by Mike Whitney
October 23, 2009

from InformationClearinghouse Website
 

 

 

Note

Title was taken from a comments line on a previous article from Dmark

 

 

The "dollar debate" on the Internet has been ferocious and emotionally-charged, but sadly lacking in logic.

 

To oppose the "dollar will crash" theorists is like arguing a woman's right to choose with the fist-waving throng assembled outside an abortion clinic. The results are equally disappointing.

 

To say that "minds are already made up and the issue is settled", is an understatement. For many, the dollar's transition from the world's reserve currency to a Wiemar era Deutschemark is not a question "if" but only of "when".

 

One reader summed up the distrust that's felt for anyone who dares to challenge the prevailing dogma like this:

"Mike... Your article on October 19th 2009 titled 'The Dollar will NOT crash,' made all of us in this part of the world who respected your views and opinions feel disturbed and appalled... Then my friend explicated and reminded me,

'From the time of Chaim Weizmann’s solicitous and guile behavior towards the politicians, the media and the newspersons, the powerful Zionists lobby had perfected the art of falsity and misrepresentation.'"

Uh, okay. So, now opposing the dominant theory not only proves that one is a fool, but also a tool of the "Zionist lobby"?

This is why struggling writers always keep the refrigerator stocked with a hearty malt.

No one can deny that the dollar COULD crash or that it faces stiff headwinds in the years ahead as the fiscal deficits continue to pile up. But let's not overreact. Japan's deficits are twice the size of GDP and bond yields are still hovering below 2 percent.

 

In other words, the Japanese are fighting deflation, so no one is particularly worried about inflation. That's as it should be.

 

In the US, deficits are a paltry 12 percent of GDP, and already people have their knickers-in-a-twist. Even deficits soar above 100 percent ($14 trillion) it's unlikely that they'll crush the dollar. But - on the other hand - if the government suddenly stops spending money and running huge deficits; unemployment will skyrocket, banks and businesses will default, foreclosures will rise, and the economy will slip back into a very severe recession.

 

The myth that "You can't solve a debt problem by creating more debt" is pure bunkum.

 

That's for people who want to balance the budget at all costs, regardless of its effect on working people. The goal should be to get the economy back on its feet and worry about the red ink later.

Here's Paul Krugman explaining why the Fed is engineering a weaker dollar:

"Although there has been a lot of doom-saying about the falling dollar, that decline is actually both natural and desirable. America needs a weaker dollar to help reduce its trade deficit, and it’s getting that weaker dollar as nervous investors, who flocked into the presumed safety of U.S. debt at the peak of the crisis, have started putting their money to work elsewhere.

But China has been keeping its currency pegged to the dollar - which means that a country with a huge trade surplus and a rapidly recovering economy, a country whose currency should be rising in value, is in effect engineering a large devaluation instead.

And that’s a particularly bad thing to do at a time when the world economy remains deeply depressed due to inadequate overall demand."

(Paul Krugman, "The Chinese Disconnect" New York Times)

So, if China is so worried about their massive investment in dollars, (as everyone seems to think) then why aren't they letting their currency rise so the dollar can weaken?

 

It's because they are more concerned about sustaining demand than problems with the greenback. They're showing they have more confidence in the dollar than most Americans.

It is true that the dollar has dipped 15 percent since summer, but so what? That just means that people are less scared now then they were after Lehman Bros. collapsed.

 

Here's a clip from the Economist explaining it all:

"The simplest explanation for the currency’s decline is based on risk aversion. On the days when risky assets fall, the dollar tends to go up. When risky assets rise, the dollar falls. The dollar has fallen fairly steadily since March, a period which has seen stock-markets enjoy a phenomenal rally.

 

Domestic American investors may be driving the relationship, repatriating funds in 2008 when they were nervous about the state of financial markets and sending the money abroad again this summer because of a perception that the global economy is reviving."

("Down with the Dollar" The economist, Oct, 2009)

As time goes by, the relationship between stocks and the dollar will change, but for now, the rule is still holds.

So why is this debate about the dollar so important?

Because the majority of people believe that the real problem is the deficits, and not the economy. That's just flat wrong, and it creates political opposition to more stimulus, which we need. Blame it on the media for convincing people that we are in a recovery and that "green shoots" are sprouting up everywhere. It's pure fiction.

 

The country could still wind up in a Depression when the stimulus wears off. And it's wearing off very quickly. (The effects of the stimulus will peak in the Third Quarter)

Consumer credit is contracting at a year-over-year rate of 5 percent. Household balance sheets are in tatters, savings are up, spending is down, and unemployment is headed for 10 percent. Record foreclosures, delinquencies, bankruptcies, and defaults are sucking credit from the system making it harder for the Fed to keep the economy sputtering along. If the Fed cuts off the blood-flow of monetary stimulus, the patient will slip into a deep coma.

Here's a likely scenario of what could take place in the next few months:

Even though the signs of severe deflation are visible everywhere, investors short the greenback and the dollar plunges to $1.60 per Euro. That increases public angst which sets off a firestorm on Capital Hill. The Congress forces the Fed to stop its quantitative easing (QE) program (which has already pumped over $1 trillion into US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities) and long-term interest rates spike overnight.

 

This puts downward pressure on the housing market and the slump deepens.

 

More jobs are lost, more banks and financial institutions default, perfectly good businesses cannot role over their debt and call it quits, prices fall across the board, the stock market retraces its March lows, and the economy ends up in the ditch.

Think it can't happen?

 

Bernanke's problem, is that all the tools at his disposal are blunt instruments. It's like performing kidney surgery with a meat cleaver. Dropping interest rates and printing money can stave off deflation, but it also pushes stocks higher than anyone really wants. That leaves traders on the sidelines waiting for a market correction before they jump back in.

 

The same is true of the dollar.

 

Sure, Bernanke wants a cheap greenback to spark exports and reduce household debt, but when the dollar plunges to $1.60 per Euro, then the sh** hits the fan and the public outcry forces him to change directions. If the dollar falls any further, the Fed will have to shut down the printing presses altogether and watch while the boat capsizes.

 

The problem is more political than economic.

US policymakers should drop this nonsense about the dollar and deal with the underlying problem itself; lack of demand. That means the focus should be on wage growth and full employment. If that means printing up a couple more trillion; then get to it!

 

Getting people back to work and paying them decently should be job one.

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 


Rothschild & Obama Demands...

Pay in Euros!
by Henk Ruyssenaars

Foreign correspondent
October 24, 2009

from APFN1 Website

 

 

Part 1

 


"HERE'S A LIKELY SCENARIO OF WHAT COULD TAKE PLACE IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS"
by Henk Ruyssenaars
 

Moniker MattL wrote this - and with Obama as the next selected 'front man' it's the same:

"I just love how Bush bails out these greedy banks who got themselves into the situation in the first place. I have worked in the banking industry and I'll tell you what led to the collapse, unbridled greed. It's never enough for them. They can be making billions in profit and they still want more, more, more. They are never satisfied with a healthy profit, it's never enough.

They are always trying to tweak things to make more money, usually at the expense of the customer and the employee. They are evil. And why don't I get a bailout if I take my savings and make a bad investment in the stock market. They take OUR taxpayer bailout money and then raise OUR credit card rates to 29% out of the blue when we've been paying our bills on time for years, never missing a payment. Something is seriously wrong here." - [end quote]

Government report questions rescue claims

And many now are convinced that there's something - like with so many others - seriously wrong with author Mike Whitney, who seems to have lost his coordination, who's maybe got a gun to his head too? Whitney wrote an article on the Information Clearing House site, which defended himself, and the strange course he has taken lately.

 

The article was as shown above.
 

 


MY COMMENT IN THIS CASE WAS LIKE THIS:
To quote The Economist to back up one's own argumentation is not done:

"The publication belongs to The Economist Group, half of which is owned by the Financial Times, a subsidiary of Pearson PLC.

[Started by Samuel Pearson]

A group of independent shareholders, including many members of the staff and the Rothschild banking family of England, owns the rest." - [end excerpt]

Source: Wikipedia (Yes, I know who the owners are) - Url.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist


 

THE NEW YORK TIMES, KRUGMAN AND THE 'NOBEL PRIZE ECONOMICS
And the other quote of this 'alibi columnist' Krugman from this propaganda sheet The New York Times, is bad as well. Just because it fits the story?

 

Paul Krugman is the media 'front man' whose criticism of the Bush and now Obama administration for his managers is used as an alibi: See how critical we are! And filling the rest of the rag with propaganda. "Alibi Journalism & Why I Threw the Shoe."


The Jewish Telegraph Agency wrote last year:

"By JTA Staff · October 13, 2008:

Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times, won the Nobel Prize for economics."

http://www.cemab.be/print.php?id=1971

JTA got it wrong again: There is no 'Nobel Prize in Economics' at all! It's a prize which the Wallenberg bank leaders in Sweden give to their brethren in the faith, to make them look better and - they hope - with a lot of drumbeat by their media - more respectable.

 

The same as with the Nobel Peace Prizes (in Oslo, Norway) for #1 warmongers and criminals like Henry Kissinger, Al Gore and Obama/Soetoro. Or what's his name. But the country of Sweden as such, is also a part of the global corporation, and the Wallenberg gnomes and golems (Google) are just franchisers of the mighty money mafia. Sweden: not only Sex, Sin & Smörgåsbord
 

 


NYT: ON BEHALF OF THE WARRIORS AND WAR FINANCING PROFITEERS
The New York Times (Judy Miller anybody?) is rotten to the core, and as flexible as a frozen fundamentalist.

 

And after the Afghanistan and Iraq quagmire, the NYTimes started years ago as one of the leading propagandists in the media, and on behalf of the warriors and war financing profiteers, to urge another illegal invasion and attack on Iran, for the gnomes. Armed conflicts are profitable in many ways and for many profiteers. http://quebec.indymedia.org/en/node/23058

As if the millions of dead and suffering people in those countries aren't enough to satisfy the power and profit mafia. The word 'enough' for those greedy gnomes of Basel, Switzerland, apparently doesn't exist at all. And for those who don't know the Princeton university's definition of gnome: "A legendary creature resembling a tiny old man; lives in the depths of the earth and guards buried treasure." The worst thing is: they - who take part in the global and deadly swindle - they know all this!
(Your future money: Amero or Eurodollar in Gold?)

Like Rothschild et al, at the corporation's global 'department of finances' the BIS, the 'Bank for International Settlements' in Basel, Switzerland, which Krugman (like Whitney) hardly ever writes about.
(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="Henk+Ruyssenaars"++BIS)
 

 


CIA/MOSSAD 'INSIDE JOB' OF 9/11 2001 FOR INSTANCE
Whitney and also Krugman for instance, have never asked for an independent and really thorough investigation of the drama and CIA/Mossad 'inside job' of 9/11 2001 for instance.

Personally, and I'm really not the only one, I think reality is this way, as Darryl Robert Schoon describes it in this excerpt:

"Because money controls politicians and bankers control money, bankers now control entire nations through their control of the money supply; and, of all the banks, Goldman Sachs has the most control and influence in the US. Economics is not rocket science, neither is political science-and neither, in fact, is a science."

Power in capitalist economies can best be understood when viewed as a franchise, a franchise which Goldman Sachs has been granted in America.

 

Just as top Pentagon officials are routinely hired by US defense contractors for all the obvious reasons, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms enjoy a revolving door policy regarding bankers who shuttle between Wall Street and Washington DC, ensuring that one filthy hand washes the other: "Hey, look, ma, no soap."

Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Alan Greenspan, Stephen Friedman, Henry Paulson, Stephen Rattner, etc. are names that often arise in regards to the lucrative relationships forged in the sewer, i.e. the corridors of power, between Washington DC and Wall Street.

Lawrence Summers, now Obama's top economic advisor, was paid $135,000 by Goldman Sachs for a one day visit in April 2008. This is how payoffs are made. Of course, Wall Street and Washington DC are quick to remind us that such payoffs are legal. Of course they are.

 

All laws are legal, not matter how egregious the crimes they allow.
 

 


WAR PAPER MONEY GOLD AND GOLDMAN SACHS
Even the most powerful are vulnerable and the powerful know this most of all.

 

The foundation stone of the ruling elites is their control and issuance of paper money. Over the years since paper money was substituted for gold and silver, the power of bankers and government has steadily grown.

Their power, however, is being threatened by their abuse of that which made their power possible. The accelerating debasement of paper money by bankers and government now threatens the power of each; and gold which was eliminated by public governments at the behest of private bankers now threatens the franchise of power and wealth of both bankers and government.

The greed of bankers is equally matched by the greed of government. Only the nature of the greed distinguishes the two. Bankers crave profits whereas governments crave power and it was the mutual pursuit of each that caused their dark alliance over three centuries ago.

King William of England, bankrupted by his wars with France and wanting more, agreed to allow private bankers to issue their paper script as England's money in return for the banker's credit that would allow him to wage more wars, credit which became debt to be assumed by the people of England as a national burden.

Nonetheless, as long as gold was considered to be the basis of money, commerce flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries even as England exerted control over much of the world through its ability to raise armies and navies on credit.


 

 

Part 2

 

The unraveling of currencies began, however, when Europe abandoned the gold standard in the early 20th century as it edged closer and closer to war - wars are fought much more cheaply with paper money than with gold - and after two World Wars, all nations were bankrupted by the considerable cost of war - all nations except the US.

At the end of WW II, the US owned more gold than any nation previous, even more than England at the height of its empire. However, this was not enough for the US.

 

Aspiring to exert global control just as had England one century before, the US would overspend its entire gold reserves in less than twenty years.

YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH OF WHAT YOU DON'T REALLY NEED

ERIC HOFFER

After WW II, because of its then enormous gold reserves, 21,775 tonnes (metric tons), the US dollar backed by gold became the world reserve currency.

 

But in the next 25 years, the US would overspend its gold reserves by supporting a worldwide military presence in peacetime and could no longer convert its US dollars to gold by 1971; by so doing, all currencies of all nations then became but paper currencies of indeterminate value.

Ever since then, central banks and especially the US Fed have fought to maintain the advantage that paper money gives them. But, because the original basis of paper money, gold, had been squandered by the US government's insatiable need for power, the paper-based franchise of power and money began to unravel after the 1970s.

The unraveling has been fought with all available resources by bankers and government for the considerable privileges of each are now at risk. Indeed, without central bank credit and paper money, most bankers and those who benefit by government largesse would be forced to seek gainful employment in order to survive.

In the battle to maintain their considerable franchise of money and power, Goldman Sachs has been at the forefront in actively supporting the suppression of the gold price; as any rise in the price of gold belies the value of the paper money by which governments and bankers are advantaged.

It is perhaps appropriate that Lawrence Summers, co-author of Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard (a bizarre paper that fueled central bank efforts to suppress the price of gold in the 1990s) is now the top economic advisor to Barack Obama at the very time the US attempts to maintain its world dominion based on an increasingly unstable US dollar - a dollar no longer backed by gold.

For an in-depth explanation of the gold standard, free of the prejudices of those who personally benefit from the fraud of paper money such as Lawrence Summers, I suggest the Gold Standard University Live lecture series of Professor Antal Fekete.
(www.goldvid.com/fekete/sales.html)

Goldman Sachs has been alleged by many to be at the center of the central bank conspiracy to manipulate the gold price.

 

In 1999, when England announced it would sell the majority of its gold reserves at the very bottom of the gold market, the rumors were that Goldman Sachs had a 1,000 tonne short position in the market and couldn't cover its short position if the price of gold moved higher.
 

 


HR: ROTHSCHILD'S CENTRAL BANKS GOLD WAR

by Henk Ruyssenaars
Aug 30, 2009


In May 1999, Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the sale of 415 tonnes of gold, 57% of England's gold reserves. This sale forced the price of gold lower thereby saving Goldman Sachs' large bet that the price of gold would continue lower, albeit temporarily.

Goldman Sachs' attempts to suppress the price of gold have not abated nor have the efforts of European and the US central banks even has gold has risen from $275 to over $900 in the last ten years. The Swiss central bank especially has been a large seller of gold whenever gold prices rise quickly.

Such efforts have not abated because the on-going credit crises now threatens to become a full-blown currency crisis; and, the paper money franchise by which bankers and governments exist is vulnerable as never before-a meteoric rise in the price of gold would spell the end of the fabled franchise of wealth and power.

Now in 2009, the US, the UK, their gold reserves almost depleted, and the world are on the verge of another Great Depression as the bankers' crisis has turned into a global nightmare.

 

At the same very time, however, Goldman Sachs is about to record profits enabling record bonuses while Gordon Brown is now the Prime Minister of England.
 

 


THE RISE AND DECLINE OF NATIONS: ECONOMIC GROWTH, STAGFLATION, AND SOCIAL RIGIDITIES

by Mancur Olsen

Many have been puzzled by the mysterious decline or collapse of great empires of civilizations and by the remarkable rise to wealth, power, or cultural achievement of previously peripheral or obscure people.

Mancur Olsen

1982

Mancur Olsen's thoughts about empire, economic growth, stagflation and social rigidities bear special reflection at this time. It is clear that the present times, while new to us, may not be new to the cycles of history, cycles which continue whether we are aware of them or not.

Although history happens in the aggregate, it is experienced personally and each of us has a different window on what is now transpiring. That the collapse of the US is unexpected to most is because most took refuge in denial, willingly believing the lies told them by those in power, lies that were compatible and acceptable to their unexamined and carelessly accepted world views.

The following comment should be considered by all, especially those in the US, who are now about to have their once well-ordered lives turned upside down and inside out by forces they do not understand:

…we're a country that, for the last decade, acquiesced meekly and quietly as our Government transferred huge amounts of national wealth to a tiny elite; launched a devastating war based on purely false pretenses; tortured, spied on us and literally claimed the right to invalidate law and the Constitution; and turned itself over to the highest bidders.

Source: Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, 3/21/09

And as long as the credit flowed, the band played on.

The music is now about to stop.

[end excerpt]



And, to give you some more food for thought: also never have the Chinese or Russian leaders, or any other of the big 'Moral Knights' which now are on the covers of the propaganda media asked for an investigation of 9/11.

They are people drinking from a well which is poisoned.

And has been as such for centuries.

"The king to the banker did say
Tis I who ride you this day
This day it is true the banker did say
But tomorrow tis I who ride you."

And all for power and profit!