Confirm 🚨 Fed Destroying Dollar In 19th April 2019? Global Currency Reset To Gold Standard

The Dallas Federal Reserve Explains Money – A Good Read For Millennials

It’s important to learn some basic concepts about money & the monetary system, so let’s begin with what the Dallas Fed has to say about those topics…This blog was created to watch for any signs of major monetary system change. But one problem in this regard is that many people have no idea what we mean when we use the term monetary system or how major monetary system change might impact their own daily lives.

One good first step for anyone wanting to learn more about these issues is to learn some basic concepts about both money and what a monetary system is. I live in the Dallas, Texas area and we have one branch of the Federal Reserve Bank system located here in Dallas. Visitors can take free tours of the Dallas Fed and it also does produce educational materials on these basic issues.

Below I have pasted in some excerpts from this article produced by the Dallas Fed simply titled “Money”.  I selected these excerpts because they relate to various issues I see discussed all the time in doing research for blog articles here. It should be noted that the Federal Reserve is not without its skeptics and critics and some of the statements pasted in below would be challenged by those critics for sure. But overall, this paper is a good place to start learning about the basic concepts that lead to the debates we see about both money and how a monetary system should function. I encourage readers (especially younger readers who may not have had much formal exposure to these concepts in school) to read the full paper.

I asked Dr. Judy Shelton to preview the information presented in this article and she offered this comment about it:

“I hope this kind of information reaches many young people and causes them to reflect on the importance of trustworthy money.”  — Dr. Judy Shelton

Dr. Shelton is the US Executive Director for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and also a Senior Fellow at the Atlas Network.

Further below, I will list some of the issues and debates that I see arise from the basic concepts presented in this paper. (note: I added some underlines below for emphasis)

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Introduction Paragraph to “Money”

“Money is so important that when no official money exists, people often create it. For example, during World War II, prisoners in prisoner-of-war camps used cigarettes as money. All other goods were priced in terms of cigarettes, and prisoners willingly accepted them as payment for any other good. While cigarettes have value to smokers, once they become money, they gain value in terms of everything they can be exchanged for, whether a person smokes or not. People will always find something to serve as money, even with no government to enforce its legitimacy.

What Is Money? Money is anything that is widely accepted as a form of payment for goods and services or repayment of debts.”     . . . .

Defining Money by Its Uses

“How can we know when something has become money? One way to identify money is by its uses. Money functions as (1) a medium of exchange, (2) a unit of account and (3) a store of value. When people accept money as payment for goods and services, it is not because of the intrinsic value of the money; it is because they believe it will allow them to purchase the goods and services they desire, now and in the future.”  . . . .

The Characteristics of Money

“Cash payments account for almost 50 percent of all transactions in the U.S., so the role of currency in the country’s payment system is very important. Just imagine if you were designing the nation’s currency from scratch. You already know that currency must function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. But what features does your money need? Six characteristics have been identified: Money must be durable, portable, divisible, scarce, uniform and acceptable.

There are more than 107 billion cash transactions in the U.S. per year.” . . . 

Types of Money

“We know that one of the uses of money is as a store of value. But how does money get its value? Three different types of money are recognized based on their sources of value: commodity money, representative money and fiat money.”

Commodity Money

“A commodity is an item that has value in and of itself. This can include anything from cows and wheat to silver and gold.  . . . . 

Through history, the commodity that most commonly has become money is a precious metal. Metals have all the characteristics of money. Metals are generally durable, lasting a very long time in circulation. When minted into coins, precious metals become relatively portable. They are divisible by weight or denomination. They are scarce, requiring time and energy to find and extract. Precious metals are uniform because their value in trade can be confirmed using rules regarding purity. Last, by being easily recognizable, precious metals are acceptable to most people.”  . . . 

“As a society’s demand for money increases, the constraints of using a commodity often become burdensome. To simplify transactions, people stop using the actual commodity as money, and instead paper becomes the commodity’s substitute. The new paper money is called representative money.”

Representative Money

“Representative money does not have value on its own. Its only value lies in the value of the commodity it represents. It is actually a promise. When a government begins printing representative money, it is promising that the money is backed by, and often can be exchanged for, a specific amount of the represented commodity. The strength of the representative money is based on both the value of the commodity and the credibility of the promise to redeem it for the commodity.”

“Early forms of representative money were often receipts for gold and silver deposited with local metal smiths. In time, people began to accept the receipts as payment, rather than returning to claim the commodity. When this happened, the receipts began to function as money. By accepting the receipt, a person trusted in the ability to return to the smith and obtain the amount of metal specified on the receipt.”   . . . .

“Eventually governments officially converted commodity money to representative money in the form of paper currency. This was essentially a promise that the printed note could be redeemed for a certain amount of gold or silver coin—called specie.”

Fiat Money

“Fiat money is money by decree. When it is no longer feasible or desirable to back money with a commodity, governments can declare an item to be money. This decree means that the money is an acceptable payment for goods and services and enforceable for repayment of debts. Fiat currency has no value in and of itself, as commodity money does, nor does it represent a promise to exchange for a commodity, as with representative currency. Its value comes exclusively from the willingness of people to accept it as payment. This willingness is driven mainly by the belief that when a person wants to spend that money, it will still have value— that is, the next person will accept it as well.”  . . . .

“Fiat currency has many advantages over commodity and representative money. Fiat currency is not constrained by the arbitrary amount of a commodity. Although this does pose a risk, namely that the money supply can expand without limit, it has an advantage: The money supply can grow and shrink to meet demand.” . . . .

“The disadvantages of fiat currency are largely associated with its management. If a regulating body makes too much available, inflation—the general rise of prices in the economy—can occur. If not enough money is available, growth in the economy can be constrained. Balancing between not enough money in circulation and too much money in circulation has proven difficult for some countries. When the growth of the money supply gets out of hand, it can lead to an economic collapse and the abandonment of the money. If people cannot count on money to retain its purchasing power, they will refuse to accept it whenever possible. While the government can enforce the use of fiat money for the repayment of debt, enforcing its acceptance for other transactions is often more difficult.”

Federal Reserve Notes and the World

“The stability of U.S. currency, coupled with the size of the U.S. economy, has made Federal Reserve Notes desirable money, not just domestically but worldwide. At times throughout history, countries have held the notes as reserves and occasionally circulated them in place of their own currency. This demand is driven by the perceived safety of the dollar—the belief that it will hold its value and will remain acceptable for transactions for many years to come. “

. . . .

“If the Fed makes money too cheap, meaning interest rates that are too low, more money will flow into circulation through lending activities, and this generally causes prices of goods and services purchased with that borrowed money to rise. When prices rise, we experience inflation—a general rise in prices over time. Low and predictable inflation, around 2 percent, is actually beneficial to the economy, but too much inflation, caused by an overabundance of money, will cause the purchasing power to go down and can damage economic stability.

During the Great Depression and through World War II, many countries abandoned the practice of using their gold reserves to back the currency they circulated—known as the gold standard. After the war ended, a push to reestablish gold on an international scale led to the hosting of a conference in the village of Bretton Woods, N.H. At the conference, it was agreed that countries would commit to a system of fixed exchange rates. The United States agreed to maintain the price of gold at $35 per ounce and to exchange dollars for gold. The dollar became the de facto world currency as many international transactions were quoted in dollars. As long as countries believed that the United States was both willing and capable of redeeming the notes for gold at any time, the notes were considered to be equivalent to the gold they represented. In 1971, President Richard Nixon suspended the convertibility of notes to gold and ended the gold standard. However, the end of the Bretton Woods agreement was not the end of the circulation of U.S. currency abroad. 

Billions of dollars in Federal Reserve Notes are used outside the United States in a number of ways. Some countries circulate the money as their only form of currency. Some countries try to preserve the value of their currency by pegging it—that is, setting the exchange value of their domestic currency—to the dollar, and many more circulate Federal Reserve Notes unofficially. Countries’ specific reasons for using Federal Reserve Notes may vary, but the dollar’s use is generally associated with its effectiveness as a medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value.”

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My added comments: The information presented above is intended to spur the reader to read the full paper presented by the Dallas Fed and to try and highlight some of the basic concepts that prompt intense debate. The more the reader understands these basic concepts, the better the reader can evaluate the various points of view you will find about both money and how a monetary system should function.

It should be pointed out that some of the conclusions presented in this paper are hotly contested and debated by critics. Here is one example from one of the excerpted quotes above:

“Low and predictable inflation, around 2 percent, is actually beneficial to the economy“

There is much debate on whether or not targeting a 2% loss in the purchasing power of the money people use every day to pay for goods and services is “beneficial to the economy”.

Also, this paper from the Dallas Fed takes the view that the Federal Reserve has done a good job overall of meeting its objectives to 1) control inflation and 2) encourage full employment. Critics of the Fed disagree strongly with that view as you will quickly find if you do any research on these issues at all. Before you can evaluate these various points of view to agree or disagree, a basic understanding of the concepts and issues is needed and that is the goal of this article.

Over the years in doing research for this blog, I can list some topics of debate I see out there that readers should further explore (this blog provides you a lot of material to help with that here and here). Here are just a few examples:

1) Should the US have abandoned the gold standard?

2) Should the US return to the gold standard?

3) Has the Fed really protected the purchasing power of the US dollar during its existence since 1913?

4) Is a gold standard practical for use in a modern economy?

5) Does Fed monetary policy protect large banks over the interests of the average person?

6) Has Fed policy done a good job of meeting it’s mandate to provide a stable value to our money and also promote employment?

7) Can we really just not worry about government debt and create all the money we need without sparking a loss of confidence in our money?

This list can go on and on, but hopefully you can see that these basic money issues and concepts are very important to all of us which is why this blog was created. The view we take here is that the more people understand these issues, the better off we will be.

One final comment:

If you read through the excerpts above, you can see an interesting history of how our money has evolved into the monetary system we have today. This is one of the strengths of this paper by the Dallas Fed in my view.

Please note how that one thing about money and monetary systems has remained constant over time. People must trust that the monetary system will protect the purchasing power of whatever is being used for money over time. You see this theme repeated over and over again in this paper by the Dallas Fed no matter whether it is talking about “commodity money”, “representative money”, or “fiat money”.

The huge financial crisis which rocked the world in 2008-2009 shook the public trust in our present system to the core. This is what has led to much of the discussion and debate we have featured on this blog since that time. People like Jim Rickards have predicted that due to poor monetary policy decisions and due to the continued ramping up of debt in our financial system, a day will come when the present system cannot be sustained. This prediction includes a view that the US dollar will then lose its global status as the world’s reserve currency and also endure a sharp and rapid loss of purchasing power. This is why these issues are so important in our view here. As the Dallas Fed has stated repeatedly above, people must have trust and confidence in their money. Without that trust, the system cannot be sustained over time. What if the public loses trust in our money before we can see and respond to the loss of confidence?

If and when the day arrives that too much public trust is lost, it will become vitally important for people to understand these basic concepts and also the various proposals on how to fix a broken system and restore public trust. 

I especially hope to encourage younger readers to explore these basic concepts and learn as much as possible. Understanding both some of these basic concepts about money and the history of how our money and monetary system has evolved over the last 100 years is huge help in that process and is not widely taught in our formal education system.

Confirm 🔴Gold 2000$ Forecast REAFFIRMED In 24th April 2019?Financial Reset Wipeout!

S&P Is Key To Coming Gold Rally

“It is only a matter of time now, and that time is in months, not years.” Prior to the FOMC meeting last week, I forecast that the Fed would be dovish on both interest rates and the balance sheet reduction program, but this would mean that all of the dovish “speak” since their verbal 180 in January that contributed to the rally in stocks is now priced in. I believe that is now the case and there is little more the Fed can say that will push stocks higher.

Other factors in the stock market rally, such as China’s gargantuan stimulus in January that equated to 5% of its annual GDP in 1 month, has been dramatically reduced. Stock buybacks, which reached a record level in Q1, are now fast approaching their buyback blackout period ahead of corporate earnings for Q1.

On top of that, global liquidity, the primary driver of stock prices since 2009, is now falling again. Any trade deal between the U.S. and China has now been pushed off until May “at the earliest”, even though I don’t think any substantive deal will be agreed upon. Taken together, this could mean that stocks are in for a very rough ride in the next month or so.

Since early 2018, my primary scenario for a historic low in Gold has been a Fed reversal in policy to rate cuts and QE due to a stock market crash. We got the first leg of that crash in Q4 followed by the relief rally in Q1, the second leg, and now we may be about to drop in the third and final leg to lower lows in the S&P around 2100 to 2200.

Such a crash would provide the Fed the excuse to not only cut interest rates and revert to QE thereafter, but also unleash monetary insanity-on-steroids to boost risk assets and kick the can a little further down the road one last time. The Fed has already stated that it is considering various tools in addition to rates and QE that it rejected previously. Negative interest rates, a cap on bond yields, and buying corporate debt and equities are among them. This is on top of buying massive amounts of maturing and new treasury bonds, as budget deficits and the national debt soar at a time when foreign banks have basically stopped buying. Just imagine how much they will need to print to do all of this and what it will mean for the dollar. Under those circumstances, Gold can only go higher, in my opinion. A lot higher.

In almost every major crisis, bonds lead equities. Yields fall first, then stocks follow. In November, 10-year treasury yields peaked at 3.24% and are now almost a full percentage point lower at 2.39%. If credit is leading again this time around, then we should expect stocks to fall sharply soon, perhaps as early as next week. In such a scenario, expect bond yields to fall further.

As I wrote last week, Gold still maintains a near perfect inverse relationship with real interest rates, which have tumbled in recent weeks. This has been due to the significant drop in bond yields. If this continues as stocks fall, then Gold is going higher.

TIPS are the inverse of real yields)

The only caveat to that scenario is if the Bullion Banks do what they did between March and October 2008 and try to squeeze out all of the weak longs before the massive rally in Gold to follow. But even then, it just delayed the inevitable rally in Gold which began in October and led to a near 3x rise to 1900.

I have said “No QE, no bottom” in stocks. I believe the Fed’s return to QE is inevitable, and when that happens, Gold will soar. It is only a matter of time now, and that time is in months, not years.

Until then, the range in Gold remains 1280-1350. A break of 1350 almost guarantees a test of 1377, whereas a break of 1280 opens up a move down to the 200-day moving average at 1251 and the 200-week moving average at 1241 below there.

As I said last week: If the Banks do try to force everyone out before the rally ahead, it will likely create the last bargain buying opportunity in metals, perhaps ever. “BTFD”.

John Rubino: Fascinating News From The Gold Mining Sector And The Junior Miners

John says things are bubbling under the surface, and a handful of emerging players put up good numbers and make their investors rich. Here’s more…It’s been a boring few years for gold miners in general and junior gold miners in particular. The metal has been in a trading range, capital has been relatively scarce, and major deals even scarcer.

But under the surface things are bubbling, as a handful of emerging players put up good numbers and make their investors rich, while a somewhat bigger handful of explorers find notable deposits. The result is a lot of wheeling, dealing and empire building that gets little press but is fascinating for the tiny subset of investors who care about this sector.

One event that might end up being notable is Eric Sprott’s decision to leave the board of Kirkland Lake Gold:

Kirkland Lake Gold Announces Retirement of Non-Executive Chairman

Kirkland Lake Gold announced today that Eric Sprott, Chairman of the Company’s Board of Directors will retire as Chairman and a member of the Board following the Company’s 2019 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders on May 7, 2019. Mr Sprott has served as the Chairman of the Board since November 2016.

Eric Sprott, Chairman of the Board said, “During the past five years, we have succeeded in creating a truly unique gold company which continues to have significant upside potential. While I have decided that now is the right time for my retirement, I fully expect to remain a very interested and engaged shareholder of the Company.”

Now, this might be nothing. Eric Sprott is, like so many of us, no longer young, and he’s got a lot of irons in the fire. So maybe he’s just lightening his load a bit. But Kirkland is one of the gold mining world’s recent success stories…

… so why would a player like Sprott leave its board just as things are getting good? Perhaps, speculates a poster on another miner’s online forum, because Sprott has found an even better horse to ride – Novo Resources – in which both he and Kirkland are major investors:

I have long viewed Eric Sprott’s simultaneous Kirkland Lake and Novo Resources [NVO] board memberships as so inherently conflicting for him such that at some point he would naturally choose one over the other. Logically, the point in time by which his choice would need to be made was at such time as it might become clear in ES’s mind that [Novo CEO] QH and his team had in all likelihood succeeded in establishing the validity and economic viability of their exploration model, but before public disclosures confirmed it. And certainly before investment opportunities that might pit the interests of miner Kirkland against those of prospective miner Novo might arise. (For example, as presented by a hypothetical buy out by either KL or NVO of Kairos or DeGrey or Pacton or portions of their respective [Pilbara region, Australia] gold related tenement holdings/mineral rights.

It has also been my view that ES’s election would evidence which “horse” (as between KL and NVO) he preferred to “ride” (predominantly see his own Pilbara conglomerate gold wealth accumulate in). In addition, like many others here, my analysis has been that ES would personally benefit (profit) to a much greater degree if Novo rather than KL were to be the primary Pilbara wealth creation entity. Given that, it is my present view that ES’s resignation from the KL board effective after the KL annual meeting on May 7, 2019 is a strong positive indicator that NVO will remain independent and that it (and its shareholders) will be among the handful of entities that will most benefit and profit from what I view to be the coming massive development of highly profitable conglomerate gold mining in Australia’s Pilbara region.

It will not surprise any here, then, that I continue to acquire stock in Novo and was a buyer on this news.

Good luck to all, and keep an eye on the news. I believe the QH & NVO RR train is about to leave the station, and I hope everyone else who’s on it will join me in the dining car soon for a rousing round of Waltzing Matilda — I’ll have the champagne plus as assortment of local malt beverages and South Coast vineyard products on ice for you.

Fund Manager: Price Won’t Stay Below $1300 For Long After Thursday’s Paper Gold Raid

Dave Kranzler explains and shows the dynamic that allowed for Thursday’s gold smack-down, but Dave says price won’t stay down for long. Here’s why…Gold was smacked $22 from top to bottom overnight and this morning.  It was a classic paper derivative raid on the gold price, which was implemented after the large physical gold buyers in the eastern hemisphere had closed shop for the day.

This is what it looks like visually:

As you can see, as each key physical gold trading/delivery market closes, the price of gold is taken lower. The coup de grace occurs when the Comex gold pit opens. The Comex is a pure paper market, as very little physical gold is ever removed from the vaults and the paper derivative open interest far exceeds the amount gold that is reported to be held in the Comex vaults (note: the warehouse reports compiled by the banks that control the Comex are never independently audited).

Today technically is first notice day for April gold contracts despite March 29th as the official designation. Any account with a long position that does not intend to take delivery naturally sells its long position in April contracts. Any account not funded to accommodate a delivery is liquidated by 5 p.m. the day before first notice. This dynamic contributes to the ease with which a paper raid on the gold price can be successfully implemented.

In all probability the price of gold (June gold basis) will likely not stay below $1300 for long. China’s demand has been picking up and India’s importation of gold is running quite heavy for this time of the year. Soon India will be entering a seasonal festival period and gold imports will increase even more. Today’s price hit will likely stimulate more buying from India on Friday.

Julian Assange 🚨 Issues Dire Warning For 2019…And He’s 100 RIGHT! Be Ready America!

The Prisoner Says No To Big Brother,,, March 04, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -  Whenever I visit Julian Assange, we meet in a room he knows too well. There is a bare table and pictures of Ecuador on the walls. There is a bookcase where the books never change. The curtains are always drawn and there is no natural light. The air is still and fetid.

This is Room 101.

Before I enter Room 101, I must surrender my passport and phone. My pockets and possessions are examined. The food I bring is inspected.

The man who guards Room 101 sits in what looks like an old-fashioned telephone box. He watches a screen, watching Julian. There are others unseen, agents of the state, watching and listening.

Cameras are everywhere in Room 101. To avoid them, Julian manoeuvres us both into a corner, side by side, flat up against the wall. This is how we catch up: whispering and writing to each other on a notepad, which he shields from the cameras. Sometimes we laugh.

I have my designated time slot. When that expires, the door in Room 101 bursts open and the guard says, "Time is up!" On New Year's Eve, I was allowed an extra 30 minutes and the man in the phone box wished me a happy new year, but not Julian.

Of course, Room 101 is the room in George Orwell's prophetic novel, 1984, where the thought police watched and tormented their prisoners, and worse, until people surrendered their humanity and principles and obeyed Big Brother. Julian Assange will never obey Big Brother. His resilience and courage are astonishing, even though his physical health struggles to keep up.

Julian is a distinguished Australian, who has changed the way many people think about duplicitous governments. For this, he is a political refugee subjected to what the United Nations calls "arbitrary detention".

The UN says he has the right of free passage to freedom, but this is denied. He has the right to medical treatment without fear of arrest, but this is denied. He has the right to compensation, but this is denied.

As founder and editor of WikiLeaks, his crime has been to make sense of dark times. WikiLeaks has an impeccable record of accuracy and authenticity which no newspaper, no TV channel, no radio station, no BBC, no New York Times, no Washington Post, no Guardian can equal. Indeed, it shames them.

That explains why he is being punished.

For example:

Last week, the International Court of Justice ruled that the British Government had no legal powers over the Chagos Islanders, who in the 1960s and 70s, were expelled in secret from their homeland on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and sent into exile and poverty. Countless children died, many of them, from sadness. It was an epic crime few knew about.

For almost 50 years, the British have denied the islanders' the right to return to their homeland, which they had given to the Americans for a major military base.

In 2009, the British Foreign Office concocted a "marine reserve" around the Chagos archipelago.

This touching concern for the environment was exposed as a fraud when WikiLeaks published a secret cable from the British Government reassuring the Americans that "the former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve."

The truth of the conspiracy clearly influenced the momentous decision of the International Court of Justice.

WikiLeaks has also revealed how the United States spies on its allies; how the CIA can watch you through your I-phone; how Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton took vast sums of money from Wall Street for secret speeches that reassured the bankers that if she was elected, she would be their friend.

In 2016, WikiLeaks revealed a direct connection between Clinton and organised jihadism in the Middle East: terrorists, in other words. One email disclosed that when Clinton was US Secretary of State, she knew that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding Islamic State, yet she accepted huge donations for her foundation from both governments.

She then approved the world's biggest ever arms sale to her Saudi benefactors: arms that are currently being used against the stricken people of Yemen.

That explains why he is being punished.

WikiLeaks has also published more than 800,000 secret files from Russia, including the Kremlin, telling us more about the machinations of power in that country than the specious hysterics of the Russiagate pantomime in Washington.

This is real journalism -- journalism of a kind now considered exotic: the antithesis of Vichy journalism, which speaks for the enemy of the people and takes its sobriquet from the Vichy government that occupied France on behalf of the Nazis.

Vichy journalism is censorship by omission, such as the untold scandal of the collusion between Australian governments and the United States to deny Julian Assange his rights as an Australian citizen and to silence him.

In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard went as far as ordering the Australian Federal Police to investigate and hopefully prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks -- until she was informed by the AFP that no crime had been committed.

Last weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald published a lavish supplement promoting a celebration of "Me Too" at the Sydney Opera House on 10 March. Among the leading participants is the recently retired Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop.

Bishop has been on show in the local media lately, lauded as a loss to politics: an "icon", someone called her, to be admired.

The elevation to celebrity feminism of one so politically primitive as Bishop tells us how much so-called identity politics have subverted an essential, objective truth: that what matters, above all, is not your gender but the class you serve.

Before she entered politics, Julie Bishop was a lawyer who served the notorious asbestos miner James Hardie which fought claims by men and their families dying horribly with asbestosis.

Lawyer Peter Gordon recalls Bishop "rhetorically asking the court why workers should be entitled to jump court queues just because they were dying."

Bishop says she "acted on instructions ... professionally and ethically".

Perhaps she was merely "acting on instructions" when she flew to London and Washington last year with her ministerial chief of staff, who had indicated that the Australian Foreign Minister would raise Julian's case and hopefully begin the diplomatic process of bringing him home.

Julian's father had written a moving letter to the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, asking the government to intervene diplomatically to free his son. He told Turnbull that he was worried Julian might not leave the embassy alive.

Julie Bishop had every opportunity in the UK and the US to present a diplomatic solution that would bring Julian home. But this required the courage of one proud to represent a sovereign, independent state, not a vassal.

Instead, she made no attempt to contradict the British Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, when he said outrageously that Julian "faced serious charges". What charges? There were no charges.

Australia's Foreign Minister abandoned her duty to speak up for an Australian citizen, prosecuted with nothing, charged with nothing, guilty of nothing.

Will those feminists who fawn over this false icon at the Opera House next Sunday be reminded of her role in colluding with foreign forces to punish an Australian journalist, one whose work has revealed that rapacious militarism has smashed the lives of millions of ordinary women in many countries: in Iraq alone, the US-led invasion of that country, in which Australia participated, left 700,000 widows.

So what can be done? An Australian government that was prepared to act in response to a public campaign to rescue the refugee football player, Hakeem al-Araibi, from torture and persecution in Bahrain, is capable of bringing Julian Assange home.

Yet the refusal by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra to honour the United Nations' declaration that Julian is the victim of "arbitrary detention" and has a fundamental right to his freedom is a shameful breach of the spirit of international law.

Why has the Australian government made no serious attempt to free Assange? Why did Julie Bishop bow to the wishes of two foreign powers? Why is this democracy traduced by its servile relationships, and integrated with lawless foreign power?

The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture.

So stop scrolling. Organise. Occupy. Insist. Persist. Make a noise. Take direct action. Be brave and stay brave. Defy the thought police.

War is not peace, freedom is not slavery, ignorance is not strength. If Julian can stand up to Big Brother, so can you: so can all of us.
John Pilger gave this speech at a rally in Sydney for Julian Assange, organised by the Socialist Equality Party. 18 Really Big Numbers That Show That The U.S. Economy Is Starting To Fall Apart Very Rapidly

 Michael Snyder is a nationally syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is publisher of The Most Important News and the author of four books including The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters.

Virtually every piece of hard economic data is telling us that the U.S. economy is slowing down dramatically.  Many of the pundits have been warning that we could officially enter recession territory later this year or next year, but these numbers seem to indicate that it could happen a whole lot sooner than that.  But the stock market has been surging over the last two months, and at this point stocks are off to their best start to a year since 1987, and as long as stock prices are rising a lot of people are simply not going to pay much attention to the economic alarm bells that are ringing.  But everyone should be paying attention, because things are really starting to get bad out there.  The following are 18 really big numbers that show that the U.S. economy is starting to fall apart very rapidly…
#1 Farm loan delinquencies just hit the highest level that we have seen in 9 years.
#2 We just learned that U.S. exports declined by 4 billion dollars during the month of December.
#3 J.C. Penney just announced that they will be closing another 24 stores.
#4 Victoria’s Secret has just announced plans to close 53 stores.
#5 On Thursday, Gap announced that it will be closing 230 stores over the next two years.
#6 Payless ShoeSource has declared bankruptcy and is closing all 2,100 stores.
#7 Tesla is also closing all of their physical sales locations and will now only sell vehicles online.
#8 PepsiCo has started laying off workers and has committed to “millions of dollars in severance pay”.
#9 The Baltic Dry Index has dropped to the lowest level in more than two years.
#10 This is the worst slump for core U.S. factory orders in three years.
#11 We just witnessed the largest decline in the Philly Fed Business Index in more than 7 years.
#12 In January, sales of existing homes fell 8.9 percent from a year earlier.  That was the third month in a row that we have seen a decline of at least 8 percent.  This is an absolutely catastrophic trend for the real estate industry.
#13 U.S. housing starts were down 11.2 percent in December compared to the previous month.
#14 Compared to a year earlier, home sales in southern California were down 17 percent in January.
#15 In December, home sales in Sacramento County fell a whopping 22.5 percentcompared to a year earlier.
#16 Pending home sales in the United States have now fallen on a year over year basis for 13 months in a row.
#17 More than 166 billion dollars in student loan debt is now “seriously delinquent”.  That is an all-time record.
#18 More than 7 million Americans are behind on their auto loan payments.  That is also a new all-time record, and it is far higher than anything that we witnessed during the last recession.
It appears that “the recovery” has finally come to an end.  After seeing all of those numbers, there is no way that anyone can possibly claim that economic conditions are “getting better”.
And even though the official government numbers are highly manipulated, we never even had one “boom year” throughout the entire “recovery”.
The final numbers for 2018 are now in, and last year was the 13th year in a rowwhen U.S. GDP growth was below 3 percent.
The last time we had a “boom year” when economic growth was above 3 percent was all the way back in 2005.  That was in the middle of the Bush administration.
We have never seen a bad streak like this before in modern American history.  The following comes from CNS News…

But prior to the current 13-year period when real GDP has failed to grow by 3.0 percent in any year, there has been no stretch (in the years since 1930) when the United States went as long as five straight years with real GDP failing to grow by at least 3 percent.

Even though the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system over the last decade, and even though we added nearly 12 trillion dollars to the national debt, the best that the authorities have been able to do is to stabilize the system for a while.  Now it is starting to sputter once again, and many believe that the next crisis will be far worse than the last one.
By contrast, the Great Depression of the 1930s featured some really bad years, but following those bad years the U.S. experienced a tremendous economic boom…

By contrast, after the stock market crash in 1929, the United States saw four years of negative annual GDP—1930 (-8.5), 1931 (-6.4), 1932 (-12.9) and 1933 (-1.2). But then in the nine full years from 1934 through 1942, real GDP grew by an average of 9.75 percent.

We should have had some boom years too, but we didn’t, and now things are going to get bad again.
The Democrats are going to blame the Republicans and the Republicans are going to blame the Democrats, but all of that arguing isn’t going to solve anything.
What is coming next has been a central focus of my work for a very long time.  The last recession was very painful, but it did not fundamentally alter life in America.
This next crisis will.
The “Everything Bubble” is bursting, the “Perfect Storm” is coming, and all of our lives will never be the same again.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t hope.  In fact, once things really start getting crazy hope is going to be one of the major themes in my work because people are really going to need it.
There will be great challenges, and life will be very different, but that doesn’t mean that life is over.
America is about to experience the consequences of decades of exceedingly foolish decisions, and the pain will be extreme.  But difficult times also offer an opportunity for dramatic change, and that is something that we will need to embrace.

Former U.S. Official: Trump Is An “Unhinged MADMAN” Who’s “Conducting 4 Wars On The Economy”

A former United States Budget Director has said that president Donald Trump is an “unhinged madman” who is now “conducting four wars on the economy.” David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Ronald Reagan, told Yahoo Finance’s The Ticker that there is just no way Trump will ever make America great again.
Stockman, who just published Peak Trump: The Undrainable Swamp And The Fantasy Of MAGA, argued that Trump is waging a trade war, a border war, a political war against the Fed, and a war on the nation’s solvency.“We have a delusional, unhinged madman in the Oval Office, and anything is possible,” David Stockman said. “He’s conducting four wars on the American economy, and it’s not going to make it great again.”
The trade war, which Stockman accurately describes as a “war on consumers” seems to have already done untold damage.  Farmers are suffering and our food supply could have been irreversibly changed. “The trade war is a war on consumers,” Stockman said. “If it goes from 10% — which is already costing $30 billion a year just on Chinese imports — to higher, that is only going to be that much worse.”
As far as the “border war,” Stockman referred to, he believes that the American workforce is shrinking and unskilled and illegal immigrants are necessary workers. Because of shifting demographics, “the domestic labor force is shrinking,” Stockman explained. “We need immigrant labor. We shouldn’t be having a, you know, silly battle over a wall in a border where there isn’t a crisis.”
Trump’s third war, against the Fed, is the only one that’s actually good. The Federal Reserve is the United States’ central bank and has been the cause and “savior” of every major financial crisis since the Great Depression.  But Stockman is upset that Trump expressed concerns that interest rates would rise, ending the “easy money” era.  Now borrowing money is more expensive and less are tempted to do so. “He’s [Trump] conducting a political war on the Fed that finally was getting enough courage up to normalize interest rates,” Stockman explained. “For crying out loud, 10 years, interest rates have been below the inflation rate, which means zero money market costs. It’s been a boon like never before to speculators. It’s done nothing for Main Street.”
Stockman’s final gripe with Trump is over the national debt. However, it’s important to note that many of those now concerned expressed little to no desire to reign in Obama’s over the top spending. The national debt is of huge concern to many who simply don’t want to see a societal collapse. But with all politicians on all sides unwilling to cut spending to address the problem, it is all but inevitable.  “He’s conducting a war on the nation’s solvency with a fiscal policy that is more out to lunch than anything I’ve seen since 1970 when I started on Capitol Hill,” Stockman fumed. The big challenge was that even though the economy has been expanding at a rapid pace, “we’re in the last months… you don’t raise the deficit to $1.2 trillion at the very tippy top of a business cycle and expect anything but bad results,” said Stockman.

Stockman argued that “we’re going to go into the 2020s with a massive retirement wave from the baby boom, a deficit that is beyond belief in size, and a national debt that’s out of control. It will be a nonstop crisis for the entire decade unless we do something big and quick. And I think it’s too late.”

URGENT🔴 America's Second Civil War Has Already Begun? Trump Is Impeached Or Removed In 2019?

America's Second Civil War Has Already Begun

In an excellent article by Jeff Lukens here on American Thinker, he asks the question, “Is a second civil war coming?”  In reply, I say that America’s second civil war has already begun.  Its opening shots were fired by Barack Obama when he stated, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Most of this country is center-right and never considered America a place that needed transformation.  Most people can think of things they would change but few believe the nation needs to be torn down and rebuilt.  Obama failed but the left soldiers on in its quest for a new America remade in their own image.

When Obama went on his world apology tour, he wasn’t apologizing forAmerica, he was apologizing for Americans.  This is the essence of this second civil war.  Leftists are demi-gods who believe they are America and that anyone who does not believe in them cannot lay legitimate claim to this country as their own.

Yes, this war has begun.  The opening skirmish was the Obama presidency itself, which history will see as a failure, despite what the media want us to believe in the here and now.  Sure, he passed ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, overregulated, and ruled by executive diktat to great media acclaim.  Yet, ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank have been whittled away by legislation and judicial rulings, while Trump has prioritized deregulation and reversed many of Obama’s illegal executive orders.

The war’s second battle was the 2016 presidential election when Hillary Clinton, Obama’s chosen successor, lost to a television personality whom very few took seriously as a candidate.  Trump won despite the Obama administration conspiring with the Clinton campaign to steal the election and has remained as president even as that conspiracy fundamentally transformed into a failed coup attempt to depose him.

Trump’s presidency has been the third battle and with his string of successes, the battle is being won.  This, despite near-universal acrimony and condemnation among the media, the Democrats, and the left.

But, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” because these victories are pyrrhic.  As the eminent Michael Walsh said of the left, “they never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.”  Democrats are chipping away at this nation with their policies.  This is a war of attrition and we Americans are being attrited. 

For example, their “open borders” policy is effectively importing a new electorate -- one guaranteed to vote for them.  The left agrees with Obama, there is nothing wrong with America, it’s those damn Americans, so they are going to drown the conservative vote with new Democrats.  It’s the same with their policy of “everything should be free.”  Why vote for someone who promises equal opportunity when someone else promises a better outcome?

Nuclear winter became global warming became climate change became “we want total control over everything.”  The reason why Democrat candidates for the presidency so quickly signed on to my congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is its promise of comprehensive control over every aspect of our lives.  Eliminating planes, trains, and automobiles will keep us close to our homes and jobs or for those “unwilling to work” in their basement enjoying their “universal basic income.”  Dependent people without mobility are easier to control. 

The 2020 election looms as the next battle and it will be hard fought because Democrats have myriad policies that may sound great but are really about control.  They have always been masters of micturating down our leg and telling us it is raining. 

Yet, they don’t need to trick us into acquiescence, because even should Trump win, without a complete reversal by the Democratic Party, a renewed free and fair media, and a return to the principles upon which this nation was founded, this war will continue, and it is only a matter of time before the left again wins the Presidency, or the House, or the Senate -- or all three.

When that happens, this civil war will become hot because the Democrats are going to come for our guns.  An armed citizenry is a free citizenry, and they can’t have that. 

The third most populated nation with 330,000,000 people, America has an estimated 350 million guns in circulation; any effort to seize them will call for the total mobilization of our armed forces, city and state police, and the National Guard. 

People are not going to turn in their guns and politicians who think they will do so are being naïve.  Fighting will surely ensue as the forces of the regime go door to door to try to take them.  

Many of those empowered to confiscate weapons won’t obey orders.  Defections will be common and there will be fighting in the streets, limited at first, but it will soon break out into open rebellion.  The regime will become increasingly strident and many states will refuse to comply.  Using Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” as an example of state nullification of federal law, talk of secession will become rife. 

The ruling leftists will, of course, be surprised, and orders will be given to the remaining loyalist forces to put down the rebellion.  In the end, the death toll will far exceed the 620,000 people who died in our first civil war. 

To people who say it can’t happen here, I say history is replete with examples of places that no longer exist where people believed “it can’t happen here.” 

It can’t happen here?  Open your eyes, it has already begun.

 

Has the Trump presidency exposed the need to implement a mechanism/policy that would prevent bad-faith Congressional investigations/witch-hunts?

The Democratic-controlled House is obsessed with bringing down President Trump and removing him from office. When Republicans controlled the House and Senate, there was a system of checks and balances in place that “served” to prevent partisan and “bad-faith” investigations from going forward. This is not to say that Republicans were there to stymy legitimate investigations. Rather, they were there to prevent/curtail investigations and conduct that solely reeked of partisanship and vengeance. Now that Democrats control the House, multiple investigations are moving forward at a rapid pace. Sadly, there does not appear to be a strong and reliable mechanism in place to prevent these types of seemingly partisan and bad-faith investigations from going forward. Perhaps there should be.

Democrats have been quite vocal about their goals. An article in the Washington Examiner set forth their plans once they took control, stating:

The New York Times reports Democrats are planning for political revenge, with a blitzkrieg of “investigations into nearly every corner of the Trump administration.” Large numbers of House Democrats are likely to push for impeachment either of Trump or, following Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s lead, of newly appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.”

It doesn’t matter that, with the Senate probably firmly in Republican hands, there would be no chance of securing the two-thirds vote needed there to remove either one from office. The very effort to impeach would dominate House activity and headlines, further ratchet up a toxic political atmosphere, detract from any ability to handle even the most basic legislation, and cause political and cultural instability that could shake the U.S. economy and undermine the country’s international standing.

The fundamental problem with endless Congressional investigations and/or investigations stemming from partisanship and/or bad-faith is that there is no apparent system of checks and balances in place to prevent abuse. Moreover, there does not appear to be a way to prevent these types of investigations/conduct from taking place and/or moving forward.

For example, Congressional Democrats have threatened to impeach the president for years. While the Constitution provides a safety net before a president can actually be removed, it does not necessarily provide a mechanism within which to prevent one party from initiating (and pursuing) partisan or bad-faith impeachment proceedings. Therefore, if Democrats in the House decided to prepare articles of impeachment (no matter how weak or baseless the grounds), Republicans would be virtually powerless until later on in the process. Until then, a long and expensive investigation would take place and the government would be at a standstill, as virtually nothing would get done. While Democrats have not pursued impeachment yet, they are facing mounting pressure from some of their bigger donors, who expect them to do.

Another similar area of concern involves the House Intelligence Committee, which is now controlled by the Democrats. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Committee recently indicated that it intended to expand its work to look into any alleged foreign influence over the president by Russia or any other country. In doing so, Democrats could potentially look into the president’s personal finances and the Trump Organization. According to Jack Langer, a spokesman for Republicans on the Committee, “[t]his is a gross abuse of a committee that was created to do oversight of the intelligence community, not to conduct sprawling, endless investigations of one party’s political opponents.”

Ironically, not only did the Democratic-controlled Committee decide to expand its inquiry, it also voted to send copies of various transcripts of its closed-door interviews to Robert Mueller, who happens to be investigating the president. Given that Democrats now control the Committee, Republicans on the Committee are somewhat limited when it comes to stopping the Committee’s seemingly partisan “investigations” against the president and/or those associated with him.

It would not be unreasonable to implement additional and/or new measures to prevent bad-faith, partisan or meritless Congressional claims/investigations. Such measures exist in the legal context, where there are laws/rules in place that penalize litigants and/or their lawyers from pursuing meritless claims or engaging in “bad-faith” litigation. In the federal context, for example, Rule 11 serves this purpose.

While Congress’ power is immense, there must be a way to prevent the abuse of such power when it becomes self-evident. The confirmation process involving Justice Kavanaugh is but one example of how some in Congress can abuse their power and pursue partisan and bad-faith investigations without any significant risks.

If there were stronger policies, laws or mechanisms in place, perhaps those choosing to pursue such partisan and bad-faith investigations would think twice. That would be a positive development no matter what side of the political aisle one sits on.

 

Which Hillary Clinton Should We Believe? The One Who Tells Us To Reject Trump’s Attempts To Divide Us With Fear, Or The One Who Tells Us “We Are Living Through a Full-Fledged Crisis Of Our Democracy?”

Hillary Clinton is hitting the panic button over Trump, telling an audience “we are living though a full-fledged crisis in our democracy.”

“We are living through a full-fledged crisis in our democracy,” Hillary Clinton says at this voting rights/unity breakfast. Says we’re living in a time when “racist and white supremacist views are lifted up in the media and the White House.”

Damn! That’s scary! Like…super scary.

Is this really the same Hillary who told the world over and over again that Trump was trying to divide the nation through fear?

 

MEDIA SILENCE CONTINUES: Clinton Foundation Connected AGT Forwarded Top Secret US Intel to RUSSIA – Made Bribes to Seal Deals – FBI/DOJ Covered It Up – Part VI

A 2016 DOJ criminal investigation was suppressed and buried by the DOJ/FBI that involved a major NY Democratic power broker and the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation.

The investigation revolved around the illegal sale of controlled US Homeland Security technology to Russia and China in the years before the 2016 election by a company named AGT.

The DOJ terminated its internal investigation in 2016 despite clear and irrefutable evidence of criminal activity and hid it from the public!

In Part I of our series we discussed the Clinton Foundation and the donations to the Foundation from the COB (Martin L. Edelman) and CEO (Mati Kochavi) of AGT International as well as from Sheikhs in the UAE. These donations in the millions of dollars were for favors from the Clintons. In return the Clintons helped promote AGT –

In Part II of our series we discussed the illegal actions that AGT International took to generate revenues around the globe. Highly sensitive US defense technology and ITAR classified products were provided to China, Russia and other countries in the name of sales growth. These actions were beyond criminal, they were treasonous.

(Below is an AGT article about its premier defense software from its company 4D Security Solutions.)

In Part III of our series we discussed the investigation that the FBI/DOJ started into AGT and the Clinton Foundation but then terminated and covered up before the 2016 Presidential election despite irrefutable crimes!

In Part IV of our series we discussed the activities by individuals associated with AGT in obtaining entrance to a highly sensitive US Intel facility circumventing the controls in place that prevent illegal entries to the facility.

In Part V of our series we discussed the efforts by AGT to obtain top secret US Intel for the sole purpose of selling to the Russians.  AGT personnel used the information as a means to entice sales from US adversaries.  AGT offered Russians the ability to conduct counter-Intel operations (e.g. cell phone intercepts, object and vehicle tracking, etc.).  All of this information provided to the Russians was highly classified and never should have been placed in their hands. This information was provided by AGT senior managers like Gadi Lenz, a US national who also held a key executive position at the US based defense contractor 4D Security Solutions.

Below image shows the LinkedIn profile of Gadi Lenz that identifies him as a CTO at 4D Security Solutions and a chief scientist at AGT.

Below is an image showing a Cyber Security solution AGT offered to the Russian government –

Image below shows an AGT C4I system deployed in Liaoyuan China. The system among other things was designed to automatically track and create a detailed pattern of motion of vehicles belonging to western embassies.

Today we’ll continue with our series and show the shady efforts AGT took to obtain contracts in the US.  AGT utilized its COB and the Clintons to gain access to highly placed Law Enforcement Agents (LEA’s) and former Federal and political figures in order to open doors and gain access to  federal, state, and political leads that helped the company penetrate the US market.

What would another Clinton scandal be without the likes of former Clinton Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson?  For example, in a meeting designed help an AGT company (3i-MIND) sell to the US law enforcement market, Thomas Betro, the head of 3i-MIND’s Global Law Enforcement practice and the former National Counterintelligence Executive arranged for some “Consulting” Services with the following participants:

1.    John Magaw– President Clinton’s Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) from 1993 to 1999. Prior to that he was Director of the United States Secret Service from 1992 to 1993. Magaw took over the ATF after the Waco siege that ended when the FBI attempted to overrun the Branch Davidian compound resulting in a fire that killed more than 70 people.

2.    Bradley Buckles– President Clinton’s former Director of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives beginning in 1999.  Buckles followed Magaw in this role.

3.    Governor Bill Richardson– President Clinton’s Former U.S. Ambassador to United Nations and former U.S. Secretary of Energy, Richardson was later elected Governor of New Mexico.

While Secretary of Energy, Richardson’s Energy Department was marred by an incident where a Chinese man by the name of  Wen Ho Lee was charged with spying at the Los Alamos National Laboratories.  Later a couple of computer drives were found missing at the same location.  After delays in providing information on the lost drives, in June 2000 the FBI baled Richardson out –

Two highly sensitive computer hard drives that were missing from the Los Alamos National Laboratories earlier this year never left the premises, and the FBI has uncovered no hints of espionage in the case, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson told a Senate committee Wednesday.

Richardson was later considered for a position on the Obama Administration but Richardson withdrew his nomination because of an investigation into whether he exchanged New Mexico state government contracts for campaign financing.  Obama’s Department of  Justice eventually killed the investigation into these pay-for-play allegations.

It seems expected that Clinton Foundation donors Edelman and Kochavi would involve the likes of Richardson and the Clintons in their efforts to promote their company – AGT.  On August 3rd and August 9th, 2011, AGT held meetings with the three experts above.

As a result of these meetings, AGT lined up contracts in the following police departments around the country –

·         Tucson

·         Newark

·         Boston

·         Colorado Springs

·         San Diego

·         Riverside

·         Memphis

·         Jacksonville

AGT regularly utilized and paid off highly placed former military, LEA and former Federal and political figures to open doors to obtain classified information.  For example, below is an image showing a cash envelope used to pay off officials in one Asia Pacific country –

The AGT family of companies participated in numerous suspect, if not criminal activities. The leaders of the company were Clinton friends and major donors to the Clinton Foundation. The Clintons in turn helped promote AGT.

AGT then participated in numerous shady and criminal activities, the worst of which were selling US ITAR regulated products and information to the Russians and Chinese.

The DOJ/FBI started an investigation of AGT but then covered it up. The investigation into the Clinton Foundation and AGT was material to the 2016 US election and yet the FBI and DOJ concealed it from the American public.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  The Clinton Foundation and the DOJ and FBI must be investigated and the crimes committed by these entities must be brought to justice!