamp costing a small fraction of the note’s value had to be affixed periodically. This effectively attached a maintenance cost to monetary wealth.

. . . [In 1932], the depressed town of Wörgl, Austria, issued its own stamp scrip inspired by Gesell. . . . The Wörgl currency was by all accounts a huge success. Roads were paved, bridges built, and back taxes were paid. The unemployment rate plummeted and the economy thrived, attracting the attention of nearby towns. Mayors and officials from all over the world began to visit Wörgl until, as in Germany, the central government abolished the Wörgl currency and the town slipped back into depression.

. . . [T]he Wörgl currency bore a demurrage rate [a maintenance charge for carrying money] of 1 percent per month. Contemporary accounts attributed to this the very rapid velocity of the currencies’ circulation. Instead of generating interest and growing, accumulation of wealth became a burden, much like possessions are a burden to the nomadic hunter-gatherer. As theorized by Gesell, money afflicted with loss-inducing properties ceased to be preferred over any other commodity as a store of value.

There is a critical difference, however, between the Wörgl currency and the modern-day central bankers’ negative interest scheme. The Wörgl government first issued its new “free money,” getting it into the local economy and increasing purchasing power, before taxing a portion of it back. And the proceeds of the stamp tax went to the city, to be used for the benefit of the taxpayers. As Eisenstein observes:

It is impossible to prove . . . that the rejuvenating effects of these currencies came from demurrage and not from the increase in the money supply. . . .

Today’s central bankers are proposing to tax existing money, diminishing spending power without first building it up. And the interest will go to private bankers, not to the local government.

Consumers today already have very little discretionary money. Imposing negative interest without first adding new money into the economy means they will have even less money to spend. This would be more likely to prompt them to save their scarce funds than to go on a shopping spree.

People are not keeping their money in the bank today for the interest (which is already nearly non-existent). It is for the convenience of writing checks, issuing bank cards, and storing their money in a “safe” place. They would no doubt be willing to pay a modest negative interest for that convenience; but if the fee got too high, they might pull their money out and save it elsewhere. The fee itself, however, would not drive them to buy things they did not otherwise need.

Is there a bigger threat than a sluggish economy?

The scheme to impose negative interest and eliminate cash seems so unlikely to stimulate the economy that one wonders if that is the real motive. Stopping tax evaders and terrorists (real or presumed) are other proposed justifications for going cashless. Economist Martin Armstrong goes further and suggests that the goal is to gain totalitarian control over our money. In a cashless society, our savings can be taxed away by the banks; the threat of bank runs by worried savers can be eliminated; and the too-big-to-fail banks can be assured that ample deposits will be there when they need to confiscate them through bail-ins to stay afloat.

And that may be the real threat on the horizon: a major derivatives default that hits the largest banks, those that do the vast majority of derivatives trading. On November 10, 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported the results of a study requested by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Elijah Cummings, involving the cost to taxpayers of the rollback of the Dodd-Frank Act in the “cromnibus” spending bill last December. As Jessica Desvarieux put it on the Real News Network, “the rule reversal allows banks to keep $10 trillion in swaps trades on their books, which taxpayers could be on the hook for if the banks need another bailout.”

The promise of Dodd-Frank, however, was that there would be “no more taxpayer bailouts.” Instead, insolvent systemically-risky banks were supposed to “bail in” (confiscate) the money of their creditors, including their depositors (the largest class of creditor of any bank). That could explain the push to go cashless. By quietly eliminating the possibility of cash withdrawals, the central bank can make sure the deposits are there to be grabbed when disaster strikes.

If central bankers are seriously trying to stimulate the economy with negative interest rates, they need to repeat the Wörgl experiment in full. They need to first get some new money into the economy, money that goes directly to the consumers and local businessmen who will spend it. This could be achieved in a number of ways: with a national dividend; or by using quantitative easing for infrastructure or low-interest loans to states; or by funding free tuition for higher education. Consumers will hit the malls when they have some new discretionary income to spend.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. Listen to “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.

Is This China & USA’s “Thelma & Louise” Moment?

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By James Howard Kunstler

Source: Zero Hedge

Why would anybody suppose that the Peoples Bank of China might want to tell the truth about anything that was within their power to lie about? Especially the soundness of any loan portfolio vested unto the grasp of its tentacles? Of course, most of what China has done in speeding toward the wall of financial crack-up, it learned from watching US bankers slime their way into Too Big To Fail nirvana — most particularly the array of swindles, dodges, and frauds constructed in the half-light of shadow banking to hedge the sudden, catastrophic appearance of reality-based price discovery.

When so many loans end up networked as collateral in some kind of bet against previous bets against other previous bets, you can be sure that cascading contagion will follow. And so that is exactly what’s happening as China’s rocket ride into Modernity falls back to earth. Like most historical fiascos, it seemed like a good idea at the time: take a nation of about a billion people living in the equivalent of the Twelfth Century, introduce the magic of money printing, spend a gazillion of it on CAT and Kubota earth-moving machines, build the biggest cement industry the world has ever seen, purchase whole factory set-ups, and flood the rest of the world with stuff. Then the trouble starts when you try to defeat the business cycles associated with over-production and saturated markets.

Poor China and poor us. Escape velocity has failed. Which raises the question: escape from what, exactly? Answer: the implacable limits of life on earth. The metaphor for all this, of course, is the old journey-into-space idea, which still persists in the salesmanship of Elon Musk, the ragged remnants of NASA, and even the nightmares of Stephen Hawking. Get off this messed-up home planet and light out of the territories, say Mars. Of course, this is a vain and stupid idea, since we already have a planet engineered to perfection for all the life systems associated with the human project. We just can’t respect its limits.

So now, that dynamic duo, Nature and Reality, the actual owners of the planet, have showed up to read the riot act to the renters throwing a wild party. The fourth and perhaps ultimate financial crisis of the last twenty years begins to express itself in terms that only the raptors and vultures can see from on high. George Soros, Kyle Bass, and the other flocking shadow banking scavengers prepare to short the living shit out of the old Middle Kingdom. The immortal words of G.W. Bush ring in their ears: “This sucker is going down,” and they are sure to win big by betting on the obvious. Trouble is, this sucker could go down so much further than they imagined, that whatever fortunes they gain from its descent will be foiled by the destruction of the very economic system needed for them to enjoy their gains.

For instance, when banking systems go down, governments usually follow, and when governments go down, societies often unravel. It doesn’t take a great effort of imagination to see China’s one party politburo leadership machine lose the respect of its governed masses, and then its control of events, followed by a Great Struggle among the regions and factions to restore some kind of order. And when the smoke clears there will a whole lot of nearly worthless concrete and steel, and a vast loss of notional wealth, and China will be lucky to land back in some approximation of the Twelfth Century.

It must be interesting for China to watch the horrifying disintegration of America’s political party structure currently on view, with the mad bull called Trump rampaging across the land and the designated inevitable Mz It’s-My-Turn hijacking her collective for the greater glory of Goldman Sachs. The last time China got the vapors politically — the so-called Cultural Revolution of the 1960s — the country went batshit crazy. Surely some of the ruling party remembers that with requisite terror.

Or maybe this is China and the USA’s Thelma and Louise moment. Pedal to the metal, they drive into the abyss of history holding hands. Remember, audiences loved that!

Report: Flint lead filters provide inadequate protection for residents

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Reid Mukai

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By Shannon Jones

Source: WSWS.org

Federal and state officials are warning Flint residents that the lead filters they are using may be inadequate to protect them from the effects of elevated levels of lead in the city’s drinking water.

The warning came Friday after random samples collected from 26 residences since the final week of December came back with lead levels higher than the filters are designed to handle. The highest reading among the 26 homes was 4,000 parts per billion (ppb). The filters are not rated to handle lead levels above 150 ppb. The tests covered 3,900 homes.

After more than two years of lies and cover-up by federal, state and local officials, Flint residents are in a restive mood. Megan Kreger, a member of the local activist group Water You Fighting For, told the WSWS, “I didn’t believe it [about the lead filters] from the beginning. It has only finally hit the press.

“There has been fraud and negligence at all levels. It is a humanitarian disaster. We should not be living without clean water when we are only one hour away from one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world.”

She rejected claims that Flint water is now safe for bathing. “My boyfriend took a shower before the Rachel Maddow town hall [over the weekend] and got the worst rash he has ever gotten. It almost looked like chicken pox.”

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends action be taken when lead levels exceed 15 ppb, though there is no safe level of lead exposure. Mark Durno of the EPA said the affected residents have now been contacted. The state had previously insisted that drinking filtered water was safe.

In the wake of the findings, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder urged all Flint residents to have their water tested as soon as possible. Dr. Eden Well, chief medical executive of the state’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), advised children under six and pregnant women to drink only bottled water.

In an effort at damage control, Snyder sent a letter to state employees Friday, stating “what happened in Flint can never be allowed to happen again anywhere in our state.” The governor has tried to deflect all blame for the crisis to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and lower-ranking officials.

The DEQ said Monday that it has undertaken a five-part strategy to determine whether Flint water is safe to drink. The DEQ said it is working on a plan to make sure that residents with high lead-blood levels get their water tested.

Another issue of concern to Flint residents is that filters only have a limited life span, after which they are no longer effective. This is particularly true if the faucet where the filter is installed is the only source of water in the home.

Further, many Flint homes have older faucets that will not accommodate the water filters provided by the state. Over the weekend some 300 plumber volunteers installed new faucets free of charge in some 1,100 Flint homes, still a fraction of the city’s residences.

Federal officials said they were not sure why recent samples came back showing elevated levels of lead. Despite the findings, the EPA did not call on residents to stop using the lead filters. More testing is being planned.

The report on lead filters comes as state officials on Friday informed residents at more than 250 addresses living in areas of Genesee County outside of Flint that their water may also be tainted.

Dana, an auto parts worker who lives just outside of Flint, said she had just learned that her water may be dangerous to drink. “This is crazy. I live in the county and they just posted a whole bunch of addresses that might be affected. It appears it is impacting more than just the city of Flint. They had us misled. They told us it was fine. I was making coffee with the tap water every morning.

“It is an outrage. It is getting worse and worse. Everyone in the government is to blame. We as citizens do not know what is going on.”

Soon after the switch by the city of Flint in 2014 from its traditional water source, the Detroit water system, to the polluted Flint River, residents began to complain of foul-tasting, discolored water coming out of their taps. Nevertheless, citizens were repeatedly told the water was safe.

It later emerged that the highly corrosive water from the Flint River was leaching lead from the city’s antiquated piping, poisoning the city’s 100,000 residents. Even after the switch back to the Detroit water system in October, lead levels remain dangerously high due to the damage already done to the city’s water pipes.

Ten deaths from the deadly Legionnaires’ virus have also been traced to Flint water.

In another development, the US Department of Agriculture rejected a request by Snyder to extend the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program to Flint residents up to the age of 10. A department spokesperson said federal law limited the program to children under age five. The program provides grants to states for supplemental foods, health referrals and nutrition information to pregnant and postpartum women with infant children.

Health professionals say proper nutrition is important in mitigating the long-term effects of lead poisoning in children. Children are especially vulnerable to lead, since their developing brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to toxins. The city has a child poverty rate of nearly 67 percent, 10 percentage points higher than Detroit.

According to the Michigan DHHS, 130,095 people in Genesee County, where Flint is located, are using food stamp assistance now, compared with 87,847 in 2005.

The report on continued high levels of lead in Flint’s water supply comes as Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette says the state may not provide legal counsel for seven DEQ employees who are the subject of a class action lawsuit by Flint residents. Schuette has asked a federal judge to decide the matter of representation.

The lawsuit alleges the state endangered Flint residents by switching the city’s water source to the Flint River. In addition to the DEQ employees, the lawsuit also names Snyder, the state of Michigan, the city of Flint, two former emergency managers, the former Flint mayor and three city employees.

It has been filed on behalf of 10 plaintiffs, but seeks class action status for all Flint residents. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages, the creation of a medical monitoring fund and the appointment of a monitor to oversee Flint water.

The suit does not name federal officials, however the Obama administration’s EPA is deeply implicated in the cover-up of the lead poisoning danger. As early as April 2015, the highest-level EPA official in Michigan was aware that Flint water was not being treated for corrosion control, but said nothing. This, despite the fact that water professionals understand that such treatment is necessary if highly corrosive water like that from the Flint River is being used for drinking because of the danger of lead leaching from old piping.

Snyder has claimed he did not become aware of problems with Flint’s drinking water until October 1, 2015.

The West Is Reduced To Looting Itself

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Reid Mukai

By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

I, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for electrification or some such purpose. The gullible and trusting governments are told that they can make their countries rich by taking out foreign loans to implement a Western-presented development plan, with the result being sufficient tax revenues from economic development to service the foreign loan.

Seldom, if ever, does this happen. What happens is that the plan results in the country becoming indebted to the limit and beyond of its foreign currency earnings. When the country is unable to service the development loan, the creditors send the IMF to tell the indebted government that the IMF will protect the government’s credit rating by lending it the money to pay its bank creditors. However, the conditions are that the government take necessary austerity measures so that the government can repay the IMF. These measures are to curtail public services and the government sector, reduce public pensions, and sell national resources to foreigners. The money saved by reduced social benefits and raised by selling off the country’s assets to foreigners serves to repay the IMF.

This is the way the West has historically looted Third World countries. If a country’s president is reluctant to enter into such a deal, he is simply paid bribes, as the Greek governments were, to go along with the looting of the country the president pretends to represent.

When this method of looting became exhausted, the West bought up agricultural lands and pushed a policy on Third World countries of abandoning food self-sufficiency and producing one or two crops for export earnings. This policy makes Third World populations dependent on food imports from the West. Typically the export earnings are drained off by corrupt governments or by foreign purchasers who pay little while the foreigners selling food charge much. Thus, self-sufficiency is transformed into indebtedness.

With the entire Third World now exploited to the limits possible, the West has turned to looting its own. Ireland has been looted, and the looting of Greece and Portugal is so severe that it has forced large numbers of young women into prostitution. But this doesn’t bother the Western conscience.

Previously, when a sovereign country found itself with more debt than could be serviced, creditors had to write down the debt to an amount that the country could service. In the 21st century, as I relate in my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism, this traditional rule was abandoned.

The new rule is that the people of a country, even a country whose top offiials accepted bribes in order to indebt the country to foreigners, must have their pensions, employment, and social services slashed and valuable national resources such as municipal water systems, ports, the national lottery, and protected national lands, such as the protected Greek islands, sold to foreigners, who have the freedom to raise water prices, deny the Greek government the revenues from the national lottery, and sell the protected national heritage of Greece to real estate developers.

What has happened to Greece and Portugal is underway in Spain and Italy. The peoples are powerless because their governments do not represent them. Not only are their governments receiving bribes, the members of the governments are brainwashed that their countries must be in the European Union. Otherwise, they are bypassed by history. The oppressed and suffering peoples themselves are brainwashed in the same way. For example, in Greece the government elected to prevent the looting of Greece was powerless, because the Greek people are brainwashed that no matter the cost to them, they must be in the EU.

The combination of propaganda, financial power, stupidity and bribes means that there is no hope for European peoples.

The same is true in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK. In the US tens of millions of US citizens have quietly accepted the absence of any interest income on their savings for seven years. Instead of raising questions and protesting, Americans have accepted without thought the propaganda that their existence depends upon the success of a handful of artificially created mega-banks that are “too big to fail.” Millions of Americans are convinced that it is better for them to draw down their savings than for a corrupt bank to fail.

To keep Western peoples confused about the real threat that they face, the people are told that there are terrorists behind every tree, every passport, under every bed, and that all will be killed unless the government’s overarching power is unquestioned. So far this has worked perfectly, with one false flag after another reinforcing the faked terror attacks that serve to prevent any awareness that this a hoax for accumulating all income and wealth in a few hands.

Not content with their supremacy over “democratic peoples,” the One Percent has come forward with the Trans-Atlanta and Trans-Pacific partnerships. Allegedly these are “free trade deals” that will benefit everyone. In truth, these are carefully hidden, secret, deals that give private businesses control over the laws of sovereign governments.

For example, it has come to light that under the Trans-Atlantic partnership the National Health Service in the UK could be ruled in the private tribunals set up under the partnership as an impediment to private medical insurance and sued for damages by private firms and even forced into abolishment.

The corrupt UK government under Washington’s vassal David Cameron has blocked access to legal documents that show the impact of the Trans-Atlantic partnership on Britain’s National Health Service. http://www.globalresearch.ca/cameron-desperate-to-stop-scandal-as-secret-plans-to-sell-the-national-health-service-are-discovered/5504306

For any citizen of any Western country who is so stupid or brainwashed as not to have caught on, the entire thrust of “their” government’s policy is to turn every aspect of their lives over to grasping private interests.

In the UK the postal service was sold at a nominal price to politically connected private interests. In the US the Republicans, and perhaps the Democrats, intend to privatize Medicare and Social Security, just as they have privatized many aspects of the military and the prison system. Public functions are targets for private profit-making.

One of the reasons for the escalation in the cost of the US military budget is its privatization. The privatization of the US prison system has resulted in huge numbers of innocent people being sent to prison, where they are forced to work for Apple Computer, IT services, clothing companies that manufacture for the US military, and a large number of other private businesses. The prison laborers are paid as low as 69 cents per hour, below the Chinese wage.

This is America today. Corrupt police. Corrupt prosecutors. Corrupt judges. But maximum profits for US Capitalism from prison labor. Free market economists glorified private prisons, alleging that they would be more efficient. And indeed they are efficient in providing the profits of slave labor for capitalists.

Here is a news report on UK Prime Minister Cameron denying information about the effect of the Trans-Atlantic partnership on Britains’ National Health.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/26/anger-government-blocks-ttip-legal-documents-nhs-health-service

The UK Guardian, which often has to prostitute itself in order to maintain a bit of independence, describes the anger that the British people feel toward the government’s secrecy about an issue so fundamental to the well being of the British people. Yet, the British continue to vote for political parties that have betrayed the British people.

All over Europe, the corrupt Washington-contolled governments have distracted people from their sellout by “their” governments by focusing their attention on immigrants, whose presence is a consequence of the European governments representing Washington’s interests and not the interest of their own peoples.

Somthing dire has happened to the intelligence and awareness of Western peoples who seem no longer capable of comprehending the machinations of “their” governments.

Accountable government in the West is history. Nothing but failure and collapse awaits Western civilization.

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