WHAT IS MONEY?
The Banksters who counterfeit it don't want you to now....

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Here's the REAL reason the US Dollar is shrinking... and will continue to shrink!

When you finish reading this article, you may change your mind about the war in Iraq.

I've written about extraterrestrials, HAARP and even the end of the world. So when Viewzone asked me to write about a boring topic like "global currency" I was inclined to say, "no way!" Heck, I can't even balance my checkbook. Money has always slipped through my fingers like beach sand. But I like a challenge, so here it is.

The information they gave me came from a brilliant investigative journalist, Rudo de Ruijter. It took time for me to digest what he wrote, and even more time to understand the importance of what he revealed. I must confess, I'm still shocked by what I learned.

This information is not new. International bankers and politicians know these facts all too well. It's the ordinary people -- the little guys like us -- who are told that these things are too complex for us to understand; yet it is because of "global currency" that we invaded Iraq, Afghanistan and, perhaps soon, also Iran. Sure, it's all about oil -- but not the way you think.

What is "money?"

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At the dawn of civilization, the earliest way to get something that you needed was called barter. I give you a cow and you build me a hut to live in. But what if I want a tiny hut? Do I give you half a cow? Placing a standard value on goods and services was first achieved through the use of currency, or money. Almost every culture has money. Ancient cultures used everything from sea shells and beads to huge circular stones to buy and sell. Eventually, precious metals were used and more recently the standard currency has been based on gold.

The value of precious metal is determined by its weight. Instead of carrying chunks or nuggets of gold and silver, early empires made standard "coins" of the metals and set a standard value in the marketplace. Coins were great for most transactions, but they were heavy and wore out your pants pockets quickly. Soon a new idea, paper money, was invented.

http://mondovista.com/money.coin.jpgThe original idea behind paper money was convenience. Each piece of paper represented a specific weight of a precious metal, usually silver or gold, that was kept somewhere in a treasury. If an individual wanted to, he could exchange the paper money for the gold or silver that it represented. It was all based on trust and a promise. In fact, the early paper money in America was called a "promisary note."

If you can find old dollar bills, you will read the promise written on each note. You will also notice that the notes are numbered. In this way, each note is unique and represents a corresponding weight of silver or gold in the US Treasury vaults.

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On a global scale, when someone in America bought something from a foreign country, they would pay in US dollars. The foreign company would then go to their local bank and exchange the dollars for their local currency. When foreign banks had a surplus of US dollars, they would then exchange them for gold. This meant that the US Treasury was always needing to acquire more gold to replenish its vaults and maintain the "gold backed" dollars in circulation.

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Prior to 1971 the dollars of the US were trusted all over the world. Each dollar was based on 1/35th ounce of gold, held in the US Treasury. The value of gold was fixed by law at 35 dollars = 1 ounce, so the value of each dollar was very stable. This made the dollar attractive as an international currency. But in 1971 this all changed.

The Nixon Legacy -- fiat money

http://mondovista.com/money.nixon.gifThe Vietnam War was a painful time for America. We're still paying for the sins of our past leaders -- quite literally. The war was so expensive (estimated at $500 Billion) that America didn't have sufficient dollars in print to pay the bills for the disaster (The gold reserve only had about 30 Billion). But Nixon had a plan. Why not just print more dollars? Never mind that there isn't enough gold on reserve to back each note. Just print as much as you need to pay the bills.

To do this he needed to change the law. So he did. The new system is called "fiat money" and is defined as follows: "Definition: Fiat money is money that is intrinsically useless; is used only as a medium of exchange." He ended the system of "promisary notes," ended the fixed value of gold and allowed the system of "supply and demand" to set the value of both gold and American currency. But wait! There's more!

Enter Oil: Black Gold

http://mondovista.com/money.oil.jpgBack in the early 1970's, America produced most of the oil it needed. Texas oil fields were active and a far cry from the rusted rigs you can still see there today. We imported a fixed amount, about 25%, from foreign countries, but our thirst for oil was getting stronger. Nixon knew that America and every developing nation in the world would need more oil in the future. He also knew that OPEC, the handful of countries that produced foreign oil, wanted the limits of American imports lifted so they could sell more. So he cut a deal.

The cap on 25% imported oil was lifted in exchange for the agreement that oil, purchased from any country in the world, would be bought only with American dollars. OPEC agreed and almost immediately there was a strong demand for dollars throughout the globe. This demand was not based on the value of gold but on the value that each dollar had in the marketplace. Since anyone who wanted oil had to have dollars, the dollar remained strong.

Another thing that helped pull this scheme off was the fact that gold, held by the US Treasury, went from its fixed value of $35/ounce to its present value of over $600/ounce. Of course a cup of coffee was once 5¢ and now my Starbucks Latte-Macchiato-double-Skim is close to $5!

Coffee, Automobiles and Computers: The Plot Thickens

Oil is a big import but not the biggest. Americans buy so many things from foreign countries that it is staggering to imagine. In 1973 the US sold more goods to foreign countries than it bought. But in each successive year the tables have turned.

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All of these goods are bought with "fiat dollars," meaning that the currency itself is worthless since it can never be exchanged for gold or silver. Of course, a foreign country could exchange it for something else -- something that was produced by America, like... hmm... (anyway). As the chart above shows, American exports, although representing 1.25 million dollars every two seconds, are insignificant.

Fiat dollars remain in circulation mainly because they are needed to buy oil. For this reason lots of countries keep huge supplies of dollars in their reserves. It has become a way of storing their national wealth. The fact that US dollars represent foreign national wealth adds to their value.

Good Is Bad: Bad Is Good

This kind of system turns traditional logic on its head. Like, a trade defecit is supposed to be a bad thing, right? Wrong. It's actually good for the dollar! Imagine what would happen if everyone started using their dollars to buy things from America. The US would be flooded with dollars which would cause inflation and, besides, we don't have enough goods and services to exchange for all those foreign US fiat dollars! In fact, America is technically, as of last year, bankrupt!

And what about higher oil prices... bad? No way. That keeps those pesky foreign flat US dollars "out there" and in high demand. It's very good for the dollar. Globalization, Nafta and Free Trade? Yep, they're also good for the dollar since they perpetuate the demand for greenbacks.

http://mondovista.com/money.pyramid.jpgThe whole system is kept running smoothly by global central banks who monitor the supply and demand for dollars on a daily -- even hourly -- basis. If there are too many dollars "out there" in the world, the US buys its own currency to create a scarcity. If there are too few, it sells more dollars or buys more foreign goods to replenish the supply.

If this is beginning to sound like a classic "pyramid scheme," you're starting to get the picture. But sooner or later, someone has to pay.

Houston, we have a problem!

Imagine what would happen if the oil producing countries in OPEC decided to sell oil in some other currency besides US dollars! What if they changed the system to use the Euro, the Franc or the Yen? What would happen if no one needed US dollars anymore? Hang on tight, it's already started.

Medvedev Shows Off Sample Coin of New 'World Currency' at G-8

By Lyubov Pronina

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev illustrated his call for a supranational currency to replace the dollar by pulling from his pocket a sample coin of a "united future world currency."

"Here it is," Medvedev told reporters today in L'Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. "You can see it and touch it."

The coin, which bears the words "unity in diversity," was minted in Belgium and presented to the heads of G-8 delegations, Medvedev said.

The question of a supranational currency "concerns everyone now, even the mints," Medvedev said. The test coin "means they're getting ready. I think it's a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are."

Medvedev has repeatedly called for creating a mix of regional reserve currencies as part of the drive to address the global financial crisis, while questioning the U.S. dollar's future as a global reserve currency. Russia's proposals for the G-20 meeting in London in April included the creation of a supranational currency.

Iraq

On November 6, 2000, Saddam Hussein switched the oil currency from the US dollar to the Euro. Two years later the Euro was rising in value while the dollar was sinking so low that the International Monitary Fund warned of the dollar's imminent collapse. The solution: Iraq was invaded on the pretext of developing weapons of mass destruction, the oil fields were seized and the newly installed government returned to the US dollar standard on March 19, 2003. Other nations, who held large dollar reserves, joined the coalition and contributed troops to pull this off.

Venezuela

Hugo Chavez has recently announced plans to nationalize the country's oil industry. Although Venezuela is a major oil producer and a member of OPEC, they have sold their oil to Cuba and other regional countries without the use of dollars and often in a barter exchange for domestically produced products. In 2001, Venezuela's ambassador to Russia announced that Venezuela was considering switching to oil sales in the Euro. Within one year the American government was seeking a regime change and America has been accused by Chavez of attempting to assassinate him in a failed coup attempt backed by the CIA.

Russia

Since June 8, 2006, Russia's Putin has been selling its reserves of US dollars. This has been done slowly to diminish any dramatic effect on the global supply, but it represents a decision of Russia to divest itself of a dollar reserve. The world market has taken notice.

China

An unprecedented signal from senior Chinese leaders that the Asian economic giant might abandon the U.S. dollar sent shockwaves through the markets today as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 360 points and the greenback fell to a record low against the euro.

November 19,2007:

Xu Jian, a Chinese central bank vice director, told a conference in Beijing, "The dollar is "losing its status as the world currency." Meanwhile, at the same meeting, Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of China's National People's Congress, said, "We will favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly."

Craig R. Smith, CEO of Swiss America Trading Corp., told WND he's been in the investment business for 30 years and has "never seen people more nervous."

Alarmed by today's economic news, he dispatched a note to brokers with a warning of ominous potential consequences if China and other trading partners abandon the dollar.

"If that were to happen, all bets are off, and we will be in a depression that makes 1929 look like child's play," he said, "or we will experience Weimar Republic inflation as the dollar makes extreme moves toward devaluations."

Russia Dumps US Dollar As Basic Reserve Currency

5-21-9

(Pravda) -- The US dollar is not Russia's basic reserve currency anymore. The euro-based share of reserve assets of Russia's Central Bank increased to the level of 47.5 percent as of January 1, 2009 and exceeded the investments in dollar assets, which made up 41.5 percent, The Vedomosti newspaper wrote.

The dollar has thus lost the status of the basic reserve currency for the Russian Central Bank, the annual report, which the bank provided to the State Duma, said.

In accordance with the report, about 47.5 percent of the currency assets of the Russian Central Bank were based on the euro, whereas the dollar-based assets made up 41.5 percent as of the beginning of the current year. The situation was totally different at the beginning of the previous year: 47 percent of investments were made in US dollars, while the euro investments were evaluated at 42 percent.

The dollar share had increased to 49 percent and remained so as of October 1. The euro share made up 40 percent. The rest of investments were based on the British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss frank.

The report also said that the reserve currency assets of the Russian Central Bank were cut by $56.6 billion. The losses mostly occurred at the end of the year, when the Central Bank was forced to conduct massive interventions to curb the run of traders who rushed to buy up foreign currencies. The currency assets of the Central Bank had grown to $537.6 billion by October 2008. Therefore, the index dropped by almost $133 billion within the recent three months.

The majority of Russian companies, banks and most of the Russian population started to purchase enormous amounts of foreign currencies at the end of 2008. The dollar gained 16 percent and the euro 13.5 percent over the fourth quarter. The demand on the US dollar was extremely high, and the Central Bank was forced to spend a big part of its dollar assets, experts say.

The change of the structure of the currency portfolio of the Bank of Russia has not affected the official peg of the dual currency basket, which includes $0.55 and 0.45 EUR.

The investments of the Bank of Russia in state securities of foreign issuers have been considerably increased, the report said. About a third of Russia's international reserves are based on US Treasury bonds.

Russia became one of the largest creditors of the US administration last year, the US Department of the Treasury said. Russia increased its investments in the debt securities of the US Treasury from $32.7 billion as of December 2007 to $116.4 billion as of December 2008.

India

Dollar no longer welcome at Taj Mahal
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Published: 19 November 2007

The Taj Mahal may have been built as a testament to love but some hard-headed business decisions are now holding sway at India's most famous monument. First among them is that the US dollar is no longer welcome.

With parts of the American economy in turmoil and the dollar rapidly losing its long-held position as the currency of choice, Indian authorities have calculated they are losing considerable sums of money by allowing foreign tourists to pay using greenbacks.

A statement by India's Ministry for Tourism and Culture said the government had decided to act "in view of the international practices and also to avoid any anomaly on account of falling exchange rates of the US dollar vis-a-vis the rupee and the consequent fall in revenues".

Until the change, foreign tourists visiting the Taj Mahal in Agra, south-west of Delhi, could enter by paying a fixed $5 (£2.45) fee – a price that was set when the dollar was worth around R50. But with the dollar having fallen by 12 per cent this year against the rupee and the current exchange rate closer to R39 to the dollar, the government has now fixed the entry price for foreigners at R250 – more than $6.

"These rates have been fixed in line with international practices," a ministry spokesman said. "It will avoid any anomaly on account of falling dollar-rupee exchange rates."

The ruling will affect around 120 sites overseen by the Archaeological Society of India, of which 27 – including the Taj Mahal – are World Heritage sites. The new rates are expected to be introduced as soon as this week to avoid a loss of income as the value of the dollar continues to fall.

Indonesia, Malaysia and Lybia

Other oil producing countries have already stated that they will begin moving from the dollar to the Euro. Indonesia, Malaysia and Lybia have already started this transition. Other countries like China and Japan are also beginning to convert a portion of their reserves to the Euro.

Iran

The US buys no oil from Iran following the hostage crisis in the 1970s. But Iran is a major global oil producer and, therefore, a major player in the "fiat dollar" scheme. In 1999 Iran announced plans to sell its oil in Euros. It actually started doing this in the spring of 2003. Iran sells about a third of its oil to European countries, the remaining share is largely bought by China. Following the announcement by Iran, the country was called an "axis of evil" by Bush and is currently the target of threats over its development of nuclear energy. At this writing, the US Navy has a large fleet in the Persian Gulf with contingency plans for an attack. Undoubtedly the desired outcome is regime change and re-establishment of the fiat dollar scheme.

UPDATE!

World Iran stops accepting U.S. dollars for oil

16:34 | 08/ 12/ 2007

TEHRAN, December 8 (RIA Novosti) - Iran has stopped selling its oil for U.S. dollars, the Iranian ISNA news agency said on Saturday, citing the country's oil minister.

"In line with a policy of selling crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the sale of our country's oil in U.S. dollars has been completely eliminated," ISNA reported Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari as saying.

He also said "the dollar is no longer a reliable currency."

Iran is the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer.

At a November summit of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries heads of state, Iran proposed that oil sales be carried for a variety of currencies, excluding dollars, but was not supported by any other members except Venezuela.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously called the U.S. currency a "worthless piece of paper."

2007 has seen a significant fall in the value of the U.S dollar against other major world currencies.

Tensions remain high between Iran and the U.S., which has accused the Islamic Republic of attempting to build a nuclear weapon, as well as providing insistence to insurgents in Iraq.

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), published on Monday, stated that Tehran had put a stop to weapons production in 2003, although it was continuing to enrich uranium.

The report contradicted a previous U.S. intelligence assessment in 2005 which said that Iran was actively pursuing a nuclear bomb.

U.S. President George W. Bush remained hawkish, despite the report, saying on Tuesday that, "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous and Iran will be dangerous if they have the know how to make a nuclear weapon."

When asked if military action remained an option, the president answered, "The best diplomacy - effective diplomacy - is one in which all options are on the table."

OPEC

Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake!

[Sunday November 18, 2007]

'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.

A private meeting of Opec leaders, gathered this weekend in Riyadh for the cartel's third meeting in its 47-year history, had just been broadcast to the world's media for more than half an hour after a technician had mistakenly plugged the TV feed into the wrong socket. The facade of unity that the cartel so carefully cultivates to a world spooked by soaring oil prices was shattered.

Sometimes, such innocent mistakes can have far-reaching economic and political consequences. Commodity and currency traders said this weekend that oil prices would surge again tomorrow - possibly breaking the $101 per barrel record set in the late 1970s - while the already battered dollar would fall further on the back of the unintentional broadcast.

On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.

They said Opec should formally express its concern about the weakness of the dollar when the cartel makes its official declaration at the close of the summit today. But the Saudis, the world's largest oil producers and de facto head of Opec, vetoed the proposal. Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, warned that even the mere mention to journalists of the fact that leaders were discussing the weak dollar would cause the US currency to plummet.

Unfortunately his words and those of everyone at the meeting were being broadcast via a live television feed to a group of astonished reporters. 'I couldn't believe it,' said one who was there. 'When I realised they didn't know they were being broadcast live, I frantically started taking notes.'

Opec only realised that the leaders' row was being broadcast to the world when the Reuters news agency put out a report of the argument.

The weakness of the dollar is one reason why oil prices are so high, as cartel members seek to compensate for their lower earnings. This means a further drop in the dollar is likely to be accompanied by a rise in oil prices.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan does not produce oil; however they are strategically located in an area where a proposed pipeline from the oil rich regions in the Caspian Sea would deliver the oil to the Indian Ocean. In his previous article, Rudo de Ruijter outlined how resistance to this plan triggered the American war with Afghanistan.

What Does It All Mean?

I used to believe that politicians and big business were evil. They always seemed to act without regard for the common people. It's always the innocent families and civilians that are left homeless, killed or maimed because of some decision made behind closed doors. I used to think it was the elite, super-rich who were protecting their wealth and greed for oil money at our expense. I blamed them for everything from wars to preventing the development of free energy.

While I still believe this is true, I now see the big picture and it frightens me.

Oil and dollars have become the blood of our present civilization. A collapse of this fiat dollar system will not only destroy America's economy and lifestyle but it will have devastating impact throughout the entire planet. Since virtually all wealth is based on this dollar-for-oil scheme, a collapse of the system will send the entire world into an economic depression. This is what the politicians and decision makers are trying to avert. But the collapse is predictable and inevitable.

I cannot help but wonder what kind of world awaits us on the other side. What would a dollarless and oil free civilization be like? What if we had endless supplies of free energy and no need for wars or money? At 56 years old, I may not get there with you. But, I have a dream.

For more information on this topic, see " Cost, abuse and danger of the dollar."

Forecast: U.S. dollar could plunge 90%

Published: Nov. 19, 2007 at 2:16 PM

RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said.

"We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008."

"The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall," he said in an interview with New York's Hudson Valley Business Journal.

Celente -- who forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar's decline a year ago and gold's current rise in May -- told the newspaper the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first "small, high-risk segment of the market" to collapse.

Derivative dealers, hedge funds, buyout firms and other market players will also unravel, he said.

Massive corporate losses, such as those recently posted by Citigroup Inc. and General Motors Corp., will also be fairly common "for some time to come," he said.

He said he would not "be surprised if giants tumble to their deaths," Celente said.

The Panic of 2008 will lead to a lower U.S. standard of living, he said.

A result will be a drop in holiday spending a year from now, followed by a permanent end of the "retail holiday frenzy" that has driven the U.S. economy since the 1940s, he said.

HISTORIAN WARNS OF SUDDEN COLLAPSE OF AMERICAN ‘EMPIRE’

Brent Gardner-Smith

July 14, 2010 "Aspen Daily News" -- Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level.

“I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,” Ferguson said. “In that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of chaos. And we’ve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond market loses faith in your fiscal policy.”

Ferguson said empires — such as the former Soviet Union and the Roman empire — can collapse quite quickly and the tipping point is often when the cost of servicing an empire’s debt is larger than the cost of its defense budget.

“That has not been the case I think at any point in U.S. history,” Ferguson said. “It will be the case in the next five years.”

Ferguson was conscious of opening the Ideas Festival on such a stark note.

“Walter Isaacson, the leader of this great institution said, ‘Don’t be too dark!,’” Ferguson said.

The affable British scholar tried to keep it light. He used a stage whisper to tell the Aspen Institute audience, “I know you’re not comfortable with the word ‘empire,’ especially just after the Fourth of July, but you are the Redcoats now.”

He said the U.S. is now deeply in the red as a country because of a combination of the Great Recession, the resulting federal stimulus and financial bailout programs, two wars, the Bush tax cuts, and a growth in social entitlement programs.

And economic debt can lead to a sudden loss of military power and global respect, Ferguson said.

“By combating our crisis of private debt with an extraordinary expansion of public debt, we inevitably are going to reduce the resources available for national security in the years ahead,” Ferguson said. “Because as a debt grows, so the interest payments you have to make on it grow, even if interest rates stay low. And on current projections, the federal debt is going to be absorbing around 20 percent — a fifth of all the taxes you pay — within just a few years.

“The item of discretionary federal expenditure most likely to be squeezed is of course defense. And there are lots of historic precedents for that,” said Ferguson, who is the author of “Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power.”

Ferguson said the financial crisis that started in 2007 has “has accelerated a fundamental shift in the balance of power,” with the U.S. shedding power and China absorbing it.

“I’ve just come back from China — a two-week trip there — and the thing I heard most often was, ‘You can’t lecture us about the superiority of your system anymore. We don’t need to learn anything from you about financial institutions and forget about democracy. We see where it has got you.’”

David Gergen of CNN, who moderated the discussion, which also included billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, asked Ferguson whether it made a difference if the U.S. declined as a world power.

“Having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it,” Ferguson said. “It’s not a lot of fun, actually, decline. To be more serious, a world in which the United States is no longer predominate is not likely to be a better world, actually.”

In what he called his “light moment,” Ferguson said, “I think there is a way out for the United States. I don’t think its over. But it all hinges on whether you can re-energize the real mainsprings of American power. And those two things are technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

“Those are the things that made the United States the greatest economy in the world and the critical question is, ‘Are we going to get it right?’ Can we revive those things in such a way that in the end we grow our way out of this hole the way the United States grew its way out of the 1970s and of course out of the 1930s?”

AMERICA IS INSOLVENT. WHY WOULD CHINA's RATING AGENCY RATE US SOVEREIGN DEBT AA WHEN IT IS NO BETTER THAN JUNK?

Matthias Chang
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...;aid=20176


For all intent and purposes, the United States is insolvent.

This is not my personal assessment but that of world renowned “experts” and economists, and financial institutions. Just google “US Debts” and you can find thousands of analysts stating that there is no way that the US can ever pay off its debts. The US cannot even liquidate the accumulated interest on the outstanding debts. The debts are in the trillions!

The Casey Daily Dispatch observed:

The simple reality the Fed is waking up to is that the structural underpinnings of the economy are damaged beyond any quick or easy fix. That’s because until the debt is wrung out of the system, either through default or raging inflation – there’s no chance of it actually being paid in anything remotely resembling current dollars – the equivalent of an economic Black Death is going to plague the land.

The American rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Ratings still give the thumbs up for the United States – a whopping AAA rating.  These same agencies gave AAA ratings to the CDOs and other financial products peddled by the Too Big to Fail Global Banks when they were in fact junk. It took the financial tsunami to expose their fraudulent practices.

So I don’t give too much credence to the ratings by these crooked institutions.

The National Inflation Association (NIA) believes that the real credit rating of the US should be junk. But you don’t have to believe them either.

So how do we know for sure that the US should be rated as junk?

Simple! Apply common sense to the facts before you.

Since the United States defaulted on its debts in 1971, when President Nixon refused global and sovereign creditors the right of redemption in gold for US dollars, it has been living on borrowed time. The United States conned the world into accepting its toilet paper currency and for those who dared to question the integrity of its fiat currency, the mighty US military was deployed to ensure compliance.

The global banking elites then employed subservient economists the world over to tout the merits of the floating exchange rate as the mechanism to determine a currency’s value. Countries were compelled by threats of war or coups to peg their currency to the dollar. The dollar became the “anchor” in place of gold. Trade had to be denominated in US dollar which gave the United States an undue advantage.

This “pegging” gave an illusion of strength of the US dollar and creditworthiness of the United States. While others have to produce and earn an income in a “local currency” and then exchange it for US dollars to import and or purchase goods (as over 80% of global trade is denominated in dollars), the “paper tiger United States” need only to print money to pay for goods and services when its income was insufficient to pay and sustain its standard of living.

For over 37 years, the United States got away with this con!  

For over 37 years, people the world over sold their produce to the United States in exchange for a paper with a number printed on it, a number denoting its value i.e. a 100 dollar note etc. People just accepted the number printed on the paper as reflective of the “real value” of the currency. In reality it has no value. It costs a few cents to print the toilet paper currency.

Through slick propaganda, people were led to believe that the value is as printed on the paper. No one dare to question the absurdity of this proposition.

But now, we have reached the stage of total collapse of the global fiat currency system. Every country in the developed world is implementing the policy of “quantitative easing” (the central bankers’ jargon for creating money out of thin air) in a desperate effort to pay off mounting debts and compounding interest in the trillions. To a lesser extent, developing countries are also following the Washington consensus. The global financial system is flooded with toilet paper currencies.

What will be the endgame?  

Let’s pause and think for a moment. Let’s apply common sense.

The US dollar $, the Euro, the pound £, the Yen ¥ etc. are all fiat currencies – they have no intrinsic value. Their value is a number arbitrarily printed on the paper and sanctioned by central bankers as “legal tender”.

In essence, they are all junk – toilet paper currencies. So how do they “float” against each other under the global floating exchange rate system?

This is where the fun starts.

How does one compare a junk from another?  How does one determine the exchange value of one junk from another?  A junk is a junk!

Forget about the market forces determining the values of the various junk currencies. It is determined by central bankers and no one else.

Whether a US dollar is equivalent to Ringgit 3.40 or Euro 1.18 or Yen 90 is arbitrarily decided by the respective central banks. And there is nothing you and I can do about it. If it serves the interest of a country to have its currency devalued, the central bank of that country will allow its currency to devalue and vice-versa.

Sometimes, the central bankers get their accomplices, the hedge funds to jointly manipulate the forex market through derivatives trading. And as long as the central bankers and their accomplices maintain the fluctuations in any one period of time in accordance with the parameters previously agreed by the central bankers, nothing much will happen. It is when central bankers cannot agree on the parameters that problems will emerge, often resulting in trade wars and even “hot” wars.

Don’t believe me?

I will give two examples:

The Plaza Accord

In 1985, at the request of the United States – France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom agreed to deliberately weaken the dollar's exchange rate. At the material time, the United States was having huge trade deficits, especially with Japan. The agreement, known as the Plaza Accord, was to help the United States reduce its huge trade deficit to assist its economy to climb out of the 1980's long recession. The intervention was so successful, that the dollar depreciated beyond its target level. By the end of 1987, the dollar had fallen by 54% against both the D-mark and the yen from its peak in February 1985. This sharp drop caused another panic – that of an uncontrolled dollar plunge.

To address and reverse the excessive depreciation of the dollar, the same group of countries agreed in 1987 to strengthen the dollar. This latter effort was known as the Louvre Accord. Another blatant market manipulation! Since when were any markets really free?

Why did England and France agree to participate in this blatant market manipulation? They owed US a big thank you for winning the Second World War. It was time for the US to collect past dues. In the case of Germany and Japan, being defeated nations and under occupation, they had no choice but to kow tow to big brother USA.  

The Asian Financial Crisis

All you need to do is to recall what happened during the Asian financial crisis. The tiger economies were undermined and attacked and their currencies went into a free fall. Malaysia’s economic development was severely threatened. But the then prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had the foresight and courage to take on the global financial elites and imposed capital and currency controls. The prime minister unilaterally fixed the exchange rate for the ringgit at RM3.80 to a dollar. Forex speculators took a major hit and never recovered from this surprise counter attack.

While this unprecedented intervention was executed to save the national economy and the livelihood of 23 million Malaysians, the global financial elites through the shadow banking system intervened to manipulate the market to reap obscene profits and to plunder.  

We will now address the trillion dollar question.

How does China or the United States decide that one US dollar is equivalent to 6.7 Yuan or whatever rate?

Before addressing the question, it is important for us to understand how in a relatively short period of time, China was able to accumulate such a huge amount of dollar reserves and became the No. 1 creditor of the United States.

In their grand scheme for financial hegemony, the US financial elites proposed to the Chinese financial elites that in exchange for massive FDI and outsourcing of industries by the US, China must supply cheap goods to the American market and maintain an agreed exchange rate. This scheme was the lynchpin to an unprecedented expansion of credit in the global financial system, because such a rapid expansion of credit would be extremely inflationary. When China can supply the entire spectrum of goods at less than ten percent of the prevailing price, the financial elites knew that they could flood the global casino with dollars without having to worry about inflation.

And as they say, the rest is history.

This arrangement served the US and China well for two decades, in fact too well resulting in China having the largest dollar reserves in the world as well as becoming the largest creditor to the US.  

Coming back to the trillion dollar question, as stated earlier the exchange rate is determined by the respective central banks. Of late, the Obama administration has been putting pressure on China to revalue its currency. In response to the pressure and to avoid a trade war, China allowed its currency to appreciate slightly. In fact, this happened just before the G-20 Summit in Toronto.

While the above arrangement (specifically the agreed exchange rate) has served its original purpose, it can no longer be sustained. This is because the current yuan/dollar peg is distorting the forex market and will exacerbate even further the present global financial crisis.  

As a result of the global financial tsunami, the US is in default once again. But this time round, Obama cannot do what Nixon did in 1971.

The Daily Reckoning assessed the situation correctly when its subscribers were told:

Wait a minute. We're still Number One, right?

Yes...in the sense that we can, in theory, kick any butt in the world. That is, if the Chinese let us. They've got so much of our money and so many of our bonds, if they decided to dump them, we'd be in one helluva fix. Because we don't pay enough in taxes to fund our social programs and the Pentagon at the same time. We can't afford it. So the nice Chinese lend us money.

But don't worry. They've promised not to dump our bonds. And we're sure they'll honor that promise for as long as they want to.

As far as we know, no empire that had to borrow money from its rivals has ever lasted very long. Britain got itself in that position in WWI. It could no longer afford the carrying costs of the empire – including the huge cost of the war itself. So, it borrowed from the US. The Germans borrowed from US lenders too. But America's lenders to Britain had more money in New York and more power in Washington. So, the US entered the war on Britain's side rather than on Germany's side.

Then, in WWII, when an American general was put in charge of D-Day, it was clear that Britain had ceded the lead dog position to the US. It was a friendly handover, achieved by force of economics rather than by force of arms. The US did not have to defeat Britain militarily. Instead, she merely had to finance her.

A few years later, during the Suez crisis, Britain learned what it was like to be a subordinate power. She discovered that she could no longer throw her weight around without US consent.

But that is on the military front. At home, Britons discovered that they were poor...and getting relatively poorer. Under the weight of growing social welfare programs and a shrinking empire, Britain's economy sagged. Its old allies – France and the US – boomed in the post-war years. So did its old enemies – Japan and Germany. Soon, not only were its friends richer and more powerful...so were its adversaries.

So, we now have a ridiculous situation where the United States owes global creditors trillions of dollars (specifically China), is insolvent, yet, the exchange rate does not reflect the underlying weakness of the United States.

We also have the situation where China has been selling goods and services to the United States and is being paid in toilet paper currency that has no value other than the artificial and arbitrary value printed on the paper. China, in turn lends these toilet papers back to the United States so that it can purchase more goods and services from China. The United States has no money to repay China, so it creates money out of thin air, via the electronic printing press and use that to pay China.

Seriously, how long can this charade last?

Back in 1985, we had the Plaza Accord to bail out the paper tiger USA. The answer then was to devalue the US dollar. But Japan suffered two decades of stagnation.

Why have the same countries – UK, France, Germany and Japan not adopted a similar strategy at this juncture, thereby boosting US exports?

Simple!

1.    The US has outsourced so much of their previous exports to China and other countries that it does not have enough meaningful products to export anymore to make a substantial difference in the trade deficit.

2.    For the past decade, the main exports of the US were, and continue to be “Financial Products” – the junks wrapped up as CDOs and rated AAA and sold to gullible investors (i.e. gamblers) all over the world. The US was the centre of the global derivatives casino, managed by the Shadow Banking Cartel.    

3.    There has been such a massive US dollar credit expansion in the last decade as well as toilet paper dollars in the global financial system that any attempt to devalue the dollar would result in an uncontrolled free fall, and the complete destruction of the economy of the US.

4.    And China by maintaining its current exchange rate with the dollar (and within a narrow band of fluctuation) has artificially maintained the current value of the US dollar to avoid the status of being downgraded to junk.        
    
5.    Thus in the short term, China is complicit, together with other major central banks, in hoodwinking the ordinary folks that the global fiat money system is still in a healthy state. But, by downgrading the US one notch, China and the global elites hope that the con can be maintained for some time so that China as well as other countries can get out of their massive US dollar assets. But the situation is so volatile that no one, absolutely no one can say for sure when a child would cry out the proverbial exposé, hey, the emperor has no clothes!

6.    It is also obvious to the global financial elites that if there is a massive flight from dollar assets to euro assets, there would also be an uncontrolled plunge of the US dollar. The European global banks are also up to their eyeballs holding junk dollar assets and would thereby suffer huge losses over and above their exposure in euro loans to the “PIIGS” countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). Unlike the time of the Plaza Accord, right now, no one wants dollar devaluation. When the slide starts, no one would be able to stop the plunge. Central bankers are sitting on a knife’s edge. Ouch!

7.    So, the “Greek crisis” was engineered to prevent such a flight from dollar assets to euro assets. Greece is “Mary Poppins” in the overall financial scheme of things. Its GDP is not even 3% of the Euro zone. In contrast, California is bankrupt and is more pivotal to the US economy. It is the 7th largest economy in the world. Yet, the bankruptcy of California did not impact on the US economy as it should. This is because the global mass media ensured that the bankruptcy would not be highlighted. The hype instead was that the euro would be heading for a crash. The result? The flight to euros was halted in its tracks.

8.    Someone threw the spanner in the works. The culprit in the eyes of the global financial elites was the indomitable Iran. China and Russia were playing geopolitical games in their trade relations with Iran in the hope that President Ahmadinejad would not spoil the party before they were ready to dump their massive dollar assets. The US and Israel played the hard ball role while China and Russia initially played the softy role so typical of the police methods when attempting to extract concessions and or confessions. But China’s and Russia’s true intentions were revealed, when exasperated with the resilience and defiance of Iran, they opted to impose severe sanctions on Iran. The quartet did not bother to maintain the farce. The nuclear weapons issue was merely a smoke screen to mislead the world of the impending financial implosion.

The downgrade by China must be seen for what it is – a stark warning that the end is near. The curtain has to come down on the charade.

Another signal that the end is near was when the Bank of International Settlement (BIS) swapped Gold as security for a dollar facility extended to a sovereign (most likely Portugal) via commercial entities. Gold, once considered a “barbaric relic” is now back in fashion in currency swaps. Who would have thought this was possible just a few months ago?  In a sense, we have turned a full circle. In 1971, Nixon decoupled gold from the US dollar. Today, the BIS have taken the first few steps in bringing gold back to its rightful place.

No matter how hard the central bankers and China try to prevent the sovereign debt bubble blow-out, they will not succeed.

Sooner or later, China has to make the decision of the 21st century – to dump the dollar and allow global economies to suffer severe pain in the short term, five to ten years, or commit mass suicide together with the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and Japan.

China at this moment in time is the only country that can survive the coming financial devastation with the least pain as it will be relatively easy to transform its economy from being export-driven to that of a domestic-based economy – tapping the limitless potential of its 1.5 billion citizens. China can do in one short year, maybe at the most two, what would take a generation for the other developed economies to do.

A marginal increase in the purchasing power of its citizens will take up whatever downturn in the export markets.

The fact that the Yuan is propping up the dollar means that it is the Yuan and not the dollar that is the undisputed global reserve currency. If China revalues drastically upwards the Yuan, every fiat currency would head for an uncontrolled free fall.

Let us not be naive and kid ourselves. It is pure pantomime for the US to demand from China to revalue the Yuan and for China to resist a revaluation. This so-called currency tug-of-war is a smoke screen to lend credence that the dollar is not junk but AA, albeit down one notch from AAA.

The fact that so many western-trained economists have not addressed and or exposed this issue can mean only two things – either they are truly ignorant or they are part of this grand charade, blowing smoke into our eyes.

Be patient.  Invest in Gold. Prepare for Act II of the financial Armageddon!

WALL STREET IS NOT DYING; IT IS DEAD!
Please Don't Be Silly!
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

August 12, 2010
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2010/10081...silly.html


This is the week that Wall Street virtually died. The Federal Reserve System which was already attempting bail-outs within a virtually zero-percentile degree of hyper-inflationary, monetary bail-outs, has now declared its intention to launch the more drastic practice of copying the exact-same kind of monetary hyperinflation which brought the entire Weimar Germany economy to a general breakdown during the Summer and Autumn of 1923.

Notably, those who are pressing EIR to publish a monetarist analysis of Wall Street's chances for recovery, have been consistently wrong in all of the forecasts and suggestions which they have presented to my knowledge in the past couple of decades. Not one of the well-wishing charlatans has ever treated the post-1987 effects of Alan Greenspan's intrinsically inflationary monetary swindles from the standpoint of the only method of forecasting which has succeeded during recent decades, the method of the physical-economy-based forecasts which I have supplied over past decades to date.

For those reasonable persons who honestly wish to know the essential facts, the following were sufficient for this moment.

Following the successful U.S.-led breakthrough at Normandy, both the leading American and German generals knew that the Hitler regime was inevitably doomed. The knowledge led to a Wall Street-backed, and anti-President Franklin Roosevelt upsurge from the same Wall Street and London gang of financier interests who had not only hated President Franklin Roosevelt, but who had joined the Bank of England in putting Adolf Hitler into power, until the time that Winston Churchill began screaming for military and economic aid against Adolf Hitler from Franklin Roosevelt's United States. ("Don't contradict me, Bud. I was in that war and I know all the essential facts about that business very well.")

Now, since the successful June 1944 Allied landings in France, the same Wall Street and London crowd which had brought Adolf Hitler into power in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, went back to the same pro-fascist economic and social policies as rapidly as the traffic would bear.

I was not surprised at the import of Wall Street's backing of Harry S Truman's candidacy for the Vice-Presidency. On the night the news of President Roosevelt's death reached us in the China-Burma-India theater, I replied to questioning by a group of my fellow-soldiers: "We have lived through this war so far under a great President. Now, he as been replaced by a very little man, and I am afraid of what might become of us." In 1947, I sent a brief letter to General Dwight Eisenhower, then the President of Columbia University, stating my reasons for suggesting his candidacy for the 1948 Presidential election. He replied, saying in effect, "not at this time," and, later, I came to understand his reasoning in this matter.

Coming out from the CBI theater about a year after the end of the war in Europe, I knew that that Wall Street crowd tied to London was the long-term mortal enemy from inside our nation. Nonetheless, the U.S.A. remained too powerful, and the memories of the U.S. citizenry too strong, to let Britain resume the imperial role it had played in the world since the British East India Company's imperial triumph of February 1763. So, for that reason, the U.S.A. remained powerful, until the assassination of President Kennedy cleared the way for launching the long, wasting war which a living President Kennedy had prevented. An ensuing ten years of U.S. war in Indo-China brought the U.S. down in the fashion which imperial London desired.

In Summer 1971, two crucial developments occurred under the time of President Richard Nixon's administration. First, was Arthur Burns' role in cancelling the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement. Second, was the action of Britain's Lord Jacob Rothschild in using the collapse of the Bretton Woods system to launch what became the British Imperial Inter-Alpha Group, a group whose influence presently controls an estimated 70% of the world's banking and related operations. That group, which virtually owns Wall Street presently, and also President Barack Obama and his administration, too, has brought about the uttering of virtually quadrillions of dollars of purely make-believe, Monopoly-game money in the form of financial derivatives and related outright swindles.

In the effort to sustain that gigantic, Anglo-American controlled mass of quadrillions of nominal dollars of that "Monopoly game money called financial derivatives, or the like," to provide an urgently needed margin of support for that cancerous mass of virtual play-currencies, the chief London and allied swindlers in the likeness of Alan Greenspan have drained the remaining real issues of the U.S.A. and its citizens, outdoing those follies of Marie Antoinette and her husband which destroyed much of continental Europe through the period of the chronic Napoleonic wars.

As a result, it has been during this week that the Federal Reserve System has indicated that a state of monetarist desperation has now been reached, at which the Fed is now disposed to unleash beyond the United States itself what the British and French predators of the 1920s launched as the 1923 hyperinflationary breakdown-crisis of Weimar Germany.

Hey, buster. What does that leave silly fellows like you to discuss about analyzing the difficulties of the Federal Reserve System? What in Hell do you actually propose to do? Send funeral wreaths to Wall Street?

THE ECSTASY OF EMPIRE: HOW CLOSE IF AMERICA’S DEMISE?
WITHOUT A REVOLUTION, AMERICANS ARE HISTORY
Paul Craig Roberts
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=...;aid=20650
Global Research, August 16, 2010

The United States is running out of time to get its budget and trade deficits under control. Despite the urgency of the situation, 2010 has been wasted in hype about a non-existent recovery. As recently as August 2 Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner penned a New York Times Column, “Welcome to the Recovery.”

As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear on many occasions, an appearance of recovery was created by over-counting employment and undercounting inflation. Warnings by Williams, Gerald Celente, and myself have gone unheeded, but our warnings recently had echos from Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and from David Stockman, who excoriated the Republican Party for becoming big spending Democrats.

It is encouraging to see a bit of realization that, this time, Washington cannot spend the economy out of recession. The deficits are already too large for the dollar to survive as reserve currency, and deficit spending cannot put Americans back to work in jobs that have been moved offshore.

However, the solutions offered by those who are beginning to recognize that there is a problem are discouraging. Kotlikoff thinks the solution is massive Social Security and Medicare cuts or massive tax increases or hyperinflation to destroy the massive debts.

Perhaps economists lack imagination, or perhaps they don’t want to be cut off from Wall Street and corporate subsidies, but Social Security and Medicare are insufficient at their present levels, especially considering the erosion of private pensions by the dot com, derivative and real estate bubbles. Cuts in Social Security and Medicare, for which people have paid 15% of their earnings all their life, would result in starvation and deaths from curable diseases.

Tax increases make even less sense. It is widely acknowledged that the majority of households cannot survive on one job. Both husband and wife work and often one of the partners has two jobs in order to make ends meet. Raising taxes makes it harder to make ends meet--thus more foreclosures, more food stamps, more homelessness. What kind of economist or humane person thinks this is a solution?

Ah, but we will tax the rich. The usual idiocy. The rich have enough money. They will simply stop earning.

Let’s get real. Here is what the government is likely to do. Once the Washington idiots realize that the dollar is at risk and that they can no longer finance their wars by borrowing abroad, the government will either levy a tax on private pensions on the grounds that the pensions have accumulated tax-deferred, or the government will require pension fund managers to purchase Treasury debt with our pensions. This will buy the government a bit more time while pension accounts are loaded up with worthless paper.

The last Bush budget deficit (2008) was in the $400-500 billion range, about the size of the Chinese, Japanese, and OPEC trade surpluses with the US. Traditionally, these trade surpluses have been recycled to the US and finance the federal budget deficit. In 2009 and 2010 the federal deficit jumped to $1,400 billion, a back-to-back trillion dollar increase. There are not sufficient trade surpluses to finance a deficit this large. From where comes the money?

The answer is from individuals fleeing the stock market into “safe” Treasury bonds and from the bankster bailout, not so much the TARP money as the Federal Reserve’s exchange of bank reserves for questionable financial paper such as subprime derivatives. The banks used their excess reserves to purchase Treasury debt.

These financing maneuvers are one-time tricks. Once people have fled stocks, that movement into Treasuries is over. The opposition to the bankster bailout likely precludes another. So where does the money come from the next time?

The Treasury was able to unload a lot of debt thanks to “the Greek crisis,” which the New York banksters and hedge funds multiplied into “the euro crisis.” The financial press served as a financing arm for the US Treasury by creating panic about European debt and the euro. Central banks and individuals who had taken refuge from the dollar in euros were panicked out of their euros, and they rushed into dollars by purchasing US Treasury debt.

This movement from euros to dollars weakened the alternative reserve currency to the dollar, halted the dollar’s decline, and financed the massive US budget deficit a while longer.

Possibly the game can be replayed with Spanish debt, Irish debt, and whatever unlucky country swept in by the thoughtless expansion of the European Union.

But when no countries remain that can be destabilized by Wall Street investment banksters and hedge funds, what then finances the US budget deficit?

The only remaining financier is the Federal Reserve. When Treasury bonds brought to auction do not sell, the Federal Reserve must purchase them. The Federal Reserve purchases the bonds by creating new demand deposits, or checking accounts, for the Treasury. As the Treasury spends the proceeds of the new debt sales, the US money supply expands by the amount of the Federal Reserve’s purchase of Treasury debt.

Do goods and services expand by the same amount? Imports will increase as US jobs have been offshored and given to foreigners, thus worsening the trade deficit. When the Federal Reserve purchases the Treasury’s new debt issues, the money supply will increase by more than the supply of domestically produced goods and services. Prices are likely to rise.

How high will they rise? The longer money is created in order that government can pay its bills, the more likely hyperinflation will be the result.

The economy has not recovered. By the end of this year it will be obvious that the collapsing economy means a larger than $1.4 trillion budget deficit to finance. Will it be $2 trillion? Higher?

Whatever the size, the rest of the world will see that the dollar is being printed in such quantities that it cannot serve as reserve currency. At that point wholesale dumping of dollars will result as foreign central banks try to unload a worthless currency.

The collapse of the dollar will drive up the prices of imports and offshored goods on which Americans are dependent. Wal-Mart shoppers will think they have mistakenly gone into Neiman Marcus.

Domestic prices will also explode as a growing money supply chases the supply of goods and services still made in America by Americans.

The dollar as reserve currency cannot survive the conflagration. When the dollar goes the US cannot finance its trade deficit. Therefore, imports will fall sharply, thus adding to domestic inflation and, as the US is energy import-dependent, there will be transportation disruptions that will disrupt work and grocery store deliveries.

Panic will be the order of the day.

Will farms will be raided? Will those trapped in cities resort to riots and looting?

Is this the likely future that “our” government and “our patriotic” corporations have created for us?

To borrow from Lenin, “What can be done?”

Here is what can be done. The wars, which benefit no one but the military-security complex and Israel’s territorial expansion, can be immediately ended. This would reduce the US budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars per year. More hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved by cutting the rest of the military budget, which in its present size, exceeds the budgets of all the serious military powers on earth combined.

US military spending reflects the unaffordable and unattainable crazed neoconservative goal of US Empire and world hegemony. What fool in Washington thinks that China is going to finance US hegemony over China?

The only way that the US will again have an economy is by bringing back the offshored jobs. The loss of these jobs impoverished Americans while producing over-sized gains for Wall Street, shareholders, and corporate executives. These jobs can be brought home where they belong by taxing corporations according to where value is added to their product. If value is added to their goods and services in China, corporations would have a high tax rate. If value is added to their goods and services in the US, corporations would have a low tax rate.

This change in corporate taxation would offset the cheap foreign labor that has sucked jobs out of America, and it would rebuild the ladders of upward mobility that made America an opportunity society.

If the wars are not immediately stopped and the jobs brought back to America, the US is relegated to the trash bin of history.

Obviously, the corporations and Wall Street would use their financial power and campaign contributions to block any legislation that would reduce short-term earnings and bonuses by bringing jobs back to Americans. Americans have no greater enemies than Wall Street and the corporations and their prostitutes in Congress and the White House.

The neocons allied with Israel, who control both parties and much of the media, are strung out on the ecstasy of Empire.

The United States and the welfare of its 300 million people cannot be restored unless the neocons, Wall Street, the corporations, and their servile slaves in Congress and the White House can be defeated.

Without a revolution, Americans are history.