By Giordano Bruno
Neithercorp Press – 11/19/2010
When a child bounds about the house and breaks his mother’s favorite flower vase or creepy ‘Precious Moments’ figurine, he usually blames the dog before he blames himself. We tend to learn the value of scapegoats at a very early age. Many people eventually outgrow this terrible habit and begin to take responsibility for their actions, while others never do. The ability to divert justice is frowned upon by those of us who value conscience, but in some circles, such “talent” is prized above all else. There are some in this world who derive great joy from creating destruction and allowing innocent men or guiltless groups to take the fall.
The Italian philosopher/elitist extraordinaire, Niccolo Machiavelli, often discussed the “virtue” of the scapegoat. In his treatise ‘The Prince’ (essentially a guidebook for the tyrants of the 16th century} he outlined how to manipulate the rage of the masses towards the ends of the state (or royalty, or dictatorship, or autocracy, etc.). Though a soulless cretin of the highest order, Machiavelli was ahead of his time in one sense; he recognized before many others that a storm was brewing against the traditional rule of iron fisted monarchy. The world was changing, and the threat of violence and death was not going to be enough to keep the elites in power. The common people were beginning to awaken, to educate themselves, to demand their inherent right to freedom, not just in small controllable pockets, but all over the globe. The ruling class had to adapt its methods to this awakening by turning away from brute force and towards more psychologically rooted tactics. The use of a proxy became a valuable method for the elites in creating the illusion of judgment on government criminality, while at the same time allowing the same men behind the criminality to maintain their “savior” status in the public eye.
Machiavelli suggested throwing middle-management thugs to the angry hoards, while the true heads of state, the men who gave those thugs their orders, remained untouched. There are, however, many variations to this scheme. When you are a group that heads the central banking apparatus of a nation or many nations, when you control the core mechanisms (its currency and interest rates) by which a country financially rises and falls, and you cause that country to fall, you had better have a host of backup patsies to take the pitchforks and bullets coming your way.
Let’s look at some of the probable redirections and excuses that we will be hearing from government and the mainstream media in the next couple of years as the world’s fiscal stability takes a long swan dive into the shallow end of the pool.
It’s All The American People’s Fault: This has been a widespread diversionary argument since the credit and mortgage crisis became widely known in 2008, but you need to trust me when I say, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Yes, many Americans have amassed incredible debts, and took on mortgages they knew they could not afford, and then borrowed money against these mortgages which they never planned to pay back. People, not just in America, but all over the planet, have a fantastic aptitude for greed and stupidity. It’s certainly a driver for financial mayhem, but is it the source? In the case of today’s recession/depression, the answer is no.
Americans over-consumed and over-leveraged, but who enabled that trend to take place? Only the lenders could have facilitated such a spending spree. So then it was the predatory lending of banks? In part, but we must go further to the root of the problem. Who directs the lending capacity and practices of the big banks? Why the central bank, of course! Ever since the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act passed in 1980, all banks fall under the purview of the Federal Reserve. It was the Federal Reserve that artificially lowered interest rates and borrowing costs to historically low levels in order to excite the debt bubble which then burst in 2008. Credit was easy. In fact, it was so easy that big banks practically threw money at people unqualified to handle mortgage payments.
Cheap money was everywhere, and this cheap money was the perfect primer for the expansion of household debts. The people are to blame for their frivolous and unchecked spending, but the Fed is to blame for creating and supporting the habit. A heroin addict has to get his fix from somewhere, and the dealer is certainly held accountable.
The central banks of the world are responsible for much more than dropping bags of cash into the laps of unreliable people, but this issue is the one that is most likely to come up again and again as the crisis progresses; are the banks to blame for handing out all that money without regard for the consequences, or are Americans to blame for using it?
As I stated earlier, the anti-American consumerist talking point is only in its infancy. Expect to hear much more vitriol from foreign nations about how our “unregulated” free market capitalist fervor is dragging the rest of the Earth down with us. Expect to hear about the “greedy” American and how he alone brought down global financial stability because he refused to live within his means. Expect to hear about how the rest of the world needs to keep America “in check” before it wreaks havoc beyond fathoming.
The truth is that overt American consumerism is only the symptom of a greater sickness, not the cause, which is central banking itself. Yet, the stage is already being set for the American people to take the full brunt of the blame in the history books as the main catalyst for collapse.
Lack Of Regulation Was The Culprit: People who claim there are not enough laws and regulations governing banks and lending practices have obviously never read or tried to read the Security and Exchange Commission’s legal guidelines. I suggest they do that now before going any further:
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/securitieslaws.htm
There are more than adequate laws and regulations in place to keep banks in line. The problem is that the SEC has refused to enforce those laws when it matters. For 20 years, the SEC operated a whistleblower reward fund for people who took the risk of presenting evidence of banking fraud. Obviously, there has been a whole lot of fraud taking place the past two decades, yet only FIVE people were ever paid from the fund for coming forward:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/sec-rarely-rewards-whistl_n_525729.html
Only five people in twenty years?! How is this possible? Perhaps the fact that the SEC has been ignoring or sabotaging whistleblowers for decades might explain the discrepancy.
There are certainly more recorded accounts of the SEC ignoring whistleblowers than I can list in this article, but here are some of the more recent instances:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/16/news/economy/COSO_SEC_flaws_Sarbox.fortune/index.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012005125_pf.html
There are also accounts of the SEC actually giving employee whistleblower information to the companies committing the fraud, exposing those employees to retaliation:
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is supposed to protect whistleblowers from such retaliation, and the SEC’s budget was doubled in order to make sure that was possible, but past events have shown that it is rarely implemented. The bottom line is that corporate banks have gotten away with murder right in full view of the government and the SEC, despite ample evidence and regulations, because the evidence was swept under the rug and the regulations were never enforced.
In light of the Madoff scandal, among others, the SEC has had to run damage control by enlarging whistleblower funds and writing new rules to protect those who wish to come forward with information. Of course, the catch is that the SEC is also now pressuring employees to go to their company with the information first, and then to the SEC later, allowing the offending corporation to “police themselves” before the SEC gets involved. Talk about awkward:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/11/04/sec-issues-proposed-whistleblower-rules-the-lobbying-continues/
Now the Federal Reserve, on the other hand, deals with no oversight from government, no threat of a full audit, and is not required to open its books to public scrutiny under FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request. As Alan Greenspan recently admitted, the Fed is an independent (private) entity that answers to no one. Not Congress, not even the American people:
If the mainstream media was to debate that the collapse is taking place because of a complete lack of regulation regarding the Federal Reserve, they would be correct, but no one in the MSM is arguing that! Instead, they often argue the opposite, claiming that the Fed needs more power and zero oversight in order to save us all from the catastrophe the central bank itself created.
It’s All China’s Fault: We’ve talked about the brewing trade wars and currency wars in past articles, and I think many people are familiar with this subject, even those who have no interest in it. That said, there is still a lack of understanding in the general populace as to the issue of blame. China as a country is not to blame for our economic problems, no more than America as a country is to blame for the world’s economic problems. In contrast, the central bankers and corporate heads of China, and the central bankers and corporate heads of the U.S., are very much involved in fueling global financial distress.
The oligarchy of the U.S. supported and encouraged the outsourcing of American industry throughout the 80’s and 90’s to take advantage of China’s cheap labor (and to push Americans into a weak 70% service based economy). China never forced us to send all our manufacturing jobs overseas, our own corporate elites did.
China also never forced the Fed to begin accelerated devaluation of the dollar. The central bankers of the U.S. are well aware that a weak currency and quantitative easing is not going to have any meaningful effect on our export growth for years or even decades if at all, primarily because we have little export capability on our own soil to back such a transition. You have to have goods to trade before you can…..well…..trade…..
Interestingly, the fiat injections of the Fed which are supposedly designed to combat Chinese currency manipulation are actually causing some adverse reactions. Is anyone really surprised?
So far, the bailout money dumped into banks has gone nowhere. Financial institutions have hoarded the cash while tightening lending standards even beyond what is required by such agencies as the Federal Housing Administration:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-17/home-ownership-gets-harder-for-americans-as-lenders-restrict-fha-mortgages.html
Thus, dollar devaluation in that regard has produced no results. None. Nada. Zero money going into the general economy or to the public.
What about QE2? All that fiat which Wall Street has been expecting to pour into the Dow and prop up stocks?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tepper-tells-cnbc-fed-will-prop-up-market-2010-09-24
It’s a funny thing, but it seems as though international investors and even bankers right here at home no longer trust American stocks or bond markets. Capital is being yanked out of U.S. equities and is now flooding into Asian markets, like China’s, whose assets are considered safer and more profitable:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/98506/7200236.html
This is sometimes called “hot money”, and it has the ability to cause severe inflation. The irony is that the Federal Reserve pumps this money into the banking system or into Treasuries, and then that money leaves the country to go directly to China, meaning, yet again, the banksters have devalued the dollar with fiat printing and not a cent is going to help actual Americans, or even to alleviate debts. This is why QE2 has failed to boost sales of or interest in U.S. T-bonds, even though the Fed is now buying them like mad:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AB2SU20101112
It also explains why the dollar and the Dow are exhibiting signs of falling simultaneously; a trend which we have been warning about since 2008 as a prophet of extreme danger:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69K04L20101117
Meanwhile, the banking elites of China are also completely aware that the U.S., like their ancient nemesis Japan, is on the verge of financial seppuku. China’s food and housing markets are in the midst of an inflationary run due to capital inflows from both countries. Their consumers cannot afford it and the Yuan is not yet equipped to contain it. They could dump their forex reserves of Dollars and Yen, allowing the Yuan to appreciate, and counter the inevitable explosion in prices they face. So what’s stopping them? They need someone to BLAME before they take action.
Yes, the blame game is played in many languages, and China knows it well. They are waiting tentatively for the U.S. to label them officially as “currency manipulators”, to implement full-spectrum import taxes, and to devalue the Greenback just a little bit more. Then, a Treasury dump by the Chinese becomes practical, and rational, instead of a blatant economic nuke attack.
The key is that in order for this process to unfold the way it has so far, and the way it is likely to continue, both central banks on both sides of the Pacific need to act in concert. They have to shake hands and agree that the dollar has to go. Unless you believe in extraordinarily complex coincidences, which I don’t…
The Republicans/Democrats Are To Blame: This one is tried and true, but not quite as effective as it used to be. So let’s keep it short and to the point…
Neithercorp Press – 11/19/2010
It’s All The American People’s Fault: This has been a widespread diversionary argument since the credit and mortgage crisis became widely known in 2008, but you need to trust me when I say, you haven’t seen anything yet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012005125_pf.html
Thus, dollar devaluation in that regard has produced no results. None. Nada. Zero money going into the general economy or to the public.
It’s a funny thing, but it seems as though international investors and even bankers right here at home no longer trust American stocks or bond markets. Capital is being yanked out of U.S. equities and is now flooding into Asian markets, like China’s, whose assets are considered safer and more profitable:
This is sometimes called “hot money”, and it has the ability to cause severe inflation. The irony is that the Federal Reserve pumps this money into the banking system or into Treasuries, and then that money leaves the country to go directly to China, meaning, yet again, the banksters have devalued the dollar with fiat printing and not a cent is going to help actual Americans, or even to alleviate debts. This is why QE2 has failed to boost sales of or interest in U.S. T-bonds, even though the Fed is now buying them like mad:
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