Signs of the Economic Apocalypse, 10-20-08

Gold closed at 787.00 dollars an ounce Friday, down 9.1% from $859.00 for the week. The dollar closed at 0.7456 euros Friday, virtually unchanged from 0.7458 at the close of the previous week. That put the euro at 1.3412 dollars compared to 1.3408 at the end of the week before. Gold in euros would be 586.79 euros an ounce, down 9.2% from 640.66 at the close of the previous week. Oil closed at 72.03 dollars a barrel Friday, down 7.9% from $77.70 at the close of the week before. Oil in euros would be 53.71 euros a barrel, down 7.9% from 57.95 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 10.93 Friday, down 11.9% from 11.06 at the close of the previous week. In U.S. stocks, the Dow closed at 8,852.22 Friday, up 4.7% from 8,451.19 at the close of the previous Friday. The NASDAQ closed at 1,711.29 Friday, up 3.7% from 1,649.51 for the week. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 3.92%, up 5 basis points from 3.87 at the close of the week before.

Gold and oil dropped sharply last week, while U.S. stocks rose, believe it or not. Most of the rise in the stock market happened on Monday, though. We can expect “volatility” which means drastic up and down swings. But that can make it harder to see where we are going. Last week we suggested that there is a behind the scenes struggle for control of the world financial system between factions of the elite and an effort to intensify control between the elite and the rest of us. Stephen Martin explains:

Full-Spectrum Global Financial Domination: Shock and Awe in Economic Warfare

Stephen Martin

October 10 / 12, 2008

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goering

In the Economic War currently being waged, the first phase of the telling of such tale of attack, illustrated vividly by image, and with the objective of further building war chest, is over. We have seen the collapse of Lehman Brothers as sacrificial wolf, heard further sabres being rattled in form of AIG, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and bailout, or rescue gone through on the basis of fear and plunging markets. The public coffers have been prised opened further as to plan.

Now the second phase of Economic Blitzkrieg is to begin, and the bad news is that as in total war, the citizen is no more than mere fodder to bomb. The firebombing of Dresden still stands as the worst atrocity of such total war. In Economic War, collateral damage; whether through default on mortgage, wipe out of pension or life savings, loss of livelihood, homelessness - all just battlefield casualty.

This is one big, bold, beast of a high risk strategy towards full spectrum Global Financial dominance no less, and as must have been years in the planning. Even as strategies of war such as scorched earth and the surprise of Blitzkrieg go, it has callousness almost unimaginable in the misery and sufferance it is willing to inflict, including on it’s own people, given that it’s origins are in America - although it has to be pointed out that the true free marketer as Economic warrior, financial terrorist and beast is without country; loyal only to the maximisation of profit as expression of greed and quench of power lust – and as heartless a whore as can be found in the deepest of tragedy.

Economic Warfare Shock and Awe works like this:

First of all you create a shocking financial poison. Then you create the environment necessary for that poison to circulate in the enemy economy, ideally in a situation where they do not know they’ve even swallowed it in quantity– until it is too late. Iceland for example. Many other Economies are also on the brink of being such ‘suckers going down’. Iceland just the first - but hey, every little economy helps when the target is Global Financial Domination.

Let’s examine the brewing of this financial poison, before we turn attention towards the antidote. Just like watching in horror the Stukas dive bombing to terrifying wailing of siren – before the storm troopers are sent in to establish control as achievement of objective in Blitzkrieg manoeuvre. The strategy: first create and administer the shocking financial poison -and then have antidote conveniently to hand, offered with strings attached.

It has to be said that he scale of this particular poisoning makes the Borgias look like little more than mere dilettantes.

Trouble with the Borgias was no ambition.

The shocking financial poison. Stand back in awe. Known by many names, but let’s stick with the most popular. The collateralised debt obligation, or CDO. In order to produce such poison, you require a pump. A special pump fuelled by greed – commission mainly, but also in form of release of equity - by the greed or need of the dupe – and there are lots of dupes out there, as I can personally testify, alas. So what you do is you use this pump on the market, after priming, and inflate the value of as much Collateral as you can (that’s the Real Estate, or the homes citizens have need to live within) and then stand back and watch as greed leads to the inevitable cycle of events. At each little stage in the cycle, more commission is taken out, more bonuses taken until what you have left, the distillate as it were, is a highly toxic pile of worthless paper on some poor sucker’s balance sheet as a dump, where it masquerades as current ‘asset’, liberating noxious fumes. Has something died in the cellar? Get enough of this toxic crap circulating and dumped, and you can bring down whole economies.

There are other financial poisons in the market, including the original ‘fiat currency’, but as these are of lesser toxicity, more gradual in action, also with different antidote, equally shocking in the administration. Not go into detail, other than to mention that the fiat currency, for example, can be useful in the accumulation of tangible assets - but money from the public coffers was still required in this instance.

Remember, this is Global in aspiration.

Phase 2 of the implementation of Shock and Awe Economic warfare in the Master Plan involves the ‘assisted revival’ of the poisoned economies. The vehicle for delivery of the antidote, not the real villain, mind you, merely the accomplice, is the ‘International Monetary Fund’ stepping forth with bold new initiative. It’s springboard: the Economic War Chest, coffers overflowing. The objective being a controlling piece of the action, effectively control over banking and finance in the ‘assisted’ economies. No such thing as a free lunch, remember., especially when the IMF are involved – just ask any Chilean or indeed, Brazilian.

Who needs guns and bullets, when you have these financial storm troopers in the arsenal and such a huge war chest?

The term ‘high risk’ was given earlier.

In the shakedown stage; Phase 1 and even considerably well into Phase 2, victim economies undoubtedly suffer. Contraction in productivity, mass unemployment, paralysis of financial institutions, a lot of big manufacturing companies may even go down. They can be rebuilt, suitably re- financed. The secret, and indeed the risk, of this Master Plan is the acceptance of the assisting financial package as antidote, by those still in shock and awe. This requires a global channel to prevail, which will have allowed the free flow both of poison and of antidote. Should the channel be shut down, then plan b has to be adopted as back up. This is a regrouping and consolidation in base economy, using economic war chest to further control - in rebuilding the American Economy, taking advantage of shock and awe as undoubtedly present therein. Money can be loosened up again - from that war chest. America can be rebuilt, to slightly different image, and with more singular focus.

Back up plan c, in the highly unlikely event that citizens get wise to what is going on, and start bleating about the constitution and Democracy, doesn’t bear thinking about, especially if the global channel is shut down. Suffice it to say, Posse Comitatus as distant a memory as free press.

But hey, you’ve got to speculate to accumulate, right? And when it comes to detailed speculation and exacting accumulation on such a scale, who else has the experience - and now the ‘reserves’ necessary?

Thus proposed the Master Plan of Shock and Awe in Economic Warfare, as currently in implementation, in progress of moving towards Phase 2.

Full Spectrum Global Financial Domination, here we go. Don’t worry all you poisoned economies out there. The antidote is on the way.
Is such interpretation no more than Paranoia born of desperate questioning in response to the current Economic chaos going on around the world?

Maybe the hundreds of Economists not even consulted over the largest bailout in history have an answer.

In any event, God help us.

Economic warfare means that someone is trying to win. Every economic calamity has had winners, and the people that play these games think it can be them. The rest of us, for whom this is not a game, are the ones who suffer.

Last week we wrote that, “It is well documented, and thoroughly understood by those who have a complete grasp on the grand illusion that is global finance, that financial booms and the subsequent crashes are engineered by the financial elite via their control of both the banking system, including central banks, and the political elite whose careers they finance. Each crash is engineered through panic, triggered by the collapse of a major financial institution, whose flames are fanned by the press and through the careful placing of statements and information into the public sphere.”

So for the past eight years the media and the financial policymakers have been telling us that we were living in the best of all possible economic worlds. The fear and panic are triggers. Now, all of a sudden they are telling us to panic. The following piece by the satirical newspaper, The Onion, is only slightly exaggerated:

Bush Calls For Panic

October 15, 2008

WASHINGTON—In a nationally televised address to the American people Wednesday night, President Bush called upon every man, woman, and child to spiral uncontrollably downward into complete and utter panic.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Bush assured citizens that in these times of great uncertainty, the best and only course of action is to come under the throes of a sudden, overwhelming fear marked by hysterical or irrational behavior.

"My fellow Americans, the time for running aimlessly through streets while shrieking and waving our arms above our heads is now," Bush said. "I understand that many of you are worried about your economic future and our situation overseas, and you have every right to be. Yet there is only one thing we as a nation can do in times like these: give up all hope and devolve into a lawless, post-apocalyptic, every-man-for-himself society."

"For those of you who have remained resolute in your belief that things will turn around eventually, I urge you to close your eyes, take shallow rapid breaths, and begin freaking out immediately," Bush added. "At this point, anyone who isn't scared to death needs to wake the f*** up—because we're screwed here."

The president then picked up the telephone from his desk and hurled it through the Oval Office window.

During the address, Bush laid out a historic five-point plan for panic that he hopes will help the American people fall apart as quickly as possible. The plan—which many are calling Bush's most well-thought-out proposal to date—calls for citizens to abandon their daily routines entirely, and engage in a weeklong period of bloodcurdling screaming, arm flailing, dry heaving, and gnawing on one's fingers while rocking back and forth in alternating bouts of maniacal laughter and gentle sobbing.

Under the new bill, Americans are also advised to withdraw all their money from U.S. banks and the stock market, place it in a Maxwell House coffee tin, and bury it in a safe place in their backyard. In addition, Bush has urged the legalization of Americans trampling one another in a mad rush to compete for the nation's dwindling resources, and proposed allocating $3 billion toward a program that would give every citizen a gun and a bottle of 140-proof whiskey.

The final part of the plan calls for the immediate release of all convicted felons and death-row inmates from the nation's prisons.

Immediately after Congress approves his plan, the president said he will order multiple B-2 stealth bombers to fly over America's cities at low altitude. The resulting sonic boom, Bush said, will set off all car alarms and cause all babies to cry uncontrollably, which he believes will promote a real sense of chaos throughout the nation. In addition, Bush intends to release 50 live cobras into the Senate chamber.

"I realize this is a difficult vote for members of Congress, but at this critical time in our nation's history, it is imperative that we not sit back and pretend like everything is fine, because everything's not fine, it's just not," Bush said. "Even if Congress fails to act, I still intend to do what is right and lead this country into mass hysteria by acting outside the framework of the U.S. Constitution, overriding the entire democratic process, and setting the Lincoln Memorial on fire."

Early reactions on Capitol Hill to Bush's call for panic have thus far been positive. Leading House Republicans and Democrats said they appreciate the president's candor, and will encourage their constituents to comply with Bush's request to "find something and smash it with all of their strength."

"For most of the day tomorrow, I intend to do my part by remaining in my boarded-up home and getting worked up about our standing in the world," Pacoima, CA resident Harold Miller said. "And then at night, I plan to lie awake in my bed and be scared to death about the loss of my job, pension, and retirement fund. Then I plan to run out into the streets in my bathrobe and shout that the End of Days is coming."
Bush told Americans that if at any point they catch themselves feeling even slightly at ease, they should remind themselves that, in the end, everything is going to be completely f*****.

While we agree that there are lots of reasons to be fearful, why now, all of a sudden? The time is right, the players feel, to take the next step: a global currency and a global central bank. If you want, you can still have your dollars (or ameros) and euros, and yen, or whatever, but there will be a global currency block. But before that can happen, the pecking order among the global players must be sorted out and that is what’s happening now.