The shadow banking system: a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks

from The Economic Collapse
Posted originally Dec 20, 2010 The Economic Collapse

YOU AND I LIVE IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WORLD from the ultra-rich and the international banking elite. Many of them live in a world where they simply do not pay income taxes. Today, it is estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks.

So why is so much of the wealth of the globe located in places such as Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man?  It isn’t because those are fun places to visit. It is to avoid taxes. The super wealthy and the international banking elite think that it is really funny that our paychecks are constantly being drained by federal taxes, state taxes and Social Security taxes while they literally pay nothing at all. These incredibly rich elitists make a ton of money doing business in wealthy western nations and then they transfer virtually all of their profits offshore where they don’t have to contribute any of it in taxes. It works out really great for them, but it sucks for the rest of us.

It is estimated that approximately $1.4 trillion is held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone. According to an article in Forbes magazine, there is a total of approximately 15 trillion to 20 trillion dollars in offshore bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios.

A recent article in the Guardian stated that a third of all the wealth on the entire globe is held in offshore banks and that the vast majority of international banking transactions take place in these tax havens….

On a conservative estimate, a third of the world’s wealth is held offshore, with 80% of international banking transactions taking place there. More than half the capital in the world’s stock exchanges is “parked” offshore at some point.

All of the biggest banks in the world are involved in playing this game. All of them have big branches in these various tax havens. All of them work very hard to ensure that the tax burdens on their ultra-rich clients are as light as possible.

Nobody knows for sure how much money big governments around the globe are missing out on from all this tax avoidance, but everyone agrees the number is huge. It is at least in the hundreds of billions of dollars every single year.

It is a shadow banking system that most Americans don’t know anything about. Most Americans don’t have the resources to be able to set up shell companies in half a dozen different countries so that they can “filter” their profits.  Most Americans don’t know a thing about complicated tax avoidance plans that tax lawyers use such as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich”. Most Americans would have no idea how to eventually have most of the money that they make end up in Bermuda so that it can avoid taxes.

No, most Americans just go to work every week and have their hard earned paychecks raped by an oppressive taxation system.

Wall Street Journal aids silver price suppression

(Through misinformation, lies and omission!)
Plus, the year in review, and price predictions for 2011

by Jason Hommel
Posted originally December 29th, 2010 on Silver Stock Report

I’m called upon by my regular readers to refute, rebut, and rebuke this bad article on silver from the Wall Street Journal:
Price of Silver Soaring
Investor-Fueled 74% Gains Dwarf Gold; Race to Open Mines
By Carolyn Cui and Robert Guy Matthews, published Dec 26, 2010

Regarding the WSJ comment:  “unexpected surge in investor demand”

Really? Unexpected, you say? But precious metals bulls have been predicting explosions in the price for ten years based on irrefutable fundamentals and unsustainable market manipulation.

How can investor demand be unexpected when the price of precious metals has been going up continuously for ten years now since the year 2000? Don’t investors like to buy things that are rising in price? Don’t investors also try to predict things that will rise in price, and buy them before they really rise? Does the WSJ know anything at all about investing?

Unexpected? Really? When the numbers of silver Eagle 1 oz. coins produced by the US Mint has been increasing steadily for the past 3-4 years, up from 10 million oz. to nearly 40  million oz. this year? How can a single year’s investor demand be unexpected, when its increase is already a steady trend?

Regarding the WSJ comment:  “Prices are rising despite oversupply”

What oversupply? What do you even mean by oversupply? Here is the dictionary definition of oversupply:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/oversupply “A supply in excess of what is appropriate or required.”

Ah, the WSJ is no longer reporting fact, but throwing out opinion now. There is no oversupply, and can never be any oversupply of things such as gold and silver, since they have the least diminishing marginal utility of all things on earth, since they are money. Nobody ever complained that they had too much money.

But what does the WSJ mean by oversupply? The supply and demand numbers produced by such surveys as http://www.silverinstitute.org/ who the WSJ quotes as a source, have “sum up” categories called “Implied Net Disinvestment” and “Implied Net Investment”.

http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply_demand.php When investors are buying, this is often called a surplus, or as the WSJ says, an “oversupply”, and when investors are selling, that is called a deficit.

So, apparently, the WSJ is saying that when investors are buying silver that’s “oversupply”. And thus, when they describe that action as an “oversupply”, they are really saying that silver purchases by investors are “inappropriate”. Thus, they reveal their bias, with one word.

WSJ: “Many analysts expected those factors would keep a lid on prices in 2010”

But most silver analysts are employed by LBMA bullion banks who have a vested interest in manipulating silver prices downward, since silver is the Achilles heel, or arch enemy, of the banking system. Thus, “mainstream” silver analysts have never gotten a single year’s prediction correct in the last ten years of the bull market in silver and gold. They always “predict” prices for next year that are within about 5% of current prices, and never any higher. Meanwhile, silver prices have risen from $4.15/oz. in 2003 to $30.60 now in 2010, which is a cumulative return of 637%, which, over 7 years, is an average annual gain of 33%. They never come close to predicting such gains.

Check my math, here: http://www.smartmoney.com/compoundcalc/

Have any of the mainstream analysts predicted a silver price gain of 33%, for the following year, or even close, in the last 7 years? Never. Thus, they are worse than useless, they are purposefully deceiving, or willfully ignorant, as is this WSJ article. That should be no surprise, and neither should silver’s price rise.

WSJ:  “What they didn’t expect was an overwhelming flow of money into the market from investors eager to ride a commodities rally”

Overwhelming flow of money into silver? Really? Let’s see, there is $14,000 billion to $18,000 billion of paper dollars in the US banking system, which does not count dollars in overseas banks, and the rest of the world is printing up paper money like crazy for competitive devaluations. Meanwhile, the US government has an annual deficit of $1500 billion or more, depending on how you count, if you count off budget items, it could be as high as $3000 billion depending on who you read. Meanwhile, a tiny $3 billion pours into silver, which is a paltry 2% of 1% of the money in the US banking system, and a mere 10% of 1% (or 1/1000th) of new US money creation.

I wouldn’t call that an overwhelming flow of money into silver. I’d say that’s only a tiny trickle, wouldn’t you?

WSJ: “‘This is a story almost entirely about investment,’ says Stephen Briggs, senior metals strategist at BNP Paribas”

Well, the silver story, in the future, will be almost entirely about investment, but today, investors are still buying only a tiny fraction of new silver mine supply, with the rest being consumed by industrial applications of all sorts, from fabrication, to photography, to jewelry, silverware, and coins and medals.

From the silverinstitute.org:

2009 mine production: 709.6 million oz.
2009 Implied Net Investment: 136.9 million oz. (oversupply, or investor buying)

But let’s pause here, and examine the numbers more closely. Sprott wrote an excellent silver report that reveals that ETF silver demand is not counted in the “demand” numbers for silver!  http://www.industrymailout.com/Industry/View.aspx?id=245442&q=264546678qz%3D3f9465

Fraudulent supply/demand numbers, omitting investor demand, or calling it a “surplus”, is part of the manipulation of silver prices. But this implies a few other things, too.

Either the exchange traded funds are not actually going out into the market to buy silver which means they are mostly all fraudulent, or, their net purchases are more than offset by investors or refiners dumping 1000 oz. silver bars (the only acceptable form of ETF silver) to dealers who sell it directly to LBMA banks.   We’ve never had to dump any silver bars in the last 2 years of our precious metals business.

JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained: Part 2

Once again, two bears (inexplicably, one of them is still the Aussie koala) come to grips with the infamous J P Morgue:

The Economy of the Jubilee

by Daniel R. Gregg
Posted originally at http://www.torahtimes.org/

This piece is excerpted from The Scroll of Biblical Chronology and Prophecy, by Daniel Gregg. Whilst I cannot comment on Mr Gregg’s historical veracity, the correlations between the concept of the ancient Israelite Jubilee and the much more contemporary Kondratieff Wave are nothing short of extraordinary. If Mr Gregg has struck gold here in his historical research, the implications are almost beyond words. It would prove well beyond any reasonable doubt that economic cycles are natural organic rhythms, rooted in the Universe itself, and that man manipulates such rhythms at his extreme peril. This is an extraordinary document, and should be read by anyone who has the slightest interest in furthering his or her understanding of economic cycles, and the human role in the greater economic sphere. Before reading, it would be helpful to have some prior knowledge of Nikolai Kondratieff’s life and work, which can be found here at Quantum Pranx. Further reading can be found at kondratieffwinter.com, an excellent resource by Peter Baxter, whose experience and insights are invaluable to anyone desiring a deeper knowledge of very long-run macroeconomic and price cycles. I am indebted to Peter Baxter, who first alerted me to the work of Daniel Gregg. –Aurick

Note: The numbers in red are linked to the footnote section found right at the end of the document, so it will be necessary to use the link at bottom of this section to continue to the footnotes.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

THE JUBILEE PERIOD IS THE LONGEST TIME CYCLE IN THE ECONOMY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL. This cycle regulated land use and inheritances. Landowners would inherit land permanently.398 Furthermore, they could not sell the land to anyone else. Ownership had to be perpetual. The government could not take the land away or encumber it by any method. However, the owner could rent the land, and the maximum rental period was until the next Jubilee, which came every 49 years. In the 50th year, the land was returned to the owning family free of any legal encumbrances like taxes or debts, and the family was required to return to the land, after which, if they wished, they could rent it for another term of 49 years.399 This system was based on the idea that God was the ultimate sovereign owner of the land, and the Israelites were only viceroys or caretakers obligated to maintain the land free and clear of competing sovereign interests.

The Jubilee was a form of socio-economic engineering. It prevented generational poverty, and made the establishment of large monopolies impossible. A man who was desperate for money might rent his land for the 49-year term, but his sons would get it back in the Jubilee. Nothing could be allowed to prevent the land from returning to its sovereign family owners — neither taxes nor debt. The land was returned free and clear. Nor could anyone owe any debts at the time of the return as these were all forgiven in the 49th year. The institution of the Jubilee corresponds to the occurrence of natural economic cycles. These natural economic fluctuations were “known by the ancient Israelites, identified by the Mayas of Central America centuries ago, and rediscovered in the 1920s by economist Nikolai Kondratieff of Russia.”400

Economists call this natural cycle the Kondratieff Wave. It lasts on average about 54 years, just over the length of the biblical Jubilee cycle of 49 years. This natural socioeconomic cycle “in the history of agricultural prices goes as far back as the year 1260 … and there is some evidence of a 50-year cycle of war and inflation in the Roman Empire”401 The Kondratieff Wave is a long economic cycle of boom followed by depression and then back to boom again. It is the longest “business cycle” or repetition of expansion and contraction caused by credit excesses and monopolies.

Click HERE to continue with the rest of the article

The Charade of World Depression

from The Daily Bell
Posted originally, December 23, 2010

Self-righteous Germany must accept a euro-debt union or leave EMU If Germany and its hard-money allies genuinely wish to save the euro – which is open to doubt – they should stop posturing, face up to the grim imperative of a Transferunion, and desist immediately from imposing their ruinous and reactionary policies of debt deflation on southern Europe and Ireland … One can sympathise with the German people. Their leaders in the 1990s told them “famine in Bavaria” was more likely than the preposterous suggestion that Germany might have to bail out countries as a result of EMU. But events have moved … Chancellor Angela Merkel must know that the Spanish state, juntas, and banks cannot refinance €300bn (£254bn) next year at a bearable cost if the Tesoro is already paying a decade-high of 5.45pc to sell 10-year bonds, yet she continues to play for time she does not have. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme:
Germany must grasp the nettle.

Free-Market Analysis:
The problem of the EU seems simple, as indicated by this article excerpt above. The Southern PIGS are bankrupt but cannot devalue because of the euro contract. The wealthy North will therefore have to bail out the PIGS and in doing so, provide substantive oversight. Germany ends up being the guarantor of last resort and also the state providing the watchdogs, basically, since it is German money that will save the EU. It is a German EU after all, and the Germans will have to stop dithering …

This is one (fairly simplistic, we would argue) way of evaluating the situation that is currently evolving in the EU. But here at the Bell we have also argued that the Anglo-American axis is really behind the EU – and perhaps the average German won’t have much say in the matter. The Anglosphere seeks world government and the EU is a basic building block.

The point we want to advance in this article is that there is perhaps a deeper subterfuge going on. Yes, we’ve suggested this before, but as the EU unwinds, as America quakes from unemployment and China shudders from inflation, we continue to explore the possibility. And so we ask, once more … Is the world being manipulated into an ever-more-massive depression? And how would that work exactly?

In order to explain it, we need to establish (for purposes of argument anyway) that there is an Anglo-American power elite composed of certain fabulously wealthy families that seek one-world government. There has been speculation, for instance, that these families have a hand in the recent saga of Foundation X which sounds more like the plot of a bad paperback novel than anything real. Lord James of Blackheath mentioned Foundation X at the House of Lords in early November.

It was his contention that ‘Foundation X’ had the resources to “bail out” the UK and that Foundation X’s gold reserve was larger than what is considered to be the world’s total mined reserves. Lord James of Blackheath was roundly derided as a “nutter.” We don’t find him so. We have asked if Foundation X was merely a cover for the financial interests of the Anglo-American power elite. It still seems a pertinent question. This kind of money is massive indeed, assuming Lord James didn’t drop off his meds for a day. It reinforces the idea that what we are watching around the world is a charade.

We have previously argued that there is a level of behind-the-scenes collusion between ALL the powers-that-be. All of them, East and West, may be cooperating to bring down the current system with an eye toward instituting something in its place that will be mutually agreed upon. (The IMF’s bancor comes to mind.)

Bloomberg counters Gold’s run with absurd, baseless hit-piece

by Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT
Posted Thursday, 23 December 2010
GoldSeek.com

MONDAY MORNING I WAS GREETED via my inbox with a Bloomberg report on Gold. Bloomberg has a series called “The Dark Side of Gold.”  Its important to note this isn’t the first time the news organization has attempted a hit-piece on Gold. I wrote about this exactly one year ago and identified the cases and examples of Bloomberg’s gold bashing.

The crux of the biased series (one that even makes CNBC blush) is how Gold ETF’s are responsible for Gold’s rise and contributing to a bubble. It is insinuated that because the ETF’s are easily tradeable, a torrent of sell orders would cause Gold could to fall sharply, ala 1980.

Gold’s rise actually has very little to do with the GLD ETF. It really is a non-factor when you consider any of the following reasons: Threat of sovereign debt defaults, debt monetization in Europe, Japan and US, 0%-1% interest rates, commodity bull market, and falling gold production. The GLD ETF is an effect of the bull market, not a cause. The same is true with mutual funds during the bull market in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the two minute preview video, Bloomberg’s Carol Masser makes two ridiculous claims in a span of about four seconds. She claims that prior to the Gold ETF, only “conspiracy theorists” were buying Gold and that it cost a “fortune” because of holding costs and commissions. This is nothing other than failed hyperbole, seeking to demonize Gold and gold bulls. I’m not an expert on the exact ongoings of the physical market but I’m sure that it at that time it didn’t “cost a fortune” to buy Gold. Meanwhile, any conspiracy theorists have clearly made a lot of money.

Oh, I forgot to note at the very start of the video, the woman claims that even “college coeds” are buying Gold. Really Bloomberg? Where is the evidence of that? Google that and I bet you are more likely to find soft-core pornography than any hard-hitting evidence on such a ridiculous assertion.

Speaking of “hard-hitting,” Bloomberg interviewed Mark Williams of Boston University, who on camera made the case that Gold is in a bubble by providing zero evidence. A googling of the professor reveals he was perfect for this series, as he is a notorious hard-money hater. In November he wrote an editorial about how the gold-standard should be relegated to the dustbin of history. The only thing that will be relegated to the dustbin of history is our fiat currency system. It’s happened before and will happen again.

Vivaldi – (The Coming) Storm

Tipping Point: 25 Signs that the coming financial collapse is now closer than ever

from The Economic Collapse
Posted originally Dec 10, 2010

THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE THAT SO MANY OF US have been anticipating is seemingly closer then ever. Over the past several weeks, there have been a host of ominous signs for the U.S. economy. Yields on U.S. Treasuries have moved up rapidly and Moody’s is publicly warning that it may have to cut the rating on U.S. government debt soon. Mortgage rates are also moving up aggressively. The euro and the U.S. dollar both look incredibly shaky. Jobs continue to be shipped out of the United States at a blistering pace as our politicians stand by and do nothing. Confidence in U.S. government debt around the globe continues to decline. State and local governments that are drowning in debt across the United States are savagely cutting back on even essential social services and are coming up with increasingly “creative” ways of getting more money out of all of us. Meanwhile, tremor after tremor continues to strike the world financial system. So does this mean that we have almost reached a tipping point? Is the world on the verge of a major financial collapse?

Let’s hope not, but with each passing week the financial news just seems to get eve worse.  Not only is U.S. government debt spinning wildly toward a breaking point, but many U.S. states (such as California) are in such horrific financial condition that they are beginning to resemble banana republics.

But it is not just the United States that is in trouble. Nightmarish debt problems in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Belgium and several other European nations threaten to crash the euro at any time. In fact, many economists are now openly debating which will collapse first – the euro or the U.S. dollar.

Sadly, this is the inevitable result of constructing a global financial system on debt.  All debt bubbles eventually collapse. Currently we are living in the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world, and when this one bursts it is going to be a disaster of truly historic proportions.

So will we reach a tipping point soon?  Well, the following are 25 signs that the financial collapse is rapidly getting closer…

#1 The official U.S. unemployment rate has not been beneath 9 percent since April 2009.

#2 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are currently 6.3 million vacant homes in the United States that are either for sale or for rent.

#3 It is being projected that the U.S. trade deficit with China could hit 270 billion dollars for the entire year of 2010.

Bernanke’s inflationary binge could spark a currency war and ruin the dollar

by Gerard Jackson
Brookesnews.com
Posted originally Dec 20th, 2010

BERNANKE’S MONETARY SHENANIGANS ARE BUILDING UP a host of problems, domestic and international. In the next 8 months or so he plans to pump nearly $900 million dollars into the US economy with the intention of lowering interest rates to the point where business borrowing and consumer spending will be sufficiently stimulated to trigger a recovery. (If only it were that simple.)

This policy amounts to criminal negligence. If Bernanke were a surgeon he would be doing jail time. To get a grip on the magnitude of Bernanke’s folly let’s go back to 2007 when the Fed’s balance sheet stood at $900 million. By 2009 it had jumped to $2.3 trillion, an increase of 136.7 per cent. The excuse was that a massive monetary injection was needed to prevent an economic collapse. I for one never believed that the US was in danger of a deflation-driven implosion. I also warned that the consequences of any rescue package would be to slow if not prevent the necessary economic adjustments from taking place.

So what did America get for Bernanke’s swift monetary rescue? Unemployment stuck at 9.6 per cent with the broader measure standing at 17 per cent. His response is not to reason why but to once again step on the monetary accelerator. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Let’s see what “Helicopter” Ben’s vulgar Keynesianism might mean for Americans. Short-term debt used to be the Fed’s main monetary instrument. Thanks to Bernanke most of the Fed’s Treasurys are now long long-term with about half exceeding five years. Bernanke has to know that in the current situation holding long term securities involves great risks. At the moment the rate stands at just over 4 per cent. You don’t have to be an expert in finance to realise that a rise to 6 per cent would slash the value of these holdings, wiping out several times over the capital on the Fed’s balance sheet.

But why should this happen? Because Bernanke — the architect of this policy — has implemented a monetary strategy that must eventually drive up interest rates if not checked. And right now, there is nothing checking him. Flooding the economy with dollars is bound to arouse inflationary expectations. This will lead to rises in the yield of long-term bonds which in turn will drive down bond prices (there is a strict inverse relationship between the yield of a bond and its price) turning the Fed’s balance sheet into an ocean of red ink.

Chinese take-Out of the U.S. Economy, debt crisis triggering Reserves conversion into gold and silver

by Jim Willie CB
Originally posted Dec 15, 2010

Here, at the end of 2010, Jim Willie produces a masterwork of perception and analysis. This is an important article, and in my view clearly describes the major forthcoming power balance that will affect the entire world. –Aurick

THE CHINESE MUST REALLY THINK THE AMERICAN STRATEGY AND BEHAVIOR TO BE BRAINDEAD AND SELF-DESTRUCTIVE. The US helped them assemble a manufacturing industry, replaced US income with debt, and finally faces the Grim Reaper in a national episode of systemic failure. The US leadership is as stupid and mindless as the population is driven by compulsive consumption over the cliff, as the nation faces ruin. The Jackass warning has been for five years that the Chinese experiment would end in tragedy, and that when a preponderance of USTreasury debt is owned by foreigners, especially a single foreign nation, the Untied States will lose its sovereignty.

It is worse. It lost its vitality entirely. With its financial engineering backfire, the nation is broken from a sequence of repeated asset bubbles & busts. With its wartime economy, the nation seeks new enemies and prefers exports of weapons to productive goods. The nation is like a Sherman Tank sinking in a sea of quicksand with credit cards as banners flown, all overdrawn and canceled. The globe has come full circle from a century ago. The export of opium by Britain to China back then, the US monopoly on narcotics nowadays. Uncle Sam prefers selling contraband to legitimate industry.

A spectacular sequence of events has taken place with respect to China and the United States in the past decade. The disastrous outcome was extremely visible long ago to the competent economists. This article cannot fully discuss and analyze the entire sequence, which in my view took the USEconomy from imbalanced, debilitated, and on the verge of ruin in ten years to chronic insolvency, accelerated breakdown, and systemic failure today. The official policy toward China by the USGovt on bilateral trade highlights the incredibly stupid and irresponsible nature of American leadership, especially in economic and financial matters.

Let this piece serve as an outline of ruinous self-destructive policy, resulting in a climax failure in the Untied States. At the doorstep to a much darker poorer place, with countless traits associated with the Third World, the US as a nation with its USGovt and Wall Street compromised leadership refuse to admit grotesque errors. They do what they usually do, create more money to toss at half-baked solutions, and create a new enemy to lay blame on foreigners. This time though, the Chinese object of criticism, rebuke, hostility, and retaliation is the largest USTreasury creditor.

The counter-attack from Beijing after an amateurish display of ignorance and tantrums seems directed at purchases of Gold & Silver, along with developing a stranglehold on the commodity supply chain. The financial managers in China have found inventive ways to discharge vast amounts of USTreasury Bonds. Their challenge includes finding secure worthwhile investment locations for the over $20 billion in bilateral trade surplus they build each month with the US, a formidable challenge indeed.

MOST FAVORED NATION TICKET

The rationale for the Clinton Admin to grant a Most Favored Nation status to China in its closing months in 1999 was a mystery to me. To be sure, the gesture went a long way toward developing detente with the slumbering giant. But it awakened the Middle Kingdom after two centuries of quiet, marred by a half century of harsh communism. Without question, some big promises were made in bilateral agreements. My suspicion is that the USGovt sought a lock on a new large scale creditor to purchase USTreasury debt securities, regardless of the consequences. Perhaps the USGovt sought a bagholder both either USTBonds or USAgency Mortgage Bonds, or both. With Japan and South Korea as neighbors, China would surely not resort to purchasing US weaponry.

Given the coincident timing with the handover of Hong Kong from the British at the end of its 99-year lease, one must suspect that China might have promised not to transform HK into an economic prison camp shrouded in communist rules that would render it a wasteland, if the US and UK would only promise to assist the Asian giant with technology transfer, industrial support, and massive business investment. China probably promised some big bait of cheap imports to the USEconomy, the grand US achilles heel. The US was well along its pattern of consuming itself to death. Witness the retail emphasis within its economy, its crippling reliance upon debt, its junk food preferences, and its obesity. The China might have laid a great trap, and the US took it. Maybe the entire deal was well planned, a leftover of Mao Tse Tung days when he was a member of the Skull & Bones group.

The Most Favored Nation status was the ticket that opened the door, a New Open Door policy, for investment, lower cost in production, and the general awakening of the sleeping giant. What followed was a natural course of events to unseat the Untied States, converting it into a hopeless debtor with neither the prospect nor the means to repay its debt. Enter the new age of China, all perhaps the plan, the ever patient giant. The parallel to the destruction was a course taken by former USFed Chairman Greenspan. He guided the nation through the avenue to financial engineering and consequent implosion brilliantly, offering ideological justification, legislative obfuscation, and near the end, a nearly total abdication. He was a tremendous mesmerizing high priest. Greenspan’s second paycheck from his Swiss masters is consistent with working an agenda toward the demise of the American Empire.