Category Archives: Currencies

PSYOP-MARKET-CRASH Black Swan Edition: Bank for International Settlements Warns of $100 Trillion of Hidden Debt Just Discovered, by 2nd Smartest Guy in the World

Posted on December 11, 2022 | 2 comments

The amount of derivatives and debt in the global financial system is so large that $100 trillion can be laying around, undiscovered. The total amount of derivatives is, by knowledgeable estimates, over one quadrillion (a thousand trillions). From 2nd Smartest Guy in the World at 2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com:

The world faces a staggering financial meltdown with potential losses exceeding the total number of US dollars in circulation.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is the central bank of central banks that for all intents and purposes directs all of the other various central banks from The Federal Reserve to the ECB to the BOJ.

The BIS is like the One World Government central bank to the various sovereign national central banks that appear to be independent, but are all privately owned and actively working against the interests of their respective nations.

The BIS is like the hyper-centralized control center, and the various national central banks are its “penetrator” nodes.

All of the national central banks will deploy their respective CBDC products to coincide with the imminent global financial crash to end all crashes. These CBDCs will be the opening salvos in the Great Reset. At some point yet another manufactured crisis will consolidate all of the various CBDC’s into a supra-crypto-SDR (Special Drawing Rights) CBDC that will function as the singular planetary digital currency, at which point the national central banks will all be consolidated into the BIS.

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Posted in Banking, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economy, Financial markets

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5 Principles Of Stagflation, by Jeffrey Tucker

Posted on December 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

Anyone who lived the 1970s knows what stagflation is. It’s back. From Jeffrey Tucker at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:

Stagflation is the combination of slow or falling economic output plus high inflation. For nearly two years, we’ve been stuck in this pattern and it still feels confusing. Prices for many items such as cars and homes have whipsawed around in strange ways, up one month and down the next, only to repeat the pattern.

As inflation started, many people believed the official line that this was “transitory,” a word that people heard as “temporary.” If you think about it, the word transitory is meaningless as a predictive tool. It means moving from one thing to another thing without saying what the thing is. It turns out that transitory meant a transition to a permanently and dramatically weaker dollar from 2019 prices.

People such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen likely knew this. They just wanted to calm people’s fears and keep them believing false things until the midterm elections. Contrast that to how this crowd handled the virus of 2020: They promoted public panic in every possible way as a means of terrifying the population into compliance and ultimately turning against the president. Indeed, that was the goal all along.

In any case, it should be obvious by now that inflation is the new normal. We’ll never see 2019 prices across the board again, simply because for that to happen, the Federal Reserve would have to tolerate a deflation of 12 to 15 percent. If that does happen—and it’s highly unlikely—it won’t be because the Fed wants it that way. It would suggest that the Fed had lost control completely.

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Deglobalization And The End Of Trust-Based Money Set The Stage For National Bitcoin Adoption, by Ansel Lindner

Posted on December 7, 2022 | 1 comment

Trust-based money means money that has nothing going for it other than social custom and legal tender laws lead to its acceptance. The only thing behind it is promises from people who repeatedly lie to us—central bankers and politician. Bitcoin is a whole new ball game. From Ansel Lindner at bitcoinmagazine.com:

This is an opinion editorial by Ansel Lindner, a bitcoin and financial markets researcher and the host of the “Bitcoin & Markets” and “Fed Watch” podcasts.

Two forces have dominated the globe economically and politically for the last 75 years: globalization and trust-based money. However, the time for both of these forces has passed, and their waning will bring about a great reset of the global order.

But this is not the global, Marxist kind of Great Reset promoted by Klaus Schwab and those who attend Davos. This is an emergent, market-driven reset characterized by a multipolar world and a new monetary system.

Globalization Is Ending

The first reaction I usually get to my claim that the age of hyper-globalization is ending is flippant disbelief. People have so completely integrated the environment of the dying global order into their economic understanding that they cannot fathom a world where the cost-to-benefit analysis of globalization is different. Even after COVID-19 exposed the fragility of complex supply chains, like when the U.S. very nearly ran out of surgical masks and basic medications or when the world struggled to source semiconductors, people have yet to realize the shift that is happening.

Is it that hard to imagine that the businessmen who designed such fragile, overcomplicated production processes didn’t properly weigh the risks?

All that is needed to break globalization is for risk-adjusted costs to change a few percentage points and outweigh the benefits. The pennies saved by outsourcing numerous tasks to numerous jurisdictions will no longer outweigh the possibility of complete collapse of supply chains.

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From Covid to CBDC: The Path to Full Control, by Josh Stylman

Posted on December 6, 2022 | 1 comment

Central bank digital currency is a social engineer’s dream and most everyone else’s nightmare. From Josh Stylman at brownstone.org:

 
Covid CBDC control

It’s seemed evident for a while that the current fiat monetary system is, at best, unstable. At worst, it’s a Ponzi scheme whose time has expired. If that’s the case, I suspect the central bankers and 0.1% know this and might be prepared to usher in the new system before the old one collapses on itself – even as they loot it on the way down with the most significant wealth transfer in human history. 

To anyone who pays attention to these trends, it seems evident that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will be that new system.

Every indication is that CBDC’s arrival is imminent. Yesterday, several global banks announced a partnership with the NY Federal Reserve to pilot digital dollars. Given the ubiquity of credit/debit cards, payment apps, and other online payment systems, digital money has been bound to happen for some time. The risk isn’t the electronic part, that’s inevitable – it’s the fact that a central bank will oversee the digital currency.

From my vantage point, it’s impossible to overstate the risk presented by CBDC. Whether it’s a utopian vision based on good intentions or a sinister plot to crush our sovereignty, the result may be the same: control. A Central Bank Digital Currency has all the downsides of fiat money, plus the added layers of surveillance and programmability overseen by the state. 

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An Invisible Prison Has Been Built Just for You, by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Posted on December 5, 2022 | 1 comment

The technology for the digital Panopticon is being rolled out. From Dr. Joseph Mercola at theburningplatform.com:

Story at-a-glance

  • An international vaccine passport, digital identity, a social credit system and a central bank digital currency (CBDC) form a digital control system that will lock down the population in perpetuity
  • Facial recognition is an essential part of the control structure, as it’s the “password” to your digital identity
  • By the end of 2022, there will be 1 billion data collecting surveillance cameras in the world, all connected to the internet and artificial intelligence (AI). Cameras and audio recording devices in cell phones, automobiles and smart appliances also collect and share data
  • All these data are then used to give each person an individual score, based on their behavior, expression and interaction with the world. Ultimately, your social credit score, will dictate what you can and cannot do, what you can buy and where you can go
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is an absolutely crucial component, without which the control system cannot work. The easiest way to push against this system is to starve AI of data by refusing to use technologies that collect and share your personal data

In the video above, Maria Zeee with ZeeeMedia interviews computer scientist Aman Jabbi about the coming international vaccine passport, digital identity, the social credit system being built in the West, and central bank digital currency (CBDC).

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Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Economy, Government, Media, Politics, Privacy, Science, Surveillance, Technology, Tyranny

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America’s Insolvency Is Mandatory, by Brian McGlinchey

Posted on December 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

America’s bankruptcy is set in legislative stone. From Brian McGlinchey at starkrealities.substack.com:

Forget annual budget dramas — federal spending is largely on autopilot and headed for a crash

In October, the U.S. national debt reached $31 trillion, and the government is projected to wade another trillion dollars into the red in the 2023 fiscal year. The longer-term picture is even gloomier, with the deficit expected to double to $2 trillion by 2030.

Indeed, the longer the horizon, the worse things get. At 98% of Gross Domestic Product, the current national debt is the highest it’s been since just after World War II. On its current course, the debt will soar to 185% of the country’s entire economic output by 2052.

What’s particularly troubling is that the government’s 2022 $1.3 trillion-dollar deficit came at a time of near-record tax intake. At 19.8% of GDP, Uncle Sam’s 2022 tax haul was close to the all-time high of 20.5% set in 1944.

Washington doesn’t have a revenue problem — it has a spending problem.

What few people realize, however, is the extent to which the U.S. government’s disastrous trajectory is on autopilot, thanks to the fact that an ever-larger proportion of federal spending happens without Congressional action.

To understand why, it’s important to first understand that there are two main categories of government spending:

  • Discretionary spending, which requires a vote by Congress as part of the annual appropriations process.

  • Mandatory spending, which is dictated by previously-enacted laws and thus happens without an annual vote in Congress. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid comprise a big majority of mandatory spending.

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In The End The $ Goes To Zero And The US Defaults, by Egon von Greyerz

Posted on December 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

That’s where this train is headed. From Egon von Greyerz at goldswitzerland.com:

With US and Global debt exploding prior to both assets and debt imploding, let us look at the disastrous consequences for the US and the world.

Debt explosion leading to the currency becoming worthless has happened in history for as long as there has been some form of money whether we talk about 3rd century Rome, 18th century France or 20th century Weimar Republic and many many more.

So here we are again, another monetary era and another guaranteed collapse as von Mises said:

“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse
of a boom brought about by credit expansion”

This disastrous borrowed prosperity, with ZERO ability to repay the surging debt,  will lead to one of the three consequences below:

1. THE US$ GOES TO ZERO

2. A US DEFAULT

3. BOTH OF THE ABOVE

The most likely outcome is number 3 in my view. The dollar will go to ZERO and the US will default. The same will happen to most countries.

I outline the consequences for the world at the end of his article.

Many people say that the US can never default. That is of course absolute nonsense.

If a country prints worthless debt that nobody will buy in a currency that no one wants to hold, the country has definitely defaulted whatever spin they put on it.

In the next few years, not just US but all sovereign debt will only have one buyer which is the country that issues the debt. And every time a sovereign state buys its own debt, it has to issue more worthless debt that nobody will touch with a barge pole.

Printing more money to pay for previous sins has never worked and never will.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Collapse, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Financial markets, Governments, History

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The Lost World of the Barbarous Relic, by George F. Smith

Posted on December 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

It’s hard for a country to wage war if its government is on the gold standard. From George F. Smith at lewrockwell.com:

It’s one of the greatest ironies of history that gold detractors refer to the metal as the barbarous relic, when in fact the abandonment of gold has put civilization as we know it at risk of extinction.

The gold coin standard that had served Western economies so brilliantly throughout most of the 19th century hit a brick wall in 1914 and was never able to recover, so the story goes.  Europe turned from prosperity to destruction, or more precisely, to the prosperity of a few and destruction of others, as the Great War got underway.  The gold coin standard had to be ditched for such a prodigious undertaking.

If gold was money, and wars cost money, how was this even possible?

First, people had been in the habit of using money substitutes instead of money itself – paper bank notes instead of the gold coins for which they could be redeemed on demand.  People found it more convenient to carry paper around in their pockets than gold coins.  Over time the paper itself came to be regarded as money, with the gold it represented a clunky inconvenience from the old days.

Second, banks had been in the habit of issuing more bank notes and deposits than they had gold in their vaults and would on occasion arouse the suspicion of the public that the notes were making promises the banks couldn’t keep.  The courts sided with the banks and allowed them to suspend note redemption while otherwise staying in business, thus strengthening the government/bank alliance.  Since the deposits really belonged to the banks once they were deposited — said the courts — bankers could not be accused of embezzlement.  The occasional bank runs that erupted were interpreted as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If people lining up to pull their money out believed their banks were insolvent, the banks soon would be.  Most people had no idea their banks were loaning out most of their deposits.  They didn’t know fractional reserve banking, a form of counterfeiting, was the norm.

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Winter in Central Europe and for the dollar, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on December 3, 2022 | Leave a comment

Economic realities may drive the West to the bargaining table with Russia on Ukraine. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

In this article I examine the current state of the fight for hegemonic control between America on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. It is being fought on two fronts. Ukraine, the one in plain sight, is about to endure a winter without power and adequate food potentially leading to a humanitarian crisis.

The other front is financial with America facing a coordinated attack by Russia and China on its dollar hegemony. The Russians are planning a replacement trade settlement currency, which if it succeeds, could unleash a flood of foreign-owned dollars onto the foreign exchanges.

We have no way of knowing how advanced this plan is, but the indications point perhaps to a gold-based digital currency. Moscow establishing a new gold exchange, Asian central banks accumulating additional gold reserves, and Saudi Arabia seeking non-dollar payments for oil sales are all circumstantial evidence.

As well as these plans, there has been an underlying shift away from a long-term everything financial bubble, with the prospect of higher interest rate levels in time. The reasons for foreign ownership of fiat dollars are diminishing, and a successful new Asian trade currency will only add to the dollar’s woes.

Could this pressure compel America de-escalate Ukraine and sanctions against Russia? The argument to do so has become compelling. It is also a way to lower energy prices, giving central banks needed room for interest rate manoeuvre. 

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The Global South births a new game-changing payment system, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on December 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

The supremacy of the dollar may soon be a thing of the past. From Pepe Escobar at thesaker.is:

Challenging the western monetary system, the Eurasia Economic Union is leading the Global South toward a new common payment system to bypass the US Dollar.

The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is speeding up its design of a common payment system, which has been closely discussed for nearly a year with the Chinese under the stewardship of Sergei Glazyev, the EAEU’s minister in charge of Integration and Macro-economy.

Through its regulatory body, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the EAEU has just extended a very serious proposal to the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which, crucially, are already on the way to turning into BRICS+: a sort of G20 of the Global South.

The system will include a single payment card – in direct competition with Visa and Mastercard – merging the already existing Russian MIR, China’s UnionPay, India’s RuPay, Brazil’s Elo, and others.

That will represent a direct challenge to the western-designed (and enforced) monetary system, head on. And it comes on the heels of BRICS members already transacting their bilateral trade in local currencies, and bypassing the US dollar.

This EAEU-BRICS union was long in the making – and will now also move toward prefiguring a further geoeconomic merger with the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

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