Monthly Archives: October 2013

The Money Noose Tightens Further

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The desperate folks in government are looking for money everywhere. In fact, at the last two G20 meetings, the richest 20 nations seemed able to agree on only one thing: that they will automate the trading of financial records with each other to try to catch corporations and individuals who are trying to avoid taxes. Other than that, the meetings were said to have a lot of bickering over Syria, NSA global spying, the Japanese debasing their currency faster than other regions, and so forth.

The International Monetary Fund, whose employees pay no taxes at all on their own salaries, is recommending a 10% wealth tax on all European Union citizens. Why? “..to restore debt sustainability.” In other words, they are admitting that EU countries are drowning in unpayable debt loads, so they advise snatching 10% of the wealth of everyone in those countries to pay off some national debts. And what will that 10% wealth grab accomplish? They say it will restore national debt levels to where they were in 2007. 2007?!? Wasn’t that the precipice of the financial crisis? They don’t seem to understand that countries were already drowning in too much debt in 2007, which was one of the primary enabling factors of the financial crisis. They say this is a one-time wealth grab. But after they grab that 10% of people’s money and it fixes nothing, what will they advise then? Grabbing 20% perhaps? More? Very likely.

Poland joined Argentina, Hungary, Ireland, Cyprus, and France in confiscating people’s pension assets. The Polish government grabbed national bonds held in pension funds managed by private sector money managers (think IRA or 401K managers ) and pulled them into the public sector pension program. Why? To count those bonds as government assets rather than debts so that their debt to GDP ratio looks better so they can borrow more money more cheaply in the open market. (Now you might think: why would bond  investors fall for such pathetic tricks? Why indeed. Don’t ask me. These “investors” are probably the same people who had money with Madoff.)

And Chase has told lots of its small business and individual clients that they can no longer use wire transfers to transfer money out of the country. If this sounds to you like progress along the lines of the dreaded currency controls, then you are being rational and astute. Currency controls, through which people are prohibited from moving their money out of its home country, are a plague on people when a country’s currency is plummeting in value. Ask people in Argentina how that feels, they’ve been through it twice.

Governments tried printing and borrowing lots of money to boost economies so they could collect more taxes. This has backfired: the economies barely grew while the debt continues to grow wildly.  Here’s what it looks like in the US, where the debt is the red line and the economy the blue line:

Debt_GDP

Some people, like Dick Cheney and Paul Krugman, say “who cares,” but the problem is, debts costs money, that is, you have to pay interest on the debt and you have to pay back the principal. And when the debt load keeps increasing faster than the economy, and faster than tax collections, it’s a classic case of unsustainability. Which is why governments are now starting to confiscate. They want more money, folks. They want to get it from you. Protect yourself accordingly.

Basis of the Financial System

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Because understanding it is so crucial to people gaining freedom, there have been multiple attempts here at Thundering Heard to explain key aspects of the financial system. If anyone still feels at all mystified by this topic, the latest video by Mike Maloney does a good job of clearly explaining the true basis of the current system:

          The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind – Hidden Secrets of Money Episode 4

US Government shut down, except…

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The US Government claims to be shut down, but that doesn’t apply to the military complex:

     Hagel Orders Civilian Pentagon Workers To Return to Work

So 350,000 civilian contractors will rejoin active duty soldiers, to whom no shutdown was applied.

And apparently the Department of Defense granted 94 new contracts on the day prior to the shutdown.

Recently, the US Federal Reserve threatened to slow down, to taper, the money printing, but they backed off on that idea at the last minute. And now the military is at full strength despite a government shutdown. Seems they are making it pretty obvious about what’s on tap. This is a very simple logical progression that has happened before:

1. An economy based on money which is debt must always grow or the interest on the debt cannot be paid.

2. When too much debt is accumulated, the economy groans under the burden, interest and principal on some of the debt cannot be paid, and the economy begins to implode.

3. Authorities put money printing into hyper-drive to try to fill the holes, to overcome this collapse, but this tactic fails. Currently, the money printers themselves are dismayed about the poor results from all that printing.

4. So to stimulate an economy in end-of-cycle death throes, the authorities resort to war.

In my view, this too will fail.

In early September, when the Military Times surveyed US troops on whether they supported US air strikes on Syria, 75% were opposed. And they were opposing air strikes; it seems highly likely that there would be even greater opposition to an invasion. US politicians have been running these troops ragged with one campaign after another, and it is taking its toll in terms of suicide and substance abuse:

In fact, prescription drug abuse doubled among U.S. military personnel from 2002 to 2005 and almost tripled between 2005 and 2008.

Alcohol abuse is the most prevalent problem and one which poses a significant health risk. A study of Army soldiers screened 3 to 4 months after returning from deployment to Iraq showed that 27 percent met criteria for alcohol abuse…

Drug or alcohol use frequently accompanies mental health problems and was involved in 30 percent of the Army’s suicide deaths from 2003 to 2009 and in more than 45 percent of non-fatal suicide attempts from 2005 to 2009.

Many people are increasingly aware that most major US war participations were preceded by false flag attacks, for example, the Lusitania for WW1, Pearl Harbor for WW2, the Gulf of Tonkin for Viet Nam, and 9/11 for the War on Terror. Many are weary of the repeated war campaigns that promise to bring democracy and bring only death and chaos. And people are increasingly aware that the economy–to which so many bow down as some kind of Moloch that must be served now no matter what the human and long-term costs–is a system for enslaving many for the mega-profits of a few. How long before people realize that murderous warmongering is simply an extension of that profiteering?

It seems clear that they will start a major war. They will have to counter war weariness among both civilians and military, and we all know how they do that. And they do need people’s support to carry this out. So once the war has started, the question will be: how long will people support it? Will people go along with these dark forces of war–for emotional reasons, or to get and keep a job in the war economy–or will they stand up and put an end to it?