lewrockwell--2020-05-25--The Path to Monetary Collapse

The Path to Monetary Collapse

Few mainstream commentators understand the seriousness of the economic and monetary situation .
from a V-shaped rapid return to normality towards a more prolonged recovery phase .
The fact that a liquidity crisis developed in US money markets five months before the virus hit America has been forgotten .
Only a rising gold price stands testament to a deeper crisis , comprised of contracting bank credit while central banks are trying to rescue the economy , fund government deficits and keep the market bubble inflated .
The next problem is a crisis in the banks , wholly unexpected by investors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lending risk is soaring off the charts , their financial condition is more fragile than before the Lehman crisis .
Failures in European G-SIBs in the next month or two are almost impossible to avoid , leading to a full-blown monetary and credit crisis which promises to undermine asset values , government financing and fiat currencies themselves .
John Law of Lauriston : ... Wiston-Glynn , A. W. Best Price : $ 12.47 Buy New $ 12.99 We can now discern the path leading to the destruction of fiat currencies and take reasonably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world is bemused : what is it to make of the economic effects of the coronavirus ?
The official answer , it seems , is on the lines of don ’ t panic .
The earliest fears of millions of deaths have subsided and in the light of experience , a more rational approach of easing lockdown rules is now being implemented in a number of badly hit jurisdictions .
Whether this evolving policy is right will be proved in due course .
But the motivation is moving from saving lives to restricting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a critic of the inflationist policies of central banks , it is always valuable to look at monetary policy from a central banker ’ s point of view .
Last Friday , Andrew Bailey , the new Governor of the Bank of England , gave an interview to Chris Giles of the Financial Times , where he spoke frankly and reasonably freely about the challenges the Bank faced in common with other major central banks .
[ i ] Regarding inflation , from his comments it is clear Bailey defines it as changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which is hardly surprising , since central banks are mandated to target it .
He believes that the rate of price inflation will fall towards zero , citing recent moves in the oil price as a major factor , though the oil price has since recovered .
This gives him room to use monetary policy to its greatest extent .
His view was that monetary policy would minimise what he called “ scarring ” .
This is the new buzzword for economists who generally dismiss the economic effects of the current crisis as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heals the only evidence left will be a scar .
In other words , some overindebted businesses will fail and others would be victims to changes in consumer patterns once normality returns .
Therefore , the working assumption is that once the coronavirus crisis is behind us the economy would broadly return to normal , and while he didn ’ t specifically say it , he expectats is a V-shaped recovery , possibly with a moderate time element to it .
Raised Bed Gardening f ... Wylie , Tammy Best Price : $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is undertaking a £200bn programme of quantitative easing , which amounts to two-thirds of Britain ’ s expected funding requirement relating to the coronavirus , in order to satisfy the following policy objectives : • To stabilise financial markets , buying £50-60bn of gilts every month , in common with actions of other central banks in their markets .
This suggests the economy is expected to be on the way to recovery by late-July .
• To reassure the market that extra government debt would be absorbed and to smooth the profile of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bank to keep gilt yields low , and those of corporate bonds as well .
• To meet economic objectives .
In other words , pursue a Keynesian policy to return to full employment .
• To address counterfactual issues that can be expected to arise if the Bank did not do QE .
Presumably , other than disrupted markets Bailey was referring to fears of deflation in the absence of monetary stimulus .
If Bailey is right and QE of £200bn will see the British economy through the crisis , then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a little more than 10 % to the national debt .
The addition to February ’ s M3 money supply is 6.8 % , which is hardly a problem .
But there will be trouble if he is wrong , glitches that could arise from one or more of three sources .
If other central banks , principally the Fed , dilute their currencies by a larger amount proportionately , the effect on commodity prices , particularly agricultural products , could be to drive them up in sterling terms , helping to undermine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s essentials .
Secondly , 28 % of gilts in issue are owned by foreigners , who , needing the money in their own currencies , are likely to turn sellers .
The third threat is of systemic failure , requiring extra expenditure to rescue one or more major banks and to manage the fall-out .
There is little doubt that Bailey ’ s thinking is shared by his counterparts in the other major central banks .
Besides the threats listed above , the mistake is to simply assume the economy is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over time .
While seeming an innocuous mistake , it leads to the belief that there is a normality to which to return .
Bailey dismisses the problem by saying some businesses won ’ t survive , and others might have to change .
But he is clearly banking on a return to normal , when there is no such thing .
It is the proper function of economic , monetary and credit analysis to divine the benefits and threats that make the future different from the present .
Vegetable Gardening fo ... @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 31.00 Buy New $ 12.46 By definition , central bankers do not fully understand credit cycles , otherwise they would have done something to fix their disruptive nature long ago .
Instead , they believe in business cycles , which central bankers view as disrupting monetary policy , thereby muddling cause with effect .
Conveniently for state organisations , central banks place the blame for irrational behaviour on the private sector .
The banks , so obviously the cause of credit cycles , are seen to be merely responding to changing business conditions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own interests , from making the situation worse at a time of periodic crisis .
But central bankers play their part in credit instability by encouraging banks to extend credit to stimulate the economy in the first place .
That fact alone makes it nearly impossible for them to accept the consequences of their monetary policies .
Central bankers like Andrew Bailey not only look at bank credit through the wrong end of the telescope , but they do not see a credit crisis in the making .
This amounts to an ignorance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus is simply a one-off hit , and after a short period of time , everything can return to normal , so long as the recovery is properly managed .
Their simplistic approach does not explain the liquidity stresses in the US banking system that surfaced last September , long before the virus had infected anyone .
It does not explain why the Fed was forced to abandon its attempt to reduce its balance sheet , over five months before the first virus casualty occurred in the US .
It ignores the consequences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , which collapsed international trade by the beginning of 2019 .
Central bankers have been blind to evidence that the world was already tipping into a recession , and that commercial banks were , and still are , dangerously leveraged in the face of escalating loan risk .
The bureaucrats in central banks and banking regulatory bodies believe they have insulated commercial banks from the extreme risks of over-lending .
Since the Lehman crisis , rules and compliance measures have been put in place designed to reduce these systemic risks , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time to time to establish the level of existing risk .
Unfortunately , stress testing appears to be designed not to expose systemic weakness but to confirm it no longer exists .
The Week-by-Week Veget ... Kujawski , Ron Best Price : $ 14.49 Buy New $ 12.99 A new paper by Dean Buckner and Kevin Dowd has examined the current position of UK banks , which is instructive in the wider sense about the relationship between central banks , regulators and commercial banks .
[ ii ] It concludes that “ the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banks have deteriorated sharply since the New Year , and even more since the end of 2006 , i.e.
, the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.
” It goes on to say , “ The BoE ’ s ‘ Great Capital Rebuild ’ narrative about a strongly recapitalised UK banking system is little more than an elaborate , and occasionally shambolic , window dressing exercise .
The BoE focused most of its efforts on making the banking system appear strong by boosting banks ’ regulatory capital ratios instead of ensuring that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ large increase in actual capital meaningfully measured .
The result is that the UK banking system enters the downturn in a worryingly fragile state and avoidably so.
” The authors did not spring this on Britain ’ s central bankers and regulators all of a sudden .
For almost a decade , Professor Dowd has written and co-authored papers warning of the inadequacy of official attempts to strengthen the resilience of the banking system to systemic shocks .
And now , a weaker banking system is tasked with supporting the non-financial economy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charts .
It is not just the UK banking system that ’ s in trouble .
While the Buckner & Dowd paper confines itself to UK banks and there are differences in the detail , we know that banking regulation is standardised across borders , and the motivation for stress tests to see no evil is common to other major central banks .
A central point , missed by most observers , is that the markets are telling us there is a banking crisis already , with bank share prices significantly lower than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , pointing out that the relationship that matters most is between total assets and market capitalisation , the true forward-looking value independently placed on a bank in the markets instead of a static accounting figure for shareholders ’ capital in the balance sheet .
In the case of Barclays Bank its assets relative to market capitalisation gives a leverage for shareholders of 62 times at a time of increasing lending risk .
Put another way , additional loss provisions of only 1.6 % of the balance sheet asset total wipes out the bank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banks are in a similar or worse condition , as shown in Table 1 , of all UK and European designated and listed global systemically important banks ( G-SIBs ) .
The G-SIBs are meant to have extra capital buffers to lessen the likelihood of a repeat of the Lehman crisis .
Clearly , it is virtually impossible to see some of these highly leveraged banks surviving today ’ s deteriorating loan conditions , nor is it possible to imagine that if one or more of them fail how they will not take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ... Edward C. Smith Best Price : $ 4.76 Buy New $ 2.99 As well as believing their own wise monkeys , Andrew Bailey and Christine Lagarde should be praying on their knees that the recovery will be V-shaped and rapid , because the banking system might not even survive that , let alone anything worse .
But the outlook is significantly worse because of the pre-existing slide into global recession .
The G-SIB bankers ’ problem is managing the risk they already have to contend with and not the additional risk the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Looking ahead , with increasing certainty we can expect a European and British banking crisis .
There is no material reason for it not to happen .
The Keynesian debt machine has ploughed on regardless since the Lehman crisis and roughly doubled the debt problems that led to it .
The evidence from the Bucknall & Dowd paper is that the banking system , in the UK at least and by extrapolation in Europe and almost certainly elsewhere , is less fit to deal with a crisis on the Lehman scale , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
And on top of all that the coronavirus has shut down the global economy .
The best possible outcome is that governments and non-financial private sectors emerge with substantially more debt .
Given these factors , it is nearly impossible to argue convincingly that a banking crisis will not emerge very soon , perhaps in as little as a month or two .
A banking and systemic crisis will raise the costs for central banks and their governments considerably , not just because they will have to fund bail-outs , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ associated fallout , such as the inevitable evaporation of interbank credit in the financial sector and of bank credit from non-financial borrowers .
We now know with the greatest certainty what the policy response will be : a further acceleration of base money inflation .
In the UK ’ s case , the estimated cost of £300bn to the exchequer of the coronavirus will turn out to be an appetiser not just for a main course but for the full-blown banquet .
And what applies to the UK will apply to the other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ savers to fund it all .
At the time of writing few if any headline-writers in the media have pointed out the dangers to the global banking system from the coronavirus shutdown and the contraction of bank credit .
Equity markets have rallied strongly in recent weeks and bond yields have remained low .
As forward indicators , these financial markets communicate an ethereal stability .
The only sign that black swans , a common sight nowadays , are peddling furiously while appearing calm above the surface is in the gold price .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is yet to conquer the highs seen at the time of the last Eurozone banking crisis , it appears to be on its way to doing so .
The chart below shows how the gold price has over the last twenty months .
In August 2018 , it first became clear that America ’ s tariff war against China was disrupting international trade , which coincided with the gold price setting off on its current bullish run .
More recently , gold markets and their derivatives faced unprecedented stresses as bullion banks running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in monetary policy responding to the coronavirus .
So far , gold has been doing what one would expect : discounting increasing rates of future monetary expansion .
But it also acts as a warning of troubles to come .
The shock it has yet to discount is the rising systemic risk from bank failures .
Barring successful intervention to suppress it , a sharply rising gold price must be the logical outcome from an increasingly certain banking crisis , as people flee bank deposits in favour of physical bullion held outside the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflations , there has always been a cash alternative to bank deposits .
A bank run created increased preferences for cash .
At the least , prices of goods did not rise as a direct consequence of systemic crises , and it is worth noting that increased cash hoarding tends , if anything , to lead to falling prices .
That can no longer be the case .
Retail banks everywhere have been instructed to discourage the disbursement of even relatively small amounts of cash , making it virtually impossible for a depositor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Unless a depositor already has an account with a bank he is confident is safe , he has no alternative but to spend the deposit and give someone else the headache of being a creditor in a failing banking system .
Amazon.com Gift Card i ... Best Price : null Buy New $ 15.00 Financial assets are also likely to be unsafe beyond the very short term , and the restriction of bank and mortgage credit in these conditions makes residential and commercial property a bad bet as well .
Our frightened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money in the bank , and therefore as a measure of how the crisis unfolds , the gold price is likely to be the most reliable indicator .
For this reason , a gold price rising sharply will not be welcomed by the major central banks , who will rightly fear it is an indicator of declining confidence in the monetary system .
Central banks in emerging economies have a different problem , seeing the dollar upon which they depend failing .
Undoubtedly , this has encouraged many central banks in this category @ @ @ @ @ @ @ substitute , at least until the way to a new currency regime can be seen .
With the knowledge that the situation is considerably more serious than just a temporary COVID-19 interruption , we can be certain of a lethal combination of mounting bad debts and bankers desperate to contain escalating lending risks .
The situation invokes the ghost of Irving Fisher , who was credited with describing the destructive workings of a debt-deflationary spiral driving the economy inexorably into a depression .
Central banks will do everything they can to avoid a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prove an insurmountable task .
With a high degree of certainty , the result will be bank failures and bank rescues .
And with commercial bankers fearful of their own bankruptcies , they will be poor transmitters of raw base money into the non-financial economy .
From these obstacles to monetary planning , we can tentatively sketch a path towards future events , some of which that are likely to run concurrently , including the following : • The first G-SIB failure will initially trigger widespread liquidations of bank-issued bonds and flights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banks .
Capital flight creates funding difficulties for vulnerable banks , and wholesale money markets will seize up .
Attempts to proceed with bail-ins , which have been enacted into law by most if not all G20 nations will only make the situation worse .
Bail-ins were designed to shift the cost of bank rescues to the private sector instead of governments , which is the case with bail-outs .
Therefore , as banks fail there will be added penalties for bond holders and large depositors .
• Market capitalisations of listed banks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ price to book ratios substantially lower .
Governments , sovereign wealth funds and central banks are likely to mount emergency support operations for the shares of the G-SIBs and all other listed banks at risk in an attempt to calm markets .
• After an initial panic , the determination of the authorities to support the banks may buy a brief period of stability .
As lockdown restrictions are abandoned , we can expect a partial recovery in the wider economy , fuelled by essential maintenance and catch-up activities that have been put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point , everyone heaves sighs of relief in the hope that the worst is over .
• Following a temporary period of relief , high levels of unemployment and consumer caution are likely to restrict further economic recovery .
Real assets held as bank collateral will continue to fall in value , renewing pressure on lending banks .
It will become increasingly obvious that global and local economies are not returning to normal with the ending of the virus .
Following an anaemic recovery from the easing of lockdowns , it will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a broken banking system to funnel credit to the non-financial economy is failing .
Small and medium size enterprises , which typically contribute a Pareto 80 % of all economic activity is unlikely to obtain the financial support more easily accessed by big business .
• Residential property prices will fall , in many cases heavily , as a consequence of lack of demand , risk aversion among buyers and lack of affordable mortgage finance upon which prices are marginally based .
Commercial property values will also decline , driven by falling retail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ important loan collateral for the banks , adding to systemic woes .
• Seeing deteriorating economic conditions , central bankers with an eye to the immediate effects on the consumer price index will be encouraged to double down on monetary inflation , principally to support financial markets .
They will see it as the only way to keep their governments out of a trap comprised of a combination of rapidly rising debt and the cost of financing it .
• Inevitably , government bond prices will begin to reflect the heightened levels of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ funding .
Central banks will find they are the only significant buyers of government and corporate debt .
Their resistance to raising interest rates will then be undermined by market reality .
• The general public will be more concerned with rising food prices , energy , and others of life ’ s essentials , a process which has already started .
Throughout history , it has been the economic and social destruction wreaked by the rising prices of these basics that has led to price controls and loss of public confidence in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public is likely to finally realise that it is the currency that is losing its utility , and that it must be discarded as quickly as it is obtained .
Following a banking crisis , deteriorating economic and monetary conditions are likely to evolve more rapidly than circumstances might suggest .
Information , global communications and the interconnectedness of markets all suggest it .
The evolution of cryptocurrencies , such as bitcoin , has made millennial generations more aware of monetary debasement than their parents .
But most importantly , by cutting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bank deposits , an attempt by a population to move deposits out of banks will result in the immediate purchase of non-monetary goods .
Cash has been regulated out of this function and the reservoir effect of it delaying the price consequences of a crisis no longer exists .
Governments and central banks can be expected to cooperate with each other to stop their currencies collapsing , but ultimately it is a matter for the general public .
While inflations have persisted for considerable periods , the final collapse , when the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the past has typically taken between six months and a year .
The German inflation 97 years ago started before the First World War , but its catastrophic phase can be identified as starting in May 1923 and ending the following November .
John Law ’ s monetary collapse , the closest parallel to that of today , ran from approximately February 1720 to the following September .
In the run up to its collapse , Law ’ s Mississippi experiment depended increasingly on money-printing to support financial asset values .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end point of Law ’ s inflationary stimulation is lining up to be identical with our neo-Keynesian experiment , and on that basis alone is increasingly likely to come to a rapid conclusion .
[ ii ] Can the UK Banks Pass the COVID-19 Stress Test ?
See http : //eumaeus.org/wordp/index.php/2020/05/06/can-uk-banks-pass-the-covid-19-stress-test/ The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author ( s ) and do not reflect those of Goldmoney , unless expressly stated .
The Best of Alasdair Macleod

Few mainstream commentators understand the seriousness of the economic and monetary situation. from a V-shaped rapid return to normality towards a more prolonged recovery phase.
The fact that a liquidity crisis developed in US money markets five months before the virus hit America has been forgotten. Only a rising gold price stands testament to a deeper crisis, comprised of contracting bank credit while central banks are trying to rescue the economy, fund government deficits and keep the market bubble inflated.
The next problem is a crisis in the banks, wholly unexpected by investors and depositors. At a time when lending risk is soaring off the charts, their financial condition is more fragile than before the Lehman crisis. Failures in European G-SIBs in the next month or two are almost impossible to avoid, leading to a full-blown monetary and credit crisis which promises to undermine asset values, government financing and fiat currencies themselves. John Law of Lauriston:... Wiston-Glynn, A. W. Best Price: $12.47 Buy New $12.99 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details)
We can now discern the path leading to the destruction of fiat currencies and take reasonably guesses as to timing.
How central banks view the current situation.
The financial world is bemused: what is it to make of the economic effects of the coronavirus? The official answer, it seems, is on the lines of don’t panic. The earliest fears of millions of deaths have subsided and in the light of experience, a more rational approach of easing lockdown rules is now being implemented in a number of badly hit jurisdictions. Whether this evolving policy is right will be proved in due course. But the motivation is moving from saving lives to restricting the economic damage.
While I am a critic of the inflationist policies of central banks, it is always valuable to look at monetary policy from a central banker’s point of view. Last Friday, Andrew Bailey, the new Governor of the Bank of England, gave an interview to Chris Giles of the Financial Times, where he spoke frankly and reasonably freely about the challenges the Bank faced in common with other major central banks.[i]
Regarding inflation, from his comments it is clear Bailey defines it as changes in the general level of prices, which is hardly surprising, since central banks are mandated to target it. He believes that the rate of price inflation will fall towards zero, citing recent moves in the oil price as a major factor, though the oil price has since recovered. This gives him room to use monetary policy to its greatest extent.
His view was that monetary policy would minimise what he called “scarring”. This is the new buzzword for economists who generally dismiss the economic effects of the current crisis as being temporary, as in when it heals the only evidence left will be a scar. In other words, some overindebted businesses will fail and others would be victims to changes in consumer patterns once normality returns. Therefore, the working assumption is that once the coronavirus crisis is behind us the economy would broadly return to normal, and while he didn’t specifically say it, he expectats is a V-shaped recovery, possibly with a moderate time element to it. Raised Bed Gardening f... Wylie, Tammy Best Price: $6.98 Buy New $10.83 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details)
The bank is undertaking a £200bn programme of quantitative easing, which amounts to two-thirds of Britain’s expected funding requirement relating to the coronavirus, in order to satisfy the following policy objectives:
To stabilise financial markets, buying £50-60bn of gilts every month, in common with actions of other central banks in their markets. This suggests the economy is expected to be on the way to recovery by late-July.
To reassure the market that extra government debt would be absorbed and to smooth the profile of overall government borrowing. This will enable the bank to keep gilt yields low, and those of corporate bonds as well.
To meet economic objectives. In other words, pursue a Keynesian policy to return to full employment.
To address counterfactual issues that can be expected to arise if the Bank did not do QE. Presumably, other than disrupted markets Bailey was referring to fears of deflation in the absence of monetary stimulus.
If Bailey is right and QE of £200bn will see the British economy through the crisis, then that £200bn will be an addition of a little more than 10% to the national debt. The addition to February’s M3 money supply is 6.8%, which is hardly a problem. But there will be trouble if he is wrong, glitches that could arise from one or more of three sources. If other central banks, principally the Fed, dilute their currencies by a larger amount proportionately, the effect on commodity prices, particularly agricultural products, could be to drive them up in sterling terms, helping to undermine sterling’s purchasing power for life’s essentials. Secondly, 28% of gilts in issue are owned by foreigners, who, needing the money in their own currencies, are likely to turn sellers. The third threat is of systemic failure, requiring extra expenditure to rescue one or more major banks and to manage the fall-out.
There is little doubt that Bailey’s thinking is shared by his counterparts in the other major central banks. Besides the threats listed above, the mistake is to simply assume the economy is an entity that does not change materially over time. While seeming an innocuous mistake, it leads to the belief that there is a normality to which to return. Bailey dismisses the problem by saying some businesses won’t survive, and others might have to change. But he is clearly banking on a return to normal, when there is no such thing. It is the proper function of economic, monetary and credit analysis to divine the benefits and threats that make the future different from the present. Vegetable Gardening fo... McSheehy, Jill Best Price: $31.00 Buy New $12.46 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details)
Issues of credit
By definition, central bankers do not fully understand credit cycles, otherwise they would have done something to fix their disruptive nature long ago. Instead, they believe in business cycles, which central bankers view as disrupting monetary policy, thereby muddling cause with effect. Conveniently for state organisations, central banks place the blame for irrational behaviour on the private sector. The banks, so obviously the cause of credit cycles, are seen to be merely responding to changing business conditions and must be discouraged, in their own interests, from making the situation worse at a time of periodic crisis.
But central bankers play their part in credit instability by encouraging banks to extend credit to stimulate the economy in the first place. That fact alone makes it nearly impossible for them to accept the consequences of their monetary policies. Central bankers like Andrew Bailey not only look at bank credit through the wrong end of the telescope, but they do not see a credit crisis in the making. This amounts to an ignorance that explains why they believe that the coronavirus is simply a one-off hit, and after a short period of time, everything can return to normal, so long as the recovery is properly managed.
Their simplistic approach does not explain the liquidity stresses in the US banking system that surfaced last September, long before the virus had infected anyone. It does not explain why the Fed was forced to abandon its attempt to reduce its balance sheet, over five months before the first virus casualty occurred in the US. It ignores the consequences of the tariff war between America and China, which collapsed international trade by the beginning of 2019. Central bankers have been blind to evidence that the world was already tipping into a recession, and that commercial banks were, and still are, dangerously leveraged in the face of escalating loan risk.
The bureaucrats in central banks and banking regulatory bodies believe they have insulated commercial banks from the extreme risks of over-lending. Since the Lehman crisis, rules and compliance measures have been put in place designed to reduce these systemic risks, and periodic stress tests have been run from time to time to establish the level of existing risk. Unfortunately, stress testing appears to be designed not to expose systemic weakness but to confirm it no longer exists. The Week-by-Week Veget... Kujawski, Ron Best Price: $14.49 Buy New $12.99 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details)
A new paper by Dean Buckner and Kevin Dowd has examined the current position of UK banks, which is instructive in the wider sense about the relationship between central banks, regulators and commercial banks.[ii] It concludes that “the core metrics of the Big Five UK banks have deteriorated sharply since the New Year, and even more since the end of 2006, i.e., the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.” It goes on to say,
“The BoE’s ‘Great Capital Rebuild’ narrative about a strongly recapitalised UK banking system is little more than an elaborate, and occasionally shambolic, window dressing exercise. The BoE focused most of its efforts on making the banking system appear strong by boosting banks’ regulatory capital ratios instead of ensuring that the banking system became strong through a sufficiently large increase in actual capital meaningfully measured. The result is that the UK banking system enters the downturn in a worryingly fragile state and avoidably so.”
The authors did not spring this on Britain’s central bankers and regulators all of a sudden. For almost a decade, Professor Dowd has written and co-authored papers warning of the inadequacy of official attempts to strengthen the resilience of the banking system to systemic shocks. And now, a weaker banking system is tasked with supporting the non-financial economy, where lending risk is soaring off the charts.
It is not just the UK banking system that’s in trouble. While the Buckner & Dowd paper confines itself to UK banks and there are differences in the detail, we know that banking regulation is standardised across borders, and the motivation for stress tests to see no evil is common to other major central banks. A central point, missed by most observers, is that the markets are telling us there is a banking crisis already, with bank share prices significantly lower than book values.
The authors go further, pointing out that the relationship that matters most is between total assets and market capitalisation, the true forward-looking value independently placed on a bank in the markets instead of a static accounting figure for shareholders’ capital in the balance sheet. In the case of Barclays Bank its assets relative to market capitalisation gives a leverage for shareholders of 62 times at a time of increasing lending risk. Put another way, additional loss provisions of only 1.6% of the balance sheet asset total wipes out the bank’s market capitalisation. Major Eurozone banks are in a similar or worse condition, as shown in Table 1, of all UK and European designated and listed global systemically important banks (G-SIBs). The G-SIBs are meant to have extra capital buffers to lessen the likelihood of a repeat of the Lehman crisis.
Clearly, it is virtually impossible to see some of these highly leveraged banks surviving today’s deteriorating loan conditions, nor is it possible to imagine that if one or more of them fail how they will not take down other banks.
The Vegetable Gardener... Edward C. Smith Best Price: $4.76 Buy New $2.99 (as of 05:25 UTC - Details) As well as believing their own wise monkeys, Andrew Bailey and Christine Lagarde should be praying on their knees that the recovery will be V-shaped and rapid, because the banking system might not even survive that, let alone anything worse. But the outlook is significantly worse because of the pre-existing slide into global recession. The G-SIB bankers’ problem is managing the risk they already have to contend with and not the additional risk the central banks now wish them to bear.
Looking ahead, with increasing certainty we can expect a European and British banking crisis. There is no material reason for it not to happen. The Keynesian debt machine has ploughed on regardless since the Lehman crisis and roughly doubled the debt problems that led to it. The evidence from the Bucknall & Dowd paper is that the banking system, in the UK at least and by extrapolation in Europe and almost certainly elsewhere, is less fit to deal with a crisis on the Lehman scale, let alone the larger one ahead of us. And on top of all that the coronavirus has shut down the global economy. The best possible outcome is that governments and non-financial private sectors emerge with substantially more debt.
Given these factors, it is nearly impossible to argue convincingly that a banking crisis will not emerge very soon, perhaps in as little as a month or two. A banking and systemic crisis will raise the costs for central banks and their governments considerably, not just because they will have to fund bail-outs, but they will also have to cover the associated fallout, such as the inevitable evaporation of interbank credit in the financial sector and of bank credit from non-financial borrowers.
We now know with the greatest certainty what the policy response will be: a further acceleration of base money inflation. In the UK’s case, the estimated cost of £300bn to the exchequer of the coronavirus will turn out to be an appetiser not just for a main course but for the full-blown banquet. And what applies to the UK will apply to the other major advanced nations which lack the genuine savers to fund it all.
The golden canary
At the time of writing few if any headline-writers in the media have pointed out the dangers to the global banking system from the coronavirus shutdown and the contraction of bank credit. Equity markets have rallied strongly in recent weeks and bond yields have remained low. As forward indicators, these financial markets communicate an ethereal stability. The only sign that black swans, a common sight nowadays, are peddling furiously while appearing calm above the surface is in the gold price. Measured in US dollars, while it is yet to conquer the highs seen at the time of the last Eurozone banking crisis, it appears to be on its way to doing so. The chart below shows how the gold price has over the last twenty months.
In August 2018, it first became clear that America’s tariff war against China was disrupting international trade, which coincided with the gold price setting off on its current bullish run. More recently, gold markets and their derivatives faced unprecedented stresses as bullion banks running short positions have been wrongfooted by changes in monetary policy responding to the coronavirus. So far, gold has been doing what one would expect: discounting increasing rates of future monetary expansion.
But it also acts as a warning of troubles to come. The shock it has yet to discount is the rising systemic risk from bank failures. Barring successful intervention to suppress it, a sharply rising gold price must be the logical outcome from an increasingly certain banking crisis, as people flee bank deposits in favour of physical bullion held outside the banking system.
In previous fiat currency inflations, there has always been a cash alternative to bank deposits. A bank run created increased preferences for cash. At the least, prices of goods did not rise as a direct consequence of systemic crises, and it is worth noting that increased cash hoarding tends, if anything, to lead to falling prices. That can no longer be the case. Retail banks everywhere have been instructed to discourage the disbursement of even relatively small amounts of cash, making it virtually impossible for a depositor to encash all but the smallest deposits. Unless a depositor already has an account with a bank he is confident is safe, he has no alternative but to spend the deposit and give someone else the headache of being a creditor in a failing banking system. Amazon.com Gift Card i... Buy New $15.00 (as of 12:45 UTC - Details)
Financial assets are also likely to be unsafe beyond the very short term, and the restriction of bank and mortgage credit in these conditions makes residential and commercial property a bad bet as well. Our frightened depositor is left scrabbling for alternatives to money in the bank, and therefore as a measure of how the crisis unfolds, the gold price is likely to be the most reliable indicator.
For this reason, a gold price rising sharply will not be welcomed by the major central banks, who will rightly fear it is an indicator of declining confidence in the monetary system. Central banks in emerging economies have a different problem, seeing the dollar upon which they depend failing. Undoubtedly, this has encouraged many central banks in this category to build gold reserves as a dollar substitute, at least until the way to a new currency regime can be seen.
The path to fiat obscurity
With the knowledge that the situation is considerably more serious than just a temporary COVID-19 interruption, we can be certain of a lethal combination of mounting bad debts and bankers desperate to contain escalating lending risks. The situation invokes the ghost of Irving Fisher, who was credited with describing the destructive workings of a debt-deflationary spiral driving the economy inexorably into a depression. Central banks will do everything they can to avoid a debt-driven depression, but it is likely to prove an insurmountable task. With a high degree of certainty, the result will be bank failures and bank rescues. And with commercial bankers fearful of their own bankruptcies, they will be poor transmitters of raw base money into the non-financial economy.
From these obstacles to monetary planning, we can tentatively sketch a path towards future events, some of which that are likely to run concurrently, including the following:
The first G-SIB failure will initially trigger widespread liquidations of bank-issued bonds and flights of large uninsured deposits from the riskier banks. Capital flight creates funding difficulties for vulnerable banks, and wholesale money markets will seize up. Attempts to proceed with bail-ins, which have been enacted into law by most if not all G20 nations will only make the situation worse. Bail-ins were designed to shift the cost of bank rescues to the private sector instead of governments, which is the case with bail-outs. Therefore, as banks fail there will be added penalties for bond holders and large depositors.
Market capitalisations of listed banks will take another lurch downwards, pushing price to book ratios substantially lower. Governments, sovereign wealth funds and central banks are likely to mount emergency support operations for the shares of the G-SIBs and all other listed banks at risk in an attempt to calm markets.
After an initial panic, the determination of the authorities to support the banks may buy a brief period of stability. As lockdown restrictions are abandoned, we can expect a partial recovery in the wider economy, fuelled by essential maintenance and catch-up activities that have been put on hold by lockdowns. At this point, everyone heaves sighs of relief in the hope that the worst is over.
Following a temporary period of relief, high levels of unemployment and consumer caution are likely to restrict further economic recovery. Real assets held as bank collateral will continue to fall in value, renewing pressure on lending banks. It will become increasingly obvious that global and local economies are not returning to normal with the ending of the virus. Following an anaemic recovery from the easing of lockdowns, it will be apparent that central bank attempts to use a broken banking system to funnel credit to the non-financial economy is failing. Small and medium size enterprises, which typically contribute a Pareto 80% of all economic activity is unlikely to obtain the financial support more easily accessed by big business.
Residential property prices will fall, in many cases heavily, as a consequence of lack of demand, risk aversion among buyers and lack of affordable mortgage finance upon which prices are marginally based. Commercial property values will also decline, driven by falling retail and office demand. Both sectors are important loan collateral for the banks, adding to systemic woes.
Seeing deteriorating economic conditions, central bankers with an eye to the immediate effects on the consumer price index will be encouraged to double down on monetary inflation, principally to support financial markets. They will see it as the only way to keep their governments out of a trap comprised of a combination of rapidly rising debt and the cost of financing it.
Inevitably, government bond prices will begin to reflect the heightened levels of government deficits and the consequences of inflationary funding. Central banks will find they are the only significant buyers of government and corporate debt. Their resistance to raising interest rates will then be undermined by market reality.
The general public will be more concerned with rising food prices, energy, and others of life’s essentials, a process which has already started. Throughout history, it has been the economic and social destruction wreaked by the rising prices of these basics that has led to price controls and loss of public confidence in government money. At this point, the public is likely to finally realise that it is the currency that is losing its utility, and that it must be discarded as quickly as it is obtained.
Timing
Following a banking crisis, deteriorating economic and monetary conditions are likely to evolve more rapidly than circumstances might suggest. Information, global communications and the interconnectedness of markets all suggest it. The evolution of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, has made millennial generations more aware of monetary debasement than their parents. But most importantly, by cutting off holding cash as an escape from bank deposits, an attempt by a population to move deposits out of banks will result in the immediate purchase of non-monetary goods. Cash has been regulated out of this function and the reservoir effect of it delaying the price consequences of a crisis no longer exists.
Governments and central banks can be expected to cooperate with each other to stop their currencies collapsing, but ultimately it is a matter for the general public. While inflations have persisted for considerable periods, the final collapse, when the public realises what is happening to money, in the past has typically taken between six months and a year. The German inflation 97 years ago started before the First World War, but its catastrophic phase can be identified as starting in May 1923 and ending the following November. John Law’s monetary collapse, the closest parallel to that of today, ran from approximately February 1720 to the following September.
In the run up to its collapse, Law’s Mississippi experiment depended increasingly on money-printing to support financial asset values. The same inflationary policies apply today. The end point of Law’s inflationary stimulation is lining up to be identical with our neo-Keynesian experiment, and on that basis alone is increasingly likely to come to a rapid conclusion.
—
[i] Youtube.com/watch?v=jGb9TpmfxOO
[ii] Can the UK Banks Pass the COVID-19 Stress Test? See http://eumaeus.org/wordp/index.php/2020/05/06/can-uk-banks-pass-the-covid-19-stress-test/
[iii] Source: Yahoo! Finance (accessed 19 May)
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of Goldmoney, unless expressly stated.
The Best of Alasdair Macleod


Greetings From Slobovia

GSTAAD—The staff is back and all is well , as they used to say long ago in faraway places .
The gardener and the cleaner are Portuguese , and they greet me with their inherent dignity from afar .
The Philippine maid and cook almost gets me in a headlock trying to thank me for keeping her on salary while she rested at home .
I shoo her away .
Whom does she take me for , a lowlife cheapskate like Philip Green ?
I ’ m the one who sent them all home in the first place .
Mind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a shellacking in the stock market I ’ ll soon be applying for a job myself , perhaps as an aging gigolo to some fat old tart from Marienbad .
I tango well and can waltz , so all I need is to grow a pencil-thin mustache .
But I ’ ll start with some bad news .
Friends have died , as we all will , but we do not gloat when some lefty drops dead , we pay our respects .
A very good and gentle friend of mine dies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ British television and wishes Boris dead .
Why is leftist scum like her allowed to get away with such crap ?
Coffee Mug Gstaad Ski ... Buy New $ 14.99 An email from Brisbane lifts my spirits , however .
Ian Callinan is a longtime reader and writer , and he writes about the great Roy Emerson and other friends in common .
I am unable to answer as I lose his message pushing the wrong button .
Oh , for the days of pencils with an eraser on the top .
Never @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Dr. Aris Exadaktylos , professor of emergency medicine—i.e.
, when you arrive half dead with minutes to spare—knows what to do .
Not only is he the youngest prof , he is the only Greek professor and director with his own chair in emergency medicine throughout Europe .
I knew he was a great man when I spotted a “ Nixon ’ s the One ” poster in his office .
Dr. Aris was born only two years before two mendacious hacks in cahoots with a disgruntled FBI officer brought down a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he heads , Dr. Aris sends us some info .
Unlike show-offs who preach to us after the facts , the good doc ’ s message makes perfect sense : We know more about the virus now and can treat those who suffer from it better .
Use common sense and things will be fine .
Although a man of superior merit , he does not grandstand ; instead he creates an atmosphere of calm toward the plague , with some intimate observations .
In pursuit of an ever more fickle and moronic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ village have just about banned books , assigning them to the back of a once-proud bookshop , now a store that sells bric-a-brac .
My first-ever opus was displayed in the window next to the best-seller by David Niven and one by William F. Buckley exactly 45 years ago .
I outsold them both because back then Gstaad was full of Greeks interested in what I had to say about the colonels who had just collapsed .
It was a strictly local victory , David ’ s book selling like hotcakes the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @

GSTAAD—The staff is back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The gardener and the cleaner are Portuguese, and they greet me with their inherent dignity from afar. The Philippine maid and cook almost gets me in a headlock trying to thank me for keeping her on salary while she rested at home. I shoo her away. Whom does she take me for, a lowlife cheapskate like Philip Green? I’m the one who sent them all home in the first place.
Mind you, I’ve taken such a shellacking in the stock market I’ll soon be applying for a job myself, perhaps as an aging gigolo to some fat old tart from Marienbad. I tango well and can waltz, so all I need is to grow a pencil-thin mustache. But I’ll start with some bad news. Friends have died, as we all will, but we do not gloat when some lefty drops dead, we pay our respects. A very good and gentle friend of mine dies, while a ghastly old hag goes on British television and wishes Boris dead. Why is leftist scum like her allowed to get away with such crap?
Coffee Mug Gstaad Ski ... Buy New $14.99 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details) An email from Brisbane lifts my spirits, however. Ian Callinan is a longtime reader and writer, and he writes about the great Roy Emerson and other friends in common. I am unable to answer as I lose his message pushing the wrong button. Oh, for the days of pencils with an eraser on the top. Never mind. There is further good news: Dr. Aris Exadaktylos, professor of emergency medicine—i.e., when you arrive half dead with minutes to spare—knows what to do. Not only is he the youngest prof, he is the only Greek professor and director with his own chair in emergency medicine throughout Europe. I knew he was a great man when I spotted a “Nixon’s the One” poster in his office. Dr. Aris was born only two years before two mendacious hacks in cahoots with a disgruntled FBI officer brought down a great president. From the Bern hospital he heads, Dr. Aris sends us some info. Unlike show-offs who preach to us after the facts, the good doc’s message makes perfect sense: We know more about the virus now and can treat those who suffer from it better. Use common sense and things will be fine. Although a man of superior merit, he does not grandstand; instead he creates an atmosphere of calm toward the plague, with some intimate observations.
In pursuit of an ever more fickle and moronic audience, the merchants of this alpine village have just about banned books, assigning them to the back of a once-proud bookshop, now a store that sells bric-a-brac. My first-ever opus was displayed in the window next to the best-seller by David Niven and one by William F. Buckley exactly 45 years ago. I outsold them both because back then Gstaad was full of Greeks interested in what I had to say about the colonels who had just collapsed. It was a strictly local victory, David’s book selling like hotcakes the world over.
Read the Whole Article
KOH-I-NOOR 5359 5.6mm ... Buy New $11.32 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details) Betrayals Ian Callinan Buy New $24.95 (as of 05:14 UTC - Details)
The Best of Taki Theodoracopulos


lewrockwell--2020-05-25--911, COVID-19, and the First Casualty of War

Many media commentators have mentioned that the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 is similar to other national crises that have led the United States into war .
Three other examples include 1 ] Germany ’ s sinking of the Lusitania on 5/7/15 ( that led to the entry of the US into WWI ) , 2 ] the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 ( that led to the US entry into WWII ) and the self-inflicted , controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01 ( that led to the G. W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in what many call Operation Iraqi Liberation ( “ OIL ” ) .
For me , the most pertinent similarity between these events can be stated in the simple truism mentioned in the title above : “ The first Casualty of War is Truth.
” Each of the above four events is clouded by documentable facts that prove ( or at least strongly suggest ) that there are a number of alternative explanations for the crisis-inducing events other than those that have been propagandized to the public ( and then published in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been coerced ( or bribed ) into reporting the lies and myths that have been presented as truth .
Before Our Very Eyes , ... Meyssan , Thierry Best Price : $ 29.44 Buy New $ 24.97 Perhaps the most egregious example is what really happened on 9/11/01 .
There are scores of books and videos on the subject , most of which have been gradually censored out of our consciousness and the video and print evidence deleted from YouTube and Google .
Investigative journalists have been black-listed and never invited to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mainstream talk show host , including , I am sad to have to report , by every talking head you can think of on CBS , NBC , ABC , CNN , MSNBC , etc but also most PBS and NPR talking heads that have lost their credibility , including Christiane Amanpour , Judy Woodruff and their associates on BBC and other news outlets from around the world .
It is easy to recognize the guilty ones , because whenever they are referring to the events surrounding 9/11 , they use the deceptive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than the more accurate “ the controlled demolitions of 9/11 ” .
When that phrase is used , you can be certain that that “ journalist ” is hiding the actual unwelcome truth ( AKA , “ lying ” ) that those three buildings – only two of which were hit by planes ( that were never found in the debris ) DID NOT come down from fires as the Military-industrial complex , the CIA , the Congressional/bureaucratic institutional-sanctioned propaganda claimed over and over again .
Presstitutes Embedded ... Ulfkotte , Dr. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New $ 34.09 Rather the three skyscrapers have now been conclusively proven to have been demolished with pre-planted explosive devices , which therefore makes impossible the false assertions that the brief fires from jet fuel caused the three non-flammable steel-reinforced skyscrapers to burn down .
So I was intrigued to discover recently that Canadian journalist Ian Harvey – writing for Canada ’ s Daily Commercial News – wrote a totally truthful article that re-introduced the unwelcome fact that controlled demolitions of World Trade Center Building # 7 ( as well as # 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brought down by fires .
It is interesting to speculate why no American journalist dares to write similar articles for the MSM .
It is easy to find hundreds of stories about the multitude of honest historians , whistle-blowers and independent investigative journalists ( that still have a conscience ) who have written about the events of 9/11 and then found themselves mercilessly attacked by paid “ trolls ” or otherwise subjected to ridicule and adolescent name-calling – like being called a “ Tree-hugger ” , an “ Anti-war Peacenik ” , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anti-vaxxer ” .
Hidden History : An Exp ... Donald Jeffries Best Price : $ 9.86 Buy New $ 14.70 And now the same conditions are occurring to conscientious , independent scientists , virologists , physicians and true investigative journalists who can not , in good conscience , totally accept the propaganda coming from profiteering corporations like Big Pharma , and Big Vaccine , and Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller-associated Johns Hopkins Hospital-approved narratives about COVID-19.The article below is a good example of why you also can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NIST ( National Institute of Standards and Technology ) regarding the Truth of 9/11 anymore than you can trust the bureaucratic NIH ( National Institutes of Health ) , the CDC , the NIAID ( National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease ) , SCOTUS ( Supreme Court of the United States ) , POTUS ( President of the United State ) , the US Congress , the MSM ( Mainstream Media ) , state-level Departments of Health , etc , etc , concerning the truth about what the 1992 Supreme Court labeled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1 , 1988 , if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.
” §300aa–22 ( b ) ( 1 ) .
To access more information on the above information , go here and here .
Here is Canadian journalist Ian Harvey ’ s expose about America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Best of Gary G. Kohls , MD

Many media commentators have mentioned that the COVID-19 crisis of 2020 is similar to other national crises that have led the United States into war.
Three other examples include 1] Germany’s sinking of the Lusitania on 5/7/15 (that led to the entry of the US into WWI), 2] the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41 (that led to the US entry into WWII) and the self-inflicted, controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01 (that led to the G. W. Bush/Dick Cheney administration’s push to invade the Middle East in what many call Operation Iraqi Liberation (“OIL”).
For me, the most pertinent similarity between these events can be stated in the simple truism mentioned in the title above: “The first Casualty of War is Truth.”
Each of the above four events is clouded by documentable facts that prove (or at least strongly suggest) that there are a number of alternative explanations for the crisis-inducing events other than those that have been propagandized to the public (and then published in the literature). Trusted journalists and authors have been coerced (or bribed) into reporting the lies and myths that have been presented as truth. Before Our Very Eyes,... Meyssan, Thierry Best Price: $29.44 Buy New $24.97 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details)
Perhaps the most egregious example is what really happened on 9/11/01. There are scores of books and videos on the subject, most of which have been gradually censored out of our consciousness and the video and print evidence deleted from YouTube and Google. Investigative journalists have been black-listed and never invited to be interviewed by any mainstream journalists or mainstream talk show host, including, I am sad to have to report, by every talking head you can think of on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, etc but also most PBS and NPR talking heads that have lost their credibility, including Christiane Amanpour, Judy Woodruff and their associates on BBC and other news outlets from around the world.
It is easy to recognize the guilty ones, because whenever they are referring to the events surrounding 9/11, they use the deceptive phrase “the attacks of 9/11” rather than the more accurate “the controlled demolitions of 9/11”. When that phrase is used, you can be certain that that “journalist” is hiding the actual unwelcome truth (AKA, “lying”) that those three buildings – only two of which were hit by planes (that were never found in the debris) DID NOT come down from fires as the Military-industrial complex, the CIA, the Congressional/bureaucratic institutional-sanctioned propaganda claimed over and over again. Presstitutes Embedded ... Ulfkotte, Dr. Udo Best Price: $38.43 Buy New $34.09 (as of 11:15 UTC - Details)
Rather the three skyscrapers have now been conclusively proven to have been demolished with pre-planted explosive devices, which therefore makes impossible the false assertions that the brief fires from jet fuel caused the three non-flammable steel-reinforced skyscrapers to burn down.
So I was intrigued to discover recently that Canadian journalist Ian Harvey – writing for Canada’s Daily Commercial News – wrote a totally truthful article that re-introduced the unwelcome fact that controlled demolitions of World Trade Center Building # 7 (as well as #1 and #2) wasn’t brought down by fires. It is interesting to speculate why no American journalist dares to write similar articles for the MSM.
It is easy to find hundreds of stories about the multitude of honest historians, whistle-blowers and independent investigative journalists (that still have a conscience) who have written about the events of 9/11 and then found themselves mercilessly attacked by paid “trolls” or otherwise subjected to ridicule and adolescent name-calling – like being called a “Tree-hugger”, an “Anti-war Peacenik”, a “9/11 Truther” or an “Anti-vaxxer”.
Hidden History: An Exp... Donald Jeffries Best Price: $9.86 Buy New $14.70 (as of 04:30 UTC - Details) And now the same conditions are occurring to conscientious, independent scientists, virologists, physicians and true investigative journalists who cannot, in good conscience, totally accept the propaganda coming from profiteering corporations like Big Pharma, and Big Vaccine, and Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum and the Rockefeller-associated Johns Hopkins Hospital-approved narratives about COVID-19.The article below is a good example of why you also can’t trust un-elected government bureaucracies like the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) regarding the Truth of 9/11 anymore than you can trust the bureaucratic NIH (National Institutes of Health), the CDC, the NIAID (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease), SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States), POTUS (President of the United State), the US Congress, the MSM (Mainstream Media), state-level Departments of Health, etc, etc, concerning the truth about what the 1992 Supreme Court labeled “unavoidably unsafe” vaccines.
“No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.” §300aa–22(b)(1).
To access more information on the above information, go here and here.
Here is Canadian journalist Ian Harvey’s expose about America’ most notorious crimes against humanity.
The Best of Gary G. Kohls, MD


lewrockwell--2020-05-25--After 7 Weeks of the Plague Ravaging Non-Lockdown Belarus, 99.998% of Its People Are Still Alive

Belarus population : 9.5 million .
Belarus deaths of people so far who had tested positive for Covid-19 ( so that ’ s deaths with Covid , not even of ) : 185 Other 2020 causes of deaths : Lockdown May , Peter Buy New $ 16.99 In January-March 2020 , a total of 18,500 people died of circulatory diseases , almost 5,000 people – of cancer .
In January-March 2020 a total of 254 people died of pneumonia .
“ We have a drop [ in flu deaths ] by almost 9 % .
This is currently our number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” the president said .
The head of state added that from 1 January to 5 April 2020 a total of 860 people died in Belarus due to external reasons , 15 people down from 2019 .
“ I will reiterate that flu deaths stood at 254 , ” Aleksandr Lukashenko said .
The head of state said that about 400 people of the above-mentioned number died as a result of suicides , 85 as a result of murders , 206 people died in fires and 107 in road accidents .
Clearly Belarus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid lockdown but also forever ban fire and roads .

Belarus population: 9.5 million. Belarus deaths of people so far who had tested positive for Covid-19 (so that’s deaths with Covid, not even of): 185
185 as a percentage of 9.5 million: 0.002%.
Other 2020 causes of deaths:
Lockdown May, Peter Buy New $16.99 (as of 05:19 UTC - Details) In January-March 2020, a total of 18,500 people died of circulatory diseases, almost 5,000 people – of cancer. In January-March 2020 a total of 254 people died of pneumonia. “We have a drop [in flu deaths] by almost 9%. This is currently our number one issue amid the virus outbreak,” the president said. The head of state added that from 1 January to 5 April 2020 a total of 860 people died in Belarus due to external reasons, 15 people down from 2019. “I will reiterate that flu deaths stood at 254,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. The head of state said that about 400 people of the above-mentioned number died as a result of suicides, 85 as a result of murders, 206 people died in fires and 107 in road accidents.
Clearly Belarus should not only immediately go into a Covid lockdown but also forever ban fire and roads.
Read the Whole Article


lewrockwell--2020-05-25--China: One Country, Two Sessions, Three Threats

The key takeaways of the Two Sessions of the 13th National People ’ s Congress in Beijing are already in the public domain .
In a nutshell : no GDP target for 2020 ; a budget deficit of at least 3.6 % of GDP ; one trillion yuan in special treasury bonds ; corporate fees/taxes cut by 2.5 trillion yuan ; a defense budget rise of a modest 6.6 % ; and governments at all levels committed to “ tighten their belts.
” The focus , as predicted , is to get China ’ s domestic economy , post-Covid-19 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Also predictably , the whole focus in the Anglo-American sphere has been on Hong Kong – as in the new legal framework , to be approved next week , engineered to prevent subversion , foreign interference “ or any acts that severely endanger national security.
” After all , as a Global Times editorial stresses , Hong Kong is an extremely sensitive national security matter .
Battlegrounds : The Fig ... McMaster , H. R. Buy New $ 35.00 This is a direct result of what the Chinese observer mission based in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifth columnists and weaponized black blocs to nearly destroy Hong Kong last summer .
No wonder the Anglo-American “ freedom fighter ” front is livid .
The gloves are off .
No more free lunch .
No more paid protests .
No more black blocs .
No more hybrid war .
Baba Beijing ’ s got a brand new bag .
It ’ s absolutely essential to position the Two Sessions within the larger , incandescent geopolitical and geoeconomic context of the de facto new Cold War – hybrid war included – between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s focus on an American insider : former White House national security adviser Lieutenant General HR McMaster , author of the upcoming Battlegrounds : The Fight to Defend the Free World .
This is as clear cut as it gets in terms of how the “ free world , ” in Pentagonese , perceives the rise of China .
Call it the view of the industrial-military-surveillance-media complex .
Beijing , per McMaster , is pursuing a policy of “ co-option , coercion and concealment , ” centered on three axes : Made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Roads , or Belt and Road Initiative ; and a “ military-civil fusion ” – arguably the most “ totalitarian ” vector , centered on creating a global intel network in espionage and cyber-attacks .
Call these the three threats .
Whatever the spin across the Beltway , Made in China 2025 remains alive and well – even if the terminology has been skipped .
The target , to be reached via $ 1.4 trillion in investments , is to profit from the knowledge accumulated by Huawei , Alibaba , SenseTime Group and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the process , China should be reinventing its technological base and restructuring the entire semiconductor supply chain to be domestic-based .
These are all non-negotiables .
Home is Not Here Gungwu , Wang Best Price : $ 15.00 Buy New $ 20.10 Belt and Road , in Pentagonese , is synonymous of “ economic clientelism ” and a “ ruthless debt trap.
” But McMaster gives away the game when he describes the cardinal sin as “ the goal of displacing the influence of the United States and its key partners.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” in Pentagonese , that ’ s all about fast tracking “ stolen technologies to the army in such areas as space , cyberspace , biology , artificial intelligence and energy.
” It amounts to “ espionage and cyber-theft.
” In sum : “ pushback ” is essential against those China ’ s commies becoming “ even more aggressive in promoting its statist economy and authoritarian political model.
” Apart from this binary , quite pedestrian assessment , McMaster does make an interesting point : “ The US and other free nations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Chinese abroad – if protected from the meddling and espionage of their government – can provide a significant counter to Beijing ’ s propaganda and disinformation.
” So let ’ s compare it with the insights of a true master in Chinese diaspora : the redoubtable professor Wang Gungwu , born in Surabaya in Indonesia , who will be 90 years old this coming October and is the author of a delightful , poignant book of memoirs , Home is Not Here .
For outsiders there ’ s no better explanation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : “ At least two generations of Chinese have learnt to appreciate that the modern West has valuable ideas and institutions to offer , but the turmoil of much of the 20th century has also made them feel that the Western European versions of democracy might not be that important for China ’ s national development .
The majority of Chinese seem to approve of policies that place order and stability above freedom and political participation .
They believe that this is what the country needs at this stage and resent being regularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America ’ s Global ... Sempa , Francis Best Price : $ 6.18 Buy New $ 14.96 Wang Gungwu stresses how the Chinese think quite differently from the “ universalist ” trajectory of the West , and thus reaches the heart of the matter : “ Should the PRC succeed in providing an alternative route to prosperity and independence , the US ( and elsewhere in the West ) would see that as a fundamental threat to its ( and Western European ) dominance in the world .
Those who feel threatened would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China .
I think this is what most Chinese believe is what American leaders are prepared to do.
” No US Deep State assessment can possibly stand when ignoring the wealth of Chinese history : “ The nature of China ’ s politics , whether under emperors , warlords , nationalists or communists , was so rooted in Chinese history that no individual or group of intellectuals could offer a new vision that could appeal to the majority of the Chinese people .
In the end , that majority seemed to have accepted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the battlefield coupled with the capacity to bring order and renewed purpose to a rejuvenated China.
” Federal prosecutor Francis Sempa , author of America ’ s Global Role and an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University , has compared McMaster ’ s assessment of the China “ threat ” to the legendary “ long telegram ” written by George Kennan in 1947 , under the pseudonym X .
The “ long telegram ” designed the subsequent strategy of containing the Soviet Union , complete with the building up of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the prime Cold War blueprint .
The current , pedestrian long telegram remix might also have long legs .
Sempa , to his credit , at least admits that “ McMaster ’ s timid policy recommendations will not lead to the gradual break-up or mellowing of Chinese Communist power.
” He suggests – what else – “ containment , ” which should be “ firm and vigilant.
” And he recognizes , to his credit , that it should be “ based on an understanding of Chinese history and Indo-Pacific geography.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gives away the game – in true Zbigniew Brzezinski fashion : what matters most is “ the need to prevent a hostile power from controlling the key power centers of the Eurasian landmass.
” It ’ s no wonder the US Deep State identifies Belt and Road and its spin-offs such as the Digital Silk Road and the Health Silk Road across Eurasia as manifestations of a “ hostile power.
” The whole fulcrum of US foreign policy since WWII has been to prevent Eurasia integration – now actively pursued by the Russia-China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russia – part of Putin ’ s Great Eurasia Partnership – are bound to merge with Belt and Road .
Putin and Xi will meet again , face-to-face , in mid-July in St. Petersburg , for the twin summits of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization , and will further discuss it in extensive detail .
So presiding , in silence , over the Two Sessions , is the understanding by the Chinese leadership that getting back to domestic business , fast , is essential for a renewed push on the grand chessboard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pull no punches to deploy every possible geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy to sabotage Eurasia integration .
Made in China 2025 ; Belt and Road – the post-modern equivalent of the Ancient Silk Road ; Huawei ; China ’ s manufacturing pre-eminence ; breakthroughs in the fight against Covid-19 – everything is a target .
And yet , in parallel , nothing – from a remixed long telegram to stale ruminations on the Thucydides Trap – will derail a rejuvenated China from hitting its own targets .

The key takeaways of the Two Sessions of the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing are already in the public domain.
In a nutshell: no GDP target for 2020; a budget deficit of at least 3.6% of GDP; one trillion yuan in special treasury bonds; corporate fees/taxes cut by 2.5 trillion yuan; a defense budget rise of a modest 6.6%; and governments at all levels committed to “tighten their belts.”
The focus, as predicted, is to get China’s domestic economy, post-Covid-19, on track for solid growth in 2021.
Also predictably, the whole focus in the Anglo-American sphere has been on Hong Kong – as in the new legal framework, to be approved next week, engineered to prevent subversion, foreign interference “or any acts that severely endanger national security.” After all, as a Global Times editorial stresses, Hong Kong is an extremely sensitive national security matter. Battlegrounds: The Fig... McMaster, H. R. Buy New $35.00 (as of 05:18 UTC - Details)
This is a direct result of what the Chinese observer mission based in Shenzhen learned from the attempt by assorted fifth columnists and weaponized black blocs to nearly destroy Hong Kong last summer.
No wonder the Anglo-American “freedom fighter” front is livid. The gloves are off. No more free lunch. No more paid protests. No more black blocs. No more hybrid war. Baba Beijing’s got a brand new bag.
The three threats
It’s absolutely essential to position the Two Sessions within the larger, incandescent geopolitical and geoeconomic context of the de facto new Cold War – hybrid war included – between the US and China.
So let’s focus on an American insider: former White House national security adviser Lieutenant General HR McMaster, author of the upcoming Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
This is as clear cut as it gets in terms of how the “free world,” in Pentagonese, perceives the rise of China. Call it the view of the industrial-military-surveillance-media complex.
Beijing, per McMaster, is pursuing a policy of “co-option, coercion and concealment,” centered on three axes: Made in China 2025; the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative; and a “military-civil fusion” – arguably the most “totalitarian” vector, centered on creating a global intel network in espionage and cyber-attacks.
Call these the three threats.
Whatever the spin across the Beltway, Made in China 2025 remains alive and well – even if the terminology has been skipped.
The target, to be reached via $1.4 trillion in investments, is to profit from the knowledge accumulated by Huawei, Alibaba, SenseTime Group and others to design a seamless AI environment. In the process, China should be reinventing its technological base and restructuring the entire semiconductor supply chain to be domestic-based. These are all non-negotiables. Home is Not Here Gungwu, Wang Best Price: $15.00 Buy New $20.10 (as of 05:18 UTC - Details)
Belt and Road, in Pentagonese, is synonymous of “economic clientelism” and a “ruthless debt trap.” But McMaster gives away the game when he describes the cardinal sin as “the goal of displacing the influence of the United States and its key partners.”
As for the “military-civil fusion,” in Pentagonese, that’s all about fast tracking “stolen technologies to the army in such areas as space, cyberspace, biology, artificial intelligence and energy.” It amounts to “espionage and cyber-theft.”
In sum: “pushback” is essential against those China’s commies becoming “even more aggressive in promoting its statist economy and authoritarian political model.”
Chinese diaspora speaks
Apart from this binary, quite pedestrian assessment, McMaster does make an interesting point: “The US and other free nations should view expatriate communities as a strength. Chinese abroad – if protected from the meddling and espionage of their government – can provide a significant counter to Beijing’s propaganda and disinformation.”
So let’s compare it with the insights of a true master in Chinese diaspora: the redoubtable professor Wang Gungwu, born in Surabaya in Indonesia, who will be 90 years old this coming October and is the author of a delightful, poignant book of memoirs, Home is Not Here.
For outsiders there’s no better explanation of the predominant frame of mind across China:
“At least two generations of Chinese have learnt to appreciate that the modern West has valuable ideas and institutions to offer, but the turmoil of much of the 20th century has also made them feel that the Western European versions of democracy might not be that important for China’s national development. The majority of Chinese seem to approve of policies that place order and stability above freedom and political participation. They believe that this is what the country needs at this stage and resent being regularly criticized as politically unliberated and backward.” America’s Global... Sempa, Francis Best Price: $6.18 Buy New $14.96 (as of 05:18 UTC - Details)
Wang Gungwu stresses how the Chinese think quite differently from the “universalist” trajectory of the West, and thus reaches the heart of the matter: “Should the PRC succeed in providing an alternative route to prosperity and independence, the US (and elsewhere in the West) would see that as a fundamental threat to its (and Western European) dominance in the world. Those who feel threatened would then do everything they can to stop China. I think this is what most Chinese believe is what American leaders are prepared to do.”
No US Deep State assessment can possibly stand when ignoring the wealth of Chinese history: “The nature of China’s politics, whether under emperors, warlords, nationalists or communists, was so rooted in Chinese history that no individual or group of intellectuals could offer a new vision that could appeal to the majority of the Chinese people. In the end, that majority seemed to have accepted the legitimacy of PRC’s victory on the battlefield coupled with the capacity to bring order and renewed purpose to a rejuvenated China.”
Remixed long telegram
Federal prosecutor Francis Sempa, author of America’s Global Role and an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University, has compared McMaster’s assessment of the China “threat” to the legendary “long telegram” written by George Kennan in 1947, under the pseudonym X.
The “long telegram” designed the subsequent strategy of containing the Soviet Union, complete with the building up of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It was the prime Cold War blueprint.
The current, pedestrian long telegram remix might also have long legs. Sempa, to his credit, at least admits that “McMaster’s timid policy recommendations will not lead to the gradual break-up or mellowing of Chinese Communist power.”
He suggests – what else – “containment,” which should be “firm and vigilant.” And he recognizes, to his credit, that it should be “based on an understanding of Chinese history and Indo-Pacific geography.” But then, once again, he gives away the game – in true Zbigniew Brzezinski fashion: what matters most is “the need to prevent a hostile power from controlling the key power centers of the Eurasian landmass.”
It’s no wonder the US Deep State identifies Belt and Road and its spin-offs such as the Digital Silk Road and the Health Silk Road across Eurasia as manifestations of a “hostile power.”
The whole fulcrum of US foreign policy since WWII has been to prevent Eurasia integration – now actively pursued by the Russia-China strategic partnership. New Silk Roads across Russia – part of Putin’s Great Eurasia Partnership – are bound to merge with Belt and Road. Putin and Xi will meet again, face-to-face, in mid-July in St. Petersburg, for the twin summits of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and will further discuss it in extensive detail.
So presiding, in silence, over the Two Sessions, is the understanding by the Chinese leadership that getting back to domestic business, fast, is essential for a renewed push on the grand chessboard. They know the industrial-military-surveillance-media complex will pull no punches to deploy every possible geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy to sabotage Eurasia integration.
Made in China 2025; Belt and Road – the post-modern equivalent of the Ancient Silk Road; Huawei; China’s manufacturing pre-eminence; breakthroughs in the fight against Covid-19 – everything is a target. And yet, in parallel, nothing – from a remixed long telegram to stale ruminations on the Thucydides Trap – will derail a rejuvenated China from hitting its own targets.
Reprinted with the author’s permission.