Banksters

The Crooks Running The Federal Reserve Have Been Getting High On Their Own Supply

Liquidity injections are like a drug, and the financial markets just can’t get enough of them.  But as they were endlessly juicing the stock market, officials at the Federal Reserve broke one of the cardinal rules of drug dealing.  You never get high on your own supply.  It turns out that quite a few of the big dogs over at the Fed have very large investments which greatly benefitted from all of the cash that the Federal Reserve was endlessly pumping into the marketplace.  If that sounds “extremely corrupt” to you, that is because it is extremely corrupt, and it is another example that shows why the Federal Reserve should be completely abolished.

Earlier this week, the entire nation was stunned when news of this scandal first started to break…

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell directed staff to review the central bank’s ethics rules for appropriate financial activities after disclosures that several senior central bank officials made multiple multimillion-dollar stock trades in 2020, while others held significant investments.

That sounds really bad, right?

But then more of the specific details started coming out and it got even worse…

  • Powell held between $1.25 million and $2.5 million of municipal bonds in family trusts over which he is said to have no control. They were just a small portion of his total reported assets. While the bonds were purchased before 2019, they were held while the Fed last year bought more than $5 billion in munis, including one from the state of Illinois purchased by his family trust in 2016.
  • Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren held between $151,000 and $800,000 worth of real estate investment trusts that owned mortgage-backed securities. He made as many as 37 separate trades in the four REITS while the Fed purchased almost $700 billion in MBS.
  • Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin held $1.35 million to $3 million in individual corporate bonds purchased before 2020. They include bonds of Pepsi, Home Depot and Eli Lilly. The Fed last year opened a corporate bond-buying facility and purchased $46.5 billion of corporate bonds.

They knew that flooding the financial system with new money would cause the value of those investments to go up.

In other words, they made conscious decisions that they knew would make themselves even richer.

This is the sort of extreme corruption that we would expect to see in third world dictatorships, but it is happening right here in the United States of America.

But at least nobody got hurt, right?

Wrong.

As the Federal Reserve and other global central banks have been flooding their respective systems with unprecedented amounts of new money, food prices have been aggressively rising all over the globe…

Whether for bread, rice or tortillas, governments across the world know that rising food costs can come with a political price. The dilemma is whether they can do enough to prevent having to pay it.

Global food prices were up 33% in August from a year earlier with vegetable oil, grains and meat on the rise, data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization show. And it’s not likely to get better as extreme weather, soaring freight and fertilizer costs, shipping bottlenecks and labor shortages compound the problem.

You and I may be able to handle rising food prices (at least for now), but on the other side of the globe there are scores of people that are deeply suffering at this moment…

Filipino broom maker Gloria Hernandez longs for chicken and milkfish — big milkfish. She can only afford small ones now, and they don’t add up to a decent meal. She eats rice with coffee twice a day so she doesn’t feel hungry. Fried eggs and bread — those are the foods Nigerian clergyman Femi Oyekan Moses used to eat all the time and misses the most. Now he mainly eats beans and corn and often skips lunch.

Hernandez and Moses are part of an emerging group who could once provide regular meals for themselves and their families but are now struggling because of the pandemic. They’re not on the verge of starvation as so many millions are, but they’re suffering from what’s called “food insecurity” in moderate to severe degrees, unable to afford a balanced and nutritious diet because of income loss and rising prices.

In fact, it is being reported that the number of people around the world that are facing “food insecurity” increased by 320 million in just 12 months…

According to a July report from the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, 2.37 billion people worldwide, or one in every three people, were in that latter category in 2020. That’s an increase of 320 million people in one year.

Hundreds of millions of people do not have enough food to eat tonight because global central bankers wanted to make themselves and their wealthy friends even wealthier.

You can call that whatever you want.

I call that “evil”.

The reason we still have a Federal Reserve is because the American people kept sending politicians to Washington that support the Federal Reserve.

In recent years there have been people running for office that were calling for the Federal Reserve to be abolished, but they didn’t get the kind of support that they deserved.

Hopefully these shocking new revelations about Fed officials will start to wake more people up.

I would love see a renewed “End the Fed” movement in this country.

Because the truth is that we do not need a central bank to prop up our financial system and run our economy.  We are supposed to have a free market economy, and our financial markets are not supposed to be a rigged game.

What has been going on at the Fed should actually not surprise any of us, because it is simply a reflection of the deep corruption that we are seeing on just about every level of our society.

Without at least some basic level of morality, no society can survive for long.

Sadly, the level of morality in our society continues to sink, and it is often those that walk the halls of power that are the most corrupt of all.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written five other books that are available on Amazon.com including  “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, “Get Prepared Now”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Biden Is Being Hailed As An “Economic Success” For Helping To Cause Rampant Inflation And Widespread Shortages

No matter what Joe Biden does, the corporate media is going to try to spin it into some sort of a success.  Right now, the U.S. is experiencing a problem with inflation that is on par with what we witnessed during the Jimmy Carter years of the 1970s.  And at this moment, we are facing persistent widespread shortages that are unlike anything that I have seen in my entire lifetime.  In fact, Bloomberg is openly admitting that “the world economy is suddenly running low on everything”.  But instead of denouncing the decisions that got us into this giant mess, the corporate media is attempting to frame our current circumstances as evidence that Joe Biden’s policies have been successful.

For example, today I came across a CNN article that openly acknowledged that “prices are surging”…

It’s time to sound the inflation alarm inside the White House.

From used cars and gasoline to lumber and food, prices are surging. The return of inflation, after a decades-long absence, is squeezing families and businesses recovering from the pandemic.

But instead of pointing out the economic mistakes that Joe Biden has made, that very same article claimed that rampant inflation is “evidence” that Biden’s policies are working as intended…

In many ways, higher prices can be seen as evidence that President Joe Biden’s economic and health policies are working.

Using the standard that CNN is using, the Weimar Republic would be considered the greatest economy that the world has ever seen.

Rampant inflation is not a good thing.  Anyone that lived through the 1970s will tell you that.

Let me share a couple of charts with you that will help to explain why inflation is wildly out of control.  This first one shows the growth of M2…

What we were doing before the pandemic was insane, but now we are destroying the value of our currency at an exponential rate.

Borrowing and spending trillions and trillions of dollars that we do not have is a really foolish thing to do, but apparently CNN believes that this is sound economic policy.

Now let me show you how the Fed balance sheet has grown…

Ack!

As you can see, the size of the Fed balance sheet has roughly doubled since the beginning of the pandemic.

This has created the greatest rally in stock market history, but it is also helping to fuel a dramatic rise in inflation.  Just look at what has been happening to housing prices…

Home prices surged in March, up 13.2% from the year prior, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.

“Everybody expected housing to really sort of dry up with the rest of the economy,” said National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard. “And in fact, the opposite has happened. People who have been sort of scared out of the cities by the pandemic.”

If you don’t want to pay an extremely high price for an existing home, you could try to build your own, but rampant inflation and widespread shortages are making that exceedingly difficult…

“The material shortage issue has shot to the top of the charts, if you will. It has been there since at least last fall, said Dan Durden, chief executive officer of the Pennsylvania Builders Association.

“It’s not just that prices are going up; it’s how quickly they’re going up, and nothing’s coming down,” he said. “And it’s not just the case that the item – particularly lumber – is so high, but that you can’t get it, no matter what you’re willing to pay.”

According to Durden, prices for just about everything that goes into a home are “through the roof” these days…

“There’s glass, there’s cement, there’s anything made of aluminum, there’s anything made of steel. We can’t get drywall at a decent price, copper products, pipe, everything’s through the roof,” Durden said. “Lumber’s gone through the roof, but everything else has gone up faster than the rate of inflation.”

Sadly, this is just the beginning.  Joe Biden and other world leaders are making decisions that are helping to set the stage for a very apocalyptic future.

But for the moment, most Americans appear to be convinced that the party can continue for the foreseeable future.  Speculation on Wall Street is at an all-time high, and some “investors” have been using extreme leverage to make lots of money in the cryptocurrency markets…

When traders use margin, they essentially borrow from their brokerage firm to take a bigger position in bitcoin. If prices go down, they have to pay the brokerage firm back in what’s known as a “margin call.” As part of that, there’s often a set price that triggers selling in order to make sure traders can pay the exchange back.

Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM, pointed to firms in Asia such as BitMEX allowing 100-to-1 leverage for cryptocurrency trades.

Of course what goes up must come down, and on the way down that sort of leverage is going to completely crush a lot of “investors” that thought that they had the game all figured out.

When things really start going haywire, will the corporate media come to a point where they finally turn on Joe Biden?

Needless to say, Joe Biden has not been the only one making really, really bad decisions.  Throughout the course of this pandemic, politicians and central bankers all over the globe have been flooding the world financial system with giant mountains of fresh money, and we have an emerging global crisis of epic proportions on our hands as a result.

There is no way that this is going to end well, but most of you already knew that.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Why Is The Mainstream Media Signaling That A Much Larger Stock Market Decline Is Coming?

Why would the mainstream media want all of us to believe that stock prices are about to fall dramatically?  Just like we witnessed earlier this year at the beginning of the pandemic, the corporate media is full of reports that seem to imply that it is a virtual certainty that stock prices are going to go even lower.  Of course it would make perfect sense for stock prices to go down because they are incredibly overvalued right now, but normally the mainstream media does not try to tell us where stock prices are going next.  And the fact that so many news outlets are repeating the same mantra right now is particularly troublesome.

Without a doubt, the momentum of stock prices is taking us in a downward direction at the moment.  All of the major stock indexes have posted declines for three weeks in a row, and it looks like this week could make it four.

As I write this article, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 4.5 percent for the month, the S&P 500 is down over 6 percent, and the Nasdaq has fallen about 8.5 percent.  Overall, the market is on pace for the worst September in 18 years, but the corporate-controlled media seems convinced that things are going to get even worse.  For example, the following comes from a CNBC article entitled “Stock sell-off accelerates and is expected to get worse before it gets better”…

Stock investors focused on new worries about the coronavirus and economy, selling into a market Monday that was already technically shaken and set for further declines.

I looked for evidence that would back up the assertion that the market is “set for further declines” in the remainder of that article, but I didn’t see any.

Without a doubt, I definitely agree that stock prices have a long, long way to fall, but there is no reason why they couldn’t bounce back for the rest of this week.

So it seems odd that CNBC would be so dogmatic.

And USA Today just posted an article that suggested that we are facing “a looming global financial crisis”…

“Massive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus” that came together to prop up the economy has caused debt to balloon and stocks to become potentially overvalued, posing “the serious risk of a looming global financial crisis as central banks begin to shift away from easy (monetary) policy at some point in the years to come.”

Once again, I definitely agree that a global financial crisis could erupt at any time.

But normally we don’t see the mainstream media using such language.

At this point, we are less than a month and a half away from the election, and many have suggested that uncertainty about the outcome could weigh heavily on the market.  In fact, CNN is telling us that we should anticipate “that volatility will be high” during the period surrounding election day…

Market experts have warned that volatility will be high toward the end of the year and around the election, especially because many expect the winner won’t be known immediately.

Could it be possible that there will be an attempt to disrupt the market in an attempt to make one of the candidates look bad?

I know that would sound absurd during normal times, but these are definitely not normal times.

And ultra-wealthy insiders definitely seem to believe that something is coming, because they have been selling stocks like crazy recently.  According to Zero Hedge, “during the week ended September 11, insiders sold $473 million in shares while only buying $9.5 million.”

I don’t know about you, but those numbers definitely got my attention.

Of course stock prices should have never, ever gotten so high in the first place.  The unprecedented market rally that we have witnessed in 2020 has occurred during a time when we have actually plunged into a new economic depression.  Almost every day I share more horrific economic numbers with my readers, and here are some more from the New York Post…

Nearly 90 percent of New York City bar and restaurant owners couldn’t pay their rent in August, heightening the continued crush the coronavirus shutdown has inflicted on Gotham’s economy.

Eighty-seven percent of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and event spaces in the five boroughs could not pay their full August rent, according to data from 457 businesses surveyed between Aug. 25 and Sept. 11, in a new study released Monday by the nonprofit NYC Hospitality Alliance.

How in the world can anyone possibly use the phrase “economic recovery” when we are seeing numbers like that?

We have never seen an economic downturn of this magnitude in all of modern American history, and many believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

With each passing day, we see more societal turmoil in the headlines, and the upcoming election threatens to bring our societal tensions to a thundering crescendo.

In such an environment, a huge stock market crash would not be surprising at all, and some are suggesting that the shove that pushes us over the edge could actually happen on purpose.  In his most recent video, Greg Mannarino warned that the upcoming financial crash “is going to be epic”, and he told his audience that our largest financial institutions could collapse the market any time that they want…

“They can crush the global economy or the market. The global economy, which is the middle class, is already crushed, ok. They can destroy the stock market like this [snaps fingers.] And you can see it playing out right now. So all to of this is more than likely going to get brushed under the rug as it always does,” Mannarino says of the banks controlling the world.

It is not unusual for pundits such as Mannarino to make such bold predictions, but what alarms me is that the mainstream media is also strongly suggesting that a market crash is coming.

Even if the mainstream media is not attempting to do it on purpose, their words can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as countless investors spooked by their reports pull money out of the marketplace.

Sadly, this is one instance in which the mainstream media will ultimately be proven correct.  Whether it happens in the immediate future or not, the truth is that we are heading for a financial meltdown that will be absolutely horrifying.

In recent months, the Federal Reserve was able to reinflate our financial bubbles one more time, and hordes of investors eagerly jumped aboard the rally train.

But now that train is in danger of being derailed, and those that do not hop off in time could find themselves plunging into a nightmarish financial abyss.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  By purchasing the book you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Worse Than 2008: We Are Being Warned That The Coronavirus Shutdown “Could Collapse The Mortgage Market”

The cascading failures that have been set into motion by this “coronavirus shutdown” are going to make the financial crisis of 2008 look like a Sunday picnic.  As you will see below, it is being estimated that unemployment in the U.S. is already higher than it was at any point during the last recession.  That means that millions of American workers no longer have paychecks coming in and won’t be able to pay their mortgages.  On top of that, the CARES Act actually requires all financial institutions to allow borrowers with government-backed mortgages to defer payments for an extended period of time.  Of course this is a recipe for disaster for mortgage lenders, and industry insiders are warning that we are literally on the verge of a “collapse” of the mortgage market.

Never before in our history have we seen a jump in unemployment like we just witnessed.  If you doubt this, just check out this incredible chart.

Millions upon millions of American workers are now facing a future with virtually no job prospects for the foreseeable future, and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen believes that the unemployment rate in the U.S. is already up to about 13 percent…

Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told CNBC on Monday the economy is in the throes of an “absolutely shocking” downturn that is not reflected yet in the current data.

If it were, she said, the unemployment rate probably would be as high as 13% while the overall economic contraction would be about 30%.

If Yellen’s estimate is accurate, that means that unemployment in this country is already significantly worse than it was at any point during the last recession.

And young adults are being hit particularly hard during this downturn…

As measures to slow the pandemic decimate jobs and threaten to plunge the economy into a deep recession, young adults such as Romero are disproportionately affected. An Axios-Harris survey conducted through March 30 showed that 31 percent of respondents ages 18 to 34 had either been laid off or put on temporary leave because of the outbreak, compared with 22 percent of those 35 to 49 and 15 percent of those 50 to 64.

As I have documented repeatedly over the past several years, most Americans were living paycheck to paycheck even during “the good times”, and so now that disaster has struck there will be millions upon millions of people that will not be able to pay their mortgages.

It is being projected that up to 30 percent of all mortgages could eventually default, and when you add the fact that millions upon millions of Americans will be deferring payments thanks to the CARES Act, it all adds up to big trouble for the mortgage industry…

A broad coalition of mortgage and finance industry leaders on Saturday sent a plea to federal regulators, asking for desperately needed cash to keep the mortgage system running, as requests from borrowers for the federal mortgage forbearance program are pouring in at an alarming rate.

The Cares Act mandates that all borrowers with government-backed mortgages—about 62% of all first lien mortgages according to Urban Institute—be allowed to delay at least 90 days of monthly payments and possibly up to a year’s worth.

Needless to say, many in the mortgage industry are absolutely furious with the federal government for putting them into such a precarious position, and one industry insider is warning that we could soon see the “collapse” of the mortgage market…

“Throwing this out there without showing evidence of hardship was an outrageous move, outrageous,” said David Stevens, who headed the Federal Housing Administration during the subprime mortgage crisis and is a former CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “The administration made a huge mistake bringing moral hazard in and thrust extraordinary risk into the private sector that could collapse the mortgage market.”

Of course a lot of other industries are heading for immense pain as well.

At this point, even JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is admitting that the U.S. economy as a whole is plunging into a “bad recession”…

Jamie Dimon said the U.S. economy is headed for a “bad recession” in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but this time around his company is not going to need a bailout. Instead, JPMorgan Chase is ready to lend a hand to struggling consumers and small businesses.

“At a minimum, we assume that it will include a bad recession combined with some kind of financial stress similar to the global financial crisis of 2008,” Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said Monday in his annual letter to shareholders.

And the longer this coronavirus shutdown persists, the worse things will get for our economy.

In fact, economist Stephen Moore is actually predicting that we will be “facing a potential Great Depression scenario” if normal economic activity does not resume in a few weeks…

Sunday on New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” economist Stephen Moore weighed in on the potential impact of the coronavirus to the United States economy.

Moore warned the nation could be “facing a potential Great Depression scenario” if the United States stays on lockdown much past the beginning of May, as well as an additional amount of deaths caused by the raised unemployment rate.

The good news is that the “shelter-in-place” orders all over the globe appear to be “flattening the curve” at least to a certain extent.

The bad news is that we could see another huge explosion of cases and deaths once all of the restrictions are lifted.

And the really bad news is that what we have experienced so far is nothing compared to what is coming.

But in the short-term we should be very thankful that the numbers around the world are starting to level off a bit.

Of course that is only happening because most people are staying home, but having people stay home is absolutely killing the economy.

And if people stay home long enough, a lot of them will no longer be able to pay the mortgages on those homes.

Our leaders are being forced to make choices between saving lives and saving the economy, and those choices are only going to become more painful the longer this crisis persists.

Let us pray that they will have wisdom to make the correct choices, because the stakes are exceedingly high.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with all many people as we possibly can.

Global Debt Is Up To $188,000,000,000,000 – This Is Officially The Biggest Debt Bubble The World Has Ever Seen

The world is now 188 trillion dollars in debt, and that number continues to grow rapidly each year.  It is a form of enslavement that is deeply insidious, because most of those living on the planet do not even understand how the system works, and even if they did most of them would have absolutely no hope of ever getting free from it.  The borrower is the servant of the lender, and the global financial system is designed to funnel as much wealth to the top 0.1% as possible.  Of course throughout human history there has always been slavery, and the primary motivation for having slaves is to extract an economic benefit from those that are enslaved.  And even though most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as “slaves” today, the truth is that the global elite are extracting more wealth from all of us than ever before.  So much of our labor is going to make them wealthy, and yet most people don’t even realize what is happening.

Let’s start with a very simple example to help illustrate this.

When you go into credit card debt and you only make small payments each month, you can easily end up paying back more than double the amount of money that you originally borrowed.

So where does all that money go?

Well, of course it goes to the financial institution that you got your credit card from, and in turn that financial institution is owned by the global elite.

In essence, you willingly became a debt slave when you chose to go into credit card debt, and the hard work that it took to earn enough money to pay back that debt with interest ended up enriching others.

On a much larger scale, the same thing is happening to entire nations.

Today, the United States government is nearly 23 trillion dollars in debt.  In essence, we have been collectively enslaved, and we have been obligated to pay back all of that money with interest.  Of course at this point it is literally impossible for us to ever pay back all that debt, and every year we add another trillion dollars or so to the balance.  The global elite are now extracting more than 500 billion dollars in interest from this debt on an annual basis, and it is expected that number will greatly escalate in the years ahead.

It is not an accident that the Federal Reserve and the federal income tax were both instituted in 1913.  The Federal Reserve system was designed to create an endless debt spiral that would get the federal government in as much debt as possible, and since that time the size of our national debt has gotten more than 7000 times larger.  And the federal income tax was needed as the mechanism through which our wealth is transferred to the government to service all of this debt.

It is truly a deeply, deeply insidious system, and the American people should refuse to back any politician that does not favor shutting it down, but at this point this isn’t even a major political issue in our nation.

And of course the United States is far from alone.  Even though we can’t get the whole world to agree on much of anything, somehow virtually the entire planet has been convinced that debt-based central banking is the way to go.

In fact, at this point 99.9 percent of the population of the world lives in a country that has a central bank.

According to Wikipedia, there are only 9 very small nations that do not have a central bank at this point…

-Andorra
-Isle of Man
-Monaco
-Nauru
-Kiribati
-Tuvalu
-Palau
-Marshall Islands
-Federated States of Micronesia

If you combine the populations of all of those 9 nations together, it comes to much less than 0.1% of the total global population.

Do you think that this is just a coincidence?

The global elite do not want humanity to be free.  They want us to be in as much debt as possible so that we can make them richer.

When you realize how badly the game has been rigged, then a lot of things start to make a whole lot more sense.

For example, for those that understand how the system works it is certainly not surprising that the total amount of debt in the world has hit a new all-time record high of 188 trillion dollars…

The global debt load has surged to a new all-time record equivalent to more than double the world’s economic output, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned Thursday.

While private sector borrowing accounts for the vast majority of the total, the rise puts governments and individuals at risk if the economy slows, she said.

“Global debt — both public and private — has reached an all-time high of $188 trillion. This amounts to about 230 percent of world output,” Georgieva said in a speech to open a two-day conference on debt.

That number has risen by 24 trillion dollars since 2016, and it is the biggest debt bubble that the world has ever seen by a very wide margin.

Of course at some point this debt bubble is going to burst in a global disaster of epic proportions, but meanwhile the global elite are going to continue to milk all of us for as long as they possibly can.

Here in the United States, we have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of our nation since the last financial crisis.  U.S. government debt has more than doubled, state and local government debt has ballooned to ridiculous proportions in much of the nation, corporate debt has doubled, student loan debt has more than doubled, auto loan debt just keeps hitting new record highs, and U.S. consumers are now 14 trillion dollars in debt.

Our mountain of debt has become so colossal that the only way to keep the game going is to borrow even more money, but by borrowing more money we make our enslavement even worse.

Meanwhile, those that are holding our debt just continue to live the high life as they laugh all the way to the bank.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

The Deutsche Bank Death Watch Has Taken A Very Interesting Turn

The biggest bank in Europe is in the process of imploding, and there are persistent rumors that the final collapse could happen sooner rather than later.  Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know that this is a story that I have been following for years.  Deutsche Bank is rapidly bleeding cash, they have been laying off thousands of workers, and the vultures have been circling as company executives desperately try to implement a turnaround plan.  Unfortunately for Deutsche Bank, it may already be too late.  And if Deutsche Bank goes down, it will be even more catastrophic for the global financial system than the collapse of Lehman Brothers was in 2008.  Germany is the glue that is holding the EU together, and so if the bank that is right at the heart of Germany’s financial system collapses, the dominoes will likely start falling very rapidly.

There has been a tremendous amount of speculation about Deutsche Bank over the past several days, and so let’s start with what we know.

We know that Deutsche Bank has been losing money at a pace that is absolutely staggering…

Deutsche Bank reported a net loss that missed market expectations on Wednesday as a major restructuring plan continues to weigh on the German lender.

It reported a net loss of 832 million euros ($924 million) for the third quarter of 2019. Analysts were expecting a loss of 778 million euros, according to data from Refinitiv. It had reported a net profit of 229 million euros in the third quarter of 2018, but a loss of 3.15 billion euros in the second quarter of this year.

If you add the losses for the second and third quarter of 2019 together, you get a grand total of nearly 4 billion euros.

How in the world is it possible to lose that much money in just 6 months?

If all they had their employees doing was flushing dollar bills down the toilet for 6 months, it still shouldn’t be possible to lose that kind of money.

When investors learned of Deutsche Bank’s third quarter results last week, shares of the bank went down about 8 percent in a single day.

Overall, the stock price has lost over a quarter of its value over the past year.

Unless you enjoy financial pain, I have no idea why anyone would want to be holding Deutsche Bank stock at this point.  As I have previously warned, it is eventually going to zero, and the only question remaining is how quickly it will get there.

We also know that Deutsche Bank has been laying off thousands of workers all over the world…

On July 8, 2019, thousands of Deutsche Bank employees across the globe arrived at their offices, unaware that they would be leaving again, jobless, just a few hours later. In Tokyo, entire teams of equity traders were dismissed on the spot, while some London staff were reportedly told they had until 11am to leave the bank’s Great Winchester Street offices before their access cards stopped working.

The job cuts, which totalled 18,000, or around 20 percent of Deutsche Bank’s workforce, were the flagship element of a restructuring plan designed to save the ailing German lender.

The day before those layoffs happened, most of those employees would have probably told you that Deutsche Bank is in good shape and has a very bright future ahead.

Just like we witnessed with Lehman Brothers, there is always an effort to maintain the charade until the very last minute.

But the truth is that anyone with half a brain can see that Deutsche Bank is dying.  There have been so many bad decisions, so many aggressive bets have gone bad, and there has been one scandal after another…

In April 2015, the bank paid a combined $2.5bn in fines to US and UK regulators for its role in the LIBOR-fixing scandal. Just six months later, it was forced to pay an additional $258m to regulators in New York after it was caught trading with Myanmar, Libya, Sudan, Iran and Syria, all of which were subject to US sanctions at the time. These two fines, combined with challenging market conditions, led the bank to post a €6.7bn ($7.39bn) net loss for 2015. Two years later, it paid a further $425m to the New York regulator to settle claims that it had laundered $10bn in Russian funds.

At this point, it is just a zombie bank that is stumbling along until someone finally puts it out of its misery.

Money is so tight at Deutsche Bank that they have even cancelled the Christmas reception for retired employees…

Times change. Once upon a time (2001, in fact), Deutsche Bank was able to book stars like Robbie Williams for its staff Christmas party, with a Spice Girl turning up too just because it was such a great party. Now, according to the FT, Christian Sewing has even cancelled the daytime coffee-and-cake Christmas reception for retired employees.

Of course saving a few bucks on coffee and cake is not going to make a difference for a bank with tens of trillions of dollars of exposure to derivatives.

Deutsche Bank is the largest domino in Europe’s very shaky financial system.  When it fully collapses, it will set off a chain reaction that nobody is going to be able to stop.  David Wilkerson once warned that the financial collapse of Europe would begin in Germany, and Jim Rogers has warned that the implosion of Deutsche Bank would cause the entire EU to “disintegrate”…

Then the EU would disintegrate, because Germany would no longer be able to support it, would not want to support it. A lot of other people would start bailing out; many banks in Europe have problems. And if Deutsche Bank has to fail – that is the end of it. In 1931, when one of the largest banks in Europe failed, it led to the Great Depression and eventually the WWII. Be worried!

Sadly, most Americans can’t even spell “Deutsche Bank”, and they certainly don’t know that it is the most important bank in all of Europe.

But those that understand the times we are living in are watching Deutsche Bank very carefully, because if it implodes global financial chaos will certainly follow.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

Major Red Flag: The Fed Shocks Everyone With An Emergency Intervention In The Repo Market For The First Time Since 2008

For the very first time since the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been forced to conduct an emergency intervention in the repo market.  I know that a lot of people out there don’t know what the repo market is or how it works, and so let me start out with a very basic analogy that may help people understand what we are facing.  It doesn’t really matter how shiny your toilet is – if the pipes underneath don’t work, you are in a whole lot of trouble.  The repo market plays a critical role in our financial system, because it allows our banks to rapidly borrow money to fund their short-term needs.  But this week interest rates in the repo market started to shoot up to frightening levels, and the Federal Reserve was forced to intervene for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008.  The following comes from Yahoo News…

The New York Federal Reserve Bank on Tuesday stepped into financial markets for the first time in more than a decade to keep interest rates in line with the Fed’s target.

Analysts say the operation appears to have been successful but it caused some jitters, coming as the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee opens a two-day meeting expected to produce a second cut in the benchmark lending rate.

This is essentially a form of “quantitative easing”, and many are concerned that this temporary intervention will not fix the larger problems that have resulted in this crisis.

And of course officials at the Fed probably never imagined that they would be intervening so soon, but they were compelled to make a move when interest rates started to spiral wildly out of control on Monday and Tuesday…

The rate on overnight repurchase agreements hit 5% on Monday, according to Refinitiv data. That’s up from 2.29% late last week and well above the target range set in July by the Federal Reserve, which is 2% to 2.25%. The surge continued Tuesday, with the overnight rate hitting a high of 10% before the NY Fed stepped in.

An “overnight repo operation” was hastily put together as interest rates soared, and it ultimately resulted in 53 billion dollars being injected into our financial system…

On Tuesday morning, the NY Fed launched what’s called an “overnight repo operation,” during which the central bank attempts to ease pressure in markets by purchasing Treasurys and other securities. The goal is to pump money into the system to keep borrowing costs from creeping above the Fed’s target range .

The first attempt by the NY Fed was canceled because of “technical difficulties.” Minutes later, the NY Fed successfully injected $53 billion into the system.

And guess what?

The Fed has already announced that they are going to do it again on Wednesday, and this time the goal will be to inject approximately 75 billion dollars into the system.

If that sounds absurd to you, that is because it is absurd.

Sadly, the truth is that our financial system is starting to show signs of serious distress for the first time in more than a decade, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.

But everyone agrees that the Fed being forced to intervene in the marketplace is not a good sign.  In fact, one industry veteran said that it “is without a doubt one of the worst things that can happen”…

“If the plumbing doesn’t work, then it’s going to dramatically affect secondary trading of Treasuries. Which is the last thing they need when there’s massive issuance going on.

“This is without a doubt one of the worst things that can happen. In many respects it overshadows the Fed moving tomorrow, because if the plumbing doesn’t work everything starts to break down. Everything is predicated upon your getting a reasonable funding rate. Otherwise why would you buy this paper to begin with. If you’re funding your overnight position at 6 why would you buy a 10-year at 2?

And now that the Fed has begun to intervene, when will they be able to stop?

Will they have to keep doing it for the rest of the week?

And what happens if interest rates begin to go wild again next week or next month?

In essence, Pandora’s Box has now been opened, and things could get really crazy moving forward.  According to Zero Hedge, if this currently repo operation is not sufficient to calm things down, the Fed could soon formally launch a new quantitative easing program…

While the Fed did not disclose how many banks participated in the operation, it is safe to say it was a sizable number. Worse, the result from today’s unexpected repo operation, we can now conclude that in addition to $1.3 trillion in ‘excess reserves’, a Fed which is now cutting rates and will cut rates by 25bps tomorrow, the US financial system somehow found itself with a liquidity shortfall of $53 billion that almost paralyzed the interbank funding market.

Oh, and for those wondering why the Fed did a repo, the answer is simple: it did not want to launch QE just yet. But make no mistake, once repo is insufficient, the Fed will have no choice but to escalate to the next step which is open market purchases.

Which brings us to the bigger question of how long such overnight repos will satisfy the market, and how long before the next repo rate spike prompts the Fed to do the inevitable, and restart QE.

Of course quantitative easing is something that should never be done unless we have a major crisis on our hands, and with each passing day it is becoming clearer that the global economy is headed for enormous trouble.  In fact, we just received some more alarming news about global manufacturing…

The gloom of the world is centered around auto manufacturing, which is dragging on the global economy, fuelling fears that a worldwide trade recession has already begun.

The first domino to fall has been auto manufacturing, already hitting a near-record low in August, reported the Financial Times.

New data from IHS Markit global car industry purchasing managers’ index shows some of the sharpest declines across all sectors, not seen since 2009.

It is time to “batten down the hatches”, because rough weather is ahead.

Over and over again we keep seeing trouble signs that we haven’t seen since the last financial crisis, but most Americans still seem convinced that everything is going to be okay.

This move by the Fed is one of the biggest red flags yet, but I have a feeling that what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Study Discovers That If The Debt Machine Was Turned Off, The U.S. Would Immediately Plunge Into A Horrifying Depression

A new study has discovered that we are far more dependent on America’s great debt creation machine than most of us would have ever dared to imagine.  Today, debt is involved in most of our major transactions.  In order to purchase a home, most of us go into debt.  The same thing is true when most of us buy a vehicle.  Total credit card debt is well over a trillion dollars, and total student loan debt is now over a trillion and a half dollars.  Corporate debt has more than doubled since the last financial crisis, state and local governments are absolutely drowning in debt and unfunded pension liabilities, and the federal government is more than 22 trillion dollars in debt.  The Federal Reserve and the “too big to fail” banks are at the core of this insidious debt-based system, and it has been systematically destroying the bright future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have.  But if we suddenly turned off America’s great debt creation machine at this point, our entire economic system would totally collapse because we have become so dependent on it.  In fact, a study that was just conducted by Bloomberg discovered that “gross domestic product per capita would plunge into negative territory” if the ability to borrow was suddenly removed…

The nation’s health as measured by gross domestic product per capita would plunge into negative territory without its dependence on borrowed money, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In fact, the U.S. would fall almost to the bottom of a ranking of 114 economies by GDP per capita. Only Italy, Greece and Japan would fare worse. That’s a seismic shift from America’s comfortable No. 5 spot on a list based on conventional measures.

Our massively inflated debt-fueled standard of living is completely and utterly dependent on the continual creation of more debt.

In essence, this study found that without debt we wouldn’t have much of an economy at all.  In fact, Bloomberg says that U.S. per capita income would collapse from $66,900 a year to “negative $4,857”…

To get this somewhat dystopian measure, Bloomberg took each economy’s 2020 GDP as projected by the International Monetary Fund as a starting point. We then adjusted the number by removing the ability to borrow, while adding reserves to create an alternative wealth measure.

U.S. per capita income of $66,900 would be slashed to a negative $4,857 using this measure. That’s a total loss of almost $72,000 for every man, woman and child.

So the only thing keeping us from complete and total economic collapse is the fact that debt is flowing like wine.

But what would happen if some sort of major national crisis erupted someday and all of a sudden everyone was afraid to lend money?

That is something to think about, because such a scenario may be a whole lot closer than many people might think.

As it stands, we appear to be on the precipice of the worst economic downturn since the last financial crisis, and our trade war with China just went to an entirely new level as the month of September began…

The biggest reason for last week’s torrid stock market rally was rekindled “optimism” that the escalating trade war between the US and China may be on the verge of another ceasefire following phone conversations, fake as they may have been, between the US and Chinese side. This translated into speculation that a new round of tariffs increases slated for this weekend may not take place or be delayed.

However, that did not happen, and with no trade deal in sight, at 12:00am on Sunday, the Trump administration slapped tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports, the latest escalation in a trade war that’s ground the global economy to a halt, sent Germany into a recession, and given the market an alibi to keep rising because, wait for it, “a trade deal is imminent.”

Only, it isn’t, and 1 minute later, at 12:01am EDT, China retaliated with higher tariffs being rolled out in stages on a total of about $75 billion of U.S. goods. The target list strikes at the heart of Trump’s political support – factories and farms across the Midwest and South at a time when the U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing down.

The Chinese knew that these tariffs were about to go into effect, and so they were ready and waiting to retaliate just one minute later.

Of course many U.S. companies will be hit extremely hard by these tariffs that the Trump administration just implemented.  The following comes from CNBC…

That means that when an electronics company imports a TV, or a smart speaker, or a drone from China starting September 1, it will have to pay a 15% tax to the U.S. government.

Eventually, this will end up raising prices on gadgets and other products for people in the United States, said Bronwyn Flores, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Tech Association (CTA), a trade group that represents 2,000 different companies in the electronics industry, including brands like Apple and LG and retailers like Walmart and Best Buy.

Basically, people are not going to be able to buy as much stuff during the holiday shopping season, and overall economic activity will be slower than it otherwise would have been.

Meanwhile, President Trump continues to sound hopeful that trade talks with China will bear fruit…

President Donald Trump said trade talks with Beijing are still planned for September after a new round of tariffs went into effect on Sunday.

“We are talking to China, the meetings in September, that hasn’t changed,” Trump told reporters Sunday on the White House South Lawn after returning from Camp David.

These sorts of comments helped stabilize the financial markets last week, but if there was any hope that a trade agreement was imminent we would not have seen both sides impose new tariffs on Sunday.

And now we are moving into the month that is traditionally the worst for Wall Street.  The following comes from Fox Business…

Investors may breathe a sigh of relief that August, typically a volatile month for stocks, is over, but history shows that September could be even worse for Wall Street.

Since 1950, September has been the worst month for the S&P 500 Index, which has dropped, on average, 0.5% during the month, a phenomenon referred to as the September effect. According to Dow Jones market data, the average decline of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in September is 1%, while the Nasdaq Composite generally sees an average fall of 0.5%.

We shall see what this September brings.  Certainly things are really shaky on Wall Street right now, and any piece of really bad news is likely to set off another wave of panic.

Without a doubt, the market is more primed for a crash than it has been at any point since 2008, and it definitely will not take much to make this a “September to remember”…

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

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