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

[c1ue]

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

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.

Actually I disagree with that. 200 years ago, rich people ate badly - at least healthwise. In fact, what rich people eat today is similar to what middle class people ate then. Poor people, of course, are better off.

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.

I'm not sure I agree with this statement: 200 years ago even the most rich could not afford to have a 4 piece band waiting around for the rich person's entertainment. They had the best of what was available: going to the opera, concerts, etc. but this should not be confused with the scale and accessibility of entertainment today.

As for smartphones - I don't consider a smartphone entertainment.

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.

Yes and no, depending on your definition of poor. Poor in the US, yes. Poor elsewhere, not so.

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 interests. Theirs never been a better time to be poor than right now.

See previous note

[vinoveri]

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.

Speaking of paranoia, found this site to be of particular interest - although cognitive dissonance continues to force me to discount the message/view that Plutocrats rule the world, sovereign states are simply administrative districts of the overlords, and politicians and corporate managment are the administrators (and the fact that if what Vrabel represents is true, seems rather hopeless ... yet liberating in a "nothing left to lose" kind of way).



http://www.csper.org/renaissance-20.html

[flintlock]

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

As for smartphones - I don't consider a smartphone entertainment.

Oh just admit it, you stay up late playing Angry Birds!

[Blindweb]

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

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

Itulip...the short-bus of the peak oil caravan?

Hard for me to get specific since I only peruse the headlines here; similarly on ZH and prison planet. From what I remember you guys (I will stereotype by group since the other sites are stereotyped by group) are way behind people like John Michael Greer and Dmitry Orlov when it comes to the real impact of peak oil. Billions are going to die, that is certain.
Do very powerful people realize this, realize that cutting the population to 10% would alleviate the hydrocarbon problem for some time, and also have the balls to take action? I don't have no freak'n clue. Is Katherine Austin Fits paranoid? Don't know. I do know she gives at least one level better advice than Itulip. I'd say Alex Jones, Mish, Denninger < ZH, Itulip, Chris Martenson < John Michael Greer, Orlov

[BadJuju]

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

Could you outline why billions would die in a peak cheap oil scenario? I do not think you really understand the nature of a peak cheap oil crisis or even the scenario posited by the Arch-Druid which is similar.

[Thailandnotes]

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

Any itulip boots on the ground there in WA?

How much is a pair of boots?

1 bedroom apartment?

Every story I read makes it seem like the gold rush.

[doom&gloom]

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

Itulip...the short-bus of the peak oil caravan?

Hard for me to get specific since I only peruse the headlines here; similarly on ZH and prison planet. From what I remember you guys (I will stereotype by group since the other sites are stereotyped by group) are way behind people like John Michael Greer and Dmitry Orlov when it comes to the real impact of peak oil. Billions are going to die, that is certain.
Do very powerful people realize this, realize that cutting the population to 10% would alleviate the hydrocarbon problem for some time, and also have the balls to take action? I don't have no freak'n clue. Is Katherine Austin Fits paranoid? Don't know. I do know she gives at least one level better advice than Itulip. I'd say Alex Jones, Mish, Denninger < ZH, Itulip, Chris Martenson < John Michael Greer, Orlov

Anyone who believes that Orlov & Greer are smarter than EJ, and that billions upon billions will be served up to death by starvation, well, they clearly are NOT getting the message out of this site -- thats for sure. Then again, with 13 posts since 2009, I believe that his time on this site has clearly been limited. Maybe the arch-druid has him under mind-control?

[BadJuju]

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

Anyone who believes that Orlov & Greer are smarter than EJ, and that billions upon billions will be served up to death by starvation, well, they clearly are NOT getting the message out of this site -- thats for sure. Then again, with 13 posts since 2009, I believe that his time on this site has clearly been limited. Maybe the arch-druid has him under mind-control?

To be fair, Greer doesn't forecast that either as far as I know. He has a forecast that isn't all that dissimilar from EJ's with regards to these things.

Any itulip boots on the ground there in WA?

Every story I read makes it seem like the gold rush.

I have been really interested in moving there myself.

[doom&gloom]

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

By WA does he mean WA State in the US, or WA as in Western Australia? I am in WA state myself.

[lektrode]

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

By WA does he mean WA State in the US, or WA as in Western Australia? I am in WA state myself.

since we seem to be talking about oz and miners wages - but hell, for 100g's/year i'd be a security guard too! - i'm guessing the question from thai is on relative prices in aus

but prices in WA state are getting up there too - esp since they had costco, et al lobby for 'privatizing' the booze biz - and just look how much THAT just cost ya:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...117805522.html

"You see something over there that costs $20, and when you get up to the cash register, it's $28," said Matt Phillips, a Longview, Wash., resident who was on his weekly trip across the Columbia River to buy alcohol in Rainier. He bought a fifth of Windsor Canadian whiskey for $19.95 that sells for about $24.50 back home.
Washington is the 33rd state to fully privatize liquor sales, but it is believed to be the first to do so since immediately after the end of Prohibition. That is turning the state into a rare study of how—or how not—to manage such a transition at a time when several other states are weighing exiting the liquor business.

methinks this is just another example of 'privatize the profit and socialize the cost'
(read: why i'd rather buy booze at state-run packies, at least WE The People get the profit)

sorry to digress....
BTW - whats gasoline upto over there in WA/SEA area, anyway?
and how about west oz?
we're upto 423-443 again, for reg.

or: just exactly like i thot would happen: the o'man mumbles something about 'release from strategic reserve' in may - so the herd wont freak out about their summer drive-a-thons to dizzyland, books the hotels etc and hits the road, just as prices start jak'n up again - and looky here: its just after laborday and BOOM!!!!

prices launch again = just like last year....

good thing we got 'friends in washington' to help out us little guys, huh?

[don]

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

Fitts re-states her take on where the TBTFs are going next . . .

jump ahead to the 2nd half

[doom&gloom]

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

the high cost of alcohol is a HUGE tax increase on it when the state was forced to give up their monopoly liquor stores. They responded by jerking the taxes WAAAYYYY up.

Gas her is around $4.20 or so i think, and we have high gas taxes.

[cobben]

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?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.



CA Fitts understands very well what's going on, she was after all in on the very beginnings of the mortgage bezzle (read this, her story! please . . . ) and "prisons for profits", and a few other less nice things.

Another question might be, to what extent will those "trillions of dollars that have been amassed offshore" in the form of fraudulent securities really come back to the US to roost, or will they be swapped out to something else?


QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market


With QE3, we are essentially being bought out with our own money…and unemployment is being used to facilitate this process in a very clever manner. Monetary inflation is currently being offset by labor deflation. The way you avoid collapse is by printing money and stealing assets. The way you avoid inflation is with labor deflation.
– Catherine Austin Fitts
. . .

So, it looks like the Fed decision a few weeks ago to buy $40 billion a month in mortgage paper is the ultimate plan to clear the market once and for all of fraudulent mortgages, mortgage backed securities and related derivatives. This means Fannie and Freddie will be bailed out and winding down through the back door. This means the big banks may be paid in full for your mortgage. It also means your pension fund assets will not be marked to market – at the price of debasing the purchasing power of your assets and benefits.

The Fed is now where mortgages go to die. Thousands of mortgages on homes that do not exist or on homes that have more than one “first” mortgage are now going to the Fed to disappear. Thousands of multifamily and commercial mortgages will be bought up as well. As this happens, trillions of dollars that have been amassed offshore will be free to come back into the US to buy up and reposition land, farmland, residential and commercial real estate and other tangibles.

With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure.

QE3 proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the extent of the fraud was as bad as I said it was. You can count up the bailouts and QE1, QE2, QE3 the numbers speak for themselves. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan.
. . .

[jk]

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

some of fitts' ideas, as well as my own "matrix" model of corporations and financial interests as software machines taking over the world, also fit with what chris hedges has been saying about the evolution of the corporatocracy towards a kind of debt-based neo-feudalism.

this interview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vteQn...layer_embedded

was recently posted by jesse at his crossroadscafe blog.

[cobben]

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

some of fitts' ideas, as well as my own "matrix" model of corporations and financial interests as software machines taking over the world, also fit with what chris hedges has been saying about the evolution of the corporatocracy towards a kind of debt-based neo-feudalism.

I tend to think that CA Fitts was pushed to or slightly over the edge by her experiences, and in later days sees too much coordinated evil design where there may be "only" massively corrupt disorder.

Armstrong maintains that no-one in a position of power these days has any idea at all what they are really doing, they are all just hanging on for the ride as long as they can.

Now, which various and different sorts of fraud might the ECB be monetizing? I would guess a fantastic mix of all forms hitherto known to man, and then some new ones. This will probably never ever be fully sorted out either.




The ECB - EUR22 Trillion Is Missing




. . .

“Recognition of assets and liabilities
An asset or liability is only recognized in the Balance Sheet when it is probable that any associated future economic benefit will flow to or from the ECB, substantially all of the associated risks and rewards have been transferred to the ECB, and the cost or value of the asset or the amount of the obligation can be measured reliably.”

So there is the rationale, like it or not, but then where are these assets/liabilities counted? We are talking about $21.032 trillion in assets here and $22.631 trillion in liabilities which are larger numbers that all of the GDP of Europe. We can surmise that the ECB does not count these loans, securitizations and collateral as they belong to a given nation or a bank guaranteed by the nation or the securitization is guaranteed by some country but the rub is the country doesn’t count them either. When a European nation reports out its debt to GDP ratio I knew that they did not count contingent liabilities and I knew that government backed bank bonds were not included and I knew that regional debt guaranteed by the government was not included but this, and the sheer size of it, had lain underneath everyone’s radar.

Think of it; twenty-two trillion dollars worth of assets and liabilities and accounted for nowhere.

. . .

You know, these are not blue fairies or gnomes or elves that have gone missing. These are twenty-two trillion dollars ($22 trillion) of loans and securitizations and mortgages that are found and accountable for by no one. These are real assets and real liabilities that have been turned into cash by the ECB and it causes me to wonder just how accurate the Money Supply numbers are for Europe with this amount of cash being pumped into the system. I also wonder what anyone’s real balance sheet looks like and I wonder what kinds of losses are being incurred and by whom. To be quite forthright, and in my opinion, this seems to me not just the rigging of the game or the gaming of the system but something far past that; something out beyond the realm of the credible and of real world experiences.

This is what we are investing in when we buy European bonds? This is where we are putting our client’s money? I don’t know; they may have gone mad but I have not.
Have you?

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.”

-Mahatma Gandhi