Is Cyprus Paving the Way For a Global Currency?

Sure, right now, the clear winner from the Cyprus crisis is the US dollar, which stands to benefit from public and private flows after the euro's reserve currency takes another hit. Today, the euro fell to its lowest against the US dollar in four months and the dollar came in just below its 52 week high. However, don't get too complacent because Cyprus is the canary in the coal mine, a petri dish, but unlike a petri dish, it will not be contained. It will affect the European markets and extend into the U.S.becoming the new model for bank bailouts, where money is directly confiscated from our bank accounts, not to mention, the fundamental breach in the public trust on which money relies.

From Economic Collapse blog:

"As it stands now, nowhere in Cyprus accepts credit or debit cards anymore for fear of not being paid, it is CASH ONLY. Businesses have stopped functioning because they cannot pay employees OR pay for the stock they receive because the banks are closed. If the banks remain closed, the economy will be destroyed and STOP COMPLETELY. Looting, robberies and theft are already on the rise. If the banks open now, there will be a massive run on the bank, and the banks will FAIL loosing all of its deposits, also causing an economic crash. TONIGHT there are demonstrations at most street corners and especially at the parliament building (just 2 miles from me).

Many are thinking that the ECB and EU are allowing Cyprus to fail as a test ground for new financial standards.

Just wanted all you guys to know the real story of whats going on here. Prayers are appreciated (although this is very interesting to watch) many of my local friends have lots of money in the banks.

You see, the entire western banking model is built on the dollar. So with the crisis in Europe, the flight to the dollar and flight to U.S. treasuries, makes the dollar the last safe haven.  However, once everyone’s on board this “lifeboat” full of holes will be pushed out to sea and sunk. Then, what do we do? Why, bring on the global currency, of course.

What leads me and others far more knowledgeable than me to this dreadful conclusion?

Well, it's not just Cyprus, it's what lies beneath Cyprus, and practically every economy in the world: the toxicity of the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. Eventually,   the cascading domino destruction of global economies will occur largely due to this monstrosity that's rarely mentioned.  The Eurozone is over leveraged on a tremendous amount of American sub-prime mortgages, a ton of derivative debt – collateralized debt obligations (cdo), credit default swaps—sold throughout the world via Wall Street.

Keep in mind, the Bank for International Settlements in Europe acts as an umbrella for all the central banks world-wide. But beware, the BIS downplays the total notional value of the global derivatives market, although, even at $600 trillion, that's much larger than the global economy by far. Anyway, nobody really knows the real amount, but when this derivatives bubble finally bursts there is not going to be nearly enough money on the entire planet to fix things.

Links:

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives

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Military Experimented on Unsuspecting Americans to Understand the Effects of Weaponized Radiation.

The Cold War cover story stated that the Army was testing smoke screens to protect cities from a Russian attack. The truth was much more sinister. New declassified documents show that the Army was conducting radioactive experiments upon thousands of unsuspecting low-income American citizens in St. Louis between 1945-1970.

Sociologist Martino-Taylor, author of a study on the "covert Manhattan Project spin-off organization referred to here as the Manhattan-Rochester Coalition, and an obscure aerosol study in St. Louis, Missouri, conducted under contract by the U.S. military," said the greatest concentration was centered on Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, just northwest of downtown St. Louis in Carr Square neighborhood. It was home to 10,000 low income people. An estimated 70% she says were children under age of 12.

You might want to think twice before getting that Flu vaccination shot considering the relatively recent urgent and widespread push to get vaccinated. Never got one, and never will.

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Japan Earthquake Victims: Erosion of Trust in Institutions? DIY.

Notes left behind by Japanese evacuees looking for loved ones inside a shelter in the earthquake and tsunami-destroyed town of Rikuzentakata, Japan on March 21. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Japan has proven to be resilient when it comes to surviving and reversing natural disasters, because it has a culture and mentality that facilitates rebounds and recovery, especially regarding earthquakes. However, this earth-changing quake may render Japanese efforts, less effective, in the long run, mainly because of the enormity of the catastrophe, the invisible threat of radiation, and most importantly, the lack of trust in the institutions with all of the crucial information needed to navigate this calamitous event.

"Japan is in a highly active tectonic zone where the Eurasian, Philippine Sea, Okhotsk and Pacific Plates converge. The unexpectedly strong quake took place where the Pacific Plate sinks under the Okhotsk Plate (subduction). In the affected region, the submerging Pacific Plate is very old and heavy and is sinking into the Earth’s core at a relatively high speed of 8 to 10 centimeters per year."

The western mainstream media's  coverage of Japan's post-earthquake and post-tsunami activity is already fading into the background, and was/is not giving a fully accurate picture.  On top of that, supposedly, Japan's "bureaucracy-media complex" is even worse, according to freelance journalist Takashi Uesugi, even though, since 2009, the Japanese press has become more aggressive after the end of 54 years of Liberal Democratic Party rule that shattered many of the cozy relationships between the ruling elite and the big media outlets.

So, what do you do when you can't trust the official word, or the accuracy of official radioactivity measurements. Well, DIY.  Create a croudsourced map of Geiger counter readings that contains a distributed network of 215 Geiger counter.

PICTURES: Japan Earthquake, Two Weeks Later

A photograph is seen in the rubble of a destroyed house in Otsuchi, Japan, on March 22. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj)

A car sits on headstones in a cemetery in Higashimatsushima City, Miyagi Prefecture, on March 22. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Tayo Kitamura, 40, touches the covered body of her mother Kuniko Kitamura, 69, after Japanese firemen discovered the dead woman inside the ruins of her home in Onagawa, northeastern Japan, on March 19. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

Family members and relatives transfer the bones of Masaichi Oyama, who was killed by the tsunami, by chopsticks into an urn during a cremation ceremony on March 24 in Kurihara , Japan. The family lost three family members from the earthquake and tsunami. Under Japanese Buddhist practice, a cremation is the expected traditional way of dealing with the dead, but now with the death toll so high, crematoriums are overwhelmed and there is a shortage of fuel to burn them. Local municipalities are forced to dig mass graves as a temporary solution. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A traditional Japanese sandal, worn with formal kimono dress, lies in the rubble in the earthquake and tsunami destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan on Sunday, March 20. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

A house rests upside down in an open field along the coast near Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on Friday, March 25. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

A person walks under snow through the town of Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, northern Japan, on March 23. (AP Photo/Yomiuri Shimbun, Tetsuya Kikumasa)

Links:

Know your nukes: understanding radiation risks in Japan

Unique Japan tsunami footage boon to scientists

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Worthy of Your Trust?

With good reason, our trust is in short supply today. We have lost so much so quickly to the global "free" capital markets. However, as much as we have collectively lost, too many of us are still blinded to the fact that the only intervention into the markets was/ is on behalf of the the elites, thus they go on believing the propaganda that blames "socialism" and the poor for the collapse of our economy. Even those who suffer from a lack of healthcare, lack of employment, lack of retirement, etc. swallow this hogwash and continue to support the idea that universal healthcare will somehow destroy this great nation.

The F.B.I. estimated that lending institutions and banks are 80% responsible for the financial crisis that we, the people are still reeling from. Mortgage fraud and predatory lending triggered the financial crisis and these institutions were able to get away with it because of the drastic reduction in regulation and oversight. This accompanied by the failure of what was left of the ravaged regulatory system to implement the vital checks and balances needed to deter what William K. Black calls, “control fraud” drained much of our trust from what used to be an overly trustworthy nation of hyper-consumers. So, it's imperative that we direct the little trust left to the worthy and not toward the same people who robbed us blind.

Control frauds are crimes led by the head of state or CEO that use the nation or company as a fraud vehicle.Waves of “control fraud” can cause economic collapses, damage and discredit key institutions vital to good political governance, and erode trust. The defining element of fraud is deceit – the criminal creates and then betrays trust. Fraud, therefore, is the strongest acid to eat away at trust. Endemic control fraud causes institutions and trust to become friable – to crumble – and produce economic stagnation. -- William K. Black, "When Fragile becomes Friable: Endemic Control Fraud as a Cause of Economic Stagnation and Collapse"

The Prompt Corrective Action Law (PCA), was "adopted largely in response to the enormous cost to the taxpayers of our predecessor’s failed strategy of not closing insolvent S&Ls". However, this law was completely ignored by the powers that be.

BILL MOYERS: In other words, they could have closed these banks without nationalizing them?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, you do a receivership. No one -- Ronald Reagan did receiverships. Nobody called it nationalization.

BILL MOYERS: And that's a law?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's the law.

BILL MOYERS: So, Paulson could have done this? Geithner could do this?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not could. Was mandated-

BILL MOYERS: By the law.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: By the law.

"...the real scandal of 2009 was the failure to even have an indictment, much less a conviction, of any of the major senior insiders at the nonprime lending specialists. And the second biggest scandal... would be the regulators that didn't bark. You can't get effective criminal prosecutions on any large scale against sophisticated frauds of this nature without very effective regulators." -- William K. Black, a white-collar criminologist and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas

Congress should pass additional legislation early in 2010 to overhaul the financial regulatory system and give the SEC and other watchdog agencies more resources and authority to police shadowy corners of the financial markets. But if this legislation goes through, will it be enough? How much longer will the band-aid approach give us? Isn't it about time we address the corruption at its core, and redirect our trust to those of us who are worthy?

The problem is, in order to find out who is worthy, it's essential that we remove the money from our political system, which will, at the very least, remove the inmates in charge of the political asylum. Then, and only then, can we can put our trust in those we elect to serve us.

Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

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