Central banking, Complexity, Great Reset, Liberty, Monetary reform, Social development, Tyranny

CBDCs: why their future is not so bright

CBDCs are an expression of bankers’ fantasy of total control. Their first pilot program lasted 108 days and ended in total failure, lost elections and prison time.

This post was originally published on Alex Krainer’s Substack

Will the dreaded Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) become a thing? Will they be as awful as the ruling parasite class has intended? Will they be able to enforce compliance with whatever rule they choose to impose, oppressing us under a draconian system of arbitrary restrictions and prohibitions? Rest assured, they will not.

Over the last few months I was asked about CBDCs in a number of podcast interviews. The questions generally reflect the unease and anxiety about the prospect of finding ourselves in a totalitarian dystopia. CBDCs would allow our banking overlords to ‘see’ every purchase we make and condition our access to money through a system of permits that would enable them to micromanage any and all of our transaction choices in real time. This is what they mean when they say, “programmable” CBDCs.

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Central banking, Eurasia, Great Reset, Monetary reform, Politics, Social development, War and peace

The real war: People vs. the Banks

Recessions, debt, energy crisis, inflation and wars… somehow it is all related, and it is related at a global level, impacting nearly all economies and markets. It all seems to be going rather badly for the “rules based global order,” or as some prefer to call it, “the empire of lies.”

Shock, after shock, after shock…

Last week, on Oct. 6, Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s Managing Director gave a speech at the Georgetown University in Washington where she explained that the global economy, which was expected to recover strongly after the Covid 19 pandemic, experienced a “shock, after shock, after shock” instead, that it is now experiencing a “fundamental shift,” and that this shift could create a “dangerous new normal.” Georgieva thinks this can only be mitigated by “countries working together.”

We’re winning in Ukraine! Or maybe we’re not.

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Central banking, Eurasia, History, Policy, Politics

The “Three Block” global agenda today and the role of finance (part 3 of 3)

This is part 3 of a 3-part series shedding light on the role of British secret diplomacy in the run-up to World War 2. This article looks at the role of finance in shaping the new global order, still based on the same three-block world agenda. Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2 and the 46 min. video report on YouTube, which covers all three parts.

The “three block” imperial agenda today

While Nazism was defeated in World War II at a massive cost in lives and treasure, the same structures of power that financed and empowered Hitler have retained their levers of power and are continuing to shape global geopolitics to this day. They have not given up on their vision of a “three block world”, which is perhaps most visibly represented by the Trilateral Commission, one of the most influential think tanks in the world. Founded in July 1973, the Trilateral Commission’s aim is to foster close cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. But unlike in the 1930s, today the control of continental Europe is being pursued through the ostensibly democratic political institutions of the European Union rather than by conquest and brute military force.

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Central banking, Liberty, Policy, Politics, Real life, Tyranny, War and peace

Why we all MUST reject vaccine passports

The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear. – Mohandas Gandhi

To ‘normalize’ vaccine passports, the media have increasingly been discussing the idea as we trudge on through the umpteenth version of lockdowns. On Saturday (13 March 2021) I got accosted by the police in Cap d’Ail (south of France) for the offense of taking my kids out in the sun without having a justificatif. I have long lost track of the ever shifting rules of conduct, but I didn’t feel like arguing.

The police were just doing their jobs, enforcing shitty rules that harass and antagonize people. For example, I would have been allowed to be where I was if it were a working day, but since it was Saturday, it was verboten. The objective of such rules is nothing to do with public health; they are intended to exasperate us all to the point where we yield to the indignity of vaccine passports when they are rolled out, just so we can live our lives and be left in peace.

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Central banking, Economics, History, Inflation, Policy, Politics

About that imminent banking crisis… don’t hold your breath. We get inflation instead.

A subtle understanding of economic change comes from a knowledge of history and large affairs, not from statistics or their processing alone…

Arthur Burns[1]

Those of us who spend time analysing financial markets have been anticipating an impending banking crisis for years now. A number of Global Systemically Important Banks (GSIBs) as well as many lesser banks have been struggling under an increasing burden of bad debts and deteriorating credit quality in their balance sheets. Deutsche Bank, probably the worst offender, has been on death watch since 2016. But as years went by and doubts about the bank’s solvency multiplied and compounded, no banking crisis materialized.

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Asset management, Central banking, Commodity price, Economics, Inflation, Monetary reform, Policy, Risk management, Trend following

Inflation: we passed a phase transition

In April 2012, economist Robert Wenzel[1] was invited to speak at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. On the occasion, he told the central bankers thatvast amounts of money printing are now required to keep your manipulated economy afloat. It will ultimately result in huge price inflation, or, if you stop printing, another massive economic crash will occur. There is no other way out.”[2]

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Central banking, History, Media, Monetary reform, Policy, Politics, Social development, Truth, War and peace

Covid 19: the banking cartel is driving the agenda

For weeks now, the media and “health” authorities have relentlessly promoted a fear-inducing narrative about the Covid 19 “pandemic” as if the daily count of new “cases” were a major public health emergency, sensationalized by the media nearly 24/7. The official narrative is sharply at odds with the gathering voices from hundreds of doctors, virologists and epidemiologists.

Incoherence of the official narrative

Supposing that we are up against a “once-in-a-century” pandemic, this would be a great challenge for humanity, wrought with uncertainty. One would expect to encounter a lively debate, discussions, much doubt and controversy. Journalists should seek out as many domain experts as possible so we can all gain the clearest possible understanding of the new health challenge and how to confront it. Effective treatments should be promoted, celebrated, screamed from the rooftops. But the reality is very different. Continue reading

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Asset management, Central banking, Inflation, Market trends, Stock market, Trend following

Bear market or bubble reflation: what comes next?

In March last year, I published an article looking at historical perspective on boom/bust cycles in SeekingAlpha. I suggested then that, “the (still) festering economic imbalances might get resolved along two alternative scenarios. Either we’ll have a full-blown deflationary depression that could see asset prices drop by 50% or more, or we’ll have a strong and sustained decline in the US Dollar, ” accompanied with a continued rise in equity markets. Today, the latter scenario appears more likely. Here’s why: Continue reading

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Central banking, Economics, History, Inflation, Monetary reform, Stock market

Financial bubbles and their human toll

Bursting of an asset bubble can have grave consequences for the economy and the society at large – so grave, it’s worth paying attention at this point. I’ll elaborate.

In only six trading sessions from the 20th February peak, the S&P500 shed more than 12%, one of the fastest declines on record for the index (only the 1987 black Monday was worse). Only a week before this event I posted the article, “Bubbles Always Burst…”on SeekingAlpha, warning about the risk of this happening.

Whether last week marks the beginning of the bubble’s bursting remains to be seen, but this is only a matter of time. Bubbles always burst, no exceptions. But what’s important to understand is this: bubbles are meant to be burst! For guidance, let’s look again at the bursting of Japan’s own everything bubble of the 1980s. Continue reading

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Asset management, Central banking, Economics, Inflation, Market trends, Stock market, Trading, Trend following

The one force moving stock prices and what it tells us about the future

Back when I traded stocks in late 1990s, I got a gnawing suspicion that beyond the nonstop noise of the news flow, there was some force pushing the rising tide, but I couldn’t discern what it was. By today I think I worked it out. The most surprising thing about it is that it’s been so hard to work out.

Stocks are principally driven by money supply

The first time I encountered an explicitly formulated hypothesis that justified my suspicions was years later while I researched for my book, “Grand Deception.” The hypothesis, relating to Russian stocks, was articulated by Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management in his 2006 HedgeWeek interview: Continue reading

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