"Political power corrupts the morals and the judgment. Bet on it." -- Richard Maybury, Early Warning Report, May 2014
Dear All,
It would be unrealistic to expect the financial press or for that matter, any mainstream economist to actually rock the boat and examine the Federal Reserve's claim that it has been reducing or "tapering" its monthly bond purchases. Accepting the Fed at its word is far easier than questioning the monetary gods. Doing so might jeopardize one's job security, whether at a news outlet, bank or academic institution.
So it falls upon those less invested in the perpetuation of our Orwellian propaganda establishment, including a straight-shooting former U.S. Treasury undersecretary to call the Fed's alleged tapering -- which Wall Street has accepted hook, line and sinker -- a complete fraud. As a number have speculated, there has been no tapering. In fact the Fed has secretly been increasing its bond purchases: The Fed is the Great Deceiver
"So where did the $141.2 billion come from? There is only one source. The money came from the US Federal Reserve, and the purchase was laundered through Belgium in order to hide the fact that actual Federal Reserve bond purchases during November 2013 through January 2014 were $112 billion per month."
The failure to jail bankers for financial fraud has another component --the immunity that bankers have from money laundering for the drug cartels. It has often been stated here that drug cartels are the single largest source of liquidity to the banking industry other than central banks. However the relationship between the cartels and the banks extends directly to the U.S. Federal Reserve. In this interview, former undercover DEA agent and author Robert Mazur (The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel) refers to the Fed as "the biggest money launderer in the United States." It is a fascinating interview in its entirety with Mazur's comment on the Fed coming at about the 23:00 mark: The Infiltrator
At this rate we'll be at full employment without anyone ever having to be hired -- just keep "shrinking" the labor force until there's nobody left other than people with jobs. Nearly one million people were "eliminated" from the labor farce/force for the month of January in the latest BLS report; a record 92 million Americans are now excluded from it. Compare the 288,000 jobs reported added in the month to the million thrown out of the labor force and it's easy to see how the Labor Department was able to concoct unemployment as having dropped by .4%.
Sadly, anecdotal information has become more reliable and accurate than official government data. The impact might otherwise be benign if economists didn't so willingly accept it and $billions of U.S. taxpayer resources not squandered producing this bunkum. Contemplate as well that with but a few notable exceptions the entire economics profession works with bogus data: NYPost: Fraud runs rampant in Census Bureau
"I can tell you that waste, falsification and fraud are rampant,” says one of my new sources, who works as a Census supervisor in the Midwest and handles a number of surveys, including those on jobs, health and crime...Up to 25 percent of the thousands of surveys that go into the jobless report may be fake, this source estimates."
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy did his cause a terrible disservice with his off-topic racist rant. His diatribe played perfectly into the liberal establishment's ability to demonize him and distract from the issue. Mainstream media had already portrayed him as a fanatic in his confrontation with armed federal goons over enforcement of delinquent Bureau of Land Management fees (The concocted fee issue followed the previous concocted claim that the BLM wanted to save an endangered desert turtle on Bundy's land) If you're at all inclined to understand the particulars of how the BLM acted in violation of judicial order and the business conflicts driving Senator Harry Reid's particular interest in Bundy's land, this will interest you.
In contrast with Cliven Bundy's remarks, Donald Sterling's were said in private. I rarely agree with him, but kudos to Bill Maher on his take on the violation of Donald Sterling privacy: Bill Maher on Donald Sterling
What distinguishes Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is his lack of political table manners. While he may well be the perfect specimen of earth's lowest form of parasite -- homo sapien politicus -- what I appreciate about him is the complete lack of pretense. Ford does little to conceal his vulgarity and peccadilloes but his political modus operandi is actually standard fare. Politicians love him because by casting him as an anomaly his putrid lifestyle sheds legitimacy on their own slimy careers. Ford's particular me'lange of psychotic qualities may manifest more overtly than in other politicians but they are all cut from the same demented cloth (See: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). There is simply no evidence that a politician on crack poses any greater danger to the public than the more temperate variety. The ridicule and contempt the media has heaped upon Ford says more about its role in validating the more socially correct manner of political psychopathy than about Rob Ford's ethics.
The United States Agency for International Development (which has just seen fit to have U.S. taxpayers guarantee $1 billion of Ukraine's bonds) has one of those virtuous sounding title/missions that government is great at designating, and like every federal agency it is a reservoir of corruption and waste. While payoffs to foreign lawmakers is a daily practice at the CIA and Defense Dept., it turns out the USAID has a petty cash slush fund for foreign bribes.
"The USAID has an “incentive fund” of $175 million just for Afghanistan [politicians] to pass legislation protecting basic rights. It has not worked very well since the country continues to deny basic rights and protections to women and religious minorities."
Now they're not kidding. No, seriously -- this time they really, really mean it: Earth ‘Doomed’: UN Issues (yet another) 15 Year Climate Tipping Point
Policing for Profit? Lawmakers, advocates raise alarm at growing gov’t power to seize property
The account of a young runaway who survived a flight from California to Hawaii hidden in the aircraft's landing gear was presented as a human interest story. Yet there was almost no media coverage of the only important part of the story; that of the theatrical farce passing for airport security provided by the Transportation Security Administration. In the subject case an individual walked onto a tarmac and accessed an aircraft without being noticed. His doing so may well have occurred at precisely the time that inside the terminal the flight's paying passengers were removing their shoes, enduring privacy invasion and forced to relinquish their shaving cream before being allowed to board the same aircraft. With their snappy costumes and rubber gloves, TSA pigeons are one group that should be permanently removed from the labor force,
The Trend...
Russia strives to exclude the dollar from energy trading
U.S. Exports A Record Amount Of Gold To Hong Kong In January
Regarding gold and silver...
Now this is interesting. Having never before imposed limits on daily moves in the prices of gold and silver futures, the CME Group is now contemplating doing so "in a bid to rein in wild volatility that has spooked investors in recent years, a CME official said on Tuesday."
Why now? The CME has been more than happy standing aside for years as its own members (big shorts and agents for the cartel) have leaned on gold and silver prices causing countless waterfall price collapses. The "wild volatility" it now claims to eschew did not seem to be a problem for the Exchange so long as the price could be pressed lower, nor did it express much concern for 'spooked' investors while the spookin' was good. The CME imposes daily price movement limits on other commodity futures but has until now noticeably exempted gold and silver contracts from daily limits. So why has the CME Group suddenly found religion on daily limits on gold and silver future prices? Absent a more credible explanation, this means the Exchange believes that the volatility going forward is going to be on the upside, from which it now seeks to protect its members and the cartel. One thing you can be sure of, the CME has no interest in protecting the public from anything.
There is all sort of prattle concerning the 'inflation adjusted' prices of gold and silver. The problem with such calculations is that the prattlers invariably rely on the bogus government provided inflation figures in their calculations. ArabianMoney: Inflation-adjusted 1980 peak for gold would be $10,823 and silver $568 an ounce according to Shadow Stats
Hardly a week passes without the unfolding of some new scandal in the financial markets. The investigation into the daily London gold fix touches upon only a minor aspect of the fraudulent, derivative-laden gold and silver markets. Central planners and their bank intermediaries now control virtually every publicly traded market, with high frequency trading and more conventional front-running siphoning $billions from the general public. This is all leading to an unprecedented distrust of public markets, and ultimately increased demand for the asset that is the most honest and tangible.
Got gold?
All my best,
Jeff