Historic Market Manipulation, Setting The Stage For Catastrophe
The average fiat currency has lost more than half its purchasing power in the past decade alone, whilst the “1%” on the receiving end of such ill-begotten – and thankfully, ill-fated – monetary and insider trading excesses – are enjoying “dotcom valuations in a Great Depression Era,” in everything from stocks, to bonds, and residential real estate. The former two categories of which, the 99% own little or none of; and the latter of which, is driving home ownership (and rental) costs to unprecedented highs – in absolute prices, and relative to the average Joe or Jane’s increasingly dwindling savings.
In fact, the blatancy of Central bank “monetization” has become so blatant, that even with the Fed (for now) absent from the QE Ponzi – at least, per its official policy – global Central bank bond monetization is at an all-time high, at roughly $250 billion/month. This, excluding stock monetizations by the Central banks of Japan, Switzerland, and Israel, to name a few, of who knows how many additional billions. In fact, as I laid out in painstaking detail earlier this month – it’s not unreasonable to conclude that the Swiss National Bank, on its own, has done as much “equity QE” on the U.S. market as the Fed itself! This, from a Central bank that in late 2014, begged its citizens to vote down the “Save our Swiss Gold” referendum, because it needed the “flexibility” to rig markets – like the Euro/Franc peg, which it abandoned just three weeks later.
Since entering the Precious Metals sector in May 2002 – exactly 15 years ago – it took mere weeks to realize it was rigged. This, as I was just starting to realize that the stock market, too, was being commandeered – in the wake of the obvious “PPT” influences in the wake of 9/11, and the Worldcom and Enron collapses of 2002. And by PPT, I mean the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets”; inadvertently deemed the “plunge protection team” by disgruntled former Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos, exactly one week after 9/11.
“Well, what I wanted to talk about for a few minutes is the various efforts that are going on in public and behind the scenes by the Fed and other government officials to guard against a free-fall in the markets….perhaps the most important, the Fed in 1987 created what is called the Plunge Protection Team, which is the Federal Reserve, big major banks, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and the other exchanges and they have been meeting informally so far, and they have a kind of an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem. They have in the past acted more formally… I don’t know if you remember but in 1998, there was a crisis called the Long-term Capital Crisis. It was a major currency trader, and there was a global currency crisis. And they, with the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together when it started to collapse and propped up the currency markets. And, they have plans in place to consider that if the markets start to fall.”
Yes, the PPT – created in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash, at the behest of the Fed’s brand new printer-in-chief Alan Greenspan; to supplement the long-standing, and far shadowier “Exchange Stabilization Fund”; around since 1933, with a mandate, altered as of 1970, a year before the gold standard was abandoned, “allowing the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, to deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities.” In other words, the “U.S. headquarters” of the Cartel tasked with suppressing gold (and silver) prices to maintain “confidence” in history’s largest, most destructive fiat Ponzi scheme – spearheaded by its “supreme leader,” the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland, whose even shadowier activities rarely come to light; as they did during December 2011’s “Operation PM Annhilation II.” When, with dollar-priced gold threatening to surge back to the all-time high achieved before September 2011’s “Operation PM Annihilation I” raid, the following headline coincided with an equally vicious paper PM raid at – yep, you guessed it, 10:00 AM EST – just after the ECB “unexpectedly” reduced interest rates.
- MARKET SOURCES REPORT BIS, BOE & FEDERAL RESERVE WERE SELLING GOLD AFTER IT POPPED TO SESSION HIGH AT GMT 1335 – MNI NEWS via BLOOMBERG
Back in 2003, when I became an (unpaid) contributor to GATA – i.e., the Gold Anti-Trust Action committee – I commenced what has become a lifelong effort to expose market manipulation, particularly in the Precious Metal market that has always been Ground Zero in the “Deep State” fight against sound money. Which fortunately, has recently gained a powerful ally in crypto-currency; which, for entirely different reasons (albeit, with the same anti-Central bank roots), is fighting an eminently, and hopefully imminently, winnable war as well, against world-destrying fiat currency. The evidence of PM suppression is as voluminous as it is damning – from last year’s Deutsche Bank admissions; to recently discovered documents discussing the true aim of the COMEX’s 1974 creation; to yesterday’s new bombshell documents from 1979-80, of Bank of International Settlements communiques regarding the how, and why, gold prices needed to be suppressed.
Fortunately for Precious Metal holders, the cumulative impact of five-plus decades of price suppression – going all the way back to the overt London Gold Pool of 1961-68 – has been the irreversible decline of mine production; the looting of above-ground, available-for-sale inventory; and of course, record-high demand, due to the aforementioned, inexorable collapse of purchasing power caused by the historic fiat Ponzi scheme the suppression of Precious Metal prices enabled. Not to mention, the lowest inflation-adjusted PM valuations in global history (particularly for silver, as I discussed last week); whilst simultaneously, as noted above, upwardly-rigged financial markets have been manipulated to their highest-ever valuations, amidst the worst economic environment, and outlook, of our lifetimes. Which I assure you, will get much worse as the historic overcapacity said fiat Ponzi caused is unwound – amidst the most deleterious demographic tends in global history, as history’s largest, worldwide debt edifice parabolically rises.
Today’s article was inspired by the unprecedented PPT/Cartel “reactions” to what I view as the most concentrated doses of “PiMBEEB” – or Precious Metal (and Bitcoin) bullish, everything-else-bearish” headlines I have come across since the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Only this time, the long-term prognosis is much worse, given the aforementioned, historic debt and overcapacity issues that have since been built into the system by unprecedentedly destructive Central bank actions. Which, cumulatively, have taken us dramatically closer to the ultimate financial market collapse; certainly in real terms, if not nominal terms as well – that must inevitably arrive, given how historically far from reality government-rigged prices have become.
Yesterday alone, we saw British stocks – care of the PPT, of course – barely decline in the wake of not only the biggest home-soil terrorist attack since 2005, but increasingly contentious BrExit discussions. Or how about Greek stocks barely declining Tuesday, after it was learned that Troika “bailout” discussions badly broke down, putting the dying nation within two months of default? Or Spain’s stock market barely declining today – when, following a shocking Socialist Party election, setting the stage for a third national election in less than two years, Catalonia threatened immediate secession if the secession referendum it plans for this Fall (which likely, will pass irrespective) is not recognized as legitimate by the Spanish government.
Or South Africa’s market barely declining on rumors its President will be ousted? Or last night’s Shanghai “dead ringer” and “hail mary” rallies – allowing it to “bounce” off the key level of 3,000 the PBOC’s “national team” riggers have been long defending – after China was unexpectedly downgraded by Moody’s to within two rungs of junk status, as its interbank lending rates exploded, its yield curve inverted, and fears of the collapse of history’s largest economic and financial bubbles proliferated? This, after the “Dow Jones Propaganda Average” was similarly propped mere hours earlier, after new home sales “unexpectedly” plunged 8% in April, whilst the Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index free-fell from 15 to 1. Which, I might add, would have fallen much more if not for the historic “prices paid” surge, signalling rampant stagflation.
I mean, geez, even Asher Edelman, the legendary investor whom Gordon Gekko himself was modeled after, espoused yesterday that “I don’t want to be in the market because I don’t know when the plug is going to get pulled…(as) the government’s ‘plunge protection team’ is the only thing propping up the current market rally.” To that end, even Mario Draghi warned this morning of the, via a blatant Alan Greenspan reference, “excessive exuberance” in European home prices.
And don’t worry, none of this could possibly be bad for fiat currencies in the process of being serially hyperinflated, in a last ditch effort to avert their inevitable, spectacular collapse; as paper Precious Metals; and particularly, “paper PM investments” like mining shares; were kept under control, via relentless attacks at all “key attack times.” I mean, geez, we have now experienced “Sunday Night Sentiment” raids on 185 of the past 195 weekends – or 95% of the time over the past four years; and 844 of the past 963 “2:15 AM” opens of the London pre-market paper trading session – or 88%; as we did last night, with ZERO other markets materially moving. And don’t forget the “oil PPT-supported” crude markets, at the key psychological level of $50/bbl they have been defending for the past 18 months, in the lead up to tomorrow’s guaranteed-to-fail OPEC meeting – with the world still amidst the greatest ever crude glut, with only the nearly full Chinese strageic oil reserve preventing it from getting much worse; potentially, very soon.
Last but not least, we have the accelerating implosion of the economy, geopolitical clout, and political stability of the dying “superpower” known as the United States. Since Election Day, a “perfect storm” confluence of PiMBEEB factors has made it as vulnerable to economic and political collapse as at any time in its 240-year history, at a time when financial market valuations have been goosed to all-time high valuations; and conversely, increasingly scare Precious Metals to all-time low valuations. In other words, these “last to go” markets – as I deemed the Dow, and paper Precious Metals two years ago – have never been closer to “going.” And with them, whatever still remains of the rapidly dying, global fiat Ponzi scheme. Which, now that gold and silver have the aforementioned, increasingly powerful ally known as crypto-currency at their side, are poised for an historic upward explosion, as “Economic Mother Nature” inevitably – and perhaps, imminently – claims victory against the historic market manipulation that is setting the (global) stage for an unprecedented catastastrophe.