by Mark Sircus

Director

17 July 2011

from IMVA Website
 

 

...And Everyone Else

The Economist
 

The end of the banker’s reign is near and that is a really good thing.

 

Up to this point, bankers have managed to turn humanity into pile of debt slaves. Since the advent of paper money, bankers have tended to form an unholy alliance with elected governments to expand debt and both parties have prospered until now; the time has come when debt can no longer be repaid.

 

Darryl Robert Schoon writes,

“The global economic collapse is perhaps humanity’s greatest hope for escaping the debt slavery the world’s financiers and bankers have planned for the world. However, to escape slavery one must first know he is a slave.”

Debt is the slavery of the free.
Publius Syrus, 50 BC

“Now everybody understands that Greece needs to be helped to exit recession as soon as possible. The relevant negotiations are making progress, and I hope they are completed as soon as possible,” Greece’s Prime Minister George Papandreou said.

Some people are very serious about their delusions and want us to believe in them too.

 

How is an economic backwater country like Greece going to be helped out of a recession when the rest of the world is on the verge of financial and economic calamity? And how is any person or country in debt helped by taking on more debt?

 

Don’t tell anyone but a massacre is going to occur in the banking industry, for haircuts are not what are in the offering but instead full-field scalping as countries default on their debts. It’s only a matter of time.

Sheldon Filger says,

“policymakers have no real solutions, and have just about run out of gimmicks and short-term fixes.

 

The global economic crisis that began with the financial collapse of 2008, far from being resolved or a clear path to recovery being underway, is entering a more dangerous phase, in which sovereign debt reaches the level of unsustainability.

 

The result could very well be paralyzing insolvency among the advanced economies, which could destroy the economic future of an entire generation.”

Monty Pelerin writes,

“The circus surrounding the debt ceiling makes interesting theater but all the babble is irrelevant. How the debt ceiling is eventually resolved only changes the timing and extent of the economic collapse.”

The baby boomer generation,

“Will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids,” writes Thomas Friedman for the New York Times, telling us that both European and American dreams are on the line.

Everywhere the sense of wrongness is leaking into the mainstream except perhaps with freshman Republicans who are more interested in doing what is right than in getting reelected.

“E3 is not a solution. It is currency destruction that leads to eventual hyperinflation that wipes out fixed incomes and most savings. It is nothing more than a temporary political escape from reality. It ensures the ultimate political and economic collapse of the country.

 

The only solution is to pare back government to where it is no longer destructive to the productive sector. It must be defanged and caged. Immediate cuts of 50% in spending would be my starting point. Additional cuts would follow,” concludes Pelerin.

We know that American politicians will not even dream of such dramatic cuts of their power or of the budget so I am convinced that nearly everything about today’s world is going to change over the comings months or short period of the next year.

 

The ride down in terms of evaporating financials, housing values, loan values, expanding unemployment, and contracting world economy will be hard. No soft landings ahead. It’s going to be much worse than most people expect.

It is tough for people and governments all over the world.

 

David Galland writes,

“Japan is essentially offline. Reports from friends in Japan - including one who was initially skeptical about the scale of the problems at Fukushima - have now changed in tone by 180 degrees.

 

You can almost feel the growing sense of desperation as the already massively indebted nation begins to slide toward an abyss. There is little standing in the way of the world’s third-largest economy’s slide.”

Greece, Ireland and Portugal are not far behind in terms of desperation though they worry not over increasing radiation levels, not yet at least.

Italy and Spain now seem ready to fall onto their fat bellies threatening to bring down German and French banks with them and then perhaps the entire central banking system in the process. Nothing sane can be said of the United States so we can only expect the worst from her. As the world spirals downward we can only expect America to make conditions down here on earth more dangerous, especially now to its own citizens.

 

At this point it will probably be safer outside the United States. In a serious crisis, most of the criminals out to steal your property and do harm to you will come with official government sanction and not from traditional criminal elements.

America is like Humpty Dumpy sitting high on the wall about to take a great shattering fall.

 

The Eurozone is growing increasingly desperate and everyone is watching for and wondering who the markets are going to punish next. The U.S. debt situation is far worse than anyone in Washington is willing to admit so nothing will be done about it. China’s bubble is big and dangerous.

 

The Middle East is in flames and different countries, states, cities, towns and businesses are going bankrupt with so many of them being just too big to fail.

The Daily Bell asks,

“Is that a great Depression knocking? Leave the door shut. Guard yourself and your loved ones. You are being lied to; it is a conscious campaign, a Dreamtime, lulling you. Lift the blinds and look outside. Trust your own vision, not what you’re being told.”

John Rubino said that,

“The idea that there were pain-free solutions to the mountain of debt the world has taken on was always a delusion. But it was one that the leaders of the U.S. and Europe in particular have clung to ferociously. Until now.

 

In just the past few days it seems they’ve all been forced to recognize the futility of their situation, and they have simply given up.”

We might not be taking what Rubino is saying seriously but that is not the case with governmental officials from the treasury department.
 

July 16, 2011 – WASHINGTON

Federal officials have reached out to banks and investors to discuss the government’s plans for its paying obligations after August 2 in the event the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the Washington Post reports.

 

Among the options being considered to raise revenues while borrowing is prohibited are the suspension of non-critical payments and the sale of federally-owned student loans, mortgages, and even gold reserves. The government is facing a $159 billion deficit in August, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

 

The Post is reporting that financial firms and investors were skeptical of the plans when briefed by Treasury Department officials, arguing there would be chaos in the markets due to speculators quick to scoop up valuable assets at low prices from a cash-starved government.

 

Rating agencies have said any partial default on its obligations, or steps to pay only some of the nation’s bills, could be met by a downgrade of federal debt - which would cause further economic turmoil.

Business Insider

“This was inevitable because ‘extend and pretend’ is by definition a temporary strategy. It works for a while but only for a while. And now it’s ending everywhere, all at once.

 

We’ve entered a new phase of the global financial collapse that began in 2000.

 

Any one of these capitulations - a Greek default, followed inevitably by either more PIIGS [Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain] defaults or EU bailouts of surreal size, the admission that the U.S. government will run trillion dollar deficits essentially forever, and a massive new Fed stimulus plan - would by itself be enough to destabilize the global economy.

 

Toss them all into the mix at once and you get chaos," continued Rubino.

Bob Chapman writes,

“What America is seeing today is a flat-lining economy. The U.S. economy is doing a slow-motion swan dive and the corporatists do not care because they believe they’ll become part of this new World Order.

 

The big question is why haven’t government and the Fed tried to solve the economic situation? The answer is they have no intention of doing so, because they want the public on their knees economically and financially so they can impose World Government.”

The cold, hard reality of the matter is that economic decline and economic despair are spreading rapidly and they will come to almost all of us soon enough.

 

Don’t make the mistake that you can escape the crisis that is building up like a standing wave ready to sweep away old structures and institutions reshaping the basic social and economic environment that we now take for granted.
 

 

 

 

Silver Shield slams most of us in the face saying,

“The last place I would want to be is in a multicultural, densely packed, urban area with huge wealth disparities when the dollar collapses. When the dollar collapses, food and fuel will become scarce and people will become desperate.

 

We have seen riots in the past, but let me assure you that you have not seen anything yet. I remember the Rodney King riots and this collapse will make that look like child’s play. Those riots were over some verdicts on a few men; the dollar collapse is a verdict on all of us.”

“The shock of abject poverty and sudden desperation will bring out the worst in people. The police will be overwhelmed at a time when their paychecks stop or don’t buy anything and their pensions wiped clean. Those officers will not risk their lives out on the street trying to save some failed system. They will be at home defending their families or simply getting out of dodge.

 

Leaving all of those left behind to fend for themselves.”

Those that are wise, will be far away
from danger, instead of tempting fate.
Silver Shield
 

 

 

 

If you have not seen part two of Gerald Celente’s recent video with Max Kestler I would recommend a listen.

 

No one alive talks as much street sense as Celente and it’s no coincidence that Gerald, a martial arts specialist when he is not doing financial forecasting, talks about guns and escape plans. Ignoring people who are shouting out warnings now can become very costly in the near term of life.

 

Even for me, someone who depends on spiritual protection from the harm people do to others, the harsh realities are difficult to fathom and accept as I attempt to sort through the choices I must make when balancing the above with my family responsibilities.

“Those areas that are most dependent on the dollar paradigm will be the worst places when the dollar collapses. Most people have only a few days of food to exist on, and if the water gets shut, less than that for water.

 

What is also not very well known, and very dangerous, is that we have 1/10^th of the population on anti-depressants.

 

If people don’t get their pills and come off too fast, they will suffer psychological breaks at a time when their real world is falling apart. It seems every school shooting or mother drowning her kids are from people who stopped taking their meds. I would be willing to bet that the use of these kinds of drugs are significantly higher in urban areas than rural areas.

 

This fact is only going to compound the problem in a world already gone mad,” concludes Shield.

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author writes,

“Adequate food, clean water and basic security are now beyond the reach of half the world’s population. Food riots and political protests will be frequent, as will malnutrition and starvation.

 

Desperate people employ desperate measures to survive.

 

And the elites will use the surveillance and security state to attempt to crush all forms of popular dissent. The aim of the corporate state is not to feed, clothe or house the masses but to shift all economic, social and political power and wealth into the hands of the tiny corporate elite.

 

“Do not expect them to take care of us when it starts to unravel. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to rapidly create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and cultural values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out.

 

It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global corporate.”