Forward
We live in a world where honesty, integrity, and following the life and teachings of Jesus are not respected commodities. Living by the Golden Rule and playing fair sharing toys amongst ourselves, and other nations does not work in lucrative patriotism for dollar hegemony. Manipulation of strategic resources is the name of the game. Any manipulation of markets impacts real estate, ultimately impacting folks on Main Street America. A good background essay by Catherine Austin Fitts and Chris Sanders is The Negative Return Economy: Fascinating and lucrative patriotism: a discourse on America's black budget. Sound money backed by specie is part of the solution to cure the Dark Side of the Force of Lucrative Patriotism as we learn to vote with our money in the marketplace taking our money away from the existing fraudulent legal tender fiat paper banking system. The remaining solution must come from within ourselves. Where, would Jesus bank?
- Gale Bullock
The disarming smile says it all - you can trust me - or can you? I've been sitting at my desk this past week, contemplating during linguistic lulls, that question as Ms. Condi of Rice fame barnstorms her way across Europe in her first official overseas junket as her eminence, Secretary of State. From where I sit, I detect a familiar ring in this dog and pony show to the not so veiled message she's packing where Iran is concerned. If all of you haven't noticed, Iran has come galloping up along the inside rail in the homestretch to overtake North Korea as lead villain in this two horse race. No matter to me, in betting parlance, I had them boxed to finish one - two, anyway.
What I am beginning to find so increasingly predictable about this horseplay is - like Iraq, Iran is alleged to have intentions to produce WMD [Nukes, aka Weapons of Mass Destruction] while North Korea is widely repudiated to already have them. Oh! -- did I hear anyone mention anything about oil? "Black gold, Texas Tea" as the Beverly Hillbillies would say. Now that we are looking at the ponies in the race, there is something rather interesting about Iraq and Iran and their oil, or more specifically, how they were selling it and/or where they intend to sell it in the future. You see, once upon a time there was a country named Iraq. They started selling their oil [the infamous U.N. oil for food program] for Euros instead of dollars. Before long, they had so much food they were a danger to everyone in the region. They had to be invaded, their ponies corralled, and occupied so oil could once again trade for U.S. dollars exclusively. Then we stumble across this snippet while cleaning out the stable:
"In 2005 Iran will launch a new oil exchange that is expected to put an end to Western domination of the international oil trade. The US and UK, currently home to the world's largest oil markets, are unlikely to allow Iran to undermine their control of the oil trade without putting up a fight.
Iran is to launch an oil trading market for Middle East and OPEC producers that could threaten the supremacy of London's International Petroleum Exchange.
A contract to design and establish a new platform for crude, natural gas and petrochemical trades is expected to be signed with an international consortium within days.
Top oil producing countries are determined to seize more control of trading after being advised that existing markets such as the IPE and Nymex in New York are not working in their favour......" 1
Heavens to Betsy, it seems that Iran is concerned that the possibility exists that there is an Anglo-American conspiracy to rig the price of the strategic commodity, oil - namely, their oil. As a result, it seems the Iranians are planning to set up an exchange in their own backyard, so to speak, with an obvious intention they can keep a close eye on 'goings on' in the international oil trade, voting with their own money and resources. These claims of a rigged market in oil bear a faint resemblance to claims of another group which is, coincidentally, ignored by the bulk of the main stream media. GATA has long claimed that the price of gold is rigged in the Gold Derivative Banking Crisis. Officialdom tends to scoff at these claims; typically citing such hubris as, nothing so sinister would ever be contemplated or carried out by such honorable institutions. After all, they never seem to be found guilty of any wrong doings despite their close association to such illustrious financial swindles as WorldCom, Enron, and possibly some GSEs perhaps? In the words of J.P. Morgan's COO Jamie Dimon [from a story reprinted from SNL Interactive], 2
"Obviously, one of the facts we looked at is what Citi did, but Citi in the WorldCom case, there are a completely different set of facts - totally, absolutely, positively. And I personally think that it was wrong to allocate so much of the problem to the bonds, when clearly so much should be allocated to the equity side," Dimon said in the call. "The guilt by association will eventually have to end. ... It will eventually destroy this country if we don't eventually fix some of that. That's not to say some people didn't do bad stuff and didn't help some things happen. But there's a big difference between committing a fraud and knowing they committed a fraud."
Understand, dear reader, these were only some of Mr. Dimon's remarks on the occasion of J.P. Morgan Chase "topping up" their litigation reserve to a cool 3.7 billion dollars in the second quarter of the year of our Lord, 2004. Speaking of guilt by association, in an associated story, I guess it becomes pretty clear that slip-ups are simply an unintended consequence of doing slippery business these days [racing around a muddy racetrack?]. After all, accidents do occur - don't they? 3
Bundesbank warns over Citigroup case
By Ralph Atkins, Fidelius Schmid and Mark Schieritz in Frankfurt
Published: February 9 2005 19:44
Last updated: February 9 2005 19:44,Controversial trading in eurozone government bonds by Citigroup has highlighted "systemic risks" in some smaller European countries and strengthened the case for retaining national regulators, Germany's Bundesbank has warned.
Edgar Meister, Bundesbank director responsible for financial supervision, also added to widespread calls for Citigroup's sale of €12bn ($15.3bn, £8.2bn) in bonds last August in the span of several seconds to be "investigated completely"......
But what are the odds - I mean that two strategic commodities 4 [three, if you count the bond market!] that are essential to the maintenance of global U.S, dollar hegemony could be rigged [ehhh, Maneuvered? Commandeered? The horse race fixed?] at the same time, if at all? You would need some pretty weighty [how about preponderant?] evidence to support a bold claim like that, n'est pas? I would even go out on a limb and suggest that you would have to catch someone with their hand in the cookie jar. But, alas questions remain, poor Yorick! Would you be willing to wager a paltry two bucks that none of these prices [except bonds of course, because the Bundesbank just told us that they are categorically] are rigged? How about a fiver [Federal Reserve Note], and let's call it 2-to-1 odds, that they both are, well.... rigged? Swiveling in my chair a full 360 degrees, "Good luck finding someone willing to take the other side of the bet!" Who hasn't heard the saying, "the squeaky wheel always gets the grease [ehhh, made from a strategic oil reserve in the Middle East]?" Perhaps, in our world today it's more a case of, "the oily countries get the squeaky wheels - as in tank treads over desert sands?" This all starts to make sense now, doesn't it? After all, what SUV loving individual would ever want to see all that beautiful oil left unprotected? Currently the Stars and Stripes draped coffins flying home number over 1,300 - at what cost of life, misery, suffering, and destruction to the peoples supposedly liberated?
But then there's that democracy aspect to all this. 5 After all, we are the defenders and protectors of probity and all things democratic - aren't we? Take the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, Chavez, for instance. He sure counts on the support of the democracy loving U.S. of A. now doesn't he? We all like to celebrate the brand of democracy practiced in places like Saudi Arabia, don't we? See how neatly Saudi Arabia, with their Arabian Horses, neatly fitted into this essay about horses of different colors? I ask, do you think that was a coincidence, too? And we all know of the great affinity of the Powers That Be [PTB] for the "poor people" in countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, and Nigeria and let's not forget sub-Saharan Africa while we're at it. After all, if you listen to British Finance Minister, Gordon Brown, you'd be well aware that he is prepared to sell IMF gold stocks to help the poor. What a stand up guy! I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that he already sold all of Britain's official gold stocks a few years back when the gold price was much lower?
Where I come from folks, the biggest cause of disparity between the rich and the poor is a man made condition known as the debasement of currency or, as some prefer, "INFLATION." History tells us that adherence to a gold standard minimizes this occurrence at the hands of central bankers sharing the same bed with the politicians [a sensual symbiotic relationship] -- thus the debilitating effects of this insidious act of conscious theft stealing the wealth of nations from their citizens.
So, if there was an ounce of truth in Buster Brown's and his compatriot's hollow words, they would quite simply stop debasing their currencies and return the world to some semblance of sound money - like the gold standard. But this would all require first thinking and then speaking plain truths. In a world such as this, it would be all so evident, the extent to which markets have been surreptitiously rigged already. Can you say Scandal?
In case any of you are wondering what any of this has to do with real estate or any other financial market, like bonds, it's really quite simple. Financial markets are so highly inter-related and inter-dependant that manipulation in one market necessarily leads to observable distortions [destabilization ] in another. What one controls with the right hand, the left hand must keep restacking the deck and the house of financial cards This currency debasing that I speak of [which a truly free market in gold would "wipe out" in a New York Minute] leads to inflation which leads to rapidly increasing housing costs [and accompanying debt we know as mortgages]. Obviously, this exacerbates disparities among financial classes since some of you folks are not lucky enough to be in jobs where your incomes 'keep up' with rising prices [unless you are a politician who understands Lucrative Patriotism]. You see, we're all in this horse race together [some might prefer the term 'rat race'].
Why not call a spade a spade in these times? - well at least recognize that "certainly is a horse of a different color." A Trojan Horse, perhaps?
Gitty up!
Footnotes:
1 Iran to take control of world's oil trade in 2005, from www.theinsider.org, See: http://www.theinsider.org/mailing/article.asp?id=0508
See Also: SOURCE: The Guardian (UK), "Iran takes on west's control of oil trading", 16 June 2004. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1239644,00.html]
2 Update: Q2 loss aside, J.P. Morgan's Dimon says future so bright they've got to wear shades, found at http://www.snl.com/bank/archive/20040726.asp. Originally appeared on SNL Interactive found at http://www.snl.com/Interactivex.
3 Bundesbank warns over Citigroup case, found at http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b41eacba-7acf-11d9-a8c9-00000e2511c8.html.
4 Motion Denied: Raise the Union Jack over Boston's Federal Courthouse, Reg Howe, www.goldensextant.com, see http://www.goldensextant.com/commentary20.html#anchor141322 .
5 Democracies are Mobocracies, all of which have ultimately failed as political systems since Ancient Greece, the Greeks of course pioneering the political art form. American Politicians flunk Government and Politics 101 in our view, since the USA was actually founded as a Constitutional Republic. A Democracy does not a Constitutional Republic make. Benjamin Franklin was most correct when he said at the time of the US Constitution, that they had created a Constitutional Republic... as long as they could keep it. However, lucrative patriotism does provide for Bread and Circuses, as well as wonderful Dog and Pony Shows - as more pork lines the barrel.
Rob Kirby
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Edited by Gale Bullock
Columbia, Missouri, united states in America
