Hitler was financed by @FederalReserve and @BankofEngland

It takes long-term thinking to understand geo-political processes.

It takes a ‘niche interest’ to want to study how the world has been duped and deceived into what’s so dishonest about our money system. 

And it takes a historian who wants to know the truth:

Yuri Rubtsov is a doctor of historical sciences, academician of the Academy of military sciences, and member of  the International Association of historians of world war II.

The result is this article:

• Hitler was financed by the Fed and the Bank of England.

An excellent time line of four roughly 5-year stages, starting 1919, and an important account of the key players in finance and in industry.

 

 

#CAPITALISM by 1% Nick Hanauer: wake up, fellow plutocrats, the pitchforks will come for us!

This TED talk is about economics rather than money creation. But at least he does challenge ‘trickle down’ academic economics. Nick Hanauer has founded, co-founded and funded some 30 companies, i.e. he talks as an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, everybody can make some kind of difference. The difference the top 1% can make is just bigger!

“I am not making a moral argument. I am arguing that RISING economic inequality is STUPID. The model should be Henry Ford who intuited that

• an economy needs to be understood as an ecosystem.

21st century understanding of economics is about

• complex, adaptive, ecosystemic
• not efficient and effective.

Capitalism does not work by effectively allocating resources.

His ideas of ‘new capitalism’ include

• shrinking the size of government
• investing in the middle class
• balancing the power between ‘minimum wage’ and people like me.

Economics encode social and moral preferences, it’s not an exact science.

Fellow plutocrats, it is time to commit to a new kind of capitalism!

Related articles

• 10) In what ways higher levels of economic inequality hinders economic growth and social mobility in the long run ? Discuss this statement in the light of growing inequality in India. Make a case for re-introduction of inheritance tax in India.
• C-Span: Economic Inequality and the U.S. Tax System
• Redistribution or Inclusion?

How Iceland Overthrew the Banks – the only 3 Mins of any Worth from Davos

DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 30JAN10 – Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland captured in the session ‘Financial Risk Management 2.0?’ of the Annual Meeting 2010 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 30, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Only 3 Minutes Of Any Worth From Davos

Submitted by Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge

How Iceland Overthrew The Banks

“Why do we consider banks to be like holy churches?” is the rhetorical question that Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimson asks (and answers) in this truly epic three minutes of truthiness from the farce that is the World Economic Forum in Davos. Amid a week of back-slapping and self-congratulatory party-outdoing, as John Aziz notes , the Icelandic President explains why his nation is growing strongly, why unemployment is negligible, and how they moved from the world’s poster-child for banking crisis 5 years ago to a thriving nation once again. Simply put, he says, “we didn’t follow the prevailing orthodoxies of the last 30 years in the Western world.” There are lessons here for everyone – as Grimson explains the process of creative destruction that remains much needed in Western economies – though we suspect his holographic pass for next year’s Swiss fun will be reneged…

URL of the video (iceland president interview at davos):

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-26/only-3-minutes-worth-listening-davos

Related articles

• Iceland President: Let the Banks Go Bankrupt… “Why do we consider banks … holy churches?” (consciouslifenews.com)
• Iceland broke the banksters control – it just takes a leader with principles , not a leader who has sold his / her soul to the banksters….. (fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com)
• Iceland: Here’s How You Deal with a Bank Crisis (ritholtz.com)

Gold = money from thin air by Central Banks for Central Banks?

GATA is the “Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee” that keeps watching what banks, and especially central banks, are doing with gold, governments and financial markets. For even though the Bank of England Act 1694 said for the Corporation not to trade, to avoid ‘serious oppression’ of Their Majesties’ subjects, we know that ‘money’ has become a ‘financial product’ and there is nobody to question anything what banks or central banks are doing…

But here are some crucial questions that central banks should be asked about gold – after all, it’s supposedly NOT made from thin air – as all ‘credit money‘ created by banks:

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

For years GATA has been glad to respond to questions about the gold market from financial journalists in the mainstream news media, but we have always urged them to question the primary actors in the market, central banks, particularly in light of the documentation we have amassed showing or suggesting their often-surreptitious intervention in the market:

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

As far as we know, no such journalists have yet tried to question central banks about gold and reported the answers or refusals to answer, even as the efforts to question Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, by the Canadian market analyst Rob Kirby in 2009 and the German freelance journalist Lars Schall in 2010 extracted some sensational confirmations in the form of denials:

http://www.gata.org/node/7713

http://www.gata.org/node/9363

So to make it easy for mainstream news media financial journalists in case they ever want to pursue the gold story seriously, GATA compiles below some critical questions for central banks.

These are only a start and we’ll welcome ideas for additional questions.

These questions also may be used to turn away those financial writers who disparage complaints of gold market manipulation without ever having first put a critical question to a central bank.

For the Federal Reserve

1) What are the Fed’s gold swap arrangements with foreign banks that were acknowledged by Fed Governor Kevin M. Warsh in his adjudication of GATA’s freedom-of-information request in September 2009?:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf

2) What are the other parties to these gold swap arrangements?

3) Have such arrangements ever been implemented? If so, when, how, and why?

4) What are the other gold-related documents the Fed succeeded in withholding from disclosure in GATA’s freedom-of-information lawsuit against the Fed in February 2011? Will the Fed disclose them now? If not, why?

http://www.gata.org/node/9560

For former Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Kevin M. Warsh

1) In your commentary in The Wall Street Journal on December 6, 2011, you wrote that “policy makers are finding it tempting to pursue ‘financial repression’ — suppressing market prices that they don’t like.” You added, “Efforts to manage and manipulate asset prices are not new.”

http://www.gata.org/node/10839

Which prices did you mean as being subject to “financial repression”?

2) Which previous “efforts to manage and manipulate asset prices” did you mean?

3) Did you learn about “financial repression” during and because of your service at the Fed?

For the U.S. Treasury Department

1) In the last 20 years has the U.S. government tried to influence the price of gold, openly or surreptitiously, directly or through intermediaries? If so, when, how, and for what purpose?

2) Has the Treasury Department or any other agency of the U.S. government, including the Exchange Stabalization Fund, undertaken gold swaps or gold swap arrangements or other gold transactions in the last 20 years?

3) Are the gold-related records of the U.S. government, including those of the Treasury Department and the Exchange Stabilization Fund, fully available to the public? If not, why?

For the Bank of England and the United Kingdom Treasury

1) In December 2011 the Bank of England acknowledged that it had been active surreptitiously in the gold market prior to 2007 and did not want its gold transactions known to the market generally:

http://www.gata.org/node/10778

With whom were these transactions undertaken and what were their purposes?

2) Will the Bank of England and the U.K. Treasury fully disclose their gold-related records? If not, why?

For the Deutsche Bundesbank

1) In August 2009 the Bundesbank replied to an inquiry from the Canadian financial writer Rob Kirby about the Bundesbank’s handling of Germany’s gold reserves. The Bundesbank wrote: “The Deutsche Bundesbank keeps a large part of its gold holdings in its own vaults in Germany, while some of its gold is also stored with the central banks located at major gold trading centres. This has historical and market-related reasons, the gold having been transferred to the Bundesbank at these trading centres. Moreover, the Bundesbank needs to hold gold at the various trading centres in order to conduct its gold activities. It is common practice for central banks to keep part of their gold reserves abroad.”

http://www.gata.org/node/7713

In December 2010 the Bundesbank replied to an inquiry from the German freelance journalist Lars Schall. The Bundesbank wrote: “In managing foreign reserves, the Bundesbank fulfils one of its mandated tasks as an integral part of the European System of Central Banks. We trust you will understand that we are not able to divulge any further information regarding this activity. Particularly with respect to the confidential nature of information about where gold holdings are kept, we are unable to go into any greater detail concerning exact locations and the quantities stored at each of these. Likewise, owing to the strategic nature of the activity, we are not at liberty to provide you with more detailed information about gold transactions.”

http://www.gata.org/node/9363

What are the “gold activities” cited in the reply to Kirby? What is the “strategic … activity” cited in the reply to Schall?

2) Has the Bundesbank undertaken any gold swaps or gold swap arrangements with the U.S. Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury Department, or any agency of the U.S. government or other government? If so, when, and what were the purposes of the swaps?

3) Will the Bundesbank make its gold records fully available for public inspection? If not, why?

For the International Monetary Fund

1) Where is the IMF’s gold kept? Is it kept in the IMF’s own vaults, in the vaults of IMF member nations, or elsewhere?

2) Is the IMF’s gold actually in the IMF’s possession or is it essentially just a claim on the gold reserves of its member nations?

3) When during the last 20 years the IMF said it was selling gold, did any gold actually leave any vault? If so, how much, and from which vaults did it leave and to which vaults was it delivered?

4) Will the IMF make its gold records fully available for public inspection? If not, why?

For the Bank for International Settlements

1) What is the “gold pool” cited by BIS President Karl Otto Pohl in his interview with the financial journalist Edward Jay Epstein published in the November 1983 edition of Harper’s magazine?

http://www.gata.org/node/11622

2) Exactly how and why does the BIS trade in gold on its own behalf or on behalf of its members? Is information about this trading fully available to the public? If not, why?

3) A presentation made by the BIS to prospective central bank members at a meeting at BIS headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2008 —

http://www.gata.org/node/11012

— includes, among a list of BIS services, interventions in the gold market. What are these interventions and their purposes and exactly how are they undertaken? Are they public or secret? If they are secret, why?

4) In a speech delivered at a conference at BIS headquarters in Basel in June 2005 —

http://www.gata.org/node/4279

— William S. White, head of the BIS’ Monetary and Economic Department, said that among the major purposes of international central bank cooperation is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.”

In the last 20 years what efforts has the BIS made or assisted to influence asset prices, particularly gold prices? Of which such efforts is the BIS aware?

5) Did the BIS undertake any gold transactions simultaneous with the devaluation of the Swiss franc in September 2011?

For every central bank

1) What is the central bank’s policy toward gold?

2) Has the central bank loaned or swapped gold or does it have gold swap arrangements with other central banks or government agencies? If so, who are the counterparties of these swaps and swap arrangements and what is their purpose?

3) Is it the bank’s policy to support the gold derivatives market by making the bank’s gold available for sale, swap, lease, other exchange, or hypothecation? If so, why?

4) Are the bank’s gold-related records fully available for public inspection? If not, why?

For JPMorgan Chase & Co.:

1) Are the enormous interest rate derivatives positions and the monetary metals positions on the bank’s books the positions of JPMorgan Chase & Co. itself or are they essentially the positions of the U.S. government or other governments?

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1249407911.php

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

Related articles

• Has the BIS gold pool succeeded the London Gold Pool? (sgtreport.com)
• Whether it’s up or down, central banks are manipulating markets in secret (gata.org)
• GATA Files New Freedom Of Information Act Document Requests (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• German People Becoming Frantic About their Central Bank Gold Reserves in “Safe Custody” at NY Fed (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• Germany should end the secrecy and bring its gold home (chasvoice.blogspot.com)
• Ron Paul looking to legalise gold, silver-backed competing currencies: (investmentwatchblog.com)
• Dimitri Speck: A high-frequency attack on gold (sgtreport.com)
• Treasury audits NY Fed’s gold but only to evade leasing, swapping, oversubscription issues (sgtreport.com)
• Whether it’s up or down, central banks are manipulating markets in secret (webabuser.blogspot.com)
• GATA’s Chris Powell Tells CNBC Gold is Being Manipulated, 80% of ‘Gold’ DOES NOT EXIST! (silverdoctors.com)

Good news for a change: House Votes Overwhelmingly to Audit the Fed!

This email came from The Daily Bell who call themselves ‘home of the Internet Reformation’:

WASHINGTON, July 24 – Congressman Ron Paul today applauded the passage by the House of Representatives of H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. The bill, which calls for a full audit of the Federal Reserve System − including its lending facilities and critical monetary policy operations − passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote of 327-98.

“I am very pleased that the House passed my Audit the Fed legislation today,” Congressman Paul stated. “It has been a long, hard fight, but Congress finally is getting serious about exercising its oversight responsibility over the Federal Reserve. Auditing the Fed is a common sense issue supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. The Fed’s trillions of dollars worth of asset purchases and its ongoing support of foreign central banks cannot be allowed to continue without Congressional oversight. Today’s passage of H.R. 459 is a good first step towards full Fed transparency, and I hope that the Senate will consider the bill before the end of the year.”

Bill Moyers on Occupy Wall Street

This video shows the dilemma: individuals only count as consumers, voters and, possibly, as demonstrators.

What else is there to do? How can “we, the people” stop what Occupiers identify:

• the 1% have dominant political power over both parties
• Bill Black, a senior federal regulator and lecturer in economics and law, who says that what we have is

recurrent intensifying financial crises, driven by elite fraud, and now it’s done with almost absolute impunity.

We seem to have lost our capacity for outrage.

To me, Bill Black’s level of analysis is more relevant than Bill Moyers’. But nearly everybody seems to have a hard time getting to the essence of what money is and who creates it – for what purpose…

Iceland wants to punish the bankers responsible for the crisis

Iceland, a country that wants to punish the bankers responsible for the crisis

Since 2008 the vast majority of the Western population dream about saying “no” to the banks, but no one has dared to do so. No one except the Icelanders, who have carried out a peaceful revolution that has managed not only to overthrow a government and draft a new constitution, but also seeks to jail those responsible for the country’s economic debacle.

The government sues some bankers. Finally!

The Forbes 400 vs. Everybody Else – is that the Financial / Legal War?

Michael Moore has held a major speech in Madison, Wisconsin and published these fascinating statistics about Forbes 400 vs. Everybody Else two days later.

America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers

This phrase comes from a speech that Michael Moore held in Madison, Winconsin on Saturday, 5th March, 2011, with the video here.

Here are a few gems:

None of us know what the exact, specific outcome of all of this is going to be. We have a good feeling about it though.

America is not broke.

… the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich…

… a financial coup d’etat…

… we have surrendered our precious democracy to the money elite: Wall Street, the Banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic!

They KNOW they have committed crimes to make this happen.

They control the message – by owning the media: their version of the American dream.

We have had it! And we are all Wisconsinites now!

A little bit of Egypt here, and a bit of Madison there.

One thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The rich have overplayed their hand.

To the media who are here: please tell the story correctly!

United, not Corporate States of America!

Don’t give up! Please don’t give up!

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.

Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.

And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.

I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs.  That too caused a reduction in tax revenue. Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.

The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can’t win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.

The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:

1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day — this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. “Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and broken. It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!

So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.

Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more — something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job — their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he’s stopped hoping for a pay increase. All he’s asking for now is enough down time so that he doesn’t have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn’t be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he’s just another slob, isn’t he?

And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all standing out there in the cold?” I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!

“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you …?”

America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!

Madison, do not retreat.  We are with you. We will win together.

From an American in Paris: The Revolt against Modern Capitalism

This is an important article by an influential American with lots of international experience, also in Paris:

• the economic role of speculative money and the crimes committed in its service
• the fortunes possessed by defaulting money-men who have been rescued by unconsulted taxpayers
• corporations, run from metropolitan centres, whose legal headquarters are havens which escape oversight and taxation.

The unregulated western economic system has demonstrated a moral abandonment and adhesion to greed that shows no sign of ending, whatever the timorous promises made by Barack Obama, and David Cameron – current leaders of the nations from which this disaster has sprung.