"JFK's Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve"

"JFK's Executive Order 11100 Abolishing the Federal Reserve"

by John P. Curran

“Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution specifically says that Congress is the only body that can "coin money and regulate the value thereof." The US Constitution has never been amended to allow anyone other than Congress to coin and regulate currency. So what’s the Federal Reserve?

In 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich, then Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, in collusion with representatives of the European central banks, devised a plan to pressure and deceive Congress into enacting legislation that would covertly establish a private central bank. This bank would assume control over the American economy by controlling the issuance of its money. After a huge public relations campaign, engineered by the foreign central banks, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was slipped through Congress during the Christmas recess, with many members of the Congress absent. President Woodrow Wilson, pressured by his political and financial backers, signed it on December 23, 1913. The act created the Federal Reserve System, a name carefully selected and designed to deceive. "Federal" would lead one to believe that this is a government organization. "Reserve" would lead one to believe that the currency is being backed by gold and silver. "System" was used in lieu of the word "bank" so that one would not conclude that a new central bank had been created.

In reality, the act created a private, for profit, central banking corporation owned by a cartel of private banks. The Federal Reserve Bank, a.k.a Federal Reserve System, is a Private Corporation. Black's Law Dictionary defines the "Federal Reserve System" as: "A Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong and to which state chartered banks may belong. Membership rules require investment of stock and minimum reserves." Privately-owned banks own the stock of the FED. Who owns the FED? The Rothschilds of London and Berlin; Lazard Brothers of Paris; Israel Moses Seif of Italy; Kuhn, Loeb and Warburg of Germany; and the Lehman Brothers, Goldman, Sachs and the Rockefeller families of New York. Did you know that the FED is the only for-profit corporation in America that is exempt from both federal and state taxes? The FED takes in trillions of dollars per year tax free! The banking families listed above get all that money.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave Congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Any one person or any closely knit group who has a lot of money has a lot of power. Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create money. Imagine the power these people would have. This is exactly what the privately owned FED is!

An often overlooked aspect of John F. Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

When Kennedy signed this Order, it returned to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, the Constitutional power to create and issue currency- money - without going through the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This means that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there. As a result, more than $4 billion in United States Notes were brought into circulation in $2 and $5 denominations. $10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated.

It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America. Kennedy knew that if the silver-backed United States Notes were widely circulated, they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve Notes. This is a very simple matter of economics. The USN was backed by silver and the FRN was not backed by anything of intrinsic value. Executive Order 11110 should have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level (virtually all of the nearly $20 trillion in federal debt has been created since 1963) if LBJ or any subsequent President were to enforce it. It would have almost immediately given the U.S. Government the ability to repay its debt without going to the private Federal Reserve Banks and being charged interest to create new "money". Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S.A. the ability to, once again, create its own money backed by silver and realm value worth something.

President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the United States Notes he had issued were immediately taken out of circulation. Federal Reserve Notes continued to serve as the legal currency of the nation. According to the United States Secret Service, 99% of all U.S. paper "currency" circulating in 1999 are Federal Reserve Notes. It seems very apparent that President Kennedy challenged the "powers that exist behind U.S. and world finance."

Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money. The Latin phrase, “Cui bono” ("To whose benefit?," literally "as a benefit to whom?”), is frequently applied in determining motive for a crime. Ask yourself, who had the most to lose if Kennedy had lived, and who benefited the most from Kennedy’s assassination? The answer is the same to both questions."

- http://rense.com/general76/jfkvs.htm

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"No man did more to expose the power of the FED than Louis T. McFadden, who was the Chairman of the House Banking Committee back in the 1930s. In describing the FED, he remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on June 10, 1932: "Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the Government of the United States and he people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."

Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions, departments, or agencies. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully placed upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions.

The FED basically works like this: The government granted its power to create money to the FED banks. They create money, then loan it back to the government charging interest. The government levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt. On this point, it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve Act and the sixteenth amendment, which gave congress the power to collect income taxes, were both passed in 1913. The incredible power of the FED over the economy is universally admitted. Some people, especially in the banking and academic communities, even support it. On the other hand, there are those, such as President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, that have spoken out against it. His efforts were spoken about in Jim Marrs' 1990 book "Crossfire":

"Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks. In a comment made to a Columbia University class on Nov. 12, 1963, ten days before his assassination, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy allegedly said: "The high office of the President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the American's freedom and before I leave office, I must inform the citizens of this plight. In this matter, John Fitzgerald Kennedy appears to be the subject of his own book... a true "Profile of Courage."

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Executive Order 11110

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended — (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made."

JOHN F. KENNEDY
THE WHITE HOUSE
June 4, 1963

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Once again, Executive Order 11110 is still valid. According to Title 3, United States Code, Section 301 dated January 26, 1998: The 1974 and 1987 amendments, added after Kennedy's 1963 amendment, did not change or alter any part of Kennedy's EO 11110. A search of Presidential Directives has shown no reference to any alterations, suspensions, or changes to EO 11110."

- http://www.lust-for-life.org/

Gregory Mannarino, "Critical Updates: Retail Sales Crushed! Bitcoin Breaks 20K, Gold, Silver, Dollar, More!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/16/20:

"Critical Updates: Retail Sales Crushed! 

Bitcoin Breaks 20K, Gold, Silver, Dollar, More!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Handing Out Candy in a Playground"

"Handing Out Candy in a Playground"

By Bill Bonner

WEST RIVER, MARYLAND – “It feels like 1999,” says a friend. “Then, it was the dot-coms trading at ridiculous prices. Now, it’s everything. At the office yesterday, lunch was delivered by DoorDash. Friends who come to Baltimore frequently use Airbnb to find a place to stay. Unlike many of the dot-coms of 1999, these hip, new companies are operating in the real world and generating real revenues. But they’re not making any money. They lose money. That is, they destroy wealth, they don’t create it. That’s what happens when it costs more to provide a service or a product than you get from selling it. Not only do you lose money, but capital is wasted… and lost forever.

Das Kapital is our subject today… and tomorrow, too. And our hypothesis is that just as bad money drives out good money (Gresham’s Law), bad capital destroys good capital (Bonner’s Law). Capital is what creates wealth. It is yesterday’s achievements. It is savings. It is factories, banks, markets, patents, machines, highways, knowledge, skills, pipelines, and depots. Capital is what makes one country rich and another poor. And real capital is what the geniuses at the Federal Reserve are now destroying. So, let’s look more closely…

Gamblers Win: The trouble with Airbnb, DoorDash, and hundreds of others is not just that they’re losing money… but that their business models will probably never make any money. They can increase sales. But if they try to widen their margins, competitors take away their market share.

This is also the problem with Elon Musk’s Tesla. It made headlines by being a big, bold mover… first and foremost in the electric car market. But it’s not like Amazon. People who want a new toaster oven can turn to Amazon to find the best deal at the best price. But they can’t turn to Tesla to find the best electric car.

For most consumers, buying an auto… or even buying lunch… is worth spending a little time in order to find what you want at the lowest price. And now that the major automakers are making electric cars, too, Tesla is just one of many different choices. And it has many competitive disadvantages (lack of distributors… fewer service networks… etc.) That doesn’t stop investors from believing that they can make a buck by buying TSLA or any of the other fast-moving stocks of today.

In the last few days, both Airbnb and DoorDash have sold shares to raise money (to cover their losses). And both new share offerings soared soon after making early investors billions of dollars in profits. The gamblers made money. But did the world gain capital? Or did it lose it? Is the world better off when investors provide capital to capital-destroying enterprises?

Sharp Drop: And here, we turn to Bloomberg. For while the sleek, rich hustlers are making money by trading stocks in companies that lose capital, the average person, who never had much of it in the first place, is running out of the little he had…

"Americans’ cash cushions have been declining for months, most acutely among low-income households, underscoring the already-precarious financial situation of the millions of people who may soon lose their jobless benefits. The median household checking account balance surged by 65% after the arrival of stimulus checks in April, formally known as Economic Impact Payments, but balances have steadily declined since May, according to a report published Wednesday by the JPMorgan Chase Institute.

[…]

JPMorgan Chase Institute, part of the biggest U.S. bank, estimates 9.4 million people are on track to lose their unemployment benefits at the end of the month without congressional action. The vast majority of those people are receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program that offers jobless benefits to those not traditionally eligible like gig workers."

When the jobless benefits expire, what happens? Their spending will “drop sharply,” say the experts.

Fake-Money Package: So what to do about that? Don’t worry, Dear Reader, the feds are on the case. Here’s NBC News: "Lawmakers are trying to hammer out an agreement by Friday, when Congress hits the deadline to pass legislation to keep the government funded. Leaders from both parties hope to attach the Covid-19 aid package to the government funding bill. "We're not leaving, I assure you. We're not leaving until we finish this package," McConnell, R-Ky., promised. The “package,” of course, is full of money. And Dear Readers will accuse us of beating a dead horse when we point out that the feds have no money to put in the package.

But this nag is not dead… Far from it. Instead, it is prancing around in front of us… full of life. Who doesn’t believe that giving money is not only a good idea… but necessary? What economist doesn’t tell you that when the economy goes limp, you put some starch in it by increasing “demand?” And what politician won’t tell you that he is providing “relief to hard-working American families” by printing up walking-around money and handing it out all over town?

But what if they’re hard at work… say, for DoorDash… or the Small Business Administration? Or what if they are not working at all? Like a dirty old man heading for a playground, the feds are preparing to hand out more candy. But will it make the kids better off? Or will it just rot their teeth? We will see tomorrow…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com

"How It Really Is"

 

And something else Grandma themed...

Full screen recommended.

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/16/20"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 12/16/20"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

DEC 16, 2020 - 9:23: "FDA Approves First Rapid At-Home COVID Test, Merkel Pushes To Extend Holiday Lockdown: Live Updates"

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Dec. 16, 2020 

By David Leonhardt

"Good morning. The U.S. again stands virtually alone in the severity of its outbreak. Down over there. Up over here. It’s happening again: For the second time this year, the United States has fallen behind nearly every other country in combating the virus.

The U.S. was not alone in suffering a resurgence this fall. Much of the world did. But many other countries responded to that surge with targeted new restrictions and, in a few cases, with an increase in rapid-result testing. Those measures seem to be working. Worldwide, the number of new cases has fallen over the past week.

In some countries, the declines are large: more than 50 percent over the past month in Belgium, France, Italy, Kenya and Saudi Arabia; more than 40 percent in Argentina and Morocco; more than 30 percent in India and Norway.

And in the U.S.? The number of new cases has risen 51 percent over the past month. The causes are not a mystery. The U.S. still lacks a coherent testing strategy, and large parts of the country continue to defy basic health advice. One example is Mitchell, a small South Dakota city, where deaths have spiked recently - including the loss of a beloved high school coach. Yet anti-mask protesters continue to undermine the local response.

Among their messages at a recent City Council meeting, as Annie Gowen of The Washington Post reported: “Positivity defeats the virus.”

Europe offers a telling contrast. Several European countries put new restrictions in place over the past month, and they made a difference, as you can see in the chart above. Still, the leaders of those countries remained unsatisfied with the progress - and announced further measures in recent days. London closed pubs and restaurants today. The Netherlands has shut gyms, cinemas, schools and nonessential shops until Jan. 19. Germany - a country that loves its Christmas rituals - is locking down for Christmas.

Parts of the U.S. have taken some measures, like requiring masks and limiting indoor dining. And cases here have leveled off in recent days. If anything, though, that’s further evidence that people are not powerless in the face of the virus. Reducing its spread - and the widespread death that will otherwise occur in coming months - is entirely possible.

“America’s outbreaks, reaching from California to Florida, are the result of the public and the country’s leaders never taking the virus seriously enough and, to the extent they did, letting their guard down prematurely,” German Lopez of Vox recently wrote. As Jaime Slaughter-Acey, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said, “It’s a situation that didn’t have to be.”

For more: Full shutdowns are often not necessary, The Times’s Yaryna Serkez explains. Sharply reducing the number of people in indoor spaces can have a huge effect."

 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Dec. 16, 2020 7:52 AM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 73,588,900 

people, according to official counts, including 16,771,562 Americans.

At least 1,636,800 have died.

  Dec. 16, 2020 7:52 AM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

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"The COVID Tracking Project"

Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 

hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.

- https://covidtracking.com/

"Trump's 136 Special Powers if State of National Emergency Declared and Insurrection Act Invoked"

Michael Lewis, 

"Trump's 136 Special Powers if State of National 

Emergency Declared and Insurrection Act Invoked"

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Related:

"Trump at the Rubicon: The Insurrection Act"

"This Friday (December 18th) Will Be One Of The 

Most Important Days Of This Country’s History"

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"Suicide of a City"

"Suicide of a City"

by Jim Rickards

"I updated my economic forecast last month to include a recession in the first quarter of 2021, based on the reemergence of lockdowns. It was one of those forecasts I hoped I’d be wrong about. Yet, all of the news since then confirms its accuracy. With governors like New York State’s Andrew Cuomo, you can take it to the bank.

Cuomo has banned all indoor dining in New York City due to the rise in COVID-19 cases, starting today. But, the state’s contact tracing data reveal that restaurants and bars account for only 1.43% of recent infections. So Cuomo is destroying the city’s restaurant industry to prevent a negligible rise in cases, an industry that’s still reeling from the previous lockdown. Why?

Don’t Just Stand There! Politicians always have to be seen to be doing something. Whether it makes sense or not is irrelevant; what they care about is the appearance of doing something. I call it the Andrew Cuomo syndrome. The head of the New York State Restaurant Association argues the ban “makes little sense based on the state’s own numbers, and to make matters worse, we are offered no plan for survival to get through this shutdown.” “The government is shutting us down without actually justifying it with hardcore facts," says one restaurant owner adding, “We didn’t do anything to deserve a complete destruction of our business.”

But it’s not all bad news. Take-out, delivery and outdoor dining will still be allowed in the Big Apple. And who doesn’t want to dine outdoors in NYC in winter?

Meanwhile, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is now raising the possibility of a "full shutdown" of the entire city. You can only imagine the economic impact of shutting down entirely. But locking down everything would be good news to Bill Gates.

Lockdowns Into 2022: He says bars and restaurants nationwide should “sadly” be closed for the next four to six months, and lockdowns should continue into 2022. But then again, Bill Gates doesn’t have to make a living as a waiter or bartender. No skin off his nose.

The problem is that Gates lives in an elite bubble where life is wonderful whether there's a pandemic or not. He's out of touch with everyday Americans and others around the world who make their living as bus drivers, bartenders, waiters, hair stylists, boutique store clerks and a thousand other jobs that make up 50% of all jobs and 45% of U.S. gross domestic product. Only an out of touch elite could support shutting down the economy and not realize you would destroy that economy and the jobs that go with it.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, the Gates Foundation took a leading role in funding research and regurgitating conventional wisdom from the medical establishment about the need for lockdowns. But it turns out that lockdowns don't stop the spread of the virus.

The Cycle of the Virus: There are studies from 30 different countries around the world. Some had severe lockdowns, while others imposed relatively little restrictions, like Sweden. Here in the U.S., some states imposed hard lockdowns (New York), while others were more lax. South Dakota didn’t lock down at all. But all their experiences with the virus were basically the same. It hits, it runs wild for about eight to 10 weeks, and peaks at four or five weeks. After 10 weeks, it’s largely gone.

There could be another wave months later, but that eight to 10-week pattern is amazingly uniform, lockdown or no lockdown. There is no evidence that lockdowns stop the spread of the virus. I know that’s an unpopular opinion. I know that’s not politically correct. I don’t care. The science backs me up.

The China Model: It’s not that an extreme lockdown couldn’t work. If you mobilized half the population to keep an eye on the other half and imposed martial law, that would have some effect. But that’s not the real world. You can’t do that in the United States or in many places in the world outside of China. We wouldn’t tolerate it.

Most immunologists' and epidemiologists' views are being suppressed by the media, while a few who favor lockdowns are being heard and embraced by the politicians. The politicians know even less than the celebrity "experts" who have been consistently wrong.

Now that the disease is spreading again, lockdowns are being reimposed and family celebrations of the Holidays are being squashed. Despite all of the medical uncertainty, there are two things we can be certain of. The first is that the lockdown won't halt the spread. The second is that the lockdown will crush the economy. Lockdowns are extremely good at destroying the economy.

$2 Trillion of Lost Output: There will be a recession in the first quarter of 2021 because of these lockdowns. You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to say that they’re going to cause another recession. The economy is going to end the year down about eight or nine percent from where it ended 2019. In a $22 trillion economy, that’s almost $2 trillion of lost output. And that’s assuming things don’t get much worse from here, which they may.

In the second quarter, the conventional wisdom at the time, what I call the happy talk was, “Yes, they closed all these restaurants, but they’ll reopen. And yes, they laid off all these workers, but we’ve got payroll protection plan loans and increased unemployment benefits. Everything will reopen in July and August and everything will be back to normal, there’ll be massive amounts of pent up demand,” et cetera.

At the time, I said that was nonsense, and the data has since shown that it was nonsense. Many of these restaurants never reopened. Many that did survive could barely make ends meet. Now they’re facing new lockdowns, which will be the final nail in the coffin for many. We’re going to have even more businesses fail, with permanent job losses, permanent failures, bankruptcies and defaulted loans.

Too Little, Too Late: My expectation is that we’re not going to see big relief bills. Some relief package will likely pass, of maybe $1 trillion. $1 trillion used to be real money, but now it almost seems like a starting place for budget negotiations. But it won’t be enough to make a significant difference.

Meanwhile, the Fed’s out of bullets, with interest rates at zero. They printed $3 trillion, but it didn’t do any good - nor will it. They could print three trillion more; it won’t make a difference. Banks take the money and just put it back to the Fed as excess reserves. It just sits there.

Looking ahead, we’re not going to get back to 2019 levels of output until early 2023 at the earliest. We’re probably not going to get back down to 2019 levels of unemployment until 2025. This reality will eventually catch up with the stock market."

- dailyreckoning.com

"Government Must Print Trillions; Hyperinflation Unavoidable; Eviction Nightmare"

Jeremiah Babe,

"Government Must Print Trillions; Hyperinflation Unavoidable; 

Eviction Nightmare"

"The 'Hannibal Trap' Will Crush Global Wealth"

"The 'Hannibal Trap' Will Crush Global Wealth"

by Epic Economist

"Global wealth has been caught in an insidious trap and the next stock market crash is about to trigger the biggest wealth destruction ever recorded. That's what market expert and writer Egon von Greyerz has recently described. In this video, we are going to analyze his sharp insights and his latest assessment that signals how investors' wealth is doomed to collapse in such a catastrophic manner that resembles Hannibal's battle against the Romans in 217 BC. 

The global investment world is on the verge of being caught by the Hannibal trap. Around 218 BC Hannibal led his troops over the Alps and into Italy. Then he induced the Roman Consul Flaminius and his troops to follow him to Lake Trasimene in Umbria. The Romans followed him and his troops into a narrow valley on the northern shores of the lake. What Romans didn't know was that they were marching towards their own downfall. After they were inside the valley, all sides were blocked. The Carthaginians were ahead of them, the lake was on their right and hills on their left.

Hannibal had hidden part of his light cavalry and his army up in the hills. So when Romans were ambushed into the valley, they were trapped and attacked from both ends with nowhere to escape. So if you're wondering what Hannibal's battle got to do with investors' wealth in the present world, in the author's view, it seems quite evident that they're being led into a fatal trap without even being aware.

The health crisis was a fatal attack on an already impaired global economy. As we are getting closer to the end of an economic era in the world, at this stage, everything that can go wrong will. A widespread viral outbreak certainly fits that picture, since it could not have hit the world at a worse moment. The outbreak was like lighting a match and setting it next to a timebomb. In this case, the timebomb is the global financial system that at this moment is about to explode. 

Since the burst of the crisis, major retailers, several leading businesses in the leisure, travel, and airline industry have been closing by the day and most of them were shut down permanently. Across the globe, hundreds of thousands of small businesses have closed for good and left ravaging effects on their owners' finances. The destruction suffered so far makes the expert defend that the 21st-century economic depression is going to disrupt all levels of society. 

But it's at the very top of the global wealth pyramid that we have the biggest wealth trap in history. According to von Greyerz, there are about 2,200 billionaires in the world. Over the past three years, their capital has grown by a whopping 70% or $4.2 trillion. Their total wealth is now nearing $10.2t. However, the expert alerts that these billionaires could potentially lose at least 90% of their fortunes in the next 5 to 10 years, and not a single one of them is expecting this to happen or have been preparing for it. 

This staggering level of wealth accumulation is being supported by a very weak foundation of debt. In other words, the world hasn’t created any net wealth. Quite the opposite, wealth has just been inflated artificially through credit creation and money printing in the same scale. 

In his analysis, von Greyerz points out that one of the first steps to this tortuous downfall is the total debasement of the currency. Evidently, the path until this point won't be linear. As currencies go down, we will witness hyperinflation first. On top of that, there will be an implosive burst of both the debt bubble and the asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and property.

All of the largest companies in the world are extremely overvalued right now, as he points out these are "fantasy valuations". This is a consequence of governments' and central banks' adoption of money printing policies as a primary economic strategy. This money that is created out of thin air is the same that is used to support the stock market. Therefore, stocks are driven by liquidity, not real value investing. In short, this kind of debt-based liquidity is what has been driving up asset markets.

Now, we are set to a breakdown of extraordinary proportions, with a market correction that will slow down the profits run for years. And during a secular bear market, literally everyone is going to be a loser. Or as the strategist warned: Just like Hannibal slaughtered the Romans, the coming bear market is going to slaughter investors in an epic battle. Just wait and see."

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

Gnomusy (David Caballero), "Footprints On The Sea"

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/15/20:

"The Meltdown Has Not Even Begun"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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- https://markets.businessinsider.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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Daily Update (Dec. 14th to 15th)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Insanity... 

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And now... The End Game...

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Cradled in cosmic dust and glowing hydrogen, stellar nurseries in Orion the Hunter lie at the edge of a giant molecular cloud some 1,500 light-years away. Spanning nearly 25 degrees, this breath-taking vista stretches across the well-known constellation from head to toe (top to bottom). The Great Orion Nebula, the closest large star forming region, is right of center. To its left are the Horsehead Nebula, M78, and Orion's belt stars. Red giant Betelgeuse is at the hunter's shoulder, bright blue Rigel at his foot, and the glowing Lambda Orionis (Meissa) nebula at the far left, near Orion's head. 

Of course, the Orion Nebula and bright stars are easy to see with the unaided eye, but dust clouds and emission from the extensive interstellar gas in this nebula-rich complex, are too faint and much harder to record. In this mosaic of broadband telescopic images, additional image data acquired with a narrow hydrogen alpha filter was used to bring out the pervasive tendrils of energized atomic hydrogen gas and the arc of the giant Barnard's Loop.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101023.html

Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"

"The Meaning Of Life"

by Chet Raymo

"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."

– Erich Fromm

"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"

A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.

As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.

"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.

In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."

- http://www.sciencemusings.com/

"The Only Absolute...:

"Never perceive anything as being inevitable or predestined. 

The only absolute is uncertainty."

- Lionel Suggs

"Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science - by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans - teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us."

- Carl Sagan

"Do What You Can..."

 

The Poet: Mary Oliver, “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field”

“Coming down out of the freezing sky

with its depths of light,

like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,

it was beautiful, and accurate,

striking the snow and whatever was there

with a force that left the imprint

of the tips of its wings - five feet apart -

and the grabbing thrust of its feet,

and the indentation of what had been running

through the white valleys of the snow -

and then it rose, gracefully,

and flew back to the frozen marshes

to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,

in the blue shadows -

so I thought:

maybe death isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us -

as soft as feathers -

that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,

and shut our eyes, not without amazement,

and let ourselves be carried,

as through the translucence of mica,

to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,

that is nothing but light - scalding, aortal light -

in which we are washed and washed

out of our bones.”

- Mary Oliver

The Daily "Near You?"

Florence, Kentucky, USA.

Thanks for stopping by!

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”

- Paulo Coelho

"A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall"

"A Nation Divided Shall Surely Fall"

by Michael Snyder

"It is often said that a house divided will surely fall, and the same thing can now be said for the United States as a whole. If there is anything that this election has made clear, it is the fact that there is little hope of healing the very deep divisions that exist in our country. Most of those on the political left absolutely hate those on the political right, and most of those on the political right absolutely hate those on the political left. But it isn’t as if the two opposing sides are even united. The radical left is absolutely disgusted with “moderate Democrats” such as Joe Biden and is very much looking forward to the day when their “progressive revolution” finally triumphs in America. Meanwhile, the right is hopelessly divided into countless political, religious and economic factions, and there is endless conflict between “conservatives” that are pro-Trump and those that are anti-Trump. Over the past 30 years, not much has actually gotten done in D.C., but what little has been accomplished has almost always involved more spending, more debt and more socialism.

One of the reasons why the United States became such a great nation is because originally we were united by a core set of values and principles. In the beginning, everything was about faith, family and freedom. Our notions of right and wrong were defined by the Christian faith, the family was the most important institution in our society, and early Americans were desperate for freedom after experiencing deep oppression over in Europe.

But now we have completely abandoned all of that. The Christian faith has been relentlessly pushed to the fringes of public life, the traditional family unit is mocked while rampant sexual immorality is celebrated all over America, and with each passing day our freedoms are being eroded even more.

At this point, our Constitution has essentially been relegated to being “just a piece of paper” that sits in the National Archives. It has been trampled on over and over again in recent years, and the courts do not seem to care.In fact, much of the time it is the courts that are doing the trampling.

We have now gotten to a point where our nation is almost ungovernable. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, millions upon millions of Americans did not consider him to be a legitimate president. Then when Donald Trump won the election in 2016, even more Americans did not recognize the legitimacy of his presidency. Of course that trend is only going to intensify now that Biden is being installed as president. According to one brand new survey, a whopping 82 percent of all Trump supporters do not believe that Biden is the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election”…

A strong majority of Donald Trump supporters reject the legitimacy of Joe Biden as President-elect, with many citing election irregularities and the most pervasive censorship campaign in American history in support of Biden on the part of Big Tech companies. A poll released Sunday by CBS News reveals that 82% of self-identifying Trump supporters do not recognize Biden as the “legitimate winner of the 2020 election.”

Of course if the election results were reversed and Donald Trump was given another four years, a similar percentage of Democrats would almost certainly not be willing to recognize the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

No matter who is in the White House from now on, tens of millions of Americans are not going to accept that individual as being legitimate. And thanks to the events of the past several weeks, the election fraud that has been going on for decades in this country has now been exposed for everyone to see. From this point forward, a very high percentage of Americans will not have any faith that our elections are fair. If people don’t believe in the system, it is just a matter of time before it completely fails.

John Adams once made the following statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Today, the American people are neither moral nor religious. Instead, we have evolved into an “idiocracy” that is dominated by power-hungry control freaks.

If you go back and read the extremely eloquent things that our founders had to say in their time, you will quickly realize that the way that we speak and write today is completely different. If they could have traveled to our time and interacted with us, we would have seemed like cavemen to them. Most of us can barely hold conversations with others, and when we do it is mostly just a bunch of unintelligible gibberish. But even though we have been dramatically “dumbed down” over the decades, if we could at least try to get along with one another we could still have a functional society.

Sadly, I have never seen more hatred in our country than I am seeing now, and it just keeps on growing. You would think that Democrats would have an interest in at least trying to pull the country together, but instead they just keep rubbing their “victory” in the faces of their enemies. For example, just consider something that Debra Messing just said: "The “Will & Grace” star - one of Hollywood’s most vocal Trump critics - expressed a desire for the president to “live a long life in prison” in a tweet to her more than 677,000 followers last week. She called Trump “a weak, scared, stupid, inept, negligent, vindictive, narcissistic, criminal” before writing she hoped he became “the most popular boyfriend to all the inmates.”

Can you feel the love in those words? Yes, let the healing begin.

More blood was spilled on the streets of D.C. over the weekend, and the left and the right will continue to go after one another in the weeks and months ahead. We have now entered a period of semi-permanent civil unrest in this country, and what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

If we would return to the values and principles that our nation was founded upon, our future could be very different. But that is not what the American people seem to want. So we will continue to steamroll toward oblivion, and there is no future for our nation if we stay on the road that we are currently on."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"This Friday (December 18th) Will Be One Of The Most Important Days Of This Country’s History"

"This Friday (December 18th) Will Be One Of The 

Most Important Days Of This Country’s History"

by IWB

"As many of you may already know, Trump signed an executive order back on September 12, 2018 that allows sanctions in the event of foreign interference in the election. There’s been a lot of chatter recently of the possibility of Trump invoking the insurrection act to take control in the event that the court failed to enforce accountability and uphold the Constitution. What’s the written deadline for this particular EO? Answer: December 18, 2020.

Source:www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-imposing-certain-sanctions-event-foreign-interference-united-states-election/

Now ask yourselves what happened on December 18th the year before that? Answer: Trump delivered his important national security address.

Source:www.c-span.org/video/?438631-1/president-trump-delivers-national-security-strategy-address

"Needs to be confirmed but the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is alleged to be making an announcement this Friday which 'It’s going to blow the mind of every citizen; there might not be a Joe Biden administration.' I know Trump met up with him this week."

Source: David Atherton, @DaveAtherton20 December 15, 2020

And yet so many of you actually think that Trump will go quietly into the night? I wouldn’t count on it. Have your supplies stocked by December 18th. Things are going to get bumpy. REALLY bumpy."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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A MUST Read:

"Trump at the Rubicon: The Insurrection Act"

Musical Interlude: Genesis, "Land of Confusion"

Genesis, "Land of Confusion"

"How It Really Is"

"The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion." 

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."  

- Frederick Douglass

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates PM 12/15/20"

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

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"The more I see of the monied classes, 

the better I understand the guillotine."

- George Bernard Shaw

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Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/15/20:

"US Economic Crash Worsening Plus Market Updates"

- https://traderschoice.net/

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Updated live.

- https://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary

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- https://markets.businessinsider.com/

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

○

Daily Update (Dec. 14th to 15th)

- http://www.shadowstats.com/

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Insanity... 

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And now... The End Game...

Gregory Mannarino, "Well That Actually $ucked... Congress AGAIN Fails The American People"

Gregory Mannarino,

"Well That Actually $ucked... 

Congress AGAIN Fails The American People"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"If We Falter..."

 

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. 

The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic 

feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."

- John Stuart Mill

"If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, Watch What Happens In 2021"

"If You Thought 2020 Was Bad, 

Watch What Happens In 2021"

by Epic Economist

"If you are thinking that the chaotic 2020 narrative will end after the year is over, we are sorry to inform you that the collapse has just begun. The coming year will be marked by the consequences of the disastrous response to the health crisis, which has shut down businesses economic activity throughout several rounds of government-mandated lockdowns. The damages caused will not be undone overnight. Not even a miraculous vaccine will help us get out of the economic rock bottom our country has fallen into.

The truth is that the scarring done in the job market, the apocalyptic wave of businesses bankruptcies, the astronomical level of accumulated debt in the housing market, and the expiration of federal aid will jeopardize the U.S. economic growth for much longer than one can imagine. Furthermore, with a stock market highly based on speculative stimulus projections, we are about to see much more turmoil in the financial markets over the next months. So, if you think 2020 was bad, wait until you see what's going to happen in 2021. 

Many are under the impression that as we turn the 2020 page, the whole history of a year that went wrong will be left behind us. Unfortunately, this is not the case. When we take a quick look at our economic wounds and our social scenario, it becomes quite evident that there's no way around it. Eventually, our reckoning day will arrive and the many crises that were triggered during this year will have to be faced head-on. 

While the mainstream media is selling us the idea that as soon as the health crisis is under control and a vaccine is widely distributed everything will come back to normal, economists, market strategists, and scholars have been all alerting that the "new normal" will include an unprecedented level of surveillance, government dependency, repression and economic deterioration. In short, nothing will ever be "normal" again. World leaders realized what great opportunity the outbreak was to silently advance their agenda and finally enforce a global financial reset. To do so, they have been counting on policy-makers, who have been issuing measures that expressly contribute to the destruction of the current financial system. 

The "Great Reset" as the World Economic Forum calls it, has started to develop years ago, but never in history, the global population has been so desperate they could promptly accept any solution to ease the financial burden provoked by the current recession. That's why several analysts have warned that the catastrophic economic events of early 2021 will also be used by globalists to justify a shift to a system where almost every aspect of our lives will be unrecognizable. 

The economic and financial downturn we are experiencing could have been completely avoided if more effective action were taken since the start of the crisis. But most of the regulations enacted led businesses to die, people to lose their jobs and fall into poverty. All evidences are there, and yet they chose to do nothing to prevent a major calamity. This indifference to people's suffering isn't a result of harsh circumstances. In fact, it gives us a clear picture of how the intentions of both the elites and governments around the world are perfectly aligned. 

They will continue to push us over the edge. They will continue to crush businesses with lockdowns, and therefore, push millions more out of their jobs, leading many to accumulate debt so that they become inevitably attached and reliant to the system. Moreover, they are letting a hunger and homelessness crisis ravage the lives of our citizens, and in a sense, they are even enabling a potential third wave of contagion knowingly just to get us at our most vulnerable state. Additionally, the stock market is set to crash in the coming months. And when things go south on the stock markets, it is a clear indication that things in the real economy pretty much went from bad to worse. 

At this stage, we're closer to a double-dip recession than to some sort of recovery. In 2020, our most worrying financial problems were unemployment and growing debt, but by early 2021 it can become poverty, famine, and homelessness for millions of us. These three agents combined will be far more fatal than the current virus. What's more, the occurrence of a massive financial crash will cause much more chaos than what we've seen this year. The biggest question is: will mass poverty succeed where the health crisis failed in convincing Americans to give up their liberties in exchange for some stability? That's exactly what the global elites are waiting for. Are you ready for this battle?"

- https://www.epiceconomist.com