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?

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…

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.

America the Banana Republic

Thank god there are some astute minds who see what I see and call it by nice ‘literal’ names!

Christopher Hitchens wrote this excellent article for Vanity Fair!

86-year Old Lady’s Letter to a Bank

Shown below, is an actual letter that was sent to a bank by an 86 year old woman.

The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times.
————————————————————–

Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check/cheque with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.
By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check /cheque and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it. I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years. You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways. I noticed that whereas I personally answer your telephone calls and letters, — when I try to contact you, I am confronted by the impersonal, overcharging, pre-recorded, faceless entity which your bank has become.

From now on, I, like you, choose only to deal with a flesh-and-blood person. My mortgage and loan repayments will therefore and hereafter no longer be automatic, but will arrive at your bank, by check,addressed personally and confidentially to an employee at your bank whom you must nominate. Be aware that it is an offense under the Postal Act for any other person to open such an envelope. Please find attached an Application Contact which I require your chosen employee to complete. I am sorry it runs to eight pages, but in order that I know as much about him or her as your bank knows about me, there is no alternative.

Please note that all copies of his or her medical history must be countersigned by a Notary Public, and the mandatory details of his/her financial situation (income, debts, assets and liabilities) must be accompanied by documented proof.

In due course, at MY convenience, I will issue your employee with a PIN number which he/she must quote in dealings with me. I regret that it cannot be shorter than 28 digits but, again, I have modeled it on the number of button presses required of me to access my account balance on your phone bank service.

As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Let me level the playing field even further.

When you call me, press buttons as follows:

IMMEDIATELY AFTER DIALING, PRESS THE STAR (*) BUTTON FOR ENGLISH

#1. To make an appointment to see me

#2. To query a missing payment.

#3. To transfer the call to my living room in case I am there.

#4. To transfer the call to my bedroom in case I am sleeping

#5. To transfer the call to my toilet in case I am attending to nature.

#6. To transfer the call to my mobile phone if I am not at home

#7. To leave a message on my computer, a password to access my computer is required. Password will be communicated to you at a later date to that Authorized Contact mentioned earlier.

#8. To return to the main menu and to listen to options 1 through 7.

#9. To make a general complaint or inquiry. The contact will then be put on hold, pending the attention of my automated answering service.

#10. This is a second reminder to press* for English.

While this may, on occasion, involve a lengthy wait, uplifting music will play for the duration of the call.

Regrettably, but again following your example, I must also levy an establishment fee to cover the setting up of this new arrangement.

May I wish you a happy, if ever so slightly less prosperous New Year?

Your Humble Client

And remember: Don’t make old People mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.

GATA sues Fed to disclose gold market intervention records

GATA today brought suit against the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, seeking a court order for disclosure of the central bank’s records of its surreptitious market intervention to suppress the monetary metal’s price.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and targets Fed records involving gold swaps, exchanges of gold with foreign financial institutions. In a letter dated September 17 this year to GATA’s law firm, William J. Olson P.C. of Vienna, Virginia, (http://www.lawandfreedom.com) Fed Board of Governors member Kevin M. Warsh acknowledged that the Fed has gold swap agreements with foreign banks but insisted that such documents remain secret: