Tag Archives: IMF

The Economic End Game Continues, by Brandon Smith

Posted on November 4, 2017 | Leave a comment

Brandon Smith outlines his vision of what’s going to happen to the global financial system and economy. From Smith at alt-market.com:

In November of 2014 I published an article titled ‘The Economic End Game Explained’. In it I outlined what I believed would be the process by which globalists would achieve what they call the “new world order” or what they sometimes call the “global economic reset.” As I have shown in great detail in the past, the globalist agenda includes a fiscal end game; a prize or trophy that they hope to obtain. This prize is a completely centralized global economic structure, rooted in a single central bank for the world, the removal of the U.S. dollar as world reserve currency, the institution of the SDR basket system which will act as a bridge for single a global currency supplanting all others and, ultimately, global governance of this system by a mere handful of “elites.”

The timeline for this process is unclear, but there is some indication of when the “beginning of the end” would commence. As noted in the globalist owned magazine The Economist, in an article titled “Get Ready For The Phoenix,” the year of 2018 seems to be the launching point for the great reset. This timeline is supported by the numerous measures already taken to undermine dollar dominance in international trade as well as elevate the International Monetary Fund’s SDR basket. It is clear that the globalists have deadlines they intend to meet.

That said, there have been some new developments since I wrote my initial analysis on the end-game strategy that I think merit serious attention. The end game continues, faster than ever before, and here are some of the indicators showing that the “predictions” of the globalists at The Economist in 1988 were more like self-fulfilling prophecies and 2018 remains a primary nexus point for a re-engineering of our economic environment.

Using The East To Dismantle The Petrodollar

As I mentioned in last week’s article, ‘Lies And Distractions Surrounding The Petrodollar,’ there has been silence and often disinformation in the mainstream when it comes to the quite open and obvious international pivot away from the dollar as the defacto purchasing mechanism for oil. This trend is only set to accelerate in two months as China begins fulfilling oil contracts in the Yuan instead of the dollar.

To continue reading: The Economic End Game Continues

 

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Dear President Trump: America is in for a Rude Awakening in January, by James Rickards

Posted on September 11, 2017 | 2 comments

James Rickards says that come the new year, the globalists will dump the dollar in favor of Special Drawing Rights issued by the International Monetary Fund. From Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

Dear President Trump,

Over the last couple of years I’ve been all over TV… from Fox News to CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg. I’ve been telling our fellow Americans that the financial global elite was planning to issue their own globalist currency called special drawing rights, or SDRs.

And that those elites would use this new currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.

I’ve even written about this extensively in my best-selling booksThe Road to Ruin and The New Case for Gold.

I’m sure some people in the mainstream media thought I was out of line — but the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have both confirmed this plan to replace the U.S. dollar is real. I’ve made this warning many times, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. That’s why I’m writing directly to you.

Here’s the proof that the U.S. dollar is under attack, right in front of our eyes:

The UN said we need “a new global reserve system… that no longer relies on the United States dollar as the single major reserve currency.”

And the IMF admitted they want to make “the special drawing right (SDR) the principal reserve asset in the [International Monetary System].”

More recently, the IMF advanced their plan by helping private institutions, such as the UK’s Standard Chartered Bank, issue bonds in SDRs.

Although our mainstream media ignored this major event, the UK media reported:

SDR Special Drawing Rights

This is all happening. And on January 1st, 2018, this trend to replace the U.S. dollar will accelerate. That’s when the global elite will implement a major change to the plumbing of our financial system.

It’s a brand-new worldwide banking system called Distributed Ledger Technology. And it will have a huge impact on seniors who are now preparing for retirement.

When this system goes live, many nations will be able to dump the U.S. dollar for SDRs.

To continue reading: Dear President Trump: America is in for a Rude Awakening in January

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The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin, by Brandon Smith

Posted on July 28, 2017 | 2 comments

SLL does not pretend to expertise in cryptocurrency, but Brandon’s Smith hypothesis certainly sounds plausible. From Smith at alt-market.com:

This week the International Monetary Fund shocked some economic analysts with an announcement that America was “no longer first in the world” as a major economic growth engine. This stinging assertion falls exactly in line with the narrative out of the latest G20 summit; that the U.S. is fading away leaving the door open for countries like Germany and China to join forces and fill the power void. I wrote about this rising relationship between these two nations as well as the ongoing controlled demolition of America’s economy in my article ‘The New World Order Will Begin With Germany And China’.

I find it interesting that the IMF is once again taking the lead on perpetuating the image of a failing U.S., just as they often push for the concept of a single global currency system to replace the dollar as the world reserve. The most common faulty counter-argument I run into when outlining the globalist agenda to supplant the dollar with the Special Drawing Rights basket system is that “the IMF is a U.S. government controlled organization that would never undermine U.S. authority.” Obviously, the people who make this argument have been thoroughly duped.

The IMF is constantly and actively undermining America’s economic position, because the IMF is NOT an American controlled organization; its loyalty is to globalism as an ideology as well as the international financiers that dominate central banking. America’s supposed “veto power” within the IMF is incidental and meaningless — it has not stopped the IMF from chasing the replacement of the the dollar structure and forming the fiscal ties that stand as the root of what they sometimes call the “global economic reset.”

To illustrate how the IMF narrative supports the globalist narrative, I suggest comparing the 2009 “predictions” of George Soros on China replacing the U.S. as the world’s economic engine to the IMF’s latest analysis on the decline of America.

The IMF cares only about centralizing everything, from currency to trade to governance. If the sacrifice of the old world system (the U.S. dollar) is required to create their new world system, then that is what they will do. If you have read my article ‘The Federal Reserve Is A Saboteur — And The “Experts” Are Oblivious’, then you understand that the Fed is also perfectly on board with this plan for a global reset. The central bankers, regardless of the nation they happen to reside, stick together and function as agents of larger controlling organisms like the Bank for International Settlements.

To continue reading: The Globalist One World Currency Will Look A Lot Like Bitcoin

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He Said That? 2/10/17

Posted on February 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

From Simon English, “IMF Admits Its Policies Seldom Work,” The Telegraph, March 20, 2003:

The International Monetary Fund, the Washington-based bank set up to police the financial globe and assist the Third World, yesterday made the startling admission that the policies it has been pursuing for the las 60 years do not often work. In a paper that will be seized on by IMF critics across the political spectrum leading officials reveal they can find little evidence of their own success. Countries that follow IMF suggestions often suffer a “collapse in growth rates and significant financial crises,” with open currency markets merely serving to “amplify the effects of various shocks.” A recent study by the United Nations reported that the 47 poorest countries in the world—the biggest recipients of loans from the IMF and the World Bank—are pooreer now than they were when the IMF was founded in 1944.

Loans in the last few years to Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Russia and Argentina are widely regarded as having little positive effect. Activists in Bolivia last month blamed an IMF inspired tax increase for rioting that led to at least 20 deaths.

A spokesman said the report should not be seen as an admission that the IMF itself had failed, but he admitted it was considering an overhaul of its practices.

And to think there are some people who think the future lies with globalist multilateral institutions.

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IMF meddling on Brexit is scandalous skulduggery, by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Posted on May 14, 2016 | Leave a comment

Most people don’t even know what a credit default swap is, which allowed the IMF to dress up a not particularly scary market development as some sort of ominous portent should British voters approve a Brexit. From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at telegraph.co.uk:

IMF chief Christine Lagarde and Chancellor George Osborne are in cahoots

If the International Monetary Fund and its co-conspirators in the Treasury wish to deter undecided voters from flirting with Brexit, they have certainly failed in my case.

Having listened to their irritating lectures, I am more inclined to opt for defiance, for their mask of objectivity has fallen. There can no longer be any doubt that they are playing politics with the democratic self-determination of this country.

The Fund gives the game away in point 8 of its Article IV conclusion on the UK economy. It states that “the cost of insuring against a UK sovereign default has doubled (albeit from a low level)”. Any normal person who does not follow the derivatives markets would interpret this as a grim warning from global investors.

Yes, the price of credit default swaps on 5-year UK debt – the proxy we all use – has jumped from 17 to 37 since late last year. But the IMF neglected to mention that it has risen from 15 to 33 in Switzerland, from 26 to 43 in France, and from 45 to 65 in Korea.

The jump has almost nothing to do with Brexit, and the IMF knows this perfectly well. The French have an expression that will be familiar to the IMF’s Christine Lagarde: ils font feu de tout bois.

Her own IMF mentor and long-time chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, told me last month that there was no risk whatsoever of a sovereign bond crisis, or a Gilts strike, or a sudden stop of any kind. “Will financing be more difficult after Brexit? Will investors see the British government as more risky? I don’t think so,” he said.

Professor Blanchard, who recently stepped down from the Fund and is free to speak his mind, says there may be a price to pay for Brexit but it is impossible to calculate.

“The cost of exiting will not be seamless, and the uncertainty will last for a very long time afterwards. Firms deciding whether to locate a plant in the UK or in the Continent will wait. Investment will drop,” he said. But he also said weaker pound would cushion the effects of falling investment to some degree.

So bare this in mind when you comb through today’s Article IV statement with its delicious mix of precision and selective vagueness on the alleged damage of Brexit.

The hit ranges from 1.5pc to 9.5pc of GDP. Note the decimal points. The range depends on whether it is “a la Switzerland, a la Norway, or a la WTO,” said Madame Lagarde.

Perhaps it is churlish to point out that the IMF completely missed the onset of the global financial crisis, and was blindsided when the US fell into recession in November 2007. The Fund’s staff were still predicting sunlit uplands as far as the eye could see, even when the blackest of black storms was upon them.

To continue reading: IMF meddling on Brexit is scandalous skulduggery

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There Are No Markets, Only [IMF] Manipulation, by Mark Nestmann

Posted on September 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Check out the figures on the notational value of derivatives at the end of this post. From Mark Nestmann, on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:

I can’t help but be reminded of the truism of this week’s article title, watching Chinese stock prices drop, day after day. In response, Chinese securities regulators have banned most short selling. They’ve pressured mutual funds to buy stocks and run advertisements that extol the virtues of buying stocks.

The Chinese central bank has even parceled out cash to brokers to make it easier for investors to buy on margin. As central banks do, it’s creating the cash out of thin air. The central bank also announced a surprise devaluation of the yuan, China’s currency.

So far, the intervention hasn’t worked. Chinese stocks continue to plummet. The latest interventions urge companies to buy back their shares and boost dividends. Perhaps the central bank will create more money to pay for it all.

That might stop the plunge. But then again, it might not.

China is hardly alone in overtly manipulating its markets. This blatant effort to manipulate stock prices is only the most recent desperate gamble by global governments to prop up markets. They’ll do just about anything to prevent a repeat of the 2007-2008 recession.

Their playbook comes from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which advises governments to engage in “financial repression” to buoy up global markets.

The IMF’s recipe to avoid what former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke calls “chaotic unwinding” includes bail-ins, higher inflation, negative interest rates, and capital controls. The IMF even proposes a “one-off capital levy” – outright confiscation of private savings – at a rate of 10% or higher.

But as world markets have demonstrated over the last few weeks, it doesn’t always work.

The cause of this chaotic unwinding is excessive debt combined with leveraged bets financed by more debt.

The world economy is floating on a gargantuan mountain of debt; collateralized, re-collateralized, hypothecated, and semi-hypothecated. Total world indebtedness now stands close to $200 trillion. That amounts to 286% of the global GDP of $70 trillion.

What’s more, according to the Bank for International Settlements, the total notional value of derivatives (i.e., bets on the value of something else, like a stock, bond, interest rate, etc.) traded over the counter was $630 trillion for the last six months of 2014. There’s another $600 trillion or so of exchange-traded derivatives, structured notes, and custom-designed derivatives. They include options, futures, and credit default swaps, along with securities backed by assets (many of dubious value, such as high-risk mortgages).

That amounts to about $1.2 quadrillion, or 1,868% of global GDP.

To continue reading: There Are No Markets, Only [IMF] Manipulation

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IMF Rips Pandora’s Box To Shreds, Demands Greek Debt Relief “Far Beyond What Europe Has Been Willing To Consider”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on July 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

The first two sentences run on and on, but this Zero Hedge article offers a good summary of the IMF’s view of Greek debt. From Tyler Durden, at zerohedge.com:

Earlier today, Reuters first leaked that just two weeks after the IMF released its first revised Greek debt sustainability report, one which the Eurogroup desperately tried to squash as it urged for a 30% debt haircut and came hours before the Greek referendum vote giving the Oxi camp hope and crushing Tsipras’ carefully laid plan to lose the vote and capitulate with integrity instead of having to capitulate a week later after 17 hours of “mental waterboarding” and have his reputation torn to shreds, the IMF would release a follow up report updating its view on the Greek economy which in just two short weeks of capital controls has utterly imploded.

Just like the first IMF report, which we correctly compared to the opening of a Pandora’s box, and with which the IMF also obliterated the careful plans of the Troika, so with this follow up the IMF effectively crushes the glideslope of the latest Greek bailout process barely scraped together on Monday morning and has torn Pandora’s box to shreds with the following summary assessment: “Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far.”

Yes, debt relief… just the others’ debt: not the IMF’s, please.

So what just happened?

As of this moment the IMF is telling Greece that if nothing changes, it will die of cancer with 100% certainty; on the other hand the Eurogroup is telling Greece it will die of a heart attack also wih 100% certainty if anything changes.

Good luck with the choice.

To continue reading: IMF Rips Pandora’s Box To Shreds

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This Is Why The Euro Is Finished, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on July 4, 2015 | Leave a comment

The Greeks are being bombarded with gloom and doom about will await them if they vote no tomorrow and eventually leave the EU. However, Raúl Ilargi Meijer, citing a Brett Arends’ MarketWatch article, makes the point that several nations outside the EU in Europe have done just fine, and have outperformed EU nations economically. From Meijer, at automaticearth.com:

The IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis report on Greece that came out this week has caused a big stir. We now know that the Fund’s analysts confirm what Syriza has been saying ever since they came to power 5 months ago: Greece needs debt relief, lots of it, and fast.

We also know that Europe tried to silence the report. But what’s most interesting is that this has been going on for months, as per Reuters. Ergo, the IMF has known about the -preliminary- analysis for months, and kept silent, while at the same time ‘negotiating’ with Greece on austerity and bailouts.

And if you dig a bit deeper still, there’s no avoiding the fact that the IMF hasn’t merely known this for months, it’s known it for years. The Greek Parliamentary Debt Committee reported three weeks ago that it has in its possession an IMF document from 2010(!) that confirms the Fund knew even at that point in time.

That is to say, it already knew back then that the bailout executed in 2010 would push Greece even further into debt. Which is the exact opposite of what the bailout was supposed to do.

The 2010 bailout was the one that allowed private French, Dutch and German banks to transfer their liabilities to the Greek public sector, and indirectly to the entire eurozone‘s public sector. There was no debt restructuring in that deal.

Reuters yesterday reported that “Publication of the draft Debt Sustainability Analysis laid bare a dispute between Brussels and [the IMF] that has been simmering behind closed doors for months..

But that’s not the whole story. Evidently, there was a major dispute inside the IMF as well. The decision to release the report was apparently taken without even a vote, because it was obvious the Fund’s board members wanted the release. The US played a substantial role in that decision. Why the timing? Hard to tell.

The big question that arises from this is: what has been Christine Lagarde’s role in this charade? If she has been instrumental is keeping the analysis under wraps, she has done the IMF a lot of reputational damage, and it’s getting hard to see how she could possibly stay on as IMF chief. She has seen to it that the Fund has lost an immense amount of trust in the world. And without trust, the IMF is useless.

To continue reading: This Is Why The Euro Is Finished

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China Targets Dollar, Washington Has Conniptions, by Wolf Richter

Posted on April 4, 2015 | Leave a comment

Outside of Washington, the world makes way for a rising power and its currency. From Wolf Richter, at wolfstreet.com:

Now even Israel – joined at the hip to the US though the relationship has run into rough waters – has applied to become a founding member of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Despite US gyrations to keep them from it, over 40 countries, including bosom buddies Australia, Britain, and Germany, have signed up to join. Japan is still wavering politely.

The US government sees the China-dominated AIIB as competition to the US-dominated World Bank and Asian Development Bank. But now that it is clear even to the White House that the US can’t stop the tide, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew backpedaled vigorously on Tuesday. The government would welcome the AIIB, he suddenly said, as long as certain conditions are met, such as adequate transparency.

So after this bruising setback, the US now has another opportunity to oppose China’s financial and monetary ambitions.

China is trying to get the IMF to bestow reserve currency status on the yuan, which would add the yuan to a glorious basket that includes the dollar and the euro – currently the dominant reserve currencies with a 63% and 22% share respectively. So it has been lobbying core members of the IMF behind the scenes for support, and they’re coming around despite US conniptions, the Wall Street Journal reported.

China also wants the yuan to become part of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights “in the foreseeable future,” Yi Gang, Director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China, pointed out a couple of weeks ago. With the yuan, SDRs – which currently include only the dollar, the euro, the yen, and the British pound – would “undoubtedly” be more “representative” of the global economic landscape, Yi said.

Numerous countries are already publicly supporting the yuan as a payment currency. Excluding transactions between China and Hong Kong, the yuan’s use as payment currency is still tiny and edged down last year, handicapped also by China’s restrictions on capital flows. But hey, those are minor details. By now, there are 15 yuan clearing centers around the world, including in London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Luxembourg.

And oops, the rebellious city of Los Angeles, in the rebellious state of California, has signed such a deal with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China late last year, without apparently asking distant Washington for permission. So this is happening, whether the US government wants it or not.

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/04/02/china-targets-dollar-us-government-has-conniptions-yuan-reserve-currency-sdr/

To continue reading: China Targets Dollar, Washington Has Conniptions

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How Far Is It From Kiev To Athens? from Raul Ilargi Meijer

Posted on February 26, 2015 | Leave a comment

From Raúl Ilargi Meijer, at automatic earth.com:

Riddle me this, Batman. I don’t think I get it, and I definitely don’t get why nobody is asking any questions. The IMF and EU make a lot of noise – through the Eurogroup – about all the conditions Greece has to address to get even a mild extension of support, while the same IMF and EU keep on handing out cash to Ukraine without as much as a whisper – at least publicly.

The Kiev government, which has been ceaselessly and ruthlessly attacking its own people, is now portrayed as needing – monetary and military – western help in order to be able to ‘defend’ itself. From the people it’s been attacking, presumably. And hardly a soul in the west asks what that is all about.

Why did Kiev kill 5000 of its own citizens? Because there are people in East Ukraine who had – and still have – the guts to say they don’t want to be ruled by a regime willing to murder them for saying they don’t want to be ruled by it. And just in case there’s any confusion left about this, yes, that is the regime we are actively supporting, in undoubtedly many more ways than are made public. All the doubts about the western narrative are swept aside with one move: blame Putin.

Of the two countries, Greece, despite its humanitarian issues, is by far the luckiest one. Ukraine is quite a few steps further down the hill. One can be forgiven for contemplating that the west, aided by President Poroshenko and the Yats regime in Kiev, is dead set on obliterating the entire nation.

There are again peace talks under way, with no – direct – Anglo-Saxon involvement, but as the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany meet, Britain announces it’s sending military personnel into Ukraine and Poroshenko buys weapons from UAE, which is the same as saying from America. Where does he get the money? Chocolate sales? Had a good Valentine’s campaign?

Baltic states reinforce their armies (Lithuania just launched conscription), as NATO expands its presence there. The constantly repeated message is that Putin will attack them. It’s a made-up story. Poroshenko says he wants Crimea back, even as he knows full well that’s not going to happen.

What part of the fresh round of IMF/EU loans will go towards arms purchases? Can Brussels please supply a run-down ASAP? Don’t Europeans have a right to know where their money goes?

http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/02/how-far-is-it-from-kiev-to-athens/

To continue reading: How Far Is It From Kiev To Athens?

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