"Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity" - Vera Brittain, Rebel Passion
Dear All,
The largest banks have in excess of a quadrillion dollars in OTC derivatives on their books, the major component of which is interest rate swaps. Significantly higher interest rates would light a match to the swap chain, taking down not only the banks but the western financial system with it. Keep that in mind when you hear the prattle about tapering or exiting QE. The Fed is trapped into its zero interest-rate policy and monetization of Treasury and toxic mortgage paper. Sure, it may announce a temporary reduction of asset purchases here or there but it is wed to QE for the long haul. There will be no sustained let-up of mortgage and Treasury bond buying -- in fact its volume is destined to increase. Note the direction of foreign appetite for U.S. Treasury securities -- ZH: Foreigners Sell [Even] More US Securities Than After Lehman Bankruptcy
This is not to suggest that the Fed will succeed in perpetually suppressing credit costs, only that it won't be its choice when market and currency factors compel higher rates.
Jim Rickards was interviewed by Gregg Hunter yesterday: Everything Wrong in 2008 is Worse Today
"You’re going to have a banking crisis worse than the last one because the
banking system is bigger without the resources because the Fed is tapped out."
In an article reporting on its own sale, the Washington Post included this rather bizarre statement:
"Few people were aware that a sale was in the works for the paper, an institution that has covered presidents and local communities and gained worldwide attention for its stories about the Watergate scandal and, in June, disclosures about National Security Agency surveillance programs."
Once the shining light of investigative journalism for its Watergate reporting, how odd that for all its work in the 40 years since, the Post chose to claim as one of its two main journalistic achievements a story to which not only was it largely absent, but it ran a condescending piece about the foreign newspaper that scooped it (along with an editorial in which it referred to whistleblower Edward Snowden as a "naive hacker").
This tweet by a Time Magazine reporter may say more about not just the death of investigative journalism in the U.S., but the fact that the traditional 'old media' establishment has now been merged into the executive branch of the federal government.
In contrast with these tired and increasingly irrelevant print publications there is The Guardian, the British newspaper that traces its roots to 1821 and employs in Glenn Greenwald at least one true investigative journalist. In this piece, Greenwald takes to task a man who should have been put out to pasture long ago, CBS' Bob Schieffer, an establishment mouthpiece masquerading as a journalist: Michael Hayden, Bob Schieffer and the media's reverence of national security officials
The Gestapo has re-emerged:
FT: Guardian newspaper ordered to destroy files, claims editor Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours
President Obama is a man so cynical that he believes that anything can be effectively spun. He may be correct. Assange: Obama 'validates' Snowden
"[R]ather than thank Edward Snowden, the president laughably attempted to criticize him while claiming that there was a plan [to improve privacy protection in NSA programs] all along ."
Russia proves again that it has the finest financial broadcast media outlet in the world, one of the few sources willing to run such a story: RT: Gold Gone? Germany baffled as Fed bars access to bullion
"[Y]ou're afraid that you or those around you cannot handle the use of that device in a lawful and peace-defending manner. You do this despite the documented fact that you are far more-likely to be shot "in error" on a per-capita basis by a cop than by an ordinary civilian."
Bail-ins come in a variety of forms. As Ellen Brown explains, under bankruptcy the promises made to retired public workers are subordinate to Wall Street's derivative bets: The Detroit Bail-In Template: Fleecing Pensioners to Save the Banks
While having virtually no effect on the aggregate incomes of productive employees, minimum wage laws sharply increase unemployment among the least skilled workers. The subject however always attracts first-rate political pandering and in this particular case, liberal hypocrisy: Walmart Calls Out The Nation for Its Low-Wage Internship Program
Under U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama's Justice Department has pursued a policy of racial vindictiveness at the federal level without precedent in the latter half of the 20th century or since. It dropped the Black Panther case (WSJ: Why did the Justice Department dismiss such a clear case of voter intimidation?) yet interfered in a racially charged state and local matter, compelling prosecutors to arrest and try a white man for murder (whom police found no probable cause to arrest and at whose trial a jury -- without the benefit of hearing the most damning exculpating evidence, acquitted nonetheless.). All the while, the Administration has shown no interest in prosecuting high profile bankers for their financial frauds and remarkably, Mr. Holder stated that some of them may be above the law.
Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts on the public cesspool: Humanity is Drowning in Washington's Criminality
The New, Improved 1984 "Once you get a check from the state, you begin loving your servitude:"
Ubiquitous surveillance: check.
Ubiquitous propaganda extolling the state and central bank: check
Perpetual fear-mongering: check
Perpetual war against an unseen enemy who can never be defeated: check
Police state with essentially unlimited powers to suppress "enemies of the state": check
Continual revision of history to support the current party line: check
The trend...
Gold replaces narcotics as the biggest smuggled item in India
On gold and silver...
Thanks to the work of Alasdair Macleod, it is now fairly clear that it was the Bank of England that mobilized its country's gold reserves for the April smashdown of precious metal prices. Macleaod's research reveals that as much as 1,300 tonnes were dishoarded from the bank's vaults between February and July. The BOE can safely be relied upon to engage in the dumbest and least subtle of gold suppression efforts. As was the case with Brown's Bottom earlier, the bank may have again marked an important low in the gold bull market with its latest scheme, which unleashed a fury of worldwide physical demand at the resulting bargain prices. The Bank of England is the Houston Astros of central banks.
GATA's Sec/Treasurer Chris Powell contacted the BOE to obtain clarification about Macleod's findings, which as was commented about elsewhere, amounted to its 'pleading the Fifth:' Bank of England refuses comment on huge discrepancy in custodial gold reports
Please view this very brief video and forward it to friends who don't understand what has happened to our financial system and devastation that is about to ensue: Re-hypothecated Paper Lifeboats
Physical demand in both gold and silver is pushing paper prices higher, and has particularly lit a spark under the precious metal equities. Sit tight. There's much more coming.
All the best,
Jeff