RE-POST: Truth exists; only lies are invented.

This Blogpost from Pennyforyourthoughts (May 17th 2011) hits it right on the head. In fact I find it so plausible that I just had to re-post it.


Banker vs Banker - Dominique Strauss Kahn vs Ben Bernanke?
SDR vs US Dollar?
The IMF vs the Federal Reserve?
Banker vs Banker.
This may get ugly.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Saw a picture of him sitting and looking rather miserable.
I imagine a night in a Harlem precinct is a far cry from a $3000.00 a night hotel room.
There seemed a natural kind of justice in that. A poetic justice. I am sure it will be lost on Mr. Kahn.
Oh well, he doesn't get my sympathy.

In yesterday's post I touched on the fact that DSK may have been taken down in a political power struggle over just who will be at the helm of the IMF.

The shifts in the global economic power structure seemed to prelude an end to the practice of giving the IMF’s top job to a European.

Noting the IMF had been very critical of the US. DSK had also instituted changes in the allocation of voting shares


"the IMF overhauled the way it allocates voting shares. China vaulted over nations such as Britain, Germany and France to become the third-biggest shareholder after the United States and Japan. The clout of former European powers such as Belgium was seriously curbed in favour of rising powers such as Brazil. "

I would like to expand on the issues. Issues that may have been behind DSK's takeout.

An interesting article here


The IMF under Dominique Strauss Kahn has been over the past 3 years been planning it’s own currency of reserve. Calling on a currency, called an SDR (special drawing rights) in focus the point that could be the major issue is the SDR bond that allows the IMF to issue bonds that could (and most likely would) compete with US treasuries.
The moment the SDR BOND becomes popular is the exact moment the US dollar loses it’s currency reserve status.

But alas, the guy that was pushing this through finds himself behind bars on what some say are bogus charges.

You could imagine what is at stake. The US dollar itself.
-If Dominique Strauss Kahn was able to pull this off and use the IMF to draw SDR Bonds you will see a dramatic drop in the value of the US debt. ( I do not see this as the real issue because the US is already devaluing their dollar)

- Countries and investors would be buying SDR bonds rather than US treasuries. It will effectively end the USA’s ability to print off the debt.(This is the meat and potatoes of the issue with SDR)

- Was this engineered to keep the US Dollar as the currency of reserve?

Is that the reason Strauss Kahn was taken out?
If the US dollar is no longer the global currency, the reserve currency, how could the US continue on their warpath? How could the US continue to bury all other nations with indebtedness that through their economic policies, the US is deflating away?

Is this the reason as mentioned the US wanted an American at the helm of the IMF?


A quick aside: I see David Cameron is ok with an American at the helm of the IMF. He has suggested looking beyond Europe. Which would on the surface seem an odd position, but, thinking in term of banksters, it isn't.


Here is another article where the writer is making mention of the IMF's war on the US dollar-
Your will find this one quite interesting!

I've been baffled over the past couple years by calls for the IMF to play a greater role in the international economy. Unhappy with the U.S. dollar-dominated global monetary system in place today, officials in China and Russia and some economists have called for the enhanced use of the IMF's SDR as a global currency – the belief being that, backed by an impartial institution, it would be more stable than the greenback, which is governed by national policies crafted to a great degree by the Fed.

The fact that Strauss-Kahn may have tossed away his political career for a hotel maid doesn't give me much confidence in his judgment on issues regarding the life and death of the global economy. Would you rather have Strauss-Kahn or Ben Bernanke making the key decisions that impact the global monetary system? Despite his own failings, I'd put my money on Bernanke

Strauss-Kahn or Ben Bernake? A European or an American? SDR's as global currency or a continuation of the US dollar dominance of the globe?

From the Guardian

Strauss-Kahn allowed his staff earlier this year to attack the US, its main paymaster, for running a bigger budget deficit while others tried to reduce theirs.
He also changed the emphasis of the fund's lending from simply a means to impose neo-liberal capitalism on near-bankrupt victims, to a more sympathetic programme with less micro-management from Washington.
At the IMF's most recent conference in Washington, Strauss-Kahn stressed the failure of western governments to promote job creation as a means of safeguarding social democratic structures. He feared the riots in Athens would spread across Europe.

Was Strauss-Kahn biting the hand that feeds the IMF? Besides the SDR? By allowing the IMF to vocally express their disdain with the US? Job creation is an issue, but, not one that benefits the elite classes of asses. Did Strauss Kahn wish to avoid global collapse of society?

From all I have read over the past few days it is clear, quite clear to me, that DSK was taken out politically. Call it a honey pot, call it a set up, whatever?
Dominique Strauss Kahn was humiliated, worse then he had allowed the IMF to embarrass the US in their public drubbing.
He was removed from leading the IMF, an IMF that was going to use SDR's to challenge US dollar global supremacy.
He bit the hand that fed him. He crossed the Fed.
Bankers vs Bankers.
The fall out shall be interesting

ECONOMY: Bernanke and Friedman II

...it was bound to happen. A second article on Ben Bernanke. This time on the remaining options he has to counter the downbound train called economy.

This time the article featured Ben's three remaining options:

1) Turn on (or speed up) the moneypress
2) Be irresponsible
3) Play Governement

1) Turn on (or speed up) the money press
Ben pressed 600 billion dollars before, bought 2 trillion dollars worth of mortgages and bonds. It didn't help the economy in a structural way. Why should it help now?

2) Be irresponsible
If you are up to your eyeballs in debt it's best to choose for inflation. When money is worth less so will your debts. (But Ben froze the interest rate until 2013 so he kind of shot himself in the foot with this one).

3) Play Governement
The 1930's proved that a direct investment (skipping the banks who would only use the money to polish their financial statements) might be a good idea but only if it is combined with structural reforms of the economy (housing, workforce and government spending)
Ben is F-ed on all three accounts.

The Europeans have been trying to encounter the economic downfall almost similar. The ECB also bought state bonds from the economically weak countries at an alarming rate (without success)

What's next? The Alphaville-blog of the Financial Times suggested that Bernanke should "believe in the Force [inflation]. If you believe it strong enough it will happen......"
Off course this was meant to be a joke but it illustrates the enormous task that lies ahead. It needs a magician to perform the economic miracle.

EUROPEAN CRISIS: The Finnish-Deal and the Pope

The majority of European countries have condemned the Finnish for demanding security before granting a billion Euro loan to Greece..........??

I am done, I don't get it and I am shocked.

The world is going down because every country (and its people) are in debt to eachother without the secutity of payback. Both the US and Europe have major trouble paying the interest alone on loans that never shouldn't have been taken out.
Consequently the Dutch (and other countries) are about to force the Finnish to withdraw their demand for security. ??? What???

Every loan granted needs some sort of security. If I ask the bank for money they will demand security from me. Whether it is my house, my car, my kids whatever they can make money on. If I don't, I don't get my loan, and so it should be.
Why in the hell do governements lend money to other countries when they KNOW IN ADVANCE that the "loan" wil never ever be payed back. (ah off course, it's taxpayers money, so there's unlimited supply)

Meanwhile the Spanish (owing a trillion Euros in total) are paying the Pope 50 million euro's to visit them. Who cares! A lot of people do and I am one of them.
50 million euro's to see the CEO of a religious company that is totally ignorant of the present world is outrageous. The CEO (the pope) was a member of the Hitler Jugend, manned anti-aircraft guns in WWII, shovelled child abuse under the carpet and still thinks the world is flat.

Concluding:
Jutta Urpilainen is the best. You go girl: "Get your money back"!!

ECONOMY: Global Economic Collapse

This one don't need no introduction........kinda self explanatory.....

Anti-Social Driving Behavior: The world upside down

Next week will be "Traffic Ticket Week" because the Dutch governement (short of cash) has decided to take on anti-social driving.
Now, in theory I agree, BUT. Anti-Social Driving Behavior pretty much translates into ticketing the drivers that are constantly horassed by people who have absolutely no clue on how to drive.

As far as I am concerned the real Anti-Social Driving Behavior is among drivers who do the following (and/or Law Enforcement Officers who promote the following):

"Anti-Social (Driving) Behavior"

1) Driving 80-100 km/h on a highway were 120-130 km/h is permitted
2) Trucks overhauling each other, thus causing traffic jams
3) Leaving the access-road onto a highway with less than 100 km/h
4) Driving the left lane with low speed
5) Driving the left lane for no other purpose than taking a left turn after 10 kilometers because you are to afraid to switch lanes
6) Blocking roads with the sole reason to force people to take the toll road
7) The five-lane highway near Utrecht where you are only allowed to drive 90 kn/h
8) A "spitsstrook" that is blocked
9) Roads with speedlimits and cameras just to make money
10) Police Officers with a ticket quota (tax collectors if you ask me)
11) Laser guns and "I'm gonna getcha policemen"
12) Speed camera's that make no sense whatsoever
13) Cars that park, drive themselves (they undermine driving skills)
14) Cars with distance sensors (they undermine driving skills)
15) People who drive so slow that you need to push them to higher speeds
16) Caravans
17) Dutch traffic laws (if you return from the Germany or Belgium border and cross the Dutch border you know what I am talking about...

Cars that are only owned by people with no driving skills whatsoever
1) Toyota Prius
2) Honda Hybrid
3) Any car that resembles a Kya Rio, Daewoo Matiz, Toyota Avensis, Chevrolet Kalos or Opel Astra

Cars that are owned by people that do pick up the pace:
1) Alfa Romeo
2) Chrysler
3) BMW (50% is OK, 50% is a wannebe policeman and is not OK)
4) Audi
5) Girls in BMW Mini's
6) Skoda (larger cars)
7) Volkswagen (larger cars)

MEDIA: Do the Media Take us Seriously?

Based on various news broadcast I heard today I would say, no, the Media do not take us seriously.

THE UNBELIEVABLY DUMB HEADLINES TODAY
1) While the World is on fire the news opened with the message that some hardcore socker fan died in hospital today after being shot. Condolences could be offered on a special website. Really!
What is the importance for the nation to know. Is our live in danger if we don't? Are we loosing our jobs if we don't, is WW3 starting because of his death? I don't think so.....
2) Romania is planning a communist Ceaucescu tour as a tourist attraction
3) A horseman made a good impression on a horse-race (1/4 page front page picture)
4) An article on Homesickness and the negative effects of it
5) A penguin called "Happy Feet" will be brought back to the South Pole
6) The DenHelder (NL) Powerboatrace is relocated to Italy


So what is the relevance to make this headline news, other than taking our minds of the really important stuff like the fact that our PM (Rutte) still couldn't convince the parliament that he is truthfull and honest about the billions of our Euro's that he is about to dump in the black hole coalled Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy (for starters).

The media SHOULD be writing about 215 billion Euro's of our money. 215 billion Euro's translates to over 15,000 Euro's EACH. That's half a years salary that we are coughing up to bail out the financially incompetent!

On what page do you think the 215 billion Euro scam was printed? Exactly, it wasn't!

I definitely agree that nobody can get away with it unless your cover it up.....

POLITICS: Can Anyone take Part?

On my way home from work I was listening to BNR NewsRadio (99.9Mhz) which aired a show called "Peptalk". Usually they propose a statement on a current issue on which listeners can call in to give their opinion. Today was different. It was not so much a statement but more like a question.

Apparently Van Eerdenburg (Director Lowlands Festival) said that the political views of the PVV (Freedom Party) are very similar to the political views of the NSB (German Facist party in the 1930's)

The majority of callers were positive towards Van Eerdenburg but also some callers said it was inapropriate for common people to make public political statements and should leave all politics with the politicians.

I believe these people are ignorant to the fact that politics rule their lives. Everybody should have a say in that. If the opposing parties are not capable (or competent) to fight facistic tendensies than it is to the people to set them straight.

People and businesses recently went out in the street in Syria, Marocco, Palestine, Libye, Irak and Oman protesting their governement and we (the world) supported them.
The same happened in every country somewhere in history, and will happen in the future. We, the people, matter.
Who do you think got rid of Stalin, Mobutu, Bokassa, Idi bmin and Pol Pot (just to name a few)....?

Power to the people!
Every day, in every way!

ECONOMY: Credit Rating

Today I have been looking at the main 4 Credit Rating Agencies. Namely Moody's, Fitch, S&P and Dagong.

All have their personal standards to which they rate. Some are conservative, some are offensive, some are defensive and some are outright political instruments. (Fitch is friends with Sarkozy, FR)

Dagong, is the one I focussed my attention to. Mainly because they have shown insight and are not afraid of stating their calculated opinion. It is a fact that Dagong predicted the downfall of economies long before the others did.

The total debt (debentures) totals to:
European Union EUR -10,245 billion
United States EUR -10,653 billion

The major part of this debt is owned by governements (88%) and the other part (12%) by Banks.
Subsequently this makes economies and countries weak and volnerable.
That is precisely what Dagong reflects in their Global Credit Rating List. Personally I go for their rating, over the rating of western politically influenced rating agencies.

The current situation (-7 days) was as follows:
EUR 218 billion is highly likely to be paid
EUR 9,344 billion is probably being paid back but is under review (If a double dip is imminent furhter downgrades are likely)
EUR 683 billion has the Junk status and is best considered a loss

The United States have been degraded to a Single A status and are considered an equal risk as Estonia, Russia, South Africa and Spain.......

Moody's, S&P and the others will soon realize and follow...

POLITICS: Moral Standards

"I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going mister in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the carwash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don't you feel like you're a rider on a downbound train"

The lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's "Downbound Train" seem surprisingly up to date. The overall mood of the newspapers is a flatline at best.

Some politicians take it a step further and blame the society where they are the ones at fault. that's a major attempt to cover up if you ask me.

e.g. the British who comment on the recent incident. They are shameless and blamed these incidents to the downfall of moral standards....and consequently blamed the people. Who are they kidding? and why doesn't anybody ask the big question: "What is the cause of the downfal of Moral Standards?"
Bruce answered that question partly in 1984: the economy. (But we knew that)

The second part was answered much longer ago by Plato in his book "Politeia". After predefining Referent Malthus' ideas about imperialism Plato comes to the Creation of Class Differences that he thinks should be the basis of civilization. Soon after he comes to the conclusion that the elements of Economy are the same as of the Human Psyche. 1) Rationality, 2)Irrationality and 3)Anger. My point is that the current economic system has evolved from Rational to Irrational. Politics and Narcism have tried to keep it from degrading to Anger by giving the masses what they think they will need to keep quiet, Food and Play.

It is all too obvious that Food prices are outrageous and Play is heavily taxed. Not to mention the idiot programs that aim to please only the lesser IQ's.
Consequently number 3, the peoples Anger, comes next.......

(Economics isn't all that hard if you perceive it as psychology..)

It is a shame that politicians are solely interested in raising their personal bank account while it is the voter that gets crushed by the exact same system that they are forced to believe in.
What kind of behavior can you expect if the politicians are the rolemodel for limitless self endulgence, deception and out right theft.

I believe Alan Greenspan was right in his 1966 paper "Gold and Economic Freedom", in which he described supporters of fiat currencies as "welfare statists" intent on using monetary policies to finance deficit spending.

It all becomes clear why Bernanke was elected. He likes to work the money press....economic crises.....inflation.....and deficit spending!

ECONOMY: Bernanke and Friedman

I came across and article about the economic policy of Ben Bernanke (Fed). According to the article he is a fan of Milton Friedman and thinks he can counter deflation by unlimited money pressing. Now the thing I don't understand is the automatic assumption that world currencies are deflating just because stocks are going down.
Where does he get the impression that a currency is like a container that always holds the same value no matter what? As far as I know it is always a question of question and demand. If nobody wants it, the price goes down. Consequently it has less value, right?

This is exactly where Bernanke lost me, to my opinion it also does not match what Milton Friedman advocated. Namely: Friedman thought that the total amount of money increase in a system must be controlled and must be limited with a fixed percentage p/annum. I can dig that.

According to that same article Ben Bernanke said in 2002: "The American governement has a money-press that can make unlimited money for free".

Additionally he froze the interest rate until 2013 and consequently surrendered his main weapon to control inflation (which is a possible result of unlimited money pressing [Friedman]).

Milton Friedman warned us: Unlimited money can cause inflation in both long and short term.

Why did the Fed surrendered their most valuable weapon?

Newspapers part 4

In today's newspapers

If you closely look at newspapers, their lay-out and so-called news perception, it makes you wonder if the world has really gone mad.

Today I was baffled, or like the british say "flabbergasted", again to a new high....when I saw Frits Bloemendaal present his personal OPINION as genuine news. Frits, please get a column and forever stay way from journalism!

Page one featured articles on the ongoing battle between Samsung and Apple (who cares) and some medieval skull discovered in some church. Both articles mentioned and quoted wannebe experts but none cam to the point. A waste of paper.

The economy pages featured the following:

Bouterse has confiscated all history books in Suriname that mention his link to the murder of 19 members of parliament in the 80's.
At the same time the US is trying to duck the strategic weapon agreement and launched a socalled "plane" that can travel 20K km/h with the sole purpose op dropping bombs anywhere in the world within a 1 hour time frame. I guess this is natural US (paranoid) behavior if you wanna believe China is invading your deadbroke country that it already owns...
Also the Russion and French economy are about to come to a halt and the US trading has again slowed down.

The only positive article was about 4 countries to forbid Short Selling....

Newspapers part 3

Pedofelia

The Oraganization "Martijn" who promotes sexual intercourse with underaged children has, thank god to the political system, managed to get away with sexual child abuse..... Former and current members are not being prosecuted so says the clearly outdated Dutch law.

I can't help but noticing that people have long stopped thinking for themselves and are degenerating to sheeplike creatures.

Newspapers part 2

The Maasstad Hospital

Yesterday the director of the Maasstad Ziekenhuis, mr Paul Smits, has retired his position because he was caught neglecting the fact that his hospital carried the "Klebsiella-bacterie" . He knew this but only came forward two months later after 28 people unnecessarily died.
Consequently he was let go and given a "Golden handshake" worth of Euro 236,000.....!!!!

The amount of infections under his reign has risen to 88 (probable deaths)

I believe Pauls Smits should be prosecuted for pre-meditated murder (or manslaughter at least).

(This was on page 5, page 1 featured an article about somebody finding a molar in a burger) go figure.....

Newspapers part 1

Today in various newspapers:

The value of the Swiss frank has increased even more while the Euro keeps on dropping. The Bank of England says UK growth will be less than expected and the Bank of Ireland is seeking help (again). In the mean time the German Commerzbank saw its profit plummet with 93% because of the Greeks and China is expected not to be able to rescue us all. On top of that it was reported that they have launched a new Aircraft Carrier of which they will build another 7 before 2030.
Moreover: the European Central Bank is about to loose its independence and the coverage of Dutch Pensions is in a free fall. Our ignorant Prof Eijffinger (Dutch Economist) said that these are all "ripples we should not be worried about".
Also Ben Bernanke promised not to increase the interest rate until at least 2013......

Brilliant!

On top of that Economy is considered a science!!?? Everybody knows that economy can not be calculated and is a philosophy at best that can not be controlled by politicians or number crunchers. Economy is mass behavior based on emotion!!!

EUROPEAN CRISIS

Here's a view on the European crisis by Clarke and Dawes.

It boils down to the question: "How can broke economies lend money to other broke economies if those broke economies can't possible pay it back to the other broke economies that shouldn't have lend them money in the first place??"

Corporate Governance

The total commitment and professional distance required to succesfully complete my pre-defined business plan is immense but it pays off. I lie awake at night contemplating my next Interim move. It all boils down to the decision what is best for the company. Economics outrule HRM....