Gold, Price Stability & Credit Bubbles - azizonomics

Aziz: John Cochrane thinks that central banks can attain the price-stability of the gold standard without actually having a gold standard:

While many people believe the United States should adopt a gold standard to guard against inflation or deflation, and stabilize the economy, there are several reasons why this reform would not work. However, there is a modern adaptation of the gold standard that could achieve a stable price level and avoid the many disruptions brought upon the economy by monetary instability.

The solution is pretty simple. A gold standard is ultimately a commitment to exchange each dollar for something real. An inflation-indexed bond also has a constant, real value. If the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rises to 120 from 100, the bond pays 20% more, so your real purchasing power is protected. CPI futures work in much the same way. In place of gold, the Fed or the Treasury could freely buy and sell such inflation-linked securities at fixed prices. This policy would protect against deflation as well as inflation, automatically providing more money when there is a true demand for it, as in the financial crisis.

The obvious point is that the CPI is a relatively poor indicator of inflation and bubbles. During Greenspan’s tenure in charge of the Federal Reserve, huge quantities of new liquidity were created, much of which poured into housing and stock bubbles. CPI doesn’t include stock prices, and it doesn’t include housing prices; a monetary policy that is fixed to CPI wouldn’t be able to respond to growing bubbles in either sector. Cochrane is not really advocating for anything like the gold standard, just another form of Greenspanesque (mis)management.

A Little Perspective on What Lies Ahead - Charles Hugh Smith

Eliminating Elites won't eliminate our structural problems or the reduction in phantom wealth we've all been relying on.
Many finance-oriented critiques start from the position that our problems largely stem from the financial/political dominance of Elitist cartels and cabals. Clearly, the malinvestment, exploitation, predation and disregard for the law that characterizes the rule of political-financial Elites in both developed and developing nations have wreaked havoc on societies and economies around the globe.
Implicit in this critique is a dangerously naive assumption: if all our problems can be traced back to Elitist cabals such as the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, then it follows that the subjugation or eradication of these concentrations of self-serving power would remove the cause of our problems.
Alas, that would be a welcome step in the right direction, but that alone would not resolve the structural causes of our devolution. Freeing ourselves of self-serving Elites would certainly create an opening for structural transformation that is currently impossible, but the transformation will require changing much of what the average citizen takes for granted as a "given" or even "right."

DAVID ICKE & GANDHI: NON-COMPLIANCE

US government now allowing Americans to donate money to Syrian terrorists

By Madison Ruppert: Thanks to license given by the United States Treasury, the Washington-based Syrian Support Group, or SSG, can now accept donations on behalf of the armed opposition forces in Syria including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) terrorist group.

Rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters march a captured policeman who the FSA allege is a “Shabiha” or pro-regime militiaman, on July 31, 2012, as the rebels overran a police station in Aleppo. A watchdog said that rebels killed 40 officers and seized three police stations during the pivotal battle for the commercial capital. Editor’s note: this man may have been murdered after this image was taken. (Image credit: AFP PHOTO/EMIN OZMEN/SABAH PRESS)

The opposition includes the same terrorist groups who are responsible for bombings and have shown themselves to be excited at the prospect of controlling chemical weapons. It is no surprise that they are being supported by al Qaeda as well, just as the opposition forces were during the regime change operation in Libya.

Keep in mind, these are the same rebel forces which have been guilty of gross atrocities, a fact which Human Rights Watch finally admitted in March of this year.

To make matters even worse for those who seek to maintain the manufactured “peaceful pro-democracy” image of the rebel forces, a video has now emerged showing the rebels carrying out what is almost certainly a war crime.

'Aljazeera, Trojan horse of Muslim world'

Madness For a decade, Osama bin Laden, who at one time was supposedly the most wanted man in the world continued to release videos to Al Jazeera which the station would regularly show. And now we see Al Arabia of Saudi Arabia showing the images of 48 Iranians kidnapped in Syria. What type of relationship do these networks have with terrorist organizations and where is the condemnation of the role that these stations play in inciting terrorism. Source

Israel bars five foreign ministers from entering West Bank in ‘flagrant violation’ of international law

By Madison Ruppert: Five foreign ministers of nations belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) harshly criticized Israel for refusing to allow them to enter the city of Ramallah in the West Bank for a meeting, with one calling the move “a flagrant violation of the principles of international law and of Israel’s obligations as the occupying power.”

Mohammed Kamel Amr, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, stated during a press conference on August 5, 2012 in Amman, Jordan that the NAM Ministerial Committee on Palestine condemned the “blatant action by Israel.”

This type of unabashed flouting of international law on the part of Israel is nothing new by any means, but this comes at especially tense times, as the New York Times notes in reporting, “The cancellation of the Ramallah conference came as an Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian militant and seriously wounded another in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.”

The attack killed 22-year-old Eid Oukal and wounded Ahmed Sai’d Isma’i, both allegedly members of the Popular Resistance Committees in Palestine.

However, the timing is not only noteworthy because of the recent violence. Indeed, there is perhaps a much more significant reason for Israel to refuse entry to the NAM ministers.

The ministers were scheduled to sign a declaration explicitly supporting a renewed push for Palestine to be officially upgraded to non-member state, a move which Israel obviously does not endorse.

Key Eyewitness Confirms 4 Man Assault Team Hit Sikh Temple!

UPDATE: A family member whose parents were victims of the shooting said his parents told him there were "multiple shooters" involved in a "coordinated" attack.

An eyewitness to the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin says that a team of four men dressed in black carried out the massacre, contradicting the official narrative that a lone gunman was the culprit.

On This Day In 2016

Submitted by Tyler Durden: For a presidential election taking place when the US debt/GDP has for the first time in 70 years crossed above 100%, in which over 50 million Americans collect food stamps and disability, in which M2 just crossed $10 trillion, in which total US debt is about to pass $16 trillion, and when total nonfarm employees in America (133,235,000) are the same as they were in April of 2005, it is quite surprising that economics has not taken on a more decisive role in the electoral debate. But while both candidates may, for their own particular reasons, not want to bring up the slow motion trainwreck that is the US economy now, in 4 years whoever is running for president will not be so lucky, because as the US debt clock shows, assuming current rates of progression, things are about to get far, far worse.

To wit, this is how America will look like in 2016:

IT’S A MATTER OF TRUST – PART ONE - The Burning Platform

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” ― J.M. Barrie – Peter Pan

     

“The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.” – Lord Acton

Who do you trust? Do you trust the President? Do you trust Congress? Do you trust the Treasury Secretary? Do you trust the Federal Reserve? Do you trust the Supreme Court? Do you trust the Military Industrial Complex? Do you trust Wall Street bankers? Do you trust the SEC? Do you trust any government agency or regulator? Do you trust the corporate mainstream media? Do you trust Washington think tanks? Do you trust Madison Avenue PR maggots? Do you trust PACs? Do you trust lobbyists? Do you trust government unions? Do you trust the National Association of Realtors? Do you trust mega-corporation CEOs? Do you trust economists? Do you trust billionaires? Do you trust some anonymous blogger? You can’t even trust your parish priest or college football coach anymore. A civilized society cannot function without trust. The downward spiral of trust enveloping the world is destroying our global economy and will lead to collapse, chaos and bloodshed. The major blame for this crisis sits squarely on the shoulders of crony capitalists that rule our country, but the willful ignorance and lack of civic accountability from the general population has contributed to this impending calamity. Those in control won’t reveal the truth and the populace don’t want to know the truth – a match made in heaven – or hell.

“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” – Aldous Huxley

Pro-Assad rally held in Sydney

While Syria's unrest continues, protesters snaked their way through Sydney's central business district demanding no foreign intervention in the country's internal affairs. 

The protesters also thanked Russia and China for their international support for Syria.

Chanting slogans in English and Arabic in support of President Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian Army, the crowd was vocal, but peaceful as they made their way to the Department of Foreign Affairs Office. Source

Escalation Of The Extortion Racket: Now It’s ‘The Dissolution Of Europe’ Not Just The Eurozone - TESTOSTERONE PIT

It has been an onslaught. Eurozone heads of state, top politicians, unelected kingpins, and bureaucratic honchos threatened everyone in sight with the demise of the euro, or promised to do “everything” or “whatever it takes” to save it even if it violated treaties or the very foundation of European democracy. In between the lines, bit by bit, the mammoth costs of continuing the endless bailouts or of breaking everything to pieces finally oozed to the surface.

Sunday it was Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose country, after years of living beyond its means, is suffocating under a mountain of debt. He needs the European Central Bank to print a trainload of euros and massively buy up Italian sovereign bonds to force their yields down and keep Italy financially viable—which is precisely what the treaties that govern the ECB don’t allow it to do, though the ECB had done it before, despite all-out opposition from Germany, including the resignation of ECB Council Member and Bundesbank President Axel Weber and ECB Chief Economist Jürgen Stark. After buying €211 billion in sovereign bonds, the ECB stopped in March. And since then, all heck has re-broken loose.

So Monti went on attack. The Eurozone bailout chaos and Germany’s resistance to ECB printing operations have created tensions that show “the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” he told the Spiegel, a threat designed for German consumption—the latest in a series of escalating threats issued by politicians of debt sinner countries. And like his predecessors, he took it a step further than anyone before him.

Further even than Alexis Tsipras, the firebrand leader of Greece’s left-wing SYRIZA party, who’d threatened during the chaotic election, “If Greece doesn’t get its next loan installment, the Eurozone will collapse the following day.” But now comes Monti—and it’s no longer just the demise of the 17-member Eurozone but the dissolution of Europe. Europe as a whole. If the ECB doesn’t print whatever it takes to bail out Italy, “the foundations of the project Europe are destroyed,” he said.

They Really Do Want To Implant Microchips Into Your Brain

Michael Snyder
American Dream

Are you ready to have a microchip implanted into your brain?  That might not sound very appealing to you at this point, but this is exactly what the big pharmaceutical companies and the big technology companies have planned for our future.

They are pumping millions of dollars into researching “cutting edge” technologies that will enable implantable microchips to greatly “enhance” our health and our lives.  Of course nobody is going to force you to have a microchip implanted into your brain when they are first introduced.  Initially, brain implants will be marketed as “revolutionary breakthroughs” that can cure chronic diseases and that can enable the disabled to live normal lives.  When the “benefits” of such technology are demonstrated to the general public, soon most people will want to become “super-abled”.  Just imagine the hype that will surround these implants when people discover that you can get rid of your extra weight in a matter of days or that you can download an entire college course into your memory in just a matter of hours.  The possibilities for this kind of technology are endless, and it is just a matter of time before having microchips implanted into your brain is considered to be quite common.  What was once science fiction is rapidly becoming reality, and it is going to change the world forever.

But aren’t there some very serious potential downsides to having microchips implanted into our brains?

Of course there are.