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Paul Merrell

China could possibly be the pioneer of a world currency - 0 views

www.australiannationalreview.com/ossibly-pioneer-world-currency

de-dollarization yuan reserve currrencies payment currencies

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • China’s yuan has just made it onto the list of the world’s top five payment currencies, but the country’s plans seem to go beyond an honourable fifth position.
  • A survey conducted in 2014 showed that the Chinese yuan will supersede the U.S. dollar as the top international reserve currency. The survey of 200 institutional investors published by State Street and the Economist Intelligence Unit found 53 per cent of investors think the renminbi (RMB) will top the U.S. dollar as the world’s major reserve currency. The report accompanying the survey claimed that “the global importance of the RMB will become magnified.” This view was shared by Yves Mersch, member of the Executive Board of European Central Bank, who stated that China’s yuan is gaining importance in international trade and investment and might even challenge the U.S. dollar. In January, global transaction services organisation SWIFT announced that China’s yuan has overtaken the Canadian dollar and the Australian dollar and jumped from the seventh spot on the world’s top payment currencies list to the fifth position. Wim Raymaekers, head of banking markets at SWIFT said in a statement that the yuan’s new position “confirms its transition from an ‘emerging’ to a ‘business as usual’ payment currency,” Reuters reported. Global yuan payments boosted by 20.3 per cent in value in December compared to the previous year.
  • The financial industry is currently anticipating the launch of the yuan for international use via China International Payment System (CIPS). A senior bank official told Reuters that the official launch of the CIPS “will be in September or October.” The CIPS will place the Chinese currency on equal position with other world currencies in terms of operating hours, risk reduction and maximizing liquidity. Its key features include simultaneous handling of payments in 17 times zones in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe, international reporting with multi-language features and cross-border yuan clearing for onshore and offshore clients, Chinese online media company Yibada noted.
Paul Merrell

A New Recession and a New World Devoid of Washington's Arrogance? - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38931.htm

war & peace economic-warfare U.S.-foreign-policy Russia China

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • June 25, 2014. A final number for real US GDP growth in the first quarter of 2014 was released today. The number is not the 2.6% growth rate predicted by the know-nothing economists in January of this year. The number is a decline in GDP of -2.9 percent. The negative growth rate of -2.9 percent is itself an understatement. This number was achieved by deflating nominal GDP with an understated measure of inflation. During the Clinton regime, the Boskin Commission rigged the inflation measure in order to cheat Social Security recipients out of their cost-of-living adjustments. Anyone who purchases food, fuel, or anything knows that inflation is much higher than the officially reported number. It is possible that the drop in first quarter real GDP is three times the official number. Regardless, the difference is large between the January forecast of +2.6 percent growth and the decline as of the end of March of -2.9 percent.
  • Any economist who is real and unpaid by Wall Street, the government, or the Establishment knew that the +2.6 percent forecast was a crock. Americans’ incomes have not grown except for the one percent, and the only credit growth is in student loans, as those many who cannot find jobs mistakenly turn to “education is the answer.” In an economy based on consumer demand, the absence of income and credit growth means no economic growth. The US economy cannot grow because corporations pushed by Wall Street have moved the US economy offshore. US manufactured products are made offshore. Look at the labels on your clothes, your shoes, your eating and cooking utensils, your computers, whatever. US professional jobs such as software engineering have been moved offshore. An economy with an offshored economy is not an economy. All of this happened in full view, while well-paid free market shills declared that Americans were benefiting from giving America’s middle class jobs to China and India.
  • An official decline of -2.9 percent in the first quarter implies a second quarter GDP decline. Two declines in a row is the definition of recession. Imagine the consequences of a recession. It means that years of unprecedented Quantitative Easing failed to revive the economy. It means that years of Keynesian fiscal deficits failed to revive the economy. Neither fiscal nor monetary policy worked. What then can revive the economy? Nothing except to force the return of the economy that the anti-American corporations moved offshore. This would require credible government. Unfortunately, the US government has been losing credibility since the second term of the Clinton regime. It has none left.
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  • Washington’s lies are catching up with Obama. German chancellor Merkel is Washington’s complete whore, but German industry is telling Washington’s whore that they value their business with Russia more than they value suffering in behalf of Washington’s empire. French businessmen are asking Hollande what he proposes to do with their unemployed workers if Holland goes along with Washington. Italian businesses are reminding that government, to the extent that Italy has one, that uncouth Americans have no tastes and that sanctions on Russia mean a hit to Italy’s most famous and best recognized economic sector–high style luxury products. Dissent with Washington and Washington’s two-bit puppet rulers in Europe is spreading. The latest poll in Germany reveals that three-quarters of Germany’s population rejectpermanent NATO bases in Poland and the Baltic states. The former Czechoslovakia, currently Slovakia and the Czech Republic, although NATO members, have rejected NATO and American troops and bases on their territory. Recently, the Polish foreign minister said that pleasing Washington required giving free oral sex for nothing in return.
  • Thus, America’s two largest business organizations, important sources of political campaign contributions, have finally added their voice to the voices of German, French, and Italian business. Everyone, except the brainwashed American public, knows that the “crisis in Ukraine” is entirely the work of Washington. European and American businesses are asking: “why should our profits and our workers take hits in behalf of Washington’s propaganda against Russia.” Obama has no answer. Perhaps his neocon scum, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Powers, and Susan Rice can come up with an answer. Obama can look to the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Weekly Standard to explain why millions of Americans and Europeans should suffer in order that Washington’s theft of Ukraine is not endangered.
  • Today no one anywhere in the world believes the US government except the brain dead Americans who read and listen to the “mainstream media.” Washington’s propaganda dominates the minds of Americans, but produces laughter and scorn everywhere else. The poor US economic outlook has brought America’s two largest business lobbies–the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (or what is left of them) into conflict with the Obama regime’s threat of further sanctions against Russia. According to Bloomberg News, beginning tomorrow (June 26), the business groups will run advertisements in the New York Times, Wall St Journal, and Washington Post opposing any further sanctions on Russia. The US business organizations say that the sanctions will harm their profits and result in layoffs of American workers.
  • The strains that Washington’s morons are putting on NATO might break the organization apart. Pray that it does. NATO’s excuse for existence disappeared with the Soviet collapse 23 years ago. Yet, Washington has increased NATO far beyond the borders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO now runs from the Baltics to Central Asia. In order to have a reason for NATO’s continued expensive operation, Washington has had to construct an enemy out of Russia. Russia has no intention of being Washington’s or NATO’s enemy and has made that perfectly clear. But Washington’s military/security complex, which absorbs about $1 trillion annually of US hard-pressed taxpayers’ money, needs an excuse to keep the profits flowing. Unfortunately the Washington morons picked a dangerous enemy. Russia is a nuclear armed power, a country of vast dimensions, and with a strategic alliance with China.
  • Only a government drowning in arrogance and hubris or a government run by psychopaths and sociopaths would pick such an enemy. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has pointed out to Europe that Washington’s policies in the Middle East and Libya are not merely total failures but also devastatingly harmful to Europe and Russia. The fools in Washington have removed the governments that suppressed the jihadists. Now the violent jihadists are unleashed. In the Middle East the jihadists are at work remaking the artificial boundaries set by the British and French in the aftermath of World War I. Europe, Russia and China have Muslim populations and now must worry if the violence that Washington has unleashed will bring destabilization to regions of Europe, Russia and China.
  • No one anywhere in the world has any reason to love Washington. Least of all Americans, who are being bled dry in order that Washington can parade military force around the world. Obama’s approval rating is a dismal 41 percent and no one wants Obama to remain in office once his second term is complete. In contrast, two-thirds of the Russian population want Putin to remain president after 2018. In March the poling agency, Public Opinion Research Center, released a report that Putin’s approval rating stood at 76 percent despite the agitation against him by the US financed Russian NGOs, hundreds of fifth column institutions that Washington established in Russia during the past two decades. On top of US political troubles, the US dollar is in trouble. The dollar is kept afloat by rigged financial markets and Washington’s pressure on its vassal states to support the dollar’s value by printing their own currencies and purchasing dollars. In order to keep the dollar afloat, much of the world will be inflated. When people finally catch on and rush into gold, the Chinese will have it all.
  • Sergey Glazyev, an adviser to President Putin, has told the Russian president than only an anti-dollar alliance that crashes the US dollar can halt Washington’s aggression. That has long been my opinion. There can be no peace as long as Washington can print more money with which to finance more wars. As the Chinese government stated, it is time to “de-Americanize the world.” Washington’s leadership has totally failed the world, producing nothing but lies, violence, death, and the promise of more violence. America is exceptional only in the fact that Washington has, without remorse, destroyed in whole or part seven countries in the new 21st century. Unless Washington is replaced with more humane leadership, life on earth has no future.
  • Paul Merrell on 27 Jun 14
     
    Paul Craig Roberts wields a pen striking at the very heart of what ails American government.
Gary Edwards

Global Financial Meltdown Coming? Clear Signs That The Great Derivatives Crisis Has Now... - 0 views

theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...rivatives-crisis-has-now-begun

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • No one “understands” derivatives. How many times have readers heard that thought expressed (please round-off to the nearest thousand)? Why does no one understand derivatives? For many; the answer to that question is that they have simply been thinking too hard. For others; the answer is that they don’t “think” at all. Derivatives are bets. This is not a metaphor, or analogy, or generalization. Derivatives are bets. Period. That’s all they ever were. That’s all they ever can be.
  • One very large financial institution that appears to be in serious trouble with these financial weapons of mass destruction is Glencore.  At one time Glencore was considered to be the 10th largest company on the entire planet, but now it appears to be coming apart at the seams, and a great deal of their trouble seems to be tied to derivatives.  The following comes from Zero Hedge… Of particular concern, they said, was Glencore’s use of financial instruments such as derivatives to hedge its trading of physical goods against price swings. The company had $9.8 billion in gross derivatives in June 2015, down from $19 billion in such positions at the end of 2014, causing investors to query the company about the swing. Glencore told investors the number went down so drastically because of changes in market volatility this year, according to people briefed by Glencore. When prices vary significantly, it can increase the value of hedging positions. Last year, there were extreme price moves, particularly in the crude-oil market, which slid from about $114 a barrel in June to less than $60 a barrel by the end of December.
  • That response wasn’t satisfying, said Michael Leithead, a bond fund portfolio manager at EFG Asset Management, which managed $12 billion as of the end of March and has invested in Glencore’s debt.
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  • According to Bank of America, the global financial system has about 100 billion dollars of exposure overall to Glencore.  So if Glencore goes bankrupt that is going to be a major event.  At this point, Glencore is probably the most likely candidate to be “the next Lehman Brothers”. And it isn’t just Glencore that is in trouble.  Other financial giants such as Trafigura are in deep distress as well.  Collectively, the global financial system has approximately half a trillion dollars of exposure to these firms… Worse, since it is not just Glencore that the banks are exposed to but very likely the rest of the commodity trading space, their gross exposure blows up to a simply stunning number:
  • For the banks, of course, Glencore may not be their only exposure in the commodity trading space. We consider that other vehicles such as Trafigura, Vitol and Gunvor may feature on bank balance sheets as well ($100 bn x 4?)
  • Call it half a trillion dollars in very highly levered exposure to commodities: an asset class that has been crushed in the past year. The mainstream media is not talking much about any of this yet, and that is probably a good thing.  But behind the scenes, unprecedented moves are already taking place. When I came across the information that I am about to share with you, I was absolutely stunned.  It comes from Investment Research Dynamics, and it shows very clearly that everything is not “okay” in the financial world… Something occurred in the banking system in September that required a massive reverse repo operation in order to force the largest ever Treasury collateral injection into the repo market.   Ordinarily the Fed might engage in routine reverse repos as a means of managing the Fed funds rate.   However, as you can see from the graph below, there have been sudden spikes up in the amount of reverse repos that tend to correspond the some kind of crisis – the obvious one being the de facto collapse of the financial system in 2008:
  • What in the world could possibly cause a spike of that magnitude? Well, that same article that I just quoted links the troubles at Glencore with this unprecedented intervention… What’s even more interesting is that the spike-up in reverse repos occurred at the same time – September 16 – that the stock market embarked on an 8-day cliff dive, with the S&P 500 falling 6% in that time period.  You’ll note that this is around the same time that a crash in Glencore stock and bonds began.   It has been suggested by analysts that a default on Glencore credit derivatives either by Glencore or by financial entities using derivatives to bet against that event would be analogous to the “Lehman moment” that triggered the 2008 collapse. The blame on the general stock market plunge was cast on the Fed’s inability to raise interest rates.  However that seems to be nothing more than a clever cover story for something much more catastrophic which began to develop out sight in the general liquidity functions of the global banking system. Back in 2008, Lehman Brothers was not “perfectly fine” one day and then suddenly collapsed the next.  There were problems brewing under the surface well in advance. Well, the same thing is happening now at banking giants such as Deutsche Bank, and at commodity trading firms such as Glencore, Trafigura and The Noble Group. And of course a lot of smaller fish are starting to implode as well.  I found this example posted on Business Insider earlier today…
  • On September 11, Spruce Alpha, a small hedge fund which is part of a bigger investment group, sent a short report to investors. The letter said that the $80 million fund had lost 48% in a month, according the performance report seen by Business Insider. There was no commentary included in the note. No explanation. Just cold hard numbers.
  • Wow – how do you possibly lose 48 percent in a single month? It would be hard to do that even if you were actually trying to lose money on purpose. Sadly, this kind of scenario is going to be repeated over and over as we get even deeper into this crisis. Meanwhile, our “leaders” continue to tell us that there is nothing to worry about.  For example, just consider what former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is saying…
  • Former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke doesn’t see any bubbles forming in global markets right right now. But he doesn’t think you should take his word for it. And even if you did, that isn’t the right question to ask anyway. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal event on Wednesday morning, Bernanke said, “I don’t see any obvious major mispricings. Nothing that looks like the housing bubble before the crisis, for example. But you shouldn’t trust me.”
  • I certainly agree with that last sentence.  Bernanke was the one telling us that there was not going to be a recession back in 2008 even after one had already started.  He was clueless back then and he is clueless today. Most of our “leaders” either don’t understand what is happening or they are not willing to tell us. So that means that we have to try to figure things out for ourselves the best that we can.  And right now there are signs all around us that another 2008-style crisis has begun. Personally, I am hoping that there will be a lot more days like today when the markets were relatively quiet and not much major news happened around the world. Unfortunately for all of us, these days of relative peace and tranquility are about to come to a very abrupt end.
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Oct 15
     
    "Warren Buffett once referred to derivatives as "financial weapons of mass destruction", and it was inevitable that they would begin to wreak havoc on our financial system at some point.  While things may seem somewhat calm on Wall Street at the moment, the truth is that a great deal of trouble is bubbling just under the surface.  As you will see below, something happened in mid-September that required an unprecedented 405 billion dollar surge of Treasury collateral into the repo market.  I know - that sounds very complicated, so I will try to break it down more simply for you.  It appears that some very large institutions have started to get into a significant amount of trouble because of all the reckless betting that they have been doing.  This is something that I have warned would happen over and over again.  In fact, I have written about it so much that my regular readers are probably sick of hearing about it.  But this is what is going to cause the meltdown of our financial system. Many out there get upset when I compare derivatives trading to gambling, and perhaps it would be more accurate to describe most derivatives as a form of insurance.  The big financial institutions assure us that they have passed off most of the risk on these contracts to others and so there is no reason to worry according to them. Well, personally I don't buy their explanations, and a lot of others don't either.  On a very basic, primitive level, derivatives trading is gambling.  This is a point that Jeff Nielson made very eloquently in a piece that he recently published…"
Paul Merrell

Grandmaster Putin's Golden Trap | Gold Eagle - 0 views

www.gold-eagle.com/...grandmaster-putins-golden-trap

war & peace economic-warfare U.S. BRICS de-dollarization gold checkmate must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Very few people understand what Putin is doing at the moment. And almost no one understands what he will do in the future.No matter how strange it may seem, but right now, Putin is selling Russian oil and gas only for physical gold. Putin is not shouting about it all over the world. And of course, he still accepts US dollars as an intermediate means of payment. But he immediately exchanges all these dollars obtained from the sale of oil and gas for physical gold!
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Dec 14
     
    This one is a must read.  If correct, the Western banksters are in a checkmate situation. The BRICS nations won the de-dollarization war. But note that this is from a physical gold advocacy web site.
Paul Merrell

EEU considers launching a Currency Union: Putin | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...unching-a-currency-union-putin

de-dollarization EEU currency-union Russia Belarus Kazakhstan

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is considering the launch of a currency union within the 170 million inner market that was launched in January 2015. The Presidents of the EEU member States agreed to continue their work at coordinating the Union’s monetary policy.  After meetings with the Presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan in Astana, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the press that the EEU member States are discussing the establishment of a currency union and continue coordinating monetary policy, reports the Belarus news agency BelTa. The news agency quotes Putin as saying:
  • “We think that the time has come to talk forming a currency union in the future. … It is easier to protect the common financial market when working shoulder by shoulder”.
  • Putin described talks with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana on March 20 as “very intensive and informative”. President Nursultan Nazarbayev is widely regarded as the intellectual mastermind of a post-Soviet Union political and economic integration. The three heads of State reportedly discussed a wide range of issues about Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. The aggregate GDP of the troika amounts, according to BelTa, to 85% of the GDP of the CIS with Russia ranking first, followed by Belarus and Kazakhstan on a shared second place. The establishment of the EEU in January and discussions about the establishment of a currency union come against the backdrop of a series of US, UK, EU, G7 sanctions against Russia over the situation in Ukraine, with Germany, France, Czech Republic, Slovakia and some other European nations being reluctant about obstructing European – Russian relations. Especially strong French and German lobbies would rather see a closer cooperation between the EU and the EEU than a predominantly US/UK dominated policy of tensions that aims at maintaining an US/UK hegemony in Europe and a global dollar-dominated economy.
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  • Many US and British economists perceive an integration of EEU and EU markets as the single-most serious threat against the (f)ailing primacy of the US dollar and the hegemony of the “Atlantic Axis” in Europe.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Mar 15
     
    More de-dollarization moves on the way.  Armenia and Kyrgyzstan are expected to join the EEU soon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union "CIS" stands for the Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes 9 memer states that are former Soviet Republics. Commonwealth of Independent States Eight of them form the Commonwealth of Independent States Free Trade Area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Independent_States_Free_Trade_Area  
Paul Merrell

Is Rouhani's Iran Tilting East? « LobeLog.com - 0 views

www.lobelog.com/is-rouhanis-iran-tilting-east

war & peace Iran Russia China U.S.-foreign-policy sanctions Iranian-nukes-myth

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Two simultaneous pieces of economic news in Iran inform us of a trend in the Rouhani administration’s foreign policy. Firstly, Iranian and Russian press reported last week that Tehran and Moscow signed a trade agreement amounting to 70 billion euros on Sept. 9. Alexander Novak, Russia’s energy minister, and Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, Iran’s oil minister, signed on behalf of Russia and Iran respectively. The details of the agreement have not been revealed but Russia may also invest in Iranian oil, according to Ali Majedi, Iran’s deputy oil minister for international affairs. If implemented as planned, the reported agreement could strike a blow to the American sanctions regime on Iran. On the same day, Ishaq Jahangiri, President Hassan Rouhani’s first deputy, told reporters that during the upcoming third presidential meeting between Iran and China on the sidelines of the Shanghai Summit, “we will secure billions of dollars from China for private sector projects which top the agenda.” Against the $18 billion that China owes Iran for its imported oil, China will reportedly finance these Iranian projects for up to 2 or 3 times that amount. According to Asadollah Asgaroladi, the chairman of the Iran-China Joint Chamber of Commerce, most of the projects will be industrial or oil-related.
  • With close ties to the centrist, business-friendly cleric, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, Rouhani was voted into office with the underlying hope that he would pursue good relations with the West. Rouhani’s nomination of Javad Zarif as his top diplomat strengthened this notion. During his career, Zarif, under the presidencies of Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami, and even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad relentlessly strived to make peace between Iran and the West, especially with the United States. Yet while Iran continues to negotiate for a final deal over its nuclear program, one of the main points of contention in US-Iran relations, Rouhani’s Iran appears to be looking eastward.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Sep 14
     
    Is BRICS about to become BRIICS? Unfortunately, no mention whether the deals will be dollar-based or de-dollarized, but I strongly suspect the latter.
Paul Merrell

Iran bans using dollar as base import pricing currency - Business | Kashmir Observer - 0 views

kashmirobserver.net/...-import-pricing-currency-29375

war & peace Iran de-dollarization

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Iran moved a step closer to a plan to ditch the dollar in its trade activities by announcing that purchase orders by merchants that are based on the greenback would no longer be allowed to go through import proceedings.Iran’s domestic media reported that the policy was in line with an official request by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and was specifically meant to address fluctuations in market rates of the dollar.IRNA news agency quoted Mehdi Kasraeipour, CBI’s director of Foreign Exchange Rules and Policies Affairs, as saying that the move had become effective from Wednesday by virtue of a letter sent to the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade.
Paul Merrell

Pakistan considers dumping dollar for yuan in trade with China - RT Business News - 0 views

www.rt.com/...n-chinese-yuan-bilateral-trade

war & peace economic-warfare Pakistan China de-dollarization

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Dec 17 - No Cached
  • The government of Pakistan is considering a proposal to start using the Chinese yuan in trade with China, according to the Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, as quoted by Pakistan’s English-language daily Dawn. “We are examining the use of yuan instead of the US dollar for trade between the two countries,” the minister told the media after the official launch of the Long Term Plan (LTP) for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
  • ilateral trade between Pakistan and China was worth $13.8 billion in 2015 to 2016, a decade after the countries signed a free trade agreement. Pakistan will continue to use the rupee domestically, according to Iqbal.The LTP includes cooperation between the countries in energy, information network infrastructure, road and rail connections, trade and industrial parks, tourism, agriculture, and poverty alleviation. The plan will be implemented in three phases, the first ending in 2020, followed by another in 2025, with completion in 2030.
  • Under the plan, the countries intend to develop multi-level cooperation and strengthen policy coordination, as well as establish and improve the cross-border credit system and financial services. Karachi and Beijing are also planning to enhance currency swap arrangements and create a bilateral payment and settlement system.
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  • Earlier this year, China pledged to invest $57 billion in Pakistan to fund the CPEC project as part of its “Belt and Road” initiative, which aims to build a ‘New Silk Road’ of land and sea trade routes across more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Dec 17
     
    Exodus from the dollar continues.
Paul Merrell

Venezuela drops US dollar, will use euro for international transactions - RT World News - 1 views

www.rt.com/...enezuela-drops-dollar-currency

economic-warfare de-dollarization Venezuela

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Oct 18 - No Cached
  • Venezuela is abandoning the US dollar, with all future transactions on the Venezuelan exchange market to be made in euro, Tareck El Aissami, the country's Vice President for Economy, announced. The sanctions, recently introduced by Washington against Caracas, “block the possibility of continuing to trade using the US dollar on the Venezuelan exchange market," El Aissami said, adding that the American restrictions were “illegal and against international law.” 
  • The American “financial blockade” of Venezuela affects both the country’s public and private sectors, including pharmacy and agriculture, and shows “just how far the imperialism can go in its madness,” the vice president said.Venezuela’s floating exchange rate system, Dicom, “will be operating in euro, yuan or any other convertible currency and will allow the foreign exchange market to use any other convertible currency," El Aissami said.The vice president added that all private banks in Venezuela are obliged to participate in the Dicom bidding system.The government is going to sell 2 billion euros between November and December to allow the public to purchase the European currency “at a real, non-speculative rate,” he said.
Paul Merrell

China's Official Press Agency Calls For New Reserve Currency, And New World Order | Zer... - 1 views

www.zerohedge.com/...ncy-calls-new-reserve-currency

China U.S. dollar reserve currrencies Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • We assume it is a coincidence that on the day in which we demonstrate China's relentless appetite for gold, driven by what we and many others believe is the country's desire to have a call option on a gold-backed reserve currency when the time comes, just posted in China's official press agency, Xinhua, is an op-ed by writer Liu Chang in which he decries the "US fiscal failure which warrants a de-Americanized world" and flatly states that the world should consider a new reserve currency "that is to be created to replace the dominant U.S. dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States." Of course, if China were serious, and if the world were to voluntarily engage in such a (r)evolutionary reserve currency transition, then all Magic Money Tree theories that the only thing better than near infinite debt is beyond infinite debt, would promptly be relegated to the historic dust heap of idiotic theories where they belong. Some of China's (which as a reminder is the single largest offshore holder of US Treasury paper, and the second largest of all only second naturally to the Federal Reserve whose $85 billion in monthly monetizing "flow" is what is keeping rates from exploding higher) thoughts as captured in the Xinhua Op-ed:
  • Reform of the world’s financial system should include the introduction of a new internatonal reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar The international community could thus permanently stay away from the spillover of intensifying domestic political turmoil in the U.S. Fiscal impasse in the U.S. is a good time for “befuddled world” to start considering building a “de-Americanized world” Impasse has left many nations’ dollar assets in jeopardy and the international community agonized Other cornerstones should be laid to underpin a de-Americanized world, including respect for sovereignty, recognizing authority of UN in handling global hotspot issues and giving developing and emerging market economies more say in major international financial institutions Purpose of such changes is not to “completely toss the United States aside,” rather to encourage Washington to play a much more constructive role in addressing global affairs Of course, if and when the day comes that the USD is no longer the reserve currency, kiss America's superpower, or any power, status, which is now based purely on the USD's reserve currency status, and the ability to fund half the US budget deficit with debt promptly monetized by the Fed, goodbye.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Oct 13
     
    Sounds like more than a hint from China that Congress needs to act quickly to remove concerns that the U.S. may default on its debt. (The Xinhua op-ed is republished on the linked page.)  I must admit that I have my moments when I like the idea of the entire corrupt Western bankster cartel would just get on with committing financial suicide so the world could get on with whatever is to rise from those ashes. 
Paul Merrell

UNASUR Moves toward Continental Freedom of Movement, Venezuela Makes "Equality" Call | ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...-venezuela-makes-equality-call

regional-governments UNASUR South-American-integration de-dollarization

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • The 12 member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) has taken a step toward creating South American citizenship and freedom of movement. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro also called for strategies to promote continental economic development, social equality and defence sovereignty. The new proposals for South American integration were made during a UNASUR summit in Guayaquil, Ecuador yesterday. Today regional leaders are meeting in the Ecuadorian capital Quito for the opening of the organisation’s new permanent headquarters.
  • Taking place over two days, the summit in Guayaquil sought to design strategies to further develop regional integration. “We have approved the concept of South American citizenship. This should be the greatest register of what has happened,” said UNASUR general secretary Ernesto Samper at the summit yesterday. Part of this proposal is to create a “single passport” and homologate university degrees in order to give South Americans the right to live, work and study in any UNASUR country and to give legal protection to migrants – similar to freedom of movement rules for citizens of the European Union.
  • Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, argued that the statutes of UNASUR should be changed and that majorities, rather than absolute consensus, should be the minimum necessary basis on which to advance important areas of integration. In particular, Correa called for the advancement of financial integration and sovereignty, such as the Bank of the South and Reserve Fund, a currency exchange system to minimise the use of the dollar in intercontinental trade, the creation of a regional body to settle financial disputes, and a common currency “in the medium term”.
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  • Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro agreed that the creation of new financial instruments was central to advancing regional integration and sovereignty. “From Venezuela we believe that we must take the agenda of shared economic development into our hands; a new financial architecture [that includes] the Bank of Structural Projects, that converts us into a powerful bloc,” he said to media in Guayaquil before the meeting with other UNASUR leaders. The two other priorities for the Venezuelan government at the meeting were to promote strategies for social equality and regional defence sovereignty. On defence, Maduro said that Venezuela would support a “new South American military doctrine” based on a “system of education for South American militaries, below the guidance of the South American Defence Council,” in which the thought of the continent’s 19th century independence leaders would be present.
  • Outgoing Uruguayan president Jose Mujica made a passionate speech while accepting the presidency on behalf of his country, where he stated, “There won’t be integration without commitment, willpower, and political will, because the global obstacles are enormous and the past continues to constrain us”. Meanwhile, respected former Brazilian president Lula Da Silva declared, “Today our main challenge is to deepen the construction of strategic thought of Latin America and the Caribbean. We can construct an integration project that is more daring, that takes advantage of the formation of our rich history, goods and cultures”.
  • The UNASUR was created in 2008. Its members are: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14
     
    A rough equivalent of the EU for South America and the Carribean? De-dollarization? A common currency? Regional defense sovereignty? Quite obviously, the CIA needs to expand its destabilization operations in Venezuela to a few more countries, else the banksters get grumpy. 
Paul Merrell

The Western Alliance Is Crumbling: EU Is Abandoning U.S. on Overthrowing Assad | Global... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5479566

war & peace Syria Russia Lebanon E.U. refugees TPP

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Europe is being overrun by refugees from American bombing campaigns in Libya and Syria, which created a failed state in Libya, and which threaten to do the same in Syria. Europe is thus being forced to separate itself from endorsing the U.S. bombing campaign that focuses against the Syrian government forces of the secular Shiite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, instead of against his fundamentalist Sunni Islamic opponents, the jihadist groups (all of which are Sunni), such as ISIS, and Al Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra).
  • Russia announced on October 2nd that their bombing campaign against America’s allies in Syria — ISIS and Al Nusra (the latter being Al Qaeda in Syria) — will intensify and will last “three or four months.” U.S. President Barack Obama is insisting upon excluding Russia from any peace talks on Syria; the U.S. will not move forward with peace talks unless Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad first steps down. But Russia is the only serious military power against the jihadists who are trying to defeat Assad, and Russia is now committing itself also to providing Lebanon with weapons against the jihadists, who are America’s allies in Lebanon too.
  • That’s hardly the only ‘legacy’ issue for Obama — his war against Russia, via overthrowing Gaddafi, then Yanukovych, and his still trying to overthrow Assad — which is now forcing the break-up of the Western Alliance, over the resulting refugee-crisis. An even bigger such conflict within the Alliance concerns Obama’s proposed treaty with European states, the TTIP, which would give international corporations rights to sue national governments in non-appealable global private arbitration panels, the dictates from which will stand above any member-nation’s laws. Elected government officials will have no control over them. This supra-national mega-corporate effort by Obama is also part of his similar effort in his proposed TPP treaty with Asian nations, both of which are additionally aimed to isolate from international trade not just Russia, but China, so as to leave America’s large international corporations controlling virtually the entire world. As things now stand regarding these ‘trade’ deals, Obama will either need to eliminate some of his demands, or else the European Commission won’t be able to muster enough of its members to support Obama’s proposed treaty with the EU, the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). Also, some key European nations might reject Obama’s proposed treaty on regulations regarding financial and other services: TISA (Trade In Services Agreement). All three of Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals, including the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) between the U.S. and Asian countries, are the actual culmination of Obama’s Presidency, and they’re all about far more than just trade and economics. The main proposed deal with Europe might now be dead.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Thirdly, I am opposed to the signing of an agreement with a power that legalizes widespread and systematic spying on my fellow European citizens and European businesses. Edward Snowden’s revelations are instructive in this regard. As long as the agreement does not protect the personal data of European and US citizens, it cannot be signed. Fourth, the United States proposes a transatlantic common financial space, but they adamantly refuse a common regulation of finance, and they refuse to abolish systematic discrimination by the US financial markets against European financial services. They want to have their cake and eat it too: I object to the idea of a common area without common rules, and I reject commercial discrimination. Fifth, I object to the questioning of European health protections. Washington must understand once and for all that notwithstanding its insistence, we do not want our plates or animals treated with growth hormones nor products derived from GMOs, or chemical decontamination of meat, or of genetically modified seeds or non-therapeutic antibiotics in animal feed. Sixth, I object to the signing of an agreement if it does not include the end of the US monetary dumping. Since the abolition of the gold convertibility of the dollar and the transition to the system of floating exchange rates, the dollar is both American national currency and the main unit for exchange reserves in the world. The Federal Reserve then continually practices monetary dumping, by influencing the amount of dollars available to facilitate exports from the United States. China proposes to eliminate this unfair advantage by making “special drawing rights” of the IMF the new global reference currency. But as things now stand, America’s monetary weapon has the same effect as customs duties against every other nation. [And he will not sign unless it’s removed.]
  • On September 27th, France’s newspaper SouthWest featured an exclusive interview with Matthias Fekl, France’s Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, in which he said that “France is considering all options, including outright termination of negotiations” on the TTIP. He explained that, ever since the negotiations began in 2013, “These negotiations have been and are being conducted in a total lack of transparency,” and that France has, as of yet, received “no serious offer from the Americans.” The reasons for this stunning public rejection had probably already been accurately listed more than a year ago. After all, France has, throughout all of the negotiations, received “no serious offer from the Americans”; not now, and not back at the start of the negotiations in 2013. The U.S. has been steadfast. Jean Arthuis, a member of the European Parliament, and formerly France’s Minister of Economy and Finance, headlined in Le Figaro, on 10 April 2014, “7 good reasons to oppose the transatlantic treaty”. There is no indication that the situation has changed since then, as regards the basic demands that President Obama is making. Arthuis said at that time: First, I am opposed to private arbitration of disputes between States and businesses. [It would place corporate arbitrators above any nation’s laws and enable them to make unappealable decisions whenever a corporation sues a nation for alleged damages for alleged violations of its rights by that nation of the trade-treaty.] Such a procedure is strictly contrary to the idea that I have of the sovereignty of States. … Secondly, I am opposed to any questioning of the European system of appellations of origin. Tomorrow, according to the US proposal, there would be a non-binding register, and only for wines and spirits. Such a reform would kill many European local products, whose value is based on their certified origin.
  • Seventh, beyond the audiovisual sector alone, which is the current standard of government that serves as a loincloth to its cowardice on all other European interests in these negotiations, I want all the cultural exceptions prohibited. In particular, it is unacceptable to allow the emerging digital services in Europe to be swept up by US giants such as Google, Amazon or Netflix. They’re giant absolute masters in tax optimization, which make Europe a “digital colony.” President Obama’s negotiator is his close personal friend, Michael Froman, a man who is even trying to force Europe to reduce its fuel standards against global warming and whose back-room actions run exactly contrary to Obama’s public rhetoric. Froman and Obama have been buddies since they worked together as editors on Harvard Law Review. He knows what Obama’s real goals are. Also: “Froman introduced Mr. Obama to Robert E. Rubin, the former Treasury secretary,” who had brought into the Clinton Administration Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and had championed (along with them) the ending of the regulations on banks that the previous Democratic President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had put into place. (President Bill Clinton signed that legislation just as he left office, and this enabled the long process to occur with MBS securities and with financial derivatives, which culminated with the 2008 crash, and this same legislation also enabled the mega-banks to get bailed out by U.S. taxpayers for their crash — on exactly the basis that FDR had outlawed.)
  • Froman has always been a pro-mega-corporate, pro-mega-bank champion, who favors only regulations which benefit America’s super-rich, no regulations which benefit the public. Froman’s introducing the Wall Street king Robert Rubin to the then-Senator Obama was crucial to Obama’s becoming enabled to win the U.S. Presidency; Robert Rubin’s contacts among the super-rich were essential in order for that — Obama’s getting a real chance to win the Presidency — to happen. It enabled Obama to compete effectively against Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. His winning Robert Rubin’s support was crucial to his becoming President. The chances, that President Obama will now be able to get the support from any entity but the U.S. Congress for his proposed TTIP treaty with Europe, are reducing by the day. Europe seems to be less corrupt than is the United States, after all. The only independent economic analysis that has been done of the proposed TTIP finds that the only beneficiaries from it will be large international corporations, especially ones that are based in the United States. Workers, consumers, and everybody else, will lose from it, if it passes into law. Apparently, enough European officials care about that, so as to be able to block the deal. Or else: Obama will cede on all seven of the grounds for Europe’s saying no. At this late date, that seems extremely unlikely.
Gary Edwards

PETER SCHIFF: The Housing Bust Was Just A Preview For The Coming Catastrophe - Business... - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/the-real-crash-2012-5

peter-schiff Lindsey-Williams The-Real-Crash

shared by Gary Edwards on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 23 May 12
     
    Peter Schiff talks about his new book "The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy, How to Save Yourself and Your Country".  I caught the Coast-to-Coast "Financial Crisis Special" interview with Peter earlier this week where he spoke on the "Real Crash" issues.  Stunning stuff.  His hour on Coast was followed by Lindsey Williams who pointed out that the New World Order - Illuminati - Bankster trigger point would be signaled by a collapse in the derivatives market. The derivatives market is now over a quadrillion dollars of  casino style gambling.  This is where Banksters make huge bets on things like whether or not interest rates will go up or down.  Then they take out insurance to cover their bets, which further compounds the cost.  Recent events like the Jon Corzine MF Global gamble that the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel would backstop explosive European sovereign bankster debt are the first indications of collapse in the derivatives market.  We now know that JP Morgan placed similar bets on a European bailout by the Federal Reserve and World Bank, and lost big.  The only difference is that Corzine robbed his clients personal accounts to cover his bets. While Schiff argues the facts on the table, the "what", Lindsay argued the "why"; claiming that this escalating debt mess is all by design.  Lindsay claims that an operational fundamental of the New World Order elites is to first overturn the USA Constitution.  Using a Machiavellian Principle known as, "out of chaos comes order", they seek to de-stabilize and overthrow the USA Constitutional Republic using massive and crushing debt to first destroy the dollar currency.  This will create massive chaos requiring martial law and government seizure of private property and production. Peter Schiff warns that the government is driving us deeper into debt at exactly the time we should be saving and investing those savings in future private sector productivity.  Lindsay argues that this is all by desig
Paul Merrell

Derivatives and the Government Shutdown: Wall Street Bets One Thousand Trillion Dollars... - 1 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5353867

banksters derivatives fraud

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The notional value of derivative financial instruments is now estimated at $1.2 quadrillion – that is, one thousand two hundred trillion dollars. This statistic is fantastic in every sense of the word, amounting to 16.7 times the Gross World Product, which is the value of all the goods and services produced per year by every man, woman and child on the planet: $71.83 trillion. Derivatives are valued at six times more than the total accumulated wealth of the world, including all global stock markets, insurance funds, and family wealth: $200 trillion. The great bulk of known derivative deals are held by banks that are considered too big to be allowed to fail, with the top four banks accounting for more than 90 percent of the exposure: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. We are told that derivatives are simply bets between knowledgeable partners – hedges against loss – and that every time one of these financial institutions loses, another gains, so that there is no net loss or threat of global collapse. But that’s a lie. Never in the history of the world has finance capital so dominated the real economy, and only in the past two decades have derivatives been so central to finance capitalism. The players do not know what they are doing, nor do they care. The meltdown of 2008 was caused primarily by derivatives, requiring a bailout in the tens of trillions of dollars that is still ongoing, with the Federal Reserve buying up securities that no one would purchase – that is, bet on – otherwise. Yet, the universe of derivatives deals has grown much larger than in 2008, effectively untouched by President Obama’s so-called financial reforms.
  • The casino has swallowed the system. The sums the players are betting are not only far larger than the value of the rest of their portfolios, but six times larger than the combined assets of every human institution and family on Earth, and almost 17 times bigger than the worth of humankind’s yearly output. Even if the whole planet were offered as collateral, it could not cover Wall Street’s bets. The events of 2008 demonstrated that derivatives collapses, like other speculative financial events, behave as cascades of consequences, rather than orderly “resolutions.” Derivatives deals infest or overhang every nook and cranny of the U.S. and other “mature” economies, poisoning pension systems and municipal finance structures. Detroit has been rendered a failed city by the full range of derivatives and securitization. When the casino is the economy, everyone is forced to play, and the poor go broke first. Reformers of various stripes tell us that derivatives can either be regulated to a less lethal scale or abolished, altogether, while leaving Wall Street otherwise intact. That’s manifestly untrue. Finance capital creates nothing, reproducing itself through the manipulation of money. The derivatives explosion occurred because Wall Street needed a form of “fictitious” capital to continue posting ever higher profits, and ultimately, fictitious portfolios full of tradable bets. Derivatives deals are the ultimate expression of financial capitalism: they are primarily bets on transactions, rather than investments in production. The rise of derivatives signals that capitalism has run its course, and can only do further harm to humanity. The derivatives economy – all $1.2 quadrillion of it – is the last stage of capitalism.
Paul Merrell

40 Central Banks Are Betting This Will Be The Next Reserve Currency | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...-will-be-next-reserve-currency

banksters central-banks reserve currrencies yuan dollar

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • As we have discussed numerous times, nothing lasts forever - especially reserve currencies - no matter how much one hopes that the status-quo remains so, in the end the exuberant previlege is extorted just one too many times. Headline after headlines shows nations declaring 'interest' or direct discussions in diversifying away from the US dollar... and as SCMP reports, Standard Chartered notes that at least 40 central banks have invested in the Yuan and several more are preparing to do so. The trend is occurring across both emerging markets and developed nation central banks diversifiying into 'other currencies' and "a great number of central banks are in the process of adding yuan to their portfolios." Perhaps most ominously, for king dollar, is the former-IMF manager's warning that "The Yuan may become a de facto reserve currency before it is fully convertible." The infamous chart that shows nothing lasts forever...
Paul Merrell

"Russia Could Ditch Dollar In 2-3 Years"; Deputy PM Warns Nuclear Subs "Could Reach Any... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...clear-subs-could-reach-any-cou

war & peace Russia U.S. de-dollarization nuclear-subs

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • "Two to three years is enough, not only to launch [settlements in rubles], but also to complete these mechanisms," says Andrey Kostin, head of Russia’s second-biggest bank VTB, noting that the possibility of the US and EU widening sanctions to exclude Russia from the SWIFT global money transfer system would become “a point of no return” making any further dialog impossible. However, as Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin explains in this interview, how Russia's military and industrial complex is responding to a growing threat from America. Russia is not responding with any talk about the nuclear button (at least not yet); but they are preparing for such an eventuality: "we are creating a nuclear submarine fleet... capable of reaching any country on any continent, if [USA] suddenly becomes the aggressor, and our top-most national interests come under threat," adding that Obama's coup has ushered in "the complete demise of the Ukrainian State."
  • As RT reports, ?two to three years would be enough time for Russia to switch to international settlements to the ruble, Andrey Kostin, head of Russia’s second-biggest bank VTB, said... The media has reported on the possibility of the US and EU widening sanctions to exclude Russia from the SWIFT global money transfer system.   Kostin said the move would become “a point of no return” and that any further dialogue would be impossible if SWIFT was cut off.
Gary Edwards

Of Bailouts, Bonuses, and Generational Responsibility from The Daily Bail - 0 views

www.google.com/...view

obammunism baby-boomers john-gallo financial-collapse

shared by Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 10 - No Cached
  • When one transfers the learned behavior of selfishness to the world of economics, it is east to see how we got to the world of adjustable rate mortgages, thirty-to-one leverage, credit default swaps, and thirty year hedge fund workers acting as is million dollar paychecks was an otherwise normal entitlement.  If it felt good, it was therefore right – and by all means, don’t rock the boat.  And what we are witnessing today in Washington and Wall Street in response to our economic crisis is nothing but a conscious and willing decision to pass off to the next generation the cost of our mistakes.
  • the fundamental principles of capitalism – namely that bad actors need to fail.
  • First and most foremost, the Congress needs to institute a modernized version of Glass-Stegall and separate commercial banking from investment banking activities. What we have seen in the abolishment Glass-Stegall (please thank Mr. Rubin formerly of Goldman Sachs) is the creation of federally subsidize casinos masquerading as publicly traded financial institutions.  They kept profits from over-leveraged bets and were kind enough to pass their losses onto the taxpayers.  Second, Congress needs to repeal legislation (Gramm-Leach) that allowed financial institutions not only to leverage in ways previously not permitted, but which also granted banks and financial situations exemption from federal gambling laws. Third, and this is where moral outrage hits home to those on Wall Street, we cannot live in a country in which any company is allowed to manipulate the levers of government in such a way as to make itself obscenely rich at the expense of the public.
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  • We saw as we proceeded through life that pursuing one’s self-interest was rewarded just as often than doing what was right, that morals were relative, and that there would be no consequences to bad behavior. It became de rigueur to assume that our parents (and their lawyers) would save us from our bad behavior.
  • no consequences to irresponsible behavior.
  • it is hard to avoid the reality that my generation, the baby boomers who are now approaching retirement, have caused the greatest collapse of the world economy since the 1930s, and in the process damaged this country in ways we are now only beginning to understand.
  • Goldman is only the largest corporate contributor to the Obama administration
  • he nation will not die; to the contrary, it would become stronger if we permit free markets to work, and allow the next-generation to live unburdened by our mistakes and arrogance.
  • Capitalism remains the best economic system on the planet, but when those who have profited handsomely seek to socialize losses caused by their errors, then those in power in Washington have a moral responsibility to demand an accounting.  Our anger comes from the fact that our leaders have failed in their public obligations at the expense of the interests on Wall Street, and in the process created the greatest social divide that this country has seen in the past 40 years.
  • our nation has one of the highest ratios of debt to GDP on the globe
  • Finally, the administration should demand (I know it won’t) that Goldman Sachs return the approximately $13 billion it received in backdoor payments through AIG when AIG received $180 billion in bailout money. That $13 billion belongs to the taxpayers of this country, and the decision to allow Goldman to receive that money perhaps stands as the greatest moral outrage of this entire sordid affair.  
  • Looking back more eighteen months after the first signs of distress in our economy appeared, it seems that leaders in Congress and Wall Street have erred in a manner never before witnessed in this nation.  In the process, they have conspired through their collective arrogance, greed, and ignorance to damage the economy of the country (if not the world), make many themselves rich beyond the imaginations of most Americans, and in the process commit the greatest financial rape of the American public in the history of the country.  And if that does resonate, then either you have not been paying attention for the past two years, or you have received your paycheck form Goldman Sachs.
  • The proposal in question was Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future," a sweeping plan to stave off the nation's looming economic and fiscal collapse by changing the tax code, overhauling the health care system, and reforming the nation's major entitlement programs. Its debt-reducing claims aren't based on mere fantasy -- the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the plan would boost economic growth while making Medicare and Social Security solvent. And it accomplishes these aims without raising taxes or affecting the benefits of current retirees.
  • There's no doubt where the Treasury will turn for finance. We are about to see the greatest stuffing of banks with government securities the world has ever seen. American banks will be forced to gorge on Treasury securities, and disgorge bank reserves. Where else can the government get the next trillion to spend on things like wars, unemployment benefits, and food stamps?There are a few obvious things to think about here. At the rate of $120 billion a month, it will only take about nine months to blow through over a trillion dollars in free bank reserves. Each Treasury auction will find it more difficult to sell all of the treasury securities, and it will take rising interest rates to coax out even more reserves from the banks. (When you need to borrow over $4 billion a day, even a trillion dollars doesn't last long.)
  • Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 10
     
    Wow!  This is the best response to the financial collapse i have read to date.  Exceptional in clarity, but written with a tone of mixed sorrow and shame.  Mr. Gallow places the blame exactly where it should be placed.  It's a generational thing with one exception Mr. Gallow overlooks - the Obama margin of victory was very much due to the massive turnout and votes of post baby boomer generations.  We boomers may have created and caused the financial collapse and destruction of America, but they were dumb enough to put the decline of capitalism and ordered liberty on marxist steroids. excerpt:  .... this is the first time that I have been so angered by incompetence and greed in government and Wall Street to express publicly my own thoughts.  In simple terms, what has dawned on me is that my generation, the "Baby Boomers" between the ages of 45 and 65, has emerged not as not the most significant or talented generation in our history (as we thought we were), but rather as the most self-absorbed and reckless. Because ours will be the first generation in the history of this country to leave to its successors a nation in worse shape than that which it inherited; put differently, we will be the first generation in this nation to have taken from our parents and stolen from our children. .. it is hard to avoid the reality that my generation, the baby boomers who are now approaching retirement, have caused the greatest collapse of the world economy since the 1930s, and in the process damaged this country in ways we are now only beginning to understand. ... Looking back more eighteen months after the first signs of distress in our economy appeared, it seems that leaders in Congress and Wall Street have erred in a manner never before witnessed in this nation.  In the process, they have conspired through their collective arrogance, greed, and ignorance to damage the economy of the country (if not the world), make many themselves rich beyond the imaginations of mo
Paul Merrell

Russia, China agree on more trade currency swaps to bypass dollar - RT Business - 0 views

rt.com/...032-currency-swap-russia-china

banksters de-dollarization Russia China

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • The Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed on a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments. “The draft document between the Central Bank of Russia and the People’s Bank of China on national currency swaps has been agreed by the parties,” and is at the stage of formal approval procedures, ITAR-TASS quotes the Russian regulator’s office on Thursday. The Russian Central Bank is not giving precise details on the size of the currency swaps, nor when it will be launched. It says this will depend on demand.
  • According to the bank, the agreement will serve as an additional instrument for ensuring international financial stability. Also, it will offer the possibility to obtain liquidity in critical situations. “The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China,” the Russian regulator said. Currently, over 75 percent of payments in Russia-China trade settlements are made in US dollars, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.
Paul Merrell

Abbott to say No to Xi and the New Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank - Twice | nsnbc ... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...tructure-investment-bank-twice

banksters de-dollarization AIIB China dollar-collapse Australia

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is expected to say no to Chinese President Xi about joining the new Chinese-led Asia Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) when he will meet Xi at the ASEAN summit in Beijing this week. Abbott’s no to joining the bank would come against the advise of Australian treasurer Joe Hockey and after intense U.S. pressure for Australia to reject the proposed participation.
  • The decision to reject Australia’s participation in the 21 nation regional bank was made during a session of the Australian government’s National Security Committee and was explained as a “decision made on strategic grounds”. The decision has been criticized by several of Australia’s leading experts on economy. The Asian Development Bank  (ADB) estimated in 2011 that Asia would require some US$750 per year through 2020 to meet the needs for regional infrastructure development. In 2012 the ADB merely lent US$7.5 billion reported Australia’s Treasury.
  • A growing number of regional governments including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar and many other are gravitating towards China as China increasingly opens up its economy and banking system for foreign businesses and investment.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey repeatedly stressed that Australia’s national interests would be better served by joining the new AIIB while Abbott attempted to position the AIIB as a “unilateral institution”. While it is correct that China is the main investor into the bank, it is a 21 nation project and Abbott’s explanation is given little credence by objective economists who are aware of the inherent problems with U.S. dominance and the dominance of rogue corporate cartels who hold e.g the World Bank, the IMF and the US government in a state of capture.
  • The development gains perspective, considering that the former Chief Economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) William White in 2013, and other top-economists are predicting that a collapse of the U.S. dollar and the Bretton Woods institutions has become unavoidable, that it may happened overnight, and that it is likely to happen sometime by the end of 2014 or the first half of 2015. A recent analysis of the development described U.S. pressure against nations’ joining the new Asia Infrastructure Development Bank as the choice between gold and gunfire, noting that the U.S. applies relative soft pressure against Australia, while it won’t hesitate to provoke civil wars in for example Thailand to prolong the (f)ailing new American Century, just a little bit longer.
  • Gold or Gunfire: Hedging Against the Collapse of the Dollar
Gary Edwards

Rumsfeldt's Missing Trillions, Stavridis and Unconventional War | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...avridis-and-unconventional-war

banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 29 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • One of these survivors is April Gallop. April Gallop would testify under oath in a two-hour-long, video-taped interview with Barbara Honegger who has conducted an in-depth investigation into the events at the Pentagon on September 11. April Gallop would state that a violent explosion near her desk in Wedge Two on Corridor Five, more than 100 ft north from the official narratives’ alleged plane impact point stopped her watch at 9:30.
  • Gallop would state the she saw fires coming out of computers. Barbara Honegger reports that other eyewitnesses, including Tracy Webb experienced such computer fires at the E Ring of Corridor Four.
  • The alleged plane impact happened at least eight minutes after massive explosions inside the Pentagon.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Another clock from the Pentagon that is kept at the Smithsonian as well as photographic evidence prove that other clocks stopped due to explosions before the alleged plane impact. Barbara Honegger’s research would show that “something” struck the Pentagon from the outside too. That object, however, was not a jetliner and struck some 150 meters from the alleged jetliner impact site.
  • Donald Rumsfeldt’s war on waste would turn into the Global War on Terror and lead to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Information about the missing 2.3 trillion dollar was destroyed on September 11.
  • The document states that the United States, for the foreseeable future, would primarily be engaged in unconventional warfare. The document contains a structured approach to the subversion of targeted nation States, beginning with an assessment of a feasible and cooperative opposition, the creation of events to polarize society, the establishment of armed groups and their development into a fighting force that is capable of fighting a civil war or unconventional war under U.S. supervision to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals.
  • The TC 18-01 contains a de-facto blueprint for the United States’ and NATO’s involvement in Libya and Syria under the command of NATO SACEUR Stavridis. The TC 18-01 also represents a precise blueprint of the ongoing war in Iraq and the “crisis” in Ukraine.
  • Arguably, 2.3 trillion dollar are a seizable start-up budget for wars which have to be waged “off the books”.
  • Gary Edwards on 29 Mar 15
     
    "September 10, 2001. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeldt stated that 2.3 trillion dollar from the Pentagon's annual budget could not be accounted for. September 11, 2001, the Pentagon's accounting office and the Naval Command Center were targeted, allegedly by a plane. Survivors would report about explosions inside the Pentagon prior to the alleged plane impact. During a 2012 Forestall Lecture , Admiral James G. Stavridis noted that he was working as a newly selected 1-star accounting officer at the Pentagon and that he was lucky to have survived. By 2009 Stavridis would have been promoted to the rank of Admiral and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Responsible for NATO's 2011 military operations in Libya, Stavridis would describe NATO's intervention in Libya as "a teachable moment and model for future interventions". "
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