By Catherine J. Frompovich

One of the main issues, which ought to be up front and center in the 2016 election cycle, is that of banks and banksters running and ruining countries and the global economy.

Their money games are trickier than any sleight of hand or magic rabbit-out-of-a-hat trick regarding fiat money they force-feed upon everyone, except those at the top of an elite pyramid they’ve created for themselves at the expense of everyone whom they consider below their supposed ‘elite’ status.

In this writer’s opinion, here’s a perfect example of how many of the elites operate to keep their rigged system not only going—but thriving—and in control, thereby leaving no one to stand up to them, that is, except little Iceland.

Where was Cyprus’s political resolve and starch; how about Greece? Are elite moneymen/women (Christine LaGarde [8]) trying now to break Great Britain because of Brexit? Every country should be taking a page out of Iceland’s play book on dealing with banksters:

Iceland Sentences 24 Corrupt Bankers to 76 Years in Prison
https://www.popularresistance.org/iceland-sentences-26-corrupt-bankers-to-74-years-in-prison/

Instead of doom and gloom, the flip side of Iceland’s drastic action everyone thought would destroy the country is that Iceland rises from the ashes of banking collapse and is thriving!

However, one politician—name unknown, but sounds British from his accent—is on video appearing to have had enough of “banksterisms” and spews his venom regarding central banks and their money schemes, which everyone really needs to hear, I think, as he calls the proverbial spade a spade!

However, the article Bankers Make a Mockery of the Law, and No One Goes to Jail exemplifies just what he’s venting about.

Sound familiar? Perhaps that’s why Hillary Clinton didn’t go to jail; she’s probably too chummy with Wall Street bankers and knows the ropes of the game played in committing money and political indiscretions that doom other unfortunates to pay for them, literally or figuratively, while the real big-time politicians and criminals get off scot-free, a la FBI Director James Comey [7]. However, according to CNN Politics, “The GOP convention’s unofficial slogan: ‘Lock her up’ [1] became a ‘mantra’ of sorts. Wouldn’t that be a hoot if it REALLY could happen—as that would show the elite controllers that the USA has a part of the male anatomy to do what Iceland did even to a presidential wannabee! Now that really would be change!

However, Bernie Sanders tried opening the banking can of worms but didn’t get too far with hisMajor Speech that has Bankers and Hillary Panicking. What difference does his speech make now that he’s endorsed Hillary for president? Furthermore, shouldn’t we ask what’s going on with the Clinton Foundation? [5,6]

In this review of 2016 presidential candidates on Wall Street and banking policy we learned of the former wannabe candidates’ proposals for dealing with the current obviously insurmountable fiscal problems smothering the USA. Perhaps – maybe (?) Donald J Trump has one of the better, if not the best, approaches offered, as he

• Would take power away from the Federal Reserve and allow Congress to audit its decision making
• Has suggested buying back government debt at a discount if interest rates go up
• Would repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, enacted in 2010 to promote U.S. financial stability by improving accountability and increasing transparency in the financial system, protecting consumers, ending “too big to fail,” and eliminating bailouts

However, The Donald needs to be cautious, as others who have tried exposing the money games that go on in high places aren’t dealt with very nicely. Did JFK’s Presidential Executive Order 11,110 get him in trouble, as it would have given the Treasury Department the explicit authority:“to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.”[2]

$10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated. It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America. [2]

That certainly would have curtailed the scheme of creating money out of nothing by issuing consumer loans that made banksters probably richer than ever before and too big to fail, but has created more debt than anyone probably can afford to pay back (student loans?), plus a free-for-all spending attitude within the White House.

Will we ever be able to pay off the national debt, which is over $19.3 Trillion? [3] When one studies the U.S. Debt Clock, reality ought to set in that the USA definitely needs leadership that will not put us further down the financial rabbit hole, but institute programs that will make everyone pull their weight and implement what JFK said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Working at a full-time, paying job could be a good first step!

Isn’t it time for everyone to step up and do his/her part, especially the banksters who should stop being robber barons [4] or be stopped forcefully, like Iceland stopped their economic siphons?

References:

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/hillary-clinton-republican-convention-chants/
[2] http://humansarefree.com/2013/11/jfk-killed-after-shutting-down.html
[3] http://www.usdebtclock.org/
[4] http://history1800s.about.com/od/1800sglossary/g/Robber-Baron-definition.htm
[5] https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/07/06/what-about-the-clinton-foundation-investigation/
[6] http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/18/clinton-foundation-ignored-all-best-practices-for-good-governance/
[7] https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
[8] http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp040516

Image Credit: Banksy.co.uk

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

By Joshua Krause

In recent years we’ve seen global debts soar to heights never before seen in human history. Before the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, public and private debts were already out of control, but when the governments of the world tried to keep the global economy together with all their might, they did so by going into debt, to the tune of over $200 trillion. And that’s just what the numbers looked like the last time anyone checked back in 2014. Who knows how much debt the world is in now.

And that $200 trillion, by the way, amounts to around 300% of the world’s GDP, and it’s still growing. Obviously this isn’t sustainable. If you had a credit card debt worth three times as much as your yearly salary, and it continued to grow year after year, you’d be bankrupt in no time.

At some point, these debts are going implode the global economy. It’s a certainty. The only question that remains is when will this happen?

One of the signs that suggests this event is fast approaching, can be found in the way that governments are issuing their bonds, which are essentially debt contracts that can be bought by investors. Traditionally, a government or institution will sell bonds to an investor, with the promise that they will pay them a certain interest rate. After 10 or 20 years, the investor will get all of their money back in addition to the interest rate they’ve been accumulating. It’s basically a loan given to governments by investors.

But now governments are starting to issue bonds with negative interest rates. Imagine if a bank gave you a loan, but instead of having to pay an interest rate, the bank paid you. So after ten years a $100,000 loan may only cost you $99,000. Except in this case, you the bond buyer, are the bank.

Make sense? Of course not. You’d have to be crazy to make that deal. But that hasn’t stopped these negative interest yield bonds from becoming obscenely popular over the past couple of years.

Now it’s $13 trillion.

That’s the total amount of government bonds in the world that have negative yields, according to calculations published last week by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Given that there were almost zero negative-yielding bonds just two years ago, the rise to $13 trillion is incredible.

In February 2015, the total amount of negative-yielding debt in the world was ‘only’ $3.6 trillion.

A year later in February 2016 it had nearly doubled to $7 trillion.

Now, just five months later, it has nearly doubled again to $13 trillion, up from $11.7 trillion just over two weeks ago.

Think about that: the total sum of negative-yielding debt in the world has increased in the lastsixteen days alone by an amount that’s larger than the entire GDP of Russia.

Think about the implications of this. There are investors out there who are actually buying bonds that are guaranteed to lose money if they sit on them. They are basically donating money to governments, so they can continue to operate. Who in the hell would ever make that deal?

The truth is that for some investors, buying negative yield bonds makes sense, albeit for horrible reasons that do not bode well for the future of the global economy.

(MINTPRESS) WASHINGTON — After two years of bombing, the U.S. recently marked a horrendous milestone in a war with no clear end in sight.

Vocativ reported that the American-led coalition in the Middle East has now dropped 50,000 bombs in the ongoing campaign against Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the terrorist group commonly known as ISIS or ISIL in the West) that began in August 2014.

The analysis noted that bombing has increased with time, peaking in June when coalition forces dropped 3,167 bombs on Iraq and Syria.“

By comparison, U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan have dropped just over 16,000 bombs in the last six years, military data shows,” Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, a senior writer for Vocativ, wrote on Tuesday.

Although reports suggest Daesh is losing to ground forces in the region, the conflict still has no clear end in sight. And despite U.S. government denials, Kavanaugh reported it’s become increasingly clear that civilians are frequently killed by bombs dropped by the U.S. and coalition forces:

“Airwars estimates that at least 1,422 civilians have been killed by weapons deployed by coalition warplanes through July 18, a figure far greater than the 41 civilian deaths acknowledged by the Pentagon to-date.”

Antiwar.com reported Tuesday that hundreds of civilians may have been killed in coalition airstrikes on villages occupied by Daesh near the northern Syrian city of Manbij. Jason Ditz wrote:

“U.S. and coalition airstrikes against the northern Syrian villages of Tokhar and Hoshariyeh have killed at least 56 civilians, including 11 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Other groups claimed the civilian toll was as high as 200.”

“The Pentagon rarely accounts for civilians killed in airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, occasionally issuing statements with dramatic undercounts of the number of civilians they’ve killed since the war began,” Ditz noted. “U.S. attacks in and around Manbij alone have killed over 150 people in the past two months.”

In addition to the loss of human lives, the ongoing war on Daesh has a high financial toll. On Tuesday, Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, wrote, “With each bomb costing on average somewhere around $50,000, those bombs have cost U.S. (for the most part) taxpayers at least two and a half billion dollars.”

And in February, The Hill reported that the cost of the war had already surpassed $6 billion by the end of January.

“A defense spokesman says that, as of January 31, the total cost to U.S. taxpayers of anti-ISIS operations that began on Aug. 8, 2014, is $6.2 billion,” reported Kristina Wong, defense reporter for The Hill. “That’s an average of $11.5 million per day, for 542 days of operations. The average daily cost of operations has gone up from $11.4 million per day, as of late December.”

Since the real goal for this war has more to do with controlling the region’s energy resources and overthrowing Syrian President Bashar Assad than actually defeating Daesh, McAdams noted that profits for the military-industrial complex will continue to roll in even after the bombing finally ceases.

“Imagine how much damage to infrastructure, environment, etc. will have been done by 50,000 bombs,” he wrote. “The U.S. taxpayers will pay once to blow the place up and then pay again to build it back up.”

So, more than 50,000 bombs later, are the U.S. and coalition forces any closer to eradicating Daesh? Official government sources under-report civilian death tolls, and the number of Daesh fighters killed so far is even harder to calculate, with thePentagon and other official sources offering conflicting, biased reporting.

US claims of ISIS dead:
-Jan: 6,000 (Amb. Jones)
-Feb: 8,500 (Austin)
-June: 13,000 (Carlisle)
-Today: 20,000 (OIR spox)

But no body counts

— Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) October 13, 2015

In October, The Atlantic’s Kathy Gilsinan reported that the U.S. military claimed it had killed 20,000 Daesh fighters in about a year. “Somehow, though, ISIS’s ‘overall force’ is the same size as it was when the U.S. air campaign expanded into Syria over a year ago,” she wrote.

Gilsinan argued that this inaccurate body count could help extend the war indefinitely, concluding:

“And if the United States can’t know when it has won—or lost—it can’t know when the killing will stop. Nor, apparently, exactly how much it has already done.”