Category Archives: Richard Nixon

Is the US facing the same problems as Third Century Rome?

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The world, but particularly the US, is entering a period of great uncertainty, as did Rome in the third century AD. There were external threats and internal instability. Inflation was destroying the internal fabric. The coinage was diluted of its precious metals, silver and gold. People lost faith in its institutions, its army and its emperors. Through such inflation, the people were getting poorer. The longevity of its emperors was very short after the assassination of the Emperor Alexander Severus in 235 AD  The Empire fragmented and was in danger of collapsing. Two external threats were ever present: the Tribes of Northern and Eastern Europe were pressing on the Empire and in the East, there were Persian threats. Three emperors lost wars with Persia, and one, Emperor Valerian, was even captured by the Persians in 260 AD through a ruse.

The 42nd Emperor Claudius Gothicus, (268-270), stabilized the frontiers by defeating the Alemani and the Goths, but unfortunately, died of some kind of infection.  The 51st Emperor Deocletian, (284-305), further strengthened the Empire by reducing inflation, further stabilizing the frontiers, and introducing tetrarchy to government. Tetrarchy is four person rule.  Deoclitian split the administration into a Western Empire centered in Rome, and an Eastern Empire centered in the future city of Constantinople to be founded by Emperor Constantine the Great in 330 AD. When the Western Empire fell in 476 AD, the Eastern Empire or Byzantine Empire lasted for almost one thousand years until Contantinople fell to the Turks in 1453.

Is the US in a similar situation? Possibly?  The US has been in decline since President Nixon defaulted on the gold obligation of 35 dollars for one ounce of gold. Nixon proclaimed it would be temporary, but almost 50 years later is still going. As a result inflation became rampant, Congress became generous and passed the law that allowed Americans to own gold again. President Roosevelt and Congress banned ownership of gold except in jewelry in 1933.

Economic conditions were deteriorating slowly. Inflation in the seventies, Reaganomics in the eighties, Clintonomics in the nineties, subprime mortgages and the tech bubble in the first decade of the new millennium and a severe bust in 2007-09 that nearly collapsed the entire system. Throughout this period, living standards for Americans were going down. The main culprits were debt, public and private, quality job losses, inflation, lack of affordable universal health care, expensive education, and foreign military interventions.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, the three pillars of paper, all based on debt, are keeping this system afloat, but just barely, and they are the dollar, the stock market, and the bond market. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury are keeping the system going by shunting new money into stocks and bonds creating conditions for a financial shock that is becoming inevitable. Zero interest rates and quantitative easing are propping up the system, but not curing it; it cannot be cured.

One could call the US economy a “mirage” because there has been no actual growth since the late 1960’s. The living standards of the people have been going down and down, but the lies and deceptions have been going up. One does not know whom to believe. In socio-economic terms, three economic classes have developed in the US: the owner class of 1%, the overseer class of 4-5%, and the Precariat class of around 95%. The Precariat Class is composed of all ethnic groups, religions, and races, but it is kept divided by the Ownership Class for its own interests. The Precariat is on the whole totally dispossessed, and they live from pay cheque to pay cheque, with the loan sharking firms eating them in between.

The present recovery after the almost system collapse 0f 2007-8, has been nothing but “a mirage”, a statistical “recovery” propped by a series of quantitative easings and zero interest rates. The ownership class and the overseer class are doing extremely well, but the precariat class is barely surviving.

In foreign policy, the US, a hegemonic power, has become a reactionary force in order to maintain its world wide empire based on dollar indebtedness and exploitation of the rest of the world. Through its policy in the Middle East, it has lost Iran and now may lose Turkey, two large countries dominating the key strategic areas of the Afro-Eurasia. It is true, the US has gained  eastern Europe through the European Union and NATO, but Europe itself has become unstable.

In the Middle East, some claim that the US and Israel have created ISIS and Al-Qaeda  to destroy Syria and Iraq in order to get to Iran, and take total control of the Middle East and its natural resources. If Turkey switches to Eurasia, and a compromise is reached between Syria and Turkey, the US will lose the Middle East. The next shoe to drop will be Saudi Arabia because of its disastrous war in Yemen, as well as internal dissension.

Never before in its history has the US faced such complex problems as a dying economy  reflected in dying cities, dilapidated infrastructure, poor but costly education and health care; city violence could be a precursor to a general revolt.

The world is waiting with bated breath the results of the US presidential elections, The precariat class is flocking to Mr. Trump for salvation and the ownership class is in a panic. How the elections will turn out nobody knows, but if there is a financial collapse Trump would win massively. In that case, it is quite likely that martial law would be proclaimed and the elections postponed. Only time will tell.

Gold Will Not Be Available At Any Price

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In one of my previous blogs, I stated that gold does not need the dollar or any other currency, but the dollar needs gold to be the Reserve Currency or Official Currency of the World. Without the connection to gold, a Fiat Currency is a useless piece of paper that is imposed on the people by legal tender law. No other currency can be used in the US except the Dollar. The Bretton-Woods Agreement made the Dollar the official currency of the world with the convertibility of the dollar into gold at 35 dollars an ounce. All trade in the world was conducted in dollars. The US became Master of the World.

In 1950, the US had twenty thousand tons of gold and the rest of the world had very little. The gold reserves of the USSR were secret, but Western Intelligence analysts concluded that they were significant. By 1968, the run on the gold was significant, and in 1971 President Nixon defaulted on the US gold obligation of 35 dollars for an ounce of gold. Very significant events took place after the US defaulted. The War of October 1973 started between the state of Israel and the Arabs, which Israel would have lost without US help. In 1973, OPEC, the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries, was formed with the help of the US. The US was the godfather of the OPEC, and OPEC promised that the dollar would be its’ official currency. The price of oil was encouraged to rise many, many fold. Third World countries went into massive dollar debt buying needed oil. Inflation ensued, followed by high interest rates imposed by Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve Chairman.

So far so good. The US economy boomed due to the growth of debt. The Crash of 1987 did not matter. In 1989, Communism disappeared, the USSR collapsed, and Japan, the economic power house, went into irreversible decline, which continues to this day. The 1990’s were characterized by the plunder of the Russian Federation under the leadership of Yeltsin. In 1998 occurred the Russian default. The Stock Market boomed, not because of the NASDAQ dot com bubble, but because of the plunder of the Russian Federation by the West with the help of the Russian-Jewish mafia. Vladimir Putin is appointed Premier of Russia by President Yeltsin and the US stock market took a plunge, because the plunder of Russia was about to end.

The economy was on the skids, so  September 11, 2001, happened, but we do not know for sure who is really responsible, but it was good enough reason to declare the War on Terror to revive the economy. Osama bin Laden and his people were blamed. Osama was in Afghanistan, so Afghanistan was bombed and invaded. The Afghani War continues to this day with no end in sight. After the invasion of Afghanistan, the opium trade boomed as production rose from 96 tons annually under the Taliban to over 6000 tons presently and that is more than a several trillion dollar business, the biggest business in the world denominated in US dollars and controlled by the US. (The US dollar is not only the Petro-Dollar but also the Narco-Dollar.) In 2003, Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussein hanged, not because of weapons of mass destruction but because Saddam refused to sell Iraq oil for dollars. The war in Iraq still continues; the War on Terror keeps the Western Economy alive.

In 2008, due to subprime mortgages and too much debt, the Stock Market and financial markets everywhere faced serious collapse. Under the leadership of Hank Paulsen, the US Treasury Secretary, the system was propped up. By 2011, gold went up to over 1900 dollars, and silver went up to near fifty dollars. After the economic debacle of 2008, the US and the World has been enduring negative energy flow. There is no real economic growth in the US, but statistically there is a concocted growth. Europe is just as bad, if not much worse, and Japan is dying. China is in a precarious situation as well. Third World countries are in depression or even super depression. Eastern Europe is similar. Russia is suffering, but is self sustaining, with very little debt and is the cleanest shirt in the laundry…

Non Western Central Banks are buying and hoarding gold by the tons. Some Western countries are repatriating their gold. People all over the world are buying physical gold and silver. People who buy physical precious metals do not sell them unless forced by circumstances. OPEC is in disarray, many members are selling their oil for other currencies such as the Euro and the Yuan. The dollar is still important but no longer absolute. The world is de-dollarizing. A point will be reached when there will be a panic for buying of gold and no gold will be available. Gold trading will be closed and gold will not be available at any price. The well being of countries such as the US will be changed for ever. Only time will tell.

 

 

How much is the dollar really worth?

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The dollar is a fiat currency. It is created out of thin air through debt. A person goes to the bank and wants to borrow 10,000 dollars and if the borrower meets the criteria of paying back the sum plus interest agreed on, the bank issues a cheque of 10,000 dollars or direct deposits the amount to his account. Money has been created out of nothing to enslave that person for 10,000 dollars which he must now pay back at a certain interest rate for a specific period of time. In other words, he sells his labour, his life force, to pay the debt. He is exploited, he is a slave. This is the essence of capitalism, and the fiat currency is an instrument of enslavement.

Initially, the dollar was a gold backed currency as were other world currencies. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, early in his presidency devalued gold from 20.67 dollars an ounce to 35 dollars an ounce. Also, he made it illegal for Americans to own gold, unless it was in a jewelry form of 18 karats or less. The Bretton-Woods Convention made the dollar the Reserve Currency of the World. The US would keep the gold and the rest of the world would keep the dollars. Other central banks could exchange dollars for gold at 35 dollars an ounce. Gold, however, would be stored in the US and some would be stored in London. This arrangement was propped up by fear that “the Communists” would take over if the gold was not stored in the US. Publicity  made Fort Knox, Kentucky, infamous as the storage place  for the world’s non-communist gold. General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, was not fooled. He realized it was the perfect scam. He had never trusted the Anglo-Americans. He knew how perfidious they were during the Second World War II. The Anglo-Americans hated him, and of course, he reciprocated. He withdrew France from N.A.T.O. and sent French warships to retrieve French gold from the US. Other European countries followed. A run on gold followed…

The gold drain from the US followed. President Nixon closed the Gold window. This closure was permanent, contrary to the President’s statement that  it was temporary. The US was running trade deficits and the Vietnam War was draining the country of its real wealth, gold. The dollar paper drainage was no big deal, because it was only paper. The Arab oil embargo saved the dollar and the US. The US told the oil producers to increase the price of oil but just have it denominated in dollars. The excess dollars of the world poured into US treasuries and helped finance government operation. The decade of 1970’s showcased growth throughout the world but with inflation. Gold was allowed to reach its equilibrium value of 850 dollars an ounce. Silver, taken out of circulation in 1965, went to 50 dollars an ounce in 1979-80. Interest rates were high because demand for money was high. Demand for real money, gold and silver, was high. But the dollar was losing value. In 1969, one could get four Swiss Francs for one dollar, but in 1979-80 period, the Swiss Franc was on parity with the dollar.

President Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The Prime Rate went to almost twenty percent. The price of precious metals collapsed and value of the dollar rose. Money from all over the world poured into the US. By 1992, the USSR and communism had disappeared in Europe. The end of history was proclaimed. The plunder of the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe, along with the rest of the world began with increasing tempo. A unipolar world of ten years duration was achieved. In Nature, when one extreme is reached, opposite forces start building momentum, and new forces started brewing on the horizon…

Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia in 2000, and the economic decay started in the first decade of the New Millennium in the West. It is now worsening and encompassing the entire world. The central player in all this has been the dollar. It has no intrinsic value like gold, land or water, but is the instrument of US power. The US wants to maintain that power come hell or high water, and in order to maintain it, debt in dollar terms has to grow. The IMF and World Bank, along with other private organizations, are working overtime to trap more and more countries into unsustainable debt and milk them for all they are worth. This is the MODUS OPERANDI of capitalism…

But opposing forces are rising, and the de-dollarization of the world has began. The World is trying to dis-infect itself from the dollar. Very interesting and dangerous times are approaching. But the US will not willingly give up its instrument of power. It is negotiating trade deals with Europe, South America, and South East Asia to insure the dollar to be the supreme currency. It is confronting China in the South China Sea, but at the same time, it is enticing  it to join the IMF arrangement of Special Drawing Right Currency. The US wants the China to row the dollar-SDR boat, and the US would steer it. Whether China falls for it or not remains to be seen. China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, and other countries that have backbone are trading amongst themselves in their own currencies. The river of history is flowing and it cannot be reversed.

How much is the dollar really worth? Nothing. It is merely an instrument of power, intimidation, and war, like aircraft carriers. And history will be unkind to both. Only time will tell.

Saudi Arabia will implode, then explode

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Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932, by Ibn Saud, who joined four regions of Arabia into one and proclaimed himself a king. The four regions are Hejal, Najd, Eastern Arabia, aka Al Ahsa, and Southern Arabia, aka Asir. Southern Arabia borders Yemen where civil war is going on. Saudis support ex-president Hadhi, who was overthrown by  the Huthis, the biggest ethnic group in Yemen. Eastern Arabia borders the Persian Gulf,and across the Gulf faces Iran. Eastern Arabia is rich in hydrocarbons, oil and gas. A large desert country, it has to import most of the food for its 30 million inhabitants, a quarter of them foreign workers. The workers are mainly from the Middle East and South Asia. All the important posts of the country are in the hands of the descendants of the founder of the Kingdom, Ibn Saud. The number of descendants is anywhere between six and ten thousand individuals. Women have few if any rights. The Wahabi form of Islam is the official religion. Saudi Arabia, in essence is owned by Royal family members. It is   like the Walton family who owns Walmart.

A special relationship had been established between Saudi Arabia and the US in 1945 during the Second World War when President Roosevelt was returning from the Yalta Conference. The Saudi King met President Roosevelt on an American warship in the Mediterranian Sea. This special relationship was sealed. Saudi Arabia would become the special servant of the US. In return, the US would provide protection.

The US defaulted on its gold obligation or politely stated, President Nixon took the dollar off of the gold standard in August of 1971. Up until then, the Central Banks of surplus dollar countries could exchange their dollar holdings for 35 dollars an ounce. The US was losing its’ gold. Over night the gold window was closed. President de Gaulle of France extracted as much gold from the US as he could in the 1960’s. He sent French warships to load up the gold that belonged to France and took it there. Other countries followed. Imagine how enamored US officials became of de Gaulle!  (Incidentally, de Gaulle was forced to resign in 1969. Massive demonstrations took place in Paris in May of that year. Could there be any connection to de Gaulle’s independent economic and foreign policy?)  De Gaulle told the Europeans not to accept Britain into the European Union. He warned that Britain would be the American “Trojan Horse”. Georges Pompidou, a banker, then became president of France. Britain then joins the Union. Any connection there????

The dollar started to drift, and inflation and gold were rising. President Nixon introduced price control, which was not too successful. The key country in saving the dollar was Saudi Arabia. How? Let me explain. The pre emptive war which Israel carried out against the Arabs was stunningly successful; the Arabs were devastated, they lost Gaza, the West Bank along with East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights of Syria, and the Sinai.  The Suez Canal was closed. Israel controlled the Sinai bank of the Suez Canal. Then, Nasser of Egypt died. The defeat was too much for him. Anwar Al Sadat, a general, took over. A deal had to be made. Sadat broke with the Soviet Union. Secretly, the Arabs were encouraged to win their lost territories back. The Yom Kippur War started in October of 1973. Israel was losing this war. Golda Meir, the prime minister pushed back by threatening to use the “Samson Option”: that is, using nuclear weapons to win the war. Nixon ordered a huge military supply to Israel. The front stabilized and negotiations began. The Arab World formed OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Saudi Arabia, being the biggest producer and exporter, played a key role. The Petro Dollar was born. From henceforth, all oil and oil products would be traded in dollars. Every importing country had to have dollars to import oil. As for the US, all it had to do was to print paper dollars.  In 1975 Americans were allowed to buy  gold for the first time since 1935. The Shah of Iran also played a major role in the formation of OPEC. But then the Iranian Revolution came about in 1979 and the Shah was overthrown. The US lost control over Iran. Hundreds of billions of dollars of Iranian assets were frozen in the US. They are still frozen to this day. The Islamic Republic of Iran became the implacable enemy of Saudi Arabia…

Saudi Arabia is afraid of revolution a la Iran, or the possibility of a secular revolution, though this is less likely. The Saudi Royal family hates both Iran and Syria and they share a common goal with Israel:  Israel wants Syria and Iran destroyed, which would give Israel a free hand in the Middle East. (They would get the waters of Lebanon, especially the Litani River which flows in the  shape of a hockey stick through the Bekka Valley of Lebanon into the Mediterranean Sea.) Turkey would like parts of Syria bordering  on its south eastern area in order to control the Kurdish problem. Saudi Arabia faces the Houthi independence of Yemen. The war is not going well, at least presently. The Houthis will deliver a hanjar (Arabic word for a dagger) into the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia. Europe is looking at Russia and Syria in a different light because of the massive refugee problem. If the world economy collapses further, the price of oil may go down to twenty dollars. That would implode the Kingdom, which would be followed by an Iranian style revolution. Israel will face a massive Palestinian uprising. The tragedy of this world is that morally and ethically speaking, the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia are on the wrong side of history. Only time will tell…