Jim Rickards: Decline of the Petrodollar System is Good for Gold

"The petrodollar system is collapsing for two reasons. The US has abused its privileged reserve currency position by printing trillions of dollars in an effort to create inflation. More recently, President Obama has taken steps to anoint Iran as the regional hegemon of the Middle East, and to ease the way, in stages, toward Iran's possession of nuclear weapons capability. This is viewed as a stab-in-the-back by the Saudis and the Israelis and will lead quickly to Saudi Arabia obtaining nuclear weapons from Pakistan. There is also a newly emerging alliance among Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, and Russia. The new alignment will have no particular use for US dollars and no reason to support them." Continue reading

Continue ReadingJim Rickards: Decline of the Petrodollar System is Good for Gold

Real Reason for the US’s Global Tax Levy

"This amped-up regulatory regime is not about taxes. It's about control ... not just of Swiss banking facilities but ultimately of banks around the world, large and small. In fact, the top elites already run central banks around the world, so this merely adds another layer of control. And when it comes to running banks, the place where banks supposedly had the most freedom was Switzerland, so that region was attacked first – just to provide an object lesson. The elites do not care how many banks they 'kill' – especially smaller banks that can often prove troublesome. The modern State is more comfortable with a few large and concentrated facilities than myriad small ones." Continue reading

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Taxes: Another Weapon of Globalist Destruction?

"In France, there has been a great deal of pushback to additional – punitive – taxation. But that was merely the opening shot in a war against the upper classes that will soon take aim at the real target: Western middle classes. But in the era of central banking, taxes are increasingly unnecessary. Their aggressive expansion is thus something of a dominant social theme. There is almost nothing taxes provide that cannot be done better at less cost by the private sector. And as we pointed out above, as there is no way to control government spending, governments can and will spend all the revenue they receive, up to and including the entire gross national product." Continue reading

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ECB Warning: More Directed History

"The idea that the ECB and the Fed are going to begin to quarrel or pursue separate policies is a ludicrous one. Yet we are being asked to believe it. These people never let a good crisis go to waste. Part of the point of the lingering EU credit crunch is to create a necessity for a deeper union, monetarily and politically. ECB pols have said as much. The goal of ECB bureaucrats is to further paste together the fraying EU and its even sicker euro currency. At this point, this policy is being pursued in direct defiance of EU citizens who have voted continuously, when they can, against a deeper union of any sort. There are no rogue central banks. Everyone has a part to play." Continue reading

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Party On Wall Street! Larry Summers Wants to Charge People for Saving

"The Wall Street Party we've forecast continues to build. The JOBS Act is forcing new product into the IPO market. QE continues in the US, Britain and Europe. Janet Yellen and Mark Carney are not about to try to taper in any serious way. The fracking meme continues to be pursued, giving people at least the illusion of more gas and oil to stimulate another industrial boom. And now, to ensue that money flows copiously, top bankers are obviously considering negative interest rates. How do you increase consumer spending, thus contributing to the Wall Street Party about which we've regularly written? Try to increase the velocity of money any way you can." Continue reading

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Bigger than Libor? Forex probe hangs over banks

"A global investigation into the setting of the London interbank lending rate, and related global benchmarks, has so far yielded about $3.6 billion in fines. Penalties for some of the biggest players are still to come. Traders have also faced criminal charges. As the extent of damage caused by Libor-rigging is revealed, lawyers say the probe into fixing currency rates could unfold in a similar way, and rival its impact. London is the center of the loosely regulated foreign exchange market, the biggest in the world's financial system with average daily turnover of $5.3 trillion. Proven abuse in this market would have a significant ripple effect, exposing offending firms to a host of legal action." Continue reading

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The UK Recovery that Isn’t … the Market Recovery that Is

"What central bankers do is print money – digitally these days – and then transfer those digits to financial firms. Now the money finds its way into the financial economy, including, most importantly, the bond and stock markets. Once the money has swelled the financial markets, the 'real' economy should benefit. And then once companies are feeling better about a 'recovery' they will finally start to hire. This convoluted chain of events is simply illogical. It would be much simpler just to GIVE people money if central bankers really wanted stimulate job growth and create prosperity. But that's not what is happening because the object of central banking is to create money and maintain control of it." Continue reading

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Greek Dilemma: A Product of the Dialectic

"Greek protesters rally against IMF and EU inspection. Anti-austerity demonstrators jeer, heckle and throw coins at auditors from bailout troika amid fears of more public sector cuts ... Only hours before, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, had resolutely declared that Greece was not at war with the international bodies keeping the debt-stricken country afloat. But in scenes not witnessed since the beginning of Greece's economic crisis, auditors from the European Union and International Monetary Fund came face-to-face with the full force of anti-austerity anger as protesters in Athens jeered, heckled and stopped them from leaving the finance ministry." Continue reading

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Swiss court convicts former IMF official over Czech mining scam

"De Groote, previously an administrator at the International Monetary Fund, was accused of providing a veneer of credibility, with the cash purportedly coming from investors. ATS reported that he received almost one million Swiss francs for his role in the scam. The five Czechs, including former board members, had managed to gain control of 97 percent of the company. They went on to launder more than a billion Swiss francs. The money was stashed in bank accounts in Switzerland and neighbouring Liechtenstein, in the name of more than 30 firms based in the Bahamas, the Isle of Man and other offshore havens." Continue reading

Continue ReadingSwiss court convicts former IMF official over Czech mining scam