Sunday, December 19, 2010

Financial Shocks in Europe and America: Explosion of the Western Public Debt Bubble

The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. For LEAP/E2020 it is, in effect, around October 2011, due to the plunge of a large number of US cities and states into an inextricable financial situation following the end of the federal funding of their deficits, whilst Europe will face a very significant debt refinancing requirement (1), that this explosive situation will be fully revealed. Media escalation of the European crisis regarding sovereign debt of Euroland’s peripheral countries will have created the favourable context for such an explosion, of which the US “Muni” (2) market incidentally has just given a foretaste in November 2010 (as our team anticipated last June in GEAB No. 46 ) with a mini-crash that saw all the year’s gains go up in smoke in a few days. This time this crash (including the failure of the monoline reinsurer Ambac (3)) took place discreetly (4) since the Anglo-Saxon media machine (5) succeeded in focusing world attention on a further episode of the fantasy sitcom "The end of the Euro, or the financial remake of Swine fever" (6). Yet the contemporaneous shocks in the United States and Europe make for a very disturbing set-up comparable, according to our team, to the "Bear Stearn " crash which preceded Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and the collapse of Wall Street in September 2008 by eight months. But the GEAB readers know very well that major crashes rarely make headlines in the media several months in advance, so false alarms are customary (7)!


Net cash outflows from Mutual Funds investing in « Munis » (2007-11/2010) (in USD billions) - Withdrawals were higher than in October 2008 - Source: New York Times, 11/2010
Net cash outflows from Mutual Funds investing in « Munis » (2007-11/2010) (in USD billions) - Withdrawals were higher than in October 2008 - Source: New York Times, 11/2010
In this GEAB issue, we therefore anticipate the progression of the terminal crash of Western public debt (in particular US and European debt) as well as ways to protect oneself. Furthermore, we analyze the very important structural consequences of the Wikileaks revelations on the United States’ international influence as well as their interaction with the global consequences of the US Federal Reserve’s QE II programme. This GEAB December issue is, of course, the opportunity to assess the validity of our anticipations for 2010, with a of 78% success rate for the year. We also develop strategic advice for Euroland (8) and the United States. And we publish the GEAB-$ index that will now allow us to synthetically follow the progress of US Dollar against major world currencies every month (9).

In this issue, we have chosen to present an excerpt of the forecast on the explosion of the Western public debt bubble.

Thus, the Western public debt crisis is growing very rapidly under the pressure of four increasingly strong limitations:

. the absence of economic recovery in the United States which strangles all public bodies (including the federal state (10)) accustomed to an easy flow of debt and significant tax revenues in recent decades (11)

. the accelerated structural weakening of the United States in monetary, financial as well as diplomatic (12) affairs which reduces their ability to attract world savings (13)

. the global drying up of sources of cheap finance, which precipitates the crisis of excessive debt in Europe’s peripheral countries (in Euroland like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, ... and the United Kingdom as well (14)) and is starting to touch key countries (USA, Germany, Japan) (15) in a context of very large European debt refinancing in 2011

. the transformation of Euroland into a new "sovereign" that gradually develops new rules for the continent’s public debts.

These four constraints generate varying phenomena and reactions in different regions / countries.

The European context: the price of the path from laxity to austerity will be partly paid for by investors

From the European side, we have thus witnessed the difficult, but ultimately incredibly fast, transformation of the Eurozone into a sort of semi-state entity, Euroland. The delays in the process weren’t only due to the poor quality of the political individuals concerned (16) as the interviews of the "forerunners" such as Helmut Schmidt, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing or Jacques Delors hammered on at length. They themselves never having had to face a historic crisis of this magnitude, a little modesty would have done them good.

These delays are equally due to the fact that current developments in the Eurozone are on a huge political scale (17) and conducted without any democratic political mandate: this situation paralyzes the European leaders who consequently spend their time denying that they are really doing what they do, i.e. namely, building a kind of political entity with its own economic, social and fiscal constituent parts, .... (18) Elected before the crisis erupted, they do not know that their voters (and the economic and financial players at the same time) would be largely satisfied with an explanation about the decisions being planned (19). Because most of major decisions to come are already identifiable, as we analyze in this issue.

Finally, it is a fact that the actions of these same leaders are dissected and manipulated by the main media specializing in economic and financial issues, none of which belong to the Eurozone, and all of which are, on the contrary, entrenched in the $ / £ zone where the strengthening of the euro is considered a disaster. This same media very directly contributes to blur the process underway in Euroland (20) even more.

However, we can see that this adverse effect decreases because between the "Greek crisis" and the "Irish crisis", the resulting Euro exchange rate volatility has weakened. For our team, in spring 2011, it will become an insignificant event. This only leaves, therefore, the issue of the quality of Euroland’s political personnel which will be profoundly changed beginning in 2012 (21) and, more fundamentally, the significant problem of the democratic legitimacy of the tremendous advances in European integration (22). But in a certain fashion, we can say that by 2012/2013, Euroland will have really established mechanisms which will have allowed it to withstand the shock of the crisis, even if it’s necessary to legitimize their existence retrospectively (23).


Comparison of yields on Euroland 10 year government bonds - Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream, 11/16/2010
Comparison of yields on Euroland 10 year government bonds - Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream, 11/16/2010
In this regard, what will help accelerate the bursting of the Western public debt bubble, and what will occur concomitantly for its US catalyst, is the understanding by financial operators of what lies behind the "Eurobligations” (or E-Bonds) (24) debate which has begun to be talked about in recent weeks (25). It is from late 2011 (at the latest) that the merits of this debate will begin to be unveiled within the framework of the preparation for the permanent European Financial Stabilisation Fund (26). Although, what will suddenly appear for the majority of investors who currently speculate on the exorbitant rates of Greek, Irish,... debt is that Euroland solidarity will not extend to them, especially when the case of Spain, Italy or Belgium will start being posed, whatever European leaders say today (27).

In short, according to LEAP/E2020, we should expect a huge operation of sovereign debt transactions (amid a government debt global crisis) which will offer Euroland guaranteed Eurobligations at very low rates in exchange of national securities at high interest rates with a 30% to 50% discount since, in the meantime, the situation of the entire Western public debt market will have deteriorated. Democratically speaking, the newly elected Euroland leaders (28) (after 2012) will be fully authorized to effect such an operation, of which the major banks (including European ones (29)) will be the first victims. It is highly likely that some privileged sovereign creditors like China, Russia, the oil producing countries,... will be offered preferential treatment. They will not complain since the undertaking will result in their sizeable assets in Euros being guaranteed.


Sovereign Debt Default/Bailout and Contagion Risk Analysis (in blue: default or bailout risk / in red: contagion risk) - Source: Market Oracle, 11/2010
Sovereign Debt Default/Bailout and Contagion Risk Analysis (in blue: default or bailout risk / in red: contagion risk) - Source: Market Oracle, 11/2010
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IMPORTANT: The English and German of Franck Biancheri’s book “The World Crisis: The Path to the World afterwards – Europe and the World in the 2010-2020 Decade” are now available. They can be ordered directly from the publishers, Anticipolis Editions (www.anticipolis.eu).


Notes

(1) Worth more than € 1,500 billion per year in 2011 and 2012, including of course the United Kingdom.

(2) The US municipal bond market ("
Munis ") is used to fund the local transportation, health, education and sanitation infrastructure, ... It’s worth nearly 2,800 billion USD.

(3) Source :
Reuters, 11/08/2010

(4) In a 11/20/2010 article
Safehaven tonne indeed openly expressed surprise over the "silence" of the major financial media on the issue.

(5) The Financial Times, for example, has for the last month, begun to publish two or three articles per day on its website’s homepage on the so-called "Euro crisis" and to manipulate news, such as the statements of German leaders, to artificially create feelings of anxiety. Finally, even some of the French media are beginning to realize what an incredible political propaganda machine the Financial Times has become, as this recent article by
Jean Quatremer in the Libération shows.

(6) By way of comparison, no investor has lost money in the "Greek and Irish episodes" of the "Euro crisis", whilst tens of thousands have lost considerable sums in the recent US Muni crash... yet the media covers the first and not the second.

(7) LEAP/E2020 would like to remind readers of previous GEAB analyses that the discussion over the "Euro crisis" is of the same order as the Swine fever outbreak a year ago, namely a large-scale manipulation of public opinion to serve two purposes: first, to divert public attention from more serious problems (with Swine fever it was the crisis itself and its socio-economic consequences; with the Euro it is simply to divert attention from the situation in the United States and the United Kingdom), and secondly, to serve the goals of players with a major interest in creating this situation of fear (as regards Swine fever it was pharmaceutical laboratories and other related service providers; as regards the Euro, financial players are earning a fortune by speculating on the public debt of the countries concerned (Greece, Ireland, ...)). But just as the Swine fever crisis ended in a masquerade with governments stuck with colossal stockpiles of now worthless vaccines and masks, the so-called Euro crisis is going to end up with players who will have to redeem their so “profitable” bonds for next to nothing whilst their dollars will continue to fall in value. The summer of 2010 has already shown, however, the direction of events. Source:
Bloomberg, 11/18/2010

(8) Following the
methodology of political anticipation, in the past years our team has, of course, looked at the possibility that the Euro might disappear or collapse. Its conclusion is cut and dried because we have identified only one set-up where such a development would be feasible: at least two major Eurozone states must be headed by political forces wishing to revive intra-European conflicts. According to our team, this prospect has zero probability of taking place in the next two decades (our maximum anticipation span in political matters). So, exit this scenario, even if it makes some with nostalgia for the Deutschmark and Franc sad..., some economists who believe that reality pays little attention to economic theories, and some Anglo-Saxons who cannot imagine, without pain, a European continent which carves out its economic and financial path without them. According to Wikileaks even Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, believes in an accelerated integration in the Eurozone as a result of the crisis, which recounts his conversations with US diplomats (source: Telegraph, 12/06/2010). Our work on the Euro therefore focuses on the anticipation of the Eurozone’s laborious journey in adapting to its new status as Euroland in the context of the global systemic crisis. Incidentally, it is worth noting that this orgy of criticism and analysis that essentially the US and especially British media lavish has an undeniable value for Euroland leaders: it throws light on all the obstacles laid along the Eurozone path, a sine qua non for avoiding pitfalls. It's paradoxical, but it's an advantage not enjoyed by British or US leaders ... except when they read the GEAB.

(9) And not in relation to “made to measure” currencies as is the case for the
Dollar Index.

(10) The New York Times has posted a very informative game called "You solve the budget problem" on its website which allows each player to try and restore the state of federal public finances according to its socio-economic priorities and policies. Feel free to put yourself in the shoes of a Washington decision maker in and you will see that only political will is lacking to solve the problem. Source:
New York Times, 11/2010

(11) Sources:
CNBC, 11/26/2010; Le Temps, 12/10/2010; USAToday, 11/30/2010; New York Times, 12/04/2010

(12) The United States funds its deficits by a huge daily grab of available global savings. The country’s diplomatic credibility and effectiveness are therefore two essential features for its financial survival. But Wikileaks’ recent revelations are very damaging to the credibility of the State Department, whilst the recent complete failure of the new Israeli-Palestinian negotiations illustrates a growing ineffectiveness of US diplomacy, already very sensitive at the last G20 in Seoul. See the more detailed analysis in this issue. Sources:
Spiegel, 12/08/2010; YahooNews, 12/07/2010; YahooNews, 12/08/2010

(13) Even Chinese officials consider that the US fiscal situation is markedly worse than Euroland’s. Source:
Reuters, 12/08/2010

(14) Iceland, Ireland ... the United Kingdom, the United States, was the accursed follow-on of sovereign insolvency that LEAP/E2020 anticipated more than two years ago. Events are moving slower than we expected, but 2011 risks proving to be a "catch up" year. The United Kingdom is currently trying to save itself at the cost of huge and drastic socio-economic cuts of which student violence, including that against the Royal Family (a rare event), testifies to their unpopularity. But the size of its debt, its financial isolation and the State rescue of its banking debacles (as did Ireland) makes this headlong rush very dangerous, socially, economically and financially. As for the United States, their leaders seem to do everything (by "doing nothing") to ensure that 2011 is truly the year of the "
Fall of the Dollar Wall " as LEAP/E2020 anticipated in January 2006.

(15) As Liam Halligan pointed out in
The Telegraph of 12/11/2010, this development on interest rates does not bode well for US debt, expressing what LEAP/E2020 anticipated over two years ago now: we are reaching the moment of truth when available global savings are insufficient to meet the needs of the West, particularly the gargantuan need of the United States.

(16) A factor emphasized by the GEAB team for over four years.

(17) European Financial Stabilization Fund, hedge fund regulation, strict limits on bank bonuses, strict regulation of rating agencies, budget monitoring, next reinforcement of the whole of the European internal market financial regulation, first Euroland rating agency, … Sources:
European Voice, 10/26/2010; Deutsche Welle, 11/05/2010; Reuters, 07/13/2010; ABBL, 12/08/2010; BaFin, 11/16/2010

(18)
Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister, is currently the only politician who dared to clearly show his colours in his recent interview with Bild magazine, in which he states that during the next ten years, Euroland countries will have accomplished a genuine political integration. Karl Lamers, his colleague in charge of European affairs at the core of the CDU, identifies the crisis as an opportunity for Europe and Germany, as wel as as the too rarely heard American voice of Rex Nutting in the Wall Street Journal of 12/08/2010. On the technocratic side, the ECB President, Jean-Claude Trichet, called for a "budgetary federation" in Euroland. Sources: EUObserver, 12/13/2010; DeutschlandFunk , 12/09/2010; EUObserver, 12/01/2010

(19) For over a decade, public opinion in the Euroland countries has been, in effect, much more "integrationist" than their élite. Thus, rejection of the draft European Constitution in 2005 in France and the Netherlands would not have happened without some "pro-Europeans" voting "No", rejecting a draft that they considered too timid, politically, democratically and socially.

(20) European leaders are like the tortoise in the Jean de La Fontaine fable "
The Hare and the Tortoise " ... but the race would be described by hares!

(21) By the way, the Eurozone’s future political leaders would be well advised to practice, as quickly as possible, how to manage Euroland through two interactive games,
Economia and Inflation Island, that the European Central Bank has made available to the public.

(22) As LEAP/E2020 has repeated for nearly two years, European austerity is politically viable only if accompanied by unquestionable social and fiscal equity and the implementation of major democratic and social projects throughout Euroland. It is here that the real medium to long term weakness of the Eurozone can be found, not in the sovereign debt of the peripheral countries. To illustrate this point, it is useful to watch the very interesting video coverage made by the New York Times during the summer of 2010, called "
The Austerity Zone: Life in the New Europe ".

(23) Given the obvious difficulty of the American élite to understand the developments taking place in Europe, LEAP/E2020 wishes to contribute to the debate currently raging on US college campuses where budget austerity has led to heavy cuts in language teaching. As always, behind budgetary justifications, several "hidden agendas" can be identified as well as candid lack of understanding of what's going on in the rest of the world regarding languages. A perfect example of both trends seems to be
Richard N. Haas, former key official of the US State Department in the G.W. Bush administration, and now the president of the influential Council of Foreign Relations, who strongly advocates pushing French, German and Russian languages out of US campuses. With such 'enlightened and fair' advisers (qualified as having « an intellectual deficit » to understand the 21st century world at the GlobalEurope seminars in The Hague and Washington in 2004/2005), US students are doomed to be less and less able to understand tomorrow's world. Therefore, LEAP/E2020 finds it timely to circulate its 2007 anticipation entitled 'Which languages will the Europeans speak in 2025?' again.

(24) These will be the bonds used by all Euroland countries and other EU member states who wish to participate as the other countries, except the United Kingdom, did in May 2010 for the European Financial Stabilization Fund.

(25) Despite the denials of French and German officials, these Eurobonds are on the agenda of all the informal discussions of Euroland leaders. Source:
Euroinvestor, 12/10/2010

(26) It is also probable that the rise in strength of the political renewals expected in France from Spring 2012, and perhaps also in Germany at that time, will make these issues real campaign topics from the end of Summer 2011.

(27) Liam Halligan, definitely one of the best British watchers of the global crisis, is thus completely right to stress in
The Telegraph of 11/27/2010 that Angela Merkel (and other Euroland leaders as well) has every intention of making investors pay for significant share of their Irish and Greek bets. But that will happen in an organized manner, as an effective and forceful strategy which the strong States are used to; not in a panic, in the context of a mini-crisis.

(28) And we repeat that, according to our anticipations, they will probably be the political leaders most independent from banking lobby since the 1990s.

(29) This will also take place in an organized manner of “forcibly” cutting back the damaged balance sheets of the major European banks.


Moody's slashes Irish debt to 3 grades above junk

DUBLIN (AP) — Moody's slashed Ireland's credit rating five notches on Friday and warned of further downgrades if the country cannot regain command of its debts and tame its deficit.

Dietmar Hornung, the senior Ireland analyst for Moody's, said it remained an open question whether Ireland could sharply reduce its deficit from its eurozone-record levels while taking tens of billions from a new EU-IMF bailout fund.

Mr. Hornung lauded Ireland's deficit-fighting plan to impose 10 billion euros ($13 billion) in cuts and 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion) in tax increases by 2014 — but nonetheless cautioned that pulling so much money out of an already fragile economy "represents a further considerable drag on the country's recovery prospects."

Moody's dropped Ireland's rating to Baa1 — just three steps above junk-bond status — in a move similar to last week's BBB+ downgrade by rival ratings agency Fitch. The other major agency, Standard & Poor's, cut Ireland two notches to A on Nov. 23 and is expected to drop its grade further in coming days.

While Fitch has put Ireland on a stable outlook, meaning no further downgrades are expected, Mr. Hornung said Moody's was keeping Ireland on a negative outlook because it sees more negatives than positives in Ireland's future.

He said Ireland remained vulnerable to further dud-loan shocks in its banks, which invested hundreds of billions in foreign borrowings on Ireland's runaway property market during the Celtic Tiger boom of 1994-2007 — and has suffered catastrophic losses since the market collapsed in 2008.

Ireland that year imposed a blanket guarantee on all Irish banks' debt obligations in a failed effort to keep their funding streams healthy. Ireland has since has been forced to nationalize or take major equity stakes in five of the six insured banks — and funded bailouts estimated to total euro50 billion ($65 billion) — as unconvinced investors continued pulling their money out of the banks.

The loan agreement reached Nov. 28 in Dublin with the European Union and International Monetary Fund will provide Ireland a credit line of up to 67.5 billion euros ($90 billion) at interest rates averaging 5.8 percent. EU and IMF regulators also permitted Ireland to redeploy 17.5 billion euros ($23 billion) from its own cash and pension reserves, taking the total bailout figure to 85 billion euros ($113 billion).

Mr. Hornung estimated that the extra debt financing would drive Ireland's national debt to a peak of 140 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, compared to 66 percent in 2009. That figure is higher than the debt-to-GDP forecasts of many economists.

Investors dumped Irish bonds Friday on news of the downgrade. The yield on 10-year Irish bonds rose to 8.4 percent, a two-week high.

Story Continues →

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

THE U.S. AND SOUTH KOREA SET TO DELIBERATELY PROVOKE WAR AGAINST NORTH KOREA.

South Korea announced today that it will go ahead with an artillery drill that will see the South Koreans lob shells close to disputed waters near North Korea.

North Korea has announced that they will view this as a direct provocation and will respond accordingly in retaliation. Any response from the North Koreans could then trigger a major conflagration on the peninsula that could even escalate to the use of nuclear weapons.

Both Russia and China have advised South Korea not to go ahead with the drill and have asked the United Nations to intervene. Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is urging North Korea to show restraint despite, it seems, it looks like being South Korea that’s going to fire the first shots.

One cannot over-emphasise how dangerous this situation can become if the South Koreans go ahead as planned. Only three weeks ago the South Koreans fired artillery shells into the same area as they proposed to over the next few days. They were warned then that the North Koreans would retaliate and they did. So why do it again?

One needs to ask: who’s really to blame here for shoving this potential disaster, not just for the region, but for the world, right up to the edge?

One can rest assured that South Korea would be doing absolutely nothing to upset the North Koreans in this way without the full knowledge or encouragement or even instigation of the US.

Already the US military ‘observers and trainers’ are in South Korea to oversee what can only be termed as direct provocations.

America has become desperate to find a way out of its economic and its domestic socio-political situation and war has always been seen as a panacea for its ills in the past both as a distraction from its woes and as a means of reuniting a fractured society. The problem is; America is very disunited and needs a very big distraction to bring back together again.

Let’s hope that a nuclear holocaust is not what these lunatics have in mind as a ‘distraction’!

Britain 'will act on torture intelligence'

The Foreign Office said last night that it would have to accept information gained from waterboarding if it could stop an imminent terrorist attack.


The admission follows claims by George W Bush, the former US president, that the waterboarding of prisoners – in which they feel like they are drowning – foiled plots in Britain. He wrote in a new book that the interrogation of three al-Qaeda suspects "helped break" plots to attack Heathrow airport and Canary Wharf in London.

Downing Street said it considered waterboarding to be torture, but did not say what it would do if offered information that came from such treatment. Foreign Office sources said they would have to act if it could save lives.

New guidance to intelligence officers makes clear the decision would have to be made by ministers.

A government spokesman said last night: "Appropriate action will be taken to ensure that the other country in question knows that we find the use of mistreatment totally unacceptable."

Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6, said in a speech last month that the service had "a professional and moral duty to act" on information that could save lives.

The plot to hijack planes to attack London was masterminded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man behind the Sept 11 attacks, who was waterboarded by CIA agents.

Four men in Saudi Arabia had already been recruited to fly the aircraft to London when the plot was allegedly thwarted.

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

U.S. will take part in South Korea live-fire drill

A group of 21 U.S. trainers and observers will participate in a South Korean live-fire drill on Yeonpyeong Island scheduled to take place sometime between Saturday and Tuesday, according to Department of Defense officials cited by the Armed Forces Press Service.

The planned drill has raised fears of further conflict on the Korean peninsula, where tensions are at their highest levels in decades. North Korea bombarded Yeonpyeong Island on Nov. 23, killing four people in the first North Korean attack on an area populated by civilians since the Korean War. North Korea claimed the shelling was a response to South Korean “provocation” of firing toward the North, which South Korea disputes.

South Korea says the upcoming exercise will not involve fire directed at the North and is meant to increase military readiness. North Korea, however, has promised to respond with force.

“The strike will play out a more serious situation than on November 23 in terms of strength and scope of the strike,” Reuters reported North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA, as saying on Friday.

South Korea said Saturday that it would go ahead with the drills despite Pyongyang’s threat. “We have a right to conduct our own military drills,” a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said, according to The Associated Press.

The artillery drills, however, were not expected to be held over the weekend because of bad weather and would be conducted either on Monday or Tuesday, the officer said on the customary condition of anonymity, the AP reported.

South Korea said earlier this month that it would respond to future North Korean attacks with airstrikes, raising the possibility that the exercise could trigger greater conflict on the peninsula.

“If North Korea were to react to that in a negative way and fire back ... at those firing positions on the islands, that would start potentially a chain reaction of firing and counter-firing,” said U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to the Defense Department release. “What you don’t want to have happen out of that is ... for us to lose control of the escalation. That’s the concern.”

Cartwright said South Korea has made sure the intent of the exercise is clear, and all firing will be directed toward water and not land. The South Korean government has published information about the planned drills on the Web “to ensure that anybody in that area knows what’s going to go on and when it’s going to go on, including a notice to mariners,” he said.

“The area [where] they’re going to conduct these live-fire drills is an established and well-used range,” Cartwright said, according to the release. “It’s not a new activity, and it’s not one that the North Koreans haven’t seen on a routine basis.”

The GOP Goes to the Mats to Protect the US Chamber of Commerce

The GOP has gone to such a new level of low in showing its heartless contempt for suffering Americans that stuns even a TV anchor for FOX "News," also known as the propaganda arm for the Republican Party.

One has to wonder what drives the real motivation behind the GOP efforts to block health care benefits for the 9/11 responders.

It always comes down to the money. Republican lawmakers are willing to send 9/11 responders to an early death, if need be, in order to protect, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This is the agency that houses and funnels millions upon millions of dollars from secret donors to prop up their political puppets of choice in Washington.

The US Chamber of Commerce lobbied to kill a bill that would have helped cover medical expenses and compensation for first responders and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to documents available online.

The Chamber's aim was to keep open a tax loophole benefiting foreign corporations that the $7.4 billion bill would have closed to provide funding for the American emergency workers

Libby Shaw :: The GOP Goes to the Mats to Protect the US Chamber of Commerce
The money indeed.

While the disingenuous and hypocritical Republicans like John Cornyn stuff bills in the U.S. Senate with hundreds of millions of dollars of earmark spending, while railing against earmarks, these very same Republican scam artist shills for billionaires say we cannot afford to take care of the 9/11 responders.

In an email message that I had sent to Senator John Cornyn I posed the very same question as did Shep Smith.

How do you sleep at night, Sir?

His response. Crickets continue to chirp because Republican politicians know no shame. It should be very clear to all by now that Republicans will do whatever it takes to grab as much power as possible for the sole purpose of serving themselves and their uber wealthy masters.

Meanwhile the Party of the Mean and Heartless, along with some help from a handful of truly wretched and unprincipled Democrats also wielded a crippling blow to the DREAM Act. This bill would grant an opportunity for legal permanent residency and potential U.S. citizenship for the children of immigrants who were brought to this country illegally.

Students in graduation caps sat in the gallery to watch the vote, most of whom have spent months advocating for the DREAM Act. To be eligible for the act, undocumented students must have entered the country when they were 15 or younger and graduated high school or obtained a GED. To receive a green card, the bill requires them to complete two years in the military or two years of college -- plus a 10-year waiting period. Only six years later would they be eligible to apply for citizenship.

Some DREAM Act-eligible students face deportation -- despite clean criminal records -- and hoped the DREAM Act could help them gain legal status. Others will now be unable to attend school, join the military or serve in certain jobs if they are not eligible to work in the United States.

What a lovely Christmas gift to give children who
want to become legal residents of the U.S. For many this is the only country that they know.

The DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and came closest to passage in 2007, when it fell eight votes short of bypassing a filibuster. But previous Republican supporters, most notably Hatch and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), have since made a radical shift to the right on immigration.

Coming off of a harsh anti-immigration law in Arizona, SB 1070, and a campaign season with numerous Republicans ads stoking fear about the border, the current Republican message is "secure the borders first."

A $600 million border security bill passed by the Senate in August did not silence these complaints.

Debate on Saturday was no different, with most Republicans claiming it would be wrong to pass the DREAM Act when illegal immigrants can still enter the country. (An estimated 50 percent of illegal immigrants did not enter the country illegally, but overstayed their visas.)

"To those who have come to my office, you're always welcome to come but you're wasting your time," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "We're not going to pass the DREAM Act or any other legalization until we secure our borders. It will never be done stand-alone. It has to be part of comprehensive immigration reform."

Democrats criticized Republicans' statements on the floor about the DREAM Act, decrying them for calling the bill "amnesty" and claiming it would lead to a flood of illegal immigrants entering the country. "They're preying to peoples' worst fears," Reid said of Republicans. "The DREAM Act couldn't be further from amnesty. It's hard work. It gives so many the incentive to contribute to our nation and its economy."

Good old flip flopping Republicans like Orin Hatch and John McCain have no qualms about letting the children of immigrants twist in the wind forever, if need be. The Senators desire to keep their jobs in Washington outweighs everything else.

I think one can safely assume that the Republican Party is truly rotten to its core. And so are certain Democrats, specifically those of the blue dog variety.

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"Shadow Lending" and the Financial Crisis

What the tax package proves conclusively is that the President, the House and the Senate have absolutely no intention of getting their fiscal house in order. We will address the lurid details later. There is no change in the policies of borrowing continuously in order to sustain current consumption and to keep the economy from collapsing. As far as we are concerned the hold up in the package was to load it up with pork and stimulus. Some call it bells and whistles – we call it irresponsible. The Fed and all the players are buying time and 70% of the public knows that and they are going along with it. Very few want to face the music.
The Fed, via the “President’s Working Group on Financial markets” is targeting asset prices, if possible, and the equities market. This is really the only bastion of wealth that the public recognizes. Wait until government and Wall Street go after their retirement plans, then they will get a wake-up call. Mr. Bernanke believes a strong stock market will spur spending, leading to higher income and profits. They had best have some heavy propaganda ready because 4th quarter GDP will probably come in around 2%. Inventories are building production is again stagnant, railroad traffic is off over 1% and the Baltic Index is down. Consumer credit has expanded more than $3 billion the first two-month rise in more than two years, although that number was aided by one off student loans, which accounted for all of October’s gains. In reality consumer credit fell more than $32 billion, the lowest level since late 2004. If you cut away the student loans consumer credit fell about $75 billion over the past three months.
What may seem odd to you is that a federal judge’s rejection of mandatory insurance, a keystone provision of the Obama Health Care Reform Package, is bullish for the stock market. The bill is enormously unpopular and the gutting of this part of the bill neuters it. It is on to the Supreme Court, where unfortunately it will be upheld, by our bought and paid for socialist activist judges. It reminds us in many ways of the Warren Court. The judges may take the case for decision by next June.
Irrespective, temporary fiscal stimulus has been just that, temporary. We ask, why would the result be any different this time? All the exercise, a very expensive exercise of $2.5 trillion annually, is doing is buying time. The result will be more inflation and unemployment and the beginning of demonstrations and violence as we have seen all over Europe for the past few years. Incidentally, both are worsening and next year will reach a level not seen since 1968 in Paris. Riots are on the way in America, just be patient, they will come in good time. This is the result of austerity from the bottom up and the rich getting richer. Washington and NYC had best re-read French history starting in 1788.
The last time we saw numbers that we see today was in mid-2007, when the stock market took a sharp plunge. A correction to 8,000 on the Dow would wring out present excess evaluation and perhaps then some. This market is way over valued.
In none of the news and research reports we read do we see any reference to the fact that insured unemployment jumped 523,000 to 4.2 million. Markets often ignore cold hard facts at their peril.
We wonder what Wall Street thought about the expose forced by court order of the distribution of bank bailouts? There was no discussion. They just ignored the preliminary report. There are different estimates, but we will stick with our original estimate of $13.8 trillion. There is no question the collateral was substandard and in defiance of Fed rules. It is understandable why the Fed wanted to hide what they had been up too. There were 4,200 different loans and securities purchases under 13 different bailout programs of $3.8 trillion, that is that we know of at this time. This was shared by a host of lenders to affect profits to lessen these lenders deplorable condition. It even included transnational conglomerates. Some $61 billion was loaned to hedge funds to assist their exit from ABS, Asset Backed Securities. Much of the money found its way to the Cayman Island accounts of these entities in order to cover up what has happening. These funds may have bailed out these hedge funds, but the funds were also used to attack the European bond market and the ECB and its policies. We still do not know how many trillions are still out there. Did they also use the IMF and World Bank to front secret transactions? None of this has been as yet disclosed. It is estimated that some 36% of collateral for the loans was stock, which is illegal, including junk bonds. This is only the beginning. When the full story is known the reign of the Fed will be history.

The final details of the tax package are not as yet available, but here are a few comments. The tax extension bill has become a boondoggle worth about $900 billion. Payroll tax cuts will work about as well as the Bush tax rebates – they didn’t work. Temporary measures never work, because they do not affect long-term behavior. Most of the money will be saved or used to reduce debt. Business needs accelerated depreciation allowances and research credits like they need a hole in the head. They are sitting on almost $2 trillion in cash, or 7.4% of assets, the highest in 52 years. This is just another payoff to business for their campaign contributions.
One of the things we would like to address is the “Shadow Lenders.” As you know the Fed gave support to hundreds of banks and other corporations and then would not divulge what they had done. One of the sneaky things they did was to use $140 billion, or 20% of the Fed’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility, $28 billion, to secretly fund domestic and foreign corporations. Banks around the world benefited. How they did it was via vehicles known as conduits. This contributed significantly to asset bubbles in residential and commercial real estate prior to the financial crisis, which began three years ago, by obscuring risks. Spokesmen for theses facilitators, banks, won’t say whether their firms borrowed money from conduits that tapped the commercial paper facility. These people are real beauties. Some transactions allowed companies to remove assets from their balance sheets and reduce capital requirements. These vehicles get quite large and were secretly hidden from regulators and Congress. This criminal enterprise functioned from September 2008 through January 2010.
The total loaned from this facility by the Fed was $738 billion. The Fed says they did not know what the conduits were doing with the money. If you believe that I have a bridge you might be interested in. These conduits were similar to SIVs, or Special Investment Vehicles, where assets, usually their losers, were held off balance sheets. In pulling this slight of hand they did not need to hold capital against these assets. Thus, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland, etc. served as a vertical faucet for loans that very few knew about. As you can see, just about anyone who wanted or needed funds got them and the fed often didn’t even know where the funds went.
Both Europe, the UK and the US are on life support. Why else would they need such massive injections of money and credit? Now and during the coming year there will be about 2% growth, half of which will be supplied by quantitative easy of one form or another. These estimates come from official statistics, which unfortunately are incorrect: all three general economies in reality are in the minus column.
In order to maintain this level far more money and credit will be needed than has been admitted or anticipated. By June there is a good possibility that Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain will have defaulted. Already Moody’s has 10 Portuguese banks under review for possible downgrade.
Europe waited too long to pour money and credit into the system and as a result is showing distinct signs of deflation. Strains will be great during the first quarter of the year due to heavy refinancing demands. The euro zone has to refinance $750 billion. This event could push Spain and Portugal into the same position that Greece and Ireland are now in. This means for those who have to be in currencies the US dollar and the Swiss franc will be the obvious gainers. You might call them, for this period, the best of the worst. This is not as yet being reflected in the currencies or their bond markets. Higher US rates are the result presently of US fiscal fears that will abate as we cross into the first quarter of 2011.
It won’t take long for Rep. Ron Paul and Senator Bernard Sanders to go gunning after the Fed, which has to expose what they have been up too and what they have done, which has been illegal under their charter. That should calm dollar strength and add fuel to the fires that are driving gold, silver and commodity prices higher.
The “Build America Bond” program will be dead and the states will be strangled for lack of funds and as a result muni yields will have to climb further, which means lower muni prices and more layoffs in a sector that makes up 1/7th of the economy.
Housing will have another bad year that will stretch to 2013, and see 20% lower prices, many more foreclosures and a staggering inventory that could hit a 4 to 5 year supply, when normal is 4 to 5 months.

It looks like the administration and Congress with the assistance of the Fed will attempt to make $2.5 to $3 trillion in stimulus in a combination QE2-QE3, stretch out over two years. We are afraid they will find that is not going to work.
As we mentioned the first quarter should be good for the dollar, but as massive money has to be raised other borrowers will be crowded out of the market and yields will tend to rise again. The Fed could end up buying almost all the Treasury and Agency bonds, new and existing. This will continue to strangle credit to small and medium sized businesses that create 70% of new jobs. That means little improvement in employment. That also means the Chinese and Japanese could leave the Treasury-Agency markets and spend their dollars elsewhere, such as they have been in commodities, gold and silver. We have seen two years where loans to small and medium sized businesses have fallen by 25%. That is going to worsen.
Long-term debt will be overwhelming not only in the US and UK, but in Europe as well. If you can believe it banks have again been borrowing short, lending long a proven recipe for disaster. The 3% spread isn’t worth the effort.
On top of such a poor choice they have leveraged themselves as well. Many banks will bankrupt themselves in this process as they did in the early 1980s. The taxpayers simply cannot bail every bank out, especially if they get hit simultaneously. At the same time these banks have bad real estate loans on their books.
Unemployment should improve only slightly, up to June, due to adjustments and financial turmoil in the US, UK and Europe. The following year could improve by 1% to 2% on a U6 basis. That could take real unemployment over two years from 22 5/8% to close to 20%, which will neutralize recovery again.
We could see 0.4% ten-year T-notes and perhaps even higher over the next two years as deliberately created inflation takes its toll on purchasing power.
Most of you have observed rioting in London, Athens and Rome this past week, as Europeans become more militant in retaliating against austerity, higher taxes and growing unemployment. The bitterness, resignation and militancy is reminiscent of the late 1960’s demonstrations in Paris. Now we have seen this not only in Paris over the last three years, but now over Europe as well. The entire Continent is in contagion.
The established parties in every country represent the financial interests and on the edges we see the parties of protest. If an establishment politician steps out of line their money is cut off and they are isolated. No new direction is allowed. Wages must be lowered; the cost of business must fall, as well as corporate taxation. All the gains from higher productivity and lower wages must fatten the bottom line to increase salaries and options for the leadership. They cannot have constituents getting anything whether it is in Europe, the UK or the US. The elitists want all the wealth and world government to go along with it. The bureaucrats and the technocrats make the decisions and pass their orders on to the countries leadership.

In Europe the media is largely government controlled, which means it is controlled by the people behind the scenes that control government. It is more or less the same in the UK and US, but the elitists have direct control. That is why talk radio and the Internet, that emanates from the US, is so important. Their existence breaks the monopoly censorship. This process of sterilization then becomes broken and decent rises. The discontent you see in Europe is being fueled by the truth that is being dispersed by alternative media.
In Europe, education is in the hands of government, as well as research. As a result there is no cause and effect. This, of course, leads to mediocrity, an absence of original thinking and conformity, and a mold that youth is trying to break away from among other issues. Freedom in Europe has been extinguished by socialism. Socialism was the compromise lost in the 1930s between National Socialism and communism. It was a third way that began after World War II as a political and social solution. It avoided war but otherwise has been a failure. Unfortunately in every one of these isms, including what is called capitalism; freedom has been asphyxiated by the state. The question is do we opt for anarchy? What we did find out like others before us is that there is no ideal society. In the next issue we will cover more on the dilemma of civilization in Europe, the US and England, and where we believe the powers behind societies are leading us.

CENTRAL BANKING 101: WHAT THE FED CAN DO AS “LENDER OF LAST RESORT”

We’ve seen behind the curtain, as the Fed waved its
magic liquidity wand over Wall Street. Now it’s time to enlist this tool in the
service of the people.

The Fed’s invisible hand first really became visible with
the bailout of AIG. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
in June 2009:

"Many of us were, shall we say, if not surprised,
taken aback when the Fed had $80 billion to invest -- to put into AIG just out
of the blue. All of a sudden we wake up one morning and AIG has received $80
billion from the Fed. . . . So of course we're saying, Where's this money come
from? ‘Oh, we have it. And not only that, we have more.’”

How much more -- $800 billion? $8 trillion?

The stage magician smiles coyly and rolls up his
sleeves to show that there is nothing in them. “Try $12.3 trillion,” he says.


That was the figure recently revealed

for the Fed’s “emergency lending programs” to bail out the banks.

“$12.3 trillion of our taxpayer money!” shout the
bemused spectators as pigeons emerge from the showman’s gloved hands. “We could
have used that money to build roads and bridges, pay down the state’s debts,
keep homeowners in their homes!”

“Not exactly tax money,” says the magician with his
mysterious Mona Lisa smile. “When did you have $12.3 trillion in tax money
sitting idle?”

Not only did he not use “tax money;” it seems he hardly
used “money” at all. He just advanced numbers on a computer screen, amounting
to credit against collateral, replacing the credit that would have been
advanced by the money market before the Fatal Day the Money Market Died. According
to CNNMoney

“[T]he Federal Reserve made $9 trillion in overnight
loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the Wall Street crisis . . .
. All the loans were backed by collateral and all were paid back with a very
low interest rate to the Fed -- an annual rate of between 0.5% to 3.5%. . . .

“In addition to the loan program for bond dealers, the
data covered the Fed's purchases of more than $1 trillion in mortgages, and
spending to back consumer and small business loans, as well as commercial paper
used to keep large corporations running. . . .

“Most of the special programs set up by the Fed in
response to the crisis of 2008 have since expired, although it still holds
close to $2 trillion in assets it purchased during that time. The Fed said it
did not lose money on any of the transactions that have been closed, and that
it does not expect to lose money on the assets it still holds.”

Or so it is reported in the media. . . .

The pigeons slip back up the sleeve from whence they
came, a sleeve that was empty to start with.

The Central Bank as Lender of Last Resort


Where did the Fed get this remarkable power? Central banks
are “lenders of last resort,” which means they are authorized to advance as
much credit as the system requires. It’s all keystrokes on a computer, and the
supply of this credit is limitless. According to Wikipedia:

“A lender of last resort is an
institution willing to extend credit when no one else will. Originally the term
referred to a reserve financial institution, most often the central bank of a
country, that secured well-connected banks and other institutions that are
too-big-to-fail against bankruptcy.”

Why is this backup necessary? Because, says
Wikipedia matter-of-factly, “Due to fractional reserve banking, in
aggregate, all lenders and borrowers are insolvent.” The entry called “fractional
reserve banking” explains:

“The bank lends out some or most of the deposited funds,
while still allowing all deposits to be withdrawn upon demand. Fractional
reserve banking necessarily occurs when banks lend out funds received from deposit
accounts, and is practiced by all modern commercial banks.”

All commercial banks are insolvent. They are unable
to pay their debts when they come due, because they have double-counted their
deposits. A less charitable word, if this hadn’t all been validated with
legislation, might be “embezzlement.” The bankers took your money for
safekeeping, promising you could have it back “on demand,” then borrowed it
from the till to clear the checks of their borrowers. Modern banking is a
massive shell game, and the banks are in a mad scramble to keep peas under the
shells. If they don’t have the peas, they borrow them from other banks or the
money market short-term, until they can come up with some longer-term source.

Ann
Pettifor
writes, “the banking system has been turned on its head, and
become a borrowing machine.” Rather than lending us their money, they are
borrowing from us and lending it back. Banks can borrow from each other at the
fed funds rate of 0.2%. They get the very cheap credit and lend it to us as
much more expensive credit.

They got away with this shell game until September 2008,
when the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggered a run on the money markets. Panicked
investors pulled their short-term money out, and the credit market suddenly
froze. The credit lines on which businesses routinely operated froze too,
causing bankruptcies, layoffs and general economic collapse.

The shell game would have been exposed for all to see, if the
Federal Reserve had not stepped in and played its “lender of last resort” card.
Quoting Wikipedia again:

“A lender of last resort serves as a
stopgap to protect depositors, prevent widespread panic withdrawal, and
otherwise avoid disruption in productive credit to the entire economy caused by
the collapse of one or a handful of institutions. . . .

“In the United States the Federal Reserve serves
as the lender of last resort to those institutions that cannot obtain credit
elsewhere and the collapse of which would have serious implications for the
economy. It took over this role from the private sector ‘clearing houses’ which
operated during the Free Banking Era; whether public or private, the
availability of liquidity was intended to prevent bank runs.

“. . . [T]his role is undertaken by the
Bank of England in the United Kingdom (the central bank of the UK), in the
Eurozone by the European Central Bank, in Switzerland by the Swiss
National Bank, in Japan by the Bank of Japan and in Russia by the Central Bank
of Russia.”

If all central banks do it, it must be okay, right? Or is
it just evidence that the entire international banking scheme is sleight of
hand? All lenders are insolvent and are kept in the game only by a
lender-of-last-resort power given to central banks by central governments -- given,
in other words, by we-the-people. Yet we-the-people are denied access to this
cornucopia, and are forced to pick up the tab for the banks. Most states are
struggling with budget deficits, and some are close to insolvency. Why is the
Fed’s magic wand not being waved over them?

QE3: Some Creative Proposals


According to financial blogger Edward Harrison, that might
soon happen. He quotes a Bloomberg article by David Blanchflower, whom Harrison
describes as “a former MPC [Monetary Policy Committee] member at the Bank of
England but also an American-British dual citizen professor who is very plugged
in at the Fed.” Blanchflower wrote
on October 18:

“I was at the Fed last week in Washington for one of its
occasional meetings with academics . . . .

“The Fed is especially concerned about unemployment and
the weak housing market. . . .

“Quantitative easing remains the only economic show in
town given that Congress and President Barack Obama have been cowed into
inaction.

“Quantitative easing” (QE) involves central bank
purchases with money created on a computer screen. Blanchflower asked:

“What will they buy? They are limited to only
federally insured paper, which includes Treasuries and mortgage-backed
securities insured by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But they are also allowed
to buy short-term municipal bonds, and given the difficulties faced by state
and local governments, this may well be the route they choose
, at least for
some of the quantitative easing. Even if the Fed wanted to, it couldn’t
buy other securities, such as corporate bonds, as it would require Congress’s
approval, which won’t happen anytime soon.” [Emphasis added.]

You don’t need to understand all this financial jargon to
pick up that a central banking insider who has sat in on the Fed’s meetings says
that for the Fed’s next trick, it could and “may well” fund the bonds of local
governments. Harrison comments:

“The Fed can legally buy as many municipal bonds as it
wants without congressional approval. . . . This is a big story. Blanchflower
is essentially saying that the U.S. government can bail out both the housing
market via Fannie and Freddie paper purchases and the state governments via
Muni purchases. And, of course, the banks get to dump these assets onto the Fed
who will hold them to maturity. I guarantee you this will have a very nice kick
since it is the states where the biggest employment cuts are.”

A big story indeed, opening very interesting
possibilities. The Fed could use its QE tool not just to buy existing assets
but to fund future productivity and employment, stimulating the depressed
economy the way Franklin Roosevelt did but without putting the nation in debt
at high interest to a private banking cartel.

The Fed could, for example, buy special revenue bonds
issued by the states to finance large-scale infrastructure projects. They might
build a high-speed train system of the sort seen in Europe and Asia. The states
could issue special revenue bonds at 0% or 0.5% interest to finance the
project, which could be repaid with user fees generated by the finished railroad.
The same could be done to build modern hospitals, develop water projects and
alternative energy sources, and so forth. All this could be done at the same
extremely low interest rates now afforded to the banks, saving the states
enormous sums in taxes.

Wouldn’t that sort of program be inflationary though? Not
under current conditions, says author Bill Baker in a recent post. He notes
that over 95% of the money supply is created by bank lending, and that when
credit is destroyed, the money supply shrinks. The first round of QE did not actually
increase the money supply, because the money printed by the Fed was matched by
the destruction of money caused by debt default and repayment. To replace the
debt-money lost in a shrinking economy, the Fed has already elected to embark
on a program of quantitative easing. The question addressed here is just where
to aim the hose.

Closing the Social Security Gap


Another interesting idea for QE3 was proposed by Ted
Schmidt, associate professor of economics at Buffalo State College. Writing in early
November, Schmidt anticipated the cut in social security taxes now being
debated in Congress. Worried observers see these cuts as the first step to
dismantling social security, which will in the future be called “underfunded”
and too expensive for the taxpayers to support. Schmidt notes, however, that
social security is a major holder of federal government bonds. The Fed could finance
a $400 billion tax cut in social security by buying bonds directly from the social
security trust fund, allowing the fund to maintain its current level of
benefits. Among other advantages of this sort of purchase:

“[I]t does not raise the gross national debt, because it
simply transfers bonds from one government entity (the Social Security trust
fund) to a semi-government entity (the Fed); and . . . it gives the Fed the
extra ammo (treasury bonds) it will need when the time comes to restrain
inflationary pressures and pull reserves out of the banking system. (It does
this by selling bonds to banks.)”

Schmidt concludes: “Enough is enough, Dr. Bernanke! It’s
time to inject the patient with money that gets into the hands of working
people and small businesses.”

The Fed’s lender-of-last-resort power has so far been used
only to keep rich bankers rich and the rest of the population in debt peonage,
a parasitic and unsustainable endeavor. If this power were directed into
projects that increased productivity and employment, it could become a
sustainable and very useful tool. We the People do not need to remain subject
to a semi-private central bank that was ostensibly empowered by our mandate. We
can take our Money Power back.


Financial Shocks in Europe and America: Explosion of the Western Public Debt Bubble

The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. For LEAP/E2020 it is, in effect, around October 2011, due to the plunge of a large number of US cities and states into an inextricable financial situation following the end of the federal funding of their deficits, whilst Europe will face a very significant debt refinancing requirement (1), that this explosive situation will be fully revealed.

Media escalation of the European crisis regarding sovereign debt of Euroland’s peripheral countries will have created the favourable context for such an explosion, of which the US “Muni” (2) market incidentally has just given a foretaste in November 2010 (as our team anticipated last June in GEAB No. 46 ) with a mini-crash that saw all the year’s gains go up in smoke in a few days. This time this crash (including the failure of the monoline reinsurer Ambac (3)) took place discreetly (4) since the Anglo-Saxon media machine (5) succeeded in focusing world attention on a further episode of the fantasy sitcom “The end of the Euro, or the financial remake of Swine fever” (6). Yet the contemporaneous shocks in the United States and Europe make for a very disturbing set-up comparable, according to our team, to the “Bear Stearn ” crash which preceded Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and the collapse of Wall Street in September 2008 by eight months. But the GEAB readers know very well that major crashes rarely make headlines in the media several months in advance, so false alarms are customary (7)!

In this GEAB issue, we therefore anticipate the progression of the terminal crash of Western public debt (in particular US and European debt) as well as ways to protect oneself. Furthermore, we analyze the very important structural consequences of the Wikileaks revelations on the United States’ international influence as well as their interaction with the global consequences of the US Federal Reserve’s QE II programme. This GEAB December issue is, of course, the opportunity to assess the validity of our anticipations for 2010, with a of 78% success rate for the year. We also develop strategic advice for Euroland (8) and the United States. And we publish the GEAB-$ index that will now allow us to synthetically follow the progress of US Dollar against major world currencies every month (9).

In this issue, we have chosen to present an excerpt of the forecast on the explosion of the Western public debt bubble.

Thus, the Western public debt crisis is growing very rapidly under the pressure of four increasingly strong limitations:

. the absence of economic recovery in the United States which strangles all public bodies (including the federal state (10)) accustomed to an easy flow of debt and significant tax revenues in recent decades (11)

. the accelerated structural weakening of the United States in monetary, financial as well as diplomatic (12) affairs which reduces their ability to attract world savings (13)

. the global drying up of sources of cheap finance, which precipitates the crisis of excessive debt in Europe’s peripheral countries (in Euroland like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, … and the United Kingdom as well (14)) and is starting to touch key countries (USA, Germany, Japan) (15) in a context of very large European debt refinancing in 2011

. the transformation of Euroland into a new “sovereign” that gradually develops new rules for the continent’s public debts.

These four constraints generate varying phenomena and reactions in different regions / countries.

The European context: the price of the path from laxity to austerity will be partly paid for by investors

From the European side, we have thus witnessed the difficult, but ultimately incredibly fast, transformation of the Eurozone into a sort of semi-state entity, Euroland. The delays in the process weren’t only due to the poor quality of the political individuals concerned (16) as the interviews of the “forerunners” such as Helmut Schmidt, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing or Jacques Delors hammered on at length. They themselves never having had to face a historic crisis of this magnitude, a little modesty would have done them good.

These delays are equally due to the fact that current developments in the Eurozone are on a huge political scale (17) and conducted without any democratic political mandate: this situation paralyzes the European leaders who consequently spend their time denying that they are really doing what they do, i.e. namely, building a kind of political entity with its own economic, social and fiscal constituent parts, …. (18) Elected before the crisis erupted, they do not know that their voters (and the economic and financial players at the same time) would be largely satisfied with an explanation about the decisions being planned (19). Because most of major decisions to come are already identifiable, as we analyze in this issue.

Finally, it is a fact that the actions of these same leaders are dissected and manipulated by the main media specializing in economic and financial issues, none of which belong to the Eurozone, and all of which are, on the contrary, entrenched in the $ / £ zone where the strengthening of the euro is considered a disaster. This same media very directly contributes to blur the process underway in Euroland (20) even more.

However, we can see that this adverse effect decreases because between the “Greek crisis” and the “Irish crisis”, the resulting Euro exchange rate volatility has weakened. For our team, in spring 2011, it will become an insignificant event. This only leaves, therefore, the issue of the quality of Euroland’s political personnel which will be profoundly changed beginning in 2012 (21) and, more fundamentally, the significant problem of the democratic legitimacy of the tremendous advances in European integration (22). But in a certain fashion, we can say that by 2012/2013, Euroland will have really established mechanisms which will have allowed it to withstand the shock of the crisis, even if it’s necessary to legitimize their existence retrospectively (23).

Comparison of yields on Euroland 10 year government bonds - Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream, 11/16/2010

In this regard, what will help accelerate the bursting of the Western public debt bubble, and what will occur concomitantly for its US catalyst, is the understanding by financial operators of what lies behind the “Eurobligations” (or E-Bonds) (24) debate which has begun to be talked about in recent weeks (25). It is from late 2011 (at the latest) that the merits of this debate will begin to be unveiled within the framework of the preparation for the permanent European Financial Stabilisation Fund (26). Although, what will suddenly appear for the majority of investors who currently speculate on the exorbitant rates of Greek, Irish,… debt is that Euroland solidarity will not extend to them, especially when the case of Spain, Italy or Belgium will start being posed, whatever European leaders say today (27).

In short, according to LEAP/E2020, we should expect a huge operation of sovereign debt transactions (amid a government debt global crisis) which will offer Euroland guaranteed Eurobligations at very low rates in exchange of national securities at high interest rates with a 30% to 50% discount since, in the meantime, the situation of the entire Western public debt market will have deteriorated. Democratically speaking, the newly elected Euroland leaders (28) (after 2012) will be fully authorized to effect such an operation, of which the major banks (including European ones (29)) will be the first victims. It is highly likely that some privileged sovereign creditors like China, Russia, the oil producing countries,… will be offered preferential treatment. They will not complain since the undertaking will result in their sizeable assets in Euros being guaranteed.

Sovereign Debt Default/Bailout and Contagion Risk Analysis (in blue: default or bailout risk / in red: contagion risk) - Source: Market Oracle, 11/2010

Sovereign Debt Default/Bailout and Contagion Risk Analysis (in blue: default or bailout risk / in red: contagion risk) - Source: Market Oracle, 11/2010

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IMPORTANT: The English and German of Franck Biancheri’s book “The World Crisis: The Path to the World afterwards – Europe and the World in the 2010-2020 Decade” are now available. They can be ordered directly from the publishers, Anticipolis Editions (www.anticipolis.eu).

Notes

(1) Worth more than € 1,500 billion per year in 2011 and 2012, including of course the United Kingdom.

(2) The US municipal bond market (” Munis “) is used to fund the local transportation, health, education and sanitation infrastructure, … It’s worth nearly 2,800 billion USD.

(3) Source : Reuters, 11/08/2010

(4) In a 11/20/2010 article Safehaven tonne indeed openly expressed surprise over the “silence” of the major financial media on the issue.

(5) The Financial Times, for example, has for the last month, begun to publish two or three articles per day on its website’s homepage on the so-called “Euro crisis” and to manipulate news, such as the statements of German leaders, to artificially create feelings of anxiety. Finally, even some of the French media are beginning to realize what an incredible political propaganda machine the Financial Times has become, as this recent article by Jean Quatremer in the Libération shows.

(6) By way of comparison, no investor has lost money in the “Greek and Irish episodes” of the “Euro crisis”, whilst tens of thousands have lost considerable sums in the recent US Muni crash… yet the media covers the first and not the second.

(7) LEAP/E2020 would like to remind readers of previous GEAB analyses that the discussion over the “Euro crisis” is of the same order as the Swine fever outbreak a year ago, namely a large-scale manipulation of public opinion to serve two purposes: first, to divert public attention from more serious problems (with Swine fever it was the crisis itself and its socio-economic consequences; with the Euro it is simply to divert attention from the situation in the United States and the United Kingdom), and secondly, to serve the goals of players with a major interest in creating this situation of fear (as regards Swine fever it was pharmaceutical laboratories and other related service providers; as regards the Euro, financial players are earning a fortune by speculating on the public debt of the countries concerned (Greece, Ireland, …)). But just as the Swine fever crisis ended in a masquerade with governments stuck with colossal stockpiles of now worthless vaccines and masks, the so-called Euro crisis is going to end up with players who will have to redeem their so “profitable” bonds for next to nothing whilst their dollars will continue to fall in value. The summer of 2010 has already shown, however, the direction of events. Source: Bloomberg, 11/18/2010

(8) Following the methodology of political anticipation, in the past years our team has, of course, looked at the possibility that the Euro might disappear or collapse. Its conclusion is cut and dried because we have identified only one set-up where such a development would be feasible: at least two major Eurozone states must be headed by political forces wishing to revive intra-European conflicts. According to our team, this prospect has zero probability of taking place in the next two decades (our maximum anticipation span in political matters). So, exit this scenario, even if it makes some with nostalgia for the Deutschmark and Franc sad…, some economists who believe that reality pays little attention to economic theories, and some Anglo-Saxons who cannot imagine, without pain, a European continent which carves out its economic and financial path without them. According to Wikileaks even Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, believes in an accelerated integration in the Eurozone as a result of the crisis, which recounts his conversations with US diplomats (source: Telegraph, 12/06/2010). Our work on the Euro therefore focuses on the anticipation of the Eurozone’s laborious journey in adapting to its new status as Euroland in the context of the global systemic crisis. Incidentally, it is worth noting that this orgy of criticism and analysis that essentially the US and especially British media lavish has an undeniable value for Euroland leaders: it throws light on all the obstacles laid along the Eurozone path, a sine qua non for avoiding pitfalls. It’s paradoxical, but it’s an advantage not enjoyed by British or US leaders … except when they read the GEAB.

(9) And not in relation to “made to measure” currencies as is the case for the Dollar Index.

(10) The New York Times has posted a very informative game called “You solve the budget problem” on its website which allows each player to try and restore the state of federal public finances according to its socio-economic priorities and policies. Feel free to put yourself in the shoes of a Washington decision maker in and you will see that only political will is lacking to solve the problem. Source: New York Times, 11/2010

(11) Sources: CNBC, 11/26/2010; Le Temps, 12/10/2010; USAToday, 11/30/2010; New York Times, 12/04/2010

(12) The United States funds its deficits by a huge daily grab of available global savings. The country’s diplomatic credibility and effectiveness are therefore two essential features for its financial survival. But Wikileaks’ recent revelations are very damaging to the credibility of the State Department, whilst the recent complete failure of the new Israeli-Palestinian negotiations illustrates a growing ineffectiveness of US diplomacy, already very sensitive at the last G20 in Seoul. See the more detailed analysis in this issue. Sources: Spiegel, 12/08/2010; YahooNews, 12/07/2010; YahooNews, 12/08/2010

(13) Even Chinese officials consider that the US fiscal situation is markedly worse than Euroland’s. Source: Reuters, 12/08/2010

(14) Iceland, Ireland … the United Kingdom, the United States, was the accursed follow-on of sovereign insolvency that LEAP/E2020 anticipated more than two years ago. Events are moving slower than we expected, but 2011 risks proving to be a “catch up” year. The United Kingdom is currently trying to save itself at the cost of huge and drastic socio-economic cuts of which student violence, including that against the Royal Family (a rare event), testifies to their unpopularity. But the size of its debt, its financial isolation and the State rescue of its banking debacles (as did Ireland) makes this headlong rush very dangerous, socially, economically and financially. As for the United States, their leaders seem to do everything (by “doing nothing”) to ensure that 2011 is truly the year of the “Fall of the Dollar Wall ” as LEAP/E2020 anticipated in January 2006.

(15) As Liam Halligan pointed out in The Telegraph of 12/11/2010, this development on interest rates does not bode well for US debt, expressing what LEAP/E2020 anticipated over two years ago now: we are reaching the moment of truth when available global savings are insufficient to meet the needs of the West, particularly the gargantuan need of the United States.

(16) A factor emphasized by the GEAB team for over four years.

(17) European Financial Stabilization Fund, hedge fund regulation, strict limits on bank bonuses, strict regulation of rating agencies, budget monitoring, next reinforcement of the whole of the European internal market financial regulation, first Euroland rating agency, … Sources: European Voice, 10/26/2010; Deutsche Welle, 11/05/2010; Reuters, 07/13/2010; ABBL, 12/08/2010; BaFin, 11/16/2010

(18) Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister, is currently the only politician who dared to clearly show his colours in his recent interview with Bild magazine, in which he states that during the next ten years, Euroland countries will have accomplished a genuine political integration. Karl Lamers, his colleague in charge of European affairs at the core of the CDU, identifies the crisis as an opportunity for Europe and Germany, as wel as as the too rarely heard American voice of Rex Nutting in the Wall Street Journal of 12/08/2010. On the technocratic side, the ECB President, Jean-Claude Trichet, called for a “budgetary federation” in Euroland. Sources: EUObserver, 12/13/2010; DeutschlandFunk , 12/09/2010; EUObserver, 12/01/2010

(19) For over a decade, public opinion in the Euroland countries has been, in effect, much more “integrationist” than their élite. Thus, rejection of the draft European Constitution in 2005 in France and the Netherlands would not have happened without some “pro-Europeans” voting “No”, rejecting a draft that they considered too timid, politically, democratically and socially.

(20) European leaders are like the tortoise in the Jean de La Fontaine fable “The Hare and the Tortoise ” … but the race would be described by hares!

(21) By the way, the Eurozone’s future political leaders would be well advised to practice, as quickly as possible, how to manage Euroland through two interactive games, Economia and Inflation Island, that the European Central Bank has made available to the public.

(22) As LEAP/E2020 has repeated for nearly two years, European austerity is politically viable only if accompanied by unquestionable social and fiscal equity and the implementation of major democratic and social projects throughout Euroland. It is here that the real medium to long term weakness of the Eurozone can be found, not in the sovereign debt of the peripheral countries. To illustrate this point, it is useful to watch the very interesting video coverage made by the New York Times during the summer of 2010, called “The Austerity Zone: Life in the New Europe “.

(23) Given the obvious difficulty of the American élite to understand the developments taking place in Europe, LEAP/E2020 wishes to contribute to the debate currently raging on US college campuses where budget austerity has led to heavy cuts in language teaching. As always, behind budgetary justifications, several “hidden agendas” can be identified as well as candid lack of understanding of what’s going on in the rest of the world regarding languages. A perfect example of both trends seems to be Richard N. Haas, former key official of the US State Department in the G.W. Bush administration, and now the president of the influential Council of Foreign Relations, who strongly advocates pushing French, German and Russian languages out of US campuses. With such ‘enlightened and fair’ advisers (qualified as having « an intellectual deficit » to understand the 21st century world at the GlobalEurope seminars in The Hague and Washington in 2004/2005), US students are doomed to be less and less able to understand tomorrow’s world. Therefore, LEAP/E2020 finds it timely to circulate its 2007 anticipation entitled ‘Which languages will the Europeans speak in 2025?‘ again.

(24) These will be the bonds used by all Euroland countries and other EU member states who wish to participate as the other countries, except the United Kingdom, did in May 2010 for the European Financial Stabilization Fund.

(25) Despite the denials of French and German officials, these Eurobonds are on the agenda of all the informal discussions of Euroland leaders. Source: Euroinvestor, 12/10/2010

(26) It is also probable that the rise in strength of the political renewals expected in France from Spring 2012, and perhaps also in Germany at that time, will make these issues real campaign topics from the end of Summer 2011.

(27) Liam Halligan, definitely one of the best British watchers of the global crisis, is thus completely right to stress in The Telegraph of 11/27/2010 that Angela Merkel (and other Euroland leaders as well) has every intention of making investors pay for significant share of their Irish and Greek bets. But that will happen in an organized manner, as an effective and forceful strategy which the strong States are used to; not in a panic, in the context of a mini-crisis.

(28) And we repeat that, according to our anticipations, they will probably be the political leaders most independent from banking lobby since the 1990s.

(29) This will also take place in an organized manner of “forcibly” cutting back the damaged balance sheets of the major European banks.