Fools’ Gold, by Robert Gore

When the slaves revolt, they will seek the blood of their masters.

In 2013, a century after the establishment of the Federal Reserve, I published The Golden Pinnacle. The novel’s hero is Daniel Durand, a Wall Street banker. Chapter 27, “Fools’ Gold,” features Daniel’s testimony in 1913 before a House of Representatives subcommittee against legislation under consideration that would establish the Federal Reserve. Eleanor is Daniel’s wife and Tom and Alexander are two of his four sons. As the current banking crisis unfolds, I won’t have much to say that will add in any meaningful way to what I said in “Fools’ Gold”. Why repeat myself? Perhaps I’ll just keep linking back to this post. Please share in whole or in part with attribution and a link back to this post.

From “Fools’ Gold”

Daniel sat at a table in a committee hearing room of the House of Representatives. The drafts crisscrossing the room carried the winter cold of February. There were few spectators in the gallery. Daniel glanced at Eleanor, who sat with Tom and Alexander, but she was staring in a different direction. Although she had wished him well, she had seemed preoccupied when they met briefly in the hall outside the hearing room.

Members of the subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and Currency strolled to their seats, signs denoting the representative, at an elevated, semicircular panel at the front of the room. They chatted with each other. Nine representatives sat down. The chair for Representative Bulkley of Ohio remained empty. The chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Carter Glass, from Virginia, banged his gavel.

“The hearing in consideration of House Bill 7837, for the establishment of a federal reserve bank and the furnishing of an elastic currency, shall now come to order. The subcommittee will hear the testimony of Mr. Daniel Durand, from the firm of Durand & Woodbury, of New York.” Chairman Glass’s accent had an unmistakable Virginia lilt that reminded Daniel of Aldus Kincaid, his attorney for the court of inquiry. A dapper gentleman in his mid-fifties, Glass had prominent ears and a nose that filled a larger proportion of his face than the average nose filled of the average face.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members of the committee,” Daniel said. “This legislation is still in its early stages and the details of the reserve system are the subjects of dispute. However, before everyone is enmeshed in them, it’s time to consider not just the purported benefits but also the real dangers of central banking and government-created money, or an elastic currency, if you will, and to ask if this supposed innovation is in the best interests of our country.” He glanced at his notes.

“A persistent misnomer is the term ‘bank deposit,’ which is not a deposit at all. If I take an item to a warehouse and pay a fee to deposit it for safekeeping, when I exercise my contractual rights and claim it, the owner of the warehouse must give it back to me. The owner can’t lend it out, use it to secure a loan, or give it to another depositor to satisfy his claim. On the other hand, when I put my money in a bank, the banker can lend or invest it, use those loans and investments as collateral to borrow money, or use my funds to pay creditors or other depositors. I haven’t deposited my money in the same sense that I deposited the item at the warehouse.

“My deposit is actually a loan and I’m an unsecured creditor of the bank. Much of the instability of the present system stems from a fiction. The respectable bank is housed in a neoclassical fortress and prominently displays a sturdy vault, to convince the depositor his money is safe. In fact, almost all his money leaves the bank in search of a return higher than the interest the bank pays him. Only a small portion is held in reserve to meet depositor withdrawals, although all depositors are told they can withdraw their money on demand.

“The bank has made a promise that it can’t always keep. Business and financial cycles are as immutable as human nature. When famine follows feast and fear replaces greed, the demand for money inevitably increases. The banker faces his worst nightmare—a run on the bank. Banks with sufficient reserves or borrowing power survive. Those without them go bankrupt.”

Daniel looked up at the representatives. Only a couple appeared interested.

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Democrats Vow To Arrest As Many Political Opponents As It Takes To Defeat Fascism

From The Babylon Bee;

Article Image

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a press conference held in support of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg yesterday, Democrats vowed to arrest as many political opponents as it would take to defeat fascism.

“Fascism is a clear and present danger in this country,” began Senator Chuck Schumer, “and the only way to defeat it is with a corrupt, all-powerful police state that can imprison anyone who disagrees with us politically. If we don’t do this, fascism will win.”

“No one is above the law,” agreed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Using campaign funds improperly to pay off someone you slept with is the height of fascistic evil, and something no politician in Washington has ever done before. I’ve certainly never done anything like that. Don’t be silly!”

Already, Democrat leaders are calling for the immediate arrests of dangerous fascists such as Trump, anyone who worked with him, and every American who ever expressed support for him. “These undesirables could implement horrible fascism at any time, so we need a final solution for them,” said Schumer.

At those words, an enthusiastic crowd of anti-fascist warriors cheered and fired guns into the air.

At publishing time, former President Trump was still at large. Authorities have advised he is armed and extremely dangerous in addition to being fascist. Anyone caught collaborating with him will be subject to imprisonment.

https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-fight-fascism-by-arresting-political-opponents

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

h/t The Burning Platform

Why I don’t believe there ever was a Covid virus, by Dr. Mike Yeadon

If there never was a virus, it amplifies the guilt of the guilty parties by at lease one order of magnitude. From Dr. Mike Yeadon at conservativewoman.co.uk:

I’VE grown increasingly frustrated about the way debate is controlled around the topic of origins of the alleged novel virus, SARS-CoV-2, and I have come to disbelieve it’s ever been in circulation, causing massive scale illness and death. Concerningly, almost no one will entertain this possibility, despite the fact that molecular biology is the easiest discipline in which to cheat. That’s because you really cannot do it without computers, and sequencing requires complex algorithms and, importantly, assumptions. Tweaking algorithms and assumptions, you can hugely alter the conclusions.

This raises the question of why there is such an emphasis on the media storm around Fauci, Wuhan and a possible lab escape. After all, the ‘perpetrators’ have significant control over the media. There’s no independent journalism at present. It is not as though they need to embarrass the establishment.  I put it to readers that they’ve chosen to do so.

So who do I mean by ‘they’ and ‘the perpetrators?  There are a number of candidates competing for this position, with their drug company accomplices, several of whom are named in Paula Jardine’s excellent five-part series for TCW, Anatomy of the sinister Covid project. High on the list is the ‘enabling’ World Economic Forum and their many political acolytes including Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern.

But that doesn’t answer the question why are they focusing on the genesis of the virus. In my view, they are doing their darnedest to make sure you regard this event exactly as they want you to. Specifically, that there was a novel virus.

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Carbon War ‘Net Zero’ Would Starve Half the Planet, Experts Say, by Gerald Celente

Remember when the idealists wanted to feed the world? Now they want to kill it. From Gerald Celente at trendsinthenews.substack.com:

That victory Dutch farmers just won in provincial elections might have saved the world

NOTE TO READERS: The following is one of the dozens of articles found in last week’s issue of The Trends Journal. Consider subscribing here for in-depth, independent geopolitical and socioeconomic trends and trend forecasts that you won’t find anywhere else.


That victory Dutch farmers just won in provincial elections might literally save the world.

After massive demonstrations against government targeting of nitrogen fertilizers to fulfill a UN zero carbon agenda, the BBB (BoerBurgerBeweging or “Farmer-Citizen Movement”) party picked up a significant bloc of senate seats.

It was a major rejection of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s environmental policies, as Reuters reported in “Dutch farmers’ protest party scores big election win, shaking up Senate.”

According to a final tally reported by Eva Vlaardingerbroek on 19 March, the number of seats gained was 17, more than enough to turn back environmental directives that would destroy the Dutch farming sector. 

But the significance is far greater than just farmer livelihoods in the Netherlands.

Nitrogen fertilizers are crucial to sustaining the world’s food supply, and banning their use as part of “net-zero” carbon goals could literally starve half the world.

That’s the warning of a new report called “Challenging ‘Net Zero’ with Science,” compiled by two longtime pre-eminent climates scientists, William Happer, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, of Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science, Emeritus, of MIT.

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40 Facts You NEED to Know: The REAL Story of “Covid”, by Kit Knightly

This is a comprehensive compendium of facts that will increase your knowledge and perhaps help you win arguments. From Kit Knightly at off-guardian.org:

We first published our hugely popular cribsheet in September of 2021 in response to dozens – even hundreds – of reader requests for sources and data. It was intended as a resource and link dump as much as an article, and intentionally free of interpretation, editorialising or opinion.

The response was incredible, within weeks it became our most-viewed article of all time, and it has maintained steady traffic ever since.

But time moves on, and as new data was published and new facts came to light, it became clear we needed to update the piece – not just in terms of facts, but in terms of approach.

So, here are all the updated key facts and sources concerning the alleged “pandemic”, to help you get a grasp on what has happened to the world since January 2020, and assist in the enlightenment of any of your friends who might be still trapped in the New Normal fog.

MENU

SymptomsDiagnosis & PCR Tests“Cases” & “Deaths”LockdownsVentilatorsMasksVaccinesMortality DataPlanning & DeceptionMotives & ProfitsConclusion

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Part I: Symptoms

NEW!1. “Covid19” and the flu have IDENTICAL symptoms. There are no symptoms or collections of symptoms unique or specific to “Covid” and only “Covid”. All “Covid” symptoms are common to many other diseases and conditions, including the collection of common respiratory infections colloquially known as “the flu”.

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Patrick Lawrence: Biden and the ICC: ‘A New Level of Farce’

There are two magical phrases in the world of Joe Biden and his ilk: Orange Man Bad and Putin Bad. Now the International Criminal Court has pronounced the latter. Give it time and it may pronounce the former as well. From Patrick Lawrence at scheerpost.com:

International Criminal Court building (2016) in The Hague. OSeveno, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There are many things to say about the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on charges that the Russian president directed the abduction and deportation of thousands of  children from eastern Ukraine in the early months of the intervention that began a year ago. Let us settle on three of these things. 

Straight off the top, the ICC’s action announced on March 17 is ridiculous in any number of ways. Its  legality is questionable at the very least. Its premise appears to bear no relationship with reality; it will have no appreciable effect. It is a political gesture dressed up as law and, as a political gesture dressed up as law, it is sheer propaganda, nothing more. 

If an institution such as the ICC behaves ridiculously in these ways, it is not doing its credibility a great deal of good. To ask what use the ICC serves, despite its elevated purpose when it was founded 25 years ago, seems to be a good question.  

There is a history behind this kind of conduct. This is the second thing to say about what the ICC has just done. If we study this history even briefly, we are likely to be upset, because this history indicates that the many international institutions to which humanity has looked as a source of impartial order for the past 70–odd years do not work as intended. And they were fated not to work as intended so long as the United States insists, as it has since the 1945 victories, on global dominance. This is a case of either/or: We can have a stable world order on the basis of the U.N. Charter or other such instruments of international law, or we can have the American imperium, but we cannot have both. 

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The EU’s censorship regime is about to go global, by Norman Lewis

Big Tech has climbed into bed with the EU to kill the last vestiges of free speech in Europe. It may spread to the rest of the world. From Norman Lewis at spiked-online.org:

The authoritarian Digital Services Act means the death of free speech online.

The EU’s censorship regime is about to go global

Not many people know that 16 November 2022 was the day that freedom of speech died on the internet. This was the day the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into law. Under the DSA, very large online platforms (VLOPs) with more than 45million monthly active users – like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – will have to swiftly remove illegal content, hate speech and so-called disinformation from their platforms. Or they will face fines of up to six per cent of their annual global revenue. Larger platforms must be DSA compliant by this summer, while smaller platforms will be obliged to tackle this content from 2024 onwards.

The ramifications of this are immense. Not only will the DSA now enforce the regulation of content on the internet for the first time, but it is also set to become a global standard, not just a European one.

In recent years, the EU has largely realised its ambition to become a global regulatory superpower. The EU can dictate how any company worldwide must behave if it wants to operate in Europe, the world’s second-largest market. As a result, its strict regulatory standards often end up being adopted worldwide by both firms and other regulators, in what is known as the ‘Brussels effect’. Take the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a privacy law which came into force in May 2018. Among many other things, it requires individuals to give explicit consent before their data can be processed. These EU regulations have since become the global standard, and the same could now happen for the DSA.

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The Iran-Saudi deal: A bid to end endless war, by F.M. Shakil

Sunni and Shia will probably wage on-again off-again war until the end of time, but the Iran-Saudi deal looks like the start of a substantial off-again period. From F.M. Shakil at thecradle.co:

The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh is expected to have significant implications for peace and prosperity in and around West Asia, given the considerable influence the two nations wield in the region.

https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Pakistan-KSA-2-1.jpg

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The China-mediated Saudi-Iran peace agreement, inked on 10 March in Beijing, marks a significant geopolitical shift with far-reaching implications for the Persian Gulf and Iran’s neighboring countries. For decades, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been engaged in ideological and economic competition on the territories of their neighbors, causing regional tensions to escalate.

If the agreement is successful and relations between Riyadh and Tehran improve as envisioned, tensions will likely begin to significantly subside in the Persian Gulf, Levant, and further afield in neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan. The former, long concerned about its security and energy supply vulnerabilities, will potentially benefit from improved relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which could help address its oil and gas crises.

Similarly, Afghanistan, whose Taliban-led government is still struggling to gain international recognition and is in dire need of reconstruction and investment initiatives, may also benefit from the kingdom’s rapprochement with the Islamic Republic.

Persian Gulf States

An early litmus test for the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation will be its impact on Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, where a perceived proxy war has wreaked havoc on their respective economies and in their public spheres.

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Syrians Have Every Right To Attack US Occupiers: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, by Caitlin Johnstone

So-called terrorists defend their home country and attack an occupying power. And violence waged by the occupying power isn’t terrorism, it’s noble and just. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

The western world is solemnly commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion by blindly following the US into more conflict and militarism while repeating all the same kinds of mass media malpractice.

If you think it’s a coincidence that the western world suddenly got superduper interested in China’s human rights record right when China began threatening US planetary domination, then you’re a bootlicking moron who deserves to be shamed in public.

leaked 2017 State Department memo explicitly acknowledged that it’s US government policy to ignore the human rights violations of US-aligned nations while attacking them in nations like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Stop buying into this performance.

China has been sorting out China’s internal affairs for thousands of years; they don’t suddenly need help from a bunch of white stuffed shirts in Washington, London and Canberra just because a few sociopathic think tankers say so. Leave China’s issues to the Chinese to address.

People who live in the Middle East have every right to attack the occupying forces there whose presence they oppose, and those occupying forces do not have any legitimate right to retaliate.

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The great credit unwind and Powell’s hidden pivot, by Alasdair Macleod

Another trenchant analysis in real time by Alasdair Macleod. From Macleod at goldmoney.com:

We are all now aware that the global banking system is extremely fragile. Driving bank failures is contracting credit, which in turn drives interest rates higher. Though it is not generally appreciated, central banks have failed to suppress them.

Some regional banks have failed in the US and the run on Credit Suisse’s deposits has forced the Swiss authorities into forcing a reluctant rescue by UBS. Undoubtedly, as the great credit unwind plays out, there will be more rescues to come.

In this, the earliest stages of a banking crisis, some questions are being answered. We can probably rule out bail-ins in favour of bail outs, and we can assume that nearly all banks will be rescued — they must be in order to prevent systemic contagion. 

In this article I quantify the position of the global systemically important banks (the G-SIBs) and point out that the central banks which are meant to backstop them are themselves bankrupt — or rather they would be properly accounted for. 

Because even a minor failure in the banking system could undermine the entire global banking system, the much heralded pivot is now here, but not in plain sight. Because central banks have lost control over interest rates, the focus on preserving the financial markets underpinning the banking system has shifted to supressing bond yields. This is why the Fed has introduced its Bank Term Funding Programme, likely to be copied in other jurisdictions. 

It is Powell’s hidden pivot — his line in the sand. But it is the last desperate throw of the dice and depends entirely on inflation being transient and interest rates not rising much more. 

The price of even a successful preservation of the banking system is the destruction of fiat currencies, because the bigger picture is still of the greatest credit bubble in history unwinding. And that process has only recently started.

The great unwind accelerates 

Now that everyone in finance knows that there is a banking crisis, cynicism prevails. When a central banker or treasury minister tries to reassure the public, it is disbelieved. The risk to an extremely fragile global banking system is that if disbelief in public statements spreads from financial sceptics to the wider public, the system is doomed. All credit is based on confidence and confidence alone.

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