You keep stating that the center of Finance will move to China. However, the world distrusts China, rightly so. How can they become the Financial Center if no one trusts them?
RLK
ANSWER: That will come only after 2032. Keep in mind, the West will be tested and the failed system of continually borrowing is why the confidence in the West will break. After that, it will become the lesser of two evils. The financial capital of the world always migrates. The British never saw how America could take their crown. Throw in a world war, and capital moves. I have dealt with this issue in detail. That report is available (see the Store for “China on the Rise”). It is available in printed form or in digital forma
News we might have missed. Last week Catherine Engelbrecht announced a historic legal victory in her decade long battle against the IRS for targeting her group, True The Vote, as part of the Obama administration’s weaponization program against political opposition.
U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton issued a stunning ruling (full pdf below) in favor of True the Vote, and penalized the IRS. Judge Walton forced the IRS to pay maximum attorney’s fees due to discrimination against the conservative organization that stemmed from the Lois Lerner scandal. The financial award is likely to exceed $2 million.
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Ms. Engelbrecht gave Breitbart News an interview where she discussed the victory, SEE HERE.
.Ms. Engelbrecht’s case is actually connected to the political surveillance operation used against presidential candidate Donald Trump. Factually, the 2010 program to weaponize the IRS looks like the precursor to the 2012 program to weaponize the NSA database.
Political spying 1.0 was the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:
The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)
Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.
The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.
Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting to gather a large opposition research database operation inside a functioning organization large enough to have some good people that might blow the whistle.
The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the “Secret Research Project” was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus and began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database. If our hunch is correct, that is what will be visible in footnote #69:
Additionally, Matt Gaetz appears to have seen “a memo held in the Congressional Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) that contained previously-undisclosed information involving the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ).” [LINK] Which sounds like the MOU in the footnote, and the memo that Trey Gowdy and Jason Chaffetz inquired about.
Recently, the “Wall Street Journal” (WSJ) reported you granted the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) new powers to store dossiers on United States citizens, even if said citizens are not suspected of any criminal activity.
With these new powers, the NCTC would have the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students, as well as other data.
The WSJ goes on to report the new rules allow the NCTC to keep data about innocent United States citizens for up to five years and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited.
If the WSJ report is accurate, these new powers represent a sweeping departure from past practices, which barred the NCTC from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or the information sought was related to an investigation.
If the WSJ report is accurate, it raises numerous concerns and questions. As elected Representatives and members of the House Judiciary Committee, we are concerned such sweeping, fundamental changes would be made to existing policy without public input and Congressional approval. Changes, which fundamentally alter the relationship between the government and the governed, should only be made with input from the people by and through their elected Representatives. (more)
Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.
However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.
That’s why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, are so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content. The Steele Dossier contains the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation.
During a rather innocuous podcast discussion panel April 12th, 2019, one of President Trump’s personal lawyers Jay Sekulow mentioned the FBI had three FISA applications denied by the FISA court in 2016. [Podcast Here – Note comment at 25:05] The denials were always suspected; however, until now no-one in/around the administration has ever confirmed.
If Sekulow is accurate, this adds additional context to the actions of the FBI in the aftermath of Admiral Mike Rogers and an increased urgency in gaining legal justification for surveillance and spy operation unlawfully taking place. A valid FISA warrant would help the FBI cover-up the surveillance. The likely targets were Manafort, Flynn and Papadopoulos…. but it appears the DOJ/FBI were rebuked.
These FISC denials would then initiate institutional panic dependent on the election outcome. An insurance policy would be needed. The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into Carter Page. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system {Go Deep}.
Fusion GPS was not hired to research Trump, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations.
Fusion-GPS gave them the justification they needed for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier. Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier is so important; without it, the DOJ and FBI are naked with their FISA-702 abuse.
I am a huge fan of yours and have followed your blog for probably 8 years now, I watched your many predictions using the AI models and have been amazed by their accuracy. I am a very concerned small investor and with this big shift coming in the ECM in January 2020 am wondering where you think I should be invested… Gold, the DOW, real estate, cash? I have bought far out of the money Jan 2021 GLD options which are extremely cheap right now. How do you best recommend your fans to position themselves for the coming storm?
Hopefully I will be able to make your next conference.
All the best.
Sincerely
RW
ANSWER: It is still too early to make a reliable forecast just yet. But generally, the next wave of the ECM business cycle should be an inflationary one. It certainly appears that all of this Quantitative Easing has caused tremendous damage and has now trapped the central banks to the point that the biggest debtor is the government. They have tried to use interest rates under Keynesian economics to manipulate “demand,” which is used to force us to borrow or stop borrowing. But all of these manipulations have no impact on preventing government borrowing. The danger now is that after 10 years of QE, governments are addicted to low interest rates and raising them this time will blow up the government budgets. They will respond by raising taxes to try to keep the ball rolling, but that will result in civil unrest and deflation
I appreciate all you share. I watched a series on the Great Depression and they talk about how socialism saved capitalism. If true, is this part of a healthy cycle between the two? Could anything have been done to prevent the Great Depression?
Thank you!
LB
ANSWER: It was not socialism that saved capitalism, it was a shift in the understanding of money itself. George Warren convinced Roosevelt to devalue the dollar and end AUSTERITY, as Germany imposes on Europe today, which reversed the economy.
The Dust Bowl was the primary cause of the rise in unemployment to 25%. In 1900, 41% of the civil workforce was in agriculture. The invention of the combustion engine began to displace jobs as the internet has done recently. Tractors replaced workers in fields, so there was a huge transition in the labor force. Then the Dust Bowl took place and that created the hobos.
There was nothing the government could have done to prevent the Great Depression. The best that one can hope for is to understand the business cycle and prepare for the downturns. In that manner, it becomes more like Joseph warning the Pharaoh of 7 years of plenty to be followed by 7 years of drought. If we accept that the business cycle is complex and not a single source that can be controlled, then we will live with the cycle and understand it.
FDR’s programs came in 1935. The economy had already bottomed and turned up from July 1932. I find the argument that socialism saved capitalism as self-serving for the socialists, but the timeline does not agree
Do you gander that President Trump is aware that a higher dollar will cream the economy and is doing all he can to fight that trend?
Maybe he is reading AE but like other politicians still thinks he can manipulate the economy?
Trump is battling the Fed over interest rates. What does it mean for your money?
MDC
ANSWER: Trump does realize that there has been a flight to the dollar. I believe his bashing the Fed to lower rates is inspired by the hope of keeping a lower dollar for trade. I do not believe higher rates are on his radar with respect to the markets. He is probably seeing briefings of the rise in rates and what is taking place with the national debt.
As far as what does it means for your money: the trend from public debt to private will be accelerated by this trend. I believe that the Fed will try pegging rates with caps rather than engaging in QE as Europe has don
We all want the safety and dependable quality that “regulation” is supposed to provide. Government can provide it to some extent, but markets can do it better, if we let them. Howard Baetjer of Towson University explains.
QUESTION: I only recently learned of your material and am still digesting it. I appreciate that you encourage critical thinking. I hope you find my questions of the same spirit.
In your recent article “Are Two-Tier Monetary Systems a Possible Tool?”, you illustrated how South Africa’s experience could provide an example for nations wanting to untangle their domestic currency from global obligations (i.e., US dollar, presumably others too).
Would you mind elaborating on this concept in relation to the following questions?
My questions:
1) For this 2-tier approach to work, must every nation have a 2-tier money system, or would it suffice to have only the major players do so (i.e., USA, EU, etc)?
2) If every nation had a 2-tier money system, then how would that compare and contrast to a “global SDR” or some other global, non-national currency acting the reserve currency?
I suppose what I am really asking is: Imagine a collection of nations and each nation has a 2-tier system. The nations agree to use each other’s “external” tier when dealing with each other and keep the “internal” tier for solely domestic purposes. Instead, now imagine that same collection of nations decided they would each use a global, non-national currency (SDR or otherwise) as the global reserve currency.
What similarities and differences would these 2 different approaches yield? Are there certain conditions where 1 approach would be desirable over the other approach?
I find this subject both intriguing and very relevant, so I would like to hear your insight.
Thank you for the new (to me) material.
C
ANSWER: During the 19th century, it was common to issue a “trade dollar” with China who used the silver standard initially by using the Spanish 8 reals known also as pillar dollars. The US issued trade silver dollars and domestic silver dollars of different weight. All of these nations were issuing a two-tier currency to facilitate trade with China.
During the 14th century, there was also a two-tier monetary system. Florence used the gold florin for trade, but domestically, wages and commerce took place in silver. Companies were required to keep two sets of books by regulation.
A two-tier system can be used to isolate foreign capital inflows. Switzerland was suffering and that eventually broke the peg. The foreign capital was not looking to buy assets in Switzerland, they were just converting euro to Swiss and parking the money. Therefore, a two-tier system would have allowed the flow of capital to concentrate in what we would call the Financial Swiss Franc (FSF). This peg would have not been necessary and they could have even imposed negative interest rates or zero rates to deposits in the FSF. Any trade for produces could have then been delegated to the Swiss franc and the peg would not have been necessary.
We would not need a system where everyone had a two-tier currency and traded against each other. The new International Unit of Account (IUA) would be a basket of currencies and your local currency would then trade against that. You would need to allow contracts and debts to be contracted in this IUA freely, as takes place today in US dollars. This would by no means eliminate FOREX risk.
Insofar as a global SDR, the problem would be the calculation and then the IMF has been notorious for corruption. Would some nations put pressure to alter the formula because of a financial crisis?
I would say that the formula must be fixed and based on the total percentage of international trade a given nation wields. It should be subject to revision only once every 5 or 10 years at fixed terms.
The primary reason I would design the system in this manner is that the Federal Reserve has already become the central bank of the world. The Fed has lost the ability to manage its own economy because the IMF and others lobby it not to raise rates because that would adversely impact their currencies. There should be an IUA so that a central bank can manage its own economy without impacting others because they will be prohibited from issuing debt (public or private) in a foreign currency — only in an IUA. There would be no sovereign debt issued by the agency controlling the formula. The reserves of central banks would then be only in IUA terms.
Already, capital flows globally when it sees opportunity, and in this manner, it acts as an arbitrage tool. If real estate looks cheap in one country, the capital will flow in. Australia, New Zealand, and particularly Vancouver are fighting this trend. There will be a natural cycle to it and there is no need for changing laws to try to stop it. The Japanese were big buyers during the 1980s, even buying Rockefeller Plaza in New York. As their economy turned down, they resold it and exited.
Of the 170 or so Roman emperors from 27BC to 476AD only one carries the title “the Great” and that is Constantine(r.306-337AD).
Would you have chosen another Roman emperor for this distinction in preference to Constantine?
JR
ANSWER: Constantine was given the title “the Great” because of his use of Christianity as his means to power. His mother Helena was a devout Christian. However, Constantine did not accept baptism until he was on his deathbed. He claimed that he had a vision where God showed him the sign of the cross and to put that on the shields of his army when they were outnumbered 2 to 1. It was a great tale. The truth was that the opposing army was mostly Christian and it was a great strategy. This gold medallion shows Constantine with the sun god Sol.
Constantine used Sol because he began to emerge as the supreme pagan god known as Sol Invictus (invincible sun which appeared every day). There was a tetrarchy set up by Diocletian (284-305 AD) where there were two emperors and two vice presidents, so to speak, named Caesars. Constantine used Sol and then Jesus Christ to justify his civil war in both instances by saying there was but one god above and there should be but one emperor on earth.
As far as who I would say was truly the best emperor, it would have been Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD). You must understand that the title “the Great” or “Magnus” was often used for those who waged major wars and won. It did not mean that they did some magnanimous act. Pompey (106-38BC) was called “Magnus” for his victory in the civil war and not for his humanity. His success as a military commander in Sulla’s second civil war resulted in Sulla bestowing the cognomen Magnus, “the Great,” upon him.
Governments don’t work the way most people think they do. Public choice theory explores how voters, politicians, and bureaucrats actually make decisions. Prof. Antony Davies explains. SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/2dUx6wg LEARN MORE: Behavioral Economics Ep. 5: What You Need to Know About Public Choice (video): Erika Davies and Prof. Antony Davies give an introduction to public choice economics and describe how insights on human behavior in the private sector can be applied to predict human behavior in the public sector. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcLGU… Public Choice: Why Politicians Don’t Cut Spending (video): Prof. Ben Powell uses insights from public choice theory to explain why politicians, despite what they may promise to voters, rarely cut government spending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uR4l… Schools of Thought in Classical Liberalism, Part 3: Public Choice (video): Dr. Nigel Ashford gives a brief overview of the intellectual figures and ideas associated with public choice theory; part of a larger series on schools of thought in the classical liberal tradition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffJFN…
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 