BRICS straining to leave clasp of Federal Reserve system

I'm getting to ready to flush out one more blog post, which had been sitting in my drafts beginning around March 2012. The sources of this material appeared sporadically over the period from March to May of 2012. My original ambitious goal was to weave all of these together to present a single strong narrative about the shaky status of US Dollar reserve currency status.

Since now it is obvious that I will NOT have as much bandwidth as initially hoped to expound upon these sources, I've decided to flush out the post primarily as a collection of links themselves. Even though all of the sources date from Spring of 2012, every single point from these sources is just as valid as when it was published. In fact, even more so. Presented as a collection in this post, this material speaks for itself very strongly.

BRICS development bank one step closer

The BRICS grouping of influential emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - have taken another step towards establishing a development bank that could one day rival the World Bank.

Dallas Federal Reserve: US Taxpayers will be on the hook for more big commercial bank bailouts

Taxpayers will be on the hook for another giant Wall Street bailout, and the economy won’t be mended, unless the nation’s biggest banks are broken up. This is the conclusion of the Dallas Federal Reserve, one of the most conservative of the Fed’s regional banks.

Federal Reserve buying 61 per cent of US debt

The Federal Reserve is propping up the entire U.S. economy by buying 61 percent of the government debt issued by the Treasury Department, a trend that cannot last, Lawrence Goodman, a former Treasury official and current president of the Center for Financial Stability, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion article. Goodman also warns that U.S. economy and markets are “at risk for a sharp correction” if conditions aren’t “normalized.”

BRICS summit in India does not trust US Dollar strength for reserve currency

BRICS summit in India issues MAJOR warning to US Dollar reserve currency status
 

Peter Schiff sounds off on the demise of US Dollar
 

Above 3 are all video links along the same lines, essentially summarized as the title of this blogpost: "BRICS straining to leave clasp of Federal Reserve system".

Ben Bernanke to US Congress: We're Much Closer to Total Destruction Than You Think

This source is rather "hilarious". How is that for a lesson in "Hypocrisy 101", "Mr. Engineer of taxpayer funded bailout of commercial banks", sounding off on perils facing ahead!?!

Warning that our nation's fiscal health has deteriorated appreciably since the onset of the financial crisis and the recession, Bernanke called upon lawmakers to confront the long term fiscal challenges sooner rather than later. If lawmakers don't confront them, they'll find themselves confronted by them.

Egan-Jones Cuts U.S. Rating One Step to AA Citing Growing Debt

Egan-Jones Ratings Co. cut the U.S. credit rating one step to AA, the second downgrade in nine months and two levels below its highest grade, with a negative outlook citing the nation’s increasing debt burden. U.S. debt has increased to 100 percent of gross domestic product, while debt climbed 23.6 percent from 2008 to 2010, the credit-rating firm said in a statement today. Egan-Jones lowered the U.S. grade to AA+ in July. The downgrade was based on “the increasing debt load coupled with the fact that there has been no tangible progress in addressing the country’s growing debt to GDP” ratio, Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones in Haverford, Pennsylvania, said today in a telephone interview. “Unfortunately, the debt is growing fairly rapidly while the GDP is not.”

The Best Reason in the World to Buy Gold

Beijing is planning to avoid U.S. financial sanctions on Iran by paying for oil with gold. China’s imports of the metal are already large, and you can guess what additional purchases are going to do to prices. As Iran is being cut off from the global financial system, the next best thing for them to accept is gold. The Iranian central bank said it would accept that metal as payment for oil. Last year, China imported $21.7 billion in Iranian oil and exported $14.8 billion in goods and services. Look for Beijing to ship gold to Iran to make up the difference.

China to start direct currency trading with Japan

China and Japan have agreed to start direct trading of their currencies from Friday as Beijing moves toward making the yuan more of a global currency. Until now, China has only allowed direct trading between the yuan and the U.S. dollar, under tight limits that have been loosened only gradually.

Rockefeller and Rothschild Dynasties Join Forces

And last but not the least: As if the current state of globally connected Central Banking hegemony is not sufficient, an even more frightening prospect of increasing totalitarian state of global economic/political conditions. Keep this point in mind as we envision more US taxpayer funded bailouts of commercial banks, and as yet unresolved (and deteriorated) economic conditions in Europe.

What do notions of national sovereignty even mean, if the boundary lines of major Central Banking houses become even more blurred than they already are? This point is over and above any bailouts for nations like Greece, diluting retirement savings of German citizens under an umbrella of "European Central Bank".

Two of the world’s best-known banking families are combining forces after RIT Capital Partners, the investment trust led by Jacob Rothschild, said on Wednesday that it was buying a minority stake in the investment and wealth management firm Rockefeller Financial Services.

Whither free markets? "Free markets" for Information?

For proper functioning of "free markets" and true capitalism (classical supply-demand stuff), first you need "true free market of information".

If all you get are force-fed lies and propaganda in the "market of information", it will be a small wonder you may never see free markets. And may never experience what real purpose of capitalism was supposed to be about.

I found following excellent article expounding more on this topic, have at it!

When consumers lack information, free-market system falters

Economists refer to following situations as markets with asymmetric information: Only seller being privy to private information about the transaction, and chooses to either not disclose such information or lie about it. Unlike buying a piece fruit or a shirt, where customers know exactly what they are purchasing, in markets with asymmetric information buyers do not know whether they are receiving the service or product that is in their best interest. And, more importantly, sellers in these markets do not have any incentive to reveal the truth, because doing so does not serve the seller's interest.

BTW, my motivation in posting this is not to dig deep into technical nitty-grittys of issues like internet freedom, net neutrality, Google search relevance/ranking algorithm, algorithms of various social networking sites like youtube/Facebook/twitter etc. Of course, those topics are extremely important.

However in this "blogette", I'm merely triggering brainstorm of thoughts at much higher policy/philosophy level with respect to the media-industrial-complexes.

Fiat Money = House of Smoke and Mirrors

To whoever happens to be reading my blog post musings: Due to being insanely busy since last March, I have had absolutely no bandwidth for new activity/new posts on this blog.

In the intervening period, we were subjected to the charade of a Presidential election between two empty-suit candidates of two empty "major" political parties, that does not amount to a hill of beans. But for anyone who is keeping track of that "man behind the curtain", regardless of how much the Wizard shouts "Pay no attention to him", this was to be expected anyway. Hardly a surprise. I mean, when was the last "real" US Presidential election between "real" major candidates? As opposed to two empty-suit puppets of central bankers? When was that last US Presidential election which actually dealt with substantive topics like philosophy of monetary policy, Constitutional governance, role of Federal and State governments, philosophies of various -isms such as free market capitalism, crony capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, corporatism, corporate fascism and on and on? All of this, as opposed to the status quo of obscenely fake media circus a numb society has resigned to expect and accept? At least from my personal memory, it was a very long time ago that there has been such substantive Presidential election in the US. Couple of elections in which Ronald Reagan was involved, as well as the brief interludes of one Ross Perot come marginally close. However, hardly such. Those keeping tabs very well remember all the US taxpayer subsidized messing around in Central America and support of various ruthless fascist dictatorships around the world during the times of that "Constitutionally Conservative" Reagan. Can anyone say Grenada? As for Ross Perot, that man hardly ever mentioned interlinking of Federal Reserve central banking system with taxation, and its close interlinking with foreign policy, impact on free market trading, employment, currency wars, and last but not the least...How do all of these issues really relate to the US Constitution? It's quite possible he himself had no personal convictions of his own to be mentioning such topics in the first place.

Anyway, that was a long digression about the fake circus of elections. Less said about it, the better.

Coming back to the point of lack of my bandwidth. It hardly means there has been a break in my own personal musings however. As a matter of fact, I have skeletons of a number of "new" blog posts listed below, sitting in draft form in my blog with time-stamps ranging from March to June 2012. Roughly once a month, I happen to randomly and hopelessly glance at these skeletons...Wondering if I will ever get any chance to dress them with flesh and muscles? And the realistic answer is, most probably not! Couple of posts concerning topics of time-sensitive nature may even lose their relevance, by the time I find that ever-elusive bandwidth. Sigh, whatever.

As for the non-time-sensitive topics: If someone else reading this has more bandwidth and wants to take mantle of fleshing them out, please be my guest! Please have the courtesy of dropping me a comment cross-referencing your material OR refer from your material to my blog however, should you take such action.

• Myth of low interest rate Refinancing flurry
• Federal Reserve Currency Generation flowchart
• 21st Century Schizoid Man
• Great Chinese inflation and American Silver crisis
• Were Abraham Lincoln's Civil War era Central Bank backed Greenbacks really a DEBT-FREE Fiat Currency?
• One person's "Liberal" is another person's "Conservative". Who's keeping track?

So what's the point of this meta-blog post rambling about my inability to add more blog posts? Well actually, I happened to come across following headline which got more than a sarcastic chuckle out of me. It brought the urge in me to come to this blog and actually add this post, breaking the doldrums of inactivity. This happens to be exactly identical topic as the first bullet point in my skeleton list above, which I created back in March! Since I may never finish that post, I'm going to indirectly finish it with this one with a cryptic update. I just don't have the bandwidth to write long-winded explanations justifying the cryptic points. I hope the least my cryptic posts could achieve is to get the reader start brainstorming on such issues and kick-start their own research.

As I'm typing this wondering aloud, I might get more in the habit of adding such cryptic posts in the near future. That just might be one way of defeating the "lack of bandwidth" problem.

Mortgage rates drop to record lows

Fiat money = House of smoke and mirrors

All await failure of commercial banks and requests for taxpayer funded bailouts of criminal banksters when the true high value of interest rates hits the fan.

QE-Infinity, here we come....To the doom of Infinity and Beyond!!! Get your paper currency printers all fine-tuned.

NOT.

South Africa joins in on attack on US Dollar trade currency status

Beware, the worldwide attacks on hallowed status of American Dollar continue! These ought to be huge concerns for ordinary citizens with savings in this currency, as well as whatever investors are left hoarding their reserves in this currency. From today's headlines:

Brics move to unseat [US] dollar as trade currency

SOUTH Africa will this week take some initial steps to unseat the US dollar as the preferred worldwide currency for trade and investment in emerging economies.

Thus, the nation is expected to become party to endorsing the Chinese currency, the renminbi, as the currency of trade in emerging markets.

This means getting a renminbi-denominated bank account, in addition to a dollar account, could be an advantage for African businesses that seek to do business in the emerging markets.

The move is set to challenge the supremacy of the US dollar. This, experts say, is the latest salvo in the greatest worldwide currency war since the 1930s.

A short while ago I blogged about use of gold as currency for transactions between India and Iran. If these trends continue, it can only be a matter of time the attacks will move from "trade currency status" to "reserve currency status".

There already are serious grumbling concerns about multi-route transfer(s) of funds from Federal Reserve to Bank of England to European Central Bank, eventually being used for bailouts in countries such as Greece. Since it's not fully disclosed how much such mischievous activity has contributed to devaluation of American dollar, it is hard to fault countries like South Africa on looking for alternatives for this currency.

As I said, these are SERIOUS warning signs from around the globe. But meanwhile, mainstream American media continue with their charade and mainstream American populace continues to stay sound asleep in its catatonic trance.

Multiple International/Domestic Currency Pressure Points

I also received some private messages regarding US Dollar currency pressure issues in current events, which I quickly wanted to get out of the way.

From earlier this month, March 7, 2012 :

Silver investment demand in China soars

‘You have the Chinese sitting on a store of $2.5 trillion US of which they know is completely useless, so I think they are looking at gold, but also at silver as a store of value and a way to hedge against the decline of the US dollar,’...

China and India are the largest silver marketplaces globally. While unprecedented constructions and setting up of new factories are driving up the industrial demand for silver, rising gold prices is forcing people to opt for silver jewellery in place of gold jewellery.

And also from around the same time earlier this month, March 8, 2012 :

Reputed American investor Jim Rogers is very well known to be pessimistic on American Dollar and mounting sovereign debt. He is a strong critic of wasteful American foreign policy. This policy spends too much money on unconstitutional militarism (being policemen of the world), and has very little to do specifically with defense of American borders against foreign invasions. This is quite a sobering assessment indeed.

Jim Rogers predicts lost decade ahead

“Prepare for another lost decade.” Due to the easy money policies of global central bankers, there will be little if any economic growth in the years ahead.

Weak currency policies will result in higher inflation, and the unwillingness of global authorities — particularly the United States — to take needed steps has made Rogers gloomy.

In the case of the United States, eventually the Federal Reserve will be unable to maintain its low interest rate policies or finance the federal deficit by expanding its balance sheet. When this happens, Treasury bonds will have to compete for investment capital at market interest rates. This will send mortgages higher, devastating the real estate sector. Equities will suffer as fixed income instruments will offer much higher yields, as in the 1980s.

Woodrow Wilson "re-incarnated Clone" threatens India with sanctions over Iran Cold War?!

It has been my policy to stay out of clearly "political/partisan" rants on this blog on principle. But I have to make an exception today. It's very difficult to completely hide from it when matters reach this level/magnitude, so here goes.

In response to my last blog post (Iran coldwar affront to dubiously hallowed territory of US Dollar "World Reserve Currency" status) : Someone sent me a private message about a headline from exactly 1 week ago. It had somehow gone underneath my radar, but it is extremely relevant and I'm going to vent very strongly.

U.S. May Sanction India Over Level of Iran Oil Imports

India has failed to reduce its purchases of Iranian oil, and if it doesn’t do so, President Barack Obama may be forced to impose sanctions on one of Asia's most important nations, Obama administration officials said yesterday.

If India fails to cut Iranian imports sufficiently, Obama may be compelled to bar access to the U.S. banking system for any Indian bank processing oil payments through Iran’s central bank, the U.S. officials said.

Continuation from yesterday:

Hillary Clinton Names Iran Sanctions Waiver Recipients

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday 11 countries that have received waivers from tough sanctions on Iran.

The nations – Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the U.K.– reduced their oil purchases from Iran significantly enough that financial institutions based there won’t be frozen out of the U.S., as per legislation signed into law Dec. 31.

So, here we have an administration of the re-incarnated Woodrow Wilson "Ivy Leaguer clone". He happens to be nothing but a spokesperson puppet for Federal Reserve and private banking industry, a stark facade just like several presidents before him. His administration is threatening other nations like India in matters of free-trade with some other nations. Surely, sovereign nations like China and Russia are implicitly lumped in that list with India as well. As maintained earlier, such restrictions would raise oil prices worldwide. It would cause untold hardships to too many people all over the planet, not just people in India, Iran or USA.

On what authority are these "holier than thou" threats being made? By becoming arbitrary policemen of the world? Quite certainly, they're not under guidelines of US Constitution. There is no clause in the US Constitution which dictates anything about what trade India or China can have with Iran, and vice versa. As a matter of fact, our founders worked diligently to produce a minimal yet complete Constitution that was clear in foreign policy matters. John Quincy Adams (who was technically not a founder, but son of a founder - yet later, a statesman in his own right nonetheless) helped influence the "No Entangling Alliances" part of foreign policy. It ended up being incorporated in George Washington's famous "Farewell Address". Nor are the threats being made under guidelines of Constitution of India or Constitution of Iran.

Some 220+ years later, we have administrations commiting egregious sins such as:

• "Weapons of Mass Destruction" lies to launch unconstitutional war on a nation that had not attacked us.
• "Banks Too Big to Fail" lies for unconstitutional taxpayer funded bailouts of private banks which deserved to collapse under free market principles.
• Continuing a nebulous occupation in Afghanistan with serial heavy blunders in terms of human life and material costs - least of which is burning taxpayer money during bad economic times and mounting debt back home - that nobody has any clarity on its exact objective anymore.

Given that there are serious moral failings of such high magnitude with itself, it should be imperative for US administration to work on improving upon them; to rein in within its own rule of law - the US Constitution. Instead, we see an uncomfortable situation of an administration lacking moral fiber giving hypocritical sermon from a bully pulpit to the rest of the planet.

And heaven knows, not all matters are nice and clean in India either. But this rant is not about that at all. Rampant corruption at high and low rungs of society, corrupt and crony corporate welfare of big magnitudes, an anti-corruption revolutionary movement under Anna Hazare's leadership - these are all well documented facts. But these are internal matters for the Indian population and Indian government to deal with. The premise of my rant here is Indian government looking out for interests of its population, their energy needs and doing free-market trade with Iran for those exact purposes. Iran has not threatened India in any manner, nor has India threatened Iran in any manner. They are both perfectly justified in seeking mutual trade and minding their business. Being threatened with "sanctions" by a third nation over such trade matters invoking a questionable "International Law" reeks of hypocrisy.

Woodrow Wilson administration was involved in a mess of identical nature. Exactly 100 years ago, US Presidential Election of 1912 was one of the most rigged elections in history till that date. Efforts for formation of a central banking authority [much maligned Senator Aldritch bill] had bitterly failed during earlier Taft administration. The private banking cartel would not give up and tenaciously located "Woodrow Wilson"  - a polished Ivy League professor - as a puppet for their objectives. An already retired Teddy Roosevelt installed a questionable new socialist party called "Bull Moose Progressive Party" and bizarrely jumped into the election campaign - while there already was another socialist candidate representing the Communist Party! As later events would prove, Teddy Roosevelt was funded by the banking lobby to divide up votes and take revenge on reelection efforts of incumbent Taft. The banking cartel was extremely motivated come hell or high water to achieve their objective of defeating Taft, and installing Woodrow Wilson as their puppet. They certainly did not waste any time, giving birth to the infamous Federal Reserve during Wilson's first term. Ever since then, for close to 100 years the Fed has been responsible for engineering boom and bust cycles, triggering recessions and a depression, funding perpetual belt of welfare/warfare, and helping install international hegemonies of World Bank, IMF, United Nations etc.

Under the guise of "avoiding involvement in WWI international conflict", Wilson was reelected in 1916. Following are well-known legacies from his second term, which are all water under the bridge.

• American involvement in WWI.
• Creation of "League of Nations" as the inaugural bully pulpit, giving Woodrow Wilson and United States a license for enforcing "international law".
• The disastrous Treaty of Versailles, which in fact ended up becoming a catalyst for WWII! The entire package of "Fourteen Points" of "progressive neo-liberal neo-conservative Idealism" hogwash. This essentially has been the gospel of downstream US interventionist foreign policy, illustrated by disasters such as Vietnam War, Iraq wars etc.
• King-Crane commission as response to uniateral Sykes-Picot (British/French) agreement. The proposal of that commission was American occupation of Middle-East, which didn't end up being implemented. To this day, the volatality in Middle East remains unresolved. One could argue that perpetually alive volatality benefits Military Industrial Complexes.

The WWI participation would not have been possible without existence of Federal Reserve and its global interlinking with other central banks such as Bank of England. It is also not a coincidence that enforcement of US Constitution progressively became an afterthought and hinderance during Federal Reserve's existence as years went by.

Roughly 100 years later, the US Constitution has been undermined to such a degree that it has been reduced to a worthless piece of document. Again, we have a president with Ivy League polished connections as a puppet mouthpiece for private banking cartel. During his first term, the Woodrow Wilson clone has also helped private banking industry with their goals come hell or high water - unconstitutional bailouts after criminal behavior during prior president's term. The administration has also shown open contempt for free-market principles and fundamentals of capitalism in many different ways during this term. Also notice international conflicts being on the forefront during this Woodrow Wilson clone's reelection efforts, just like Woodrow Wilson of 100 years ago. And throw in the bully pulpit of international law, sticking nose in other nations' business about their affairs, disregard for US Constitution, and voila! We have a disastrous recipe for repeat of unfortunate global events from roughly 100 years ago. You couldn't make this stuff up, if you sat in a laboratory and strived to replicate it. It's almost as if the script is being followed to the last detail, even after 100 years.

The big difference this time around is, US has a crushing debt owed to China. It's almost coming upto "emperor has no clothes" scenario. India, China and Russia - all of whom have interests of doing trade with Iran - have possessions of nukes. As a matter of fact, throw in India's bitter rival in other matters from the neighborhood, Pakistan - and they have nukes too. Pakistan have had their own issues to deal with, with disenfranchisement of their population, corrupt/dictatorial regimes being kept alive with unconstitutional US aid and all sorts of chaotic mess of extreme complexity.  When it comes to dealing with Iran related sanctions however, I can't see why China, India, Russia and Pakistan (all 4 nations with nukes) cannot form a coalition. All of them should be able to trade with Iran on their respective terms, according to the needs of their populations if they want to. A coalition of such magnitude could put brakes on escalation of international conflict and avoid repeat of unfortunate horror from 100 years ago.

Addendum:

1. It's clear teachings of basic economics / history / political science have been hijacked, and manipulated. Discussion of history has always been biased, whether in school textbooks or media to suit canned goals. Why do you think everyone on US TV channels keeps talking about Ayatollahs, but nobody knows about Mohammad Mossadeq? Economic theories of Keynes are taught like Gospel in business schools, as if there is no other alternative.
2. James Madison, one of the founders & the key architect of US Constitution left us with a warning. According to him, the Constitution was merely a working document. That piece of paper wouldn't magically guard the nation against being hijacked and undermined. It's upto the people to adhere to it & demand accountability at all times. If majority of people choose to live in a zombified stupor, democracy is a dangerous proposition. I would rather NOT have a clueless zombie vote & influence decisions against those who're paying attention & demanding accountability. This is EXACTLY the danger of "populous democracy" which Madison warned us against. (As an aside, Andrew Jackson was the architect behind the curse of this "full participation democracy".) If mass populations can be brainwashed (using modern media like instruments of the devil), a purely populous democracy is DANGEROUS compared to the "Constitutional Republic" which the founders had in mind.

The mechanisms of checks & balances are still all there in the Constitution. Founding fathers didn't miss on them. And luckily we still have our Constitution. It hasn't yet been abolished like Stalin/Mussolini/Hitler/Zia-ul-Huq/or what Indira Gandhi was trying to do during Emergency Rule. We just have to FOLLOW our Constitution. We have strayed far away from the Constitution since 100 years ago. Especially last 20 to 40 years have been the most pronounced aberrations.

Iran cold-war forefront over US Dollar Reserve Currency issue

I was planning to blog couple of different posts by next week, but one headline from today forced me to pre-empt.

Iran presses ahead with (US) Dollar attack

Here are notable excerpts from this article:

Iranian oil bourse will start trading oil in currencies other than [American] Dollar from March 20.

Iran has the third-largest oil reserves in the world and pricing oil in currencies other than dollars is a provocative move aimed at Washington. If Iran switches to the non-dollar terms for its oil payments, there could be a new oil price that would be denominated in euro, yen or even the yuan or rupee.

India is already in talks with Iran over how it can pay for its oil in rupees.

Even more surprisingly, reports have suggested that India is even considering paying for its oil in gold bullion. However, it is more likely that the country will pay in rupees, a currency that is not freely convertible.

Last week, Indian state-owned group Hindustan Petroleum said that Indian businesses could not pay for Iranian crude imports in rupees unless the federal finance ministry exempted such payments from crippling withholding tax. This issue remains unresolved.

India and Iran have agreed – but not yet started – to settle 45pc of payments for Iranian oil in rupees. Iran will then use the currency to buy imports from India.

New Delhi currently spends about $12bn (£7.6bn) on Iranian oil each year, importing 12pc of the country’s needs from the country.

India pays for its oil in dollars, routed through a bank in Turkey after a previous mechanism was shut down in 2010. The Indian government has been resisting calls to stop importing oil from the pariah state. “There have been problems with regard to Iran’s nuclear programme,” Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, said on Friday. “We sincerely believe that this issue can be and should be resolved by giving maximum scope to diplomacy."

As I've maintained during previous blog-posts, this continued cold-war stance is of no benefit whatsoever to the majority of population on this planet. It is definitely of no benefit to people of Iran, nor is it of any benefit to American population. These events are happening at precisely the worst possible time, considering multiple economic uncertainties all over the world. Increase in oil prices will have unimaginable and catastrophic economic consequences to too many people in the world, large majority of them poorest of the poor who don't have a dog in this cold-war fight.

As mentioned before, the concerns aren't specifically about how despotic/undemocratic the Ayatollah regime is or how human rights of Iranian population are suppressed, or any of those issues. The cold-war has been around since 1950s  (soon after end of WWII).

The key point in above article is: "Iran has third-largest oil reserves in the world". The real issue is about control of global resources by a centralized banking hegemony, nothing else. Such control would put global population at the mercy of whims of very select few. There should be no illusion whatsoever that American population will benefit in any way by militaristic stance on this issue. Almost all Western press has been unanimously complicit and biased, providing no historical perspective about complexity of the situation.

I feel it is urgent that a bilateral solution is found to defuse this crisis, or else there are dark storm clouds ahead to face for too many people.

China NOT "Desperately" dependent on US export market

Standard arguments offered by a number of people I've spoken with, about mythically magical "World Reserve Currency" status of US Dollar staying protected are as follows:

• China is more desperately dependent on propping up "World Reserve Currency" status of US Dollar than the US. China is desperately dependent on US export market, basically keeping their strong manufacturing sector pumping goods. Due to this dependence, there is NO WAY China could even remotely entertain prospect of stopping purchase of US Treasuries, or heaven forbid....dumping them! Debasement of US Dollar would hurt China, even more than it would hurt American population.

• When Soviet Union collapsed due to mischievous militarism in Afghanistan (as the last straw that broke camel's back), their currency collapse situation was very different than anything US could ever be faced with. Basicallly, big nations of Russia, Ukraine had no big importing consumption market. They were bunch of closed, isolated markets. No major economies outside Soviet Union really gave a hoot about whether their currency collapsed. You cannot possibly draw a parallel with the American situation there. US is the biggest economy in the world, the biggest consumer market and that will forever protect "reserve currency" status of US Dollar.

Here are critical refutals of these points:

• There is a fundamental point about China being missed here. China is now a strong consumption economy in their own right. For argument's sake, let's ignore their exports to other big economies. (For example economies in doldrums like Europe, Japan; or even emerging economies like India, Brazil.) On their own accord, they are a major economy themselves! If push comes to shove, if a global military conflict really pinned them in the corner; China will not hesitate to pull a retaliatory trigger and send US Dollar into panic. They will still be able to manage their affairs, albeit through difficulties under such scenraio.

• Soviet Union were forced to wisen up due to the natural balancing act of financial markets. Actually, it even led to their deserved disintegration! After shooting themselves in the foot with unwarranted militarism in Afghanistan, there was no magical banker bailout which could've kept Soviet Ruble alive. US has already outspent itself with unconstitutional militarism in Iraq. Nobody other than the Military Industrial Complex knows why US is still outspending by occupying Afghanistan. Haven't they learnt the lesson on what it did to the Soviets? Over and above this, back home the implosion of real estate market, shaky banking sector and unconstitutional bailout of private banks with taxpayer money - those by themselves would be strong catalysts for currency debasement to any strong economy. As if this entire fiasco is not enough, the Military Industrial Complex is still not done with its hunger for militarism and unconstitutional war profits! Through strong media and political propaganda, all motions are set for military conflict against Iran, a country that hasn't attacked the US. This is like a perfect recipe for doom. Just as the Soviet currency was humbled due to natural forces of markets, further belligerent militarism spending will set up US Dollar against the same market forces - its biggest nemesis. Just by uttering phrases like "Shining City on the Hill" or "American Exceptionalism" or standing in the middle of a street with puffed chest screaming "USA! USA!! USA!!!" isn't magically going to undo fundamental economic principles.

Has the Federal Reserve been a failure?

Here is a very interesting long paper from December 2010, which I discovered and wanted to share. It digs deep into the premise under which Federal Reserve was formed in 1913. Since then, over the course of multiple worldwide military conflicts, a depression, multiple recessions and recoveries, it has been an omnipresent (seemingly invisible) presence in the lives of millions. Many people may not be actively aware of its day to day existence, or understand how it works in detail, or have just taken its activities for granted. (Cue Wizard of Oz: Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!) If you live on this planet and participate in global markets, the Federal Reserve does have an impact on your life. Discussion here will mostly be focused on US population, and anyone else dependent on US Dollar as the basis of their transactions.

Although the paper below has 84 pages, from pages 48 onwards it's mostly references and charts. So it's not as long as it appears on first look. I'm quoting the most interesting snippets from my perspective:

Has the Federal Reserve been a failure?

From Page 3, talking about marathon inflationary forces created by the Fed :

The Fed has failed conspicuously in one respect: far from achieving long-run price stability, it has allowed the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, which was hardly different on the eve of the Fed's creation from what it had been at the time of the dollar's establishment as the  official U.S. monetary  unit, to  fall dramatically.

From Page 38, talking about whether there are any potential alternatives for present course of Federal Reserve, or should we be resigned to status quo? Note that the language is somewhat academic, but the point being made is very crucial :

Coming up with alternatives to the Fed today takes more imagination. Assuming that there is no political prospect of replacing the fiat dollar with a return to the gold standard or other commodity money system, for the dollar to retain its value some public institution must keep fiat base money sufficiently scarce. In this respect at least, our finding that the Fed has failed does not by itself indicate that it would be practical to entirely dispense with some sort of public monetary authority. But neither does it indicate that the only avenues for improvement are marginal revisions to Fed operating procedures or additions to its powers. On the contrary, the Fed's poor record calls for seriously contemplating a genuine change of regime.

 And finally, the damning assessment in "Conclusion" on Page 48 which I was waiting for :

Available research does not support the view that the Federal Reserve System has lived up to its original promise. Early in its career, it presided over both the most severe inflation and the most severe (demand-induced) deflations in post-Civil War U.S. history. Since then, it has tended to err on the side of inflation, allowing the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar to deteriorate considerably. That deterioration has not been compensated for, to any substantial degree, by enhanced stability of real output. Although some early studies suggested otherwise, recent work suggests that there has been no substantial overall improvement in the volatility of real output since the end of World War II compared to before World War I.

Along these lines, here is a very interesting article from January 26 which caught my eye. It appeared in the Wall Street Journal, of all places; which is surprising considering persistent Keynesian inclination of that paper.

Regardless of the discussion of current political happenings in that article, it has never been my intention to publicly endorse any parties/candidates in this blog. Obviously, that doesn't mean I don't have my opinions one way or another. It's just that for the purpose of this blog, I want to keep it uncluttered of political/election/partisan talk, and focus on policies/substance. That's all. 

Federal Reserve, the Need for a Stable Dollar (and Presidential Candidate US Congressman Ron Paul)

The most interesting snippet from this article - which is very much along the lines of above paper - is quoted below.

Dollar weakness doesn't work at all for economic well-being. The corollary to the Fed's policy of manipulating interest rates downward at the expense of savers is declining median incomes. It's no coincidence that inflation-adjusted median incomes rose in the sound-money booms of the Reagan and Clinton administrations and fell in the weak-dollar busts during the Carter, Bush and Obama years. When the currency weakens, the prices of staples rise faster than wages, hurting all but the rich who buy protection. The economy and median incomes would do much better if the Fed said simply that it would set interest rates as best it could in order to keep the dollar's value strong and stable in coming decades, with the goal of attracting capital, maintaining price stability and encouraging full employment. Yet the Fed is adamant that somehow business confidence will benefit by the Fed sharing its guesses on equilibrium interest rates—which after all are far from a science—but not its vital thinking on the future value of the dollar.

And finally, the "announcement" from January 25 by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke which makes you shake your head in bewilderment :

Ben Bernanke says: No Interest Rate Hikes till 2014!!

Which leads me to my concluding rant:

The idea that a bunch of bureaucrats working on behalf of private bankers could sit in a room, and in Soviet Politburo style make fundamental decisions about long-term interest rate direction is an anathema to fundamental principles of capitalism and free markets. The very basic principles of demand-supply economics, elasticity of free markets, that's what is supposed to determine equilibrium conditions for interest rates. This same elasticity of free markets is supposed to dictate trade patterns. Under those basic conditions, the markets are supposed to DICTATE interest rates. What we're witnessing with arbitrary long-term interest rate decrees is an exactly opposite system flipped on its head : A bureaucracy cooking up interest rates, which dictate market conditions. By definition, the Federal Reserve is behaving as the croniest of the bunch for basis of crony capitalism.

Here is an even more ridiculous fact: Completely unrelated to its original charter from 1913 founding (howsoever dubious that itself might have been), Fed has now even made dictating US employment/unemployment conditions as its charter! What in the name of capitalism is going on with that?

Here is the bottom-line: It doesn't matter how many bureaucrats arbitrarily decide to dictate interest rates and unemployment numbers. It doesn't matter how many cronies working for governments/private banks/lobbies cook up these numbers. In the end, the markets are all ruthless and unforgiving. Demand-supply equations of worldwide markets, physical/human resource limitations, natural calamities, man-made military conflicts, all of these factors are very unforgiving. It doesn't matter how big bailouts are engineered by which cronies. The markets eventually drown out all cronyism. The downside is, when markets are forced to return to their fundamental principles in ruthless manner, they bring misery to lives of countless number of ordinary people. Very select few at the top of crony-pyramid are able to take advantage, before the fundamental market forces come crushing. As a hint, imagine if interest rates are forced to rise to more honest values, how much of havoc it will cause in private banking industry. I hope to elaborate more on that point in near future.

By the way, along the lines of Ben Bernanke's cooked up zero interest rates, I have intended to blog about flurry of refinancing activity for quite a while. As a personal disclaimer, yours truly has taken part in such refinancing of whatever debts on occasion. My objective was to discuss the true value of such refinancing from macro-perspective. The premise being: Long-term predictability of fiat-currency's purchasing power (in terms of physical goods and services) is very bleak. In that context, how much impact would it really make if an individual household reduces their mortgage obligations from $2800/month to $2740/month, if long-term purchasing power of that $2740 is hard to predict? On a macro-level, these low-interest conditions are nothing but an illusion. Anyway, due to time constraints and length of this blogpost, I'll leave that discussion for another post on another day.

India to make oil payments to Iran in Gold - Not in American Dollar or Euro

Whoa, so this is a headline of huge significance to the subject matter of this blog. How about that, among all the global economic uneasiness coupled with invented Iran conflict tensions: Indian government dropped a bombshell!!

India to pay for Iran's oil in gold

Not only will they not participate in some bogus embargo/sanctions towards Iran, they WILL continue importing oil from Iran. Furthermore, they will trade with Iran using one of the oldest "hard" currency in the world, gold! Not in a fiat-currency of Euro, which has been on life support; not in the Indian Rupee which is also a fiat currency; and definitely not in the so-called "world's reserve FIAT currency" American Dollar.

As mentioned in earlier post, very big economies such as India, China, Japan and Germany are dependent on importing oil from Iran. Among them, Germany and Japan are two countries whose national defence still continues to be subsidized by the US. Yes, quite literally American taxpayers subsidize their defence even after 60+ years of end to WWII AND 20 years of end to Cold War. India and China are under no such obligations. With a national debt approaching (or maybe has already exceeded by now??) $16 trillion, growing uneasiness in society due to unemeployment and plethora of other issues; last thing in the world US currency can afford is taking on a needless military conflict.

Now, don't get me wrong. Like most major economies in the world, India also happens to be a country whose currency (Indian Rupee) is governed by a central banking system - The Reserve Bank of India. And like most major economies, this currency is fiat too - that is, it's not backed by any physical/natural resource. There is no telling, if sometime in the future even the Indian government/society engages in risky behavior of too much spending, out-of-control debt, too much needless warfare - even Indian currency could face grave prospects. This is nothing new, there are countless historical case-studies for this. I mean, I'm not talking rocket science here. It's something backed by basic common-sense arithmetic. Any empire that stretches way beyond its means and takes on unsustainable debt faces bankruptcy. Prosperity and welfare (howsoever well-intnetioned) cannot be magically created out of thin air by printing more and more paper currency backed by nothing. Napolean's French empire went bankrupt by over-ambitious warfare. Romans, Ottomans, British, Soviet and more empires stretched way beyond their means in warfare and crumbled. There doesn't seem to be a monopoly on greed and stupidity in any specific society. Who is to say the Indian banking system will never take on a self-destructive approach sometime in the future?

But in the most recent past and the present, this event is very significant. Due to the prolonged Japanese recession and serious economic turmoil in both Europe and USA, Reserve Bank of India had the foresight to load up on their gold reserves. Even though Indian Rupee itself may not be backed by any gold reserves, taking the wise move of loading up on gold has given India potential of surviving serious global economic turbulence. At the same time, it is extremely concerning for American Dollar's prospect of debasement. If other major economies like China start doing the same, it would be catastrophic for American Dollar. The status of being a global reserve-currency is what is keeping it propped up. If and when the dubiousness of this status gets exposed, all bets are off. The mischievous behavior Federal Reserve is engaged in -  notwithstanding taking on prospects of even more warfare - would DOOM whatever American Dollar savings American society accumulated in their bank accounts, retirement accounts etc.

I feel, it's high time more American voters and taxpayers start paying attention to the seriousness of economic uncertainty their government and central banking system is leading them into.

Belligerent War Propaganda on Iran is OUT OF CONTROL!

Unless you're living in a cave, you've heard of all mainstream American media going bonkers about deterioration of situation in Iran. Let's get one thing straight. Iran has NOT threatened or attacked anyone. They're being threatened by tremendous military buildup in their neighborhood. Iran is looking out for their security. They're perfectly justified in doing so. (If you really want to get to the bottom of it: Iran was minding their business after WWII in 1950s. US on leash of Federal Reserve and its neo-globalization agenda messed around in Iran, strengthening an autocratic dictatorship. This was coupled with America's alliance with another despotic regime - and an arch-nemesis of Iran - in the neighborhood, Saudi Arabia. More details on background of Iran specific events - Abadan oil crisis and Operation Ajax - hopefully coming up as a future blogpost. To summarize quickly: A democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran was overthrown, re-installing a brutal dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahalavi which bled that country dry. Things in Iran went downhill ever since, leading to current despotic regime. After catalyzing the mess in the first place, US foreign policy cannot hold high moral ground on this topic.)

There is talk of severe embargo and sanctions on Iran. Many of world's major economies - China, India, Japan, even Germany are critically dependent on importing oil from Iran. Escalation of this conflict will have crippling effects on global economy, let alone American economy. Government of Iran is dictatorial and definitely not ideal. But there are hundreds of other autocratic regimes on the planet. It's not US government's business going around breaking all of them, while economic conditions in the US deteriorate.

Unprovoked attacks on Iran will send world financial markets into a tailspin. It will degrade American fiat currency and hurt American taxpayers. Literally, US retirement accounts/401Ks could be wiped off their significant values. For a country faced with $16 trillion debt, it is incomprehensible that they could take on an expensive endeavor of attacking a country that has not attacked them. This is ALL a neo-global propaganda by American banking industry, particularly US Federal Reserve central bank for hedging their bets for control of global resources. No ordinary American citizen/taxpayer will benefit from the war-games. Thousands of ordinary Americans will die fighting wars, to benefit fat bankers getting fatter. This is over and above loss of thousands of ordinary Iranian lives. Existing worldwide financial system is designed fundamentally for neo-globalization, specifically control of important resources on a global scale. Due to the inter-connected nature of worldwide central banking system, notions such as national sovereignity or individual constitutions of nations mean very little. So we're looking at a scenario of:

• More American debt to be passed onto future American generations
• Debasement of US dollar, the fiat currency which is also world's reserve currency
• Disruption and panic in global finances
• Destruction and mayhem in lives of Iranians
• Only entities coming out ahead will be military contractors, and banking industry financing the war while hedging bets on resource control as its outcome

Last but not the least: Mainstream US media are the LAST place to turn to regarding unbiased views on this topic - including all TV channels, print/internet newspapers or magazines, commercial radio. They're all in unison stating exactly identical war propaganda. To understand how much of a plutocratic society US has become, examine following tidbits about ownerships of major American media:

The Mass Media & Politics: An Analysis of Influence

Specifically, examine the presence of major American banking industry on boards of directors of these corporations. Does anyone honestly feel it's in the interest of the big bankers to present facts as honest news, through media they control as propaganda instruments? These are the same bankers we're talking about hijacking American democratic process, engineering bailouts for them at the expense of American taxpayers, and financing wars which benefit them.

Addendum:

I wonder if political geniuses like Voltaire, William Penn and Ben Franklin thought about societies, free trade etc. in Utopian terms.

Unfortunately, wars and centralized resource control have been around for long time. (Mongols, Babylonians...) Yellow journalism for launching wars based on lies is not a new phenomenon. (Look up Pulitzer and William Hearst publications lying before launch of Spanish-American war. They literally made up stories that Spain blew up USS Maine off Cuba's coast. It turned out to be explosion due to an accident. They also concocted stories with lies that Cuban freedom fighters in Spanish jails were being tortured. It was used as pretext to attack Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines.)

Current state of technology for both warfare and media is extremely magnified compared to old days. We all have lived through how much damage these warmongers caused in Iraq under smear of lies. I'm very much concerned about Iranian population. Don't care much about tyrant dictators there - bunch of scumbags. But I can't imagine perpetuation of same mayhem that happened in Iraq, imposed on Iranian people. They're people of a very proud and rich Persian civilization, an amazing civilization that greatly contributed to this planet. At one time, Persia was literally the center of the world, a glue civilization that was in communication with major civilizations of those times: Egypt, Greece, China, India, Israel. Truly hoping the current mess ends without active warfare.

Federal Reserve Audit of August 2011 : Gluttony of Private Bankers Revealed

While most American taxpayers and voters were sleeping:

First ever audit of private banking cartel "Federal Reserve" - which is neither "Federal", nor has "Reserves" - reveals some damning facts. Let's not forget for even a micro-second that this private cartel controls entire money-supply for United States. Actually, it's even bigger than that. By virtue of American Dollar's somewhat arbitrary standing of "reserve currency" of entire planet right now, these private bankers are in control of events happening all over the planet, either directly or indirectly. This nefarious mechanism, through involvement of American taxpayers has been facilitated since 1913 (coming up to 100 year anniversary soon), during the criminal "wisdom" of Woodrow Wilson administration. [It's the entire administration, including Congress of the time which I'm referring to. I'm not terribly interested in personality character attacks like on Presidents, as much as effects they had on policy. Details on dark workings of those events which transpired in early 1910s, coming up as another blog post sometime in the future.]

Most people aware of questionable workings of Federal Reserve already know that it's not entities like Obama/Bush/Clinton or even US Congress who're in control of fundamental decisions for US "democracy". Rather it's the Fed. Scratch the surface of workings of election processes in the US, and it becomes obvious which industry dominates campaign contributions across party lines. It's the banking industry! I'm referring not only to Presidential Elections, but even (or rather, to a bigger extent) Congressional elections. Does anyone suppose if Goldman Sachs cares whether a Democrat or Republican gets elected as President OR whether the Congress is Democrat or Republican controlled!?! As long as the big banking industry is left to their devices - through campaign contributions to both big parties - they let the elected gangs continue with their distracting partisan charade. That is, keep voters engaged in pseudo-liberal versus pseudo-conservative partisan arguments. This is done while private banks get more and more gluttonous, but US voters unwillingly pass on huge deficits to next generations through combination of welfare AND/OR warfare.

I mean, after a little bit of introspection, it becomes crystal clear that it's the big bankers who're really in charge of major decisions - NOT elected governments. US Government seems to be a simple proxy for the banking cartel, not vice-versa. As a famous quotation said: "Give me the control of money supply of a land, and I care not who makes and enforces the laws of that land." Quite literally, the big private banking industry is more powerful than entire government and its military.

Also, let's not get fooled into thinking that it's personalities like Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke who are single-handedly in charge at the Fed. Surely, they're involved in some way. But for the most part, they're public-facing proxies for bigger hands at play in the background - entire cartel of private bankers that own Federal Reserve. Job of Greenspan/Bernanke figureheads appears to be more of public-relations nature.

OK, so now with that rant over : Let's actually look at the details of what this Fed Audit of August 2011 found. If you have a lot of bandwidth (which most voters and taxpayers don't), you can examine the entire audit at following link. Go on, knock yourself out!

Federal Reserve August 2011 Investigation

But since I suspect very few people have so much bandwidth, pointing a quick-link to the most damning page in this entire audit. If that link doesn't work for whatever reason, it's page 144 OF 266 in the PDF file. The literal page number in the file happens to be 131, with following table title:

Table   8:  Institutions  with   Largest  Total   Transaction   Amounts (Not  Term-Adjusted)  across  Broad-Based Emergency  Programs     December 1,   2007   through   July   21,  2010

Private Bank Bailout details - Federal Reserve August 2011 Investigation

Examining this, what do we see? It's a table of amounts, using deceptive term of "all-inclusive loans" given to big private banks. These are loans at 0% interest (US Treasury is used as a proxy), and none of the money has been repaid. So yes, quite literally we're looking at secret US taxpayer funded "bailouts" to these private banks! Names of all big American suspect cartels are there: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Chase/JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs. These big amounts benefitting private parties in billions and trillions are passed down to US taxpayers (especially future generations) as debt. What could be more sinister than this? Now, do you realize why figureheads like Bernanke were adamantly fighting tooth-and-nail against such audits of Federal Reseve in Congressional sessions?

But wait, look more closely and it gets even murkier. You even see names of foreign private banks: From Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Switzerland and so on! What in the world is going on here?!?! Yes, pun intended. There are bailout amounts using US taxpayer money for foreign banks! This is incredulous, which is exactly the international web of banking industry with involvement of Central Banking I was referring to in earlier post. US taxpayer money has crossed international boundaries to foreign banks, with involvement of US Central Bank (private entity) AND has been passed on as future debt to US taxpayers. Do you suppose, terms like "US Constitution" (the Supreme Law of the Land) have any relevance under such circumstances? I close once again, using the famous quotation below. I intentionally choose not to disclose from whom this quote comes. If interested, you can find out quickly with a Google search.

Give me the control of money supply of a land, and I care not who makes and enforces the laws of that land.

Addendum:

Obviously, it's NOT capitalism at fault here. In fact, what we're we're seeing in action is NOT capitalism at all!! Model of true capitalism relies on true free markets. Those furthering "selfish wants at the peril of betterment of others" are supposed to get ruthlessly exposed and punished under conditions of true free market/capitalism.

Both Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin have turned around in their graves multiple times. This is CRONY CAPITALISM at its worst. Since it's at such a massive scale, I feel these actions pose grave threat to stability of American (and potentially global) society.

About a comment: "We as individuals are to be blamed for direct interest in the profitability of these corporations, through 401K, mutual funds, personal investments": Once again, I turn to distinction between true free markets and crony markets. Show me a crucible of honest free markets, honest currencies and honest trading, and then "we as individuals" would rush to them. Very design of central banking systems of different nations, the way they're interconnected with each other through globalization necessitates interference of governments and undermines notions of free markets.

Quick "placeholder" collection of thoughts

I was hoping to get cranked up over month of December 2011, expanding on individual points in first post. However, unfortunately I've gotten crazily swamped and couldn't find as much time as I hoped.

In the interest of time, I wanted to put together a bunch of thoughts I've gathered over this period as a "placeholder" post. In fact, I wrote these commenting on someone else's blog elsewhere and copy-pasting here so I don't lose the train of thought. Hopefully will find more time in January 2012 to expand on this.

===============================

A claim is made that US Constitution is unworkable in modern world. This claim is indeed true. But the only reason for that is: GLOBALLY interconnected Central Banks e.g. Federal Reserve interlinked with European Central Bank, Bank of Japan etc. Through global systems such as IMF, it has created a banking hegemony spanning international boundaries with potential control of resources. Due to such hegemony, individual nation's constitutions and in American context dreams of Thomas Jefferson/James Madison/Ben Franklin mean NOTHING. If the GLOBAL hegemony is broken, US could have hope of turning to a true free market and true capitalism. US could do honest trading with other nations, focus on internal employment, and American governments (Federal/states/local) could address law/order situation better.

What we have in USA right now is crony capitalism and crony market. US currency is dishonest due to dishonest central banking. Trade with China is lopsided due to dishonest currency, and due to it the unemployment situation is serious. Costs for healthcare, higher education are dishonest. Trading for energy resources is done using dishonest currency OR rigged by fighting unconstitutional wars benefiting central bankers. Food and agriculture system has been corrupted. Immigration system is corrupt. All mainstream media in USA - TV/Radio/Newspapers/Magazines have turned into propaganda pieces of central banking system, because they're all owned by bankers. For foreign policy, they all spout propaganda lies. Furthermore, they have started relying on pool of questionable immigrants for military to fight questionable wars. Federal taxation is dishonest - literally out of control to meet demands of dishonest wars AND/OR dishonest lobbies built up at Federal level of government. Democracy process and elections are a charade, because they're heavily influenced/rigged by same corrupt media. They create illusion of left/right liberal/conservative red/blue 2 party system, but it's just smoke-and-mirrors. 2 major parties Democrat/Republican are virtually identical when it fundamentally comes to dishonest monetary policy and dishonest foreign policy. None of the candidates dare challenge corrupt central banking, else they would get shut out by bank-owned media during elections. The whole thing is a deck of cards, a shambolic mess. American Central Bank (Federal Reserve) is THE BIGGEST threat to stability of American society.