Failing to Inspire Confidence in the States of Jersey’s Future

If only unemployment of Civil Servants
were the highest priority 

Once more the government has failed to separate the notion of the States of Jersey from the People of Jersey. They are not one and the same. We, the people, do not care whether the government lives or dies, we are not interested in what plans they will ultimately and inevitably fail to achieve in the next three years.

We, the people, just wish they would stop trying at all.

For the first time, the States of Jersey is setting budgets 3 years in advance and moving towards long-term planning. Jersey’s first Medium Term Financial Plan describes how Ministers are proposing to meet the objectives set out in the States Strategic Plan, and manage the Island’s resources from 2013-2015. After all there is no failure, like a carefully planned failure. I am surprised that they did not issue a 'five year' plan, so the failures could be as catastrophic as the failures of other Soviet nations of the past.

Because this is what this plan represents, a rigid plan which 45% of Jersey's workforce will now be working to realise, whether or not it is in our best interests and without any way to react to the shocking changes which the global economic situation would suggest are inevitable and probably before this plan is even debated in the States.

Key priorities include:
1) plans to invest a further £26 million ongoing annual funding in Health and Social Services

Too little, too late

2) delivery of the next phase of 'CSR savings'. 

This of course is government double speak for increased stealth taxation.

3) proposed £56 million for capital projects in 2013
Think of this as a strategic reserve with projects that can be delayed indefinitely to cover over expenditure in various departments

4) additional £14 million for Social Security by 2015

Too little, too late, they should be repealing the Social Security Law

5) £5 million initial allocation to The Innovation Fund for initiatives to boost business and create jobs through the “Back to Work” programme

Another completely pointless waste of money, simply repeal the Employment (Jersey) Law 2003 and watch employment rise rapidly.

For each of the years the Plan includes:
1) targets for States income 

In other words how much additional tax they will need to extort from the population

2) total States net expenditure limits

'Net of depreciation'. Depreciation is where the cost of say a refuse truck is spread over several years to match its expected lifespan. So if it is net of depreciation then it completely ignores any expenditure of this type whatsoever.

3) expenditure limits for States Funded Bodies

How many more senior civil servants will be employed

4) net capital expenditure allocations
Net of what? I presume this means that they will deduct any disposals they make from the expenditure. This means for example if they want to build a new hospital then the cost of building it will be £x minus the proceeds of disposing of say Girl's College

5) allocations for central contingencies

Another reserve (or the source of the annual 'we have more money than we thought' headline in the JEP)

6) allocations for States Trading Operations

Subsidies for what purports to be a business running on its own merits.

Unfortunately it fails to address the key local concern, What is the government going to stop doing?

The strategy has fundamental flaws...

1) That it is based on a strategy of growth over the next three years, when it is clear that the financial sector worldwide is about to be decimated by fines, court cases etc.. It actually predicts an annual 5% increase in the GDP of Jersey at a time when the rest of the world is struggling to make a 1% increase in GDP.

2) That it is possible for government to do more, with less resources when the reality is that the best that can be achieved is that government do less with the same resources.

3) At least they have stopped calling things savings and now refer to CSR savings, which simply means that it is stealth taxes and not income taxes which are funding the above inflation increases in States Expenditure.

Tom Gruchy has posted a video response from the Minister for Planning and Environment.

Jersey is still dependent on tourism

The old shop front

You may or may not know that one of the businesses surveyed every quarter in order to compile the statistics on Jersey retail sales is my own. I was in the completely novel position this quarter, of having to show an increase in sales of more than 5%. So the question is why is this happening amidst an economic depression?

Let's just clarify those numbers somewhat I submit solely the retail sales made in the Central Market premises, and specifically exclude the inter-jurisdictional sales made from my website, from eBay and through Amazon. These now account for about 50% of the total business from 0% within 3 years, but when you are the cheapest on the internet, it is fairly easy to make sales in this way. Major producers are now making fundamental changes in the way their goods are sold on the internet which has begun to destroy their own businesses, but that is a topic for another post.

The changes to the VAT have not really had any effect other than to make me re-target sales to France, Germany, Spain and Italy (for whom there is no requirement to pre-pay the VAT) and solely away from the United Kingdom. Australia remains one of the major destinations for my goods.

What has always surprised me is that Jersey people purchase items from me on the internet when the prices in store are cheaper, plus they get all the customer service such as having the watch made to fit free of charge and you get to haggle over the price.

But then there is a misconception that things are always cheaper on the internet. Whilst this may be true for many product lines, for jewellery and watches, Jersey is still the best place in the world to buy, which is why there are over 40 jewellery stores in a place where only 100,000 people live and the number of people who come back from around the world and ask me to value their purchases only to be disappointed when they discover that they could have bought the same thing at half the price at home is significant.

I love the summer. There are a number of customers built up over the years who specifically come to Jersey and specifically to my shop because they like the service they receive. The small business, proprietor owned and operated always compare favourably to the chains with staff who lack knowledge and more often than not aren't really interested in being there or in serving the customer. This is the exact same problem as is represented by government.

I would suggest that it is because there is still a goodwill towards Jersey from many people around the world,  there is still the opportunity for Jersey to restore it's tourist industry and all it requires is a few simple changes.

The government is so concerned with ensuring its own growth both in the amount it spends and in the number of people it employs, it managers are solely concerned only with ensuring their own personal importance and salary that they have lost sight of their purpose. To serve the wider community.

Government has the monopoly on coercion, it can wield its power indiscriminately and without regard to justice, it lies, cheats and steals, imprisons and threatens at will. It is a law unto itself.


However in the long term it is only by ensuring that standards of service are maintained that the future is ensured, government unfortunately does not look any further than the next tax increase, pay rise or budget allocation.

On the future of the Central Market

The leases on the Central Market expire in December 2013, small successful enterprises which operate without any need for Government whatsoever, which make the government so much money that they do not know what to do with all the income (which by covenant must be used within the markets) so they nominate the salaries of ever more senior civil servants to the market to get round this. The Central Market is a major tourist attraction. It is a shining example of how well things can work in the absence of government, it is not on the waterfront.


Its continued existence proves that individuals know better than government how to operate their own lives and what decisions to make.


It is an echo of Jersey as it used to be before Horsfall, and before Walker and a constant reminder of the limitless failures of the States of Jersey in the time since then. Therefore it is a target. Watch what happens in the next 18 months...

An End to Slavery: Part Two

The Employment Law (Jersey) 2003 is a particularly nasty and restrictive piece of legislation which has done more for unemployment than any other piece of legislation enacted by the States of Jersey.

It has also served the services of taxation to a greater extent than any other piece of legislation which is on the books, and is one of the first which should be repealed come the Revolution for Liberty.

1A      “Employer” and “employee”

(1)    In this Law –

(a)     “employer” means a person who employs another person; and

(b)     “employee” means a person who is employed by an employer.

(2)    For the purposes of paragraph (1), a person is employed by another person if the first person works for the second person under a contract of service or apprenticeship with the second person.

(3)    For the purposes of paragraph (1), a person is also employed by another person if the first person enters into any other contract with the second person under which –

(a)     the first person undertakes to do, or to perform personally, work or services for the second person; and

(b)     the status of the second person is not that of a client or customer of any profession or trade or business undertaking that is carried on by the first person.

(4)    It is immaterial whether a contract to which paragraph (2) or paragraph (3) refers is express or implied.

(5)    If the contract is express, it is immaterial whether it is oral or in writing.

So that only gives a very narrow scope for any contractual obligation between two people which is not covered by the law, but there is a clause that of "a client or customer of any profession or trade or business undertaking that is carried on by the first person".


The question then becomes what sort of agreement can you reach with another ostensibly free person that does not allow the Government to get its claws into you. An understanding through which two free individuals can work for their mutual improvement.


By potentially removing someone from the scope of income tax, social security and the employment law a person can fundamentally and greatly enhance the life of those who can see the illusion of a 'safety net' for what it really is, a monkey cage.

NOTICE OF UNDERSTANDING AND INTENT

BETWEEN

FIRST PERSON  

AND

SECOND PERSON  

I, FIRST PERSON (hereinafter referred to as ‘First Person’) hereby give notice that is my intention to support SECOND PERSON (hereinafter referred to as ‘Second Person’) to establish herself as a free individual who is capable of surviving on the profits of her own labours without the need for support from the State or to lease herself into slavery through a contract of service or any other form of employment.

Our status remains that of free and equal individuals and our association is solely on a voluntary basis nothing in this document shall be construed as being legally binding and nothing in this document shall be construed as forming a contract. That any binding be purely based upon mutual trust and respect for each other’s rights and dignity as human beings.

That until such time as she is in a position to support herself on the profits of her labours she is free to seek my support, either financially or with advice whenever she so wishes, that in no way shall I seek to place any obligation upon her other than when her status shall be that of a client or customer of any profession or trade or business undertaking that is carried on by First Person.

That she shall enjoy unrestricted use of any facilities, items of stock, equipment or tools she requires on that basis.

That Second Person may with the consent of First Person extend the use of these items to any person she wishes on any basis she wishes. These persons shall include any person she may wish to contract with under any form of contract she may wish to enter into.

Nothing in this notice shall prevent the payment of sums of money to Second Person from time to time to support her in establishing herself as a free individual. These sums shall not be construed in any way as income. These sums shall be charitable donations which are simply designed to allow her to maintain her standard of living. Any payment may also be a combination of the profits of her own labours where she uses the facilities of First Person to collect payments and a charitable contribution.

That it is my intention that Second Person shall at some point no longer require my assistance and that at that time she may freely leave taking all skills and knowledge with her without any obligation whatsoever.

That I may similarly make any change whatsoever to the nature of our relationship, other than entering into a contract other than when her status shall be that of a client or customer of any profession or trade or business undertaking that is carried on by First Person.

Unions are digusting and repulsive institutions

During an economic boom, exuberance finds itself lodged in all types of industries. When profits soar, so does the public’s disregard for prudence. And as tax revenues rise, politicians can’t help but give in to their bread and butter of buying votes.

Periods of accelerated economic growth typically come in two different forms. If capital is drawn from a pool of real savings to finance investment in more efficient forms of production, the boost in wages and income will be sustainable as long as consumers remain willing to purchase whatever is being produced in greater amounts. In the case of a credit-expansion boom fueled primarily by fractional reserve banking and interest rate manipulation through a central bank, the boom conditions are destined toward bust. Liquidation then becomes necessary as the bust gets underway and malinvestments come to light.

For private industry it means slashing costs, laying off workers, and possible bankruptcy to discharge debt. For government, it typically means shoring up the lost revenue due to unemployment by raising taxes and promising to cut spending by some significant amount. Usually those promised cuts never come to fruition. Political reelection hinges too much upon filling the pockets of voter blocs. When private enterprise tightens its belt, the state hardly bats an eye since its revenue is dependent on how much it decides to fleece from taxpayers in any given year.

Some levels of government aren’t so lucky however. Without ready access to a printing press or eager creditors, local municipalities in the U.S. are facing tough choices as the Great Recession drags on. Unable to cope with the rising cost of providing public services, many cities are taking drastic action. Three major cities in California have recenlty declared bankruptcy; including San Bernardino which is the second largest city to do so in recent history. The city council of Detroit, which is facing about $12 billion in pension and benefit obligations, has voted to allow a state advisory board to assist the former manufacturing powerhouse grapple with a fiscal future that is anything but promising. North Las Vegas, Nevada is facing the same kind of hurdle with a gaping $30 million budget deficit. According to Mayor Sharon Buck, “We’ve balanced our budget, we’ve paid all of our bills [and] all of our bonds are paid…Our biggest issue is salaries and compensation and benefits. And they’re very unsustainable.” Most recently, the mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania cut the wages of city workers to the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The unions which represent the city’s firefighters, police officers, and other public workers are taking the issue to court.

In carrying out such a drastic pay cut, Mayor Chris Doherty defied a previous court order. The unions’ attorney called the defiance “incredible.” The president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 60, lamented that “there are kids working at ice cream stands earning more than their fathers, which is ridiculous.”

In actuality, there is nothing ridiculous about Mayor Doherty’s behavior. The city is out of money to pay its workers. After riding the taxpayer-funded gravy train, the trip has come to an abrupt end. The mayor can’t pay money he doesn’t have. In his words “I can’t print it in the basement.”

But to this writer, Doherty didn’t go far enough in cutting the pay of city workers. In a just world, public sector workers would be paid the rightful amount equal to their contribution to society: zero dollars an hour. If production is to entail mutual exchange and careful consideration toward profit and loss accounting, then government produces nothing without a negative effect on some individuals. The government worker is paid solely through whatever funds were forcefully taken from actual producers of wealth. The kid working in an ice cream stand whom the president of the firefighter’s union referred to is providing a valued service to society. His pay is based off of whatever marginal revenue he brings in. The firefighter paid by tax dollars is a functioning leech whose pay is totally separated from any measure of consumer satisfaction. Government workers have little, if any, incentive to serve the public in an efficient or convenient manner. In America, police have no legal obligation to assist you. And if you think the local fire company will be there at your beck and call, just ask Gene Cranick of Tennessee who watched his house burn down with fire crews standing by as he neglected to pay a $75 dollar fee beforehand. The selfless civil servants simply watched the spectacle of a man’s home being destroyed even as Cranick offered to pay the fee for service right then and there. Compare this to the private, for-profit firefighting that existed in many towns in 19th century America. As urban historian Mark Tebeau describes it in an interview with NPR’s Robert Siegel nearly two years ago:

SIEGEL: Now, I read this today – and you tell me if there’s any truth to it -that sometimes competitive fire brigades in their zeal to be the one to put out fire, maybe to get an award or be backed by an insurer, might actually have played a little defense against another competing fire company.
Prof. TEBEAU: Yeah. They would race to the fires. This reflected community tensions of the era, as well as a sort of manly pride in being first not only to get to the scene, but first to put the fire out.

No doubt Cranick, who found himself on the wrong end of government’s over-bureaucratization, would have jumped for joy at the prospect of multiple fire brigades rushing to save his home.

By virtue of its monopoly on coercion, the public sector exists wholeheartedly at the expense of society. Worse are the unions that piggyback off this extortion and kick taxpayers in the gut even harder just to take a few extra dollars out of their wallets. Unions remain empowered through their government-granted privilege of forcing employers to bargain with them; including the various levels of government. But this only scratches the surface to the despicable nature of both private sector and public sector unions. As libertarian economist Walter Block notes:

Yes, unions are disgusting and repulsive institutions, as the right side of the political spectrum properly emphasizes. They restrict entry into the labor market, and either beat up potential competitors who they characterize as “scabs” (where are the politically correct opponents of hate speech when we need them?), and/or get the government to do this evil deed for them, via legislation such as the Wagner Act which forbids employers from hiring replacement workers on a permanent basis.

What the city of Scranton has in common with San Bernardino, Detroit, et al. is that its dire fiscal condition is due to one thing and one thing only:benefits promised to unionized workers. For decades, public sector workers and their professionally dressed cohorts in plunder known as union representatives have operated under the fallacious assumption that government is the gift that never stops giving. But in today’s environment of economic stagnation, their dreams of living off of stolen fruits of labor are thankfully starting to represent reality. Whole countries in the European Union are beginning to crumble under the weight of their bloated government workforces and entitlement programs. American cities are currently facing up to the extravagant benefits promised to public workers. In a mater of years, Illinois and California will likely follow.

To quote Pat Buchanan, "The salad days of the government employee are coming to an end, as they have already in Greece, Italy and Spain.” To those sick and tired of the tax-eater mentality that is destroying the very core of society’s productive capacity and moral base, those days can’t come soon enough.

A Rainy Day For Liberty (Part 1)

It’s raining, it’s pouring, coffers overflowing. No doubt you will all be aware of the ongoing chatter about the island’s so called ‘rainy day fund’. Those of you who were not aware of its existence may be shocked to learn that the Shitheads States of Jersey are sitting on a stockpile of your money. This money was stolen from you through taxation or extorted from you with fixed penalty notices/fuel duty/GST/stamp duty/Jamaican switch/whatever name they attach to the con.

 They are sitting on this stockpile of your money. It cannot be put simpler that the theft of this money through the above means was not ‘justified’ insofar as government programs/schemes/scams could merit. There has been a concerted effort to fuel this discussion, largely by the biased, government ran toilet newspaper, the JEP. On the 11^th July, the headline read “Use rainy day fund to boost economy”, whilst the tagline in the same article read “Chamber of Commerce call for a 2% cut in GST rate.” Both of those headlines sound very promising indeed, don't they? 

“Boost[ing]” the economy is needed as a matter of urgency. We live in a time where unemployment is higher than it’s ever been, with many more on their way out in the very near future, such as those in the fulfilment industry and even the Untouchables in the finance ‘industry’. (Admittedly, this is a misnomer as the ‘industry’ produces nothing but debt, they are only moneychangers and should be referred to as such for clarity). Despite the positive wording the proposed “solution” in the article is an outright con and potentially very dangerous indeed.

The president of the Jersey Chamber of Commerce, David Warr, “wants urgent action to be taken to address the Island’s struggling economy and rising unemployment levels.” Sounds good doesn't it? “He said that a reduction in GST to three percent from the current 5% would make a huge difference to firms struggling to survive and would give the Island’s economy a £30 million boost.” So far I totally agree with him. Taxes such as GST are crippling the economy, robbing the people and further entrenching and expanding government intrusion into every facet of our daily lives. An effective 60% reduction in GST is welcome by me and many, many thousands of islanders (except the ruling political class).

As if by some sort of sick joke, this refreshing moment of clarity and welcome change to the status quo of ‘all talk and no walk’, which islanders have come to expect is followed by the most catastrophic of anti-climaxes. The next sentence in the article, (in a paragraph of its own no less) reads, “And he wants the States to use the Strategic Reserve to pay for the tax cut.” So what the president of the Jersey Chamber of Commerce is saying in the most basic terms is this;

“There’s a stockpile of islanders’ money. We [the oligarchy] should use it to (1) line our pockets (2) line our friends’ pockets (3) waste it (4) all of the above.” Option 4 is sadly what we have become indoctrinated to accept as the norm. In addition to this, what he is saying is “We [the oligarchy] should brag about how connected we are to the community and dependable at responding to the will of the people to reduce this unwanted and immoral tax, GST.” The JEP will run with this bs propaganda, as they routinely do, islanders will welcome the reduction in tax and everyone will go back to sleep. Problem solved, right? Not at all.

GST is a tax, which means you that money is given to the government for no specific purpose, leaving the government to spend it on anything at any time, without any input from you. If you believe in the Jersey politicians’ promises, I almost feel sorry for you. Remember Mr “I won’t increase GST to 5%” Ozouf’s campaign? What happened to GST? It went to 5%. Do you get the picture now? What David Orr is proposing is “Tell the people they are getting a tax cut, without actually giving it to them.” According to him, GST would go down but there is no net gain in islanders’ pockets as the money that would’ve been stolen at the till by the government had GST remained at 5%, would instead be stolen in advance. Oh, and then the “rainy day fund” would be gone.

What makes me even more incensed at this is that Warr openly jokes about it. “They call it the rainy day fund. Well guess what – it’s raining.” What an incredible piece of sick humour. “It’s raining outside, it’s the shittest summer on record, its called a rainy day fund, so we’re gonna openly take your money and your gonna thank us for doing so. You’ll even re-elect us as your saviours.” AHAHAHA!!! Comic. Fucking. Genius.

To be continued…

ECB 'We don't want your money'

There can be no clearer signal, no larger or brighter billboard sign that the ECB's decision to offer 0% interest on deposits. 

The thunder of imminent collapse is trumpeting more clearly with each passing day. Once the seals are released, Western Society as we know it will collapse.

The much beloved government in whom so many have placed so much of their trust, to whom so many have passed so much of their responsibility to, will finally teach the necessary lesson to those who would believe that their life, their future and their responsibilities are nothing that they need worry about.

The chart above shows the effect of the ECB's decision to cut their overnight deposit interest rate to 0% a fall of €484 Billion or around 50% of deposits. Where did all this money go, well the yield on Swiss bonds fell to a record low of MINUS 0.38%, yes people are willing to lose money to buy Swiss bonds, together with a multi-record breaking WTF? auction of US 10 year treasuries as reported by Zero Hedge. The Central Bank is telling you that your money is no good are you going to listen to them?

Money it seems is the one thing that no one wants to have, rather reminiscent of Weimar Germany in the early 20's or Zimbabwe to this day, so why are commodity prices not inflating? How much longer can these lies be maintained? Well it's only a few months till the US presidential elections.

There's a little bit of time left, spend every penny you have and buy 'things', any 'thing' that you can buy outright, but under no circumstances buy anything that requires a mortgage, before you get left holding the baby.

IT'S TIME TO LOOK TO YOUR OWN FUTURE

Who can we trust?

CIVIL SERVANTS HOLD THE ITALIAN PEOPLE TO RANSOM

Italy's national statistics body ISTAT threatened on Thursday to cease issuing data on the economy, saying it had been crippled by government spending cuts aimed at reducing national debt and righting public finances. 

The euro zone's third biggest economy, whose statistics are closely watched as the country's huge state debts put it at the center of the bloc's financial crisis, would face stiff European Union fines if the flow of data is cut off, ISTAT President Enrico Giovannini was quoted as saying.
"Spending cuts are putting ISTAT at risk. From January onwards we will not issue any statistics," Giovannini told daily La Repubblica in an interview. 

Prime Minister Mario Monti's government has unveiled plans to cut public spending by 4.4 billion euros in 2012, 10.6 billion euros in 2013 and over 11 billion euros in 2014, to be mainly achieved through a planned 10 percent reduction of public administration staff. 

Planned government cuts would reduce financing to ISTAT to 150-160 million euros by 2013 from 176 million euros currently, Giovannini said. He said that was half what is set aside for national statistics in France and one-third of what available in Nordic countries.

Giovannini called the planned cuts "unsustainable". 

He said ISTAT produces 300 sets of data a year, up 25 percent from two years ago and 2,000 smaller reports. Seventy percent of ISTAT's output is aimed at meeting obligations with the EU. (Reuters)

So whilst the Italian government is unable to afford to pay its bills, Civil Servants have taken it upon themselves to blackmail the government into targeting cuts to other areas. It is good to see that Civil Servants are setting themselves ahead of the society they are supposed to serve.

BANKS LOOK FORWARD TO ANOTHER ROUND OF OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENTS

The second Barclays announced its $450 million Libor settlement, it was all over - the lawyers smelt not only blood, but what may be the biggest plaintiff feeding frenzy of all time. 

Which is why it was only a matter of time before we saw stories like these in Reuters and the Financial Times

"State attorneys general are jumping into the widening scandal over whether banks tried to manipulate benchmark international lending rates, a move that could open a new front against the top global banks. A handful of state attorneys general said they are looking into whether they have jurisdiction over the banks, and are starting preliminary discussions to determine what kind of impact the conduct involving the Libor rate may have had in their states."

The lawyers will crawl out of the woodwork like worms after a torrential downpour, and will all be willing to work on contingency, telling potential clients they are owed thousands, nay, millions based on such and such analysis. All they need is to have held a mortgage, or a credit card, or any variable interest liability in the 4 years in question. And to sign the dotted line.

The resulting lawsuits, most of which in class action format, will be of gargantuan proportions, simply to encourage settlement, as ongoing litigation will easily destroy the financial system. The litigation reserves at the TBTF banks will explode and will cause years writedowns. But at least they will be one-time charges, so the stocks don't get crushed too much. That said, forget any growth out of the banking sector, and certainly the 16 BBA member banks, all of whom are about to be sued to smithereens in civil suits as more and more banks step up and settle to avoid criminal prosecution.

The biggest irony is that the torrent of upcoming suits will be in effect targeting none other than the Central Banks. Because while banks which all were massively levered to even a one basis point move in Libor were very sensitive to the smallest variations in 3 month USD libor, end-clients who did not have this leverage were far less impaired. But that doesn't matter: after all the same clients were impaired through gross borderline criminal negligence which is all that matters in a court of law.

The very chancers who will likely seek a lottery win through these actions will be the ones who end up paying for it in expenditure cuts and tax increases. The lawyers will do very nicely I'm sure.

Dear Prospective Employee, Why I can't hire you

Above Video: The Scene in Spain as Socialists are told 
they will have to earn their wages, not be guaranteed them by Government.

Further rioting erupted in Madrid in response to a de-regulation of the labour market which allowed bosses to more easily make staff redundant. The clash between the Socialists who believe that all responsibility and freedom should be removed from them in return for their leasing themselves into slavery to an employer and the government and the reality that workers must earn their pay and that part of the reason for the high levels of unemployment is the high cost of employing someone.

With youth unemployment at over 50% and a large number of over-paid, union affiliated civil servants refusing to accept any change to their terms and conditions despite the economic realities of the world today a clash would seem to be inevitable and this is unlikely to be the last.

The sheer ludicrous position that is the modern union movement is echoed in the case of San Bernardino where unions have successfully files an injunction to prevent the city from only paying them minimum wage, the City already $40 million in debt and unable to extend their line of credit is simply unable to pay them any more. So faced with an inevitable breach of injunction the City has entered bankruptcy and with the protection of the Court is now only going to pay its workers the federal minimum wage of $7.20 per hour.

There is something not right about these government employees, but then let's face it they would not be government employees otherwise. These are the very employees who vote in the politicians against the will of the normal people because they promise to be complicit whilst the government employees abuse their positions and rob the rest of us to line their own pockets. There is a kind of karma in all this.

These unions are of course only serving as the foot-soldiers for the upper echelons who do not want to lose the same privileges as the manual workers, but certainly don't want to be seen to be causing a fuss. The protests and strikes go on with their tacit approval and behind closed doors encouragement.

No one objects to someone on £20,000 getting a 2% pay rise, but it is inextricably tied to the person on £360,000 also getting exactly the same pay rise and he is over paid already.

Once you've been self-employed for a while, and you only hire or work with other self-employed people, then you look back on conventional work places as absurd theatres of schoolyard politics, tiresome resentments and child-parent conflicts, acted out by self-absorbed adults.

If you wonder why you cannot get a job, then look no further than the raft of employment legislation which whilst protecting those in employment (most particularly the civil servants), is stopping those not in employment from getting a job and robbing the younger generation of a chance to live independent of government handouts.

Those of us under 50 are paying for the folly of the previous generation, who elected idiots to run their affairs, entrusted all personal responsibility to an untrustworthy government, and in the process allowed the government to rob them of their freedom. The previous generation cannot be allowed to escape the consequences of their actions by robbing the future of the younger generation, that cost is too high.

So with this in mind, I am going to attempt to explain what exactly the cost is of employing one person and why I will no longer be a slave-master, and why you should no longer wish to be a slave to anyone, especially not the government.

Dear Potential Employee,

I know you're hard-working, motivated, tech-savvy and willing to learn. The reason I can't hire you has nothing to do with your work ethic or skills; it's the high-cost of the Status Quo, and the many perverse consequences of Government in maintaining a failing Status Quo.

The sad truth is that it's costly and risky to hire anyone to do anything, and "bankable projects" that might generate profit/require more labor are few and far between. The overhead costs for employees have skyrocketed. So even though the wages employees see on their paychecks have stagnated, the total cost the employer pays has risen substantially.

Thirty years ago the overhead costs were considerably less, adjusted for inflation, and there weren't billboards advertising a free trip to Cabo if you sued your employer. (I just saw an advert placed by a legal firm that solicited employees to sue their employers, with the incentive being "free money" for a vacation.)

The other primary reason is that there are few (to borrow a phrase used by John Michael Greer) "bankable projects," that is, projects where hiring another worker would pay for the costs of the additional overhead, labor and capital and generate a reason for making the investment, i.e. a meaningful profit.

There is very little real "new business" in a recessionary, deflationary economy: any new business is poaching from an established business. The new restaurant isn't drawing people from their home kitchens, it's drawing customers from established restaurants.

The only competitive advantage in a deflationary economy is to be faster, better and cheaper or have a marketing and/or technology edge. But marketing and technological advantages offer increasingly thin edges. The aspirational demand (driven by the desire to be hip or cool) for a new good or service has a short half-life. As for technology: miss a product cycle and you're history.

Put these together--higher costs and risks for hiring people, and diminishing opportunities for expansions that lead to profit--and you have a scarcity of projects where hiring people makes financial sense.

Faster, better and cheaper usually means reducing the labor input, not increasing it. In a deflationary economy, it's extremely difficult to grow revenues (sales), and as costs continue climbing inexorably, the only way to survive is to cut expenses so there is still some net for the owner/proprietor to live on.

Consider the tax burden on a sole proprietor who might want to hire someone. The 12.5% Social Security tax starts with pound one. After the usual standard deductions, income tax is 20%. My GST is 5%. There are many other taxes levied.

You can imagine how much money I would need to clear to be able to afford hiring someone. The number of businesses that generate huge sums of profit are few and far between, and the number of businesses that scale up from a one-person shop to mega-millions in revenues is also extremely limited.

The potential employer is faced with this reality: the money to hire a new employee will come out of my pay, at least at first. Hiring an additional worker only makes sense if the new employee will immediately generate enough additional revenue to fund his/her own wage and overhead costs, the added expense of supervision and a profit substantial enough to offset the risks.

I should stipulate that my knowledge of hiring people and being an employer is not academic. My partner and I launched a business in late 1998.

What newly minted employers understand that employees rarely understand is that the overhead costs of hiring even one person do not scale at first. To hire one person, even part-time, the employer needs to set up a complex infrastructure to manage the payroll taxes and accounting, and comply with a variety of statutes. If the employer does not follow the many laws regarding labour, witholding taxes, workers compensation, liability coverage, insurance and so on, then the employer is at risk of penalties and/or lawsuits.

If a business does £1 million in gross receipts a year and already has five employees and a manager, it's not that burdensome to hire a seventh employee--the framework is all set up. But the cost of setting all that up for employee #1 is not trivial, especially when you realize the complex machinery all has to be overseen and managed.

In the Silicon valley model, a couple of guys/gals work feverishly in the living room/garage until they have a product/service to sell to venture capital. If the pitch succeeds, the VCs give them a couple million dollars and they hire a manager to sort out all the paperwork, management, etc.

Most small businesses/proprietors don't get handed a couple million dollars. They have to grow organically, one step at a time. Each expansionist step is fraught with risks, especially when opportunities to grow revenue are few and far between and are generally crowded with competitors.

Thirty years ago the employer's share of Social Security tax was not today's 6%; it was much less. As costs of hiring anyone to do anything have climbed while revenues have stagnated, the threshold to hire an employee keeps getting higher.

Back in the day, I could hire a young person out of school for a modest cost in overhead, and the work-value they produced to justify the expense was also modest. I could afford to hire marginal workers and as long as they didn't get in the way too much and ably performed basic tasks then I could afford to have them on the payroll.

The same was true of older workers --I could afford to give all sorts of people a chance to prove their value because the costs and risks were low. That's simply less true today. The costs and risks are much, much higher.

Liability has become a lottery game where anyone with assets or income is a target for "winner take all" lawsuits. In an office environment, I could be sued for harassment or for engendering a "stressful work environment." If you think these kinds of cases are rare, you need to get out more. Simply put, the feeble hope of increasing revenues does not even come close to offsetting the tremendous risks created by having employees.

There's a Catch-22 aspect to all this; small business can't expand revenues without employees, but the costs/risks of having employees makes that a gamble that is often not worth taking. The lower-risk, lower-cost survival strategy is to automate everything possible in back-office work and free up the proprietor's time to grow revenues that then flow directly to the bottom line.

Managing people is not easy, and it's often stressful. Once a proprietor hires an employee, he/she must wear a number of new hats: psychiatrist/counselor, manager, coach, teacher, to name but a few. Frankly, I don't need the stress. I would rather earn a modest living from my labor and avoid all the burdens of managing people. (In my case, that included bailing workers out of jail, loaning them my truck which was subsequently rolled and destroyed, and a bunch of other fun stuff.)

I am not embittered, I am simply realistic. I enjoyed my employees' company, even the one who rolled my truck and the ones who managed to get into trouble with the law. But I got tired of meetings and all the wasted motion of office management, and I got tired of taking cash advances on my credit cards to make payroll.

If anyone out there thinks being an entrepreneur/small business proprietor is easy and a surefire pathway to the luxe life, then by all means, get out there and start a business and hire a bunch of people. I applaud your energy and drive, and sincerely hope you are wildly successful.

I hope you now understand why so many businesses only want to work with contract labor/ self-employed people:having employees no longer makes financial sense for many small enterprises. What makes sense is paying someone a set fee to accomplish a set task, and that's it, the obligation of both parties is fulfilled. If the task isn't completed, then the fee isn't paid.

Revenues just aren't steady enough in many cases to support a permanent employee. When the work comes in, then contract labor is brought in to get the work done. When it's done, they're gone, and all their overhead costs are theirs.

It's extraordinarily difficult to generate revenue in a deflationary economy, and extraordinarily difficult to scrape off a net income as expenses such as taxes, insurance, healthcare, etc. continue climbing year after year.

Self-employment places a premium on professionalism and results. Unlike offices filled with managers and employees, nobody cares about your problems, conflicts, complaints about the common-area fridge or your attendence at meetings.

Once you're self-employed, your focus shifts to nurturing a productive network of clients, customers and like-minded, reliable, resourceful self-employed people who will give you work/work for you when you need help. Building trust and following through on what you promised to do become your priority.

The economy is different now, and wishing it were unchanged from 30 years ago won't reverse the clock. We have to respond to the incentives and disincentives that exist in today's world, and those do not favor conventional permanent employees except in sectors that are largely walled off from the market economy: government, healthcare, etc.

But these moated sectors cannot remain isolated from the deflationary market economy forever, and what was considered safely walled off from risk and change will increasingly face the same market forces that have changed private-sector enterprise.

If you want security and a steady income, it may be more rewarding to build it yourself via highly networked self-employment.

Minimum Wage = Maximum Distortion

Right now there is a questionnaire floating around the interwebs concerning the minimum wage in Jersey. I had the link but its gotten lost in the ether somewhere, so it will be added at the bottom should I find it again. This questionnaire is a trick, nothing more. It is designed to (1) fool you into believing that you can in any way influence the oligarch's agenda and (2) with fool you into accepting the continued existence of a minimum wage, with leading and frankly economically stupid questions such as "should it go up/down/round and round?".

There should be no minimum wage. The free market should dictate how much a given person should be paid in a given role, taking into account their previous experience/capacity/efficiency in the role.

Having a minimum wage dictated by politicians, who have little to no knowledge of how an economy should operate, let alone the workings of the way in which the island's economy is handled/regulated/distorted abysmally by the bureaucrats.The Treasury Minister doesn't know what's best for businesses. He doesn't know what's best for employees. All he serves to do is manipulate and distort the market for the benefit of the government, not for the benefit of the people.

An essentially arbitrary number is chosen by a very small group of people (if not one), which is then 'approved' by the government (another small group of people). These people are politicians, not workers, not business owners, not electricians, chefs, sales assistants or hairdressers. They have no idea what the market desires in terms of the supply and demand of labour, goods and services. Even if they did have perfect information about the needs of the market and based their 'magic number' on this data, it would still be as meaningless as the demands of the market can change at the drop of a hat, to reflect consumer habits etc etc.

Those who would use the argument "Well if there was no minimum wage then what's to stop McDonald's paying me £1 an hour." The answer to this misguided approach is you and your own free will. Nobody would choose to work for £1ph. Instead of the financial prospects of the workers being restricted to a "go-to figure", which the businesses will always favour as - let's face it, what the minimum wage really means is if you pay your workers 1p less per hour, you as the employer would potentially face criminal sanctions. This is madness! THIS IS SPARTA!!!

The lower the minimum wage, the lower the quality of life for those who earn it as they would be forced to work longer hours to be able to afford the necessities of life. What you are saying to someone being paid minimum wage is "your skills are so limited and your capacity so low that we value your labour at the lowest possible rate we as your employer can get away with, whilst avoiding criminal liability." "Then the minimum wage must be higher!" I hear you shout. This is also misguided. Imagine that you own a small restaurant with 5 employees, each working 40 hours p/w. You pay the 3 waitresses minimum wage.

The government then decides that the arbitrary figure of minimum wage is to be increased, which would result in your wage bill being 15% higher. You had no say in this matter and there's nothing you can do about it. As a business owner you would inevitably pass that increase in cost on to the customer. If your outlay is 15% higher, then if follows that you should increase your food prices to reflect this. Increasing your prices will drive away customers who would otherwise have dined in your restaurant. This will lead you to reduce your more expensive wage bill by laying off an employee or giving them less working hours. The workers face being laid off, the business needs to make cutbacks or increase prices, which only drives consumers away, therefore hampering the island's economy as a whole. Nobody is served well by this legislation at all.

As you can see, the minimum wage is designed with honorable intentions, but alas it achieves the opposite effect. On paper it is supposed to help the workers but in reality it is in direct contradiction to workers' interests. If everyone's labour were to be evaluated on an individual basis in the free market, then there would be more jobs, more economic freedom and more prosperity (3 things the SoJ have proven time and time again NOT to be interested in for the people's sake, but for their own sakes.)

If someone's labour was only worth say £5/h then they should not be prevented by a gang of robed idiots from working for that amount. If someone's labour was worth £50/h then the same rules apply.

Unemployment is at record highs just now and this figure is only going to increase (because the SoJ sold the fulfilment industry down the river for no justifiable reason - and yes I do have a law degree and yes I did read the relevant legislation and yes it was totally appalling how the SoJ acted. Irreprehensible, in fact.) There are people with low skill sets out there, of course. The minimum wage just seeks to box them out of the job market, as by setting a minimum standard of skills, anyone who does not meet these requirements will never get a job. In the free market however, they would be able to find a job whose pay reflected the value added to the business by their labour.

If minimum wage was at £10 say, then less people would be hired as the operating costs of being forced to pay such a high wage bill would dissuade businesses from hiring more people. As a result the economy suffers.

Get rid of the minimum wage and the economy will improve leaps and bounds (despite the Bank of England's efforts to debase the contents of all our wallets through quantitative easing/printing money/fraud. Whatever name you give it, the minimum wage hampers the island's economy. The bigger fish can be fried in due course, I hope.

I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

Further reading:
www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA701.pdf - Explains how the long lost cousins in New Jersey are at a financial detriment due to the minimum wage.

Living in interesting times

So there are a couple of questions which are occupying my mind at this time; When should I start to hoard food? Do I want my bank card to have a tracking device implanted into it?

What is an RFID chip? It is a chip which transmits data in the radio wave frequency, this means that anyone with a reader can pick up your information and use it. There have been other uses for RFID chips suggested, for example on the US/Canadian Border you can simply pass your chip under a reader and be fast tracked through the border. Elderly people are being encouraged to have chip implanted with all their medical details.

Well call me paranoid, but I do not like the idea of having someone be able to access all my personal data using surveillance equipment.

Call me old fashioned but if someone wants to know something they only need ask.

So I decided to render the RFID chip in my bank cards inactive. I even found a great you tube video which demonstrates the procedure.

I chose a slightly more precise method as the chips in UK bank cards and revealed which was to push a blade through the chip at three corners. In order to test the success of the process I then proceeded to the bank where the card was rejected by the ATM as unreadable. The bank staff were somewhat uncertain as to how to assist me with activating my card and looked at me strangely when I explained what I had done and why I had done it.

The card still functions perfectly, but rather than reading the chip the number must be typed in manually by the merchant, use over the internet is not affected at all.

Zero Hedge also raises the point about what to expect in the current hyper-inflationary (price) environment the chart to the left is a logarithmic chart where each point on the y axis is ten times the previous point.

Food prices are rising prices, whether in terms of the actual shelf price or in the various changes to the ingredients and weights of the products themselves.

There was a stage earlier in the year where I thought I was just getting old, remembering what prices used to be, but I now am convinced that prices are not only increasing they are increasing much faster than they used to.

I'm looking at the best before dates on the special offers in the super markets and actively considering stockpiling food with a suitable duration of say three years as I feel certain that within that time period the full force of hyper inflation will hit, as it did in Germany in 1923.

Buying a tin of baked beans now on special offer at 50p (I'm sure it used to be 20p not so long ago) and storing it for a certain amount of time might just be the best investment I can make. If an egg can sell for 4 billion marks, then why can a tin of beans not make me a millionaire?

We live in interesting times

The disputed area of the South China Sea 

Long time followers of this blog will know that much of my understanding of what is going on in the world comes from the inimitable golden jackass, Jim Willie CB. It is his analysis which points to a fundamental shift in the global economic stakes and that shift is in an eastward direction.

I keep looking for the signs he has been pointing to in his recent offerings and Bloomberg reports that China has imported more gold in the first five months of 2012 than the UK holds. Yesterday the Financial Times reported that Iran had been importing tonnes of gold in the first five months of 2012.

Over at Zero Hedge the supposition becomes that not only is China directly importing gold but it is demanding gold rather than US$ from its trading partners.

The Jackass hypothesis it seems is borne out by events. And whilst we are on the subject of gold, analysis shows that the UK's sale of gold in 1999 to 2001 directly assisted one of the largest US banks, more market manipulation?

The BBC reporting on the increasing tensions in the South China Sea over China's territorial claims in that region but it is more than claims that have been fought over. A naval stand-off lasting several weeks over the Scarborough Shoal has directed the attention of the US to the Pacific reports the NY Times.

The US has since made plans to re-activate naval bases in the Philippines and to station troops in Australia and Russia Today reports that there have been calls for further strengthening of the US military presence in the region.

So the US plans to surround China with forces on the Pacific to complement the strategic deployment of troops in the Middle East.

Meanwhile in Europe we have finally been given the details of the Spanish Bailout and it has swiftly been analysed as average and of course lacking the key detail of just how much it is all going to cost. One key detail is an insistence that powers be transferred from the Ministry of the Treasury to the Central Bank of Spain, Banco d'Espana. A legal challenge has been launched in the German Constitutional Court to delay or prevent the signing into law of the ESM in Germany.

And so there we have it, the Anglo-American block is preparing to defend its economic dominance with the sword, the Chinese are repeating the Opium Wars, but in reverse (taking all the gold through trade) and the Germans, well they are deciding just how much candy is good for the children in the South of Europe.

Has anyone read that book by George Orwell, 1984? Weren't there three global powers in that book? Weren't they all Authoritarian states? Maybe I am on the wrong side.

Thoughts on Richard Murphy's Plan B

I may be a little ahead of Tom Gruchy here in blogging on Richard Murphy's Plan B for Jersey (videos at bottom of page), but I wanted to give it a critical analysis from a Libertarian viewpoint. Unlike many in Jersey, I recognise that Richard is an astute and able accountant and is certainly an effective 'expert' but fundamentally he believes in government. I have no doubt that his analysis of the viewpoint of the European Union and what they intend to do is correct, but I think that for now they have other things on their minds. I would also fully accept his analysis of the political intentions of Jersey, but I do not believe that the government of Jersey is solely to support the finance industry, what you have to remember is that the civil service makes up 43% of the workforce, all of whom are paid by the finance industry. All the pensions and benefits, all the services. Jersey is locked into a financial Armageddon which even if nothing else hits, will result in complete bankruptcy for the States by 2020. The pensions time bomb is burning and the fuse is getting shorter by the day.

I believe our government is solely concerned with its own survival and I firmly believe that it is not going to survive. The entire Western financial system is in a meltdown of its own and countries round the world are printing money to pay for services, a privilege that Jersey does not have. When the balance of power shifts from we Anglo-Americans, what then for Jersey?

Make no mistake it would not be possible for the banks here to operate as they do without the full knowledge and support of external governments but fortunately the US is in charge, for now.

When that ceases to be the case who will pay for all the civil servants? No one they will leave. Will the Chinese and Indian banks move to Jersey rather than their own offshore centres? Not likely.

The expectations of growth will not be met, the expenditure will continue to rise as hyper inflation hits and so the question just remains, how long before the UK government is called in to clean up the economic disaster, yet again?

Government ultimately is the problem. 

Unfortunately Richard and those of his ideology simply do not recognise that there is a limit to how many people any country can have idle. Whilst we, like the United States and Western Europe, have gotten fat and lazy living off the backs of the poorer nations around the world. The incompetent and corrupt have retained power by giving candy to those who would remain children. That is the inevitable legacy of seventy years of Socialism.

Richard is right though he talks about what assets Jersey does have, but he does not accurately describe them. It is not our knowledge of how to process financial transactions which will likely be the future. It is the same assets we have always had, it is our natural environment, one which we have struggled to maintain against over-development.

When the finance industry withdraws and the civil servants leave, our environment will remain. With the inevitable plummet in house prices, cost of living and wages that will ensue, we can go back to being what we are a small and insignificant island that it is nice to spend a week on. The market will re-assert itself and Jersey's place within that market will be restored, as long as we go back to no GST and low duties, as long as we go back to limited government.

There is going to be a lot of pain for a lot of Jersey people - those who have not prepared for what is to come. It is not the end though, just a new beginning.

Richard Murphy's Plan B

Freeman on the Land - The Underlying Truth Part Two

Disclaimer - the following is based on my personal experience in the jurisdiction of Jersey and may not be applicable to other jurisdictions particularly those which are not common law jurisdictions. This is not legal advice which in any case would only be relevant if given with regard to the specific circumstances of the situation which gave rise to your need for advice, but it is my understanding of what the law actually means and I hope it is applicable generally.

Jersey does follow the demands of justice to a greater extent than many places and I am delighted to live in a relatively safe and pleasant place, but I would like it to be much better.

Myth Two - Every Statute is not a Law but a Contract
Myth Three - Statutes only apply to government employees

These common misconception are partly true, it is hard to unwind them individually to get to the bottom of them individually, indeed they need to be looked at together. Myth three is in fact not a myth at all, it is entirely true, but that may not help you in the way you think it does.

You may have read Interpretation (Jersey) Law 1954 which defines person as follows

“person” shall include any body of persons corporate or unincorporated;

Or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Article 6 which states

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law

Both of which clearly demonstrate that there is a difference between a 'human being' and a 'person', a person is a 'legal entity' and whilst every human being has the right to be recognised as a 'legal entity' in every Court, everywhere in the world, it is not the only form of legal entity.

We also know from United Nations declaration on Human Rights Article 1 that

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

It would initially seem that there is a contradiction then between being free and having restrictions placed upon you, but actually there are no restrictions placed upon you by the Law as I shall explain.
In the last post in this series I looked at how a man becomes a person with reference to a particular status, every statute will set forth a series of responsibilities and duties which the individual who assumes the status is then bound by.

Each Statute is, except where specifically stated otherwise such as in the Interpretation (Jersey) Law 1954, considered entirely independently of any other law.

In the majority of statutes there is a series of offences listed and a penalty is set forth which may be applied by a Court to any individual who matches the criteria specified, i.e. who has the status set forth in the particular articles relating to offences.

Statutes do indeed for the most part, govern and regulate the operation of government and that includes the offences section. 

If you really read a statute it does not actually place any prohibition on any human being from carrying out any act, but it does proscribe a penalty which may be levied on any person who matches the status described in the statute.

For example in the Firearms (Jersey) Law 2000

32    Possession of unlawful weapons 

(3)    Any person who is in possession of any weapon or parts or ammunition contrary to this Article or who fails to comply with any condition imposed under paragraph (2) shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, or to both.

In this paragraph it defines a 'status' being that of 'in possession of any weapon or parts or ammunition' which is necessary to make a human being a 'person' under this statute and it sets out a liability being 'a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years or both'.

So lets look at Myth 2 'every statute is just a contract' in some ways this does this look like a contract especially if you reworded it as an an offer 'if you want to pay a fine or serve a term of imprisonment of no more than three years or both then you must possess a weapon or part of a weapon or ammunition'.

But it is not a contract primarily because it is not intended to be legally binding, in other words, if you are in possession of a weapon or part or ammunition the government is not under an obligation to levy a fine, a term of imprisonment or both.

Now turning to Myth 3 'Statutes only apply to government employees' well that IS true. This statute gives government employees the power to act in a given circumstance. It gives government the power to levy a fine, or imprison you, or both if they can show that you were in possession of a weapon, part of a weapon or ammunition.

The Statute does not apply to every human being, it only applies to some government employees, but you may be affected by it.

Every charge in a Court will end 'thus rendering himself liable to pay the penalty set forth', I'm going to look into that bit next.

There are many more LIeBORs to come

Barclays boss: Banks should be allowed to fail by itnnews

When paper money hyper inflates
there is only gold 

Few observers make the connection, but the current LIBOR scandal is a middle inning of two important events. The first is the demise of the Western banker leadership crew. The executives from the most powerful banks will be last to be deposed, all sharing an ethnic strain. The second is the open fracture of the Western financial system. 

"Over the past few years, to be sure a great many people have grown tired of Jackass descriptions of corruption within the banking sector and financial system in general. Well, hear this: TOLD YA SO! The London Interbank Offered Rate scandal will erupt into an uncontrollable firestorm, hitting one chamber and then the next, with rapid contagion. The Bank of England and the US Federal Reserve are both implicated, but they will skate until the end game. They control the prosecutors and the news networks. Few yet connect the LIBOR rigged prices to the important parts of the financial kingdom run by the harried banker elite. The supposedly informed experts point to the rigged low rates for adjustable rate mortgages, for credit cards, and for student loans. Only the ARM rate is important among these, since it kept and housing bubble going. If truth be told, the LIBOR anomalies have persisted since late 2008. (Jim Willie)"

The intrepid first class forensic bond analyst Rob Kirby linked the sordid trails and mismatched discrepancies of the LIBOR to the JPMorgan monster, the US Federal Reserve syndicate ring leader, and the USDept Treasury (haven for Goldman Sachs lieutenants). See his 2008 article on Financial Sense. Regulators have done nothing for four years. It was not fully appreciated at the time, like it might be today.

The LIBOR should match the settled EuroDollar contract, but it has not for years. The evidence for price rig has been glaring for years. The big banks have skimmed the difference for profit for years. Imagine selling milk or concrete with a variation in price at the wholesale level, enabling vast profits from skimming. It has been permitted for the big banks, a grand blemish on an already scarred sector.

Anyone with a solid intelligence quotient, a curious manner, and a suspicious streak can detect the recent trail. The MFGlobal client account thefts were a coming out event for the corruption. The JPMorgan margin calls on various positions had become an acute problem. They were very short on cash. With the upcoming December 2011 gold & silver delivery notices adding strain to the near breakpoint, JPMorgan made a decision. They stole the MFGlobal client accounts. They reneged on all precious metals contract delivery. They put all the to-be-delivered metal in their own account. Mission Accomplished, the catch phrase for unspeakable colossal permitted corruption in the USGovt and US financial markets.

The losses in May by JPMorgan in the sovereign bond and Interest Rate Swap arena provided the Prima Facie case for the MFGlobal thefts, showing deep losses that will escalate over time. The officials at JPM have been telling scattered truths over the course of the last several weeks. They admit at times that their profound losses are tied to Interest Rate Swaps, which experienced analysts and traders can tell are for defense of the USTreasury Bonds and their entirely unwarranted 0% yield.

LIBOR CONNECTED TO INTEREST RATE SWAPS

The annual now chronic $1.5 trillion USGovt deficits must be financed. They should be financed at a Spain-like 7% yield. The two nations have equally wrecked finances and an equal unemployment rate. But doing so would be far too disruptive. But doing so would be far too costly. But doing so would take away the wellspring of cheap money for the speculation. The big banks enjoy a brisk carry trade off the USTreasury curve that makes easy profits. No other industry is granted such risk free profits. So enter the IRSwap to generate an artificial USTBond rally from a phony engineered flight to safety. The thought of a flight to the safety of massive uncontrollable USGovt toxic debt pit is laughable on its face. The LIBOR price rig has enabled virtually free funds for the IRSwap that supports the vast 0% USTBond tower.

The next connection will soon be revealed. The IRSwaps are fed by the deep source fountain of LIBOR, at virtually free cost. It bears repeating. Too much attention is given to the adjustable rate mortgage feeder process. Not enough is given to the derivatives that are abused by the financial sector in unregulated shadow systems. The big banks have sold too many multiples of Credit Default Swap insurance, to the point that both counter-parties are dead. No net neutrality is a reflection of reality. Too legless swimmers do not rescue each other in the deep waters. They both drown, just like the bank parties involved.

However, the big story is the Interest Rate Swap contracts, those arbitraged long-term bond swaps versus short-term bond swaps that enable free money to finance the levers that control the long maturity for the USTBonds. Anyone who believes the TNX fell from 3.6% in 2011 to under 1.8% was from a flight to quality is either drinking Wall Street kool-aid or duped by their marketing flyers or captivated by media propaganda or just plain stupid. The vested interest in watching the 10-year USTBond yield go into ultra-low territory is all very understandable. Many financial asset prices depend upon a low benchmark bond yield.

But the reality is that foreign creditors abandoned the USGovt debt auctions. The reality is that primary dealers to those auctions found themselves stuck with inventory. The reality is that an avalanche of USGovt debt supply could not be handled with absent demand. The reality is that the USGovt borrowing costs required, if not demanded, ultra-low yields to prevent a worse explosion in deficits. The only true aspect of the flight into USTreasurys is that the European sovereign bonds have turned toxic. But the Europeans are far more likely to purchase German Bunds, and they have, driving their yields lower than the USTBonds. Some arbitrage has pulled the two to almost equal, evidence that IRSwaps are at work in the Bund backyard. The story will come out soon enough, how the LIBOR rate was rigged extremely low in order to facilitate management of the ultra-low 0% Fed Funds rate, and to enable the IRSwaps to do their magic in keeping down the long-term USTBond yield. The LIBOR has been and continues to be the feeder system for the IRSwaps that enforce the 0% and 1.5% yields on FedFunds and TNX. The factor is mentioned on financial networks with quick passing and no emphasis. They still sell the flight to safety rubbish story.

FASCIST BUSINESS MODEL FLOURISHES

The Fascist Business Model is not just showing its bitter fruit after the Bush II Admin came to office in 2001. It is flourishing in a climax of failure. The model does not simply permit financial crime. It encourages it. It promotes it. It rewards it. The higher powers organize it and run it. The result is not simply tolerated financial crime. It enables financial crime to flourish. The USAttorney General office sits on its hands. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sits on its hands. The Securities & Exchange Commission sits on its hands. The financial press ignores the crime, or minimizes it, or explains it away. They all pay lipservice to enforcement of regulations and securities fraud. The outcome is a mindnumbing episode of financial fraud, theft, and collusion that the nation has never witnessed in its entire history. The outcome is an extreme strangle of the nation around its financial neck.

Jim Willie continues, "In Jackass writings over the last several year, the word 'corruption' has appeared many times in almost every public article. That is because corruption appeared in every direction the trained eye was cast. For some articles, the word appeared over 20 times, and deservedly. My attention to corruption is steadfast and consistent. Corruption is Wall Street's calling card. It will bear the epitaph of the nation."

The Fascist Business Model practices brought the nation the Too Big To Fail rationale that permitted insolvency and corruption from syndicate strongholds.Worse, the practiced model has brought the United States as a nation to the doorstep of systemic failure. The ripening LIBOR scandal is an extension of the MFGlobal theft and a close cousin to the deep JPMorgan losses. The entire US and London financial structure is collapsing. Instead of perceiving the European sovereign bond problem as having a related plague in the US and UK, the arrogant bankers preferred to conduct business as usual with IRSwap props of the fake USTBond tower. They preferred to rig the LIBOR channel that feeds the derivative pool, which include the all-important IRSwaps for maintaining the 0% artificial world. They preferred to point to the United States as different. It is not different. It is rotten from the inside due to 0%, whereas Southern Europe is rotten from the outside, manifested by the 7% alarm level.

The following stories, themes, and factors all serve as symptoms of corruption and failure. The failure is in part a result of the corruption. The corruption is intertwined with grotesque inefficiency, since the best in class do not prevail.The corruption sidetracks capitalism to reward the corrupt while inhibiting the successful and efficient. The most connected and thus corrupt not only prevail, but they rule. The following stories, themes, and factors are the handiwork of the US and London banker elite. The list is long but in no way complete, as the criminal activity is laced throughout the entire system. They will someday appear on indictment lists. To date the court rulings have almost all featured non-admission of guilt or any culpability, only details on settlement for the charges to go away. That greases the civil lawsuits away from continued awards. Regard such deals as fascist justice, more queer fruit. The decay of the nation is best seen not in economic output but in ethics. To be sure, the USEconomy is mired in a powerful recession that has extended for almost five years. The true protection from the systemic criminality is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

NAKED SHORTS ON PRECIOUS METALS

For two decades the bank cartel has been selling Gold & Silver futures contracts without collateral. They are exempted from regulatory action and prosecution, as part of some absurd position in national security. The practice covers the USGovt gold treasure, long gone, gutted, pilfered. On February 29th of this year, JPMorgan alone sold a full year of global silver mine output in a single hour. This is obscene. Compared to several years ago, the Big Four US banks have twice as big naked short contract position for precious metals. Refer to JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs. They all have pretty logos. They are not making America stronger. They are extending the criminal financial structures and their lifespan, giving room for zombies to roam. They enable a fiat USDollar currency to continue longer, despite the absent faith and trust no longer held in it globally. A parallel takes place, like with the Alpha Group for naked shorting Canadian mining stocks through their handy outlet Canaccord. If individuals attempted to naked short any futures contracts, they would be prosecuted and tossed in prison, their assets confiscated. The criminality is vast. The true protection from toxic paper contracts and paper certificates is obtained and secured by owning physical precious metals, never in paper form of any kind. Best in bullion bars and coins.

QUANTITATIVE EASING & OPERATION TWIST

The magnitude of bond purchase is astronomical, best described as Weimar-like. The printing of USDollars on electronic devices for the purpose of buying USTreasury Bonds that the world no longer demands in order to cover the gargantuan USGovt debts is out of control. The entire process is obscene and loaded with deception. The public and investment community is told repeatedly of a flight to quality and safety. There is neither quality in a Weimar rag known as the USTBond, nor safety in a junk bond with $1.5 trillion in annual deficits put to securities each year. The USFed does not have in its charter any feature to purchase 70% of the total sale of USTBonds in 2011, for instance. Operation Twist is a grand lie, a deception to cover the monetization of all 30-year USTBonds ever issued. It is a deception to enable foreign creditors to dump unwanted long maturity USTBonds, in favor of very short-term USTBills. The foreign creditors are eager to let the clock run out and have these bonds mature. Think exit. If corporations were to issue bonds without the demand of buyers, and float them in the market like a huge tributary from a toxic river, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the hyper monetary inflation is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MORTGAGE MARKET LAWSUITS & OBSCENITIES

The entire housing bubble was made possible by broad and deep corruption of every conceivable process within mortgage finance. People were approved to purchase homes without verified income. Home loans were approved without down payment. Homes were approved for sale without proper appraisal. Interest rates assigned to loans were often linked to corrupted LIBOR rates. The Wall Street banks shoved the income stream from a given mortgage into multiple securitized bonds. They covered their tracks with the MERS title database, intended to facilitate the frequent sale of property and more importantly the bonds tied to their income streams. The MERS lacked legal standing though, and their entire process was fraudulent. The court cases in several states discarded bank claims on foreclosure, with rulings that a database could not hold a property title. Why anybody pays a monthly mortgage anymore remains a mystery. It could be associated with a Pavlov response to flipping the calendar to a new month.

The climax for the obscene mortgage market practices came with the openly publicized robotic signature process on documents to foreclose and evict homeowners from their homes. The process went so far as to evict with sheriff assistance some people who owned their homes free and clear, the loans fully paid. The insult to the nation was foreclosure and eviction of standing military soldiers in service for the syndicate and oil companies. The docket for investor lawsuits for lax and nonexistent loan underwriting, followed by misrepresentation of bonds for sale, is hardly complete. If small companies committed the same contract fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the fraudridden bond parade and obscene wreckage of home equity is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

T.A.R.P. FUNDS

The TARP Funds chapter will go down in US history as the biggest open visible scam perpetrated in public view. No close second. The big banks appealed for USGovt aid in order to keep their credit engines humming, to prevent a lockup in lending, to save the USEconomy, a noble gesture. Instead, they bought corporate preferred stock and handed out gigantic bonuses to the architects of the housing and mortgage finance bubble & bust. They did so without shame, in your face. The $700 billion might have served as effective smokescreen, since the USFed was very busy behind the scenes. The USGovt should have demanded clawback on the entirety of the ill-gotten funds. But the USGovt financial squad is run by the big US banks. Refer to the Fascist Business Model and its expansive bitter fruit. Also in the background was a nifty grant of $138 billion to JPMorgan on a Saturday morning session in Manhattan by a bankruptcy court, supposedly to replenish funds for private accounts assumed in a merger. It was more like a JPM reload for intervening in the gold and currency markets. If ordinary companies committed the same fiduciary violation for misuse of borrowed funds, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the slush fund river is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

USFED $23 TRILLION GRANTS

While the nation was deeply entranced by the financial system breakdown marred by the Lehman Brothers killjob, the USFed was busy dispensing near 0% loans in $16 trillion volume to big banks across the world, but primarily in New York and London. It was like a Who's Who list, or more accurately owners of the USFed itself and their best friends. Disclosure forced by the USCongress resulted in mere observation of receipts long after the fact. The barn door once again was closed briefly after the horses were let loose for new owner capture. A repeat episode occurred only a year later, as another $7 trillion was dispensed to a similar gang. Al Capone himself would be proud of such patterned behavior. The United States is the only industrial nation that does not possess its own central bank. The nation is a colony for rape and pillage by trillionaire castle dwellers. If regional banks committed the same reckless loans as favors to Board members and friends, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the slush fund river is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

PILFERING FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC

The raids, counterfeit, and other grand larceny of the OFHEO agencies is legendary. The Sopranos showed the modus operandi. Obtain a phony appraisal of a rotten property. Lock in the loan. Buy the property for a fraction of the loan amount. Then make no payments and abscond with the loaned funds. Easy as pie. The Papa Bush Admin and Clinton Admin went one further. They simply stole from the Fannie Mae cash register and snagged a mountain of counterfeit bonds with Fannie Mae markings, to the tune of $1.5 trillion, or $1500 billion for the math challenged. The audits conducted by Catherine Austin Fitts stand on the record in verifying the volume in theft. The funds are devoted to private accounts and to black bag operations by the agencies. After all, they must keep America safe and strong. When China began to sell in earnest from their vast supply of Fannie bonds in 2007 and 2008, the USGovt had to take action. So they nationalized the toxic cesspool. Their action served to conceal the criminality and to prevent an audit. Leadership has become privilege and license for theft. The Fannie stock shares went to zero, exactly as the Jackass forecasted in 2006 and 2007. If other financial firms committed the same embezzlement of funds and engaged in counterfeit activity, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from the toxic cesspool under USGovt aegis is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

LOOTING FORT KNOX

The Clinton & Rubin Admin had a mission. They pulled it off well. The experienced savvy Robert Rubin moved from the London Gold Desk at Goldman Suchs to take control of the USDept Treasury. His first act and deed was to mark the gold lease rate at near 0%, and thus to embark on the Gold Carry Trade. The big winners would the privileged Wall Street banks with access to leased USGovt gold held in Fort Knox. Their ill-gotten gains must have totaled at least $2 trillion from leveraged shorts in the gold futures market. Couple the counter-trade in rising USTBonds, also with leverage applied, and the gains must have totaled at least $7 trillion. Pretty handsome profit for the Syndicate during an eight-year span. They called it the Decade of Prosperity. But it rendered the United States as a nation a sure bet for systemic failure in a decade's time from hollowed out insolvency and ruin. Like now. The Jackass prefers to call it the Decade of Stolen Prosperity. Moronic political observers long for the good ole days of Clinton and all that prosperity, without realizing the pilferage of the entire Fort Knox, the Gold Carry Trade, or anything sordid in nature. They are naive fools.

A colleague has a personal friend in charge of security at Fort Knox. He reports they stand guard over Fort Knox alright, but it contains a vast inventory of nerve gas cannisters, and zero gold. The US as a nation has no collateral to back its USDollar currency. The US bank officials refuse to conduct an audit of the gold. The insiders declare that an audit would give emphasis to its importance and value. The laughter is raucous when reading the Office for the Comptroller to the Currency reports, when the ledger item of Deep Storage Gold is read. It is merely unmined ore in Western mountain deposits. The USGovt is in posssession of zero gold. If individuals in other nations were to make off with the national gold treasure, they would be prosecuted for treason and theft, then given a public hanging. The criminality is vast. The true protection from absent collateral to the USDollar is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

PHONY BANK ACCOUNTING

In April 2009, a critical event occurred. The Financial Accounting Standards Board in charge of setting accounting rules declared that the big US banks would be permitted to set any value they chose for their wrecked balance sheets. The prominent insolvent gang of banks teetering in ruins could set as they wished book value or original value for balance sheet items, when zero was the more accurate valuation. The defense of the Too Big To Fail mantra began. The excuse of challenges to find credit worthy borrowers hit the scene. That was a lie, since strong borrowers were routinely refused loans. The credit engines for the USEconomy had been wrecked, no longer functioning. Actually, the credit benefit had turned negative, evidence of slippage within the system. The obscenity continues with a charade of Credit Value Adjustments and raids to Loan Loss Reserves every quarter earnings report. Without such malfeasance to accounting, the big US banks would regularly show deep quarterly losses. Even the financial press objects, calling the earnings tainted. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such accounting fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from fraudulent accounting and vast fiduciary violations is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

FLASH TRADING & UNIX BOX

In 2010, a nasty event struck with revelation of computers gone amok on the New York Stock Exchange. The deep decline on a single day demonstrated the absence of indigenous investors in a land overrun by computers. The details came out slowly. The NYSE volume had been at least 80% computer trades routinely. The big Wall Street firms were selling to each other, running up the stock prices in a levitation fraud process. It was an orchestrated internal Ponzi exercise. Yet the plum story was the Goldman Suchs internal unix box that caught a peek at the order flow, placed orders in front of the flow, and ripped small profits on millions of trades. When the unix box and software was captured by a Russian fellow in order to expose the syndicate, he was branded a criminal. The FBI rushed to arrest him at the airport. Rumors swirled that the software was being sold on the black market. He was quietly taken care of. The entire episode was contained. Goldman Suchs was never prosecuted, even protected by the vast USGovt army. The integrity of the New York Stock Exchange was kept at the same corrupt level. Activity resumed. If ordinary investors were to engage in such criminal insider devices, they would be prosecuted and tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from rigged and violated markets is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

AUCTION MUNI BONDS

Two years ago, a rigged falsified auction market was revealed. The items sold were typically municipal bonds. It was another corrupted market in a parade of corrupted markets, organized and led by the same cast of Wall Street characters. Lawsuits were settled. Settlements were cut. No admission of guilt was made. The game might have been shut down, unclear. If ordinary market makers were to engage in such criminal pricing activities, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from rigged and violated markets is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

INFLUENCE ON USCONGRESS

The big US banks have kept the scam going. They control the USDept Treasury through their Goldman Suchs conduit and headhunter passageway. They engage in lofty campaign donations to Congressional members. The list of donations is on the public record. To date, the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign have each received over $300 million from the banker lobby. These criminals have covered both red and blue on the political roulette wheel of bets. The irony is that one might consider the TARP Funds themselves as the slush fund for such political donations. The wheel of political influence turns. As H.L.Mencken said a century ago, the USCongress is the best that money can buy. The influence enables Wall Street banks to write legislation for its own reform. To be sure, compromises were made, like to split off proprietary trading but with fuzzy rules. The asterisk is the audit of the USFed itself. The devotion to the bankers was seen in June when JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon visited the Finance Committe for soft lobs. An opportunity was lost. The genuflection was obvious. The only tough questions came from two Senators who receive nothing from the banker lobby. All but those two kissed Dimon's ring. The unflappable CEO appeared to holding court before his minions. If ordinary individuals were to be confronted for their reckless and criminal activities, they would be subjected to a harsh line of questioning and possible prosecution. The criminality is vast. The true protection from compromised politicians is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

ROLE PROGRAMS LIKE MADOFF FUND

One of the biggest shocks to the Jackass in recent years was the revelation by a deep banker source of the so-called Role Programs. Many were described, all managed by the USDept Treasury and the Bank of England, its master. The volume of criminal fraud and scams is in the hundreds of $billions. One such scheme was the Madoff Fund thefts. The public was told repeatedly that Madoff made off with $50 billion in funds, with many victims left in the lurch. The true figure was $160 billion in stolen funds. The search was on to locate the funds, when the officials knew exactly where the funds were safely located and stored. Yet another charade, much like searching for the MFGlobal funds, all safely kept in JPMorgan London accounts. The Madoff funds were located in Switzerland for safe keeping. The banks involved all had one national trait in common, from a small nation on the Southern Mediterranean that looked northwest to Italy across the sea. The banks were all protected by some very strange laws in Switzerland that forbid investigation of fraud. Many other role programs continue to this day, details not to be provided here. Some nations have outstanding arrest warrants for US bank leaders, who travel only to England and Switzerland with confidence. If ordinary managed funds were to be scrutinized for criminal activities, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in to prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from profound high level fraudulent schemes is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

HIDDEN GREEK GOVT DEBT

Goldman Suchs was the focus two years ago when the actual Greek Govt debt was revealed to be greater than originally submitted for qualification entry into the European Monetary Union. The Greek Govt falsified their club application with collusion from GSuchs. The fraud was a big currency swap to conceal the true level of their government debt. They were made to look healthier than was actually the case. GSuchs has been given a pass, no prosecution in any nation. Arthur Anderson was not given such benefit. In fact, the GSuchs crew was invited to supply a lieutenant to lead Italy, no justice seen. Such bonuses are typical even after criminal fraud is revealed for syndicate titans. The wreckage of Greece is not yet complete, but far along. GSuchs had a big hand, spreading their special cancer wherever they roam. Victims are banks across Europe, London, and New York. More currency swaps are suspected in other Southern European nation financial submissions. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such accounting fraud, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from fraudulent accounting and vast fiduciary violations at the highest level is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

NARCO MONEY LAUNDERING

It is fast becoming a well known fact, even common knowledge in the financial industry. The big US banks are heavily dependent upon narcotics money laundering from sale conducted by the protected USGovt agencies. The American citizens seem the last to know. The details are dangerous to cite, surely not privy to the Jackass. The United Nations drug task force first identified the money laundering activity back in 2008 and 2009. Nothing has been done. In a case from 2008, Wachovia was found guilty of money laundering for narcotics activity in Mexico. The outcome was a veritable farce. The settlement involved a fine equal to 3/100ths of a penny per dollar processed. They could have at least forced a dime for dollar in the money laundering. The US press emphasized the fine paid and minimized the volume processed. The big US banks are all involved in such money laundering. They are big, broken, insolvent, and wrecked. They are as hollow from the criminal activity of bond fraud, accounting fraud, and laundering activity, as a cocaine addict is hollowed from the internal organs and rotten teeth. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such money laundering, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from organized crime is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

IRAQ & IRAN SHUN OF USDOLLAR

The 2003 charade was given focus on weapons of mass destruction posssessed by Iraq. A war was waged. A hefty supply of gold bullion bars was stolen from Baghdad at their central bank. The amount was not reported or learned. The charade went so far as to show video clips of snagged yellow bars, not gold, but wooden bars painted yellow. Quite the production to cover the theft of a national gold treasure. It belonged to the Iraqi people, not Saddam Hussein. A similar charade has been playing for the last several months over Iran. The public is told of a Iran nuclear weapons factory threat. The story is old and stale, having been recited to a foolish audience for a few years running. The weapons of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq. The WMD story was a cover for cause in war, to cover the fact that Saddam had been selling crude oil in Euros. The key fact was sale outside the USDollar. The USGovt reacted by protecting its sacred Petro-Dollar. The parallel to today is clear for the enlightened, who are few in number. The Iran threat is not nuclear, not of weapons of mass destruction. The common architect for the phony story is that small nation on the Southern Mediterranean. Keep it vague in identification. The parallel violation by Iran is selling crude oil outside the USDollar. The American and European public are being for fools again. Iran is accepting gold or trade credits in swap deals. This is a banker sham on the highest stage, putting the world at risk of a dangerous war. The extension to SWIFT bank codes used as a weapon shows the banker hand of involvement. Misrepresentation for war cause is not a crime, but it is a travesty nonetheless. It leads to lost credibility for international leading nations, like the United States and Great Britain. The betrayal of trust is vast. The true protection from unscrupulous brinkmanship is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MOTIVE FOR LIBERATING LIBYA

To be sure, Muammar Qaddafi was an evil man, a psychotic man, and a thief to his own people. Liberation of the Libyan nation was a good deed. But the hidden motive has been revealed. The London and Western European banks hold 144 tons of Libyan gold. It has not been returned. It is too desperately needed. Conditions for its return to a legitimate Libyan Govt have been laid out. Do not expect them ever to be satisfied, in the eyes of the banks holding the gold tonnage. The actual events told of NATO armies working toward thel liberation might or might not be true. It makes one wonder if Syria owns any gold. Misrepresentation for war cause is not a crime, but it is a travesty nonetheless. It leads to lost credibility for international leading nations, like those holding the Libyan gold treasure. The betrayal of trust is vast. The true protection from unscrupulous brinkmanship is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

MISSING IRAQ FUNDS

In 2006 and 2007, a big story circulated about missing Iraqi Reconstruction Funds. The diminutive leader Bush Jr declared that $50 billion in missing funds was acceptable in the grand scheme of things, called ordinary leakage. It is not clear what grand scheme he referred to. Perhaps the grand scheme of big US bank and big US defense contractor fraud. The overcharging cases for Halliburton violations are like a mosaic on a billboard for all to see. They have regularly been deemed as minor in scope, not worthy of prosecution. They have usually be settled with small fines, a mere fraction of the fraud involved. But the missing funds continue to this day. It is in the Jackass opinion that one of the primary motives to continue to endless wars is to perpetuate the frauds and stolen funds. The guardians are nowhere. The enforcement is imaginary. The thefts are encouraged and permitted. If ordinary corporations were to engage in such fraud and thefts, they would be prosecuted and their executives tossed in prison. The criminality is vast. The true protection from pillbox raids is obtained and secured by owning precious metals, best in bullion bars and coins.

ALLOCATED GOLD ACCOUNTS

The revelation of banker criminality has only begun. The culmination in the opinion of my best banker source is come before too many more months. Attention focuses now on the LIBOR price rig scandal. It will extend to the USTBond and Interest Rate Swap artificial props. It will extend in a climax event for exposure that Allocated Gold accounts across the Western world have been confiscated, sold, and replaced with shabby paper gold certificates illegally. Numerous class action lawsuits are in progress in Switzerland, kept out of the news. They total several $billion in combined size. However, the account raid practice has been widespread in Europe, London, and United States. The scope of the seized and raided Allocated gold accounts is enormous. This will be the biggest banker scandal in modern history. The scope involves at least 20 thousand tons of missing gold, and possibly as much as 40 thousand tons missing. The lid will blow off the concealed story before long. The news networks in Switzerland have been dutiful in keeping the story quiet. Not for much longer. It is not the only nation involved, no way. Big important influential wealthy people have been victimized. They will seek justice and demand an open court. All in time. When that happens, the price of gold will double in a matter of months. The big banks that have criminally raided the Allocated accounts will be forced to retrieve and purchase the gold on the open market. Many complicit banks will simply collapse, since already insolvent. Some bank executives will face prosecution. Perhaps a few will go missing, like the gold bars. The story and its publicity of semi-stolen gold will bring much needed attention to gold as real money.

911 BANK HEIST

As the years pass, the evidence mounts. The AE1000 organization is expert and loud, the architects and engineers who provide expert testimony on the absurd official 911 story at the World be-Trade Tower. This is hardly the forum for such recitals. A secretive Russian Bond valued at $240 billion was to mature the very next day, most of which were held in the Cantor Fitzgerald offices atop the tower. Those bonds could not be redeemed at maturity, a theft. Nothing on the official story makes any sense, nor does it stand up to chemical scrutiny or to scrutiny from phsyics. Costa Rica has a richly dotted landscape of very well informed people with all kinds of legitimate contacts, such from Secret Service friends, bank executive friends, ex-USMilitary types, slush fund managers, obscure types, and more. My informed sources have been numerous that have shed light on the infamous event. It was a grand bank heist that involved perhaps around $100 billion in stolen bearer bonds, perhaps around $100 billion in stolen gold bullion bars, and perhaps around $100 billion in stolen diamonds. The 911 event marked in the opinion of many observers a coup d'etat of the United States Govt. Their grip on power continues through to today. The true story will come out, all in time, like veracity bubbles working toward the surface. Those holding the lid on the actual events are reducing in number each year. My expectation is that the true story will come out as the inevitability of a USGovt debt default becomes evident and unavoidable, when the JPMorgan machinery fails in full view to uphold the USTBond tower.

At that time, the new trade settlement systems, the new barter systems, the bypass to USDollar settlement, they will come into place. Gold will be at the center of every new system. Much like how geophysics leads to iron forming at the core of a stable body, gold will form at the core of the stable financial body. But its price will be closer to $10,000 per ounce than $2000 per ounce. Gold price charts mean little, when the enter paper system is in the process of imploding, first bonds, then currencies, then sham gold markets.