SEE YOU ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Written in December 2019. Reposted in honor of the 50th anniversary of the album

And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

 Brain Damage, Pink Floyd


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And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

Brain Damage, Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd’s 1973 Dark Side of the Moon album is considered one of the greatest albums of all-time. It stayed on the Billboard 200 charts for 937 weeks. Roger Waters concept was for an album that dealt with things that “make people mad”. The Dark Side of the Moon’s themes include war, conflict, greed, the passage of time, death, and insanity, the latter inspired in part by former band member Syd Barrett’s worsening mental state.

The five tracks on each side reflect various stages of human life, beginning and ending with a heartbeat, exploring the nature of the human experience, and empathy. The themes of this album are timeless and are as germane today as they were forty-six years ago, if not more relevant. The country and world are awash in conflict, driven by the greed of evil men. Decent, law abiding, hard-working, critical thinking Americans see the world going insane as the passage of time leads towards the death of an American empire.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“We should ban banks from risk-taking because society is going to pay the price… It was obvious that their profits were simply cash borrowed from destiny with some random payback time.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act makes the most important legislative changes to the structure of the U.S. financial system since the 1930s. Financial services firms will be authorized to conduct a wide range of financial activities, allowing them freedom to innovate in the new economy.

The Act repeals provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act that, since the Great Depression, have restricted affiliations between banks and securities firms. It also amends the Bank Holding Company Act to remove restrictions on affiliations between banks and insurance companies. It grants banks significant new authority to conduct most newly authorized activities through financial subsidiaries.

Removal of barriers to competition will enhance the stability of our financial services system. Financial services firms will be able to diversify their product offerings and thus their sources of revenue. They will also be better equipped to compete in global financial markets.”

William Jefferson Clinton, November 12, 1999

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Without Glass-Steagall America Will Fail

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

For 66 years the Glass-Steagall act reduced the risks in the banking system. Eight years after the act was repealed, the banking system blew up threatening the international economy. US taxpayers were forced to come up with $750 billion dollars, a sum much larger than the Pentagon’s budget, in order to bail out the banks. This huge sum was insufficient to do the job. The Federal Reserve had to step in and expand its balance sheet by $4 trillion in order to protect the solvency of banks declared “too big to fail.”

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What to Know about Trump’s Threat to Mega Banks

From Birch Gold Group

Donald Trump caused a stir on Monday when he said he’s considering a breakup of Wall Street’s biggest banks. Assuming Trump is serious about this, and assuming he succeeds in breaking up the big banks, it would drastically change the financial landscape in America.

With that in mind, it’s important that you know how the change could affect your savings strategy.

No More “Too Big to Fail”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised numerous times to reexamine Wall Street regulations.

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Destroy All Monsters! Cohn Said to Back Wall Street Split of Lending, Investment Banks

Guest Post by Anthony Sanders

Former Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn said he supports breaking up the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) banks that have grown to be behemoths through acquisitions.

In a private meeting with lawmakers, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said he supports a policy that could radically reshape Wall Street’s biggest firms by separating their consumer-lending businesses from their investment banks, said people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Cohn, the ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive who is now advising President Donald Trump, said he generally favors banking going back to how it was when firms like Goldman focused on trading and underwriting securities, and companies such as Citigroup Inc. primarily issued loans, according to the people, who heard his comments.

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STEVE EISMAN: SMART, LUCKY, ABRASIVE & NOW ONE OF THEM

I loved Michael Lewis’ book – The Big Short – about the 2008 Wall Street created global financial catastrophe, that is still impacting the little guys on Main Street eight years after it was supposedly resolved by Paulson, Bernanke and Obama. I even wrote an article about it called The Big Short: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street. I also loved one of the main characters in the book – Frontpoint Partners hedge fund manager Steve Eisman – a foul mouthed, highly skeptical, open minded guy who figured out the fraudulent subprime mortgage scheme and shorted the crap out of the derivatives backing the fraud, making hundreds of millions in the process.

I had the opportunity to attend a 90 minute talk by Steve Eisman last night where he discussed the financial crisis, the response by the Fed and government, and the future for the financial industry. My perception of him, based on the book and movie, was he was a cantankerous asshole who didn’t care what anyone thought about him. My perception matched what I experienced. He was dropping f-bombs, insulting the institution hosting his talk, making fun of business school students (he graduated with a liberal arts degree) and dismissing any question he found to be stupid.

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A NEW JACKSONIAN ERA? (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I documented the populist administration of Andrew Jackson and similarities to Donald Trump’s populist victory in the recent election. I’ll now try to assess the chances of a Trump presidency accomplishing its populist agenda.

The Trumpian Era

“But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.” Andrew Jackson

“For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.” – Donald J. Trump – Inaugural Speech

It is not a coincidence the painting in the oval office behind President Trump’s desk is of Andrew Jackson. He has promoted his presidency as a Jacksonian quest to return government to the people. His chief strategist Steve Bannon, a student of history, helped mold Trump’s speech with echoes of Jacksonian populism:

“It was an unvarnished declaration of the basic principles of his populist and kind of nationalist movement. It was given, I think, in a very powerful way. I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House. But you could see it was very Jacksonian. It’s got a deep, deep root of patriotism there.”

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HILLARY: DECEIT, DEBT, DELUSIONS (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I addressed the deceit of Hillary Clinton and politicians of all stripes as they promise goodies they can never pay for, in order to buy votes and expand their power and control over our lives.

I created the chart below for an article I wrote in 2011 when the national debt stood at $14.8 trillion, with my projection of its growth over the next eight years. I predicted the national debt would reach $20 trillion in 2016 and was ridiculed by arrogant Keynesians who guaranteed their “stimulus” (aka pork) would supercharge the economy and result in huge tax inflows and drastically reduced deficits. As of today, the national debt stands at $19.7 trillion and is poised to reach $20 trillion by the time “The Hope & Change Savior” leaves office on January 20, 2017. I guess I wasn’t really a crazed pessimist after all. I guarantee the debt will reach $25 trillion by the end of the next presidential term, unless the Ponzi scheme collapses into financial depression and World War 3 (a strong probability).

The total disregard for the most perilous issue confronting the nation by politicians of all stripes is a national disgrace, proving beyond a doubt the elite ruling class has no conscience, no sense of morality, and no loyalty to the common people or future generations. The sociopaths who act as if they are in control addressed the 2008 global debt meltdown by adding tens of trillions in new debt to an already unsustainable system, setting the world on a course towards total financial collapse and world war.

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HILLARY: DECEIT, DEBT, DELUSIONS (PART ONE)

“While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.”
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

One of the benefits of running a blog for the last seven years has been interacting with so many smart people. During these daily interactions I am introduced to new ideas, different points of view, and become acquainted with a plethora of great thinkers. When I was younger, before kids, long commutes, running a blog and being beaten down by life, I was a voracious reader. My regular commenters direct me towards writers and books I wish I had read in my twenties rather than my fifties.

But I guess it is never too late to learn something new. I’ve now read the first two of the four books I bought myself at Christmas: The Law by Frederic Bastiat; Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt; The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek; and Tragedy & Hope by Carroll Quigley. What is so striking after reading The Law (written in 1850) and Economics in One Lesson (written in 1946) is humanity’s foibles, belief in fallacies, and ignorance of economics hasn’t changed over the last two centuries.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“While Elizabeth Warren attempted to deliver her keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in July, which included an unabashed endorsement of Hillary Clinton after Warren had failed to endorse Senator Bernie Sanders during the critical primary campaign, chants of ‘we trusted you’ could be heard reverberating through the cavernous hall in Philadelphia…

It’s long past the time for the U.S. Senate to stop conducting isolated, piecemeal investigations and undertake the type of in-depth hearings that the Senate held from 1929 to 1932 that led to the public’s understanding of the serial criminal activities on Wall Street that had produced the Great Depression and which led to the passage of the Glass-Steagall Act — legislation which protected this nation for 66 years until its repeal in 1999 during the Bill Clinton administration.”

Pam and Russ Martens, Elizabeth Warren Opens Up Pandora’s Box


Pam Martens’ Warning to the Fed and the Clintons in 1998 – And She Warns Them Again Now

 Guest Post by Jesse

It is the same players that we saw enabling reckless behaviour in 1998: Citigroup, the Fed, and the Clinton-led Wall Street Democrats.

And here we are again, almost eighteen years later, watching the same short term, selfish behaviour by the big money banks putting the entire economy of productive individuals at risk again.

“There’s something big and scary going on behind the scenes but, as usual, the public isn’t reading about it on the front pages of the newspapers…

Dodd-Frank was supposed to push the derivatives out of the commercial banks which hold the insured deposits to prevent another taxpayer bailout, the so-called “push out” rule. But in December of 2014, Citigroup was able to sneak legislation into the must-pass spending bill to keep the government running that overturned the push-out rule…

Using its insured bank’s balance sheet as ballast, Citigroup’s bank holding company now ranks as the largest holder of all derivatives in the U.S. According to the Comptroller of the Currency, the very bank that blew itself up in 2008 and received the largest taxpayer bailout in history, now holds $55 trillion in notional amount of derivatives.

But far more alarming is the type of derivatives Citigroup appears hell bent on gaining market share in trading. Last week we reported that Citigroup is plowing into credit default swaps, the very derivatives that blew up the big insurance company, AIG, in 2008 and forced a government bailout of AIG to the tune of $185 billion…

On March 8 of this year [2016], the Office of Financial Research, which was created under the Dodd-Frank legislation to monitor the buildup of systemic financial risks, released a study on Credit Default Swaps. Its findings were deeply troubling…”

You may read the entire article at Wall Street On Parade.


The Case For A Super Glass-Steagall

Donald Trump can instantly get to the left of Hillary with respect to Wall Street and the one percenters by embracing Super Glass-Steagall.

The latter would cap U.S. banks at $180 billion in assets (<1% of GDP) if they wished to have access to the Fed’s discount window and have their deposits backed by FDIC insurance. Such Federally privileged institutions would also be prohibited from engaging in trading, underwriting, investment banking, private equity, hedge funds, derivatives and other activities outside of deposit taking and lending.

Instead, these latter inherently risky economic functions would be performed on the free market by at-risk banks and financial services companies. The latter could never get too big to fail or to manage because the market would stop them first or they would be disciplined by the fail-safe institution of bankruptcy. No taxpayer would ever be put in harms’ way of trades like those of the London Whale.

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MOTHER, SHOULD I TRUST THE GOVERNMENT? (Oldie but Goodie)

Originally Published in June 2013

 

Mother, do you think they’ll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they’ll like this song?
Mother, do you think they’ll try to break my balls?
Ooh ah,
Mother, should I build the wall?

Mother, should I run for president?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooh ah,
Is it just a waste of time?

Pink Floyd – Mother

The lyrics to Mother had both a literal and figurative meaning for Roger Waters. He was literally describing his overprotective single mother (his father was killed in World War II) building walls to protect him from the outside world. The figurative meaning is Big Mother sending its boys off to war and using fear to control and manipulate the masses. At the time he wrote this song in 1979, the Soviet Union was thought to be at its peak of power and the Berlin Wall represented a boundary between good and evil. Nuclear war was still a looming fear. Waters has always had a dim view of totalitarian states and institutions (English schools). Having seen his Wall Tour performance this past summer at Citizens Bank Park with a diverse crowd of 40,000, ranging in age from senior citizens to teenagers, it seems this song has gained new meaning. He sang a duet with himself from 1980 projected on the Wall and when he sang the lyric, “Mother, should I trust the government?” the entire stadium responded in unison – NO!!! This revealed a truth that is not permitted to be discussed by the corporate mainstream media acting as a mouthpiece for the ruling class. A growing legion of citizens in this country does not trust the government. This is very perceptive on their part.

In part one of this two part series – Hey You – I examined how an invisible government of wealthy, power hungry men have utilized the propaganda techniques of Edward Bernays and lured the American people into a narcissistic, techno-gadget, debt based servitude. Over the last one hundred years they have created a totalitarian state built upon egotism, material goods, and fulfilling our desires through Wall Street peddled debt and mass consumerism. It has been an incredibly effective form of control that has convinced the masses to love their servitude. The ruling oligarchs correctly chose the painless, amusement saturated, soft totalitarianism of Huxley’s Brave New World over the fearful, pain inflicting, surveillance state, house of horrors detailed in Orwell’s 1984.

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DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

Janet Yellen will increase interest rates for the first time in nine years on Wednesday. She isn’t raising them because the economy is strengthening. The economy just happens to be weakening rapidly, as global recession takes hold. The stock market is 3% lower than it was in December 2014, and has basically done nothing since the end of QE3. Wall Street is throwing a hissy fit to try and stop Janet from boosting rates by an inconsequential .25%. Janet would prefer not to raise rates, but the credibility and reputation of her bubble blowing machine is at stake. The Fed has enriched their Wall Street benefactors over the last six years, while destroying the real economy and the middle class.

The quarter point increase will be reversed in short order as soon as we experience market collapse part two. It will be followed with negative interest rates and QE4, as these academics have only one play in their playbook – print money. They created the last financial crisis and have set the stage for the next – even bigger collapse. John Hussman explains how their zero interest rate policy has driven speculators into junk bonds as the only place to get any yield.

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FOURTH TURNING – POLITICIANS DRIVING THE WORLD TOWARDS WAR

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I focused on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis. In Part 4 I assessed the social and cultural channels of distress dividing the nation. In Part 5 I’ll examine the technological, ecological, political, and military channels of distress likely to burst forth with the molten ingredients of this Fourth Turning, and finally in Part 6 our rendezvous with destiny, with potential climaxes to this Winter of our discontent.

Technological & Ecological Distress

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.” Aldous Huxley – Ends and Means

The level of distress being produced by technology was probably underestimated by Strauss & Howe when they wrote their book in 1997. The internet, cell phones and e-commerce were still in their infancy, while cyber security was an unknown concept. Huxley would be shocked by how backwards we have “progressed” through the efficient distribution of iGadgets, creating millions of distracted, non-thinking, passive, easily pliable, willfully ignorant sheep who adore their technological servitude.

A vast swath of the populace never reads a book and can’t go more than a few minutes without checking their iGadget to view the latest funny cat video, the latest update on Kim Kardashian’s ass, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner’s courage, or Lamar Odom’s latest whorehouse escapade. Our country is drowning in a sea of irrelevance as our infinite craving for diversions and triviality overwhelms any thoughts of confronting our oppressors. The adoration of technology has degraded our ability to think and allowed the Deep State to control the masses by amusing them to death.

The totalitarian Orwellian utilization of technology was exposed by a millennial with courage, intelligence, and love of his country – Edward Snowden. His revelations were very distressful to the felonious government apparatchiks who blatantly flaunt their disregard for the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The criminals at the NSA, fully supported by Obama and Congress, have made Big Brother look like an amateur, as they siphon up every phone call, text, email, and facebook entry made by each person in this country and for good measure the political leaders of our allies and enemies.

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Clinton Made Student Loans Non-Discharable

Hillary-Screw-You

The two major acts that the Clintons did perpetrate, which have set in motion our greatest crisis were (1) they repealed Glass-Steagall allowing banks to go nuts and return to proprietary trading of the 1920s at the direction of Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs, and (2) they gave the banks absolute dominion over students by removing their right to declare bankruptcy on what they owe the bankers. No other class of debt has such an exception. And Hillary pretends to care about the people? Come on. She and Bill have done more for the bankers than any Republican ever did. Furthermore, ANY press that refuses to tell this truth is by no means FREE, but bought and paid for all the way.

It was the Clinton Administration that aided the bankers for on October 7, 1998, when President Clinton signed the Higher Education Amendments of 1998 (the 1998 HEA), which provided federal funding for education loans at a reduced rate of interest. However, Clinton snuck in the 1998 HEA two specific changes regarding the collection of student loans that is a brewing part of the Sovereign Debt Crisis today.

Glass-Steagall-Signing-Repeal

So let’s get this right since the media will NEVER question Hillary since she walks on water and the mainstream media is just equally bought and paid or else they would ask the question — WHY?