Central Banks Now Operating as One Global Monopoly?

Source: The Daily Bell

Central banks‘ joint efforts sustain global system … Never before have the world’s central banks sent so much money sloshing through the global financial system. From slashing interest rates and buying government debt to dangling cheap loans to banks and taking on their risky assets, central banks have taken extraordinary steps since the 2008 financial crisis to nurse the international banking system back to health. Over the past 3 1/2 years, the central banks of the United States, Britain, Japan and the 17 countries that use the euro have pumped out so much money that their balance sheets have reached a combined $8.76 trillion. That’s a record, by far. The infusion of money has eased borrowing costs and raised confidence in banks, governments and companies. – Boston.com

Dominant Social Theme: More is better. But each bank “does its own thing.”

Free-Market Analysis: It is a much denied fact that what may be called a New World Order is continually being developed at the highest reaches of power. But what is less well known is the amount of coordination already developed between the facilities that provide the engine for global governance.

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Keiser Report: FBI vs Gold Standard 'Extremists'

Source: RT

In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the gold standard extremism and how your dollar got to be worth just 3.8 cents. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Francine McKenna of reTheAuditors.com about the crimes and illegitimate activity of the MF Global collapse.

Western Elites Caught 'Red-Handed' in Iran?

Source: The Daily Bell

A Game As Old As History: The Globalist Hand Behind The Iranian Mullahs ... Iran's fundamentalist clerics have never been independent and militant vis-à-vis the West, but rather have remained subservient to U.S.-British geopolitical interests and goals in the region while pretending to represent the people of Iran and the religion of Islam. − Samam Mohammadi/The Excavator/PrisonPlanet

Dominant Social Theme: Islam is an enemy of the West. Iran is Islam. Iran is the enemy. Bomb it.

Free-Market Analysis: Wow, an important article by Samam Mohammadi based on other equally important articles that Mohammadi cites. He basically lays out a case that Iran is a phony US enemy and that the Iranian Revolution was actually Western-inspired.

There are few higher callings than this – writing articles that seem to debunk the "directed history" charades of Money Power while revealing the grim skull-like grin lurking bloodily beneath the surface.

We've pointed out many times now that we believe much of what passes for the Western historical narrative – especially over the past few hundred years – is what we call "directed history." That is, the power elite that today seeks to run the world has been creating economic, political and military incidents that it then enshrines as "accidents of history."

But they are not accidents of history. They are seemingly deliberately planned provocations that result, almost always, in increased globalization. It is the Internet that shows us this fearful pattern and seemingly reveals to us the irrevocable and breathtaking influence of Money Power.

Once these incidents have been created, the great families that run the world's central banks turn to their bought-and-paid-for media and court historians to write narratives that enshrine their globalist narratives via magazines, novels, textbooks and, ultimately, historical presentations.

Greek Police Union Wants to Arrest EU and IMF Officials

Source: Reuters / Montreal Gazette

ATHENS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Greece's largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country's European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.

In a letter obtained by Reuters on Friday, the Federation of Greek Police accused the officials of "...blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty" and said one target of its warrants would be the IMF's top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.

The threat is largely symbolic since legal experts say a judge must first authorize such warrants, but it shows the depth of anger against foreign lenders who have demanded drastic wage and pension cuts in exchange for funds to keep Greece afloat.

"Since you are continuing this destructive policy, we warn you that you cannot make us fight against our brothers. We refuse to stand against our parents, our brothers, our children or any citizen who protests and demands a change of policy," said the union, which represents more than two-thirds of Greek policemen.

"We warn you that as legal representatives of Greek policemen, we will issue arrest warrants for a series of legal violations ... such as blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty."

The letter was also addressed to the European Central Bank's mission chief in Greece, Klaus Masuch, and the former European Commission chief inspector for Greece, Servaas Deroose.

Digging Deeper Into Who Controls the World

Source: Activist Post
Susan Jennings

As we delve deeper into world control, more information arises that helps us understand the current global situation.  Many people are unaware of the interconnectedness between the largest global companies.

Eighty percent of the world's wealth appears to be earned by a "core" of 1,318 corporations, which in turn are being controlled by only 147 companies. Seventy-five percent of these companies are financial institutions -- and the top companies on the list are the Federal Reserve banks. 

The Federal Reserve created 26 to 29 trillion dollars' worth of bailouts for their own companies between 2007 and 2010. This was revealed in their own audit statements, and confirmed by United States Congressmen and prominent financial analysts. ( Source)  Please note that the Federal Reserve, created in 1913, is a private corporation controlled by international bankers. (Source)

Anytime the ‘Fed’ prints money-Federal Reserve Notes, the American taxpayer is charged interest on the amount printed.  Alan Greenspan admitted that “the Federal Reserve is an independent agency . . . there is no other agency of government who can overrule actions we take.”

As they understood the extreme dangers to our life and liberty, our founding fathers were adamantly opposed to a central privately controlled bank.

This global control occurs in multiple ways: 

The War to Reign In the Internet Has Begun

Source: Giza Death Star
Dr. Joseph Farrell

Yesterday I blogged about the problems confronting the financial elite seeking to walk the precarious fine line between the breakup of the EU and maintaining it, and implementing middle-class destroying financial policies. The fly in the ointment, of course, is information and its control, i.e., the internet. Once again, The Daily Bell has come forward with a very observant article on this new phase of warfare against the world’s middle class:

Yes, The War for the Internet Has Begun
The problem, as Anthony Wile sees it – and I wholeheartedly concur with his evaluation – is this:

“There is no doubt, in my view, that the elites practiced directed history in the 20th century, setting up wars and economic catastrophes designed to consolidate world government. But in the 21st century, with so many understanding and evaluating the mechanisms of the elites, this is a considerably harder trick to pull off.”

But there is an additional problem for the elite, and I hope you caught it:

Corbett Report Radio - Solutions: Monetary Reform

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

In search of solutions to our economic woes, tonight we dip into the corbettreport.com archives for past interviews, episodes and videos of The Corbett Report featuring ideas for getting out of this economic mess. From the Cook plan to public banking, the gold standard and the demystification of sound/fiat money, tonight’s broadcast looks at competing answers to our money problems.

Works Cited:

Homepage of Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook on The Corbett Report
Sound Money vs. Fiat Money – Bob Chapman on Economics 101
The Public Banking Institute
Finance Capital vs Public Banking

The Fastest Growing Bank in the West

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Bill Bergman

Defending our Future in the Financial System

 

Investors and regulators are frequently cautioned that rapid growth in banking can be a sign of trouble.  With most of their incoming cash protected by public guarantees like deposit insurance, banks can grow by taking on more risk without as much sensitivity to deposit costs as they would if the public safety net were not in place.

For example, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (a bank regulator) produces “An Examiner’s Guide to Problem Bank Identification, Rehabilitation, and Resolution.”   In listing six ‘red flags,’ the guide’s first red flag, front and center, is ‘Rapid Growth and Aggressive Growth Strategies.’  This section includes:

Excessive growth, particularly as measured against local, regional, and national economic indicators, has long been viewed as a potential precursor to credit quality problems. Such growth can strain bank underwriting and risk selection standards, as well as the capacity of management, existing internal control structures and administrative processes.

Over the last six years, amidst the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression, a large and significant player in the financial markets has also been one of the fastest growing banks on the planet.  That organization is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.


What a Financial Crisis Can Do to a Central Bank Balance Sheet

Total assets on the books of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks came to $2.9 trillion by year-end 2011.  The Reserve Bank balance sheets have mushroomed in recent years; their total assets rose sharply with the Fed buying investments from, and lending money to, the private sector.  Their total liabilities also rose sharply as bank deposits at Federal Reserve Banks jumped due to monetary policy actions, and as banks had higher confidence in holding deposits with Reserve Banks compared to holding them at other banks.

Here is a look at total year-end assets on the books of the Federal Reserve Banks since 2003.

The Elite's Military Problem

Source: The Daily Bell

US 'turns page on a decade of war' ... The United States is "turning the page on a decade of war", President Barack Obama said, as he unveiled a major strategic review that will cut $489 billion in defence spending over the next ten years ... As the wars of the September 11 era pass, Mr Obama said America should abandon its traditional capability of fighting two major wars at once and focus on becoming a "leaner and smarter" fighting force with an emphasis on counter terrorism, reconnaissance, cyber warfare and maintaining a nuclear deterrent. In a rare appearance in the Pentagon press briefing room, Mr Obama however insisted that the US military would comfortably maintain its military supremacy, with proposed spending still larger than that of the next 10 countries combined. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: We've changed. We're gonna be more powerful but more gentle, too. We're going to emphasize the efficiency of killing rather than its scope.

Free-Market Analysis: The Obama administration has announced a new page in a decade of war. But is this really the case? We would argue that this downsizing is noteworthy because it acknowledges that the pretense of using "citizen armies" to realize the New World Order is actually drawing to a close.

What Obama is enunciating is nothing more than a dominant social theme, in our view. The idea is to indicate to the West and to America in particular that the country's war-fervor is abating. The US will continue to be triumphantly powerful but it won't be so brash or quite so destructive.

But really nothing much has changed in terms of power elite goals. What IS changing is the way force is going to be distributed and applied.

There is going to be a transition to a more secretive military methodology, in our view. It's already happening. The powers-that-be will seek to advance their agenda via mercenaries and intelligence agencies and to fund these activities via drug dealing and various other black ops.

Is there any other choice? The Anglosphere power elite that seeks to run the world cannot likely wean itself from its military methodologies. Its command-and-control agenda rests on the threat of violence and increasingly on its actuation.

Western economies are seemingly almost entirely in the thrall of this elite. Using the wealth of central banking, it has over time created a worldwide economy that is driven by war and directed by a few select, titanic corporations that are basically the handmaidens of Washington DC and the City of London.

The Federal Reserve Is Secretly Bailing Out Europe

Source: Washington's Blog

Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke told Congress that the Fed would not bail out Europe.

But he might have been less than forthcoming.

Former Vice President of the Federal Reserve bank of Dallas, Gerald ODriscoll, says that the Fed is secretly bailing out Europe:

O’Driscoll wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is engaged in a bailout of European banks. Surprisingly, its operation is largely unnoticed here.

The Fed is using what is termed a “temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement” with the European Central Bank (ECB). There are similar arrangements with the central banks of Canada, England, Switzerland and Japan.

Simply put, the Fed trades or “swaps” dollars for euros. The Fed is compensated by payment of an interest rate (currently 50 basis points, or one-half of 1%) above the overnight index swap rate. The ECB, which guarantees to return the dollars at an exchange rate fixed at the time the original swap is made, then lends the dollars to European banks of its choosing. 

***

The two central banks are engaging in this roundabout procedure because each needs a fig leaf. The Fed was embarrassed by the revelations of its prior largess with foreign banks. It does not want the debt of foreign banks on its books. A currency swap with the ECB is not technically a loan.

Lew Rockwell on Iran and Warmongering US Dictatorship

Source: RT America


End the "Warfare State."

Congress passed a more than $662 billion dollar defense authorization bill for 2012. It’s headed for the President’s desk. In it, is a provision that imposes sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank. It bans it from the US financial system and bans anyone who does business with it. These are the harshest measures to date on Iran over its nuclear program. Problem is, this could cause a spike in oil prices. One that would benefit Iran financially. Obama administration officials were warning of this, the White House was pressuring Congress to tone them down for that reason. Analysts were telling us that Iran would not be looking for a customer: But a spike in oil prices would of course hurt US oil consumers. One lawmaker quoted by the Wall Street Journal said the risk of a crude price spike is worth it to punish Tehran. But what if you don’t believe that? What choice is there? Do the leaders Americans elect to the White House or Congress really make any difference? And do Americans share the blame in that? We speak to Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and author of: “The Left, the Right and the State.”

The Federal Reserve Cartel: Part IV: A Financial Parasite

Source: Intel Hub
Dean Henderson

(Excerpted from Chapter 19: The Eight Families: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf…)

United World Federalists founder James Warburg’s father was Paul Warburg, who financed Hitler with help from Brown Brothers Harriman partner Prescott Bush. [1]

Colonel Ely Garrison was a close friend of both President Teddy Roosevelt and President Woodrow Wilson.  Garrison wrote inRoosevelt, Wilson and the Federal Reserve, “Paul Warburg was the man who got the Federal Reserve Act together after the Aldrich Plan aroused such nationwide resentment and opposition.  The mastermind of both plans was Baron Alfred Rothschild of London.”

The Aldrich Plan was hatched at a secret 1910 meeting at JP Morgan’s private resort on Jekyl Island, SC between Rockefeller lieutenant Nelson Aldrich and Paul Warburg of the German Warburg banking dynasty.

Aldrich, a New York congressman, later married into the Rockefeller family.  His son Winthrop Aldrich chaired Chase Manhattan Bank.  While the bankers met, Colonel Edward House, another Rockefeller stooge and close confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, was busy convincing Wilson of the importance of a private central bank and the introduction of a national income tax. A member of House’s staff was British MI6 Permindex insider General Julius Klein. [2]

Wilson didn’t need much convincing, since he was beholden to copper magnate Cleveland Dodge, whose namesake Phelps Dodge became one of the biggest mining companies in the world.  Dodge bankrolled Wilson’s political career. Wilson even wrote his inaugural speech on Dodge’s yacht. [3]

Wilson was a classmate of both Dodge and Cyrus McCormick at Princeton.  Both were directors at Rockefeller’s National City Bank (now Citigroup).  Wilson’s main focus was on overcoming public distrust of the bankers, which New York City Mayor John Hylan echoed in 1922 when he argued, “The real menace to our republic is the invisible government which, like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over our city, state and nation.  At the head is a small group of banking houses, generally referred to as the international bankers”. [4]

But the Eight Families prevailed.  In 1913 the Federal Reserve Bank was born, with Paul Warburg its first Governor.  Four years later the US entered World War I, after a secret society known as the Black Hand assassinated Archduke Ferdinand and his Hapsburg wife.  The Archduke’s friend Count Czerin later said, “A year before the war he informed me that the Masons had resolved upon his death.”[5]

Afghan History Suppressed: Part I: Islamists, Heroin and the CIA

Source: The Intel Hub
Dean Henderson

(Part one of a three-part series excerpted from Chapter 8: Project Frankenstein: Afghanistan: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)

 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Syrian government reversed a ban on women teachers wearing Islamic face cover in the classroom.  The concession to Western-backed Islamist protestors is instructive, since the secular socialist Assad government is clearly in the crosshairs of City of London bankers attempting to redraw the political map of the Middle East.  As in Libya and Afghanistan, the banksters are counting on fundamentalists to carry out their counter-revolutionary agenda.

Though Western intelligence had earlier cavorted with Islamists in attacking nationalist movements in Iraq, Indonesia and Iran; it was in Afghanistan where they unleashed the full force of their young Frankensteins.

This disastrous experiment came to a head last week when 2,000 Afghans attacked a UN compound in usually sedate Mazar-e-Sharif, killing 7 staffers.  Though set off by the burning of a Quran by our own Florida version of the Taliban (see my Left Hook article “Pastor Jones & Mohammed Atta”), one must understand this nation’s history to fully comprehend Afghan anger towards their Western occupiers.

Afghanistan was founded in 1747 and ruled by a bloodline monarchy with rumored ties to the legendary Roshaniya- the all-seeing ones.  In 1933 King Mohammed Zaher Shah took the throne, ruling the country in feudalistic fashion until deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud in 1973. [1]

In April 1978 Daoud was killed in a popular revolution led by socialist leader Nor Mohammed Taraki, who became President and embarked on an ambitious land reform program to help poor Afghan sharecroppers, who were traditionally forced to work land owned by the king and his cronies.

Taraki built schools for women who were banned from education under the monarchy.  He opened Afghan universities to the poor and introduced free health care.  When counter-revolutionary bandits began to burn down universities and girl’s schools, many Afghan’s saw the hand of the CIA.  As the campaign of sabotage intensified, Kabul revolutionaries called on Soviet leader Leonid Brezynev to send troops to repel the bandits.  Brezynev refused.

In 1979 pro-Taraki militants, convinced of a CIA destabilization plot, assassinated CIA Kabul Chief of Station Spike Dubbs.  Indeed, in April 1979, a full seven months before the much-ballyhooed Soviet “invasion” of Afghanistan occurred, US officials met with Afghan warlords bent on overthrowing Taraki.  On July 3, 1979 President Carter signed the first national security directive authorizing secret aid to Afghan warlords.  Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said he convinced Carter that in his “…opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”[2]

War On America

Source: FKN News
Deek Jackson

A little comedic relief.

Rense Interviews Dr. Joseph P. Farrell: Heading To War?

Source: Rense.com

EU Fulfills 'Hitler's Dream' of Dictatorship

Source: RT

Time is running out for Eurozone leaders to save their unified currency as they prepare for eleventh-hour talks in Brussels. But by preserving Euro, Europe dooms itself to Hitler’s dream of Euro dictatorship, believes journalist Tony Gosling. 

­“The individual countries, if they want to retain their sovereignty, then they are going to have to go back to their original currencies,” Gosling told RT.

Anxious Greeks Emptying Their Bank Accounts

Source: Spiegel Online

Many Greeks are draining their savings accounts because they are out of work, face rising taxes or are afraid the country will be forced to leave the euro zone. By withdrawing money, they are forcing banks to scale back their lending -- and are inadvertently making the recession even worse. 

Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the central bank of Greece, is a man of statistics, and they speak a clear language. "In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November the decline continued on a large scale," he recently told the economic affairs committee of the Greek parliament.

With disarming honesty, the central banker explained to the lawmakers why the Greek economy isn't managing to recover from a recession that has gone on for three years now: "Our banking system lacks the scope to finance growth." 

He means that the outflow of funds from Greek bank accounts has been accelerating rapidly. At the start of 2010, savings and time deposits held by private households in Greece totalled €237.7 billion -- by the end of 2011, they had fallen by €49 billion. Since then, the decline has been gaining momentum. Savings fell by a further €5.4 billion in September and by an estimated €8.5 billion in October -- the biggest monthly outflow of funds since the start of the debt crisis in late 2009.

The raid on bank accounts stems from deep uncertainty in Greek households which culminated in early November during the political turmoil that followed the announcement by then-Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou of a referendum on the second Greek bailout package. 

Papandreou withdrew the plan and stepped down following an outcry among other European leaders against the referendum, and a new government was formed on Nov. 11 under former central banker Loukas Papademos. That appears to have slowed the drop in bank savings, at least for the time being.

Have You Heard About The 16 Trillion Dollar Bailout The Federal Reserve Handed To The Too Big To Fail Banks?

Source: The Economic Collapse

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you.  During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret.  Do you remember the TARP bailout?  The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks.  Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did.  As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars in nearly interest-free money to the "too big to fail" banks between 2007 and 2010.  So have you heard about this on the nightly news?  Probably not.  Lately Bloomberg has been reporting on some of this, but even they are not giving people the whole picture.  The American people need to be told about this 16 trillion dollar bailout, because it is a perfect example of why the Federal Reserve needs to be shut down.  The Federal Reserve has been actively picking "winners" and "losers" in the financial system, and it turns out that the "friends" of the Fed always get bailed out and always end up among the "winners".  This is not how a free market system is supposed to work.

According to the limited GAO audit of the Federal Reserve that was mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the grand total of all the secret bailouts conducted by the Federal Reserve during the last financial crisis comes to a whopping $16.1 trillion.

That is an astonishing amount of money.

Keep in mind that the GDP of the United States for the entire year of 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars.

The total U.S. national debt is only a bit above 15 trillion dollars right now.

So 16 trillion dollars is an almost inconceivable amount of money.

But some other dollar figures have been thrown around lately regarding these secret Federal Reserve bailouts.  Let's take a look at them and see what they mean.

Nigel Farage: This is How Dictatorship Begins

Source: Byoblu
Claudio Messoru

UKIP Leader Nigel Farage MEP is interviewed by Claudio Messoru of Byoblu.com (Italy)

The European Central Bank Fiddles While Rome Burns

Source: Global Research
Ellen Brown

“To some people, the European Central Bank seems like a fire department that is letting the house burn down to teach the children not to play with matches.”               

So wrote Jack Ewing in the New York Times last week.  He went on:

“The E.C.B. has a fire hose — its ability to print money. But the bank is refusing to train it on the euro zone’s debt crisis.

“The flames climbed higher Friday after the Italian Treasury had to pay an interest rate of 6.5 percent on a new issue of six-month bills . . . the highest interest rate Italy has had to pay to sell such debt since August 1997 . . . .

“But there is no sign the E.C.B. plans a major response, like buying large quantities of the country’s bonds to bring down its borrowing costs.”  

Why not?  According to the November 28^th Wall Street Journal, “The ECB has long worried that buying government bonds in big enough amounts to bring down countries' borrowing costs would make it easier for national politicians to delay the budget austerity and economic overhauls that are needed.” 

As with the manufactured debt ceiling crisis in the United States, the E.C.B. is withholding relief in order to extort austerity measures from member governments—and the threat seems to be working.  The same authors write:     

“Euro-zone leaders are negotiating a potentially groundbreaking fiscal pact . . . [that] would make budget discipline legally binding and enforceable by European authorities. . . . European officials hope a new agreement, which would aim to shrink the excessive public debt that helped spark the crisis, would persuade the European Central Bank to undertake more drastic action to reverse the recent selloff in euro-zone debt markets.”

The Eurozone appears to be in the process of being “structurally readjusted” – the same process imposed earlier by the IMF on Third World countries.  Structural demands routinely include harsh austerity measures, government cutbacks, privatization, and the disempowerment of national central banks, so that there is no national entity capable of creating and controlling the money supply on behalf of the people.  The latter result has officially been achieved in the Eurozone, which is now dependent on the E.C.B. as the sole lender of last resort and printer of new euros.