Yesterday

Hi Maple, congrats on going to university!!! In this post I was just looking at one small part of the debt, commenting on the discrepancy in regards to Bernake mentioning fears earlier of inflation. No inflation worries here...like you say, the concern is deflation this time(like last time in the 90s) and it could be worse than the nineties due to the sluggish growth of M2. Once again bailing out the banks with enough currency to sink a ship with no positive effect on overall velocity. Just like the last time it seems, all that currency is going over seas and it is up to the consumer and its level of M2 here in the US to save the economy. What a joke. I wonder how hiding the M1 velocity as per an article printed in the US awhile ago is going to help them fudge the reality of things to the regular people ( consumers/M2) to get them, us, spending again....? M2 velocity link... http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article16759.html

So here we have some totals of US debt....sitting around 1.7 trillion dollars. This would be why everyone has been looking for inflation but what I understand so far is that most of that, the 1.2 trillion that went to Fannie and Freddie likely has gone overseas to deal with the mortgage debt fraud that was perpetrated against countries that bought in on the CDOs and other instruments created from this false mortgage boom. This could explain why this 1.2 trillion hasn't showed up to save the economy like everyone expected it too. I find it kind of funny myself to hear them refer to profits of 46.1 billion on that bad debt. I wonder how much profit it would of been if the debt had of been good? The part where they show concern over whether or not the FED would have to sell low....no one will buy the bad debt anyway. Interesting that the profit has been turned over to the treasury too. That is a process of cancellation in my opinion, a needed bad because the currency in circulation has to be reduced regardless of the bad economic situation they are in. Whether this is happening because they are going to introduce a new international currency in which case the US dollar in circulation would have to contract severely or because they are trying to asset back the US dollar to keep as an international currency in which case again, the contraction needs to happen. Couple either one of these scenarios with the amount of US dollars that are being appropriated from international fraud and canceled upon return. This contraction is no surprise. Here comes the double dip....it shouldn't be a surprise.

How true, how human we are. You what always fascinates me...the fact that the wealth that is referred to as belonging to that 2% only counts cause the rest of the world is willing to agree that what they hold is the wealth. In theory it should be as simple as deciding to consider something else as the true wealth which would in turn remove the so-called wealth of the 2%. If only eh?

Hey Maple, have you ever read anything like Steven Pinker 'The Blank Slate', ' The Modern Denial of Human Nature'? Over the years I've read a bit about human nature and I think it is integral to understanding how we and why we developed socially and economically the way we did. Also in terms of coming up with ways to understand and perhaps initiate change a good understanding of human nature is invaluable. A big part of the infamous almost completely evasive reason why. Personally I really enjoyed the Steven Pinker book but even Carl Sagan produced and interesting read in 'Shadows of our Ancestors'. I have a few university texts too kicking around that made for a good read on the subject which I purchased from a recycling store for cheap. I have also found some good reading amongst astrology books, the better ones can give good insight to human capability in terms of personality types. I can't agree with this. History gives us the knowledge of the super elite and wealth hoarding as a trend/reality that is eternal to our species. The wealth was not always paper money, gold, silver, wheat, spices, hunting grounds, fishing grounds...and until just recently comparatively had nothing to do with fractional reserve.

This is a very interesting article about the state of the US Federal Reserve as regards to ZIRP. I just had to post it..... Isn't it interesting that because of this interest rate they are 'cornered' (my word) into buying back the toxic debt it helped to create. The source of the force. This statement sounds like the schooling of the bottom line is still kicking loudly. They can kick all they want... My question for this is what is so important about the second quarter or even the third quarter of next year. Just surmising....ZIRP is a part of an IMF orchestrated standstill for the US or a Global Settlement mandate (remember how many countries lost major money from the defaulting of so many bad loans hence the great possibility of there being a global settlement regarding the US banks and market that precipitated the disaster))and as so far scheduled for first quarter of 2011 the member standing revision which couldn't happen till after a lift in a standstill situation. Till that point and perhaps a bit beyond I don't think rates can raise much at all. A big thorn in the side of whiny bottom line academics here in Canada according to this article.

You understand it better than you think IMO. Don't confuse not being able to come up with a solution with not being able to understand why it is this way. What we see today in such grand proportions is a result of human nature. We are not all leaders nor all followers. It is natural in any group of people to find a need for structure, too many chiefs not enough Indians strike a bell? We have always struggled with authority/superiority. It was not so devastating at times in the past on such grand scales but our growing population exasperated this situation and shows us all to well the problems inherent in the way we developed our societies. I think I can understand your reasoning in wanting to legalize prostitution. Is it that you think it might help to cut down on rapes and other abuses against the female body? The men who do this do it cause they want to, they already have access to sex when they want it, there are prostitutes everywhere. Personally I don't think it would make much difference in the long run but I do think it could go a long way to improving the general lot of prostitutes and the danger they face continually from pimps and the like. It could allow a face lift for the industry giving it a chance to be less offensive. Lets face it, brothels keep them off the street and labour legislation wouldn't hurt either. I wonder if it was a regulated (forgive me for using the 'r' word) industry how many girls would want to be prostitutes. I wonder if that is not an underlying factor to the general opinion of keeping it illegal. The whole concept of a woman being ok with and even wanting sex outside of marriage or its equivalent especially for money goes against most religions and also against a man's ego. To me, the inability to legalize this industry reeks of a double standard. This is one of many industries that could use some good standards and lets not kid ourselves, setting standards has gone a long way to improving the lot of most of the people in this world. I must say though that we have gone way overboard. Way, way overboard. As for legalizing pot. I personally find it less obnoxious then boos. Not being a drinker I can honestly say that I would rather wile away a lazy afternoon with someone stoned on pot versus someone drunk on boos. Oh yes! I am of the mind that it should not be illegal but only pot. If it can be only boos, it can be only boos and pot. The rest of the drugs need to go away. Far away, going gone, IMO. To include Pliny's reference to needing a dictator to accomplish this...I have more faith in communities being able to accomplish decisions involving social issues like prostitution and pot themselves through town and community meetings. Mind you, even now the amount of people out there willing to play the God/finance card to win a debate regardless of the devastating consequences to other's is still so predominant in social decisions that arbitration would still be a dangerous norm.

Well, I was hoping you would would call me on my source Pliny so we could both laugh over the tungsten issue. I put that out there to see if you were listening. Just to clear up my position. The only bars that were legit IMO are the ones that showed up in Germany sent as good bars, not for melting. It was a mis-shipment that went bad and they found them because they were looking for them as part of an investigation into banks who were helping to supply Iran a few years ago with tungsten amongst other things for long range weapons. Good way to get it into the country perhaps...perhaps just one bank trying to pull the wool over the eyes of creditors? At any rate, IMO most of the articles that covered this supposed story are part of a greater agenda most likely funded by the banks to encourage gold fever and the use of electronic gold platforms and the like. These are my 2 favorite articles about the tungsten. http://news.coinupdate.com/what-about-the-counterfeit-gold-plated-tungsten-bar-stories-0189/ http://launderingmoney.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

Running a debt free currency has always seemed to me to be a rather easy concept as long as proper cancellation policies are in place ie: taxes. I find the fact that all paper dollars end up at a bank to be canceled from circulation to be an important part of the scenario. This allows for (amongst other things) the ability to somewhat control the amount of floating currency to prevent an over abundance. Trading currency and other goods over borders though causes not so simple problems in this scenario. We just simply can't print debt free asset backed/fiat money in enough volume to cover the current level of business we do. Even with the level of international trade that is done on a gold asset based credit(IMF). It would be mayhem. Debt relief is definitely in my mind a major reality to ever establishing a new type of monetary system. With a debt, with contracts that extend so far into the future giving promise of returns seemingly forever....its an addiction akin to gambling in my mind. Debt relief is the only thing that would break this cycle. We should call it an intervention.

This is a statement that is hard to find fault with. I can't. It is just that realistically we are stuck with fractional reserve at least for a long time to come. It is a very entrenched system. The key at this point in time to me, is focusing on how the fraud clean-up is going to affect how much currency is really floating around because until there is a good understanding of this figure there is no way to even begin to restructure to an asset backed system let alone reduce layers of fractionalization. All kinds of things need to happen. Like the reduction of third world debt which happens to float around the globe in terms of an asset. This is being addressed through the G8 and the IMF. Billions and billions of debt being wiped off. This is just a start. All of, or most of, the things I have brought up here have to do with the clean up of currencies around the globe. Mostly in terms of IMF credits and the US dollar. This is a good start at addressing the issue.

Yes, I think this is what everyone expected because this situation looks so much like so many others that have come before but it isn't. Hence the deflationary situation we are in. The government can't increase velocity at the moment regardless of the trillions of dollars that have been supposedly released into circulation. None of it went into circulation (bail-out money and such)or we would see it true? Check this out, this gives another hint towards what is going with the price of gold and how the US is at the heart of it in a fraudulent way and also kind of gives a hint towards one of the reasons why the IMF revalued gold. How quickly the general public forgets.... This paper I found quite interesting because it paints a picture of how some governments have created a template to measure underground movement of currency to apply it to GDP. This seems to include counting this fictitious figure based on unobserved transactions in velocity calculations. So far, studying velocity is showing me how unreliable this can be for basing the possible value of the US dollar or the state of the economy in general. Aside from showing the possible level of outflow from the US. Which in itself speaks volumes as to the true state of the US economy right? No, not just currency traders. I actually meant it in a more fundamental way. I view international trade (the current version and level of trade) to be a fundamental problem as far as getting currency of any kind under control. It fuels an atmosphere where our level of growth far exceeds our needs. Like what we are seeing in Australia? Wholeheartedly!!!!

What I meant was that I won't use the increase of wealth that I have on paper due to the increase in the value of my gold to extend my credit. I think it would be wrong on so many levels. True, seller's are happy though. I don't know about controlling anything those are your words but I do believe it is the IMF and US debt that have jacked the price of gold and true to form we didn't miss the boat and hence the seller's market. I can't be so pessimistic myself, things are very different now as compared to almost any time in the past as far as general public scrutiny. I see potential as is my nature. You should look again at how much money is both owed to the IMF and what is owed by them. All of the money loaned from this group is for development and to date it has raped countries through making them increase their exports and sell their resources more often then not to foreign entities. I am not 100% sure but pretty sure that part of the refunding program that involves many things like the new production taxes (Tobin and others), the wiping out of billions of debt off third world countries is at the root some how of this(there is more), 'The Dollar Refunding Program'. It's a hard thing to track down. You are right it is not entirely government but the debt that has paved the way for such large amounts of foreign ownership belongs to the US government and the IMF. This debt is larger than most people realize. I have to go but I want to post this first, this what I wonder when I think of accurate readings of velocity...from this group of articles it is shown that there is more than 12 trillion US not accounted for. It doesn't matter if the printing press ever got turned on, this amount of US currency is out there messing with the numbers. More later I have to go.

Hi Maple, I didn't mean to sound rude. That was not my intention at all and I am glad we have been having this conversation. Mostly the way I see it is that these financial structures that we see today are built off of a blueprint that until just the last say 25 years or so worked well for them. Most of the people, at too many different times when these things were either being formed or restructured couldn't read, didn't have access to media (poor as it was/is), didn't know number's....it is all different now. The majority of people have all the ability needed to understand and the desire to understand is growing. It is not the same now as it was even 5 years ago. I've been giving some thought lately to usury. This IMO is the culprit and wonder how fractionalization would read without it. I have gotten some good ideas out of a Sharia Finance paper awhile ago. Oh well, type in the words 'CMKM gold standard' as a search title and see what comes up. While I myself am not a proponent of gold standard/exchange type systems I have to admire greatly the movement and the heart behind it because it is a very large group of people who are fighting exactly what we have been talking about. For myself I would prefer some kind of fiat system without usury.

Us meaning Maple and I, them meaning governments/banks. You could be included in us as well I'm sure you're looking.

Maple you have to stop saying this. Everyone is looking including us. I can honestly tell you that there is no conspiracy. I've shown you how it is possible to know what they are doing. If I was educated in finance itself I could explain it more in depth instead of just showing the policies behind whats going on. The conspiracy agenda is a brainchild of Nixon's disinformation platform. If you really want to have a good idea of how the fraudulent use of fiat money is being handled follow the SEC. There is a web page on their site that shows thousands of court cases and charges, the US dollar alone contracted by unprecedented numbers, the US is in a standstill and gold is just streaming out of the country to fix it's debt issues and international fines for the involvement with the derivative market. This is a good start. This is from paying attention, from enough people saying no more to this silliness. I kind of think of the war crime trials of the second world war. It took many, many years to prosecute those involved. Even if it looks like some people are getting away with major fraud including the banks right now this is far from over. Some might walk once but they don't usually walk twice. Give it some more time. I wouldn't myself ever expect to find fiat money crashed and replaced but I think we will find the rewrites get better and better.

This is the contraction/velocity issue as I understand it so far.