Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

[don]

Catherine Austin Fitts

[World Traveler]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Great interview, thanks for posting. Catherine Austin Fitts is very prescient - I started reading her in 2000, and she was the first I know of to talk about the "tapeworm", predatory economy the U.S. had become. Lots of bloggers now talk or write about how money has been sucked up from the middle class to the 1% over the last 30 years, via financial chicanery. But back in 2000, Catherine was one of the unique few addressing this issue.

So I am very interested in what her current thinking is - the financial coup d'etat is over and the 1% have won - they've got the money and the power... Her "centralization" thesis (i.e. our future) also agrees with what Gordon T Long is saying...he is another early and prescient commentator.

[metalman]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Great interview, thanks for posting. Catherine Austin Fitts is very prescient - I started reading her in 2000, and she was the first I know of to talk about the "tapeworm", predatory economy the U.S. had become. Lots of bloggers now talk or write about how money has been sucked up from the middle class to the 1% over the last 30 years, via financial chicanery. But back in 2000, Catherine was one of the unique few addressing this issue.

So I am very interested in what her current thinking is - the financial coup d'etat is over and the 1% have won - they've got the money and the power... Her "centralization" thesis (i.e. our future) also agrees with what Gordon T Long is saying...he is another early and prescient commentator.

er... 'insider's insider'???

alex jones... prison planet...



Catherine Austin Fitts: Purpose of Flu Vaccine is Depopulation

Catherine Austin Fitts
Solari
July 29, 2009
I believe one of the goals of the swine flu vaccine is depopulation. Perhaps it is the goal of a swine flu epidemic as well, whether bio-warfare or hype around a flu season.
[efoods]These days, I keep remembering my sense of urgency leaving the Bush Administration in 1991. We had to do something to turn around the economy and gather real assets behind retirement plans and the social safety net. If not, Americans could find themselves deeply out on a limb. I felt my family and friends were in danger. They did not share my concern. They had a deep faith in the system.
As my efforts to find ways of reengineering government investment in communities failed to win political support, Washington and Wall Street moved forward with a debt bubble and globalization that was horrifying in its implications for humanity.
Overwhelmed by what was happening, I estimated the end result. My simple calculations guessed that we were going to achieve economic sustainability on Earth by depopulating down to a population of approximately 500 million people from our then current global population of 6 billion. I was a portfolio strategist used to looking at numbers from a very high level. Those around me could not fathom how all the different threads I was integrating could lead to such a conclusion. To me, we had to have radical change in how we governed resources or depopulate. It was a mathematical result.
A year later, in 1999, a very capable investment and portfolio strategist asked me if he could come have a private lunch with me in Washington. We sat in a posh restaurant across from the Capitol. He said quietly that he had calculated out where the derivatives and debt bubble combined with globalization were going. The only logical conclusion he could reach was that significant depopulation was going to occur. He said his estimates led to an approximate population of 500 million. I said very quietly, “that’s my estimate too.” I will never forget the look of sadness that crossed his face. I was amazed to find someone else who understood.



c'mon, guys... back to reality...

[jk]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

the hard part in listening to fitts is sorting out what's worth pondering from the paranoid bs. e.g. it's not clear to me that gmo food is necessarily a bad thing. [t's amusing to think of the french denouncing gmo while smoking their gauloises.] otoh, her notion of a financial coup, of viewing the financial crisis as an engineered lbo, isn't a bad model of what happened. and the conclusion she draws, that the big financial supermarket banks have served their purpose by facilitating the lbo, is provacative. not that i am convinced, but that it's a new thought and not clearly wrong either.

[metalman]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

the hard part in listening to fitts is sorting out what's worth pondering from the paranoid bs. e.g. it's not clear to me that gmo food is necessarily a bad thing. [t's amusing to think of the french denouncing gmo while smoking their gauloises.] otoh, her notion of a financial coup, of viewing the financial crisis as an engineered lbo, isn't a bad model of what happened. and the conclusion she draws, that the big financial supermarket banks have served their purpose by facilitating the lbo, is provacative. not that i am convinced, but that it's a new thought and not clearly wrong either.

mm summary of catherine austine fitts = untreated depression.

parse the flu vaccine as depopulation post...

I believe one of the goals of the swine flu vaccine is depopulation. Perhaps it is the goal of a swine flu epidemic as well, whether bio-warfare or hype around a flu season.

wow! depopulation is not only the goal of the swine glu vaccine but the swine flu epidemic (what swine flu epidemic? whose goal?)

These days, I keep remembering my sense of urgency leaving the Bush Administration in 1991.

keep reminding readers you once had a real job...

We

as if fitts was a real player in policy decisions...

had to do something to turn around the economy and gather real assets behind retirement plans and the social safety net.

"gather real assets behind retirement plans and the social safety net"? slap a cow & eat monkeys for dinner? bite a cracker & push red buttons on a keyboard? insert gobbledegook here.

If not, Americans could find themselves deeply out on a limb.

deep limb... deep limb... deep limb...

cavernous mountain... depths of the sky... etc...

I felt my family and friends were in danger. They did not share my concern. They had a deep faith in the system.

or they were tired of listening to her depressive ramblings.

As my efforts to find ways of reengineering government investment in communities failed to win political support,

when did they ever receive any attention at all?

Washington and Wall Street moved forward with a debt bubble and globalization that was horrifying in its implications for humanity.

the bubble started waaaaay before kaf & her commune idea... 1973 or thereabouts...

Overwhelmed by what was happening, I estimated the end result. My simple calculations guessed that we were going to achieve economic sustainability on Earth by depopulating down to a population of approximately 500 million people from our then current global population of 6 billion. I was a portfolio strategist used to looking at numbers from a very high level. Those around me could not fathom how all the different threads I was integrating could lead to such a conclusion. To me, we had to have radical change in how we governed resources or depopulate. It was a mathematical result.
A year later, in 1999, a very capable investment and portfolio strategist asked me if he could come have a private lunch with me in Washington. We sat in a posh restaurant across from the Capitol. He said quietly that he had calculated out where the derivatives and debt bubble combined with globalization were going. The only logical conclusion he could reach was that significant depopulation was going to occur. He said his estimates led to an approximate population of 500 million. I said very quietly, “that’s my estimate too.” I will never forget the look of sadness that crossed his face. I was amazed to find someone else who understood.

[jk]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

i have to disagree, mm. depression i can relate to. paranoia, otoh, scares me. if you start to buy into fitts' model, then hidden powers are pulling the levers. in response to a question about whether the jamie dimon's of the world were the prime movers, she replied to the effect that "if you know their names," she said, they're not the real powers. as a scientific hypothesis, how do you go about testing that idea? it's a paranoid system: they're poisoning the food, they're releasing epidemics [rather like the theory in parts of africa that aids was the creation of western laboratories aimed at depopulating africa]. yes, there is a depressive flavor to this, but it's the paranoia that's tantalizing. she takes bits of truth and interesting observations and weaves them into a broader, conspiratorial web.

conspiracy is more congenial, i think, than complexity.

here's my version: the dystopias in the terminator series or the matrix involve a war between machines and humans.

The modern corporation and large masses of money are the “machines” of our nightmares. they are not hardware machines, made of metal. they are virtual, software, machines. they are giant "apps" running all the time.

They maximize themselves without regard to the suffering or costs imposed on humanity in general or on the planet and the biosphere itself. Because of their lack of empathy, they cannot take account of their externalities unless those externalities are codified into law. But by the same token, until those externalities are imposed as necessary costs, the "machines" necessarily- by virtue of their construction- use their resources to oppose that codification.

The very wealthy and their agents in commerce and government are the “mr. Smith’s” from the matrix- pseudohumans which are actually doing the bidding of the “machines.” I call them “pseudohumans” because of their sociopathy/psychopathy, their lack of empathy with their fellow humans, the same psychopathy embodied in the corporate monomania for maximizing profit.

Corporations are people? If so, they are the most self-centered, narcissistic, psychopathic people on the planet.

[World Traveler]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Frank Giustra is a Canadian billionaire who made his money in mining, finance, and the film industry. I'm posting an interview he did with Cambridge House in Vancouver recently. It's fascinating. In the first half, he sounds very similar to EJ, in terms of gold, inflation, and how he views the economic present and future.

The latter half is where interview really gets interesting. Interviewer asks him: "If you were starting out today, where would you you invest your time, energy, and finances?". His answer: food and farmland.

Watch the interview to discover his reasoning. His views are very similar to what Catherine Austin Fitts says we should now be focusing time and energy on...food and farmland.

Catherine Austin Fitts was targetted by Washington insiders in the mid-to-late '90's when a data base company she founded threatened to disrupt enormous profits insiders were making by scamming and fraudulent real estate deals using FHA loan and foreclosure processes. She spent years in court and was eventually exonerated, but also bankrupted.

Her experience may have left her "sensitive" and mildly paranoid, BUT she has still been way ahead of the curve, especially in the early 2000's, when she clearly explained the financial gimmicks used by Wall Street, LBO artists, Enron, the finance industry, and Washington insiders. There were very few like her back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=9o30gNfPq_k#!

[doom&gloom]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Frank Giustra is a Canadian billionaire who made his money in mining, finance, and the film industry. I'm posting an interview he did with Cambridge House in Vancouver recently. It's fascinating. In the first half, he sounds very similar to EJ, in terms of gold, inflation, and how he views the economic present and future.

The latter half is where interview really gets interesting. Interviewer asks him: "If you were starting out today, where would you you invest your time, energy, and finances?". His answer: food and farmland.

Watch the interview to discover his reasoning. His views are very similar to what Catherine Austin Fitts says we should now be focusing time and energy on...food and farmland.

Catherine Austin Fitts was targetted by Washington insiders in the mid-to-late '90's when a data base company she founded threatened to disrupt enormous profits insiders were making by scamming and fraudulent real estate deals using FHA loan and foreclosure processes. She spent years in court and was eventually exonerated, but also bankrupted.

Her experience may have left her "sensitive" and mildly paranoid, BUT she has still been way ahead of the curve, especially in the early 2000's, when she clearly explained the financial gimmicks used by Wall Street, LBO artists, Enron, the finance industry, and Washington insiders. There were very few like her back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=9o30gNfPq_k#!

I started an OP on this here:

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...hlight=giustra

its a great interview, particularly because he likes one of my favorite investments, farmland.

I encourage everyone to watch it as well.

[metalman]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Frank Giustra is a Canadian billionaire who made his money in mining, finance, and the film industry. I'm posting an interview he did with Cambridge House in Vancouver recently. It's fascinating. In the first half, he sounds very similar to EJ, in terms of gold, inflation, and how he views the economic present and future.

The latter half is where interview really gets interesting. Interviewer asks him: "If you were starting out today, where would you you invest your time, energy, and finances?". His answer: food and farmland.

Watch the interview to discover his reasoning. His views are very similar to what Catherine Austin Fitts says we should now be focusing time and energy on...food and farmland.

Catherine Austin Fitts was targetted by Washington insiders in the mid-to-late '90's when a data base company she founded threatened to disrupt enormous profits insiders were making by scamming and fraudulent real estate deals using FHA loan and foreclosure processes. She spent years in court and was eventually exonerated, but also bankrupted.

Her experience may have left her "sensitive" and mildly paranoid, BUT she has still been way ahead of the curve, especially in the early 2000's, when she clearly explained the financial gimmicks used by Wall Street, LBO artists, Enron, the finance industry, and Washington insiders. There were very few like her back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=9o30gNfPq_k#!

a group of real estate assholes tricked her into spending all her $$$ to defend herself... beating her psyche into a state of paranoia... okay... but...

why sell out to low rent doom mongers like prison planet? why not move upscale to elite doomer mongers like zerohedge?

oh, wait.. she already has...

[dropthatcash]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Great interview, thanks for posting. Catherine Austin Fitts is very prescient - I started reading her in 2000, and she was the first I know of to talk about the "tapeworm", predatory economy the U.S. had become. Lots of bloggers now talk or write about how money has been sucked up from the middle class to the 1% over the last 30 years, via financial chicanery. But back in 2000, Catherine was one of the unique few addressing this issue.\

If one were to analyze the living conditions rather than absolute wealth of the top 1% and the bottom 10% over the last 200 years, it's the poor that have had the largest increase in standard of living. 200 years ago only the richest would have traveled beyond their own state, now you'd be hard pressed to find someone that hasn't at least crosses the country.

Today's wealthy eat no better than those of 200 years ago but the poor in capitalist economies haven't faces starvation for a couple hundred years, eat strawberries in February, Ice-cream in July and FRESH meat anytime they desire.

200 years ago less than 1% had access to great entertainment. Today even knuckle dragging losers have a $600 smart phone in their pocket and all the distractions their hearts desire at their finger tips. The rich haven't any better class of devices to use than the poor.

200 years ago only the 1/10 of 1% could afford to send a timely message to family 200 miles away. Today the poor can call the other side of the planet and talk in real time for free (skype) or near free on most cell phone plans, the rich can do no better.

Today the poor have access to the best information and knowledge (not that they want it) from experts on any given topic, the rich can do no better.

Today's poor live and travel in climate controlled housing and heated autos, even the rich of 200 years ago froze their pompous asses off riding in a slow moving carriage.

Those decrying the 1% are simple minded morons easily led by manipulators serving their own self interests. There's never been a better time to be poor than right now. What do the wealthy do anyway, Work! Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates worked they're entire lives even though they each had plenty of money. If you gave the poor that same money they'd sit at home on their lazy asses, squander the money (but on more expensive trash) and complain anyway.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

There’s been a lot of “Let them eat cake” here lately. Hopefully, itulip is not turning into Readers Digest.

From the April issue….

1. We're better off right now. Compared with fifty years ago the average human now earns nearly three times more (adjusted for inflation) money, buries two thirds fewer children and can expect to live one third longer. It is hard to find any region of the world that is worse off now than it was fifty years ago.

2. Urban living is a good thing. City dwellers take up less space, use less energy, and have less impact on natural co-systems than rural dwellers. Over half the people on the planet live in cities and occupy less than 3% of the land mass of the globe.

3. Poverty is nose-diving. Yes, the rich are getting richer but the poor are doing much better. Between 1980 and 2000, the poor doubled their consumption. The Chinese are ten times richer and live 25 years longer than only 50 years ago. Nigerians are twice as rich and live nine more years. And the percentage of the world's people living in absolute poverty has dropped by over half. The UN says poverty has dropped more in the past 50 years than the previous 500! That is astounding.

4. The important stuff all costs less. We are richer, healthier, taller, cleverer, longer-lived, and freer than we've ever been in the four most basic human needs: food, clothing, fuel and shelter.

5. The environment is better off than you think. In the US rivers, lakes and seas, plus our air, is getting cleaner all the time. A car emits less pollution traveling at full speed today than a parked car did in leaks alone in 1970.

6. Shopping fuels innovation. Even allowing for the millions who do live in abject poverty on planet earth our own generation has access to more calories, watts, horsepower, gigabytes, square feet, air miles, food per acre, miles per gallon, and money than any generation who lived before us. And the more we specialize the exchange, the better off we'll become. Free markets are making the globe better.

7. Global trade enriches out lives. The global economic situation, in real life, is improving the world and how we live in it. Again, freedom is having a huge impact.

8. The good old days weren't. Some argue that tranquility, simplicity, sociability and spirituality have been lost in the modern world. This is, says Ridley, "rose-tinted nostalgia and is generally confined to the wealthiest people. The biggest-ever experiment in back-to-the-land hippie lifestyle is now known as the Dark Ages."

9. Oil is not running out. Storms are not getting worse and great ideas just keep coming. We can solve our problems and this current depression is not nearly as depressing as some of us have made it.


Maybe a a dose of Richard Wolff is needed.

First posted by Rajiv back in 2009...

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/comme...m_Preview.html

[don]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Readers Digest.

From the April issue….

+1

has everything but the old chestnut, "the average American is living better today than the richest king of antiquity!"

[flintlock]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Prosperity has always been measured relative to the previous generations, usually those generations within recent memory. Compared to 200 years ago, yes, much improved lot for all. Compared to my father's generation, the results are mixed. We do have more stuff, but seem to lack the stability his generation had. Healthcare costs were negligible, jobs were more stable, society a bit more sane. But then they couldnt help you with your clogged arteries either. I think the times ahead are what will become the most striking contrast to the last 50 years. These are the good old days I'm afraid.

[dropthatcash]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

Prosperity has always been measured relative to the previous generations, usually those generations within recent memory. Compared to 200 years ago, yes, much improved lot for all. Compared to my father's generation, the results are mixed. We do have more stuff, but seem to lack the stability his generation had. Healthcare costs were negligible, jobs were more stable, society a bit more sane. But then they couldnt help you with your clogged arteries either. I think the times ahead are what will become the most striking contrast to the last 50 years. These are the good old days I'm afraid.

The memory is fond of places the mind has never been too.

[coolhand]

Re: Catherine Austin Fitts on the budget, gold and diggin' a well

a group of real estate assholes tricked her into spending all her $$$ to defend herself... beating her psyche into a state of paranoia... okay... but...

why sell out to low rent doom mongers like prison planet? why not move upscale to elite doomer mongers like zerohedge?

oh, wait.. she already has...

MM-

Assuming you agree with EJ on his points on Peak Cheap Oil, & with an understanding of the current structure of the world & its finance system, & the role of oil in agriculture & transportation, I guess I am interested in hearing how you expect this movie to end...