Friday, May 30, 2014

Capitalism’s Image Problem

Binoy Kampmark

Capitalism has always had an image problem. A public relations make-over had to be done of its rather dark image during the Cold War. The term “free enterprise” was preferred, giving the impression that accumulating capital and chasing it was a matter of initiative and creative impulse. With the end of the Cold War, the chest thumping began. De-regulation became de rigueur. The 1990s was the Greenspan-Clinton era, one where the very idea of institutional control over capitalist excesses was not merely to be frowned upon, but dismissed altogether. Accumulation became synonymous with creativity.

The City of London has been the focal point of such supposed creativity. When the bulging and burgeoning bubble burst towards the end of 2007, the City, with its bankers and traders, became the focal point of ire and consternation. Banks were socialised. Bailouts were arranged. Reforms were suggested and financial regulations imposed. Laws in Britain were passed increasing jail terms for up to seven years.

The industry has been less than enthusiastic. According to Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, “a fierce industry pushback” by the financial sector has retarded the drive to reform. Instability remains. Financial misconduct continues. “Some prominent firms have been mired in scandals that violate the most basic ethical norms.” Listening to Lagarde at the inclusive capitalism conference in London, one might think that even the term “reform” might have been far-fetched, given that the industry had “not changed fundamentally in a number of dimensions since the crisis.”

In a broad sense, Lagarde was meditating on the subject of “inclusive capitalism” as problematic. When the chief of the IMF, an organisation often brutal in its account keeping, ponders such terms, something is moving about in the waters. “So is ‘inclusive capitalism’ an oxymoron? Or is it the response to Marx’s dire prediction that will lead to capitalism’s survival and regeneration – to make it truly the engine for shared prosperity?”

Signs Of Fading Confidence In The Central Banking Premise

The US stock market indices are at all-time highs. Is confidence strong in both the US dollar and the stock markets? Or is it confidence that the Federal Reserve, via newly “printed” dollars, will support the market?
The global monetary system is based upon confidence in the full faith and credit of insolvent governments, but not on hard assets like gold or oil. That should encourage people to question the credibility and viability of fiat currencies.
There has been much discussion about the amount of gold that remains in western central bank vaults – real physical, unencumbered gold. Based on exports, Asian demand, shipments via Switzerland, imports into Hong Kong, and a dozen other sources, there is good reason, in my opinion, to question how much gold remains in London, New York, and Fort Knox. Confidence in the credibility of bankers, central banks, and governments is weakening.
Does Germany still confidently believe their gold remains in the vaults at the NY Fed after being told it would take 7 years to return that gold?
What about the request from Austria to audit their gold held at the Bank of England? Would such a request occur if confidence in central banks was solid and unshakable? Is there good reason to question that the Austrian gold is actually in the vaults? Or has it been shipped to Switzerland, melted down, and sold to China? We may never know but such unanswered speculation does not inspire confidence.
The unwillingness of central banks and governments to audit the physical gold bars and publish the results also does not inspire confidence. Inquiring minds ask “why?”
Rob Kirby: “There’s been a breakdown in trust (between central banks) …. This is now a distinct pattern, and I expect it will accelerate as time goes on.”
What about the confidence in the US dollar in creditor countries like China, Japan and Russia? Is declining confidence in the dollar the explanation for why the Federal Reserve has been buying more than half of all Treasury debt? What would happen to the dollar if the Fed were not buying most of that Treasury paper? What will happen to the purchasing power of the dollar, euro, and yen if their respective central banks continue “printing” currencies?
Governments in the US, Europe and Japan are spending their unbacked digital currencies as if those currencies can be created in nearly infinite quantities. Of course they can be created easily, but what will be the cost to their economies, the savings of their citizens, and confidence in the viability of their currencies?
Interest rates are at generational lows. The US 10 Year Note yields about 2.6%. That sounds like investors maintain a great deal of confidence in both the dollar and the US government. Or is there another story – such as the Fed buying most of the debt and suppressing interest rates? Do YOU have enough confidence in the dollar that you would lend actual savings to the US government for 10 years at less than 3% per year? What about lending to Spain, Italy, Greece and Japan?
Confidence is fragile – slowly earned and quickly lost. Are we losing confidence in:

Fiat currencies, backed by nothing but faith and credit;
Central banker assurances that the gold is still there;
Economies running on fumes and supported by central banker bond monetization;
Foreign policy that alienates foreign governments;
Promises, promises, and more promises;
Quantitative Easing and “printing money?”

How much confidence do YOU have in digital Euros versus gold coins in your hand?

GE Christenson | The Deviant Investor

U.S. economy shrank at 1 percent pace in first quarter

The US economy shrank for the first time in three years in the first quarter, underscoring its struggle to gain momentum nearly five years after exiting recession, data showed Thursday.
Economic output as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) fell at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said, sharply revising lower the initial estimate of 0.1 percent growth.
The Commerce Department’s revision was much worse than analysts expected; the consensus estimate was a 0.5 percent decline.
It was the second time the world’s largest economy has contracted since officially exiting severe recession in July 2009. GDP fell 1.3 percent in the 2011 first quarter.
“Negative GDP growth is rare in expansions, declines of more than a couple of tenths rarer still and two declines of one percent in one expansion unheard of until now,” said Chris Low of FTN Financial.
“It’s a reminder that the growth trajectory is flatter than normal, a consequence of an ongoing credit squeeze that has dragged on so long it is easy to forget how unique it is compared to past decades.”
The start of the year was marked by unusually severe winter weather in large parts of the country that disrupted transportation and kept many Americans hunkered indoors.
Analysts view the slump as largely weather-related after the economy grew 2.6 percent in the 2013 fourth quarter.
The Commerce Department said the first-quarter weakness was more than accounted for by a marked decline in inventory investment, especially by motor vehicle dealerships.
Inventory investment was revised down, particularly in retail trade, manufacturing, mining, utilities and construction.
Stripped of the inventory investment factor, GDP grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter, slightly below the 0.7 percent gain initially estimated.
Imports, which subtract from GDP, were revised higher.
Also contributing to the fall in GDP were declines in exports, business investment, state and local government spending and housing investment.
“Ouch. The bad news is that the headline GDP number is worse than consensus, but the good(ish) news is that almost all the hit is in the inventory component,” said Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics in a research note.
- Second-quarter rebound seen -
Analysts said the drop in inventory investment sets the stage for more investment in the second quarter. “We still think Q2 growth of about 3.0 percent is a decent bet,” said Shepherdson.
The White House noted the first-quarter downward revision was due almost entirely to the lower estimate for the “highly volatile” inventories category.
The updated data show the economy “continues to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression,” said Jason Furman, President Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, in a statement.
“The president will do everything he can either by acting through executive action or by working with Congress to push for steps that would raise growth and accelerate job creation,” he said.
The Commerce Department also reported corporate profits tumbled 9.8 percent in the first quarter from the fourth quarter, the largest decline since the fourth quarter of 2008 in the midst of the financial crisis.
Corporate profits had increased 2.2 percent quarter-over-quarter in the final three months of 2013. Over the last four quarters, they were down 3.0 percent.
The Federal Reserve has shrugged off the weak first quarter as largely weather-related as it continues to taper economic stimulus amid the modest recovery.
The Fed has lowered its asset purchases from $85 billion a month in December to $45 billion in May in a measured series of $10 billion cuts, with the expectation the quantitative-easing program will be exited before the year ends.

Inflation Heating Up, Fed Should Raise Interest Rates Soon

On today’s show: Signs that inflation is heating up in the U.S. economy, and why the Fed is unlikely to hike rates in time to counter it. Plus, Brian recaps Tuesday’s sell-off in the gold market.

Housing Bubble 2 Already Collapsing For The 99%

Wolf Richter www.testosteronepit.com www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter

This is precisely what shouldn’t have happened but was destined to happen: Sales of existing homes have gotten clobbered since last fall. At first, the Fiscal Cliff and the threat of a US government default – remember those zany times? – were blamed, then polar vortices were blamed even while home sales in California, where the weather had been gorgeous all winter, plunged more than elsewhere.

Then it spread to new-home sales: in April, they dropped 4.7% from a year ago, after March’s year-over-year decline of 4.9%, and February’s 2.8%. Not a good sign: the April hit was worse than February’s, when it was the weather’s fault. Yet April should be the busiest month of the year (excellent brief video by Lee Adler on this debacle).

We have already seen that in some markets, in California for example, sales have collapsed at the lower two-thirds of the price range, with the upper third thriving. People who earn median incomes are increasingly priced out of the market, and many potential first-time buyers have little chance of getting in. In San Diego, for example, sales of homes below $200,000 plunged 46% while the upper end is doing just fine. But the upper end is small, and they don’t like to buy median homes [read… Housing Bubble 2 Veers Elegantly Toward Housing Bust 2]

Yet it’s going according to the Fed’s plan. Its policies – nearly free and unlimited amounts of capital for those with access to it – have created enormous wealth in a minuscule part of the population by inflating ferocious asset bubbles, including in housing. But now electronic real-estate broker Redfin has made it official: in 2014 through April, sales of the most expensive 1% of homes have soared 21.1% year over year, while sales in the lower 99% have dropped 7.6%.

And it wasn’t the first year. In 2013, sales of 1%-homes jumped 35.7%, while sales of the other 99% rose 10.1%. And in 2012, sales of 1%-homes rose 17.5%, while the rest of the market inched up a mere 2.9%.

The downtrodden who have to make do with buying the remaining 99% of the homes, these modern hoi polloi so to speak, whose real incomes have stagnated or declined as they face the soaring home prices of the Fed’s second housing bubble in less than a decade, to be financed at still historically low mortgage rates, well, they’ve hit a wall.

But at least luxury is thriving. In 9 of the 29 markets Redfin tracked, sales of the priciest 1% of homes jumped by over 50%. The top three were all here in the Bay Area – not surprisingly, given the miracles of the worldwide money transfer machine of IPOs and multi-billion-dollar startup acquisitions [Momentum Stock Fiasco Pricks San Francisco Housing Bubble].

In Oakland, sales of 1%-homes skyrocketed 96.2%, in San Jose 91.2%, and in San Francisco 72.2%. But in all three cities, sales of the 99% are down so far this year! So this isn’t exactly a booming housing market but a booming luxury market. A lopsided monstrosity that looks like this:

In a number of cities, including in some of the red-hottest housing markets of last summer, sales of homes in the 99% category have plunged. The worst: Los Angeles -11.7%, San Diego -12.3%, Minneapolis -12.5%, Orange County -12.7%, Sacramento -15.5%, Phoenix -15.7%, Las Vegas -16.3%, and Ventura -16.3%.

Some of these cities aren’t exactly cheap places to buy a 1%-home. In San Francisco, themedian price is already over $900,000. But the minimum 1%-home? $5.35 million, according to Redfin. You’ll need enough after-tax income – if you’re not plunking down the cash you got from selling your startup – to cough up a monthly mortgage payment of $21,300. LA is second in line with the minimum 1%-home setting you back $3.65 million, or a monthly mortgage payment of $14,600. That’s the minimum. On the upper end, only the sky is the limit….

Location, location, location. Prices of 1%-homes vary by neighborhood. In my crazy San Francisco, Redfin found that Presidio Heights came out on top at $7.48 million for the average 1%-home, neck to neck with neighboring Pacific Heights at $7.18 million, and well ahead of Russian Hill at $6.53. But Presidio Heights was only the 6th most expensive neighborhood in the report, the top five all being in LA. King of the hill: Beverly Glen, where the average 1%-home costs a cool $11.86 million.

There are more expensive towns in the Bay Area, like Atherton, that could compete with the priciest neighborhoods LA has to offer. But they’re too small to make it into the stats. And these stats are a perfect illustration of what the Fed has set out to accomplish: the “Wealth Effect” – a semi-religious doctrine propagated by the Greenspan Fed and elevated to a state religion by the Bernanke Fed.

The relentless money-printing binge and zero-interest-rate policy did what it was designed to do: inflate asset bubbles and make some players rich, but not all. A home that cost $150,000 and jumps 50% in price will make the owner $75k. A home that cost $15 million and then jumps 50% will make the owner $7.5 million. A private equity firm that can borrow at near zero cost to buy up 40,000 homes might hope to gain around $5 billion. That’s how the Wealth Effect works.

The problem for the housing market is that there aren’t enough home buyers in that coddled 1%-category. The few can push up prices for a while but aren’t numerous enough to push up sales of the overall market. And they don’t like to buy median homes. Yet, as prices rise, homes move further out of reach of the 99%, and inevitably, sales drop further. At some point, something has to give. We already know from the last housing bubble and bust cycle what will give: prices. And afterwards, we’ll wonder, as we sort through the debris, how the Fed managed to sucker us into a second housing bubble and bust in just 15 years.

The equation might not have gone so horribly awry if each class of college graduates had seen their incomes skyrocket in line with their student debt. But that’s a crummy joke in America. Read…. This Chart Is The Fate of Housing In America As Student Loans Bankrupt A Whole Generation

It's Not the End of the World, but it's the End of the Party - Peter Schiff

BANKING BOYS ARE IN REAL TROUBLE MASSIVE DERIVATIVES CRISIS LOOMS IN GOLD! | Harvey Organ

Bond Market Will MELTDOWN and RESET

Bonds are IOU’s that have been built up.
Bonds are debt packaged up and made pretty.
Many countries are finding themselves at the brink of bankruptcy.
Countries will go bankrupt and will DEFAULT on their loans.
The European viral contagion that I spoke about in The Money GPS will continue to spread and they will default.
Paper investments will be revalued and you’ll be the last one on the list to get any real value back.

Economists: The U.S. Economy Shrank In Q1, But Better Days Are Just Around The Corner

By Michael Snyder

During the first three months of this year, the U.S. economycontracted at a 1 percent annual rate. Despite this, mainstream economists flooded the mainstream media with assurances that much better days are just around the corner on Thursday. In fact, many of them boldly predicted that U.S. GDP would grow at a 3 or 4 percent annual rate in the second quarter. None of them seem the least bit concernedthat another major recession is rapidly approaching. Instead, they just blamed the bad number for the first quarter on a “severe winter“, and the financial markets responded to the GDP news quite cheerfully. In fact, the S&P 500 soared to another brand new record high. No matter how bad the numbers get, almost everyone in the financial world seems quite optimistic. But is there actually good reason to have such optimism?

As Zero Hedge has pointed out, if it wasn’t for dramatically increased healthcare spending due to the implementation of Obamacare, U.S. GDP would have actually dropped at a 2 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2014.

That would have been an absolutely disastrous number.

But within a very short time of the revised U.S. GDP number being released, the mainstream media was inundated with positive stories about the news.

For example, CNN published a story entitled “U.S. economy shrinks, but it’s not a big deal” and CNBC released a survey of nine prominent economists that showed that their consensus forecast for the second quarter of 2014 is GDP growth at a 3.74 percent annual rate.

It just seems like almost everyone wants to forget about what happened during the first quarter and wants to look ahead to a great number for quarter two.

Joseph Lavorgna, the chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, is boldly forecasting a 4 percent growth rate for the second quarter. So is Jim O’Sullivan. In fact, it is hard to find any “expert” in the mainstream media that does not expect rip-roaring economic growth this quarter.

For example, just check out these quotes…

-Stuart Hoffman, the chief economist for PNC Bank: “The first quarter was disappointing, but rather than view that as an omen of a recession or the first of a down leg in the economy, I see the seeds of a big bounce back in spring.”

-Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics: “For those worried about a recession, it’s worth remembering that employment increased by nearly 300,000 in April.”

-The Bank of Tokyo’s Chris Rupkey: “2Q growth seen at nearly 4%… Weak 1Q is stone cold dead as an indicator of where the economy is headed.”

-Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs: “Because of weaker inventory investment in Q1, we increased our Q2 GDP tracking estimate by two-tenths to 3.9%.”

-Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. CEO Jeffrey Stibel: “Using an alternative model for projecting job growth, we see an entirely different scenario, one in which the U.S. unemployment rate will fall below 5 percent by no later than the middle of next year.”

Hopefully they are right.

Hopefully we are not heading into another recession.

But as I discussed in an article earlier this week, evidence continues to mount that another recession has already begun for much of the country.

And there was another number that was released today that seems to confirm this. According to CNBC, there was a 6 percent drop in exports in the first quarter of 2014 when compared to the first quarter of 2013…

The U.S. economic reversal was led by a 6 percent drop in exports year over year, until recently hailed as a key driver of the U.S. recovery, and which had risen 9.5 percent in the last three months of 2013.

The slackening of trade has spread to the developing world, where emerging economies are seeing less demand from the U.S., Europe and China for raw materials and other exports.

We saw a similar decline happen in mid-2008 as the U.S. economy plunged into recession.

And Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort index has fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in six months. U.S. consumers are increasingly tapped out, and the ongoing “retail apocalypse” is evidence of that fact.

A declining middle class simply cannot support the massive retail infrastructure that America has developed. As the middle class has fallen to pieces, it was just a matter of time before big trouble started erupting for the retail industry. This is something that David Stockman recently wrote about…

It does not take much analysis to see that these bell ringers do not represent sustainable prosperity unfolding across the land. For example, around 1990 real median income was $56k per household and now, 25 years later, its just $51k—-meaning that main street living standards have plunged by about 9% during the last quarter century. But what has not dropped is the opportunity for Americans to drop shopping: square footage per capita during the same period more than doubled, rising from 19 square feet per capita at the earlier date to 47 at present.

This complete contradiction—declining real living standards and soaring investment in retail space—did not occur due to some embedded irrational impulse in America to speculate in real estate, or because capitalism has an inherent tendency to go off the deep-end. The fact that in equally “prosperous” Germany today there is only 12 square feet of retail space per capita is an obvious tip-off, and this is not a teutonic aberration. America’s prize-winning number of 47 square feet of retail space per capita is 3-8X higher than anywhere else in the developed world!

Without middle class jobs, you can’t have a middle class. That is why our employment crisis is at the very heart of our economic problems. Even using the government’s highly manipulated unemployment figures, there are still quite a few cities out there that have official unemployment ratesin the double digits…

The unemployment rate in Yuma, Ariz., is 23.8%. In El Centro, Calif., it is 21.6%. El Centro sits in an area of California in which unemployment in many metro areas is double the national average. In Merced the figure is 14.3%, in Yuba City the figure is 14.5%, in Hanford it is 13.1% and in Visalia it is 13.4%. In several metros close to these, the figure is above 10%. Most of them are inland from San Francisco and the area just south of it, which also happens to be among the nation’s most drought-plagued regions. This means jobs recovery is highly unlikely.

But of course the truth is that if the government actually used honest numbers, the unemployment rate for the entire nation would be in double digits.

And as I like to remind people, according to the government’s own numbers approximately 20 percent of the families in the entire nation do not have a single member that is employed.

So how is it possible that the “unemployment rate” is just a little above 6 percent?

It is a giant sham.

But that is what they want.

They want us feeling good and thinking that everything is going to be okay.

Unfortunately, they used the same approach back in 2007 and 2008, and we all remember how that turned out.

Governor’s revised budget signals renewed attack on California workers

Dan Conway
California Governor Jerry Brown has recently released his annual May Budget Revision, which will be used as a framework to craft the 2014-2015 fiscal year budget beginning on July 1.
After years of painful cuts, the state has a projected surplus of several billion dollars, however the new budget is nonetheless being seized upon as an opportunity to cut billions more from vitally-needed social programs and further impoverish the working class.
Among the programs due for continued austerity is the In Home Support Services program or IHSS. The program provides stipends to family members and care providers for the elderly and disabled.
As part of the 2013 state budget, state funding for IHSS already decreased by 8 percent, which is scheduled to decrease to 7 percent at the start of the next fiscal year. The May budget revision keeps this cut in place and additionally prohibits IHSS providers from working over 40 hours per week and collecting overtime compensation. This will insure that those recipients requiring more than 40 hours of care per week will be forced to seek out and hire additional providers. It is highly unlikely, however, that they would have the financial means to do so considering the overwhelming majority of IHSS recipients are in extreme financial hardship.

The budget also leaves cuts to SSI or Supplemental Security Income completely unchanged. This will leave SSI grants at $30 per month lower than they were five years ago. Moreover, cost of living adjustments for SSI grants were removed as part of the 2010-2011 budget and will not be restored under the new proposal.
The CalWORKs welfare to work program also will not see previous cuts restored. CalWORKS grants remain at $50 per month lower than pre-recession levels. Cost of living adjustments to that program which were removed as part of previous state budgets will also not be restored.
The budget retains massive cuts to education as well.
Since 2007 and 2008, state-subsidized childcare and preschool have been cut by nearly 40 percent, resulting in 110,000 children losing all subsidized care.
Similarly, cuts to the University of California and California State University system will be maintained, resulting in General Fund spending on a per student basis at a lower level than its been in thirty years. Hundreds of thousands of academically-qualified working class children have been priced out of nominally public universities with tuition and fees tripling at CSU and quadrupling at UC between the 1990-91 academic year and today.
As far as K-12 and community college education, the single largest expenditure from the state’s general fund is through what is known as the Proposition 98 guarantee that mandates a minimum level of spending at those institutions, typically 39 percent of state spending.
Previous years have seen the loss of billions in Proposition 98 funding under Brown. This year, however, the governor proposes to repay the $5.6 billion still owed to schools under the guarantee but only at the expense of ongoing Proposition 98 funding. In fact, the governor’s proposal makes a $742.2 million repayment of lost funding in 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 offset by a decrease of funding for fiscal year 2014-2015. Thus, compared to the previous year’s spending on education would have seemed to have increased where in fact, it represents only one part of an ongoing cut to public education funding.
A large portion of what remains of Proposition 98 funding will be dedicated to the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) adopted as part of the 2013-2014 state budget.
The LCFF is an attempt to provide school districts with increased funding while allowing them greater autonomy to circumvent existing state laws and allow for the more rapid firing of teachers and staff. It also serves as a means to pump many lower-performing districts full of money before such schools get converted into charter schools or other private institutions.
According to a May report released by Stanford University’s Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) center, the LCFF represents a golden opportunity to transform public education funding. According to David Plank, the center’s director, “This is very different from the way California has funded schools in the past.” The report cautions school districts from using such revenue to restore recent budget cuts in place of “supporting long-term strategies for improvement,” which presumably can only take place of the basis of less funding for students and schools.
While the report is not directly linked to the offices of Brown or the state government more generally, it accurately reflects their policy vis-a-vis the funding formula. The report makes quite clear that the real beneficiaries of the formula should under no circumstances be teachers and students already burdened by overcrowded classrooms and antiquated buildings, but handsomely-paid consulting firms and other private enterprises.
To that end, the PACE report calls for the hiring of additional instructional aides, “master teachers” and instructional coaches along with a wide array of new evaluation tools and technologies meant to fully implement the Obama administration’s Common Core Initiative and streamline the teacher dismissal process on the basis of scientifically questionable evaluation methodologies. According to the PACE report, the LCFF will help to “leverage the kinds of long-term institutional changes that are otherwise difficult to bring about in local education systems.”
While the LCFF continues to receive additional funding from the state, funding for traditional public schools is being rapidly cut. Funding for the LCFF is to increase each year incrementally until fully funded in 2020. At the same time, a portion of the governor’s budget also reduces cost of living adjustments, down to 0.85 percent, for non-LCFF programs including special education, child nutrition and American Indian Educational centers.
An additional and significant component of the budget’s attack on teachers are Brown’s proposals to address the state’s “Wall of Debt” or long term state debt, a large portion of which is comprised of unfunded retirement liabilities including teacher pensions.
The governor’s proposal reduces budgetary debt to $14.8 billion by 2014-2015 and would eliminate budgetary debt altogether by the end of 2017-2018. In order to achieve this goal, the governor would not only repay large scale municipal bond holders who have profited handsomely off the state’s financial misfortune, particularly after contrived credit downgrades by the three largest rating agencies meant to force through severe austerity, but by imposing larger costs on teachers and state workers to make up for unfunded retirements.
Under the proposed terms of the May revision, CalSTRs members will see their contributions increase from 8 percent to 10.25 percent of their pay or between about $1500 or $2500 per year based on current teachers’ salaries. Moreover, school district contributions are to increase from 8.25 to 19.1 percent of payroll phased in over the next seven years. Statewide, this amounts to $3.7 billion in additional contributions per year.
This is essentially designed to make payments to CalSTRs so onerous to local districts that they will be forced to let go of personnel, which they will have much greater flexibility to do under the LCFF and other anti-teacher lawsuits and legal actions under way in the state which are meant to remove due process rights for teachers.
While the state is also increasing its own CalSTRs contribution, from 3 percent of payroll in 2013-2014 to 6.3 percent, it is making this increase based on teacher retirements at 1990 levels. In other words, the state is not obligated to pay for any increases in pension rates since 1990 and moreover, the increases at the district and teacher level will be taken from Proposition 98 funding anyway.
Not only does the current budget keep past cuts intact but insures that no significant restitution will occur in future years through the strengthening of the state’s Budget Stabilization Account or Rainy Day Fund which is meant to keep previous cuts intact by sequestering any state revenue increases in the fund to only be drawn upon in years of budgetary deficits.
The governor’s budget adds $1.6 billion to the existing rainy day fund for the coming fiscal year. Additionally, the May revision proposes a popular vote on a constitutional amendment after a two-thirds vote of the state legislature.
The new rainy day fund, if passed by the legislature and voters, would increase the maximum size of the rainy day fund from five to ten percent of general fund revenue. Additionally, it would require half of each year’s deposits to be used for paying down debts and liabilities rather than restoring social program cuts.
Moreover, rainy day funds may only be withdrawn in case of a natural disaster or if spending remains below the highest level of spending during the previous three years adjusted for changes in population and inflation. Essentially, this means that the rainy day is a mechanism through which ongoing austerity can be implemented.
With consummate cynicism, Brown announced his new budget to be “good news for California” at an initial press conference. When asked by a reporter if the public university system will even be able to function after so many cuts and tuition increases, he said, “First you have a desire, and then someone tells you how to turn the desire into a need and then the need gets turned into a law, and then the law gets turned into a lawsuit.”
Republished with permission of WSWS.

U.S. GDP Fell 1 Percent; First Drop In 3 Years

Revising its early numbers for the first quarter of 2014, the Commerce Department says the U.S. economy shrank by 1 percent at an annualized rate. Last month, estimates of the quarter's gross domestic product had shown a small gain of 0.1 percent.
Government analysts blame the slump on "a significant decline in inventory investment," especially among car dealerships. They also say U.S. exports declined along with spending on housing and government programs.
"Economists estimate severe weather could have chopped off as much as 1.5 percentage points from GDP growth," . "The government, however, gave no details on the impact of the weather."
Corporate profits also declined in the quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis says, after showing gains in the previous quarter.
"Profits of nonfinancial corporations fell 8.1 percent after rising 1.5 percent," the agency says. "Profits of financial corporations fell 15 percent after rising 1.3 percent."
The new quarterly GDP data came out along with news from the Labor Department that weekly jobless claims fell by 27,000 last week, to 300,000.
"Fewer dismissals may be a sign that companies, already lean from recession-era job cutting, are gearing up for improving demand as the economy shows signs of rebounding from a first-quarter slump," says.

Is It Really Just Temporary..? U.S. Economy Shrinks… GDP ‘Grim’… Pending Home Sales Miss Expectation… Consumer Comfort Plunges To 6-Month Lows

U.S. Economy Shrinks for First Time Since 2011 — Is it really just temporary..?

U.S. economy shrinks…

Less is more for the U.S. economy, which suffered its first contraction since 2011 last quarter.

Gross domestic product fell at a 1 percent annualized rate, worse than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists, revised Commerce Department figures showed today inWashington. The good news: Much of the decline was due to less inventory building that economists say can’t last. As a result, some are boosting second-quarter growth forecasts, with Morgan Stanley projecting a 4.2 percent gain.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-29/u-s-economy-shrank-early-this-year-for-first-time-since-2011.html

GDP ‘grim’…

The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter for the first time in three years as it buckled under the weight of a severe winter, but there are signs activity has since rebounded.

The Commerce Department on Thursday revised down its growth estimate to show gross domestic product shrinking at a 1.0 annual rate.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101713801

Excluding Obamacare, US Economy Contracted By 2% In The First Quarter

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-29/excluding-obamacare-us-economy-contracted-2-first-quarter

Pending Home Sales Miss Expectation

Pending home sales climbed 0.4% month-over-month in April. This missed expectations for a 1% rise.

On the year, pending home sales were down 9.4% worse than expectations for an 8.7% fall.

March’s number was revised down to show a 7.5% YoY fall, compared to an initial read of a 7.4% fall.

“Pent-Up” Pending Home Sales Demand Missing; Down 9.4% YoY

7th month in a row of YoY declines…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-29/pent-pending-home-sales-demand-missing-down-94-yoy

Goldman Boosts Q2 GDP Forecast Due To Weaker Than Expected Q1 GDP

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-29/goldman-boosts-q2-gdp-forecast-due-weaker-expected-q1-gdp

Consumer Comfort Plunges To 6-Month Lows

Despite record highs in stock markets and talking-heads explaining that a terrible Q1 GDP print is nothing to worry about, Bloomberg’s Consumer Comfort index collapsed to its lowest level in 6 months as ‘Buying Climate’ collapsed and economic expectations plunged from 48 to 42.5 (7-month lows). Those earning over $100k are happy and comfort soared but the comfort of those earning under $40k plunged to new cycle lows. The Fed won’t be happy… need S&P 2,200 for animal spirits to come back again…

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-29/consumer-comfort-plunges-6-month-lows

Summer crash of 2011 in 2014?

My reasoning then was simple. The magnitude of outperformance in dividend/bond-like sectors was warning of a deflation pulse to come, which equities utterly ignored prior to the August collapse. More so than that, though, the ratio of Treasurys to the S&P 500 didnot act with the same level of leadership as defensive sectors did.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/summer-crash-of-2011-in-2014-2014-05-29

Japanese Retail Sales Collapse By Most On Record

[5]

http://www.zerohedge.com/print/489026

James Rickards – Q&A On “The Coming Collapse Of The International Monetary System”

Published on May 27, 2014

“Everything that was ‘too big to fail’ in 2008 is bigger and more dangerous today,” says New York Times bestselling author James Rickards. Rickards predicts the crash of the global currency market and insolvency of the U.S. dollar in his latest book, The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System. “We’re waiting for the catalyst that will cause this catastrophe to come tumbling down.”

Reason Managing Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward sat down with Rickards to discuss the future of money and a return to the financial stability of the gold standard in an event co-hosted by the Charles Koch Institute.

About 30 minutes.

Cameras by Amanda Winkler and Joshua Swain. Edited by Swain.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV’s YouTube Channel to receive notification when new material goes live.

Fed’s Lacker: Inflation Has ‘Bottomed Out’; Is Accelerating

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker told Bloomberg Radio host Kathleen Hays on “The Hays Advantage” today that inflation may not need to be too fast before the Fed raises the main interest rate. Lacker said, “I don’t see us having to wait until inflation is actually getting to a place we don’t like.”

Lacker said, “We’ve seen inflation bottom out; I think it’s pretty conclusive it’s bottomed out in the last couple of quarters. And there’s some tentative signs that a move back towards, a gradual move back towards 2 percent is in train, and I’m hopeful that that will play out over the year.”

**CREDIT: BLOOMBERG RADIO**

KATHLEEN HAYS, BLOOMBERG RADIO: We’re at the Hoover Institution. Frameworks for central banking in the next century. And as you well know, rules versus discretion is a very big theme here. Lot of debate over the Taylor rule, lot of debate over what should be guiding the Fed. But there’s so much — there’s so many stress, so many special factors in the economy. Do we really know enough to set rules in place that we can stick to that govern policy for this intermediate period ahead, Jeff?

JEFFREY LACKER, RICHMOND FEDERAL RESERVE BANK PRESIDENT: I think we can. I think the lesson of the academic research that’s gone on on monetary policy over the last 40 or 50 years is pretty clear that, whether you formally announce a rule or point to a particular algebraic expression or not, no matter what you do, markets care about your future behavior. They’re going to draw conclusions about the pattern of your behavior. They’re going to think through how you’re going to respond to different shocks and they’re going to take that on board.

So there’s a rule out there in the public’s mind, in the investors — investing community’s mind whether you like it or not. And so you better be explicit about how you — how you want them to believe you’re going to respond in the future.

HAYS: Is there a rule or type of rule you prefer?

LACKER: Well, I think that the Taylor principle has been shown to be very resilient, that if inflation, inflation expectations rise, interest rates have to respond more than one for one otherwise you’re lowering real interest rates while inflation’s rising. And you get into a very nasty situation, as we saw in the late ‘70s; that was a great example of that.

So that would be a key anchor, I think, for any sensible rule.

HAYS: The Taylor rule, as John Taylor and others see it, if — I hope I’m getting this correct, he’s going to be listening to this, we better be careful, Jeff. It seems to call for higher rates now. That seems to be the message from the Taylor rule. But is there really an appetite for such a rule when most rules would suggest the Fed could be far behind the curve by the time it starts raising rates? In other words, do you really think that this — people are kind of worried about the future still. Is that the right message to be following, the right rule?

LACKER: It’s a really good question. So there’s some subtleties in the rule. I mentioned the Taylor principle, how you respond to inflation. Apart from that, beyond that, how you respond to real economic developments is a tricky thing, because the economy has a certain real inflation adjusted interest rate that it wants and needs. And a central bank has to track that. And if it misses that, it’s going to drive inflation the wrong way.

So that’s what the rest of the Taylor rule tries to capture. And there, there’s a variety of ways of parameterizing things and you get a variety of results. So you need to look at a broad range of prescriptive rules like that, and take on board what they have to say and make an assessment about just what’s warranted right now.

HAYS: Central banks around the world are following virtually the same rule. We’ve got like roughly 2 percent inflation targeting, but except for the Bank of England, everyone seems to be falling short. Seems like this approach is failing in the U.S. and worldwide. We’re not hitting those inflation targets. Does that suggest there’s a global problem we can’t fix with a domestic solution?

LACKER: No, I think that’s premature. I don’t think that’s fair. I mean, we missed on the high side, 4 percent inflation a couple years ago. We’re going to miss on the low side from time to time. What you want is that inflation is expected to trend back towards your target. And I think that’s happening now. We’ve seen inflation bottom out; I think it’s pretty conclusive it’s bottomed out in the last couple of quarters. And there’s some tentative signs that a move back towards, a gradual move back towards 2 percent is in train, and I’m hopeful that that will play out over the year.

HAYS: The affluency (ph) forecast show the medium forecast for the Fed is to raise rates to 1 percent at the end of 2015 to 2.25 percent a year later. What are your forecasts?

LACKER: Well, have to preface this. I know we sound like a broken record when we say it — it depends on the data — but it deserves special emphasis when you talk about what interest rates are going to do. Those point forecasts, those are the central tendency of a range of possible outcomes that committee members are looking, and I think a range of possible timing of our liftoff are possible.

HAYS: What is your forecast?

LACKER: Well, the central tendency of it would be somewhere in the middle of the next year, but it could come sooner and it could come later and it depends very importantly on how economic developments play out.

HAYS: So what is — when you look at the economy, inflation, the likely path we’re going to see in rates, is it your sense that once rates start to go up, we’ll see a series of slow and kind of gradual halting increases? Or something that proceeds much more quickly?

LACKER: That’s a good question and I don’t think we know the answer to that. And I think it’ll be interesting to see how markets react to our first increase.

We have two sort of polar cases to benchmark against. One in 1994 was one in which we were hesitant; we were — we’d move; we’d wait; we’d move a lot; wait again. So it was a kind of a choppy path. 2004 we telegraphed our move and telegraphed the pace and pretty much stuck to it. And I think we went overboard at trying to remove uncertainty in 2004, but I think we can do better than 1994. So I’m hoping it’ll be smoother than ’94 but not as risky as 2004 proved to be.

HAYS: Do you think market expectations of Fed policy are appropriate now? And aligned with where the Fed is heading?

LACKER: Well, if you look at the dot (ph) picture in the summary of economic projections and listen to what the chair, Chair Yellen, has said in testimony and what presidents have said, and you look at what’s in the futures curve, I think broadly speaking they’re pretty well aligned right now.

HAYS: What does the sharp, unexpected drop in bond yields over the past few weeks — a lot of people — we talk to stock market guests all the time –

LACKER: That’s a good question.

HAYS: They say, “What’s the bond market telling us?” What does it mean?

LACKER: Well, it’s not clear. I mean, it’s the result of a decision of a broad range of investors globally. I think what’s going on in Europe is clearly having some spillover effect with the anticipated easing over there. And I think that some measure of disappointment of growth expectations is occurring as well.

HAYS: You mentioned inflation, and I guess it’s a question like what the bond market is seeing. Is it seeing disinflation? Is it seeing some that’s even deflationary? And I think this speaks to a broader issue, for everybody on the FOMC, including you. We’ve seen some wages on the rise; we see some early signs that maybe inflation’s heading toward the target. But, even there, the Fed doesn’t see the 2 percent target reach until end 2016. And there’s already a conversation about raising the key rate off zero.

Can the Fed start raising the key rate if it hasn’t even reached the inflation target? Or, worse yet, if it’s steady or inflation ebbs back again?

LACKER: I don’t see why not. We moved rates in ’94, before we saw inflation moving up. It was to nip some incipient inflation pressures in the bud, and I think that was a signal move. I think that was a very important move. The last time we tried in, in the mid ‘60s, we faltered. We moved but we hesitated and then inflation got away from us.

I think us doing that in ’94 was really the bedrock of the success we’ve had since then of keeping inflation low and stable. If you look back to ’94, inflation is averaged, very close to 2 percent over that whole period. And I think us moving preemptively was the key to that.

So I don’t see us having to wait until inflation actually gets to place we don’t like. We want to prevent that from happening.

HAYS: Is there a risk to housing if the Fed moves too soon? Or does anything — I mean, long-term rates are so low, it’s hard to imagine anything happening, right, that’s going to start those yields up or push up mortgage rates, but would that be a risk? Because when people who I’ve interviewed and asked them about the Fed moving, maybe even doing a move off the key rate to create confidence, say, oh, but you could unsettle housing. The Fed definitely doesn’t want that.

LACKER: Well, I think we should be careful not to make the mistake of treating housing with kid gloves. There’s a lot going on in the housing market, a lot of adjustments in train that are really the fallout of what happened in the 2000s. I think we’ve got a long way to go. There’s a huge stock of foreclosure inventory there, even though foreclosure starts have fallen. And there’s a huge number of people that are underwater on their homes, so I think that we’re far from back to equilibrium in the housing market.

So I — it’s going to play itself out with rates another half percentage point, percentage point higher, I don’t think the way that market adjusts is going to be affected (ph).

HAYS: Just a couple more quick ones, Jeff. Do you think the Fed should try to shrink its balance sheet to get back to policymaking? Or can the Fed use its payments of interest on reserves, other new policy facilities to operate efficiently in the future with this very large balance sheet?

LACKER: I think the payment of interest on reserves does help us be able to operate with a larger balance sheet. But, as you know, Kathleen, I’ve been saying for a long time, I think the balance sheet is too large. I think that it’s — I think that it’s a risk to our exist. The larger it is, the larger the risk, and I’d like to see us reduce it.

HAYS: Thank you.

Judges Approve USDA Confiscating Farmers' Harvests

By James Bovard, WSJ

Earlier this month the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture taking 47% of a farmer's harvest does not violate the Fifth Amendment's takings clause as long as the government aims to drive up crop prices. The May 9 decision was the latest absurdity in a decade-long legal battle pitting California raisin growers Marvin and Lena Horne against the USDA's outmoded raisin regulatory regime.

Under current law, the 1930s-era federally authorized Raisin Administrative Committee can commandeer up to half of a farmer's harvest as a "reserve"—to purportedly stabilize markets and prevent gluts. The Hornes were fined almost $700,000 for refusing to surrender control of 47% of their 2002 harvest to the government committee and 30% of the harvest the following year. After judges declared that the Hornes could not sue in federal court for unjust takings—i.e., government confiscation without just compensation—the case landed in the Supreme Court.

Last June the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that California raisin growers have standing to file a takings claim in federal court. Even liberal justices were amazed at the heavy-handed, archaic nature of the regulatory regime. During oral arguments, Justice Stephen Breyer declared: "I can't believe that Congress wanted the taxpayers to pay for a program that's going to mean they have to pay higher prices as consumers." Justice Elena Kagan suggested that the statute authorizing the raisin cartel could be "the world's most outdated law."

Writing as if they were inspired by Justice Kagan's quip, the Ninth Circuit panel reached back a hundred years to justify perpetuating federal control of the raisin business. The decision declared, "Raisin prices rose rapidly between 1914 and 1920, peaking in 1921 at $235 per ton.

This surge in prices spurred increased production, which in turn caused prices to plummet back down to between $40 and $60 per ton." Crop prices skyrocketed during those years in large part because the World War I-era U.S. Food Administration cornered markets and vastly inflated demand by providing cheap credit to European allies to purchase boatloads of harvests. Federal intervention spurred a boom and bust that ravaged American farmers in the early 1920s.

Read the rest here.

Chasing Risk? This Market Won’t Be Kind to You

By George Leong for Daily Gains Letter | May 29, 2014
Why This Stock Market Calls for Prudence

My stock screens have been displaying up signals over the past few days, but I’m still somewhat apprehensive about the most recent stock market rally—and you should be too.
The stock market appears to be edging higher again after the S&P 500 closed above 1,900 at another intraday high on May 23. And while there is some buying support on the stock market charts, I still question the sustainability of any strong upside moves at this time, given the lack of any new catalyst. The reality is that the absence of any leadership and continued concerns towards technology and growth stocks suggest the stock market remains vulnerable at this time.
Where I’m sensing the most risk continues to be the technology sector and small-cap stocks, despite some current relief buying.
Some technical analysts might argue that the move of the Russell 2000 back above its 200-day moving average (MA) is positive; however, I would question the lack of mass stock market participation, given the lighter volume and the questionable and flat investor sentiment, based on my technical analysis.
The chart of volume on the NASDAQ (below) shows how weak the trading volume has been since mid-March, when it was above the 50-day and 200-day MAs. Note the downside bearish crossover of the 50-day MA (blue line) below the 200-day MA (red line) as indicated by the blue oval.

Chart courtesy of www.StockCharts.com

The NASDAQ and Russell 2000 remain below their respective 50-day MAs. Their failure to recover this key technical level is a red flag.
Also what concerns me regarding the NASDAQ is not only the presence of a bearish head-and-shoulders formation, but the fact that we last saw a bullish investor sentiment reading on the index on April 24. Since the start of April, there have only been six bullish readings and six bearish sessions, with the remaining showing a neutral result. These sentiment readings do not currently support a sustainable rally toward the growth elements of the stock market.
The lack of mass market participation is also a red flag. While the NASDAQ has edged higher, the upward move has been narrow. In April and May, there have only been 11 sessions in which the NASDAQ traded over two billion shares.
While I’m not expecting a severe stock market correction, I do feel we could be in for a bigger correction, especially with the lack of any major catalyst and what I previously discussed.
Given the recent rally in the stock market—particularly in the higher-beta stocks—I suggest taking some money off the table. You could also protect against the downside risk in technology by hedging with put options on the Powershares QQQ (NASDAQ/QQQ) exchange-traded fund (ETF).

All Wars Are Well Planned Banker Wars, including WWIII

All Wars Are Well Planned Banker Wars, including WWIII

by Jamie Lee

Tabublog.com

When the Power of Love overcomes the Love of Power, There Will Be Peace.

Jimi Hendrix

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

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http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/bankers-wars.jpg

*****

Definition of Conspiratorial History

With thanks to Ralph Epperson, author of The Unseen Hand, An Introduction to the Conspiratorial View of History.

Two Views of History

There are two fundamental ways to view history. We call one the catastrophic or accidental view of history. We call the other view the conspiratorial view of history.

Accidental History

In the catastrophic or accidental view of history we are led to believe that historical events, such as wars and revolutions were the direct result of some sudden or surprising event. While the catastrophic view is accurate for weather, volcanoes and earthquakes, it does not always provide a realistic view of humanity and events influenced by man.
Young, malleable American and other Western minds are sadly taught the Accidental view of history in the government school systems. This view is reinforced throughout their lives by the controlled mass media. As a result, when most discover the Conspiratorial View of History, the immediate reaction is shock, disbelief and a refusal to accept something other than they’ve been taught to believe.

Conspiratorial History

Conspiratorial history studies that part of history that is a product of man’s planning. In conspiratorial history we are led to believe that events, such as wars and revolutions, are the result of planned events. While the conspiratorial view is not accurate for weather, volcanoes and earthquakes, it is a realistic and accurate view of the interrelationship of man and nations. Since the planning for most of these events was done in secret, we use the term conspiratorial history. That is; this history is the result of plans constructed in secret, which by definition is a conspiracy.
Interestingly enough, the Conspiratorial View of History is also the Biblical View of History. Try Psalms 2 for starters.*
We believe that current world events are not simply circumstantial, but the result of an organized campaign by an elite group of unseen and widely unknown world leaders. Their goal is to exercise absolute dictatorial control over the world, to establish a New World Order.

The Cause of War

Wars start when one nation moves into the territory of another; depressions occur when markets take unexpected downturns; inflations occur when prices are driven up by shortages; revolutions start when the people, always spontaneously, rise up to overthrow the existing government.
These are the traditional explanations of historical events. Events happen by accident; there do not seem to be any causes.
But this explanation of history leaves gnawing questions in the minds of serious students. Is it possible that government leaders and others planned these events and then orchestrated them to their desired conclusions? Is it possible that even the great catastrophes of history were part of this plan?
There is an explanation of historical events that answers these questions in the affirmative. It is called the Conspiratorial View of History and it is the alternative to the Accidental View, the view that is commonly held today. It is possible, therefore, to summarize the major events of history into two alternative schools of thought:

The Accidental View of History:

Historical events occur by accident, for no apparent reason. Rulers are powerless to intervene.

The Conspiratorial View of History:

Historical events occur by design for reasons that are not generally made known to the public, but are well known to those in power at the time.
Franklin D. Roosevelt who certainly saw many monumental events occur during his consecutive administrations has been quoted as saying: “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, it was planned that way.”

****

Americans are recognizing the link between the military-industrial complex and the Wall Street oligarchs—a connection that goes back to the beginning of the modern U.S. empire. Banks have always profited from war because the debt created by banks results in ongoing war profit for big finance; and because wars have been used to open countries to U.S. corporate and banking interests. Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan wrote: “the large banking interests were deeply interested in the world war because of the wide opportunities for large profits.”

The most decorated Marine in history, Smedley Butler, described fighting for U.S. banks in many of the wars he fought in. He said: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins describes how World Bank and IMF loans are used to generate profits for U.S. business and saddle countries with huge debts that allow the United States to control them. It is not surprising that former civilian military leaders like Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz went on to head the World Bank. These nations’ debt to international banks ensures they are controlled by the United States, which pressures them into joining the “coalition of the willing” that helped invade Iraq or allowing U.S. military bases on their land. If countries refuse to “honor” their debts, the CIA or Department of Defense enforces U.S. political will through coups or military action.

Bankers are Behind the Wars

Dr. Henry Kissinger has called military personnel “nothing but dogs to serve our needs”. George Bush, when visiting the VA hospitals would snicker and show rudeness to those injured and maimed “fighting for our freedoms” after he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan under lies…and millions of innocent people in those country died.

Vietnam it estimated that over 2 million Vietnamese died due to U.S. Imperialism, for what? WWI and WWII tens of millions died while countries were carved up like turkey thereinafter by the powers who began the wars under lies as we, the United States of America, dropped atomic bombs on innocent people in Nagasaki and Hiroshima to test our new military toys, killing tens of thousands and giving many more cancer through the fallout.

For what? And we honor all those killed today with their bravery to defend and protect our “freedoms”.

…and it is all been a huge lie.

What if for nearly a century now the handful of global Central Bankers have been in such control of nation-state governments around the world that they could control who is in power, what policies are enacted and what wars are fought where and when while providing the accompanying propaganda to foist one created enemy against another.

All the while they, the very few, make incredible sums of money, loaned at interest, to the nation-states to finance these wars.

Could you, would you believe it?

Consider Switzerland. It has never been invaded. Every citizen is armed and the country provides the police force for the Vatican. It is also home to the worlds largest bank, has extreme secrecy laws AND is home the Rothschilds.

Who Are the Real Owners of Our Planet For the Past 250 years?

*****
The Creating, Planning and Implementing of WWI, WWII and now, WWIII
An Italian revolutionary leader, Giusseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), a 33rd degree Mason, was selected by the Illuminati to head their worldwide operations in 1834. (Mazzini also founded the Mafia in 1860). Because of Mazzini’s revolutionary activities in Europe, the Bavarian government cracked down on the Illuminati and other secret societies for allegedly plotting a massive overthrow of Europe’s monarchies. As the secrets of the Illuminati were revealed, they were persecuted and eventually disbanded, only to re-establish themselves in the depths of other organizations, of which Freemasonry was one.
Picture of Albert Pike

During his leadership, Mazzini enticed Albert Pike into the (now formally disbanded, but still operating) Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one world government, and when asked by Mazzini, readily agreed to write a ritual tome that guided the transition from average high-ranking mason into a top-ranking Illuminati mason (33rd degree). Since Mazzini also wanted Pike to head the Illuminati’s American chapter, he clearly felt Pike was worthy of such a task. Mazzini’s intention was that once a mason had made his way up the Freemason ladder and proven himself worthy, the highest ranking members would offer membership to the secret ‘society within a society’.
In 1871, Pike published the 861 page Masonic handbook known as the Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
After Mazzini’s death on March 11, 1872, Pike appointed Adriano Lemmi (1822-1896, 33rd degree Mason), a banker from Florence, Italy, to run their subversive activities in Europe. Lemmi was a supporter of patriot and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, and may have been active in the Luciferian Society founded by Pike. Lemmi, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all these men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschild.
Between 1859 and 1871, Pike worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th Century.
In addition to the Supreme Council in Charleston, South Carolina, Pike established Supreme Councils in Rome, Italy (led by Mazzini); London, England (led by Palmerston); and Berlin, Germany (led by Bismarck). He set up 23 subordinate councils in strategic places throughout the world, including five Grand Central Directories in Washington, DC (North America), Montevideo (South America), Naples (Europe), Calcutta (Asia), and Mauritius (Africa), which were used to gather information. All of these branches have been the secret headquarters for the Illuminati’s activities ever since.
(More About Albert Pike)
Albert Pike received a vision, which he described in a letter that he wrote to Mazzini, dated August 15, 1871. This letter graphically outlined plans for three world wars that were seen as necessary to bring about the One World Order, and we can marvel at how accurately it has predicted events that have already taken place.

“The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the “agentur” (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions.” 2

(Students of history will recognize that the political alliances of England on one side and Germany on the other, forged between 1871 and 1898 by Otto von Bismarck, co-conspirator of Albert Pike, were instrumental in bringing about the First World War.)

“The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm.” 3

After this Second World War, Communism was made strong enough to begin taking over weaker governments. In 1945, at the Potsdam Conference between Truman, Churchill, and Stalin, a large portion of Europe was simply handed over to Russia, and on the other side of the world, the aftermath of the war with Japan helped to sweep the tide of Communism into China.

(Readers who argue that the terms Nazism and Zionism were not known in 1871 should remember that the Illuminati invented both these movements. In addition, Communism as an ideology, and as a coined phrase, originates in France during the Revolution. In 1785, Restif coined the phrase four years before revolution broke out. Restif and Babeuf, in turn, were influenced by Rousseau – as was the most famous conspirator of them all, Adam Weishaupt.)

“The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the “agentur” of the “Illuminati” between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion.
We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view.

This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time.” 4


Since the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, world events, and in particular in the Middle East, show a growing unrest and instability between Modern Zionism and the Arabic World. This is completely in line with the call for a Third World War to be fought between the two, and their allies on both sides. This Third World War is still to come, and recent events show us that it is not far off. Source

World War 3 Timeline

These are, I believe, the stages of the planned Third World War:

Prelude – The events leading up to the start of World War Three, including Sept 11, 2001.
Act 1 – The Middle East. Widespread conflict to bring the entire region into the flames of war, possibly triggered by Iran or militants in Pakistan using North Korean supplied nuclear arms. The first Scene in this Act is the US Invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.
Act 2 – Israel at War — Against her Arab neighbors, possibly Palestine. A Palestinian State will be established, so that all Israelis will be fully separated from Palestinians (listen out for mention of a 7-year treaty to be confirmed by a World Leader – probably Bush), only for Israel to viciously attack Palestine shortly thereafter.
Act 3 – Far East — “Hair-raising nuclear confrontation that threatens mankind’s existence” – Peter Lemesurier, author of The Armageddon Script, p. 223, written in 1981. Includes China invading Taiwan and a nuclear eruption on the Korean Peninsula.
Act 4 – Erosion of Confidence in ‘The System’ so severe citizens will be panicked into giving up liberties and Constitutional form of government. The plan calls for the dissolution of the US Constitution, triggered by a significant enough ‘terrorist’ attack. The ultimate intent is to introduce a global government and one-world religion.
Act 5 – The collapse of the US, and other Western economies and morals.
Act 6 – Significant population reduction using natural and man-made disasters.
Curtain. Who can tell how this war will end?

Both Biblical prophecy and the Illuminati plan state that Israel is the key. The Third World War is planned to begin when Israel goes to war against her Arab enemies. Then, and only then, will all the other elements begin to occur and they will do so in rapid succession. The plan is to have one disaster following another in such rapid succession that, before people can mentally and emotionally handle one disastrous news event, they will be hit with another. It is also accurate to say that until ALL of the elements for WW3 are in place, the plan will not commence.
While it would be naive to suggest a specific timeline for the events leading up to and including World War 3, we do know that the plans for World War 3 are well advanced, and our leaders involved in this secret plan are waiting only for the right signal before all-out war begins.
We are in the last stages of the preparation to so globalize the world that the Masonic New Age Christ (Antichrist) can appear to receive all the political and economic power of the world’s rulers. This is the Illuminati plan and Biblical prophecy (Revelation 17:12-17).
In the words of Peter Lemesurier, author of The Armageddon Script:

“Their script is now written, subject only to last-minute editing and stage-directions. The stage itself, albeit in darkness, is almost ready. Down in the pit, the subterranean orchestra is already tuning up. The last-minute, walk-on parts are even now being filled. Most of the main actors, one suspects, have already taken up their roles. Soon it will be time for them to come on stage, ready for the curtain to rise. The time for action will have come.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats and welcome on stage the players of this Grand Play:

World War Three!

(Source)

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The Georgia Guidestones, erected 1991 by R.C. Christian

: The English version of the Guidelines

The ten guides for a new Age of Reason are as follows:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

As you can see, the guidelines call for a drastic reduction of the world population, the adoption of new a world language, the creation of a world court and a vague allusions to eugenics. In other words, a blueprint for a New World Order.

Depopulation, Planned Parenthood and Eugenics

The first “commandment” is particularly shocking, since it basically stipulates that 12 out of 13 people on Earth should not exist; basically, that would mean everybody in the world would disappear except half of India. If today’s world population is 6,7 billion, then that is a 92.54% surplus. To consider these figures is mind-boggling. But then, how many people survived in the movie 2012? Not many. Who were they? The earth’s wealthiest people. Is this predictive programming?
The last rule of the Guidestones, “Be not a cancer on the earth – leave room for nature – leave room for nature” is particularly disturbing as it compares human life to cancer on earth. With this state of mind, it is easy to rationalize the extinction of nearly all of the world’s population.
Massive depopulation is an admitted goal of the world’s elite and many important people have openly called for it:
In 1988, Britain’s Prince Philip expressed the wish that, should he be reincarnated, he would want to be “a deadly virus” that would reduce world population. More recently, Bill Gates said “The world today has 6.8 billion people … that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” Along with tax-deductible donations of enormous amounts of money to help the depopulation cause, “secret meetings” of the world’s elite have been taking place to discuss those issues:

“Some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.
Described as the Good Club by one insider it included David Rockefeller Jr, the patriarch of America’s wealthiest dynasty, Warren Buffett and George Soros, the financiers, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, and the media moguls Ted Turner and Oprah Winfrey.”
The Sunday Times, May 24th 2009

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BANKER ENGINEERED WORLD WARS I & II
The Central Bankers engineered the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, providing Lenin and Stalin millions in Gold, while training them in New York City before shipping them off in sealed private rail cars into Russia.
It is estimated that between 20-45 million native Russians died because of their Dictatorships, completely financed and orchestrated by the Central Bankers. Yet we never hear about the genocide committed in Russia, only the few million, if that, of the Jews (only the Jews? what about the Armenians, French, English, Americans, etc.) .

WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION