Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Are You Just A Believer Or Do You THINK?

I’ve studied and graduated EMT-B certification with the state of Oregon. I’ve been on calls with heavy arterial bleeds, internal bleeding, fatalities, doa’s. I am speaking from direct personal experience with severe trauma.
Here is a telling photograph of the amputee actor. I encourage readers to view the photo side by side with my analysis.
http://www.kaotic.com/media/pictures…42b556ee65.jpg
If you loose both your legs from explosive trauma half your blood is gone in one minute via the femoral arteries, youre dead after two. Bleeding out is worse with blunt force trauma (like shrapnel) because flesh is torn rather than cut, exposing more arterial and vascular tissue. The human body holds 5 to 6 LITERS of blood. If that really happened you would see blood EVERYWHERE, the guy would be drenched in it. You would also see what’s called arterial spurtting from the injury. Most likely he would vomit after turning ghost white from shock, then turning delirious or passing out. As for the “tourniquet”…
Its not even tied off, its suspended via gravity, which would literally do nothing to an arterial sever. There’s no pressure applied. There’s no knott with a turn stick for leverage. You can clearly see a gap in the nonexistent wrap job on his left inner thigh (left anterior proximal for you experts) His hands have no blood on them. There’s no blood on the ground. The color in his hands and lips shows good circulation.
This is an actor. This is staged. How did they pull it off though? I can show you.
Here in frame six on the left we see the the man with a hood setting up the fake leg wound prosthetics. His attention and hands are right there. The woman is acting as a shield covering what’s happening.
Frame 6
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Here in frame eight the prosthetics are in place. Amidst all this chaos seconds after the explosion the hooded man takes the time to put on his sunglasses which is a signal.
Frame 8
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Here in frame nine with sunglasses now on the hooded man and the woman make eye contact, signal received.
Frame 9
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In frame eleven after recieving the go signal the woman makes an open hand gesture the direction both of them are looking, signaling the staged injuries are in place for cameras. The prone amputee raises his left prosthetic injury into the air over the woman’s shoulder. No blood is present. The bone is dry, no blood on his leg above the knee, no blood on the woman, no arterial spurt, nothing.
Frame 11
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Here in frame fourteen the woman turns her head right but is still holding up that open palm signal with her left hand. The hooded man again busies himself pouring fake blood on the pavement behind the woman. The amputee has both fake injuries in the air now. There is still no blood on his legs, his skin above the injury is clean and dry.
Frame 14
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Frame twenty, the fake blood and prosthetics are in place. The amputee gives an open hand gesture along with the woman to bring the cameras in. We’re now twenty frames in and still not a drop of fresh blood from a double leg amputation. His legs are dry, the woman is dry and unscathed. Both are making the same hand gesture.
Frame 20
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These are actors. This is staged. It was flash powder. There was no crock pot nail bomb. There are no bombers, only patsy. If your looking for a gunman look at the Army in the streets of Boston. Share this knowledge with everyone.
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Something about this entire thing smells to high heaven. When have you ever heard of someone with a blown off leg not bleeding? Some make the claim that it was cauterized, but obviously, the picture of them wheeling the guy out on the wheelchair shows ‘blood and gore’ (a cauterization is a burn that seals the wound). Something changed between these images and when they wheeled him out in front of the cameras.
And there is more analysis from Fist-Of-Freedom:
This image was taken by a third party photographer seconds after the first explosion. There is clear evidence of false flag staging here. The man in the red coat and baseball hat on the right is kneeling down giving directions to the guy in the white T-shirt. Also looking to this pair for direction are the woman sitting to the right and the man in a hood and sunglasses who set up the double amputee prosthetics.
Notice the relaxed posture and face of the hooded man. Notice also the calm prepared posture of the woman sitting down on the bottom right. See how her shirt sleeve is severely torn, yet her skin underneath is clean and clear of injury and blood. From where she’s sitting look right to the bottom right corner and you can see an unmarked bottle of fake blood.
Look to the left and see the cowboy hat man standing there doing nothing. This is the same man who will pretend to hold the tourniquet of the fake amputee actor later on. Look to center of the photo and you will see the african woman moving herself away from the amputee actor since her shielding him from camera’s job is over. Next to her is a woman with red hair leaning on her elbow.
Missing Legman
Compare this now with another photo taken seconds later. Putting them side by side is very helpful.
The man with the hood and sunglasses, who was just sitting up looking fine and healthy after fixing up the amputee actor’s prosthetics, is now on his back being evaluated by two people. Notice the rips in his jeans have no sign of blood or injury on the skin. The woman with red hair however is in the exact same pose as a minute ago. Meanwhile the double amputee actor is completely ignored by everyone when he is clearly in the most dire need of attention. There is a small amount of fake blood around him where the african lady shielding him used to be, she has dissappeared. What happened to her? Compare this photo with the first in my post.
Leg1
The african woman who was sitting up, shielding the hooded man and amputee actor’s prosthetic rigging, giving hand signals, looking left and right, having no visible blood or injuries, is now covered in blood and strapped into a spine board stretcher.
In a real medical scenario the amuptee would receive immediate treatment or die from bleed out. The fact this actor woman is removed from the scene via stretcher while the double amputee is left on the ground is ludacris. He would be dead from blood lose before they could even begin spinal assessment procedures involved in moving a patient to a stretched. Not to mention his blood lose would be over five liters, enough to cover the entire scene around these people in a thick puddle.
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From firsthand experience with trauma in the field of EMS work, this is not real. These are actors. This is all staged.
I know that many just want to believe. But I can’t help but think. So much doesn’t add up.

So, are you just a Believer or Do You Think? (Thanks, Digger)

UPDATED 4/21/13

KPatrickRyan shared an updated picture of the Bauman guy in the hospital (visited by Bradley Cooper). Compare him to the wheelchair man (Vogt???) and tell me who’s who.
ht_bradley_cooper_boston_nt_130419_wblog
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original

 

“Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation

(Photos) Seen across street after blasts talking with FBI bomb squad. Who were they? What were they and the FBI doing?

Land Destroyer
April 22, 2013
What appear to be private contractors, wearing unmarked, matching uniforms and operating an unmarked SUV affixed with communication equipment near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shortly after the bomb blasts – can be seen beforehand, standing and waiting just meters away from where the first bomb was detonated. The contractor-types had moved away from the bomb’s location before it detonated, and could be seen just across the street using communication equipment and waiting for similar dressed and equipped individuals to show up after the blasts.
Image: An already widely distributed photo showing the contractor-types on the bottom left, just left of where the bomb was placed and detonated. The men are wearing matching, unmarked uniforms, large black bags, and appear to be waiting, separately, and “behind” the rest of the crowd. In the upper left corner, a wooden structure forming one half of a temporary photography “bridge” over the finish line can be seen and serves as a useful reference when establishing the contractor-types’ position in other photos.
….


Image: After the explosion, two of the contractors seen by the wall next to the bomb, appear across the street, both using communication equipment. This photo too has been distributed and enlarged many times across the Internet. (click to enlarge)
….

Image: An unmarked SUV with a considerable amount of communication gear on the roof appears, surrounded by identically dressed men. The vehicle parks near the bleachers. (click to enlarge)
….

Image: Event staff and contractors both above and below the bleachers begin tearing up the skirting and appear to be looking for something or retrieving something while casualties are still being treated and evacuated across the street. (click to enlarge)
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The men, numbering between 6-8 then begin tearing up the skirting around temporary bleachers erected for the event, opposite the explosion, before taping it off. Then, what appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls up directly behind the contractor-types’ SUV, with a woman clearly wearing the letters F.B.I. on her tactical vest emerging and speaking with the contractor-types. Together they disappear from the scene, leaving their vehicles behind.
Image: What appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls in, with a woman wearing what is clearly the letters F.B.I. on her vest. She talks with two contractors while it appears a third is partially in the truck’s right-hand side. Also note that the area contractors and event staff tore up, is now taped off. (click to enlarge)
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Image: The FBI truck and contractor SUV sit seemingly abandoned – neither the FBI agent, nor the contractors can be seen. What they did, or where they went remains so far, unknown. (click to enlarge)
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It should be noted, that with the exception of the contractor-types, all other responders at the scene, including the FBI agent, can be clearly identified, from police to the fire department, to medics and even individuals wearing vests with “B.A.A. Physician” written on them. It should also be noted that no other uniformed individuals can be seen standing near the bomb site aside from the contractor-types.
These men were unidentified, professional contractors apparently augmenting public servants at the Boston Marathon, present before and after the bomb blasts in the direct vicinity of the incident. After the blasts, whether it was their intended function or not, they appeared to be searching for something under the bleachers before being joined by what appears to be the FBI bomb squad. The FBI and the city of Boston has so far categorically failed to provide any information on these highly suspicious individuals.
Questions That Must be Answered 
Several questions must be answered by the FBI, leading the investigation on behalf of we, the American people. The first question is who these men were, with large, black bags in the direct vicinity of where a bomb would detonate, moving away before the blast, and appearing directly across the road afterward. Who hired them and what was their function? Why were they moving amongst the crowd in a semi-covert fashion when all other public servants present were wearing proper uniforms and clearly identified? Did police, firefighters, event organizers, and medics know these men were present and what they were doing?
Why did it appear that the FBI was fully aware of their presence, and in fact working with them, specifically with what looks like a bomb squad unit? Were these contractors specialists in explosives, and if so, what is the significance that at least two of them were spotted just meters from where the blast occurred? 

Why These Questions Demand Answers
The checkered, frightening history (see: FBI’s History of Handing “Terror Suspects” Live Explosives) of the FBI’s involvement in fomenting false terror attacks, and even presiding over attacks that succeeded in maiming and killing innocent people, should call into question their presence or involvement at any public event, especially when seen associating with unidentified, semi-clandestine organizations that appear to be private contractors.
Private contractors as well, do not answer or work for the public, but rather the highest bidder. Private contractors, most notably Blackwater and its various incarnations have operated both domestically and abroad, committing obscene crimes and atrocities with seemingly absolute impunity. The term “defense contractor” is in fact a euphemism for mercenary, and has no place in a civilized, democratic world, no matter what their alleged mission statement may claim.
That both of these nefarious entities were present and cooperating in the direct vicinity of the Boston bombings, with at least two contractors standing just meters away from where the bomb actually went off, raises a number of possibilities and concerns. A drill may have been being conducted, though the FBI and city officials have denied this. Or, a threat may have been communicated to event organizers ahead of time, which prompted the inclusion of “auxiliary” security, though again, both the FBI and the city of Boston deny receiving any information prior to the bombings. Whichever contracting firm this may have been, may just have wanted to swindle Boston’s taxpayers for an easy payday, and coincidentally found itself in the middle of extraordinary circumstances.
However, alarming suspicion is raised when the FBI makes no mention of an organization it was clearly coordinating with, particularly in terms of bombs and explosives before and after the incident, considering the nature of the attack. When an already dubious organization attempts to obfuscate the facts of any given event, it is the right and responsibility of legitimate law enforcement, public representatives and the citizenry itself to demand and get answers. If we are not persistent, with the FBI’s bizarre behavior over the past few days, including inexplicably cancelled and suspiciously rushed press conferences, and now what appears to be a Hollywood ending for the case, we may never get those answers.

What’s the Price of Silver if There’s None to be Had?

We already know that an ounce of Silver is not worth the $23 that COMEX says it’s worth.  No, buyers-investors-scared fiat rabbits are paying more…30% more for the real, hold in your hand “stuff” that COMEX is so badly underpricing.  Let me go back to the beginning, what is an ounce of Gold or Silver worth if and now when an ounce is not available?
The old saying goes, “there’s no rush like a Gold rush“.  This saying always speaks to “greed”.  The coming Gold rush with its roots in “fear” will be unlike anything before it because in reality it will be an all-out, all-encompassing global bank run!


Submitted By Bill Holter, Miles Franklin Ltd,:
…and there was no one around, would it make any sound?  Or wait, a better question is, if there was no Silver to be had…what would one ounce be worth?  And of course, what would one ounce of Gold be worth if there was none to be had…?   No, really, what would it be worth?  Would it be worth what the “COMEX” says it’s worth?  More?  Less?  About the same?  Nothing?  Priceless?  1,500 cans of tuna fish and some toilet paper?  1,500 rounds of ammo?  A pack of chewing gum or a car?   Think about this question, what “would” an ounce of Gold or Silver be worth?
 Do you wonder why I am asking you these questions?  Simple, because we are soon, I think very soon to find out the answer even if you are not asking it!  We already know that an ounce of Silver is not worth the $23 that COMEX says it’s worth.  No, buyers-investors-scared fiat rabbits are paying more…30% more for the real, hold in your hand “stuff” that COMEX is so badly underpricing.  Let me go back to the beginning, what is an ounce of Gold or Silver worth if and now when an ounce is not available?  What is it worth if God forbid…the government loses its mind and makes Constitutional money ”illegal”?  But wait, here is an even better question, if Gold and Silver were to become “illegal/outlawed” in the US but not overseas, then what would they be “worth”?
I know, lots and lots of questions but no answers right?  I am asking these questions because I want you to think, think for yourself.  What does it mean when China, India, Australia, Europe, the US and others are displaying serious shortages of Silver?  And now Gold has become tight also, what does this mean?  Why is the stuff disappearing?  Why now?  Supply hasn’t shrunk but the demand side has been turned on like a light switch!  Demand was brisk coming into this price crash and it was steadily increasing.  In the past (with the exception of late 2008), price hits actually did work to some extent in slowing demand through “fear”.
This I believe has now changed, “this” being what it is exactly that people are afraid of.  In the past, price swoons would work to lower open interest on the paper markets and make people think twice in the physical markets.  I believe that this latest (and most blatant of all) manipulation will be seen as the last straw because a “run” on metal is in progress.  This “run” has the potential of turning into an all out sprint, physical supply absolutely MUST hit the markets and hit them fast if this is to be avoided.  The markets (worldwide) must be supplied and “calmed” or an all out bank run will result.
The “fear” now is not owning precious metals and being “scared” that the price will go down, no, the fear now is systemic.  The fear now is that your bank account gets raided like the Cyprus/template/example.  The fear now is the “government” wherever you may be, fails or defaults.  The fear now is that your central bank does a monkey see monkey do with the Bank of Japan and decides it’s a good thing to double money supply.  The fear now?  In a nutshell is a result of everyone, everywhere being fed a morning noon and night diet of lies that of course never panned out.  People have eyes, ears, lives and experiences on their own, the “green shoots” around every corner propaganda has been proven completely false and hollow.
Finally it looks like the “fear” has morphed from what “they” want you to be afraid of into REAL fear.  Human instinct is taking over and when it comes to emotions, fear is a far greater emotion that greed ever could be.  This “fear” that I am speaking of is, yes you guessed it…the fear of NOT owning precious and in your hand metals!  This is a worldwide phenomenon that began a long time ago but went terminal a week ago Friday.  “Price” seems to have exposed “supply”.  The old saying goes, “there is no rush like a Gold rush“, this saying always speaks to “greed”.  The coming Gold rush with its roots in “fear” will be unlike anything before it because in reality it will be an all out, all encompassing global bank run!  We will look back and see very clearly that the “system” itself was flawed and what caused its own demise.  …of course you will hear “who coulda’ seen it coming?”.  The people making a run on the physical markets, that’s who!  People are finally waking up…   Regards,  Bill H.

GOLD TRENDING BACK UP

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Chinese Sue Fed For Monopoly USD Devaluation

In what could to grow into a class action in US courts, a Chinese woman is suing the Federal Reserve after discovering that the real value of the USD250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30%. She claims it was the result of the Fed issuing too much money, and as The South China Morning Post reports, her son Li Zhen, the lawyer, called the lawsuit "litigation for the public good". Alleging "abuse of monopoly in issuing currency," the People's Court of Kunming has yet to rule on the litigants' demand that the Fed cease-and-desist from its quantitative easing policy. While this may seem frivolous, there are some interesting points being made that bear watching, as Li notes, since "the Fed is private institution which enjoys monopoly over the issuing of currency, US Dollar holders can sue it for printing too much money."

Via SCMP,
A woman in Kunming, Yunnan province, is trying to sue the United States central bank after discovering that the real value of the US$250 she put in an account in 2006 had shrunk by 30 per cent.

She claims it was a result of the Federal Reserve issuing too much money.

Her attorney, her son Li Zhen , called the lawsuit "litigation for the public good" which aimed to stop the Fed from continuing its quantitive easing policy and promote people's awareness of their rights.

He filed the lawsuit alleging "the abuse of monopoly in issuing currency" last month at the Kunming Intermediate People's Court on behalf of his mother, Liu Hua , but the court has yet to decide whether to officially place the case on file.

...he was the first mainlander to have filed a lawsuit against a foreign country's central bank.

Li, who works at the Yunnan Tongbang Law Firm, said he referred to Black's Law Dictionary, the most cited legal dictionary in the US, and concluded that the Fed is a private institution instead of a government department.

...

"Since the Fed is a private institution which enjoys a monopoly over the issuing of currency, US dollar holders can sue it for printing too much money," he said.

Li said he requested two things from the court - that the Fed halts the abuse of its monopoly over the issuing of dollars and that it makes a "symbolic compensation" of US$1. Asked about the possibility of whether the court will accept the case, Li said it was "difficult to say".

...

He said he was looking for more "victims" like his mother and expected to bring a class action in a US court.

Cyprus cuts hit charities, schools

Bank of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Charities, private schools and insurance firms with deposits in troubled Bank of Cyprus will suffer.
CHARITIES, private schools and insurance firms with deposits in the troubled Bank of Cyprus will suffer a 27.5 per cent haircut under the island's EU bailout, the central bank said.
They had all previously been exempt from a haircut in the bank restructuring required under the terms of the 10 billion euros ($A12.81 billion) bailout for Cyprus.
All insurance firm deposits will receive a hit while unregistered financial companies, charities and some educational institutions with deposits over 100,000 euros in the Bank of Cyprus will also get a 27.5 per cent cut.
"The review was undertaken with the aim to limit the extent of the exemptions so as to lighten the burden on affected (large) depositors in the Bank of Cyprus," the central bank said in a statement late on Sunday.
A bail-in from depositors was a key element of a deal which Nicosia struck with its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund last month to help fund a 23 billion euro rescue package.
Bank of Cyprus depositors are already facing a certain 37.5 per cent loss on deposits over 100,000 euros - to be exchanged for shares - with another 22.5 per cent locked depending on the cost of restructuring.
Large depositors could lose all of the remaining 60 per cent of their balances over 100,000 euros depending on the costs of winding up and merging second-largest lender Laiki.
Savers in that bank will have to wait years to see any of their cash over 100,000 euros.
Central bank spokeswoman Aliki Stylianou told state radio Monday that the move was to ease to pressure on large Bank of Cyprus depositors but a final estimate on how much they would lose will not be ready before the end of June.
Banks have been operating under stringent capital controls since they reopened on March 28, after a near two-week lockdown prompted by fears of a run on deposits.

A GAME CHANGER: NEW GERMAN ANTI-EURO PARTY REACHES 5% THRESHOLD IN LATEST POLL!!! If AfD Reaches 5% In Elections, Neither CDU/CSU & FDP or SPD/Grüne Will Win

Gregor Peter‏@L0gg0l19 min
NEW GERMAN ANTI-EURO PARTY REACHES 5% THRESHOLD IN LATEST POLL (via @YanniKouts )
Yannis Koutsomitis‏@YanniKouts9 min
#Germany: If AfD reaches 5% in September elections, neither CDU/CSU & FDP or SPD/Grüne will be able to reach a majority.

NEW GERMAN ANTI-EURO PARTY REACHES 5% THRESHOLD IN LATEST POLL (via @YanniKouts )
New German poll: CDU/CSU 38% (-1), SPD 26%, Grüne 15%, Linke 6%, FDP 5%, AfD 5% | Anti- #euro party reaches 5% threshold RT @YanniKouts

New anti-euro party is surging in Germany, hits 5% threshold in latest poll — Bild
Berlin - The anti-euro party “alternative for Germany” (AFD) delay of five percent in the Bundestag, when a new parliament was elected on Sunday This is the result of the current INSA trends in public opinion on behalf of the BILD newspaper.

http://www.bild.de/newsticker-meldungen/home/13-afd-umfrage-30103542.bild.html
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http://www.bild.de/newsticker-meldungen/home/13-afd-umfrage-30103542.bild.html&act=url


Germany’s new anti-euro party, Alternative für Deutschland, might prove to be a game changer in German and European politics.
For now, the real impact of the AfD on German politics can only be estimated. It is doubtful that the AfD will breach the 5 per cent threshold required to enter the Bundestag in September’s general elections. The Freien Wähler, a party with a similar agenda, achieved only 1.1 per cent of the vote in the latest regional polls in Lower Saxony. However a representative survey by YouGov for Die Zeit, published on April 17th, found that 27 per cent of Germans sympathise with the AfD. If the AfD can keep up its current momentum it will be able to upset the balance of power in the Bundestag and force a reshuffle of coalition partners after the September elections. The Alternative für Deutschland might yet prove to be a game changer in German and European politics.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/04/22/alternative-fur-deutschland-germany-anti-euro-party/

19 percent of Germans say they would vote for the new German Anti- Euro Party ….. Overnite news and data for…
http://fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com/2013/04/19-percent-of-germans-say-they-would.html?utm_source=CatharsisOurs&utm_medium=twitter


Luisport

Absolutely Must Watch! Silver Crash Was Planned To Save JPMORGAN


Gold’s Action “Dominated by Retail Buying” But Bullion “Not Trading as Safe Haven”

London Gold Market Report
from Ben Traynor, BullionVault
Monday 22 April 2013, 07:30 EST

Gold’s Action “Dominated by Retail Buying” But Bullion “Not Trading as Safe Haven”

WHOLESALE gold prices rose back above $1430 per ounce Monday morning for the first time since last Monday’s price drop, amid reports of strong buying in Asia, while stocks gained and US Treasuries fell.

Silver meantime ticked higher above $23.60 an ounce, though remained below Friday’s high, while other commodities also gained with the exception of copper.

Last week’s upturn in physical gold buying in Asia continued over the weekend according to some local press reports, with the South China Morning Post reporting “a rush of buyers” in Hong Kong.

Gold exchange traded funds by contrast continued to see outflows towards the end of last week.

“It remains to be seen which of these offsetting forces eventually wins out and exerts its influence over gold prices,” says Ed Meir, metals analyst at brokerage INTL FCStone.

“Our guess is that the sharp bounce in retail buying will likely dominate and succeed in sending prices higher over the course of the next week or two.”

“Gold is still not trading as a safe haven asset,” adds VTB Capital an analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov, “swinging back and forth in line with other metals in the precious complex, other liquid commodities and equities…volumes will remain very thin as players digest the latest pullback.”

“The aggressiveness of [last week's] fall suggests that we are still in a consolidation rather in a reversal role,” says Tim Riddell, head of ANZ Global Markets Research, Asia.

“The $1435 level is likely to provide resistance…we really need to get back into the $1500s to say that there’s something more substantial taking place.”

On New York’s Comex exchange, “the liquidation of net speculative length [in gold contracts] appeared relatively mild [in the week ended last Tuesday],” says Standard Bank commodity strategist Marc Ground, referring to money managers’ so-called net speculative long position, calculated as the difference between the number of bullish and bearish contracts held.

“Only [the equivalent of] 20.8 tonnes (or 5.8%) were shed over the week — a long way from the worst we’ve seen this year (90.4 tonnes at the end of January). relatively strong unwinding of long positions (35.8 tonnes compared to this year’s record of 45.9 tonnes) was softened by a solid decrease in speculative shorts (15.0 tonnes).”

Ratings agency Fitch meantime has downgraded the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, following a similar downgrade from Moody’s back in February. Standard & Poor’s has maintained its triple-A rating on British government debt.

“Despite the UK’s strong fiscal financing flexibility underpinned by its own currency with reserve currency status and the long average maturity of public debt, the fiscal space to absorb further adverse economic and financial shocks is no longer consistent with a ‘AAA’ rating,” said a statement from Fitch Friday.

“The UK and almost all of Europe have erred,” manager of world’s biggest bond fund Pimco Bill Gross tells the Financial Times, “in terms of believing that austerity, fiscal austerity in the short term, is the way to produce real growth. It is not. You’ve got to spend money.”

Gross adds that investors in government debt “want growth much like equity investors” and that excess austerity can lead to “recession or stagnation [causing] credit spreads [to] widen out – even if a country can print its own currency and write its own checks”.

Over in Italy, the Eurozone’s biggest issuer of public debt, Giorgio Napolitano has been elected for a second term as president by the country’s parliament after it rejected the nomination of Franco Marini. Italian politicians have failed to form a government since the general election two months ago.

Russia would like to “increase its participation” in negotiations about Cyprus, the country’s finance minister Anton Siluanov has said, but will only restructure a €2.5 billion loan in return for protection of Russian financial interests in the country, Reuters reports.

“Money of our companies has been frozen there,” Siluanov told reporters at the G20 meetings in Washington at the end of last week.

“We would like this money to reach its recipients.”


Editor of Gold News, the analysis and investment research site from world-leading gold ownership service BullionVault, Ben Traynor was formerly editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the UK’s longest-running investment letter. A Cambridge economics graduate, he is a professional writer and editor with a specialist interest in monetary economics. Ben can be found on Google+

(c) BullionVault 2013

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

US Turns Away 1000′s of Cancer Patients, but has $123 Million for Terrorists in Syria

April 21, 2013 (LD) – The US has announced that it will provide militants in Syria, now openly admitted to being Al Qaeda terrorists, with $123 million in military aid – while thousands of cancer patients at home are being turned away from clinics because of budget cuts. Compounding the the criminal negligence of telling sick people to seek help elsewhere, is the fact that the military aid the US is providing terrorists in Syria will be used to perpetuate an already 2 year long, sectarian-driven humanitarian disaster.
RT recently reported in their article, “US to give $123 million military aid package to Syrian rebels,” that:
The US$123 million defense aid package, announced by Kerry at the meeting in the Turkish capital on Sunday, includes body armor, armored vehicles, advanced communication equipment and night vision goggles.
In an April 3, 2013 Washington Post article titled, “Cancer clinics are turning away thousands of Medicare patients. Blame the sequester,” it was reported:
Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.
Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Merkel To Europe: "Prepare To Cede Sovereignty"

The liquidity tsunami that started in September of 2012 in the Marriner Eccles building and continued with the BOJ's own epic QEasing expansion three weeks ago, has so far provided the impetus for Europe to kick the can of its inevitable dissolution for a few more months, yet slowly but surely the market is starting to read through the artificial levels implied by Italian and Spanish bonds, driven by recycled ECB funding via bank and repo conduits and of course Japanese carry cash, and rumblings of a return to crisis conditions are back.
And as always happens, once the crisis talk is back, so is discussion of a fiscal union. Sure enough, earlier today Germany's Angela Merkel once again reminded everyone just what the stakes are in order to achieve a truly stable, and sustainable European union: nothing short of ceding sovereignty to Germany. And with that we are back to square one, because that has always been the trade off - want a unified, fiscally and monetarily, Europe? You can get it: just bow down to Merkel.
From Reuters:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that euro zone members must be prepared to cede control over certain policy domains to European institutions if the bloc is truly to overcome its debt crisis and win back foreign investors.

Speaking at an event hosted by Deutsche Bank in Berlin alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Merkel also defended her approach to the crisis against critics who argue she has put too much emphasis on austerity, saying Europe must find a way to deliver both growth and solid finances.

The comments came two months before European leaders are due to gather in Brussels to discuss moving towards a so-called "fiscal union".
The punchline:
"We seem to find common solutions when we are staring over the abyss," Merkel said. "But as soon as the pressure eases, people say they want to go their own way.

"We need to be ready to accept that Europe has the last word in certain areas. Otherwise we won't be able to continue to build Europe," she added.
Two conclusions here: Europe will be "staring over the abyss" very soon once again, and where Merkel says "Europe" she means Germany.
This is confirmed by the immediate denial of precisely this, adding "it would be "dangerous" if other countries in Europe felt Germany was imposing its own economic model across the entire bloc."
Oh, ok then.
So just what is Germany's vision for "Europe":
"We don't always need to give up national practices but we need to be compatible," Merkel said. "It is chaos right now."

"We need to be prepared to break with the past in order to leap forward. I'm ready to do this," she said.
So... just give up national practices sometimes. And yes, Merkel is of course ready to head the asset-stripmined continent. The question is who else in Europe is willing to hand over their liberties to the next iteration of the German Reich?

Lies, Damed Lies and Sadistics: The IMF’s Role As Bankster Enforcer

“We make or break human life every day of every year as probably no other force on earth has ever done in the past or will ever do again.”
The above rather dramatic quote comes courtesy of one Davison L Budhoo, a former International Monetary Fund economist who in 1988 broke ranks with the Fund, publishing a scathing 150-page resignation letter. In it he accused the organization of corruption, self-interest, and deceit.
Not that the Fund, then headed by Frenchman Michel Camdessus, was particularly fazed by the allegations. In those days there was no Internet, so the story didn’t exactly go “viral”; in fact, it barely got a mention in the mainstream or financial press. As such, following a spattering of articles in a few specialist newspapers and magazines, Buddhoo’s accusations were quickly forgotten.
The IMF breathed a sigh of relief, brushed off its Brook Brothers jacket and continued about its business. No inquiry or investigation was launched, no changes were made to the Fund’s operational policies and no heads rolled.
Such aversion to change has become a defining characteristic of the Fund. The result is that while the global economy may have changed beyond all recognition in the last 35 years, with countries like China, India and Brazil rising to the fore, the IMF’s role within it seems to have remained locked in time. The only difference of note (apart from the fact that, in the ballsy, perma-tanned Christine Lagarde, it has its first ever female managing director) is that instead of preying primarily on the world’s poorest, weakest and most defenseless nations — many of which have since become big creditors — the IMF, now a protagonist in Europe’s dreaded Troika, has its sights set on much bigger trophies.
The chicken, it seems, has finally come home to roost. Now it is Europe’s turn to feel the sharp taste of the Fund’s medicine. Slowly but surely the hapless inhabitants of struggling eurozone countries such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland are beginning to realize what many Africans, Asians, Latin Americans and Eastern Europeans learnt through bitter painful experience in the seventies, eighties and nineties — namely that when the IMF, armed with its balance sheets and a calculator, comes calling, you’d better hope you’re out.
For the IMF is, in plain speaking terms, the global banksters’ number one enforcer — a role it has executed (pun intended) with fervor and aplomb ever since the Bretton Woods agreement (though it wasn’t until Nixon’s launch of the floating exchange regime in 1971 that the organization began forcefully dictating economic policy to supposedly sovereign nations).
The Fund is essentially to the big global banks and corporations what Luca Brasi was to Vito Corleone or, to cite a real-world example, what Francesco Raffaele Nitto was to Al Capone. But rather than use real violence, or even the threat of violence, the IMF’s henchmen have far subtler means at their disposal, as John Perkins, the author of the best-selling book Confessions of An Economic Hitman, explains:
One of my jobs as an economic hit man was to identify countries that had resources like oil and arrange huge loans for those countries from the World Bank and sister organizations. But the money would never go to the actual country; instead it would go to our own corporations to build infrastructure projects in that country like power plants and industrial parks; things that would benefit a few very wealthy families.
So then the people of the country would be left holding this huge debt that they couldn’t repay… That’s when the IMF comes in [saying] ‘We’ll help you restructure your loan, but in order to do that you have to meet certain conditionalities. You have to sell your oil or whatever the coveted resource is at a cheap price, to the oil companies without restrictions.’ Or they would suggest the country sell electric utilities, water and sewage, maybe even its schools and jails to private multi-national corporations.
According to Perkins, it was only when a national leader took a rare principled stand, refusing to sell off all of their country’s resources to international conglomerates at bargain basement prices, that the real goons, or what Perkins calls “the Jackals,” would be sent in, as is alleged to have happened in the highly suspicious deaths, in the early eighties, of Panama’s leader Omar Efraín Torrijos Herrera and Jaime Roldos, the democratically elected president of Ecuador.
Read More...

Arizona Set To Use Gold & Silver As Currency

by GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,425.00, EUR 1,092.54 and GBP 935.04 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,414.00, EUR 1,080.46 and GBP 920.63 per ounce.

Cross Currency Table – (Bloomberg)

Gold climbed $12.90 or 0.93% on Friday to $1,400.90/oz and silver finished up 0.04%. Gold and silver both traded down for the week at 5.86% and 11.39%.
The state of Arizona may become the second state to use gold and silver coins as legal tender.
Last week, Arizona lawmakers passed a bill that makes precious metals legal tender. Arizona is the second state after Utah to allow gold coins created by the U.S. Mint and private mints to be used as currency. More than a dozen states have legislature underway to pass similar measures.
The move was launched by people who fear the Federal Reserve is not tackling the federal deficit and is thus debasing and devaluing the dollar. Some even fear, that if the Fed continues on the existing path it could lead to hyperinflation.
Miles Lester, who represents a group called Arizona Constitutional Advocates, said during a recent public hearing on legal-tender legislation that “the dollar is on its way out. It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.”
The upcoming U.S. FOMC meeting next week is April 30th and May 1st and will be closely watched by investors.
Supporters of the legislation look forward to a day when citizens can make purchases from debit cards linked to gold depositories.

Gold in USD, 1 Month, by 30 minutes – (Bloomberg)

Opponents point to the volatility of gold and silver as currency after the fall in price that occurred last week. However proponents point out that the fall in gold prices last week was due to the speculative raid of Wall Street banks who the Federal Reserve is supporting and works closely with.
Using gold and silver as currency would protect people from inflation, currency debasement, predatory banks and an increasingly volatile and vulnerable financial system.
Utah has had the law on the books for the past 2 years and is working on a system for using the precious metals as currency.

Gold in Euros, 1 Month, by 30 minutes – (Bloomberg)

The Arizona Senate Bill 1439 would allow the holder of gold or silver coins or bullion to pay a debt.

However, the coins must be issued by the U.S. government or approved by a court, like an American Eagle Coin. Oddly the government does not require that persons or business must use or accept gold or silver as legal tender in contravention of the U.S. Constitution.
The sponsor of the bill, Republican Sen. Chester Crandell, would need a final state Senate vote after approval by the House, and if passed the law would not take effect until 2014.
Crandell said, “The whole thing came from constituents”.

Gold in British Pounds, 1 Month, by 30 minutes – (Bloomberg)

The debate on whether gold and silver should be used as an alternative currency will continue and deepen as people realise how fiat currencies are set to be devalued in the coming months – potentially sharply.
A 5-10% allocation to physical bullion in your possession or in allocated accounts remains crucial to all wishing to protect their wealth from wealth confiscation. Whether that be by inflation or by pension, brokerage account or deposit confiscation – all of which have been seen in recent months and will be seen again.
NEWS
Yen Drops Toward 100 as European Stock Futures Advance With Gold - Bloomberg
Hedge Fund Gold Wagers Defy Worst Slump in 33 Years - Bloomberg
Arizona set to OK gold, silver currency – USA Today
Russia’s Main Exchange Plans To Develop Gold Bullion Market – Fox Business
World Gold Council: Speculators in futures markets caused gold price crash – Business Today
COMMENTARY
10 Signs The Paper Gold Crash Unleashed An Unprecedented Demand For Physical Gold And Silver – The Economic Collapse
Swiss To Vote On Gold Repatriation – “Gold Is The Only Valuable Asset On The SNB’s Balance Sheet” – Zero Hedge
Video: The Secret World Of Gold - GoldSeek
Gold price drop divides opinions, hits central banks  - Al Aribiya
For breaking news and commentary on financial markets and gold, follow us onTwitter.

TransPacific Partnership Will Undermine Democracy, Empower Transnational Corporations

The leaders of the member nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pose for a group photo, November, 2010.The leaders of the member nations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pose for a group photo, November, 2010. (Photo: Gobierno de Chile; Edited: JR / TO)Think the world needs an alternative to corporate media? Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout and keep independent journalism strong.
Our country's democratic values could be under threat if President Obama fast tracks the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
On critical issues, the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) being negotiated in secret by the Obama administration will undermine democracy in the United States and around the world and further empower transnational corporations. It will circumvent protections for health care, wages, labor rights, consumers' rights and the environment, and decrease regulation of big finance and risky investment practices.
The only way this treaty, which will be very unpopular with the American people once they are aware of it, can be approved is if the Obama administration avoids the democratic process by using an authority known as "Fast Track," which limits the constitutional checks and balances of Congress.
If the TPP is approved, the sovereignty of the United States and other member nations will be dissipated by trade tribunals that favor corporate power and force national laws to be subservient to corporate interests.
Circumventing the Checks and Balances of US Democracy
President Nixon first developed the idea of "Fast Track" in 1973 as a way to secure Congressional approval of trade agreements, and it has been a key to passing many unpopular agreements such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and NAFTA. As people have caught on to the offshoring of jobs and other detrimental consequences of these agreements, civil society now understands how important it is to not allow a president to circumvent the democratic role of Congress. Fast Track expired in 2007, so President Obama must have it re-instated in order to pass the TPP. His administration is moving to have Fast Track approved and hopes it will happen by this summer.
Under Fast Track, the president was allowed to negotiate and sign trade agreements with whatever countries the executive branch selected - all before Congress voted on the agreement. Fast Track meant that the Congressional committee processes were circumvented and the executive branch was empowered to write lengthy implementing legislation for each trade pact without Congress. These executive-only authored bills required US law to conform to the trade agreement. For example, Glass-Steagall had to be repealed under President Clinton to conform to the WTO. And, Fast Track empowered the president to submit the executive-branch written bill for a mandatory vote within a set number of days, with all amendments forbidden, normal Senate rules waived, and debate limited in both chambers of Congress. Fast Track clearly undermined democracy.
Indeed, Fast Track turned the US Constitution on its head. Under Article I Section 8, Congress has exclusive authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations" and to "lay and collect taxes [and] duties." Under the Constitution, the president is empowered to negotiate treaties, but Congress must vote to approve them. Thus, Fast Track took constitutional power from Congress and prevented the checks and balances needed to prevent an imperial presidency.
For most of the history of the United States, treaties and trade agreements went through the normal congressional process described in the Constitution. Fast Track is a relatively new concept that coincides with an era of increasing presidential power, which includes the power to declare war and to murder US citizens without warning or judicial oversight. If Congress had reviewed agreements such as the WTO and NAFTA beforehand and civil society had been able to participate in a democratic process, would the United States have made the mistake of passing these laws that have so injured our economy and others?
Fast Track is very unpopular, so now President Obama and others who advocate for it do not use the term. Instead they call it by the euphemism "Trade Promotion Authority." But changing the name does not change what it is - a method of ceding the constitutional power of Congress and undermining the checks and balances built into the constitutional framework.
Congress needs to consider what agreements such as the TPP will do to jobs, trade balances and the environment. Since Nixon, Fast Track has been used by presidents to go way beyond trade and tariffs. These agreements have been used to change US law by establishing "rules related to domestic environmental, health, safety and essential-service regulations, including deregulation of financial services; establishment of immigration policies; creation of limits on local development and land-use policy; extension of domestic patent terms; establishment of new rights and greater protections for foreign investors operating within the United States that extend beyond US law; and even limitation of how domestic procurement dollars may be spent." Thus, not only has the constitutional power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations been undermined, but a whole host of domestic laws have been rewritten to satisfy international trade.
The TPP Undermines US Law, Prevents Progressive Policy Around the World
The TPP is much broader than the usual trade agreement and will impact many aspects of society from the Internet to health care to regulation of risky bank speculation. For this reason alone, it is especially important to have a transparent, public debate on the agreement. The TPP contains 26 chapters, but only five of them concern traditional trade issues. The TPP has been negotiated in secret except for over 600 corporate representatives who have been advising the US trade representative on its language. In Washington, DC K Street lobby firms have been getting involved in the process, including pushing for Fast Track. Many of those corporations that have failed to get what they want from Congress are now getting their way through the secret back door of the TPP.
Though the TPP negotiations are being conducted in secrecy, portions of the text have been leaked. Here is what is known about some of the key issues that the TPP will affect:
Prevent Buy America Manufacturing Preferences: The TPP's procurement chapter ends 'Buy America' preferences by requiring that all firms operating in any signatory country are provided equal access to US government procurement contracts over a certain dollar threshold, the same access that domestic firms have. To implement this, the United States would agree to waive "Buy America" procurement policies.
Undermine Environmental Laws and Regulations: Similarly, governments who are seeking to encourage localization and green manufacturing through procurement preferences will be stopped. A recent example involved Ontario, Canada, which has employed a renewable energy program that requires energy generators to source solar cells and wind turbines from local businesses so as to cultivate a robust supply of green goods, services and jobs.  The program has earned acclaim for its early success in generating 4,600 megawatts of renewable energy and 20,000 green jobs. But, the WTO ruled that this violated WTO rules. In another case, a US company Lone Pine Resources is suing the Canadian government under NAFTA for more than $250 million due to lost profits from Quebec's moratorium on fracking, which prevents Lone Pine from fracking under the St. Lawrence River. This is not an isolated incident:
. . . corporations such as Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical, and Cargill have launched 450 investor-state cases against 89 governments, including the United States. Over $700 million has been paid to corporations under US free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, about 70 percent of which are from challenges to natural resource and environment policies. Corporations have launched attacks on a range of public interest and environmental regulations, including bans or phase-outs of toxic chemicals, timber regulations, permitting rules for mines, green jobs and renewable energy programs, and more.
Undermine Internet Freedom: The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) argues that the intellectual property chapter (see the February 2011 draft US TPP IP Rights Chapter [PDF]) would have extensive negative ramifications for users' freedom of speech, right to privacy and due process, and hinder peoples' abilities to innovate. Its provision on copyrights will adversely affect the creator's ability to create content, the ability of technology companies to make innovative products, and the ability of users to use content in new ways. EFF summarizes the attack on Internet freedom by the TPP, writing:
In short, countries would have to abandon any efforts to learn from the mistakes of the US and its experience with the DMCA over the last 12 years, and adopt many of the most controversial aspects of US copyright law in their entirety. At the same time, the US IP chapter does not export the limitations and exceptions in the US copyright regime like fair use, which have enabled freedom of expression and technological innovation to flourish in the US. It includes only a placeholder for exceptions and limitations. This raises serious concerns about other countries' sovereignty and the ability of national governments to set laws and policies to meet their domestic priorities.
Destroy Food and Agriculture: Agriculture trade rules have both undermined US producers' ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global marketplace. Multinational grain-trading and food-processing firms have made enormous profits, while farmers on both ends have been hurt. The results are that hunger is projected to increase, along with illicit drug cultivation, and undocumented migration. Dairy farmers fear the TPP could decimate the US dairy industry and have urged Congress to refuse to Fast Track it. Failure to establish new agriculture terms would intensify the race to the bottom in commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and nation against nation to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of labor, environment or food-safety standards. Regarding food safety, current trade agreements contain language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our domestic safety standards and limiting inspection of imported foods and products. The TPP is expected to continue these practices.
Prevent Health, Safety, Environment, Consumer and Labor Laws: According to leaked documents, the TPP contains provisions with special rights for corporations. The provisions protect investors by providing them with compensation for loss of "expected future profits" from health, labor, environmental and other laws. The negative effect is that nations will not pass laws that threaten corporate profits in order to avoid lawsuits and heavy fines. Court cases in which corporations are suing governments over laws and regulations that cause loss of expected profit will be tried before a trade tribunal of three judges. These judges can include corporate lawyers on temporary leave from their corporate job while they serve as judges. Global Trade Watch reports that under previous trade agreements "Over $3 billion has been paid to foreign investors under US trade and investment pacts, while over $14 billion in claims are pending under such deals, primarily targeting environmental, energy, and public health policies." The right to sue governments will create a hurdle for governments considering actions to protect workers, consumers, health and the environment.
Privatize Health Care and Make it Unaffordable: Leaked documents show that the US Trade Representative is pressuring TPP member countries to expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections, which essentially trade away access to medicines. In a recent letter, Doctors Without Borders wrote that the TPP will be "the most harmful trade deal ever for access to medicines in developing countries." The TPP does this damage by inflating pharmaceutical prices through lengthy patent protections, as Doctors Without Borders writes:
One proposed TPP provision would require governments to grant new 20-year patents for modifications of existing medicines, such as a new forms, uses or methods, even without improvement of therapeutic efficacy for patients. Another provision would make it more expensive and cumbersome to challenge undeserved or invalid patents; and yet another would add additional years to a patent term to compensate for administrative processes. Taken together, these and other provisions will add up to more years of high-priced medicines at the expense of people needing treatment waiting longer for access to affordable generics.
There is also concern that the TPP will force public health systems to open up their medication programs to pharmaceutical corporations giving them greater access and greater control over the price of medications, effectively destroying the ability of the public health system to negotiate for a low price. The same may occur with public health systems in the US such as Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Veterans Health Administration, making medications more expensive and potentially out of reach for their patient populations.
In addition, countries that provide health care through a national public health program, rather than a market-based system dominated by for-profit insurance, are threatened by provisions that oppose state-owned enterprises. Corporations view state provision of services as unfair competition and therefore a violation of free trade. This will make it more difficult for the United States to adopt a single-payer health system, and it will make it more difficult for countries with such systems to protect them from privatization and health insurance domination.
Prevent Public Banks and Banking Regulation: These same provisions about state-owned enterprises will affect public banking too. North Dakota is the only state in the US to have a public state bank, although over a dozen states and cities are considering them. Public banks are used to hold taxes that are collected, administer payroll for public employees and provide loans for public projects. The advantage is that all public dollars are managed in a public institution rather than having to pay fees and interest to a private bank. But the TPP would consider public banks to have unfair advantages and therefore violate free trade.
And trade agreements protect big finance by (1) preventing regulation of the finance industry by locking in a model of extreme financial service deregulation; and (2) allowing capital to move in and out of countries without restrictions. This prevents countries from controlling the flow of capital, which has many negative consequences. Over 100 economists wrote trade representatives urging them to ensure that the TPP, unlike other trade agreements, will allow governments to control and regulate capital without the threat of investor lawsuits, writing:
Authoritative research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the International Monetary Fund, and other institutions has found that limits on short-term capital flows can stem the development of dangerous asset bubbles and currency appreciations, grant nations more autonomy in monetary policy-making, and protect nations from the dangers of abrupt capital flight.
See 102 Economists Issue Statement on Capital Controls and TPP
Thus, the TPP and other corporate trade agreements will undermine the ability of governments to regulate health, safety, labor, environment and finance. The 600 corporate advisers to the TPP see this as an opportunity to do an end-run around laws and policies that they have been unable to put into effect through the normal democratic process. This is why the TPP is being called a global corporate coup that makes corporations more powerful than governments.
Corporate Trade Agreements Hurt the US Economy
The evidence is stark that so-called 'free' trade agreements, really corporate trade agreements, are bad for the US economy.
Newly-released government trade data for 2012 show job-eroding US trade deficits have ballooned in countries with which the US has a corporate trade agreement and have declined in the rest of the world. The numbers are stark. In countries where the US has a trade agreement, the trade deficit has grown by more than 440 percent, while in countries where there is no agreement, the deficit has declined by 7 percent. In fact, the aggregate US trade deficit with trade-agreement partners is more than five times higher than it was before the deals went into effect, while the aggregate deficit with non-trade-agreement countries has actually fallen slightly.
And, this means a tremendous loss of jobs. Using the Obama administration's net exports-to-jobs ratio, the FTA trade deficit surge means the loss of nearly one million American jobs.
We should have learned this lesson from NAFTA because what we are seeing with corporate trade agreements since NAFTA is more of the same. Under NAFTA, the US deficit with Canada ballooned and the small US surplus with Mexico turned into a $100 billion-plus deficit. As a result of NAFTA, the United States lost 692,000 jobs according to the Economic Policy Institute.
But, instead of learning from NAFTA, President Obama pushed a trade agreement with South Korea, promising it would result in economic benefits for the United States. One year has now passed since the Korean trade agreement was put into effect and the US ended up with the same result as it experienced with NAFTA. Eyes on Trade reports:
US goods exports to Korea have dropped 9 percent (a $3.2 billion decrease) since the Korea FTA took effect, in comparison to the same months in the year before FTA implementation. US imports from Korea have climbed 2 percent (an $800 million increase). The US trade deficit with Korea has swelled 30 percent (a $4 billion increase). The January data from the US International Trade Commission show that the US trade deficit with Korea skyrocketed 81 percent above December's level, topping $2.4 billion – the largest monthly US trade deficit with Korea on record. The ballooning trade deficit indicates the loss of tens of thousands of US jobs."
Exports are not as robust as advocates of trade agreements would like to believe. Between 2002 and 2012, US exports to trade-agreement partner countries grew annually at a rate of only 4.8 percent, while exports to non-trade-agreement countries grew at 6.6 percent per year on average. This has only worsened with the passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in 2005, which nearly doubled the number of trade-agreement countries. Since then, average US export growth to non-trade-agreement countries has topped average export growth to trade-agreement partners by 46 percent.
Advocates for corporate trade agreements manipulate statistics in order to make a false claim of economic benefit from the agreements. They create obvious falsehoods by not counting many major trade agreements put in place before 2003. This would exclude big agreements like NAFTA, count "re-exports" - goods made elsewhere that are shipped through the United States en route to a final destination, omit imports in their calculations so people do not see the trade imbalance, and not correct for inflation in order to exaggerate exports.
Sadly, rather than being honest about the failure of corporate trade, the Obama administration works overtime to mislead the public. The recently released 2012 annual trade report leaves out critical details from the very beginning. Eyes on Trade analyzes the Obama report:
Take the first sentence: 'Trade is helping to drive the success of President Obama's strategy to grow the US economy and support jobs for more Americans.' Almost makes you forget that last year's non-oil trade deficit rose to a five-year high, implying the loss of millions of jobs, doesn't it?  How about the second sentence: 'The Obama Administration's trade policy helps US exporters gain access to billions of customers beyond our borders to support economic growth in the United States and in markets worldwide.'  That's an interesting way to frame a year whose sluggish two percent export growth rate put us 18 years behind schedule in achieving Obama's export-doubling goal."
Time for a Democratic Revolt Against the TPP
A unique feature of the TPP is that it contains a "docking agreement." This means that other countries can sign onto the agreement after it has been negotiated as long as they are willing to accept the previously negotiated terms. The US started the negotiations with allies such as Australia and New Zealand and a number of small countries such as Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Chile and Peru. Larger countries are able to force smaller, more desperate countries to accept terms that are detrimental to them. As more countries sign on, the TPP could become an agreement that defines global trade.
The TPP has gone through 16 rounds of negotiations in almost total secrecy. Some portions of the text have been leaked, but most remain secret. Throughout the process more than 600 corporate advisers have been working with the US Trade Representative in shaping the proposals and specific language of the text. Civil society has only been marginally involved, not provided drafts and ushered into stakeholder meetings where they can ask questions but only receive vague answers.
Despite this effort at secrecy, civil society groups have been getting organized to oppose the TPP, stop Fast Track and prevent the global corporate coup. More than 400 organizations, including our own organization, It's Our Economy, representing a diverse range of issues including labor, environment, public health, famers, Internet freedom, banking regulation, human rights, faith, Native American and much more, have signed on to a letter to Congress emphasizing how the TPP negotiations have been "inconsistent with democratic principles," opposing Fast Track and outlining expectations of how key issues should be addressed in 21st century trade agreements.
Citizens Trade Campaign summarizes writing: "The letter includes eight broad categories that the TPP, a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement and any other US trade pact must address in order to improve quality of life for Americans and people throughout the world: (1) prioritization of human and labor rights; (2) respect for local development goals and the procurement policies that deliver on them; (3) no elevation of corporations to equal terms with governments; (4) protection of food sovereignty; (5) maintaining access to affordable medication; (6) safeguards against currency manipulation; (7) space for robust financial regulations and public services; and (8) improved consumer and environmental standards."
On February 27, the AFL-CIO released an executive council statement questioning the TPP saying "The United States cannot afford another trade agreement that hollows out our industrial base and adds to our substantial trade deficit." The executive council of the AFL-CIO went on to say, "We do not need another trade deal that simply boosts corporate profits by encouraging offshoring good jobs while undermining wages, benefits and worker rights. We must do better." Americans have clearly learned the lessons of previous trade agreements - they only work for the transnational corporations and oligarchs around the world, they undermine workers, and spur lower wages and environmental destruction.
Arthur Stamoulis of Citizens Trade Campaign summarizes the antidemocratic actions of the Obama administration with regard to the TPP saying, "This is a rollback in transparency, and an extremely undemocratic way to craft policy that is likely to influence jobs, health care costs, financial regulations, consumer safety, the environment and more for decades to come. The only way to prevent the public from being saddled with a bad agreement is for Congress to exert its authority."
The TPP is the battleground for defining democracy in the 21st century and setting up the rules for international commerce in the era of transnational corporate power. No matter what issues you are concerned about, if the TPP becomes law, it will undermine national sovereignty and hopes for progressive policies that put the people's needs before corporate profits. The time is now to get active, work to oppose the antidemocratic Fast Track approach in Congress and say "no" to the democracy-undermining Trans-Pacific Partnership. This is a trade agreement that will be opposed by most Americans and a battle on which the people can prevail, but only if they know it exists.
For more information and to get involved, visit:
The Citizens Trade Campaign
Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch
Eyes on Trade
Flush The TPP
You can listen to our interview with Arthur Stamoulis of Citizens Trade Campaign and Ben Beachy of Eyes on Trade on the TransPacific Partnership versus Democracy on Clearing the FOG.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency

Do we really want the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issuing our global currency

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency
This carefully research article by Ellen Brown was first published in April 2009. It sheds light on the current crisis of the World monetary system. (GR ed. M. Ch.)
In an April 7 [2009] article in The London Telegraph titled “The G20 Moves the World a Step Closer to
a Global Currency,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote:
“A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.
“‘We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,’ it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.
“In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”
Indeed they will.  The article is subtitled, “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.”  Which naturally raises the question, who or what will serve as this global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency and police monetary policy for all humanity?  When the world’s central bankers met in Washington last September, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role.  A former governor of the Bank of England stated:
“[T]he answer might already be staring us in the face, in the form of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). . . . The IMF tends to couch its warnings about economic problems in very diplomatic language, but the BIS is more independent and much better placed to deal with this if it is given the power to do so.”1
And if the vision of a global currency outside government control does not set off conspiracy theorists, putting the BIS in charge of it surely will.  The BIS has been scandal-ridden ever since it was branded with pro-Nazi leanings in the 1930s.  Founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930, the BIS has been called “the most exclusive, secretive, and powerful supranational club in the world.”  Charles Higham wrote in his book Trading with the Enemy that by the late 1930s, the BIS had assumed an openly pro-Nazi bias, a theme that was expanded on in a BBC Timewatch film titled “Banking with Hitler” broadcast in 1998.2  In 1944, the American government backed a resolution at the Bretton-Woods Conference calling for the liquidation of the BIS, following Czech accusations that it was laundering gold stolen by the Nazis from occupied Europe; but the central bankers succeeded in quietly snuffing out the American resolution.3

Modest beginnings, BIS Office, Hotel Savoy-Univers, Basel

First Annual General Meeting, 1931
In Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), Dr. Carroll Quigley revealed the key role played in global finance by the BIS behind the scenes.  Dr. Quigley was Professor of History at Georgetown University, where he was President Bill Clinton’s mentor.  He was also an insider, groomed by the powerful clique he called “the international bankers.”  His credibility is heightened by the fact that he actually espoused their goals.  He wrote:
“I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960′s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. . . . [I]n general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”
Quigley wrote of this international banking network:
“[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.  This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.  The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.”
The key to their success, said Quigley, was that the international bankers would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government.  The statement echoed one made in the eighteenth century by the patriarch of what would become the most powerful banking dynasty in the world.  Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild famously said in 1791:
“Allow me to issue and control a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”
Mayer’s five sons were sent to the major capitals of Europe – London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Naples – with the mission of establishing a banking system that would be outside government control.  The economic and political systems of nations would be controlled not by citizens but by bankers, for the benefit of bankers.  Eventually, a privately-owned “central bank” was established in nearly every country; and this central banking system has now gained control over the economies of the world.  Central banks have the authority to print money in their respective countries, and it is from these banks that governments must borrow money to pay their debts and fund their operations.  The result is a global economy in which not only industry but government itself runs on “credit” (or debt) created by a banking monopoly headed by a network of private central banks; and at the top of this network is the BIS, the “central bank of central banks” in Basel.
Behind the Curtain
For many years the BIS kept a very low profile, operating behind the scenes in an abandoned hotel.  It was here that decisions were reached to devalue or defend currencies, fix the price of gold, regulate offshore banking, and raise or lower short-term interest rates.  In 1977, however, the BIS gave up its anonymity in exchange for more efficient headquarters.  The new building has been described as “an eighteen story-high circular skyscraper that rises above the medieval city like some misplaced nuclear reactor.”  It quickly became known as the “Tower of Basel.”  Today the BIS has governmental immunity, pays no taxes, and has its own private police force.4  It is, as Mayer Rothschild envisioned, above the law.
The BIS is now composed of 55 member nations, but the club that meets regularly in Basel is a much smaller group; and even within it, there is a hierarchy.  In a 1983 article in Harper’s Magazine called “Ruling the World of Money,” Edward Jay Epstein wrote that where the real business gets done is in “a sort of inner club made up of the half dozen or so powerful central bankers who find themselves more or less in the same monetary boat” – those from Germany, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and England.  Epstein said:
“The prime value, which also seems to demarcate the inner club from the rest of the BIS members, is the firm belief that central banks should act independently of their home governments. . . . A second and closely related belief of the inner club is that politicians should not be trusted to decide the fate of the international monetary system.”
In 1974, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision was created by the central bank Governors of the Group of Ten nations (now expanded to twenty).  The BIS provides the twelve-member Secretariat for the Committee.  The Committee, in turn, sets the rules for banking globally, including capital requirements and reserve controls.  In a 2003 article titled “The Bank for International Settlements Calls for Global Currency,” Joan Veon wrote:
“The BIS is where all of the world’s central banks meet to analyze the global economy and determine what course of action they will take next to put more money in their pockets, since they control the amount of money in circulation and how much interest they are going to charge governments and banks for borrowing from them. . . .
“When you understand that the BIS pulls the strings of the world’s monetary system, you then understand that they have the ability to create a financial boom or bust in a country.  If that country is not doing what the money lenders want, then all they have to do is sell its currency.”5
The Controversial Basel Accords
The power of the BIS to make or break economies was demonstrated in 1988, when it issued a Basel Accord raising bank capital requirements from 6% to 8%.  By then, Japan had emerged as the world’s largest creditor; but Japan’s banks were less well capitalized than other major international banks.  Raising the capital requirement forced them to cut back on lending, creating a recession in Japan like that suffered in the U.S. today.  Property prices fell and loans went into default as the security for them shriveled up.  A downward spiral followed, ending with the total bankruptcy of the banks.  The banks had to be nationalized, although that word was not used in order to avoid criticism.6
Among other collateral damage produced by the Basel Accords was a spate of suicides among Indian farmers unable to get loans.  The BIS capital adequacy standards required loans to private borrowers to be “risk-weighted,” with the degree of risk determined by private rating agencies; and farmers and small business owners could not afford the agencies’ fees.  Banks therefore assigned 100 percent risk to the loans, and then resisted extending credit to these “high-risk” borrowers because more capital was required to cover the loans.  When the conscience of the nation was aroused by the Indian suicides, the government, lamenting the neglect of farmers by commercial banks, established a policy of ending the “financial exclusion” of the weak; but this step had little real effect on lending practices, due largely to the strictures imposed by the BIS from abroad.7
Similar complaints have come from Korea.  An article in the December 12, 2008 Korea Times titled “BIS Calls Trigger Vicious Cycle” described how Korean entrepreneurs with good collateral cannot get operational loans from Korean banks, at a time when the economic downturn requires increased investment and easier credit:
“‘The Bank of Korea has provided more than 35 trillion won to banks since September when the global financial crisis went full throttle,’ said a Seoul analyst, who declined to be named.  ‘But the effect is not seen at all with the banks keeping the liquidity in their safes.  They simply don’t lend and one of the biggest reasons is to keep the BIS ratio high enough to survive,’ he said. . . .
“Chang Ha-joon, an economics professor at Cambridge University, concurs with the  analyst. ‘What banks do for their own interests, or to improve the BIS ratio, is against the interests of the whole society.  This is a bad idea,’ Chang said in a recent telephone interview with Korea Times.”
In a May 2002 article in The Asia Times titled “Global Economy: The BIS vs. National Banks,” economist Henry C K Liu observed that the Basel Accords have forced national banking systems “to march to the same tune, designed to serve the needs of highly sophisticated global financial markets, regardless of the developmental needs of their national economies.”  He wrote:
“[N]ational banking systems are suddenly thrown into the rigid arms of the Basel Capital Accord sponsored by the Bank of International Settlement (BIS), or to face the penalty of usurious risk premium in securing international interbank loans. . . . National policies suddenly are subjected to profit incentives of private financial institutions, all members of a hierarchical system controlled and directed from the money center banks in New York. The result is to force national banking systems to privatize . . . .
“BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. . . . The IMF and the international banks regulated by the BIS are a team: the international banks lend recklessly to borrowers in emerging economies to create a foreign currency debt crisis, the IMF arrives as a carrier of monetary virus in the name of sound monetary policy, then the international banks come as vulture investors in the name of financial rescue to acquire national banks deemed capital inadequate and insolvent by the BIS.”
Ironically, noted Liu, developing countries with their own natural resources did not actually need the foreign investment that trapped them in debt to outsiders:
“Applying the State Theory of Money [which assumes that a sovereign nation has the power to issue its own money], any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation.”

When governments fall into the trap of accepting loans in foreign currencies, however, they become “debtor nations” subject to IMF and BIS regulation.  They are forced to divert their production to exports, just to earn the foreign currency necessary to pay the interest on their loans.  National banks deemed “capital inadequate” have to deal with strictures comparable to the “conditionalities” imposed by the IMF on debtor nations: “escalating capital requirement, loan writeoffs and liquidation, and restructuring through selloffs, layoffs, downsizing, cost-cutting and freeze on capital spending.”  Liu wrote:
“Reversing the logic that a sound banking system should lead to full employment and developmental growth, BIS regulations demand high unemployment and developmental degradation in national economies as the fair price for a sound global private banking system.”
The Last Domino to Fall
While banks in developing nations were being penalized for falling short of the BIS capital requirements, large international banks managed to escape the rules, although they actually carried enormous risk because of their derivative exposure.  The mega-banks succeeded in avoiding the Basel rules by separating the “risk” of default out from the loans and selling it off to investors, using a form of derivative known as “credit default swaps.”

However, it was not in the game plan that U.S. banks should escape the BIS net.  When they managed to sidestep the first Basel Accord, a second set of rules was imposed known as Basel II.  The new rules were established in 2004, but they were not levied on U.S. banks until November 2007, the month after the Dow passed 14,000 to reach its all-time high.  It has been all downhill from there.  Basel II had the same effect on U.S. banks that Basel I had on Japanese banks: they have been struggling ever since to survive.8
Basel II requires banks to adjust the value of their marketable securities to the “market price” of the security, a rule called “mark to market.”9  The rule has theoretical merit, but the problem is timing: it was imposed ex post facto, after the banks already had the hard-to-market assets on their books.  Lenders that had been considered sufficiently well capitalized to make new loans suddenly found they were insolvent.  At least, they would have been insolvent if they had tried to sell their assets, an assumption required by the new rule.  Financial analyst John Berlau complained:
“The crisis is often called a ‘market failure,’ and the term ‘mark-to-market’ seems to reinforce that. But the mark-to-market rules are profoundly anti-market and hinder the free-market function of price discovery. . . . In this case, the accounting rules fail to allow the market players to hold on to an asset if they don’t like what the market is currently fetching, an important market action that affects price discovery in areas from agriculture to antiques.”10
Imposing the mark-to-market rule on U.S. banks caused an instant credit freeze, which proceeded to take down the economies not only of the U.S. but of countries worldwide.  In early April 2009, the mark-to-market rule was finally softened by the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); but critics said the modification did not go far enough, and it was done in response to pressure from politicians and bankers, not out of any fundamental change of heart or policies by the BIS.
And that is where the conspiracy theorists come in.  Why did the BIS not retract or at least modify Basel II after seeing the devastation it had caused?  Why did it sit idly by as the global economy came crashing down?  Was the goal to create so much economic havoc that the world would rush with relief into the waiting arms of the BIS with its privately-created global currency?  The plot thickens . . . .
Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel that gets its power from “the money trust.” Her eleven books include Forbidden Medicine, Nature’s Pharmacy (co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker), and The Key to Ultimate Health (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen). Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.
NOTES
1.  Andrew Marshall, “The Financial New World Order: Towards a Global Currency and World Government,” Global Research (April 6, 2009). 
  2  Alfred Mendez, “The Network,” The World Central Bank: The Bank for International Settlements, http://copy_bilderberg.tripod.com/bis.htm.
  3  “BIS – Bank of International Settlement: The Mother of All Central Banks,” hubpages.com (2009).        
  4  Ibid.
  5  Joan Veon, “The Bank for International Settlements Calls for Global Currency,” News with Views (August 26, 2003).       
  6  Peter Myers, “The 1988 Basle Accord – Destroyer of Japan’s Finance System,” http://www.mailstar.net/basle.html  (updated September 9, 2008).
  7  Nirmal Chandra, “Is Inclusive Growth Feasible in Neoliberal India?”,  www.networkideas.org (September 2008).
  8  Bruce Wiseman, “The Financial Crisis: A look Behind the Wizard’s Curtain,” Canada Free Press (March 19, 2009).
  9  See Ellen Brown, “Credit Where Credit Is Due,” www.webofdebt.com/articles/creditcrunch.php  (January 11, 2009). 
  10 John Berlau, “The International Mark-to-market Contagion,” OpenMarket.org (October 10, 2008).