Do you want a recovery? Let the foreign banks fail

October 24, 2012 Leave a comment

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | OCTOBER 24, 2012

Although the financial crisis is said to have begun in 2008, its actual inception started many years before. As explained yesterday, the so-called recovery that almost every politician says governments are seeking is a sham. There are no plans drawn to have a recovery of the kind spoken of on the main stream media. In fact, it is totally the opposite.

It is true; the crisis that we are experiencing is the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930′s, but the conditions that created the crisis are the same that have existed for the past century. The system of creating money out of thin air enables the money makers to inject fake capital into economies, in what is called investments. After the economies get addicted to ‘free’ quick money to build their businesses, the issuers of the fake money take it away quickly or demand immediate return on those ‘investments’, which causes the decapitalization of those economies and consequently their collapse.

The causes of what seemed to have unraveled in 2008 began at the start of the 20th century with the adoption of the debt-based economic model. According to its precepts, governments yield the power to issue money to a group of international bankers who issue the it on behalf of governments around the world at a profit of as much as 30 percent or so. The interests accrued due to the issuance of the money — which is given to governments as a credit — is charged on those governments’ credit card and are immediately added to the tabs of the people who work to sustain government spending.

In a sense, the debt-based economic model originated on the irresponsibility from the part of the bureaucrats who manage the  government. Instead of spending the people’s money responsibly, the bureaucrats thought it was a better idea to borrow cash at immense interest rates, rather than decrease spending. Then, they decided to accept bribes and advice from international bankers to finance their out of control expenditures while charging the interests of the debt on the working classes.

The same system initiated in 1913, is still used today everywhere there is a central bank. Whether the bank is a private entity or an agency of the government is irrelevant. The bureaucrats elected to represent the people borrow money from the IMF and the World Bank, for example, in exchange for adopting specific policies that will guarantee the international bankers their ownership of the labor force for many generations into the future.

The money paid by working people to the central governments is not used to improve the communities where they live. They go to pay the interests on the debt acquired by the same central government in the name of the people. The type of improvements promised by politicians during their political campaigns are not paid with taxpayer money, but with the cash borrowed from the international bankers. The bankers arrive to nation-states and offer loans to governments that do not have enough liquidity to carry out the promises made during the political campaign. The government accepts all the conditions on the loan contract and effectively sign away sovereignty to the money makers.

The collapse of the kind the world is experiencing now is the last step of the plan that bankers have put together and implemented to become the sole owners of everything out there. The important difference between previous crises and the current one is that this may just be the last time bankers need to use their plan. That is because this time the bankers may simply walk away with everything, so no more manufactured crises will be needed.

The question is then, how do we stop the bankers from doing the same they’ve done in Greece, where they’ve looted it all? It is very easy, actually. All of Europe and the rest of the world needs to do the same that Iceland did. Instead of saying that international financial institutions were too big to fail, Iceland decided to kick them out. As it turns out, around 90 percent of the debt held by the Icelandic government was debt created by the banks and only 10 percent was actual debt incurred into by the people. After that fact was carefully determined, Iceland decided to take the other path towards a real recovery.

Believe it or not, Iceland decided to let the banks fail, which is exactly the opposite of what was done in Italy, France, Greece, Spain, England and the United States, to cite a few countries. Everywhere else where the crisis touched international banks, governments decided that it was a bad idea to tell the banks to get out of their countries and to take their debt with them. Instead, they printed more fake money to ‘rescue’ those banks and passed the debt to the people, who will have to pay interests on that debt for generations to come. This move not only did not solve the problem because the only thing it accomplished was to increase the debt, but also worsened economic conditions as no real solutions to the crisis were enacted.

At the beginning of 2008, the banks operating in Iceland owed the equivalent of 6 times the country’s GDP. The government there decided to nationalize the 3 most important debtor banks, which caused the devaluation of the local currency — the króna — by 85 percent. This seemed to spell trouble for Iceland, but contrary to common wisdom it actually help the nation have a real recovery while it maintained much of its independence and sovereignty. The government went bankrupt by the end of the year, but the country avoided having to make the citizens responsible for the debt generated by the international banks.

Along with the devaluation of the króna, Iceland experienced soaring inflation immediately after the declaration of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the government decided to take all monies and deposit them in the recently nationalized banks in order to start all over again. The move by the Icelandic government meant a short period of real pain, but also gave the opportunity to the people there to start fresh, with no debt and with spending under control.

By 2010, just two years after the declaration of bankruptcy and the nationalization of the banks, Iceland experienced its first signs of economic growth, which marked the beginning of the recovery. By letting the international banks fail, Iceland not only punished irresponsible bankers for their overreach, but also prevented their people from becoming slaves to the banks. The country also admitted to having some real debt — a tiny portion of the total — and is now working on a successful path to a full recovery.

The lesson we get from all this is the following: We cannot fight fire by dumping gasoline on it. If the origin of the current crisis is the debt-based economic system, no solution will emerge when all we do is create more debt to pay the existing one. The reason why most countries decided to choose the issuance of more debt — as nations in Europe are doing now — is because their politicians are bought and paid for by the bankers to make that decision. If the opposite is done, that is, if the debt generated by the banks is rejected and they are left to fail, we will have many other successful recoveries. It is so simple that even Paul Krugman understands it.

So if you want your country to be free from fake money and fake debt, ask your government to renounce the debt-based development model, which is not even a development model. If all you want is a real recovery, let the banks fail.

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International Banking Mafia Drools over ‘Spanish Prize’

September 19, 2012 1 Comment

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

The global banking cartel that almost daily proposes the destruction of the nations states is working harder than ever to once and for all conquer Spain. Even before the European Central Bank issued a statement about its openness to bail out Spain, technocrats in Europe were already proposing the looting of the country. Now that the ECB agreed to print million of euros to acquire the peninsular country, they are megaphoning louder than ever that Spain must immediately accept the bailout in order to solve its debt problem.

In previous reports, The Real Agenda reported how the unelected leaders in Brussels believe that Spain will not be able to comply with the conditions imposed by the bankers should Mariano Rajoy request the money from the European Stability Mechanism, which would turn such a request into an official hand over of the nation to the European bankers and nothing else. According to sources in Brussels, Spain does not have and will not have the capacity to cut its deficit by collecting taxes or reducing government spending. What these two actions would definitely do, is to harden even more the dire situation in which millions of Spanish people are now: unemployed, having to use their savings to pay for daily expenses and while looking at an uncertain future.

Proof of the tough conditions in Spain are two reports that circulated on the Spanish press yesterday. One news article on the newspaper La Vanguardia, told about how Spanish people withdrew over 30 billion euros from their bank accounts during the month of July alone. That is how much they trust their government to solve the economic and financial crisis. Those 30 billion euros added to the amount withdrawn last year for a total of 80 billion euros. The withdrawals include individual and business accounts.

The other report published on the newspaper El País describes how the conditions imposed on Spain — after the country requests the bailout — will be the toughest so far in the region. This comment did not come from a speculator, but from the president of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, who said that Spain will experience deep cuts in government spending, which most likely be applied to government services, pension system and entitlement programs. Juncker’s prediction contrasts the comments made last week by the Spanish Secretary of Economy, Luis de Guindos, who assured the nation that the measures adopted along with the bailout would not mean ‘further sacrifices’ in the 2013 government budget.

In summary, Spain will not be able to meet the conditions of the bankers. Those conditions will represent more sacrifices from the Spanish people, who do not have an ounce of trust on their government to take the nation from the debt hole where it is sitting now. However, the same government led by Mariano Rajoy is still considering requesting the bailout, perhaps being influenced by the European banking sharks who are calling for the immediate request of the funds by the Spanish bureaucrats.

“The announcement of the ECB was very brave on one hand, but will not help unless Spain or Italy request the support of an economic program of the EU and the IMF,” said Charles Dallara, the Director of the International Institute of Finances (IIF), while attempting to portray the bankers as the saviors of the European region. In this regard, he said that in the absence of a government negotiating a reform program that is supported by the European Commission, the “massive potential support” by the ECB will remain only potential and will not materialize.

Spain had already requested the bailout of its “too big to fail” banks, which were instructed to hoard the money to avoid the otherwise impending hyper-inflation. The same situation occurred in other countries of the Euro zone and the United States. This explains why despite government interventions through massive fiat money printing, nations on both sides of the Atlantic haven’t generated any significant economic activity. Neither small or medium size business have been able to request loans to run their businesses. Instead, the bankers have hid the money given in bailouts, or have used it to pay fat bonuses to their board members and most influential investors.

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Do away with Reserve Currencies and Centralized Financial Control

September 13, 2012

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

For way too many years, the United States has enjoyed an unfair advantage with respect to the rest of the world: most international commerce is conducted in US dollars. Both friends and foes of the US have had to purchase raw materials, parts, finished products, pay tariffs and exchange rates in dollars because the world saw the American currency as a strongly positioned instrument that was backed by the economic and military might of the United States.

The result of having a reserve currency, both for the US and for the rest of the world is clear: Americans have enjoyed decades of bounty because almost anything that is necessary to live is paid for and purchased in US dollars. From crude oil to food staples, countries and companies use the US dollar to complete most commercial transactions. But the bounty for Americans was not the only consequence — or goal, depending how you see it. Because the US dollar was the reserve currency of the world, its value was kept artificially high. People, companies and other countries bought US dollars to use them in their daily activities such as traveling expenses, for example.

The value of the currency, especially a fiat one like the US dollar is artificial because after the central bank decides to print money beyond what a country produces — GDP — in order to run a debt-based economy, it is just a matter of time before the wheels of the truck come off. In the case of the United States, three and a quarter of the four wheels have already fallen off. The US currency has been hyper-inflated in a controlled manner since the creation of the Federal Reserve System, which is the same system of centralized power used in almost every single nation in the world; no matter if it’s a developed, developing or underdeveloped country.

Today, the value of the dollar, the Euro, the Peso or the Real do not represent the capacity of a country to produce, innovate and sell goods in local, regional or international markets through bilateral or multilateral agreements. The value of currencies is set by banking institutions and then freely manipulated by artificially-managed markets, not real capitalism or free markets.

The kind of “commercial contract” that helped the US to sets its currency as the “world reserve currency” and that provided the unfair advantage against its business partners and competitors is now reaching its end. The rise of China as one of the largest producers of finished products — through questionable standards to say the least — along with the economically weaker position of the United States in the world stage, has prompted nations to seek alternative forms of completing commercial transactions that do not use US dollars. United States competitors, especially those who lend money to the country, realized that the United States will most likely default on its debt or will simply pay with a devalued currency which will not be worth much, so they’ve decided to use their own currencies instead of the US dollar.

For example, China and Russia have closed several agreements to realize commercial transactions in their own currency as supposed to using dollars. The Chinese and the Russians, it seems, learned that by using the Yuan and the Ruble, they are not only valuing their currencies, but are also avoiding to pay the “dollar tax”, or the cost of having to buy and sell in US dollars, which had kept them in a competitive disadvantage against their commercial and military foe.

The devaluation of the dollar due to banking manipulation conducted by the Federal Reserve or the weakening of the currency in international markets — is bad news for the US and the American people, because it means that if the dollar fails to keep its status as the reserve currency, everything will be more expensive for them: raw materials, food, energy, interest rates, etc. But worse than all of that is that the demand for US dollars in the world will significantly decrease, which in itself will turn the dollar into a less attractive way to pay for and sell goods and services.

The loss in value of the American currency will also worsen another problem: the US debt. The US has been for a long time the best debtor nation in the world, for its lenders thought that since the country had the world’s reserve currency would guarantee that their loans would be paid in full. But now, reality shows otherwise. The fall of the US dollar from the pedestal of “world reserve currency” will also make it more expensive for the US to pay its current debt as well as the debt it will incur into in the coming years and decades. The weaker the dollar is, the more expensive it becomes for the US to pay its debts. This scenario is now seen in Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal, who have handed their sovereignty to foreign banking institutions in exchange for “financial rescues”.

Although common wisdom would suggest that US indebtedness with China would be the worst possible situation while the dollar declines, there is actually a worse scenario and it does not involve China. The US main lender is not China anymore, but the Federal Reserve Banking System, a private institution that represents the interests of an international banking consortium located abroad, not in the United States.

The banking mafia will continue to willingly lend to the US because all debt created by the Federal Reserve in the name of the United States and its people will always have a way to be paid. The United States, just as many other countries in the world do, mortgage the lives of present and future people by taxing them to death in order to pay interests on the ever exploding debt. This ‘trust’ that the banking institutions have in the United States and other nations can only be broken if the US dollar fails as the world reserve currency. That is why the European bankers have created parallel fiat currencies such as the Euro, which they also intend to collapse in order to establish a sort of electronic untraceable form of currency.

At the same time and while it is still possible, wealthy individuals who have made their fortunes through deceitful practices, such as George Soros, as well as governments have begun a race to get rid of their dollar reserves — a fact that also weakens the US currency — and invest in gold, rare metals, silver and other valuable instruments. The divestment of funds from US dollars to other currencies or valuable metals or materials threatens to accelerate the fall of the once strong world reserve currency.

The decline of the US dollar has emboldened countries like China to seriously consider letting its currency fluctuate freely in the open market. This practice is set to begin at some point in 2015 and will continue until 2017, the Chinese have said. Do the Chinese feel that by 2015 the dollar will be weak enough that it won’t be able to directly compete with the Yuan? Perhaps. But in a financial world where almost everything is fake, there is no reason to believe that the American government or the banking institutions that it represents will not come up with a way to slow down or stop the collapse of its currency. Many financial experts expect the opposite, though. Some of them even believe that the collapse of the dollar will happen some time between the Winter of 2012 and the Spring of 2013.

If there is one thing the world has learned is that independent nation-states that establish commercial agreements in a bilateral or multilateral fashion are better off that those which are prisoners of a common currency with a centralized financial power system. The only reason why the world is dominated by common currencies and so-called unions is because those schemes facilitate monopolies and control, which is what the international banking mafia wants. The Euro is a clear example of how monopoly works perfectly well when a group of oligarchs intends to artificially create economies to later collapse them so that they can consolidate power. It works beautifully. For the rest of us, let’s do away with reserve currencies that provide unfair advantages as well as centralized power that only renders benefits for the Anglo-Saxon power elite.

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German Court Greenlights European Stability Mechanism

September 12, 2012

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

The constitutional court in Karlsruhe has decided that the German participation in the permanent mechanism for bailing out European nations is totally legitimate, but that their participation is limited to 190,000 million euros.

As expected, the German Constitutional Court on Wednesday approved the German participation in the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The only condition is that Germany will not be an open checking account to rescue all other nations. That condition was the unexpected part of the decision.

The total proposed amount for the fund reaches 700,000 million euros, so theoretically Germany will split that amount with already indebted nations who are keen to provide funds for countries like Spain and Italy, and who are already providing money to other nations such as Greece and Portugal. The word from the court is not the final though, as the 190,000 million euros can be increased to whatever the German Parliament decides is necessary, explained the presiding judge, Andreas Vosskuhle in Karlsruhe.

The use of ESM funds to bailout European nations was initially scheduled for last July, but the need for ratification by at least 90% of participants had not been achieved until Germany issues its support, which has now happened.

Germany had requested some time to study and ratify the ESM last July, so the Constitutional Court could analyze in depth the claims for interim measures made ​​by different social groups, and the party of Eurosceptics who reported that adherence to these treaties involved a transfer of sovereignty and would require the revision of the German Constitution to weaken the supervisory capacity of the German Parliament about money of German taxpayers. The German Court has now approved of such surrender of sovereignty by accepting Germany’s participation in the fund.

The decision by the Court also requires that major decisions have the approval of ESM Bundestag either in full or a through a special committee, just as it happened with the temporary rescue fund. The President of the Board, Andreas Voßkuhle, acknowledged that some discussions were “very intense and complex.” With its decision, Germany will be the last of the seventeen countries in joining the euro rescue fund or ESM.

The impact that this decision has is less complex than the discussions mentioned by Voßkuhle, because the bankers will simply choose to make these so-called difficult decisions in private. In laymen’s terms, all responsibility has now been handed to the European bankers to spend the money of the European people as they please and with unlimited power.

The German Constitutional ruling, which also gave the green light for the Fiscal Pact, has been very well received in the markets. The Spanish risk premium (or yield spread required for Spanish 10-year bonds versus German) has decreased below the 400 basis points (4 percentage points) for the first time since April. The Spanish stock market has shot upward and the euro has also marked its highest against the dollar since May.

This means that the markets still do not understand that more debt will make it things worse. Like a drug addict, government leaders and financial market managers continue to see the consumption of more drugs (debt) as the only solution to the addiction problem.

The ruling will allow the bailout fund to become operational in the short term and therefore it will be seen as a loss publicly for German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, who in public always showed to buying sovereign debt from failing and bankrupt countries. Now, the German president, Joachim Gauck, will have to sign a legislative package that includes the ESM and the fiscal pact, the last obstacle before the fund can begin its operation.

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Draghi brings in the ‘goodies’ to capture Spain and Italy

September 6, 2012

By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Mario ‘Super Mario‘ Draghi has unloaded his bag of goodies after the European Central Bank agreed to acquire the European continent. The line of states begging for a ‘rescue’ is headed by Spain and Italy, with Portugal and France waiting on the wings.

The European Central Bank announced the already expected purchase of sovereign debt to keep the financial collapse under control so that the bankers have enough time to absorb all free nations that are unable to pay their obligations.

As previously reported on this publication, the details of the program are murky, sketchy and as vague as possible to let the bankers make decisions as they please based on conditions on the ground. One detail was made clear, however. The ECB will have the power to buy unlimited amounts of sovereign bonds, the instruments issued by governments to cash their debts.

But before the ECB sends any money to Spain, Italy or any other nation in distress due to the unpaid liabilities, countries will have to review and accept a list of conditions that the bankers themselves have written, and under which the nation-states will have no flexibility. For example, countries in need of a bailout must officially request it to the ECB. Should the country decide to abandon the ‘rescue’ mechanism, the ECB is already threatening with stopping the purchases of bonds and sell the bonds that have been already acquired.

The positive answer from the ECB has already encouraged the artificially run financial markets, even though none of the nations that would eventually accept the conditions has actually requested the bailout. The risk premium of Spain has fallen sharply from highs of 638 points in the second half of July. The downgrade of the returns required of Spanish debt has been more pronounced in shorter maturities up to three years, as these are the titles that will focus on the operations of the issuing bank. Today, the Ibex 35 gained 4.91% and the risk premium has fallen below 450 basis points.

Once the countries request the ‘rescues’ — either for a full or partial bailout — the ECB will only accept the request if the country complies with all of the conditions imposed by the European bankers which will be provided through memoranda to each individual nation. The ECB  said that the bond purchases of bonds with maturities of between 1-3 years will be made with no quantity limits. “The amount will be adequate to achieve our goals,” said Draghi in a statement a month ago.

The ECB also waives its preferred creditor status, something that frightened investors. Moreover, the liquidity created by these direct sterilized monetary transactions (the withdrawal of an amount of cash equal to the purchase of bonds), will be done as it was with the previous program. Purchases may be extended to other countries already bailed out, such as Ireland and Portugal, to the extent that they recover their market access.

The ECB had already bought debt of other countries since May 2010 and began buying Spanish and Italian debt in August 2011. However, these purchases stopped earlier this year, as the bank decided to rescue the banks instead. The decision by the bank to bailout the banks caused the vicious debt problem to get worse as the increase in debt and insolvency of financial institutions and nation-states demanded even more money. Now, the bank has decided to come back with more cash to keep on feeding the beast, instead of killing it.

It will just a matter of time before the bailout of nation-states becomes as insufficient as the one given to the banks back in 2011. What will the ECB do then to slow down the collapse? Free money or ‘rescues’ will have proven ineffective.

As for what will Spain and Italy do, what does a crack addict do when you offer him a pipe and the ‘springly’?

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