The Fed Has A Big Surprise Waiting For You

Risdon Tillery Greenwich House day care, New York May 1944

The topic of potential interest rate hikes by central banks is no longer ever far from any serious mind interested in finance. Still, the consensus remains that it will take a while longer, it will take place in a very gradual fashion, and it will all be telegraphed through forward guidance to anyone who feels they have a need or a right to know. Sounds like complacency, doesn’t it?

Now, it seems obvious that the Bank of Japan and the ECB are not about to hike rates tomorrow morning. In Europe, dozens of national politicians wouldn’t accept it, and in Japan, it would mean an early end to many things including Shinzo Abe.

But the Bank of England and the Fed are another story. Though if the Yes side wins in Scotland next week, the narrative may change a lot of Mark Carney and the City. That leaves the Fed. And it’s important to realize and remember that, certainly after Greenspan entered the scene, speaking in tongues, the Fed has become a piece of theater. The Fed is about perception. About trying to make people believe something, and make them act a certain way that they choose for them.

That’s why after the Oracle left they pushed first a bearded gnome and then a grandma forward as the public face. The kind of people nobody would perceive as a threat. Putting a guy who looks like second hand car salesman in charge of the Fed wouldn’t work.

Not when a big financial crisis looms, and then continues on for a decade and counting. That makes keeping up appearances the no. 1 priority. That’s when you want a grandma, or you’d lose your credibility real fast. You need grandma for your theater, for the next play you’re going to stage.

That market volatility today is at record lows is part of a big play, or a big scene in a play if you will. And the goal is not to make markets look good, as many people think. Making markets look good, making the economy look good, is just an intermediate step designed to lure everyone in.

You make people believe you got their back. All the big investors. Because they make tons of money, while they thought maybe the crisis could have really hurt them. Even the public at large feels you got their back. Because they don’t understand what the sleight of hand is.

The big investors understand, but you got them believing you will play that hand forever, or let them know well ahead of time when you intend to fold. The big investors think you will skim the public, but not them. They think you’re all on the same side. And the public thinks you’re healing the economy, and saving their jobs and homes and pensions.

When rate hikes are discussed, like I did two weeks ago in This Is Why The Fed Will Raise Interest Rates, most people have similar initial reactions. ‘They can’t do that, it would kill the economy, or at least the recovery’.

But the truth is, there is no recovery. It’s just a scene in a play. And the economy is completely shot, it only appears to be left standing because the Fed poured oodles of money into it. Or rather, into a part of the economy that it can control, that it can get the money out of again easily: Wall Street banks. And Wall Street equals the Fed.

Charles Hugh Smith, in What If the Easy Money Is Now on the Bear Side?, notices that there are hardly any bears left in the market, and that shorts are disappearing as a source of revenue for bulls. Interesting, but he doesn’t yet connect all the dots. CHS thinks big money managers can make ‘the play’, that they can fool the rest of the market and unleash a tsunami that will bury the bulls.

I don’t think so. I think what goes on is that the Wall Street banks, many times bigger than the biggest money managers, see their revenues plunge. As they knew they would, because free money and ultra low rates are not some infinite source of income, since other market participants adapt their tactics to those things as well.

Which is what Charles Hugh Smith points to, but doesn’t fully exploit. And it’s not as Wolf Richter presumes either:

After years of using its scorched-earth monetary policies to engineer the greatest wealth transfer of all times, the Fed seems to be fretting about getting blamed for yet another implosion of the very asset bubbles these policies have purposefully created.

The Fed doesn’t fret. The Fed has known for years that the US economy is dead on arrival. They’ve spent trillions of dollars backed, in the end, by American taxpayers, knowing full well that it would have no effect other than to fool people into believing something else than what reality says loud and clear.

Philip Van Doorn, who I quoted two weeks ago, got quite a bit closer in Big US Banks Prepare To Make Even More Money

For most banks, the extended period of low interest rates has become quite a drag on earnings. Net interest margins – the spread between the average yield on loans and investments and the average cost for deposits and borrowings – are still being squeezed, since banks realized the bulk of the benefit of very low interest rates years ago …

That is the essence, and that is why grandma will announce higher rates, against a backdrop of 4% GDP growth numbers and a plethora of other ‘great’ economic data and military chest thumping abroad.

The US economy is dead. The Fed has known this for a long time, but pumped it up to where it is now to draw in all the greater fools, the so-called big investors who have made money like honey from QE and ZIRP. They are the greater fools. The American real economy ceased being a consideration long ago.

We’re in for big surprises, and they won’t be pretty, they’ll be pretty nasty. There are far too many people who think of themselves as smart who don’t see the difference between a theater play and a reality show. And I don’t mean CHS or Wolf, they’re much more clever than your average investment advisor.

The Fed will raise rates because that will make the biggest banks the most money. There’s nothing else that matters. The Fed can’t revive the US economy, that’s just a foolish notion. But it can suck a lot of wealth out of it.

Credit to Zero Hedge

VIROLOGIST: ‘IT’S TOO LATE, EBOLA WILL KILL 5 MILLION’

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A top German virologist has caused shockwaves by asserting that it’s too late to halt the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia and that five million people will die, noting that efforts should now be focused on stopping the transmission of the virus to other countries.

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told Germany’s Deutsche Welle that hope is all but lost for the inhabitants of Sierra Leone and Liberia and that the virus will only “burn itself out” when it has infected the entire population and killed five million people.

“The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” said Schmidt-Chanasit. “That time was May and June. “Now it is too late.”

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed over 2200 people, with Liberia and Sierra Leone accounting for over 1700 of those fatalities.

While calling for “massive help” from the international community to prevent Ebola appearing in other countries like Nigeria and Senegal, Schmidt-Chanasit warns that getting a grip on the epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone is a departure from reality.

German aid organization Welthungerhilfe blasted Schmidt-Chanasit for his comments, with Sierra Leone based coordinator Jochen Moninger labeling his statements, “dangerous and moreover, not correct.” However, Moninger acknowledged that Schmidt-Chanasit’s assessment may be accurate in the case of Liberia.

The World Health Organization refused to comment on Schmidt-Chanasit’s remarks.

Although Ebola continues to rage in five African countries, media coverage of the epidemic has waned, despite evidence that the virus has mutated.

As we reported last month, former FDA official Scott Gottlieb, M.D. warned that if the virus was to hit the United States, the CDC would enact emergency procedures which could lead to healthy Americans who show no symptoms of the diseased being forcibly detained for an indefinite period of time.

Scientists in Canada and Canada’s Public Health Agency have both acknowledged that the virus has likely gone airborne at least to a limited degree, while the CDC has urged airline staff to take steps to prevent the airborne spread of the virus, including giving suspected Ebola victims surgical masks as well as directing staff to “not use compressed air, which might spread infectious material through the air.”

UPDATE: After this article was published, the “5 million” quote from the original Deutsche Welle report was removed and the headline was changed. The original text can be read here. It is not known why Deutsche Welle changed the wording of the report without issuing a formal retraction.

After my report, Deutsche Welle changed their headline and removed the '5 million dead' quote from their article.

Credit to Infowars

Retired Lt. Colonel: Obama Is Arming ISIS to Fight ISIS .

JFK, Oklahoma City, 9/11: Nothing Ever Changes

The JFK assassination, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Boston Marathon Bombing, the London Subway Bombings and the events of 9/11, nothing ever changes. The public is looking at either a massive series of coverups or unwarranted secrecy with regard to the evidence leading to each crime.

The ink is dry on each on of these investigations, however, the government still withholds the evidence from public scrutiny like we are a bunch of little children too emotionally fragile to handle the truth. In each case, the actions of the government, related to needless secrecy, invites conspiracy theories. Therefore, once again, I add my voice in unison with the other voices who demand transparency in order that the public can determine if they agree with the government’s findings in each one of these cases.

We live in a time where DHS will categorize an individual as a terrorist if they question on the government on nearly everything. At the risk of being hauled away and never heard from again under the NDAA, I wish to, once again, bring forth my objections to the government secrecy of the events of 9/11.

On that day, the newest day that will live in infamy, we lost over 3,000 countrymen and  13 years later, the victim’s families have still not received closure because the facts are being held under lock and key by the government.

An Unacceptable Outcome

Three Thousand American victims perished. First responders to the WTC on 9/11 have died and are dying in growing numbers due to their exposure to toxins at ground zero which was further complicated by the fact that government front man and now BP apologist, Ken Feinberg, denied medical coverage for these brave individuals. Untold numbers of family members will be haunted for the rest of their lives over the their tragic loss on that fateful day.

Here we sit,13 years later, with many more questions than answers from that modern day of infamy. I refuse to forget and I refuse to accept the government’s arrogance with regard to not feeling the need to be forthcoming. The government’s arrogance fuels conspiracy theories through the withholding of critical evidence which would help the American public determine if the government is indeed telling the truth about the events of 9/11.

Once again, I am addressing this heinous conspiracy on behalf of the approximately 3,000 grieving families as well as the American people that deserves to be told the truth.

I Refuse to Wait Seven More Years for Answers

A general historical rule of thumb states that one cannot judge the true implications of landmark events for 20 years following the event. History has indeed demonstrated that a culture is not a good judge of its own immediate history. With regard to the events of 9/11, we are over half way through this historical prohibition related to the judging the significance of a landmark event. However, a clear and unmistakable pattern is beginning to take shape. And that pattern points to a government who continues to lie about the events of 9/11. I want answers and I want them now!

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

Pearl Harbor is often heralded as the most defining event in the 20th Century. The events surrounding the events of that fateful December 7th day have been meticulously investigated (e.g., battle tactics, leadership ineptitudes and conspiracy theories). Don’t the three thousand families of the victims of 9/11 deserve any less of an analysis? Apparently, the United States Government does not think so. Therefore, in the absence of full disclosure, the rank and file of the American people are left to conduct their own investigations. However, for many who have dared to question the official 9/11 Commission Report, they have been met with unyielding oppression which has often resulted in the researchers and skeptics being fired and publicly humiliated (e.g., Steve Jones).

I have serious doubts about the validity of the findings of the 9/11 Commission. The findings are neither complete nor completely believable in their present form. Here is a brief and partial summary of my continued unanswered questions related to 9/11 that I want answered.

TWENTY UNANSWERED

QUESTIONS ABOUT 9/11

It Is Time for Answers

1. Why was the video of the Mineta testimony removed from the 9/11 Commission website?

2. Why has not the government addressed the “coincidence” of Able Danger? It is a case of a terror drill providing plausible deniability for the terror act embedded within the drill.

3. What explains the failure of the Government to release the many videotapes of the plane, on approach, that struck the Pentagon? It is 12 years later, where are the tapes?

4. Why was there a change in the scramble/intercept procedure three months prior to 9/11 for jets that are off course accompanied by a change in the shoot down orders?

5. What can explain the failure of the government to scramble jets over a period of an hour and twenty eight minutes between the Twin Towers being struck and the crash in Pennsylvania? With this kind of air security, Somalia could successfully invade the United States.

6. How could the unrelated events of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq be successfully linked which culminated in the demise of Saddam Hussein despite strong evidence to the contrary?

7. What explains the well documented (e.g., Kevin Phillips) Bush/Cheney plans to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq within the first 10 days of the Bush Administration. This was well in advance of 9/11? However, 9/11 was used as the excuse in the early days of our military action to justify these unwarranted invasion. Why wasn’t this contradiction investigated?

8. The well documented engineering and architectural arguments which, in my mind clearly demonstrate that the fire and heat generated by the planes striking the Twin Towers were insufficient to melt the core of the buildings. Why doesn’t this evidence support the 911 Commission findings? Why hasn’t a Congressional investigation looked into this striking discrepancy?

9. What could explain the almost near free-fall collapse of all three towers which defies the official explanation? Never before in the history of engineering and planes crashing into buildings has a building come down in such a free-fall and symmetrical manner?

10. Where are the pieces of plane wings that supposedly struck light poles on its approach to the Pentagon? Shouldn’t independent investigators be able to examine these wings to determine the authenticity of the 9/11 report on this topic. The trust me approach did not fly in 2001 and it damn sure doesn’t in 2013.

11. The attack upon the Pentagon appears to any layman who looks at this evidence to look more like a missile strike than an airplane crash. Why does the circumference of the hole in the Pentagon greatly differ from the width of the plane? Why is there an exit hole on the backside of the building since the plane melted upon impact? Where is the debris field that one would expect on the backside of the building?

12. What about the pop outs we see on each floor of the WTC buildings before the collapse? Howe could this not be considered to be a controlled demolition?

13. Where are the skid marks on the lawn prior to impact at the Pentagon that would have been left by the plane which supposedly struck the Pentagon?

14. What about the evidence which strongly suggests that 11 nations warned the United States about the possibility of such an attack?

15. Maintenance worker, William Rodriguez, was the last man out of the Twin Towers. At 8:46AM, Rodriguez reports that he heard two distinct explosions, seven seconds apart, which emanated from the floors below him. Rodriguez also reports the two explosions occurredbefore the planes hit the towers. Rodriguez was interviewed by the 911 Commission for 30 minutes, in secret, behind closed doors. His testimony is conspicuously absent from the 9/11 Report. So why did the last man out of the Towers manage to have testimony left out of the 9/11 Commission Report?

16. Brigham Young University professor, Steve Jones, concluded that super thermite was used to bring down the Towers, including Tower 7, through a controlled demolition. Jones contends that he was warned by governmental officials that if he published his results his personal “pain would be great.” And the warning proved prophetic as Jones was fired his job as a professor after publishing his results. How does a tenured university professor get fired for publishing legitimate research results when the peer review process could have been utilized to analyze and discredit the Jones’ claims?

17. Ground Zero rescue worker, Mike Bellone, claims he was approached by unknown FBI agents a short time after he and his partner, Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four “black boxes” among the WTC rubble before January 2002. In the 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline “black boxes”: “The CVR’s and the FDR’s [voice and flight data recorders] from American 11 and United 175 were not found.” With this obvious contradiction, why weren’t these two rescue workers interviewed by the 911 Commission?

18. How could all four black boxes not be retrieved by the FBI when nearly ALL crashes through course of modern aviation history, do retrieve the black box?

19. When LBJ ordered JFK’s presidential limousine stripped and cleaned, he effectively destroyed the primary crime scene in the murder of JFK and implicated himself as a co-conspirator in the murder. In similar fashion, forty one truck loads of debris were hauled away from Twin Towers within hours of the crime and not one piece of the evidence was analyzed as a crime scene. This is obstruction of justice? Who ordered this illegal action to take place and why?

Both events are felonies as they clearly represent the tampering of a crime scene. Why didn’t the 911 Commission Report address the question as to why normal crime scene investigative techniques were not employed?

20. Much of the remaining crime scene evidence is still being held under lock and key at Hangar 17 at JFK Airport. Thirteen years later and with the ink dry on the 911 Commission’s findings, why isn’t the evidence made available to journalists and investigators? What is the government afraid of?

An earlier generation knew that the government was lying about JFK’s murder, but did little to force the truth out into the open. I refuse to capitulate to the same kind of arrogance and the possible underlying motives of key government agencies with regard to the events of  9/11. Until these twenty questions, and any other pertinent questions are answered, to the satisfaction of the victims grieving loved ones, I will never let go of this issue and neither should the citizens of this country. We have a solemn duty to the dead and their loved ones to discover the real truth about the events of that fateful day. Also, let’s not forget that we lost our individual liberties on that fateful day as well

 Credit to Common Sense

LAST NIGHT’S SPEECH REVEALS OBAMA WEARING A ‘HEAD OF HORNS’

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” Isaiah 14:13-15

When Barack Obama was first elected in 2008, he was constantly pictured with an angelic glow surrounding him. Artists would frequently draw him with a halo surrounding his head. He was the Liberal Messiah for a lost and dying world. But something changed along the way. Halos have given way to horns. Scary, dark, nasty looking horns.

No, this is not Photoshop, this is your president

Obama, seen here giving a speech on ISIS and Islamic terrorism last night, was photographed in a startling way. He appeared to have twin horns protruding from the sides of his head in a kind of demonic apparition.

Full size image, click to see story on Business Insider.com

Are we beginning to see the true source of his power of his presidency? You decide.

Credit to Now the End Begins

WW3: Obama cautiously Declares War in Middle East

Professional Investors Are Preparing For A Stock Market Crash

It looks like a growing number of professional investors are preparing for a stock market crash, ashedge fund filings for the second quarter show a spike in defensive positions.

In particular, legendary billionaire George Soros made a huge bet against the market. He increased his short position on the Standard & Poor’s 500 by a startling 605%.

The 9.69 million new shares of SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE Arca: SPY) put options gave Soros a total of 11.29 million shares and made it the biggest holding in his portfolio.

Credit to ETF Daily News

Martin Armstrong Warns "Spain Is Moving Towards Civil War"

• *SPANISH GOVT SAYS 470,000 TO 520,000 DEMONSTRATORS IN BARCELONA
• *BARCELONA POLICE SAY 1.8M PEOPLE AT PRO-INDEPENDENCE DEMO

The Spanish government is militarizing gearing up for violent protests against the EU that are expected to turn up before a hot autumn. Spain is now equipping the police with about one billion euros with new combat equipment. Violent protests in Spain since the crisis began almost a daily occurrence. Movements such as 25 de Mayo or the Indignados call Spaniards of all strata of the population to protest against the government on the streets. The police will always respond violently. They cover up their brutal responses by banning any video of police beatings making it a crime in itself. This is certainly illustrating the loss of freedom and any democratic process within Europe. The police scandals have only charged the atmosphere within the population and we may see this erupt into civil war as we move forward.

Goya’s painting of the brutal treatment of citizens during the Spanish Civil War is a reminder of what we could face in the aftermath of the militarization of Spain against its own citizens. 

Since June, the Spanish Interior Ministry has signed four contracts for the purchase of protective vests, shields and other riot gear. These weapon purchases are causing many to relive very bad memories in Spain. Spain has also bought water canons, a weapon that by the end of the Franco dictatorship was in continuous use. Opposition leader Antonio Trevin called the purchase therefore “a return to the times we would rather forget.” The Interior Ministry has responded merely justifying their rearming as necessary “because of the current social dynamics”, reports the Guardian.

The protests are mainly directed against the always new austerity measures, tax increases, the extremely high youth unemployment, homelessness following the bursting of the housing bubble, and also against a restrictive policy such as the recent bill to ban abortions.Then there is the movement to establish a referenda for the abolition of the monarchy.

Then throw in the separatist movement as we see in Scotland where the Catalans are moving for their independence. There were protests against the recent visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel that had to be violently dispersed by the government.

Spain is moving toward civil war.

Even the human rights organization Amnesty International has expressed concern over the arming of the police. the police are there to protect the government – not the people. That is a dangerous position that sets the stage for civil war.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Jim Willie: U.S. Plans to Collapse Europe - Part 1