June 1914 or June 2014?

In a few months it will be the summer of 2014.  As such it is difficult for me not to project infinite possibilities reduced to a singular historical event - the start of World War I in 1914.  See, up to the actual start of the First World War, folk were completely oblivious to how dramatic a pace things would change, and it makes me wonder if the same type of reticent ease evinced by most Americans will be abruptly ended this summer given the tensions between the EU, USA and Russia.

Now I am not saying all is exactly the same, true, different times and different events, but some of the parallels are notably similar.  Now albeit in this age of sound bites, in which the TV pundits tend to accept that the cause of WW1 was singularly due to the assassination of the presumed Austro-Hungarian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a group of Bosnian Serbs from the revolutionary movement called Mlada Bosna (‘Young Bosnia’) while he and his wife were visiting Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, personally, I consider several other factors that were responsible for the war that just happened to culminate in the aforementioned event. In fact, I would even venture to say that this was just an excuse for the Austria-Hungary alliance to declare war on its neighbor in an attempt to eliminate what they perceived and completely contrived to be a ‘Serbian threat.”

Now these other events, remind me strangely of what is occurring in the Ukraine in concert with the EU, Russia and the U.S. First, there was the Franco-Prussia war of 1870 to 1871 which saw France take a beat down leading to them having to pay Germany a lot of loot as a consequence which assisted in the creation of a powerful German Empire with a military and industrial complex to match which Europe understood would severely disrupt the balance of power on the continent. Similar in the manner in which the so-called actions of Russia have caused within the contextual arrangements via the Crimea and Ukraine. Notwithstanding the same locution present suggesting the predisposition of NATO towards Russia emergence after the demise of the U.S.S.R., that borders more on emotive perspectives than rational reality - the type of responses that frequently lead to, instead of squashing, motives directed toward civil and even worse, international wars.

In addition, two other events, TheMoroccan Crises (inclusive of both the Tangler Crisis of 1905-1906 and the Agadir Crisis of 1911) and the formation of the Balkan League (a military alliance against the Ottoman Empire in 1912, between Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria) were just as responsible.  With respect to the first, what is on the historical record is that the events in Morocco almost brought the European heavy weights to war because they were orchestrated by the Germans to drive a wedge between France and Britain, but instead  enhanced British hostility towards Germany. Likewise the manner in which the EU and President Obama has accepted the legitimacy of the government in Kiev (which was funded by Western Governments), as being legitimate without elections, supporting one popular rebellion but not recognizing similar popular rebellions in Crimea and in the Eastern Ukraine. 

The second, was implemented by the Austria-Hungary alliance and resulted in removing the possessions of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and divided these territory among them, resulting in Bulgaria turning against Serbia and Greece - their former allies.  Eventually the Bulgarians were defeated and forced to give up their claims in Macedonia, shocking the European heavy weights (inclusive of Russian allies of France and Great Britain), but in particular the Austria-Hungary Alliance that vehemently was against a strong Serbian state. This, in the same manner in which the west is against a more powerful growing Russian expansion in Eurasia proper today.

Just like the US and EU sees Russia today, Vienna saw Serbia both as a rival in the Balkans and as a direct threat because it feared that its Balkan neighbors may become the core of a future South-Slavic state (wasn’t happening but this is the fear promulgated by the west today concerning the Balkans). The Balkan Wars made Austro-Hungarian neo-cons even more determined to take concrete action to prevent further strengthening of Serbia.

I say this because what is clear is the fact that the Ukraine is not a member of NATO, has been a thorn in the side of both U.S. and EU developing objectives that would authorize the concerns of the Eastern Ukraine’s and others that lean toward Russia in the Ukraine, for NATO to respond militarily to these recent events albeit not warranted. I wrote about this a few weeks ago but since then, Obama is adding gas t the fire. Then there is the empty token of "I mean business by sending 150 troops to Poland, and getting the Romanian Army to move it's troops t the Russian border and the Ukrainian Army surrounding a city of 300,000 in the east.

It seems that it doesn’t require a degree in History to see that the same way Germany wanted a preventive war against Russia and France years before WW1, The EU and the US desires a war (preventative or not) for similar reasons, mainly economic. 

With all of these bailouts of European nations over and over again, adding more and more debt to national coffers, if history is any indication, war is and obvious consequence. First because it is the best way for a government to take people’s attention from horrendous economic conditions they are mired in and two, war is always the outcome when there is no global economic recovery. And right now, the world is smack dab in the middle of a global currency war: one in which everyone from Brazil to China is devaluing their currencies in an attempt boost exports and GDP. And again, the last time we saw this happened, the result was WW 2. Why, because our Federal Government and plutocratic elite need wars to take some of the pressure off from our growing debt and exorbitant federal spending.

Currency wars lead to trade wars, which lead to rising inflation and global economic uncertainty and it is a well-known fact that the U.S. government considers economic threats as a basis for going to war. This is why Gaddafi was murdered, because he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to Saddam because he was moving away from the U.S. dominated petro dollar. And as we speak, bilateral currency swaps are on the increase in and no less than 23 nations are moving away from the dollar to Renminbi: what is in the work is that nations are trying to move the dollar completely out, and use Yuan mainly oil and gold trading. This is a no-no from the U.S. perspective and supports the contention that for us, wars have been able to do one thing from the West’s perspective - bring all countries under the umbrella of Western Central Banking.

Supposedly, the Geneva accord between Russia, Ukraine, the US and EU was supposed to make ALL groups to surrender weapons and leave official buildings. But this did not happen. As it stands, tensions in the Donetsk region, are ramping up, especially in the city of Sloviansk – where the entire city (300,000) is occupied by pro-Russian separatist.  They say that as the People's Republic of Donetsk, they are just reacting to military operations launched by the Ukrainian army on Slavyansk. Then there is the small little something-something that the Ukraine energy firm Naftogaz has been asked to pay Russia Gazprom $11 billion for gas already used but unpaid for.

Bush, as Obama today, are just as war-like as Wilhelm II was in Germany when he ascended to the throne in 1888. Likewise, they are just as protective of U.S. banking interest and as such, the way I figure, there are a lot of similarities historically, albeit different names and places, between the past 100 years. Regardless, whether via incompetence or intentionally, the Obama Administration is escalating tensions in the Ukraine and surrounding region as well as with Russia. Fact is that Washington aided in the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian leader regardless of his character and presently is encouraging the new leaders in Kiev to all they can to keep the flames going, even violence

Video: The EU Banking Crisis Contagion is Spreading

F*** you Pay Me (International Bankers Anthem)

There is a new law of the land that has the blessing of some of the most evil minds in the world – bankers. Along with their political flunkies, they have finally devised a way to get all of the money in the world not only from nation states but also the citizens of said nations. And the strange and sad part about it is that it was the bankers who created these problems. Like magic the result of their gross malpractice, out of thin air, similar to the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank creates money, it has been decided that anyone who saves 100,000 euros is now considered rich. Thus a new era, an era in world finance and international banking where for the first time ever, a major banking system will take and steal from depositors to pay for the government/bank interactions that created the mess in the first place.

For an average mind such as mine, what has happened in Cyprus will not be a mere caduceus act, but eventually common practice. Eventually all citizens, of every nation with massive debt, no matter where you live, in particular in Europe, now no personal/private bank account anywhere in the world is safe. If the big wigs of the EU (Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), José Barroso, the president of the European Commission (EC) and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council), can pull this off, you can best believe some similar folk of status are meeting around the United States in the board rooms of the twelve Federal Reserve banks.

The precedent set by the Eurozone to go for depositors is a reflection of how uncertain the world of derivatives and complex papers is. What we see, what we understand, are the images of long lines in front of ATMs and for what – all to save the institutions that gave us the economic downturn, just to save the banks. Around the world, just in the US the banks are what are important and not the people even if they are the criminals, they only get larger and are even beyond incarceration [see JP Morgan Note below].

NOTE: [The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control found that JPMorgan had illegally aided dictatorships in Cuba, Sudan, Liberia and Iran, including transferring 32,000 ounces of gold bullion for an Iranian bank. Not to mention misleading investors, making fake and false trades, wrongfully foreclosed on soldiers charged veterans hidden fees for refinancing, illegally increased their collection of overdraft fees by processing large transactions before smaller ones or by switching its fixed-rate debt to variable helping push Jefferson County, Alabama into bankruptcy.]

Although under the guise of a bailout, what we see in Cyprus is an indication of things to come worldwide. If another bailout is need for another EZ nation, the likes of Spain and Italy, then the savings accounts of the citizens in Spain, Italy and other countries will be raided. Now some will say its different because in Europe, many nations are way over leveraged and that they are taking these steps to preserve the Euro by aiding insolvent and failing banks. I will agree but would ask how that is any different from the situation with the US dollar and “too big to fail banks?”

As during the time of the great depression and what America is dealing with now, it is common knowledge that excessive leverage was one of the primary causes of both – folk buying stocks and other complex papers on margin. And excessive leveraging undermines financial stability because the goal of the banker is to always transfer credit risk to those better able to absorb losses. When it is impossible to do the aforementioned, the financial sector becomes weak and breaks.

Ironic that I just finished reading Richard Bookstaber’s “A Demon of our own Making.” He describes this so aptly. He notes that new forms of investment strategies like portfolio insurance, based on the Black-Sholes formula of making it possible to set a price on an option and features such as “greenmail” gave us the crisis of not only the past but today.

Today the US banking system as a whole is leveraged at 13-to-1 compared to about 26-to-1 for the Banks of Europe. The US Federal Reserve has about $2.8 trillion in assets and only $52 billion in capital, meaning the US Central Bank is leveraged at 53 to 1 – worse than Europe. Just keeping it on the level, a recent report from the Comptroller of the Currency, noted that four U.S. banks have $235 trillion of OTC derivative leverage. As a nation, all the US banks are estimated to have a total OTC derivative exposure of $250 trillion.

When banking systems are or become excessively-leveraged, the risk that a crisis in one country will spread to another dramatically increases. Meaning that the reality is that the US financial system could come tumbling down the hill at any time because it is mathematically impossible for just the continuous printing of money alone can go on forever.

Another concern I have is that less than two years ago, all the banks of Europe were given stress test, which by all accounts were way harder than the stress test given to US big banks by the Treasury, and all the banks of Cyprus passed with flying colors. Now within the last two weeks we see such wasn’t the case since Cyprus’ two largest banks, the Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank (the Laiki Bank), which hold half of all bank deposits in the country are the worse of the bunch, and if this is the case what can we interpret from the weak azz stress test the US Treasury implemented some few years back as well?

In addition to the math, the behavioral antecedents are clear as well – it’s all about the banks, fuck the people and the workers and the average family. The precedent of Cyprus is clear - nothing is safe from being seized by the state, no savings account, but also no house or apartment. The Germans experienced this after World War II, when they were charged an extra real estate tax in the form of compulsory mortgages. Governments have even banned the possession of gold during currency crises, forcing citizens to exchange the precious metal for the national currency.

Even with the aforementioned, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and Washington Politicians always want to point the finger at the average citizen. Ben Bernanke let it out the hat when he advocated for the elimination of all reserve requirements: “The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.”

The simple reality is that no matter what happens, the majority of people will be significantly poorer. As it stands, not only in the US, but around the globe the continuous transfer of wealth from the bottom into the pockets of the wealthiest is a reality unavoidable. Here in America consequently, we must not be fooled by leaders regardless of party affiliation and their words of addressing economic equity because their actions never fit the actual goals they promulgate via their illustrious oratory. No matter what Obama for example says on the political stump, his policy continues to add to the economic inequity in America. For example, no matter what he says his policy will always aid in the disparity for example of the average CEO’s hourly wage of $5000 per hour compared to $7.00 an hour. The point is if in Europe, Cyprus to be more exact, any level of personal savings decided upon by bankers for confiscation, is basically the same as just stealing money from people’s bank accounts.

On top of all of this (and I won’t mention our debt to China) China and Brazil just signed a trade, currency deal ahead of BRICS summit that will allow them to bypass using the dollar by agreeing to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the US dollar zone. Thus there is a new world post the 1950s, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan when the US Dollar became the de facto global reserve currency.

Like the Euro, the reality is that the global exposure to the US Dollar remains by default rather than design and the global (at least European) sovereign debt crisis is placing the US Dollar at risk for the future. Just looking at Cyprus, it should be clear that oligarchs and plutocrats, who are protected by the elected elite, will always be considered over the average citizen. The Bankers (not the people or elected leaders) have decided that citizens, who had nothing to do with the national debt as individuals, will be forced without choice to pay for the faults of the elected elite which sets a truly alarming precedent for other debtor (all nations) around the world.

I am just asking the question and using basic match to formulate a possible answer. I mean there is only one answer, albeit multiple solutions to solve any equation. I just think this may become banking versions of reality TV, and if that show had a name, it would likely be called “F*** you, pay me (the international bankers anthem.)