Economic pressures

[Danny B]

INSURGE intelligence

The gold bugs want to sell gold. The stockbrokers want to sell stocks. The State wants to sell bonds. Everybody "talks" their own "book". Academia wants to keep the salaries and grants coming. They don't have an EFFFFing clue what they are talking about but, everybody listens to them.
The non-involved writers like Charles Hugh Smith have limited resources to develop and prove their theorems about how the economy really works.

Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support us to keep digging where others fear to tread.

EXCELLENT article.
https://medium.com/insurge-intellige...e-82efb9ca45fe

[Danny B]

No such thing as LIBOR

Historically, interest charges were determined by risk of loss.
Historically, interest charges were justified by the fact that the person who made the loan has to forgo consumption because somebody was using his money.
The State and the CBs have provided so much "money" that nobody (rich) has to forgo consumption. There is so much money floating around that HIGH risk entities can borrow at close to 2% when a true reflection of risk would demand about 15%.
"Research by Italian investment bank Mediobanca found that 114 of Italy’s 500 banks have “Texas Ratios” of over 100% (non-performing loans divided by tangible book value plus reserves; a TR of over 100% is considered perilous).

24 of the endangered banks reportedly have ratios of over 200%, among them some of Italy’s biggest banks, like Monte dei Paschi di Siena with a TR of 269%, and Veneto Banca with a TR of 239%."
5 Reasons Why You Should Buy Silver Now | RiskHedge

So, in a world economy where CBs have provided mountains of debt masquerading as liquidity, what should the interest rate be?

"LIBOR stands for the London Interbank Offered Rate. It measures the rate at which banks lend to each other. If you have any kind of consumer loan, it's a fair bet that it's based on LIBOR.
LIBOR is generally understood as a measure of market confidence. If LIBOR rates are high, it means bankers are nervous about the future and charging a lot to lend. If rates are low, worries are fewer and borrowing is cheaper.
Here's how it's supposed to work. Every morning at 11 a.m. London time, twenty of the world's biggest banks tell a committee in London how much they estimate they'd have to pay to borrow cash unsecured from other banks.

The committee takes all 20 submissions, throws out the highest and lowest four numbers, and then averages out the remaining 12 to create LIBOR rates.
But beginning in the mid-nineties, banks began to discover that other markets provided easier and cheaper sources of funding, like the commercial paper or treasury repurchase markets. Trading between banks fell off.
Again, this was bad. But it paled in comparison to the fact that the numbers these nitwits were manipulating were fake to begin with. The banks were supposed to be estimating how much it would cost them to borrow cash. But they weren't borrowing cash from anyone.

For decades now, the world's biggest banks have been dutifully reporting a whole range of numbers every morning at 11 a.m. London time
The FCA's Bailey put it this way (emphasis mine):
"I don't rule out that you could have another benchmark that would measure what Libor is truly supposed to measure, which is bank credit risk in the funding market," he said. "But that would be – and I use this term carefully – a synthetic rate because there isn't a funding market."

There isn't a funding market!
Some canny law firm somewhere is going to figure this out, sooner rather than later, and devise the world's largest and most lucrative class-action lawsuit: Earth v. Banks.
Taibbi: Is LIBOR, Crucial Financial Benchmark, a Lie? - Rolling Stone

[Danny B]

Oil, guns and volatility

"According to Kurt Wulff of the oil investment firm McDep Associates, the Four Horsemen, romping in their new Far East pastures, saw asset increases from 1988-1994 as follows: Exxon Mobil- 54%, Chevron Texaco- 74%, Royal Dutch/Shell- 52% and BP Amoco- 54%. Big Oil had more than doubled its collective assets in six short years. This quantum leap in global power had everything to do with the takeover of the old Soviet oil patch"
https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress....he-oil-stupid/

Keep in mind that Venezuela has about 6 billion barrels of oil.
Trump warns VZ Of US ‘Military Option’

Heading Toward US Military Action vs Venezuela?

Trump Rules Out Talks With VZ's Maduro

Maduro Wants Urgent Summit Of 33 Regional Leaders
Maduro can see that Pox Americana wants to shoot first and talk later.
First Freighter Carrying Russian Wheat Leaves For VZ
If central Asia cuts off their oil, Pox Americana will have to scramble for supplies. We have no EFFING reason to go into Venezuela. Sure, we're going in to protect the common people and stabilize the country. This worked so well in the middle east.
If Russia is feeding Venezuela, it might help them stave off the deadly embrace of Pox Americana.


General Dynamics first delivered 654% gains from stopping the Cold War. It then went on develop new technologies, eventually rising 11,040%.

Boeing initially surged 880% on its way to an 8,985% payday.

And Lockheed Martin first soared 1,809% before absolutely exploding up 24,148%.
And I Believe This $382 Million Defense Contractor Is in Position to Control a $45 Billion Opportunity.

That’s the Equivalent of It Growing 111-Fold in Size
The Navy has 113 of them.

And if each is equipped with 1,000 “smart bullets”...

That’s another 113,000 "smart bullets" at $25,000 a pop.
The Only Thing That Stands
Between China and All of That Oil
Is the United States Navy
The South China Sea could contain as much as 130 billion barrels of oil and 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The article is about the new Chinese super missiles AND the American rail gun that is supposed to stop them.
https://pro.moneymappress.com/p/EADM...TCB&g=0&h=true

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Dwight D. Eisenhower"
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/a...isenhower.html

"The US government itself calculates that the long-term Social Security shortfall exceeds $46 TRILLION.
In other words, in order to be able to pay the benefits they’ve promised, Social Security needs a $46 trillion bailout.

Fat chance.
That amount is over TWICE the national debt, and nearly THREE times the size of the entire US economy.
Moreover, it’s nearly SIXTY times the size of the bailout that the banking system received back in 2008."
Social Security Requires A Bailout That's 60x Greater Than The 2008 Emergency Bank Handout | Zero Hedge

"As such, any spike in equity market realized volatility, even to historical average levels, has the potential to drive a significant amount of equity selling (much of it automated). Such selling would, in turn, further increase volatility which would call for more deleveraging and yet more selling.”
"total outstanding leveraged loans in the U.S. reached $943 billion at the end of 2Q17. Moreover, covenant-lite loans — high-risk instruments issued by junk-rated borrowers, with few protections for creditors — made up 72.5% of that total, a record. "
"QE and the rise of passive strategies means history may tell us nothing about what’s to come. And the longer volatility remains suppressed, the bigger the leverage bubble grows and the more costly the correction will be once the passive herd is spooked. As Hyman Minsky once said: “The more stable things become and the longer things are stable, the more unstable they will be when the crisis hits.”
"“Refusal to acknowledge the existence of risk has become a pandemic,” Richter writes. “This of course has been the explicit strategy of the Fed since the Financial Crisis — to push investors out ever farther toward the thin end of the risk branch.”

The meteoric rise of passive strategies — unbeholden to price discovery, endowed with the biases of their creators — has further encouraged investors to ignore risk."
https://latest.13d.com/toxic-mix-of-...s-5e92ba0f5fc1
So, when it all blows, the big Wall St. banks will melt-down while the markets are closed because they trade 24 / 7. Passive investors will wind up with nothing but smoke.

[Danny B]

The FED is caught between a rock and a dying socialist system

Non-bank competitors, The digital battle that banks must win | McKinsey & Company

"The Progressive believes in precisely two things: his own magnificence and the constructive power of brute force. In combination, they lead him naturally from the role of pestiferous busybody to brutal dictator. Where the productive man dreams of the things he might create if only left alone by his fellows, the Progressive dreams of the world he could create if only the lives and property of his fellows were at his disposal. "
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...ng-to-get-out/

"If anyone is going to start a war, it will be the Democrats and CNN who keep putting politics ahead of the national security of the country and the world. North Korea’s threat to launch four intermediate-range ballistic missiles into the ocean near Guam I have stated would be a huge risk for North Korea. This will mark the first combat test of the most sophisticated missile defense systems of the United States and its Asian allies known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or Thaad"
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...e-dogs-of-war/

Jim Willie, "August 10th: topics covered include stupidity behind USGovt sanctions against German companies and likely backfire as Berlin turns closer to the Kremlin, the failure of the entire Arab Spring movements with resultant killed Petro-Dollar backfire, the Qatar nettlesome issue with the Iran Gas Pipeline tied to their extensive roots to Europe and Russia, the Chinese usage of the ARAMCO stock IPO offering as leverage to buy Saudi oil in RMB terms, the Deep State failure which will earn US isolation as the USGovt desperados sanction the entire globe (while US Elite identified for multi-faceted genocide), the factors leading to the New Scheiss Dollar with massive impact when the King Dollar loses its global currency reserve (price inflation, supply shortage, social disorder)"

"July 29th: topics covered include USDollar fake corrupt support with QE, the coming dual universe of USD vs RMB in coexistence (which cannot be stopped), the coming IMF control of the International Dollar from Chinese offices, the global currency reserve risk of loss, the USFed bloated balance sheet at $4.5 trillion in toxic assets, the weak areas in the USEconomy in cars & pensions & energy sector, the Saudi-Qatar conflict as hint of Petro-Dollar fracture with late stage demise, the potential for Chinese oil purchases from Saudi but paid in RMB terms with powerful effect, the New Scheiss Dollar factors at work, the Trump America First reality with no progress on re-industrialization of the United States"
GOLDEN JACKASS.COM - The Golden Jackass Knows Gold, Currencies & Bonds"

So, the FED announced that they are going to reduce their balance sheet. Come September, FED GOV is going to demand that the FED increase their balance sheet to support a climb in the debt ceiling.
"Fannie-Freddie Might Need $100 Billion in New Crisis, FHFA Says ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/.../fannie...n-new-crisis-f...
5 days ago - Mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could need nearly $100 "

The FED is holding a lot of short-term debt that it is not rolling over. In the next few years, this will reduce their balance sheet by almost $ 2 trillion.
http://i.investopedia.com/content/sh...0.22.09_am.png
http://www.investopedia.com/insights...balance-sheet/
If, as Martin Armstrong claims, all confidence flows away from sovereign debt, The FED won't be able to sell off the GOV paper that they hold.

"Today, the Fed accounts for about 17 percent of all the public debt outstanding of the federal government."
"Significantly, the total debt as of January 2009 was $10.627 trillion. It has jumped by $9.218 trillion (86.7 percent) since then. Much of the debt has accumulated due to the War on Terror."
"the Fed holds $1.770 trillion in mortgage-backed securities that are issued primarily by government-backed entities. They include the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) -- a wholly owned government corporation -- as well as the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are nominally private institutions but have been operating under government conservatorship since 2008."
NATURALLY, Fannie-Freddie need another $ 100 billion.
http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/...ional_deb.html
"The problem is real. The solution will be painful."
"This translates into $61,349 per person or $165,926 per taxpayer."

[Danny B]

ACC, SDR, Griffin and cashless

You can bet your life that the bankers and the State want to remain in power. They have BIG plans for you and your tangible assets.
Here is a vid from Lynete Zang, CHIEF MARKET ANALYST for ITM trading. She explains that she doesn't really understand many of the new subterfuges in the plans of the PTB to take possession of all assets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYPsygSHnAs

In a general sense, everything in the West would be digitally linked to the SDR,,, special drawing rights,,, masquerading as the ACC. This would be a centralized ledger.
Stolen from Comments; "Bitcoin is DECENTRALIZED. If you trade your Bitcoin for centralized government crypto like ACC then that's your choice. Nobody can force you to do it. Crypto is a double edged sword. The Decentralized version can eradicate government and banker tryanny OVERNIGHT. The Centralized version can enslave humanity probably forever. One of these versions WILL BE USED in the future. The banks will push their centralized crypto strongly because they own the media, it will be do or die for Bankers. It is up to YOU to educate everyone you know about the difference between Bitcoin and government $hit like ACC."

If Mrs Zang has trouble understanding this, I suspect that everyone else would have trouble also.
The default cascade is not too far away. The CBs know that and are trying to position themselves owning everything tangible so that a crash in currency won't hurt them near as much as it might other wise.
More vids;
Central Banks Prepare for End of the Dollar - G. Edward Griffin Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FnIrWygZLE Griffin wrote the original book exposing the FED.
PREPARING TO REGULATE ALL HUMAN ACTIVITY | G Edward Griffin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj9xD4bj2h4

G. Edward Griffin: "A Cashless Society Is The Ultimate Globalist Endgame!"
World Alternative Media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg7EexTxBbY

[Danny B]

Quantum tunnelling, the Noosphere and distress

The "100th monkey" phenomenon was first reported by Lawrence Blair and Lyall Watson. Simply stated, when enough members of a species "know" something, they all know it.
Brian David Josephson, FRS (born 4 January 1940), is a Welsh theoretical physicist and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Cambridge. He won a Nobel Prize for proving Quantum Tunnelling carried information to all members of a species. That explains how all the members of a flock or school all turn at once.
The "Princeton Egg" experiment shows that humans are also connected.
The Global Consciousness Project

Here is an excellent article about how humans are reacting to the current socio-economic problems.
"If one in six Americans is being medicated for depression and/or anxiety, and another significant chunk are checking out via opioid numbing, perhaps we need to consider an alternative explanation for these facts: There’s something wrong with the world these people are inhabiting -- not with the people themselves.

Charles Eisenstein really caught my mind’s attention with a piece he wrote long ago entitled The Mutiny of the Soul. In it he argues that perhaps those most in need of medicinal help are actually those who are most attuned to the actual state of the world. He explains the rise in depression and anxiety like this:
The world is edging closer to the final moments after which everything will be forever changed. Grand delusions, perpetuated over decades, will finally hit the limits of reality and collapse in on themselves.
Young people have sussed this out; and are now pulling back from many of the principal occupations of their forebears -- like marriage, babies and buying homes and cars. This perplexes older folks, who are beginning to find themselves increasingly at odds with the generations following after them.
Monetary printing experiments like those currently being run by the world’s central banks are the ultimate form of self-delusion. Money is the most potent form of social communication, underlying all contracts and agreements. Violate those and literally everything falls apart,
If we’re lucky when these financial delusions finally break, we’ll hopefully avoid a global war. That’s the usual route by which the politicians and bankers seek to avoid having to be held accountable for the colossal mistakes they made in the past.
Like a flock of sheep catching the scent of an unseen predator, right now we’re collectively becoming increasingly nervous and stressed.

concluded the mortality rates were 24 percent higher for opioids and 22 percent higher for heroin than had been previously reported.
Nearly 35,000 people across America have died of heroin or opioid overdoses in 2015, according to theNational Institute on Drug Abuse.
An 18% increase in one year is profound.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/...signs-distress

“Three hours before the attacks, a machine called a Random Event Generator at Princeton University predicted a cataclysmic event was about to unfold.”
https://llwproductions.files.wordpre...stz2.gif?w=890
https://motleynews.net/2011/09/06/th...predicted-911/

[Danny B]

Chiasso incident

"American bonds were confiscated from two Japanese men who were travelling on a direct train to Chiasso, Switzerland"
"134.5 billion dollars "
ASIA-ITALY Everything suggests that the American bonds seized at Chiasso are real
Benjamin Fulford comments on this;
"According to one of these men, Mitsuyoshi Watanabe, formerly of Merrill Lynch, he was carrying a bunch of Kennedy bonds that were supposed to be cashed in order to finance a tunnel linking South Korea and Japan.

His companion, Akihiko Yamaguchi was carrying bonds given to him by a senior Yakuza.
The Yakuza said the bonds were part of a major hoard in Japan. Former US vice-president Dick Cheney recently examined the bonds, pronounced them to be real and took two boxes filled with $500 billion bonds with him. The Yakuza decided that if Cheney said they were real, he would try to cash some of them in Switzerland too.

Instead, the bonds were seized by the Vatican linked P2 Freemason lodge and by the operatives David Sale and Daniele dal Bosco."
"The problem we now face, however, is how to carry out a smooth transition to the new financial system without causing the enormous chaos and suffering that would result if the computers of the global banking system were suddenly shut down. "
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/s...fulford101.htm
Fulford careens from the plausible to the doubtful.
Trillion dollar lawsuit & Bilderberg

[Danny B]

Destroy America to bring in top-down socialism

Top-down socialism is just fascism in disguise. It was inflicted on Russia and killed a lot of people in the Bolshevik revolution. It was later extended to the States that comprised the U.S.S.R.
"There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews [Lenin’s paternal grandfather was later found to be a Jew]. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders." Winston Churchill.

Bottom-up socialism is a different story.
Churchill, "Germany’s most unforgivable crime before the Second World War was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world’s trading system and to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny world finance its opportunity to profit."

America was a successful bastion of capitalism. How could the world be brought under the yoke of top-down socialism if capitalism always proved to be a more successful system?
If Germany became an overnight, roaring success at bottom-up socialism, how could the world be convinced that top-down socialism was the road to utopia? Germany had to be destroyed.
"Since the end of the war about 3,000,000 people, mostly women and children and overaged men, have been killed in eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe; about 15,000,000 people have been deported or had to flee from their homesteads and are on the road. About 25 per cent of these people, over 3,000,000 have perished. About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to eastern Europe and Russia as slaves.
It seems that the elimination of the German population of eastern Europe – at least 15,000,000 people – was planned in accordance with decisions made at Yalta. Churchill had said to Mikolajczyk when the latter protested during the negotiations at Moscow against forcing Poland to incorporate eastern Germany: “Don’t mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them: they will cease to exist.”

This wide spread murder was a temporary measure. The Germans have re-emerged as a very successful people. They must now be destroyed permanently with forced immigration that will destroy them.

What about America? We were a bastion of free-market capitalism. It had to be poisoned and destroyed. The socialism of Eastern Germany and the U.S.S.R. looked exceedingly bad when compared to the West. Same for North Korea. Just the same, socialism was decreed to be the fate of the West.
Americans first needed to be dumbed down, the deliberate dumbing down of america
Mission accomplished. Americans are at the very bottom in math comprehension. Our education system is focused on destroying both the individual and society.

"Those who constitute the Deep State are not conspiring directly by working together to rule the world and control the people. What they are doing is taking advantage of a dumbed down fearful populace by using the chaos, incompetence of institutions, and confusion spread by the propaganda press to institute their agendas.
It ultimately comes down to power and control over the key mechanisms of finance, taxation, legislation and the media. There isn’t one specific group of conspirators working together to rule the world.
They have competing agendas, but they want the status quo to remain intact. No one within the establishment wants to change anything of substance. The current system benefits their personal interests, while destroying the lives of hard working American citizens.

Our government doesn’t in any way resemble its original concept of a republic. It doesn’t even resemble a democracy at this point. Since FDR and specifically since LBJ, we’ve become a welfare/warfare state. Since Bush II we’ve devolved into a corporate fascist surveillance socialist state. Despite rhetoric about free market capitalism, both parties have embraced socialism. The super-rich, bankers, corporate executives, liberals and conservatives came to the realization socialism disguised as capitalism fills their coffers at a much higher rate than true free market capitalism. Top-down socialism

I do believe we are in the midst of a Fourth Turning where the mood of the masses has turned unequivocally dark. With a decade or so remaining in this period of turmoil, chaos and war, the existing social order will be swept away and replaced by something new. But not necessarily better.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2...racy-or-chaos/

The FED wants to shrink it's balance sheet. Here is a graph of what happens when QE stops, http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2017...rofits2-17.png
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug17/...on8-17.htmlThe actual QE is FAR higher than the advertised QE.

"#4 In 2001, nearly 16 million Americans could not afford the homes that they were currently living in, but by 2015 that number had more than doubled.

#5 Our system of public education is a complete mess. A study of Millennials in 22 major industrialized nations conducted by the Educational Testing Service found that only two countries were worse when it comes to literacy proficiency, and we were dead last when it comes to math."

#7 Many Americans don’t realize this, but the United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet. But we actually have an even bigger problem with legal drugs. According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and an astounding 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.

13 We are an extremely, extremely unhappy nation. If you can believe it, doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year.
https://michaelsnyderforidaho.com/in...-deep-trouble/
Trump has no chance of making America great if Americans are not great.

Carl Sagan, "critical faculties in decline, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/commen...9j&sh=feb61110
Germany has an election coming soon. The EU hoped to force a debt union on EU States after the election . Germany has a $1 trillion surplus and the rest have a $1 trillion deficit. It remains to be seen of the non-German states can arm-twist to get the money from Germany.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...being-proposed

[Danny B]

The AIIB and the CIA / MIC

China formed the Asian infrastructure bank and other entities that are in direct competition with the World Bank and the IMF. Not surprisingly, the West is doing whatever it can to break up these competitors. A LOT of States have signed up with the Chinese bank.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/b...nds-aloof.html

India and China are now rattling sabres over land that is NOTHING.
https://journal-neo.org/2017/08/11/h...witched-sides/
Either it is Kabuki theater for the West or, the CIA has managed to create a problem.
Also, there are increasing problems between Japan and China.
While China holds a lot of promise for investors, they are hedging their bets due to the astronomical debt in corporate China.
http://thesoundingline.com/wp-conten...t-1024x625.png
Chart of the Day: Putting the Chinese Corporate Debt Bubble in Perspective - The Sounding Line
The military industrial complex may very get their war by going around Trump, If War Comes, Don't Blame The "Military-Industrial Complex" ? It's Much Worse Than You Think | Zero Hedge
ZIRP is now crashing the hedge funds. If you are drinking out of the QE punchbowl, everything is fine. If you are drinking out of the ZIRP punchbowl, everything is bad.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bridg...g-money-2017-8

[Danny B]

The pot is boiling over

Armstrong, (Germany and France) "They cannot see that this is an endless quest to find new things to tax because they have totally mismanaged government. They will continue in the direction literally until there is a major rebellion, for they are constantly lowering the standard of living by reducing disposable income."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-their-houses/
Armstrong writes about East Germany boiling over AND the current boiling in the Ukraine, https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...3-to-26-weeks/

Armstrong, "Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer had denounced the ‘cowardly parade of hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance march down the lawns of the architect of our Bill of Rights’ and warned for residents to stay away from the rally. "
For the major to label this event simply caused by “hatred, bigotry, racism, and intolerance” demonstrates he does not comprehend the cause"
"We will most likely see these type events explode peaking out in real bloodshed by September 21/22nd, 2019 (2019.725). So expect to see this civil unrest continue to rise especially after 2017."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...cle-into-2020/
The States created the fed gov. They had the right to secede. After the southern armies were defeated, Lincoln sent Gen. Sherman to destroy everything he could find. General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Atlanta to Savannah destroying everything for a hundred miles on either side.. He is still very much the most hated man in Georgia.
They don't forget things like this in the South.

[Danny B]

American crackdown in BTC

The Graham-Leachy act that voided the Glass-Steagal dumped all your money into the laps of the bankers. They blew it all. The bankers "enticed" the State to hand them $ trillions of taxpayer's money. They have burned through that.
Enter the blockchain. The bankers are trying to ensure that all payments are run through the banks.
The digital battle that banks must win | McKinsey & Company
But, the banking system is both inefficient AND parasitic. Commerce demands efficiency.
"Blockchain -- the technology used for verifying and recording transactions that’s at the heart of ethereum and bitcoin -- can also be used to verify contractual agreements, intellectual property rights and public online ledgers without intermediaries. "
Russia is going for efficiency, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...l-currency-use

The bankers are losing ground because they are a bunch of thieving A-holes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qezrH2c5N3c
Naturally, they enlist the aid of the State to block the competition.
They call it illicit finance. Obviously, the State has an interest in continuing to tax everything in sight They will naturally side with the bankers..
US Launches Quiet Crackdown On Cryptocurrencies | Zero Hedge
"As Coinivore reports, the bill requires the governments to develop a “national security strategy” to combat the “financing of terrorism and related forms of illicit finance.”
Comments;
"So you cashed out your paper profit? The exchange wired the money to the bank account you gave them together with photo ID scan and all personal data?"
Thats not their worry its when it goes to bitcoin and stays in bitcoin and the end user sees it as a reliable mechanism of exchange and it does not come back to fiat.. Thats where there panicing.. And if the Chinese have already mastered pinnacle parallel offshore transactions of buying and selling houses in Vancouver through an offshore exchange. Central Bank and Government NIGHTMARE.. No Taxes for you so sry!! The Chinese have done an end run around Canadian taxation while the house 'sale' occured on a chinese bitcoin exchange offshore.. They show up and do a taxless title transfer.."

"When Communist Party cracked down on bank-based exchanges back in 2013, people started trading grocery store vouchers to miners and exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Similar non-bank exchanges like Purse.IO already exist in the West. Money always finds a way. LocalBitcoins. Mycelium LocalTrader."
"Is it LEGAL TENDER? (if it IS NOT, then why does Amazon accept it? & if that's the case, why does THE GOVERNMENT allow Amazon to accept a currency for payment that is not LEGAL TENDER)?"
"> but give me a list of anything I'm actually interested in that I can purchase with bitcoin.

Anything on Overstock.com directly. Anything on Amazon (at a discount!) via purse.io"
"According to the bill, an initial draft strategy is expected to come before Congress within the next year, and will see input from U.S. financial regulators, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department"
A YEAR !

[Danny B]

August, no worries

Vid,
Mike Maloney - Why Crash is due August 17, 2017 AltaReports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbb_B1TX3yM
MIKE MALONEY On Expected Economic Crash on August 21, 2017
RED ALERT: The Dollar Will Collapse 100% on AUGUST 2017! Ron Paul Last Warning To America
James Rickards AUGUST 2017 The Financial System Will Go Dark When The Economic
David Stockman AUG 2017 The US & Global Economy Has Entered The Crack Up Phase
Some people just can't help themselves. They have to put a date on their predictions.

[Danny B]

Feeding the State pac-man

Armstrong; "Brussels will become authoritarian when the free markets rain on their parade. " (refuse to buy GOV bonds)
"I have been warning that as governments move closer to this major event of a Sovereign Debt Crisis which begins next year with the start of the Monetary Crisis Cycle, they historically will ALWAYS, and without exception, bite the hand that has fed them. The object for government is survival of the fittest and that is them."
"This is also never about how to properly run the economy for the benefit of all. It always boils down to it being them against us." (Congress passed a law stating that insider-trading is illegal,,, except for them)

"Throughout history, there has never been even one benevolent government that has ever surrendered power willingly for the good of the country or the people. That has NEVER happened even once."
"More-often-Than-Not, the revolutions throughout history come about when the taxes of government simply break the back of the economy. We are reaching one of those moments as we cross the threshold into 2018."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...it-inevitable/
" Yes, the dollar will rise after this year from Political Hell. Keep in mind that a rising dollar will break the world monetary system – not a weak dollar. Keep in mind that the entire system is headed to a reset probably no later than 2021"
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...it-inevitable/

"The Private Sector DB Plans are underfunded by $500 billion, while the Federal and State-Local DB Plans are underfunded by $3.8 trllion (adding both columns together). Even more amusing is that the Federal DB Pension Plans hold a larger underfunded liability than their total assets. While we have heard in the news that the State Pension Plans are in big trouble, we can plainly see the Federal Govt Pension Plans are in much worse shape… LOL."
https://dj0s31cxqi9ot.cloudfront.net...nts.png?x65756
Something Big, Bad And Ugly Is Taking Place In The U.S. Retirement Market GREAT graphs

Illinois is raising the snot out of taxes to fund State expenses. Their pension coasts are eating up everything. A half dozen other States are in the same boat.
FED GOV has to either; print money for unfunded liabilities OR raise taxes way up.
Vattel, “THE nation, being the sole mistress of the property in her possession, may dispose of it as she thinks proper, and may lawfully alienate or mortgage it. "
"The Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution specifically references property thusly: “ . . . nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
"Even the most simple of minds can understand the meaning of private property being taken for public use. Heretofore the public nominally accepted that the United States honors the rule of law. After the KELO et al. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON et al. decision, the supreme court has demonstrated decisively and for all times that the legal system has become a Vattelian harbinger of regal predictability. "
"The five judges Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer inextricably prove that they are tools of an oppressive autocracy bent on eradicating the last vestige of citizen sovereignty. Dissenting Justice O'Connor sums up the lawful revulsion precisely: “Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner,"

"Appreciate the reality that the mantra of a government under the law is a myth. The mere fact that Chief Justice John Marshall set into motion the primacy of judicial review doomed this nation to the whims of arrogant black robed tyrants. "
The Court and your Castle
SO, just what limitations will exist to hold back the State when it decides that it needs your property to continue to fund itself?

[Danny B]

You can run but, you can't hide,,, from the tax man

European socialism has just gotten too expensive. Draghi has gone against the rules to print & buy debt directly. It is either that or, let the Italian banks meltdown.
"The Bundesbank has bought about £9.1billion in government bonds every month, making it the biggest purchaser of government debt in the EU."
Germany attacks ECB over £1.8TRILLION quantity easing programme | World | News | Express.co.uk
"The plaintiffs in Germany wanted the Bundesverfassungsgericht to stop the Bundesbank’s participation in the ECB program. Germany, they argued, would suffer a complete loss if the bonds failed."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/i...tative-easing/

The EU is running out of other people's money. Where did it go? Deflation of the money supply can happen in all different ways.
Half of Belgium's economic output ends up in tax havens
https://www.rt.com/business/399528-b...tax-haven-gdp/
As various groups put their money out of reach of the tax man, the State has to print and steal that much more.

"Switzerland has its “wealth tax” which they argue is nothing just 0.02%. However, it requires you to report all assets worldwide. They then know precisely what you have and it is merely one vote away at anytime to raise the tax or impose criminal penalties for failure to report everything. Yet, once Switzerland has that info, under G20 they must share it with all other governments."
"Now the German Federal Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, is proposing to control all large cash transactions claiming this will prevent black money transactions and money laundering. Of course, they see these two issues not as typical crime like drugs, but tax avoidance."
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/w...-transactions/
The article blames Bin laden and terrorism for all this. Bin laden did not bring socialism to the West.

[Danny B]

BTC, secure or not

The banks want to take <5%> of your money yearly with negative interest. The State wants to take whatever it claims that it needs. The State has done it's best to ensure that there are no safe havens or alternatives to their fiat. this is driving more and more people to crypto currencies. I've already written quite a bit but, this is a fast-evolving subject.

"But there’s no getting around the fact that Bitcoin is essentially a speculative investment in a new technology, specifically the blockchain. Think of the blockchain, very basically, as layers of independent electronic security that encapsulate a cryptocurrency and keep it frozen in time and space — like layers of amber around a fly. This is what makes a cryptocurrency “crypto.”
Bitcoin and each new initial coin offering (ICO) should be thought of as software infrastructure innovation tools, not competing currencies. It’s the amber that determines their value, not the flies.
All local governments had to do was make it illegal to hide, and thus force law-abiding citizens to become criminals if they fail to disclose such accounts. We should expect similar anti-money laundering hygiene and taxation among the cryptocurrencies.

As a new cryptocurrency is assigned units of a store-of-value, those units must, by necessity, leave other stores-of-value, whether gold or another cryptocurrency. New depositories of value must siphon off the existing depositories of value. On a global scale, it is very much a zero sum game.

Or, as we might say, we can improve the layers of amber, but we can’t create more flies.
The problem is that there is no barrier to entry for cryptocurrencies; as each new competing cryptocurrency finds success, it dilutes or inflates the universe of the others.
They do not create new value, but are finite in supply and are merely intended to hold value that has already been created through savings and productive investment. To miss this point is to perpetuate the very same fallacy that global central banks blindly follow today. You simply cannot create money, or capital, from thin air

Comments;
"the problem is that there is no barrier to entry for cryptocurrencies; as each new competing cryptocurrency finds success, it dilutes or inflates the universe of the others."
All fiats are backed by force, as there was no escape - until crypto. The G8 Central Bankers could fiddle and play with the fiat all they liked. Then if that wasn't enough the governments wait to feed after the Central Banks have gorged themselves.. A little jawbone talk could move the DJIA up or down $100 billion. Notice no matter what central bankers say it has almost no bearing on the value of Bitcoin..

That's right, they cannot control it without a full internet shutdown.

Crypto's value is the removal of the the parasitic function that accompanied all forced fiats. It's value is that it escapes the inflation mechanism of 'growth' forced upon everyone that utlizes fiat dollars. In otherwords it is the escape velocity vehicle to escape the black sucking hole that is your central bank..

And the more they destroy their fiat (which is a mathmatical certainty), the more governments seize your stuff to feed their ever growing parasitic nature, the more people will realize that there is no wealth in fiat, it must come from a mechanism that cannot be easily diluted, like crypto..

The advantage of 21st century cryptos is their emission and use circumvents and disintermediates the 20th century banks with their expensive overhead and "protection" racket. The banks enable expensive, slow, outdated and unresponsive 20th century governments to still exist in the 21st century. Consequently most of the world yet awaits the 21st century-and this is ultimately the primary driver behind crypto.

Eventually nothing more than an iPhone/android app will be required to exchange value between two people. That value for now remains denominated in Dollars or Euro - but that WILL disappear-only question being when.

Who is to say whether backdoors will be added to any crypto currency

The programmers who have completely rewritten the code for bitcoin, or the other programmers who wrote the code for their coins from scratch.

Also the stark reality that coins have never been stolen from anyone's wallet.
The Heartbleed Bug is a serious vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library. This weakness allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet. SSL/TLS provides communication security and privacy over the Internet for applications such as web, email, instant messaging (IM) and some virtual private networks (VPNs)...

Heartbleed Bug
Spitznagel: Why Cryptocurrencies Will Never Be Safe Havens | Zero Hedge