The first thing to be absolutely sure of is this: the rules for this game are not standardized, they are vastly different favoring some over others. In gaming terms the deck is stacked against you. Who are the main players of this game? Simple: the White House and Wall Street, the politicocorporatists.
To narrow this down even further we can safely say the policymakers in Washington and the investment banks. These two entities in every sense are in bed together, in fact today they can be regarded as one and the same. They are equal participants in a “super” game in which there can be only one conclusion. There is in fact one more major player in this game however for now let’s just focus on these two. I will tell you who the third prime player is later on. With a show of hands, how many of you believe that with regard to trading stock XYZ you are privy to the same information say the CEO of Goldman Sachs is? Or on issues of policy’s or upcoming laws and regulations you have the same knowledge as a Congressman?
Or if you decide to trade commodities, you are made aware before time of an upcoming margin change requirement? It goes on and on and on and here is where is gets even better, not only do those on the inside act upon information that you and I are not privy to and get handsomely rewarded financially, they are not prosecuted. In fact if you are a member of Congress it’s actually legal for you to act on non-public information. Below is an excerpt which was taken from the Wall Street Journal, (WSJ) 11-16-11. To the extent our legislators are trading on their own unique political knowledge, at least they are thinking about the impact of their policies on productive businesses. To the extent they make a quick profit, at least they are paying the top personal tax rate, so helping to finance the spending they inflict on the rest of us. After all, the real scandal isn’t what they do with their own money, but what they do with ours.
The Free Market Is Dead.
So we are now beginning to understand that the game is rigged, now what? Well, what else do we know? We absolutely know the free market is dead and therefore a whole new set of rules exist. From the time the government decided to institute the Troubled Asset Relief Program, (TARP), under then president Bush the free market was dead. In a free market those who have made bad bets are supposed to fail, it is the most basic principal in a free capitalistic society. Nowhere in the constitution of the United States is there such a provision where the public is supposed to bail out failing corporations and or individuals for that matter. Now you and I, the public, own all of the bad bets placed by irresponsible financial institutions across the board. Assets which are still depreciating in value and whose price tag has been added to the National Debt. The writers of the constitution warned explicitly against such measures. Not only did the free market essentially die, a whole new form of government was instituted. We now have a corporate state controlled by the government, aka the policymakers and the investment banks and as such the politicocorporatists were created. I will go one step further. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 presented an unprecedented opportunity to those who were seeking to usurp the government of the United States. They succeeded. So yes the rules have changed. Not only have the rules been altered greatly skewing the odds in the favor of the well informed, but the playing field itself has also changed dramatically.
In the equity markets of today fifty percent of market action is High Frequency Trading, and HFT adds massive liquidity to the markets. Well financed players can and do take advantage of this mode, (HFT), of trading by deliberately manipulating the price of equities through collusion. It is very difficult for market oversight to recognize collusion with HFT because of 2 factors. The first is the modality of HFT itself it is very complex and mostly run by computer programs, and the second is High Frequency trades themselves take advantage of extremely brief moments of change in an asset’s price and some of these changes are deliberately caused to happen. Manipulating market prices of just about anything is done quite simply and frequently, and world central banks are in fact the main drivers of this manipulation. Today we live in a world in which global central banks are debasing the currency and manipulating interest rates, we are in truly uncharted waters. Bail-outs are now the norm and bail-ins are coming. The effect of these transactions/manipulation is simple, market influence in either the price of gold, currency exchange rates, interest rates etc. Much of the global market manipulation is fostered through what is known as the BIS which is an abbreviation for Bank for Internal Settlements. The BIS is the world’s central banks, bank. In 1944 the Czech Republic accused the BIS of laundering gold which was stolen by the Nazi’s during their blitz through Europe. The BIS states that it, along with the world’s central banks, maintain international financial stability. I call it “influencing the world markets for the benefit the central bankers.” The BIS is self-governed, is under no countries jurisdiction, and does not answer to anyone. The BIS along with the world’s central banks can manipulate and twist the world markets however they please at any time they want. Currency values are highly manipulated as well, For example: the Chinese buy American dollars in order to manipulate exchange rates so they can keep the value of the dollar high in relation to the Yuan. This is done to assure that Chinese exports are kept “cheap.” In fact the Chinese hold the largest reserves of foreign currency in the world for this very reason, to manipulate currency rates. The Chinese know how to play the game, in fact they make the rules when it comes to currency trading. Basic economics tells us that an asset’s price is driven by supply and demand. While supply and demand drivers are responsible to a certain degree with regard to the market price of an item, the main price driver of a given entity is psychological, driven by fear and greed. Today so much market activity is manipulated in some way it is hard to discern reality from fantasy. Running a close second to China with regard to market manipulation is The Federal Reserve. However, a more likely scenario is they are both equally guilty of tremendous amounts of market manipulation spanning the gamut. With regard to the rhetoric coming from the politicocorporatists and parroted by the mass media let’s start with this: there is no real market/economic recovery. None, zero, zilch. In fact there will not be any real recovery until the overall markets are permitted to correct, or more precisely allowed to do their sole job. The single job of the equities markets is to determine fair market value, that’s it, but this prime aspect of the markets has subsequently been stripped away and what we now have is enormous manipulation across the board. The massive manipulation in the markets must be understood for what it actually is, a last ditch effort by the politicocorporatists to push off the inevitable bursting of the bond and dollar bubbles. This is an event which will foster the conclusion of the greatest wealth transfer scheme the world has ever seen and something which has in fact been underway for quite some time. Consider this, the crash of 2008 took 38% of the wealth away from the aggregate American public, and this next crash will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. The Fed has been manipulating the U.S. markets extensively since the housing price correction/stock market correction began, however due to direct intervention/manipulation the correction was not allowed to play out to conclusion. The politicocorporatists started it all with the “too big to fails.” Please allow me elaborate on the most powerful and effective manipulation method known to and by man, it’s called fear. If you can cause people to have fear you can control and manipulate their behavior. It is very simple and totally effective. Every day we are bombarded with adds, television commercials, all manner of devices which attempt to cause us to favor this product over that, or do this and not that, etc., etc. Governments take this to the extreme and instill fear into the mass public to cause their desired effect. To further illustrate how the institution of fear is utilized by government upon its people here is a quote I would like you to read and consider: „Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.“ That quote was from Herman Goring who knew a little about how governments deliberately manipulate human behavior. Herman Goring was a leading member of the Nazi party, and was Commander in Chief of the German air force during World War II. He was second in command only to Adolf Hitler himself. Carter G. Woodson, who was an American historian, educator, and author, had this to say: „If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do.“
It is also important to keep in mind that having control of the information dispersed to the masses through media outlets is of critical importance. Keeping people distracted through the use of the mass media is very decisive tool. Up until the last days of WWII the German people believed that they were winning the war because that is what the media was telling them.
Simple economics would also have us believe that there are cycles in all economies, meaning that is there are up cycles followed by down cycles and so on. What is occurring now in America is not anywhere near or like a simple economic down cycle. If we were in a simple downward economic cycle as they would have us believe, the Fed. Would not be trying so desperately to manipulate the overall market. The truth is the Fed. Is in panic mode and the same is true for all the world’s central banks. Let’s Talk More about There Being No Real Recovery Prior to the Fed’s quantitative easing (QE1) also known as currency printed out of thin air (1.7 trillion dollars), the stock market had corrected nearly 50 percent and housing was in also in a downward spiral. Then like magic the Fed. Initiated QE and poof! The market began to rebound and the falling housing prices slowed, then QE ended. What happened next? The equity markets began to fall and housing again began to speed their downward trajectory. No worries, here comes QE2 (another 1.7 trillion dollars) and again poof! The overall markets improved. Then when QE2 ended markets again began to falter and the Fed. Initiated operation twist. Operation twist and now twist 2, are simply ridiculous terms used to describe bond swaps. What the Fed. is doing is swapping out short term bonds for long term bonds and is also using nearly another 300 billion dollars which were “left over” from QE2 to also purchase more long term bonds. With all this the Fed. Has been successful in keeping interest rates at historic and artificial lows and greatly increasing the currency in circulation, and thus debasing the currency. At this time the Fed. Is now involved in printing 85 billion dollars a month and using this for further bond purchases as well as buying MBS (mortgage backed securities). Truly epic sums of cash. In a statement made by Fed. Chairman Ben Bernanke during one of his meetings, he declared “The Fed. Will keep interest rates low through 2013.” But wait, QE2 was supposed to have ended. Without overtly admitting it, the Fed. Just initiated QE3. (At the time of this writing we are now in QE5, and QE6 is not far off). Understand, the Fed. Can’t just go ahead and “say” we are continuing to keep interest rates low, it has to actually get into the market and make it happen. In this case the Fed. Is continuing to buy long term bonds with currency printed out of thin air and will continue to do so until at least 2015. All this market manipulation by the Fed. Gives the illusion of some type of economic recovery, but it is simply not there. The stock market loves all this cheap currency being printed by the Fed. Rebounding from a low of around 6,500 because it allows speculation in the market, but as soon as the fruit punch is taken away it too will drop. The reasons why both the real estate market and the stock market have to resume their downward trajectory are twofold. First: market forces were and are continuing to be artificially manipulated to cause them to rebound. Second: the fundamental reasons why they were falling still exist. In a healthy economy yes market cycles do exist, but today we have anything but a healthy economy that is just in a normal economic downturn. All the parameters have changed dramatically, and will continue to do so. It must be understood that the main drivers of our economy are gone and will not return for decades if ever. The economy of the United States is driven by consumer spending, in fact seventy percent of it. During the housing boom, right up until its inevitable collapse our economy and our markets were the envy of the world. It was simple greed which drove this economic engine at an unsustainable rate. The meteoric rise in the price of housing and other real estate assets in the United States was driven by the factor of greed fueled by cheap available cash. The rise in real estate assets was disproportionate with incomes and economic growth, and any liability which continues to rise in this manner is in a bubble, and all economic bubbles pop. There are no exceptions. During this time of prosperity people spent cash on everything in excess. Unemployment was low and people were creating wealth. Even so, many people used their appreciating real estate assets as banks drawing on its increasing value which seemed like it would never end. Banks were giving out mortgages to everyone and anyone like candy. Many of these people were sub-prime but the banks didn’t care and neither did the people buying these homes. Many of the people had no interest in keeping the homes and simply wanted to flip the home and turn a quick profit. So the terms of these loans didn’t matter either. No one, obviously not even the people making these loans ever thought the party would end. Rising real estate values were here to stay! Just didn’t turn out that way. Therefore since the popping of the housing bubble, all the rules have changed. With the popping of the housing bubble poof! There goes the main driver of consumer spending. The rise of the housing bubble which was the main driver of economic growth since the 1980’s is gone. The epic rise of real estate values along with the massive consumer spending driven by that rise had paved the way for businesses to thrive and jobs to be created. All of that is finished, totally played out. Therefore without that main driver of economic growth whatever the Fed. Tries to do or grandstanding by President Obama nothing can bring it back. The jobs which were lost during the deflating of the housing bubble are not coming back. The drivers of a healthy economy simply in a downturn do not exist anymore, instead what we have is a perfect storm which has not even come close to its full devastating power yet. We are in for far more that a prolonged “depression,” we are just about staring into a financial abyss. However, it is at times like this that fortunes will be made for some that is if you know how to play the game. Much of the blame for the current economic crisis has been placed upon the “sub-prime” borrower but in reality this is not the case. The bursting of the housing bubble was actually caused by a scheme which was dreamed up and instituted by two of the world’s biggest banks (now defunct) Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. Both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers took on loans which they knew were bad involving mortgage backed securities. They packaged them up, and sold them off to unknowing investors and other banks. This was also standard practice for all of the big investment banks. The debt involved in these fraudulent deals became highly leveraged via derivative trades and epic sums were lost as the reality that these supposed good loans (which were rated AAA) were actually bad. This scam was a major contributory factor in the crash of 2008 in which the aggregate American people lost nearly 40% of their net worth. Still, where are the arrests? Status post the crash of 2008 other financial institutions like Barclay’s, (and 16 other major banks involved in interest rate rigging LIBOR), as well as MF Global, JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Capital One, and Bank of America have all been involved in criminal activity spanning the gamut up to and including money laundering for drug cartels, and no arrests have been made to date. Some people would argue that there has been a rise in gross domestic product (which is now subsequently falling) since the end of the great recession. I would say really? And here is why: never before in the history of the United States has there been such enormous government spending during a “downward economic cycle,” which adds to GDP. If you were to calculate out the immense spending the government has done attempting to pump up our dying economy which would include cash printed out of thin air by the Fed. To purchase long term bonds, (by the way so far the Fed. has increased the currency supply over three hundred percent and counting since 2008), you would get negative GDP, no growth, and in fact you would have contraction. This is a chart of what a 300% increase in the currency supply looks like: What you see in the chart above is unprecedented and very dangerous. The epic increase in the money supply is causing a greater and greater imbalance in the supply and demand for dollars. This issue is a major contributing factor in the massive inflation which we will have in the near future. It’s All about Fair Market Value It must be understood that all market forces seek one thing, and that is fair market value, that is their sole job if you will. All the collusion, market manipulation by the Fed., etc. etc. has to fail over time because the market forces are enormous, way bigger that any entity'(s) efforts to control it. At this point in time because of the continuing market manipulation by the Fed. The world’s biggest bubble is being created, a super mega bubble. When this bubble pops, which is something we are starting to already see in Europe and now other parts of the world as well, every remaining economic bubble which still exists, not just only here in the United States but globally are going to tumble until they over-correct. It is unfortunate that government and nongovernment entities, (the Fed. and the other world central banks), believe that they can control the markets. Because of this people around the globe are going to suffer greatly. Let’s look at this another way. The ratio of investors worldwide to central bankers is about 10,000 to 1, yet the central bankers believe that they which represent a fraction of a percent know better how to “run the markets” better than the vast majority. They have refused to allow natural market dynamics/a free market to determine fair asset values, so they the vast minority solely because they have the power to do so keep acting upon the markets unnaturally and unilaterally. This repeated and direct market intervention is going to lead to financial devastation across the board sometime in the near future and here is why: before market dynamics force themselves into correction, the central banks of the world are going to continue to pump up the markets with the printing of massive amounts of fiat currency. This type of intervention is going to compound the problem exponentially. In fact they are going to try and come up with and impose any and every conceivable scheme ever devised in trying to push off the popping of this mega bubble, but when the eventual forced market correction occurs at that point the ramifications are going to shake the world. Understand, the only way they can push off the inevitable collapse is to compound the root cause of the problem, excessive and massive debt. It’s like trying to save a drowning man by throwing more water on him. It is clear that the housing boom fueled the subsequent stock market boom. The housing boom really got going in the 1980’s and this fueled consumer spending, created jobs, allowed businesses to grow, and then in the early 1990’s caused the spike in the equity markets. At the very moment real estate prices began to fall the equity markets followed suit, there was no lag time. This should demonstrate to you how important the relationship is between real estate and the equity market, and it should also demonstrate to you why the Federal Reserve is so “Hell Bent” on trying to pump up real estate values and not allowing them to correct to their fair market value. The Fed. Believes that by artificially stimulating businesses this will create jobs, while this policy may create some jobs in the short run as soon as the fruit punch is taken away poof! There goes those artificially created jobs. In order for there to be a sustained and “real” economic recovery substantial economic drivers need to be created. The Fed’s stimulus does not create economic drivers, it only creates an artificial environment across the board and, more debt. The Greatest Ponzi scheme Ever Sold Let us define a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a fallacious investment activity which pays returns to its investors with their own currency or the cash paid into the scheme by subsequent investors. This scheme was made famous by Charles Ponzi who defrauded investors in this manner in the 1920’s. In what is the definition of a Ponzi scheme, the Federal Reserve truly runs the biggest of them all. Think about this. The Federal Reserve prints cash out of thin air, it is not backed by any hard asset, and then disperses this currency. Once this currency leaves the Federal Reserve it begins to acquire interest, interest which is paid back to the Federal Reserve with even more currency printed out of thin air. The Federal Reserve can then pay its shareholders profits in this manner and acquire hard assets like gold. It really is the greatest Ponzi scheme in human history. Section 2 An Economy on Life Support The major players are surely aware of how this game is going to play out, make no mistake about that. Who are the major players again? Yes, the policymakers and the investment banks but we shall call them the politicocorporatists. Let’s explore the concept of the corporate elites being one and the same as the policymakers for a moment.
Below I have included a list of several prior Goldman Sachs executives who currently or recently hold/held high positions in the U.S. government: Dianna Farrell: Obama Administration: Deputy Director, National Economic Council. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Financial Analyst. Stephen Friedman: Obama Administration: Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Board Member (Chairman, 1990- 94; Director, 2005- ). Gary Gensler: Obama Administration: Commissioner, Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Co-head of Finance. Robert Hormats: Obama Administration: Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, State Department. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs Group. Philip Murphy: Obama Administration: Ambassador to Germany. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Head of Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt. Mark Patterson: Obama Administration: Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Lobbyist 2005-2008; Vice President for Government Relations. John Thain: Obama Administration: Advisory to Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geitner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: President and Chief Operating Officer (1999-2003). Henry Paulson: Bush II Administration: Secretary, Treasury 2006 – 2009. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Chairman and CEO (1998- 2006). Neel Kashkari: Bush II Administration: Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, Treasury (2008 – 2009). Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice President, San Francisco; led Information Technology Security Investment Banking Practice. Reuben Jeffery: Bush II Administration: Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, State Department (2007 –2009). Former Goldman Sachs Title: Managing Partner Paris until 2002 Security Investment Banking Practice. Robert Steel: Bush II Administration: Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Treasury, (2006 – 2008). Former GoldmanSachs Title: Vice Chairman – 2004. Steve Shafran: Bush II Administration: Consultant on setting up TARP to Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson 2008. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Private Equity Business in Asia until 2000. Edward C. Forst: Bush II Administration: Advisor on setting up TARP to Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson 2008. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Co-head of Goldman’s Investment Management Business. Dan Jester: Bush II Administration: Consulted on setting up TARP to Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson 2008. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Deputy CFO. Kendrick R. Wilson III: Bush II Administration: Advisor on setting up TARP to Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson 2008. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Chairman of Goldman’s Financial Institutions Groups. Joshua Bolten: Bush II Administration: White House Chief of Staff (2006 – 2009). Former Goldman Sachs Title: Executive Director, Legal & Government Affairs (1994-99). Gary Gensler: Bush II Administration: Undersecretary, Treasury (1999-2001) and Assistant Secretary, Treasury (1997-1999). Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Co-head of Finance. Robert Rubin: Bush II Administration: Secretary, Treasury 1995- 1999. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman (1987-90). Robert Zoellick: Bush II Administration: United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005- 2006), World Bank President (2007). Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman, International (2006-07). William C Dudley: NY Federal Reserve: Current President/CEO. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Managing Director – 2007.
So What Is Really Going On Here?
Clearly Wall Street insiders are deeply embedded and involved in establishing the rules of this economic super game. In fact with regard to the TARP program: then treasury secretary Henry Paulson under Bush got Congress to approve a seven hundred billion dollar payout using U.S. tax payer dollars for his Wall Street buddies, (more on this later), and how did he do it? He did it by telling Congress and the American people if they decided not to do it America would collapse financially and immediately. Paulson used the oldest and most effective trick in the book to get TARP passed, fear. Would America have collapsed financially without the TARP program? Absolutely not. Well what would have happened? The bad investments made by the investment banks would have been written off as losses, or partial losses, bonuses for the executives of these corporations would have been a bit less although still in the multiple seven figure range. But then perhaps some fundamental changes to the way investment banks take unnecessary risks would have been implemented, and better business models would have emerged. Instead no changes were made, the public, you and me, now own tens of billions in toxic assets including bad mortgages which continue to deteriorate and will do so for the foreseeable future. If Congress had actually put the American people first and did not approve TARP yes, there would have been some temporary financial pain and economic slowing which would have in turn put pressure on Congressional leaders who would be facing re-election. However the policymakers could not allow their political contributors to suffer one iota of pain, so they gave it to you instead. The major problem is this: because of the relationship between the policymakers and the investment banks, the commons which are you and me are being prepared for the slaughter yet to come. Understand this and I will elaborate more on this later on. A financial wrecking ball is aimed straight at your head, it is unstoppable and it is approaching fast but don’t worry, I am going to teach you how not only how to remove the target from the middle of your forehead, but also how you are going to capitalize on this upcoming event big time! With the popping of the housing bubble and the refusal of the politicocorporatists to allow natural market dynamics to take effect and correct in a normal way, what is being created is a financial monster. In a free market natural forces drive and direct asset prices, therefore over valued assets correct downward and underpriced assets correct upward. What we have now is an equity market being pumped up by cheap currency and a housing market not being allowed to normalize. We also have an overall fake economic recovery being artificially suspended for the same reasons. Once the forces which are being used by the Fed. In collusion with the investment banks are stopped either by themselves, or involuntary pushed upon them by the massive natural market dynamics which eventually will prevail its party over. It is important to understand that natural market forces are enormous, and all this pumping up cannot be sustained by any means. At some point market dynamics will prevail and force a major corrective move. Since 2008 the Fed. Has increased the currency supply 300% (and counting) as I had mentioned earlier. Just think about that for another moment. The Federal Reserve in order to slow the drop of real estate values and to pump up the equity markets has had to increase the currency supply by three hundred percent. It is unprecedented. The Fed. Has the printing presses fired up and running on mega overdrive. So what’s the problem some people have asked me? The main problem is this: each dollar magically added to the monetary base by the Federal Reserve devalues each dollar already in circulation. That means that not in essence but in reality each day Ben Bernanke runs his printing press you are getting poorer. In fact ever since Ben pushed the panic button and cranked up his printing presses in 2008 your dollar has lost 15 percent of its value. Let’s look at this another way. Let’s say you have ten grand stuffed under your mattress, that ten grand will buy you the equivalent of eighty five hundred dollars’ worth of the same goods in today’s currency. Old Ben is attacking you directly and financially more and more each and every day by running his printing presses in hyper mode. The Federal Reserve’s current policies of devaluing the dollar more and more by printing epic sums of cash out of thin air is robbing the American people, rich and poor alike, by taking away the purchasing power of our currency. However, there is a simple strategy that counters this move, and I will elaborate on this later on. Please keep in mind, and this goes back to Newton’s physical laws-Whenever there is a move in the direction of anything or an “action” as Newton would put it, there is always a counter-action. This counteraction is simply something the average sheep like person has no idea about, “an invisible factor,” so they just kind of move along like little sheep going to the slaughter
