The Rot Runs Deep 1: The Federal Reserve Is a Parasitic Wealth Transfer Machine

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Indirectly, and perhaps unintentionally,  CHS is pointing out the economic operations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion --CSR

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The Rot Runs Deep 1: The Federal Reserve Is a Parasitic Wealth Transfer Machine   (August 27, 2012)

Charles Hugh Smith

The Federal Reserve is a wealth transfer machine, skimming wealth from the productive many and transferring it to the parasitic    few.

Today I launch a series entitled "The Rot Runs Deep" that examines the moral and financial rot at the core of American finance, politics and culture. We have reached a unique junction of American history: the confluence of Big Lie propaganda, neofeudalism and the worship of false financial gods.

The Big Lie propaganda machine of corporate media and the Central State has perfected Orwell's nightmare vision of centralized media and a fascist centralized State which turn lies into self-serving "truth."

Since the Federal Reserve is once again expected to "save" a crumbling, exploitative Status Quo, let's use the Fed as an example. The propaganda machine would have us believe that the Federal Reserve, the privately owned central bank of the U.S., has "saved" the Status Quo from financial ruin on numerous occasions by "smoothing out" the business cycle (credit expands and contracts) and by "stimulating aggregate demand" by lowering interest rates and pumping money into the economy (quantitative easing).

We are constantly prompted to worship the Federal Reserve's supposedly god-like powers to rescue a corrupt and venal Status Quo from the black hole of recession and collapse, and this Big Lie masks its real nature: The Fed is nothing but a parastic wealth transfer machine, skimming wealth from the many and transferring it to the few.

In effect, the Fed is the "enforcer" of neofeudalism in America: the feudal Lords of Finance control the for-sale political system and skim tribute from the 99.5% toiling in the fields below their castles. The Fed enforces this parasitic transfer of wealth by manipulating interest rates to enrich the banks and provides "free money" to the Financial Lords which is then used to buy assets and lend at interest.

The mechanisms of the Fed's parasitic transfer of wealth are well-known. Here's one: the Fed "loans" money to the Feudal Lords at 0% interest. the Lords then loan this free money out to peasants, students and other debt-serfs at high rates of interest. The interest "earned," courtesy of the parasitic Fed, is theirs to keep.

If they can't find enough debt-serfs who can pay more interest, they can always deposit the free money back at the Fed and earn interest from the Fed itself.

Here's another: the Fed "loans" free money (0% interest) to the Financial Lords, who then buy low-risk long-term U.S. Treasury bonds paying 3%. When the Lords spot a better skimming opportunity, they sell the bonds to the Fed, who buys the bonds from the Lords as part of its "Operation Twist."

Peasants who have arduously saved up capital (cash) earn next to nothing as a result of Fed policy, but the Fed insures Feudal Lords earn a guaranteed return on money they obtained for free. The suppression of interest income to near-zero (a negative return once inflation is factored in) is a massive transfer of wealth from savers to Fed-backed speculator Lords and banks.

As a direct and intentional result of the Fed's quantitative easing, huge sums of "free money" slosh into the "risk-on" stock market, where the money provides liquidity for the Lords' high-frequency trading (HFT) skimming operations.

The losers are the peasants who have been locked into 401K plans that divert their earnings into the stock market, where the Lords' HFT can skim billions from the 401K plans.  

The Fed guarantees the Lords free money, and also supports the Financial Lords' speculative bets in the stock market; whenever the market threatens to swoon, the Fed intervenes and manipulates the markets up to levels where the HFT machines will trigger momentum buying.

What do we call a power center that enables and enforces neofeudal exploitation and predation? We call it evil. The Federal Reserve is a force of evil that should be abolished at once. Its purpose--enabling and enforcing a neofeudal transfer of wealth from the productive many to the unproductive, parasitic few--is evil. Those within it are serving evil. Those who defend it are serving evil. Those who worship its power are serving evil. Those who mask its true nature are also serving evil.

In a society and culture that has lost its moral compass, a culture of greed, self-serving lies and corrupt vested interests, the word "evil" has lost its power. It has been reduced to a cartoonish label, a cynic's smarmy joke.  

The Soviet Empire was evil, and President Reagan was mocked by "sophisticates" for labeling our global competitor evil. In the relativist terms of propaganda, the only difference between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were two letters; this is the mindset created by a reliance on propaganda. There is no good or evil, there is only the paycheck "earned" by serving one master or another.

Anyone daring to label the widely worshiped Federal Reserve as a false god, a purveyor and enforcer of predation and exploitation, will also be mocked by presumptive "sophisticates" of the many Cargo Cults that depend on the neofeudal skimming, exploitation and lies for their own share of the spoils. Their self aggrandizement and share of the swag demands obedience to the Fed's godlike power to skim from the many and distribute to the few.

Since they are among the few, they will do anything for their Master, the Federal Reserve, for it has the power they worship: the power to transfer vast wealth from the productive many to the parasitic few.

Should we be surprised that the parasites in the media, academia, politics and finance support the evil that enables their own predation and exploitation?

Of course not, for self-service and self-justification are the ultimate American gods.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug12/Fed ... e8-12.html

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

The Rot Runs Deep 2: Don't Call Out My Scam and I Won't Call Out Yours

August 28, 2012

Complicity reigns supreme as everyone benefiting from a scam keeps quiet about everyone else's skim lest their own share of the spoils fall under the harsh light of inquiry.

The uncomfortable truth is that America has become a nation of skimmers and scammers. The rot runs deep not just in the upper reaches of the financial and political Elites, but in the bottom 99.5% as well.

America can now be summarized by this phrase: "don't call out my scam and I won't call out yours." In other words, all the skimmers and scammers have become complicit, not just in protecting their own scam from the light of day, but in protecting everyone else's scams, too, lest those who lose their swag unmask someone else's scam in revenge.

Examples of skimming and scamming abound in finance and government. It's almost tiresome to even list examples; fortunately for us, tireless truthseeker "George Washington" has amassed a list of bank fraud and malfeasance (reprinted by the equally indefatigable Barry Ritholtz).

It's easy to skewer the financial and political Elites' abuses of power, but few look at all the rot below. The fraud and embezzlement-riddled mortgage market of the previous decade included not just investment bankers but non-Elite Americans who lied about their income, debt, and other material facts in order to obtain a fraudulent mortgage.

Another "middle class" scam is practiced by public workers nearing retirement. (Please don't claim this doesn't happen, I have first-hand accounts from cousins with 30-year careers in fire and police departments.) Since the pensions are based on the top three years of pay, soon-to-retire workers pile up the overtime to amass much higher pay in their last years. Everyone involved helps make this happen because they expect to pull the same scam when their time comes.

To sweeten the already enlarged pension pot, they then declare (with the seal of approval by a complicit doctor) that their work left them with a disability of some sort (a heart murmur is apparently a favorite excuse) that makes their pensions tax-free. (Millions of "the rest of us" also have heart murmurs. Where's our tax-free pensions?)

In the lower rungs of the social-financial order, claiming disability is high on the list of skims and scams, as evidenced by the astonishing rise in the number of suddenly disabled people once the 99 weeks of unemployment ran out. Food stamps can be applied for online, and despite bolded warnings of severe penalties for misstating facts, it's safe to assume that "fudging the numbers" is unlikely to lead to any investigation or prosecution.

The rot runs deep in every nook and cranny of the nation. Longtime correspondent Kevin K. recently submitted this telling account of blatant scamming. (PG&E is Pacific Gas & Electric, northern California's utility.)

    Two weeks ago we stopped by to see the new home a childhood friend bought in an upscale neighborhood. As we were talking he proudly let me know that he was still on the PG&E CARE program (that cuts his PG&E bill in half). It turns out that a few years ago after taking some losses on investments he had a taxable income for the year of ~$25,000. Soon after filing he got a letter (at his ~$2 million home) about the CARE program. He filled it out with his actual 1040 income to see what would happen.

    To his surprise he was accepted into the program and his PG&E bills dropped in half (saving him over $1,000 a year). He said he was certain his savings would end when he called to transfer service to the ~$3 million home he just bought, but no one ever asked about his income and he is still in the CARE program. He said he has told a lot of people (that make a lot of money and live in $1mm + homes) about the program who have either lied about their income (there is no system to check) or put the PG&E account in the name of a nanny or cleaning lady to get in the program to save money.

The justification for all this skimming and scamming is always the same: "everybody else is doing it." As noted yesterday, self-service and self-justification are the ultimate American gods that we now worship, but nonetheless the moral disintegration reflected by this rationalization is still remarkable.

There is another dynamic: desperation. Beneath the placid surface of the "recovery," millions of people are desperate and feel that skimming, scamming and lying are their "only hope" to 1) keep what they have 2) gain much-desired upper-middle class perquisites or 3) keep body and soul together and not end up living in a cardboard box.

These dynamics of moral rot and desperation have created a society in which the spirit of the law is blatantly violated but "all is well" as long as the letter of the law has only been scratched. We see this in every level of society, from legalist parser in chief Bill Clinton's obtuse defense, to the classic phrase that the "dancing" (i.e. the fraud and embezzlement) goes on until the music stops, to the disability recipient who "does whatever it takes" to get free money for life.

Expectations are impossibly high. It's no longer enough for the Federal Reserve to issue a $1 trillion injection of financial cocaine to the stock market every year; now the market needs a $1 trillion injection every six months lest it crash.

Parents want their children to join the top 10% and enjoy a security and wealth that is as illusory as the pathway they have been sold: if only you get into an Ivy League university, if only you get a 4.+ grade point average, if only you earn a law degree--yet none of these guarantee anything beyond an enormous expense and a shot at a roulette wheel with too many players and not enough winners.

Rather than accept that the postwar boom based on cheap abundant oil, industrialization and globalization is over, and the financialization bubble of the past 30 years cannot be re-inflated, we continue to maintain unrealistic expectations of an economy with structural imbalances, rising friction and declining surpluses.

It is no surprise that economic hardship leads to increases in crime and social unrest. The wave of instability resulting from economic decline has repeated throughout history, a process described by the seminal book The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History. In this sense, moral rot is to be expected as economic surpluses vanish and entire economies must live within means that have shriveled for structural reasons.

Can an economy that has become dependent on lies, misrepresentation, "fudging" of numbers, fraud, embezzlement and a multitude of skimming and scamming operations escape the moral and financial black hole it has created? The self-evident answer is "no."


Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change (print $25)
(Kindle eBook $9.95)

Read the Introduction (2,600 words) and Chapter One (7,600 words) for free.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug12/nat ... s8-12.html