Sidewalk Catharsis

Comment on my last post got me thinking.

What will the “great reset”, look like? Well, that’s the real question of the day.

First, I think you have to gauge the magnitude of the problem to estimate the effort it will take to solve it. Not our problem. The common folk just want to live and let live by and large. No, the problem belongs to the banking elite. The “Money Changers”, since biblical times and before.

The Money Changers have controlled civilization on this planet covertly since Egyptian times, and probably earlier. In Egypt they were the priest class. They controlled the Temple granaries. There was grain involved for sure, but they also controlled the gold bullion supply of Egypt. The Hebrews were never slaves. That’s just plain historical fact. They were mercenary henchmen to the priest class. In fact, I wrote a post some time ago about the theory that the biblical book of Exodus is actually the story of the priests of Egypt using their Hebrew mercenaries to plunder the Egyptian treasury and go found their own kingdom. The puzzle pieces all fit if you think about it. Why else would “god”, command the Hebrews to commit genocide against all the original inhabitants of modern Israel? Jerusalem was the first of many independent Money Changer enclaves, like Monaco, The City of London, Switzerland, etc. etc.

I suspect the Money Changers were alarmed by the American Revolution. They had been stripped of one of their slave colonies. There was all this talk and writing about “Freedom”, and “Liberty”. Can’t have that!!! They immediately set about corrupting and crushing the US on many levels. They NEVER have a single plan in play. They ALWAYS have multiple overlapping strategic programs running.

One such plan, perhaps the deepest and most significant one, was to de-monitize silver. The Money Changers had ruled the planet for many thousands of years controlling the supply of gold. They let the peasants use silver. Who cares? Gold is, “the money of kings”. It worked for them flawlessly. When Spain discovered the new world the supply of silver dramatically increased. There was enough of it around for free men to accumulate significant amounts of capital. Factories started popping up. New kings appeared on the land in the form of self made men. It lead to an unprecedented planetary expansion. The Money Changers may have thus identified silver as the root cause of the American Revolution. They may have decided to get rid of it once and for all.

Alexander Hamilton started the ball rolling to de-monitize silver in the US almost before the ink on the Constitution was dry. Similar agents went to work in England and all around the world. After many decades of preparation the Money Changers sprung their trap. The Coinage Act of 1873 wiped silver from the money supply of the US. Similar acts decimated all of Europe and the developed world. There is little written in history of the horrible result. China, which had almost no gold and used silver as money nearly exclusively, was crushed. The economies of the developed nations collapsed en masse. The human misery was almost unimaginable. It was just the beginning.

I believe that the two World Wars, that the German Weimar hyperinflation, that all these great upheavals and world wide calamities that have beset mankind for the last 150 years were the inevitable result of that one stupid mistake by the Money Changers. I also believe they know it.

I believe they yearn for the days before 1873, when they had a stable world that was just enslaved enough to serve them, but was stable enough for them to feel safe and comfortable. Great and destructive wars came only once a century. Not every twenty-five years like they do now. Most wealth was stable from generation to generation. No one has suffered more potential loss from the great ponzi paper currency program than the Money Changers themselves. Their ancient wealth, hoarded with such great care century after century, has all been converted to worthless paper. They didn’t realize that by entrapping the entire planet they would entrap themselves.

That is the problem they face. That’s what they aim to solve with the coming crisis. They are feverishly converting their treasure from paper back into gold and silver as I write this in anticipation of the next phase of their plan. Look at the unprecedented sales of silver and gold bullion around the world for yourself.

What will the Great Reset look like? Look around you. It has already begun.

It will have to be so dramatic, so devastating that it wipes away the entire ponzi paper finance system. Every last shred of paper and paper based debt must go. The slate must be wiped clean so they can start again. Think of the magnitude of events it will require to make that happen and you will get an idea of what we will face. Think of how long that planetary program will take to carry out and you get an idea of how long we will have to continue to suffer through the changes.

There is one more factor in all this. The reason you see clear evidence of the Money Changers disagreeing and fighting amongst themselves these days. They’ve never done anything this big before. They historically operated the world in a very tightly controlled fashion. The Great Reset will be, must be uncharacteristically global and violent. They’re afraid. Very afraid they could loose control of the whole thing and the planet could go up in smoke. That’s not what they want. They want to get back to the good old days.

Will they succeed? I don’t think so. Look at history. How many times in history have kings and prince been able to regain their former glories once lost? The parable about Humpty Dumpty answers that. Once the egg is broken, well, who knows what will come next.

Lindsey Williams made another of his prognostications on the Rense show a few weeks ago. He’s now saying he’s been told we’re in for a dollar devaluation. When Jeff pressed him for what that meant he described it as a surprise issue of new currency to replace our old currency at some fixed rate. For example, if you had 1,000 USD in the bank, suddenly the next day you would have 600 USDx in the bank.

OK. Could that be done? What would it mean to the average man in the street? Let’s ponder this further.

Bob Chapman has been saying since 2009 that the financial crisis would come to an end some day when all the major economies in the world get together and devalue and revalue their currencies against one another. That would solve everything. When pressed in an interview for details about how that would work or how it would impact the average man Bob gave his pat answer, “I don’t know, but you better have physical gold and silver”. It begs the question if he has no idea what form it will take how can he be so sure it will solve the financial crisis?

The last devaluation of the dollar took place on New Year’s Day 1934. Roosevelt invoked the Gold Reserve Act (passed the day before) to devalue the dollar from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce. It was a 59% reduction. What did that mean? Since the dollar was on the gold standard it meant that if you wanted to buy something in a foreign currency you had to pay 60% more for it overnight. Did your wages go down 60%? No. Did a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the local diner go up 60%? Very probably not. Not if they procured their supplies and labor locally and with dollars. What did it mean for the average person? Directly, very little. In the macro economy, quite a bit.

According to the Federal Reserve itself:

“A key effect of devaluation is that it makes the domestic currency cheaper relative to other currencies. There are two implications of a devaluation. First, devaluation makes the country’s exports relatively less expensive for foreigners. Second, the devaluation makes foreign products relatively more expensive for domestic consumers, thus discouraging imports. This may help to increase the country’s exports and decrease imports, and may therefore help to reduce the current account deficit.”

OK, so a devaluation might help, right? Might help unless you consider that, according to the Consumer Federation of America the average US household consumed around 1,150 gallons of gasoline per year (in 2001). Assuming something like that still holds, and the price of gas were at $3.75 prior to the devaluation, the average family would see increase from spending $360 a month on gasoline to just under $600 per month. So…a currency devaluation hits the average person hardest by sudden, painful inflation. Indeed, the Federal reserve notes:

“A significant danger is that by increasing the price of imports and stimulating greater demand for domestic products, devaluation can aggravate inflation. If this happens, the government may have to raise interest rates to control inflation, but at the cost of slower economic growth.”

But wait. There’s another huge wrinkle here!

Lindsey is wrong about one thing for sure. Countries do NOT issue new currencies to devalue old ones. It just doesn’t work that way. In fact, the introduction of a new currency is a HUGE, expensive undertaking fraught with the risk that the population will reject the new currency. No self respecting central banker would ever try such a silly move. That’s not how currency devaluation is done. As we’ve seen it’s a change in the value of a currency against some external set standard.

Notice that when Roosevelt de-valued the dollar it was valued via a fixed ratio to an ounce of gold? Indeed, looking to the Federal Reserve again:

“Under a fixed exchange rate system, devaluation and revaluation are official changes in the value of a country’s currency relative to other currencies. Under a floating exchange rate system, market forces generate changes in the value of the currency, known as currency depreciation or appreciation.”

Further:

“At the Bretton Woods Conference in July 1944, international leaders sought to insure a stable post-war international economic environment by creating a fixed exchange rate system. The United States played a leading role in the new arrangement, with the value of other currencies fixed in relation to the dollar and the value of the dollar fixed in terms of gold—$35 an ounce. Following the Bretton Woods agreement, the United States authorities took actions to hold down the growth of foreign central bank dollar reserves to reduce the pressure for conversion of official dollar holdings into gold.

During the mid- to late-1960s, the United States experienced a period of rising inflation. Because currencies could not fluctuate to reflect the shift in relative macroeconomic conditions between the United States and other nations, the system of fixed exchange rates came under pressure.

In 1973, the United States officially ended its adherence to the gold standard. Many other industrialized nations also switched from a system of fixed exchange rates to a system of floating rates. Since 1973, exchange rates for most industrialized countries have floated, or fluctuated, according to the supply of and demand for different currencies in international markets. An increase in the value of a currency is known as appreciation, and a decrease as depreciation. Some countries and some groups of countries, however, continue to use fixed exchange rates to help to achieve economic goals, such as price stability.”

So, in order to devalue a currency it must be fixed to something to devalue against? Yes. Is the dollar currently fixed to anything? No. It’s not.

Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean devaluation is impossible. In fact, one could argue that every single day since 1973 the governments of the world have been devaluing and revaluing their currencies every time they perform a central bank intervention in the currency markets.

Could the US devalue the dollar? They could. They would have to go back to a fixed exchange rate of some type to accomplish it. Fixed against what?

What do you think?

This takes us all the way back to the beginning. If the Fed is going to devalue the dollar they would have to put the dollar back on some sort of fixed peg to do so. They would have to abandon the current system of floating currency rates that the entire global financial system is based on. Maybe Chapman is right in principle. Maybe that’s what they want to do. In order to accomplish it they will need to wipe away the current system first. Will they do that with a gentlemanly conference as Chapman predicts? Will they trigger a complete global financial collapse first so they’re not “at fault”, for clearing away the old system?

When is the last time these psychopathic criminals did anything the right way?

I for one, believe Jim Willie. A global collapse is inevitable. It’s inevitable because the bankers NEED it. They need it so that they can put the world back on a sane, precious metals backed currency system. They dominated the world for many centuries with such a system. When a beast is frightened it runs for home. That’s where they’re going to take us.

Check out this awesome video and feast your mind on some REAL alternative media. Not the usual monkeyshines you get from Max Keiser or Alex Jones. Not the egomaniac self-promotion of a Bob Chapman. This is REAL data that you can really use to understand your world.

Bruce Krasting put a post up that really got my attention.

Worth a read.

Putting this together with the many other sources I follow gives me the impression that TPTB are finally so completely desperate that they’re willing to let some crumbs fall off their table and into the mouths of the stinky little people. The disconnected arrogance of their plan is staggering. Only a completely hapless effete group of ivory tower snobs could hatch such a scheme. And it’s doomed to failure anyway.

At the core of the plan is the hope by the Bernankebus (see Succubus for reference) and his cronies that they can coax the great unwashed to part with their last drips of cash to fund a new housing bubble if they can only make the swindle sound good enough.

“Come one come all, get your “free”, 4% refinance money right here. Totally FREE! No points at all!*

*Note: Appraisal fees, Origination fees, Title fees, Banker Bonus fees and whatever else we want to stick up your boot not included in the “free” part. Ha ha!”

This is all about generating massive fee income for the banksters – just like in the good old days of the housing bubble. All will be well in the economy if they can just get the great unwashed to line up and start paying their tolls again. The bankster trolls will be able to keep things chugging along for yet another few months and possibly have nice Christmas bonuses. Maybe they can even get their sock puppet reelected.

What these moron Harvard and Yale academics don’t understand is that the average working stiff down here in the trenches has seen the equity in his home drain away for years. We’re dealing with real inflation in the range of 8% (the kind that really does HURT). We’re seeing stagnant income at best and many firms are even announcing across the board pay cuts. I have two relatives that have been hit by such in the last three months.

Where are we supposed to come up with the $3,000 in fees to cut the monthly payment on our mortgage by one to two hundred bucks at best? From a credit card? From what little equity some of us may still have left? Borrow it from our 401k?

Why bother! Anyone with any sense can see that home prices are just going to drop for years to come. How in the heck would one be able to justify throwing so much good money after bad on a loosing investment?

Well, I guess some will be hoodwinked by this. A relative of my took a similar deal from his bank already. Poor guy. One born every minute.

1. Americans are utterly amazing. They will fly and drive thousands of miles, spend thousands of dollars, purchase special clothing and camera gear, plan for hours to have a dream vacation at Yellowstone and what’s the first thing they do upon arrival in the Park? They stand in line for ice creme. Seeing that line made me laugh out loud.

2. Native Americans claim that the spirit of the earth is more alive at Yellowstone and it is therefore a sacred place. Sounds like claptrap to a 21st century American. But I’ve never in my life experienced a place where the elements of nature are so arranged as to inspired and awe…EVERYWHERE you look. A photographer could spend ten hours a day for a month and not make a dent in capturing the stunning images one is presented with. Can such inspirational beauty be created by mere random chance? After about the hundredth time one turns around and is surprised by an awe inspiring vista it may become impossible not to gain respect for the Native American viewpoint of the place.

3. There is a stark difference at the Park boundary. Outside the Park unrestrained development has resulted in obnoxious fat cat rich guy houses spoiling every single mountain top and valley floor. Ugly power and telephone lines run everywhere. One could forgive the farmers and ranchers. At least they have something to do with the land. The thousands of tourist trap souvenir stands, fly fishing shops, dude ranches, and angler’s lodges are brash and disgusting reminders that Americans believe they conquered this land and thus have the right to despoil it with impunity. I traveled all over Germany and never saw such disgusting disrespect of nature – and Europe has been developed for many thousands of years longer than the US. We truly are a stupid people in many ways. It almost feels like you can breathe much easier once inside the protection of the Park boundary. I have never seen a more convincing argument that the American experiment is doomed to failure. One can only hope that the civilization which replaces this one is a tad bit more wise. This land deserves better stewardship.

I’ve followed Jeff the Canuk’s video channel for a bit over a year now because he just has this laid back attitude toward it all that is very appealing. He made videos of his travels around the US, mostly California, in a VW Westphalia Camper. He showed how someone can be happy with the most minimal of circumstances.

Today Jeff posted a farewell video on his channel. He didn’t really explain why he was departing. Just that he was.

This struck me because I posted the following on my personal Facebook page just a few days ago as well:

I will no longer post about politics or the economy. My purpose in doing so was always to encourage others to prepare. I have an unshakable gut feeling that the window of opportunity to prepare has closed. Those who have not prepared will have to ride the rapids with what they have to hand and see where the current takes them. Luck will be a major factor for all of us.

I’ve kept true to my word this last week and posted only trivialities and cheerful comments and such. That’s what my friends and family like to see on Facebook anyway.

One of my numbskull nephews who has never posted a political thought in his life actually posted a rant on Facebook about the S & P downgrade of US T-bills. He’s never posted about anything but sports in his entire life and I think he really believes the game of football holds all the secrets to life, the universe and everything. He yammers about the S & P downgrade like it’s a bad call from a ref that cost Obama the touchdown he deserved.

Just weird and sad. I don’t think it will be the last such sheeple blather I see either.

Add all this to the recent action in the markets and the dire predictions for Monday and I have this sad funk attitude that it’s here. It has finally arrived. We are at the throat of that time clif high predicted would come years ago. The time when the sheep would start jumping around and looking startled. When they would eventually be pooping down their pant legs as events far outside the bounds of their normalcy bias unfold.

My wife asked me why I was really going to stop talking politics and the economy on Facebook and I told her flat out that the time has come. The time has come when the sheep will see. They will soon be looking for guidance and help as their comfortable illusions about the nanny government state are stripped away most violently. They will be looking for a new nanny – and that ain’t me. I’ve got enough to take care of.

I guess I understand Jeff the Canuk after all. I wish him well. I wish us all well.

I will keep posting on this blog – God willing.

Good luck my friends. Both of you.

Max and Stacy put out their latest offering above a few days ago. Once again I find myself torn after listening to the two of them. Torn about whether I love them or hate them. It got me thinking.

The thing that drives me crazy about these two self-styled journalists who bombard the air waves almost daily with their stream of consciousness editorials is that I WANT to love them. I admit it. I made my own series of Crash JP Morgan, Buy Silver videos some months ago. Stacy even put a couple up on her blog. I tried to interact with them via email. Not much accomplished. Unlike Bob Chapman and a few others, they really don’t respond to anything. Maybe nothing I had to say interested them.

I want to love them because Max has put out some stunningly brilliant content that I have really learned from. He is a very talented interviewer, (unlike Alex Jones – probably the worst interviewer in all media of any kind). I was greatly enlightened by Max’s interviews with folks like Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Gonzalo Lyra, etc. Max also has some valuable insights of his own to offer from time to time.

But then there is the other side of the coin. As brilliant as they can be, they are sometimes boorish to the point of sounding moronic. The episode above is a classic example. Stacy goes blathering away about how anyone using a college 509 savings program in the US is on “welfare”, in her view. She lumps all such middle class, hard working folks in with life long residents of public housing on public aid. It’s like she grabs the biggest brush she can find dripping with red paint, splays it across a wide variety of different things and breathlessly shouts, “there, they are ALL BAD!!”

The 509 program is just a way to defer taxes on a portion of income spent on education until your kid goes to school. To call it, “welfare”, is like saying anyone that passes you on the street and doesn’t rob you is giving you welfare. That you are somehow bad for making it home with what little income you have earned relatively intact.

Then there are their truly mad points of view that they will not back off from even if it cost them their lives. Max is famously a proponent of human caused global warming. Idiotic given the reality of the data. I was happy to hear Alex Jones challenge him openly on that point one day. Max never responds to emails or comments challenging such batty notions. Alex pinned him to the wall about how he could possibly support such hogwash. Max, obviously sensing that he couldn’t challenge Alex intellectually on the subject, spat out his truth about it. He named some rich oil tycoons that he hates with a passion who Max claims funded some campaign against global warming at some point somewhere in history. Alex challenged him right away with his database like recall of time after time it was proven that the oil industry is one of the major promoters of the AGW scam as a method for the corporate oligarchs to gain complete control of energy distribution and use worldwide. The AGW scam is a profoundly evil agenda of the Evil Empire. Alex challenged Max with the truth and Max just choked on it. He couldn’t respond. Yet we have Max out there a year later suggesting that anyone who doesn’t agree with his boorish, dull witted support of the AGW scammers should have some mark branded on their foreheads. Much like middle class and poor Jews were forced to wear a mark in Nazi Germany.

I pondered this conundrum a bit and think I have an insight. Maybe.

Max and Stacy are, after all, self-promoters. What little is known about them is that they were born and raised in the USA but have emigrated to Europe and even claim they aren’t Americans from time to time when it suits them. I’ve got news for them. If a French mob went running around Paris hanging Americans Max and Stacy would be swinging from the nearest tree no matter how much they think they aren’t Americans. Max used to be a trader on Wall Street but now hates everything about his former profession and those in it with unbridled passion. Stacy’s origins are never discussed. She betrays from time to time that she is a radical feminist (a hate cult from the 80′s), and that she hates all Republican politicians and anything they even walk past with uncontrollable ardor.

It occurs to me that Max and Stacy are actually pretty simple people really. They are self-promoters who have learned that to make a living they must, like any journalists, attract attention. To attract attention there must be controversy. Nothing creates controversy like social and political hatreds. They simply scooped up everything and everyone they hate and talk on an on passionately about how much they hate them. Max hates his former employers on Wall Street. Like any scorned former employee he hates them. He loves to talk about how much he hates them. Stacy lets fly with endless invective against the groups and people she hates, like any Republican. She has droned on mindlessly assaulting the Republican Governor of Wisconsin for months. The fact that she knows nothing about the situation in Wisconsin or it’s Governor doesn’t stop her. Thats what she and Max do. They talk about how much they hate the people and institutions they hate.

Just listen to them go off on how much they hate Americans. They catch a lot of flak for it so even Max tries to temper his invective sometimes. He’s able to restrain himself for about ten seconds before Stacy has egged him on into yet another diatribe about how stupid, lazy, worthless, blind, weak, etc., etc., etc. Americans are. It never ever occurs to them that they are Americans. No.

Their passions insulate them from any slightest penetration of reason.

Don’t get me wrong though. Hate isn’t all bad. Bob Chapman has been working tirelessly for fifty years out of hate of tyranny. The difference is that tyranny is a bad thing and should be hated by a rational man. Unreasoning and unbridled hatred of all Americans and the USA is not the action of rational people.

So, do I love or hate Max and Stacy? Well. Both. They are deeply flawed people. Most violent revolutionaries are. They are active and hard working and they do ferret out some good information once in a while. I will continue to pay attention to them for the sake of that. When they go off on their slobbering rants I can simply click away looking for information elsewhere.

One final note. If you know history, you know that every revolution has its’ firebrands. Revolutions, good ones anyway, are a bizarre combination of passionate, rational, well intentioned people and unreasoning firebrands out to settle scores in all directions. The irrational firebrands are tolerated and even necessary during the active part of the revolution. They are always marginalized and discarded after the revolution is over. They are just as likely to wind up swinging by their necks from trees no matter which side wins.

What kind of revolutionary do you want to be?

This is the most important economic chart you will ever see. It tells the whole story about the Federal Reserve Note. Even though gold is at all time nominal highs against every paper currency in the world today, those paper currencies have been so heavily debased (devalued by inflation) that in real terms gold is just starting to rise.

Here’s what I see. In real terms gold is still very, very affordable. If, like me, you can’t afford it, it’s not your fault. It’s that the paper money game has impoverished you no matter how hard you worked to overcome it. There are other things this graph tells you as well. Lots of things.

What happens next? Predicting that answer correctly could make all the difference in your future.

Yeah, I know. Lots of posts all the sudden. Well, I noticed that I was leaving long, pretty well written comments on all these other blogs that got lost in a blizzard of other comments – so why not just put up comments on my own blog only? That’s my new plan. I like it so far. What do you think? Oh, nobody reads this blog. Oh well. That’s life I guess!