Infinite Unknown

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

- Gangster State America — Paul Craig Roberts (Paul Craig Roberts, May 13, 2013):

There are many signs of gangster state America. One is the collusion between federal authorities and banksters in a criminal conspiracy to rig the markets for gold and silver.

My explanation that the sudden appearance of an unprecedented 400 ton short sale of gold on the COMEX in April was a manipulation designed to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy has found acceptance among gold investors and hedge fund managers.

The sale was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery. No one but the Federal Reserve could have placed such an order, and the order came from one of the Fed’s bullion banks, one of the entities “too big to fail.”

Bill Kaye of the Greater Asian Hedge Fund in Hong Kong and Dave Kranzler of Golden Returns Capital have filled in the details of how the manipulation worked. Being sophisticated investors of many years of experience, both Kaye and Kranzler understand that the financial press runs with the authorized story planted to serve the agenda that has been put into play.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Collapse, COMEX, Economy, Exchange Traded Fund, Fed, Federal Reserve, Gold, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Silver, U.S.

- Elizabeth Warren Confronts Eric Holder, Ben Bernanke and Mary Jo White on Bankster Immunity (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 15, 2013):

Elizabeth Warren is one of the few Senators out there pushing to understand why the federal government has created an untouchable class of criminals in America that can do whatever they want whenever they want and, not only get away with it, but also get bailed out when they make mistakes.  In case you missed it, I highlighted a powerful video a few months ago in which she made regulators squirm when confronted on “too big to jail.” Now she has written a letter to Ben Bernanke, Eric Holder and Mary Jo White.  My favorite line is:

“If large financial institutions can break the law and accumulate millions in profits and, if they get caught, settle by paying out of those profits, they do not have much incentive to follow the law.”

Indeed, which is why they don’t.  Full letter embedded below.

Continue reading »

Tags: Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Elizabeth Warren, Eric Holder, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, Politics, U.S.

- Denver Public Schools Pay $216 Million to Wall Street Banks to Unwind Swaps (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 12, 2013):

You can move from New York City to Colorado, but it seems you can never escape the all encompassing tentacles of Wall Street parasitism and theft.  I recently covered a similar situation back in March in my piece Wall Street: $474 Million, Detroit: 0. In both cases it seems clear that public officials had no idea what they were getting into and there was a great deal of irresponsibility, but that is beside the point.  It’d be one thing to say these communities should suffer the consequences of their actions if Wall Street had to as well, but we all know that isn’t the case.  So it is highly immoral and culturally destructive to say it’s ok that Wall Street gets bailed out from all their mistakes and then is able to turn around and impose austerity on everyone else.  That’s the way America works today and we can thank Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama for that reality.  We must never forget the enablers in chief of all of this.  Oh, and did I mention that the $216 million paid by Denver represents two-thirds of annual teaching expenses? USA! USA!

From Bloomberg:

Wall Street banks collected $215.6 million that Denver’s public schools paid to unwind swaps and sell bonds since the district began borrowing to cut pension costs in 2008. That sum is about two-thirds of annual teaching expenses.

The district paid $146.6 million last month to banks, including RBC Capital Markets LLC, Wells Fargo Securities LLC and Bank of America Corp., to end interest-rate swaps as part of a second attempt to restructure a 2008 borrowing, bond documents show. The April 17 deal sold as the district’s property-tax rate has risen 26 percent in two years to fund education.

Municipal borrowers from Detroit’s utilities to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have paid billions of dollars to banks to end privately negotiated interest-rate bets sold as hedges. The Federal Reserve’s policy of holding its benchmark borrowing rate near zero since 2008 has turned many of the swaps into wrong-way bets.

Continue reading »

Tags: Bank of America, Banking, Bonds, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, U.S., Wall Street

- Every President His Bubble – And Its Aftermath (Testosterone Pit, May 10, 2013):

During their second term, Presidents become obsessed with “legacy.” One of the yardsticks to measure their success is the stock market. Many people can relate to it. Retirement depends on it. It’s mentioned even on NPR several times a day. Outside of a few shorts, everyone wants it to go up. But President Obama must now be biting his fingernails down to the quick.

Continue reading »

Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Government, Obama administration, Politics, U.S.

- Jim Grant On Gold’s Recent Drop: “Confidence In Bernanke Is Utterly Misplaced” (ZeroHedge, May 9, 2013):

“Inflation is a state of affairs in which there is too much money,” Jim Grant notes in this Bloomberg TV interview, however, “It’s not too much money chasing too few goods,” he corrects the misnomer, “the thing this money chases is variable.” Whether it is Iowa farmland, housing, stocks, or bonds, central banks are stuffing us with it. Yes, equities are high, but Grant explains, “beneath the surface of things or not so far beneath the surface of things,” it is not at all good, adding that, “Central bank ‘original sin’,” is akin to Revolutionary France, and he shows no concerns over Gold’s recent dip, noting “a general fatigue animus towards gold,” that seems predicated on more confidence in central bankers; to Grant, “that confidence is utterly misplaced!”

On Inflation: Continue reading »

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Gold, Inflation, Jim Grant, Real Estate

- Stocks Are Officially in a Blow Off Top (ZeroHedge, May 9, 2013):

This is the culmination of Bernanke’s life’s work. In his mind he has succeeded in saving capitalism by spending trillions of Dollars pushing stocks higher.

It doesn’t matter that the US hasn’t experienced 3% GDP growth a SINGLE year since he took the Fed.

Continue reading »

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Stock Market, U.S., Wall Street

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”
– Aldous Huxley – Brave New World Revisited

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
- George Orwell

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.”
-Aldous Huxley, 1961

- ABNORMALCY BIAS (The Burning Platform , May 9, 2013)

Tags: 1984, Alan Greenspan, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bonds, Debt, DHS, Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Food stamps, GDP, George Orwell, Glass Steagall, Global News, Government, Homeland Security, Iraq, Obama administration, Police State, Politics, Ron Paul, Society, SSDI, U.S.

- Godfrey Bloom of UKIP: Central Bankers Should be Arraigned as “War Criminals” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, May 7, 2013):

Coming off the heels of a fantastic performance in recent local elections, the UKIP under the leadership of Nigel Farage continues to make waves in both the UK and the Continent itself. In this case, I refer to a recent powerful performance at the European Parliament courtesy of Godfrey Bloom (UKIP), member of the European Parliament.

For many years, I have stated that Ben Bernanke was and is committing crimes against humanity, and would one day stand trial much like the war criminals at Nuremberg. It appears I am no longer alone in echoing such sentiments, as Mr. Bloom has just done so before the European Parliament.

I once said that Nigel Farage is Category 5 political hurricane.  That hurricane has landed.

Tags: Bank of England, Banking, Central Bank, Cyprus, Economy, EU, Euro, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Godfrey Bloom, Government, Mario Draghi, Neuroscience, Nigel Farage, Politics, Quantitative Easing, U.K., UKIP

- This Is The S&P With And Without QE (ZeroHedge, May 6, 2013):

…

One final point: for all those who say the Fed’s QE has “been successful”, or the stock market is sufficiently strong and does not need any more forced liquidity injections, here is a simple suggestion: just end it.

…

Tags: Economy, Fed, Federal Reserve, Global News, Quantitative Easing, S&P 500, Stock Market

YouTube Added: 03.05.2013

Tags: Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bonds, Central Bank, Collapse, Debt, Dollar, ECB, Economy, EU, Europe, Fed, Federal Reserve, Gerald Celente, Global News, Government, Inflation, Ireland, Jean-Claude Trichet, Mario Draghi, Obama administration, Politics, Quantitative Easing, Retailers, Society, U.S., Unemployment