Goldman Sachs, Destroyer of Worlds; The Dangers of a One-World Currency; World

Goldman Sachs, Destroyer of Worlds

by Steven D
Wed Feb 17th, 2010

The destructive aspect of nature was made part of Hindu Mythology/Theology in the personification of Shiva, a major deity and aspect of the Hindu Great trinity or triad: Brahma (Creator), Vishnu (Preserver) and Shiva (Destroyer).

If there is any force in our modern 21st Century world that has taken on the role of Shiva in current events, it has to be America's unregulated, amoral mega-financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs who have essentially spread the Gospel of Greed throughout the world wherever they can find suckers to buy their toxic financial "products" (i.e., securitized streams of income known as "derivatives").

In America when we think of derivatives we naturally imagine the home mortgage market, in which Goldman and others took bundles of mortgages, wrapped their income streams together into large bundles and sold off pieces of that mortgage income as securities. They then sold off insurance against defaults on those mortgages (the infamous Credit default Swaps or CDS which we now now were nothing but paper promises often worth less than the paper they were printed upon) as part of the package.

Of course they charged fees for all the services they provided in connection with these products, while helping to create the largest speculative real estate bubble in history. A bubble, that when it burst nearly brought down the economies of the world. Just not the economy of Goldman Sachs and a select few other financial behemoths managed through their adroit use of influence with politicians, their massive infiltration of the Federal Government in the higher echelons of the Republican and Democratic Parties, and sheer ruthlessness managed to turn the sow's ear of financial devastation into a silk purse filled with gold provided by our own government.

But these derivatives of mass financial destruction are not just limited to mortgage backed securities. Just ask the Greeks who have learned the hard way that when the scam artists who work for Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan (and others) come calling bearing "gifts" to solve all their financial woes it's best to slam the door in their faces.

At the heart of the worldwide banking meltdown are those mysterious unregulated derivatives that Goldman and JPMorgan led the way in selling. But Greece's case did not involve the usual questionable mortgages packaged into derivatives with credit default swaps backing them up, but rather expected revenue on airport fees and other potential sources of the cashed-strapped government's future income. [...]

As a result of such shenanigans back in 2001, Greece was allowed to join the European Union while running up enormous debt that went undetected. Greece's neighbors will now be forced to bail it out, much as U.S. taxpayers have done for banks as a result of the scams Goldman and other financial houses pulled off in this country. The common denominator is that the packagers of the collateralized debt securities, be they based on subprime mortgages or government airport fees, have no real interest in the integrity of the packages, for they will balance them out with credit default swaps that pay off when the assets prove toxic. And they will make their lucrative commissions coming and going, no matter what goes wrong. Even after all the trouble in Greece, Goldman President Gary D. Cohn was back in that country last November with a new derivative scam based on potential revenue from Greece's health care system. [...]

The U.S. comptroller of the currency estimates that Goldman Sachs has a derivative "credit exposure" that is a whopping 858 percent of its risk-based capital and that JPMorgan Chase is in second place at 290 percent. That statement calls into question the savvy of President Obama, who crowed just last week in defense of Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon, his old Chicago buddy who heads JPMorgan Chase, "I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen." Tell it to the Greeks.

No doubt, Goldman (or one of its competitors) will someday offer to collateralize the income stream from cow and pig shit (believe it or not there is a market for it), if it hasn't done so already. It would be the perfect product line for them, since they are already bullshit artists of the highest order.

These purveyors of heavily perfumed manure based "financial products" continue to operate under a veil of secrecy and an utter lack of transparency. Republicans (and more than a few bought and paid for Democrats) tell us this is how it should be, that we don't need to put regulatory shackles on these Masters of the Universe, and that the people who run these monolithic empires of smoke and mirrors are smart, "savvy businessmen" who would never steer us wrong.

And you wonder why the American people, especially the great unwashed non-political masses, hold politicians in such low esteem. It's because we know that they are servants; not our servants, but the servants of a higher power: Whoever has the most money to offer them for their votes. The amazing thing is how cheaply they sell themselves.

The Dangers of a One-World Currency | American Government

Source

One-World Currency Spells Global Economic Disaster

A single, global currency would spell disaster for virtually all of the world's population.

There are an array of potential issues that would adversely affect the average citizen, one of which is the issue of competing banks who handle the printing and management of currencies for each respective country that has its own currency. Who gets to determine how the contract is awarded to oversee the printing of this new one-world currency?

To put that in perspective, often times, such as is the case with the Federal Reserve Bank, these privately owned financial institutions are more powerful than the countries whose currencies they oversee. No matter how that part is settled, there are going to be hordes of some of the world's most influential power-brokers that would never support such change.

More importantly, what happens when a government spends more money than it has? The answer is that it either: A) Borrows the money; or more likely B) Prints more money to pay off existing debts and finance whatever spending initiatives they wish to fund.

This always and without exception leads to mass-inflation. Inflation is in essence the confiscation of wealth by governments and financial institutions that occurs when existing money is devalued. This happens when excess currency enters the global marketplace, usually by way of governments printing money because tax revenue is insufficient to cover their spending. When this happens, prices go up across the board and $100 today will buy what yesterday sold for $50. That equates to the confiscation of wealth by the governments that do the spending and the banks that print the money.

The myriad of problematic financial issues that accompany the concept of a one-world currency are very real and must not be overlooked. For example, how are lending rates determined and do the same interest rates apply for lenders and borrowers in different countries? Will mortgage loans issued in the United States be identical to those issued in China or Belize?

Another issue is that of import and export tariffs. Would those be done away with under such a system, or will the tit-for-tat tax imposition games that governments play continue along the status quo but with a single one-world currency being involved?

Yet another issue worthy of mention is the question of what happens to people's investments, many of which are directly tied to a single currency? Does Wall Street merely cease to exist, perhaps redeveloping itself into a tourist destination? These are questions that the people pushing this disastrous idea have either neglected to think about entirely or have thought about the issues but have sinister motives for the bottom-line impact this would have on regular citizens.

These issues are minor however, when compared with the threats that such a monetary system would pose to all of the accrued wealth the entire world over. There would be nothing to stop governments from driving up inflation to the point where all wealth becomes neutralized, and a police-state government with a slave-economy (such as exists in China) would become a very realistic possibility for citizens of all countries regardless of individual wealth of a given person.

The threat of a given country's currency being devalued to the point it precipitates a total economic collapse and exposes the country to military invasion is the only check-and-balance to the fiat currency system. That is, the fear that excess inflation could lead to a loss of sovereignty is the only protection against mass-enslavement via this system of inflation.

Competition is good. Currency exchanges are good. Multiple world currencies are good - especially in an age when anyone can trade easily online in whatever currency they please. These are the barriers that ultimately prevent governments and banks from being able to bankrupt the entire world.

World Roundup

Volume 63 Number 2, March/April 2010

by Samir S. Patel

CANADA: A winter storm in 1901 sank the steam-powered sternwheeler A.J. Goddard in the Yukon’s frigid Lake Laberge, taking three lives with it. Discovered in 2008, it is the only known wreck of its type and is almost completely intact. The newly released first photographs of the Gold Rush–era wreck show the haste with which the ship was abandoned and how untouched it has been since: soles of shoes still lie on the deck, along with scattered dishes, bottles, and tools. (Courtesy Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Photo: Donnie Reid) HAWAII: Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the islands supported hundreds of thousands of people with local crops. Populations crashed after contact, and knowledge of these farming systems was lost. An interdisciplinary team used GIS mapping and archaeological finds to identify thousands of acres where traditional dry-land farmers once cultivated crops such as sweet potatoes and sugar cane. Their distribution will help reveal the political economies of the archipelago’s old kingdoms. (Courtesy P.V. Kirch, Photo: P.V. Kirch, University of California, Berkeley) MEXICO: Water pressure—necessary for fountains or toilets—was once thought to have arrived in the New World with the Spanish. New research at Palenque in Chiapas shows that the Maya had the know-how far earlier. They used a series of underground conduits to control water from springs, and one of these ran down a steep slope and narrowed at the end. If smoothly plastered, it could have shot a jet of water 20 feet into the air. With that kind of pressure, the site’s palace may have had running water. (Courtesy Kirk D. French, Pennsylvania State University) ITALY: The ruins of Pompeii (now viewable and navigable on Google Street View, by the way) are home to around 50 raggedy stray dogs that live off the kindness of visitors. A new initiative has fitted the cani with collars and microchips, and named them—like Vettius, seen below—after ancient residents of the city. They will also be treated, sterilized, and brought to shelters. The hope is to find loving homes for them—so they stop peeing on the town’s ancient walls. (Courtesy Soprintendenza Archeolgica di Pompei) EGYPT: Modern medicine has a lot to tell us about the health of ancient Egyptians. In one recent study, doctors reviewed CT scans of 22 mummies, up to 3,500 years old, to assess their heart health. Of 16 with identifiable hearts or arteries, 9 had atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. The findings could help doctors understand heart disease risk isolated from modern factors. A different study reviewed the research on 3,000 mummies and found that 18 percent suffered from painful dental problems, including gum disease, tooth decay, and abscesses. (Courtesy Gregory Thomas, University of California, Irvine, Photo: Michael Miyamoto, MD)

ISRAEL:The first evidence of tidiness suggests that humans were behaving in a modern fashion far earlier than was once thought. At the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, which is more than 700,000 years old, archaeologists have found evidence that these human ancestors divided their living spaces—an area for food preparation and eating was 25 feet away from where they made stone tools. It was previously believed that this kind of social organization had not developed until around 200,000 years ago. (Courtesy Gonen Sharon, Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) TURKEY: Experts are beginning to decipher Late Assyrian tablets from Ziyaret Tepe, a 9th- to 7th-century B.C. city on the Tigris River. Among the official records are the names of 144 women who probably worked for the city’s palace. The women did not, however, have Assyrian names, suggesting they may have come from local indigenous populations or some distant conquered territory. Archaeologists at the site are working fast—it may be damaged when a nearby dam is completed in 2013. (Courtesy the Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Excavations) CHINA: A study of the mitochondrial DNA from six Tibetan populations shows that most are descended from immigrants who came from the east 10,000 years ago. The scientists also found a previously unidentified lineage that may be a relic of the first migrants to the often inhospitable “Roof of the World,” around 21,000 years ago. This confirms archaeological evidence of humans on the Tibetan Plateau in the Upper Paleolithic period, and suggests that they survived there for thousands of years—at least long enough to mix with the later settlers. (Wikimedia Commons) PERU: It’s often said that stress will make your hair fall out, but if you keep your hair, it records how stressed-out you were. Scientists found high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the hair of Peruvian mummies from as far back as 1,500 years ago, providing a window into the last year or two of their lives. Some had high stress levels at death, others not so much. The study also showed they had experienced multiple stressful episodes. (Courtesy Andrew Nelson, used with the permission of Centro Mallqui-Museo Leymebamba) ANTARCTICA: In stables next to a hut that was a base for Robert Falcon Scott’s successful but ultimately doomed 1910–12 expedition to the South Pole, conservators have found two intact, rather stinky (rancid, with a smoky-fatty smell from the use of blubber as fuel), but otherwise beautifully preserved blocks of New Zealand butter. Scott’s expedition reached the Pole, only to find that a Norwegian team had beaten them by five weeks. Scott and all his companions died on the way back. (Courtesy Lizzie Meek, Antarctic Heritage Trust)