July 3, 2008
Elaine Meinel Supkis
We are coming up on the $th of July, a magic number day. And we are also seeing very clearly the destructive cyclone of economic destruction that began VERY SUDDENLY last July. Although there were many storm warnings before this, although the roots of this mess are far in the past, the actual storm hit a year ago. So I have been in the mood to tie the present to the past here. Today, we go visit the usual strange places that make this new service so odd. I want to talk about Scrooge McDuck after attacking Santa Claus last night. The very first Scrooge cartoons are very much worth watching and examining. They are from 1967, the year of the Summer of Love which was when the Hate of all things communist was at its crest.
Few Americans know that the 4th of July was chosen because it is a magic number day. Here is an old story of mine about all this:
Robert Howard of Forbidden Knowledge.com writes: 'On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m. United States B-29 bomber Enola Gay, on Mission No. 13, dropped an atomic bomb called "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, Japan near the 33rd Parallel. This was "Day One" of a new age, the Nuclear Age. To understand the change that took place, we must back up and look at the importance of the number 13 from the formation of the United States to the atomic bomb's explosion in Hiroshima.In 1935, Paul Foster Case wrote: "Since the date, 1776, is placed on the bottom course of the pyramid [on the Great Seal], and since the number 13 has been so important in the history of the United States and in the symbols of the seal, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the thirteen courses of the pyramid may represent thirteen time-periods of thirteen years each." The 13 time-periods of 13 years each equaled 169 years. From July 4, 1776 to July 4, 1945 equaled 169 years. From July 4, 1945 to August 6, 1945 (Hiroshima) was 33 days.'
Sounds totally insane. But then, all these things are crazy as coots. And this is deliberate. People looking at these things have to either accept them at face value or fall into the deep pits of suspicion, conspiracy theories and other nutty things. There is a tremendous amount of disinformation out there designed to mislead or drive people insane. This is the easiest way to cloak 'magic'. Surround it by stupid magic that causes people to either be repulsed or shrug it all off. This way, true conspiracies can operate under cover of a certain degree of chaos.
A lot of artwork is hidden messages, connecting of mysteries, revealing psychological or material truths and of course, deception and denial. But if we go to the arts to take a close look at things, we find all sorts of startling stuff that isn't supposed to be noticed or understood to the casual looker. For example, we have the Disney Scrooge McDuck cartoons. First, let's look at the very first Scrooge McDuck animation done in a very queer year, 1967:
In this cartoon from 1967, Scrooge McDuck tries to teach his grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie how to save money. This is known to be Scrooge McDuck's first animated appearance, apart from a brief cameo appearance on the Mickey Mouse Club television series.
First, the opening song is hilarious. The concern of the bankers and the rulers since the collapse in banking and investment in 1929 was to prevent hoarding. Many cartoons were made in WWII about the dangers of hoarding. A number were made in the 1930's that condemned savers and praised spenders. The earliest Popeye cartoons were drawn at the very beginning of the Great Depression. In it, the very fat Wimpy would woefully wander about what looks like Coney Island, begging not for spare change or seeking to earn money. He is begging for LOANS. So he can buy a mere hamburger. Popeye seems to be unemployed, himself. Olive Oyl seems to be running a run down rooming house.
The point is, the audiences thought it was hilarious to see a fat man seeking loans when there were no more loans to be gotten for love or money. Olive Oyl is skinny and she squirrels away her money in her stocking, just for example. She can be lured into folly by false promises of marriage. Everyone wants her money since her sex appeal is slender, at best. But she has CASH.
The Uncle Scrooge of 1967 is a Victorian who is a hoarder from the past. He is also an emissary of the US government which has hired Disney to put out propaganda since WWII. Uncle Walt was a notorious penny pincher who refused to share funds with the animators who actually drew the cartoons. Here is a picture I pulled from the second video which is when Scrooge finally convinces his nephews to sign on the dotted line, buying penny stocks for $1.95 [more than $5 today!] and they hand him over their slender savings so it can 'circulate' and 'grow'.
Note the expression on his face when he collects his three penny fee!
You need a sharp eye to catch that transformation from the friendly looking face to the evil leer! I was watching very closely at that point and as if flashed by [it is only one frame long, after all!] I saw it come and go. The entire cartoon is very schizoid. The overt message and songs and the merry expressions of the characters are all about how happy they are to make money CIRCULATE. Then, the cartoon runs through a funny history of money that leaves out important parts, the mention of earning interest being rushed over while the discussion of what could be called 'money' was thoroughly hashed through. Indeed, and this is VERY IMPORTANT: the role of gold and silver in all this was BARELY MENTIONED!
Ah! The date! 1967 was when the degradation of the currency was flowing madly forwards. Coins were being recalled and melted and re-issued with cheaper metals! The dollar was not, as the cartoon characters sang, 'Good as gold'. Indeed, the total collapse of the gold standard was already in the secret planning stages! The Fed chair, Mc Chesney Martin Jr. even gave a most interesting speech about foreign held dollar reserves, trade and the gold standard that we should all read:
Balance of payments discipline. --It is sometimes asserted that the present international payments system makes it possible for the United States to avoid, or at least to postpone indefinitely, the correction of its large and persistent payments deficit. While I disagree with this assertion, I do fully agree that the United States balance of payments deficit has been too large and has persisted too long. Significant progress has been made in reducing that deficit, but much remains to be done.It would be a mistake, however, to think that the United States has not been subject to balance of payments discipline in recent years. It is a striking fact —apparently not widely realized as yet-- that over the past 3-1/2 years as a whole our payments deficit has practically all been financed by the reduction of our reserves: that is, through sales of gold and drawings on the International Monetary Fund — not differently in substance from the way any other country might finance its deficit.
HAHAHA. Back then, our 'large and persistent payments deficits' were tiny! Virtually nothing. Since 1967, these tiny imperfections have grown to monstrous size. Our economy grew, also, as has our adult population. So the GDP isn't totally hideous. But it is significant and unsustainable. Back in 1967, it was a huge worry which is why the bankers of England who created the huge previous mess were worried they would be crushed by the US doing what England did in the past. Martin Jr. was assuring them all, the US would not run the new empire on deficit spending. Also note that this deficit was paid in GOLD. A significant fact.
Accordingly, it should be expected that many countries around the world will continue to find it useful and profitable to hold a substantial part of their reserves in the form of dollar balances. We in the United States believe that it is a matter for individual countries to decide whether or not to hold dollars in their reserves at all, and whether or not to accumulate dollars when their reserves increase. But we are naturally sensitive about proposed innovations in the international monetary system that would place obstacles in the way of their doing so, or would actually give countries a positive incentive to switch their reserves out of dollars.
The biggest wish on the US wish list was for Japan and Germany to hold dollars rather than gold in their new reserves. Note also the Fed, in dire need of new income because the US was running all systems in the red, was very anxious there be NO BARRIERS to building up FOREX reserves with dollars! As Japan noted with glee, I might add. At this point in time, all our hostile trade rivals are doing the same. The smallest nations of Europe have reserves bigger than the US which is supposedly the world's #1 economy. This is hopelessly horrible, by the way, and utterly unsustainable.
The role of gold. --This does not mean, however, that we expect gold no longer to play a role in international commerce and finance. On the contrary, we expect gold to continue serving the international payments system as a reserve asset and also to continue serving commerce as a useful commodity.Sometimes gold is held as a speculative investment, A part of this hoarding possibly reflects anticipations that the holder's own particular national currency might depreciate, but a part undoubtedly reflects anticipations that an increase might occur in the price of gold in dollars and other currencies, Gold, as we all know, is a scarce metal and there are those who say that its scarcity could be remedied by increasing its official price. They often point to the unchanged price of gold since the thirties in support of an increase.
But they are viewing gold as a commodity rather than as a measure of monetary value and a monetary reserve asset. The price of gold — like the price of a currency convertible into gold —need no more move with the commodity price level than any other standard or unit of measure needs to move over time just because the objects to be measured get larger. Those most vocal about gold as a monetary asset should stop thinking of gold as a commodity whose price must move with the general price level,
I would like to state categorically that, in my opinion, an increase in the price of gold is completely unacceptable. This position is shared, with strong conviction, not only by the U. S. Government but also, I believe, by almost all governments and central banks throughout the world.
He is referring here to devaluing the dollar. Gold goes up, the dollar goes down. Since gold speculation was outlawed in 1933, the price of gold was artificial since then. Note how he differentiates between a 'commodity' and a 'reserve monetary asset.' The government decreed the value of gold vis a vis the currency. No one was allowed, IN THE US, to contest this evaluation. But overseas: another story. Thus, the glee of France and other nations that raided Fort Knox legally and willfully. The US, instead of moving to change all this, sat paralyzed by the necessities of defending 'the free world' was going bankrupt from these incessant wars and the tax cuts combined with increasing inflation.
The Disney cartoon is now set in context to what was going on outside. The cartoon mentions how paper is as good as gold but not how this can get out of balance. Instead, characters sing about how they need MONEY, not gold! Even as the world was beating a path to Fort Knox to lay their hands on GOLD, turning in the increasingly worthless dollars. The propaganda against gold was very intense and it is still ongoing. The business as to how gold can regulate markets has been totally wiped out of US economic schools and anyone talking about this is considered a crank or a Presidential candidate like Ron Paul.
I was in Germany during 1968. While there, I picked up the very first Scrooge McDuck Disney comic books to learn how to read and talk conversational German. I read this to children in Germany and both they and the adults wholeheartedly approved of Scrooge's ethos and handling of finances! It is no wonder that the Bank of Europe is so intent on protecting the euro. First of all, the McDuck family is very formal in German. They address each other with the proper pronouns and respect. None of the blustering stuff we got in America. The McDucks were very formal and very intent on being scientific and rational. They were also very conservative in the good sense of the word. They definitely wanted the McDuck enterprises to grow. They were very internationalist. They wanted to have a controlling voting interest in a varieties of commodities and manufacturing systems. The educational views were obvious. And were being snapped up by German and Japanese children! Here is some proof of this fact:
Here is the Disney homepage that clearly shows how popular Scrooge is in Germany:
No other book in Germany has had such a large print run for so many years. The first issue of Lustiges Taschenbuch came out on October 1st, 1947. This month, 40 years years later, the 260-page monthly pocket book celebrates its anniversary with 4 special issues. The first issue will be reprinted and made available again, and next month’s issue #369 will have a special gold/silver cover and contain 40 extra pages! Each year 13 new issues of Lustiges Taschenbuch are published. If you put all issues on a bookshelf you’ll need a shelf of 5 1/2 meters (18 feet) long to store the more than 360 books that have published so far. That’s nearly 100,000 pages of Disney comic stories!
I can certainly attest to this! Language is how the brain works and the McDuck family's Scrooge characteristics worked perfectly...in German. In the US, it was far less popular. The desire to have superheroes violently impose their ethos, morals and wills upon the restive underclasses was much stronger than in Germany, for example.
Interspersing the Martin Jr. speech of 1967 where he even says, 'The Federal Reserve System is based on the proposition that "money will not manage itself, " ' with the cartoon about Scrooge McDuck, we can see how insidious the problem about 'what is money' can be. It is controlled by mere humans and the ones chosen to do this lately have been hideous, criminal or stupid at best. But even back then, it was obvious the demands of the State that wanted above all to continue bomb, bomb, bombing Vietnam was little interested in balancing the books. The Disney cartoon talks a lot about balancing the books, by the way, and saving money. And then the middle part where inflation is discussed: HAHAHA. They knew perfectly well, the devil in this particular detail was very destructive!
Back to old Scrooge: he has a vault where he hoards GOLD. There is some paper there but trust me, most of the wealth there is gold. He tells his curious nephews that the gold was temporary, it was there as backing for cash flows. But the gold was 'working' as 'money'. Except this is false. Its store of value was as backing of the greenbacks. And even as he sternly explains why one cannot just print paper money, even rips up the paper money to show how it can be worthless, he stitches the $20 dollar bill back together most carefully. Seriously, this cartoon bears repeated watchings to catch the facial expressions and other tiny details! Even as he expresses frustration over the potential of dollars to lose value even as it circulates, he is careful to treat this paper as real money!
And back to Roubini...Suppose that a run - triggered by concerns about illiquidity and solvency - occurs against a major broker dealer (say Lehman) would the Fed come to the rescue again? The answer is not sure: such broker dealer has access to the PDCF but sharply borrowing from this facility would signal that the institution may be bleeding liquidity and be in trouble; thus large access to the Fed facility may cause the run on the liabilities of such financial institutions to accelerate rather than ebb. The reason is as follows: if creditors of the broker dealers knew with certainty that the Fed liquidity tab is open and unlimited the existence of the facility would stop the run. But if there is any meaningful probability that the amount that the Fed would be willing to lend to an institutions using that facility is not unlimited and is not unconditional then use of the facility may accelerate the run - as those first in line would have access to the liquidity provided by the Fed lending to the broker dealer in trouble while those waiting may be stuck once the lending stops. This is akin to a currency crisis in a pegged exchange rate regime triggered by a run on the forex reserves of a central bank. Once the reserves are running down and investors expect that the central bank will run out of reserves the run accelerated and the collapse of the peg occurs faster.
And what were the old reserves? GOLD! And what are the new reserves? US IOUs. Paper 'money'. The US can't support the past lending via more gold. We are trying to do this with more dollars. Watch part II of the Scrooge McDuck cartoons to see what he thinks about all this. HE HATES IT. He rightfully views inflation as his deadly enemy since HE HOARDS GOLD and has to hold it as the basis of his wealth. Now let us go to today's news:
Lehman's Hedge-Fund Deals Leave Public in Dark: Jonathan Weil
(Bloomberg) -- So let's say you're a big shot at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., trying to keep your firm from becoming the next Bear Stearns Cos. The stock has tanked. The market has doubts about your balance sheet. What do you do?One step to avoid would be any action that might create needless public uncertainty about your company's finances, because investors' greatest fear is of the unknown.
So what does Lehman do? It sells billions of dollars of assets to a newly formed hedge fund that:
1) counts Lehman as a significant investor;
2) is run by seven recently departed Lehman executives;
3) is operating out of Lehman's office space, three floors down from the office of Lehman's corporate secretary.
They are desperately shuffling the papers that represent wealth. There is no gold backing any of this. Gold is now officially only a commodity. And it 'floats' just like the dollar, oil, SIVs or anything. Investors certainly fear the unknown. But the dark pools, the back doors, the occult is where the easy money is. The certainty the investors want is 'the sure thing' which can be very stupid things so long as the tulip bulb shares sell. They want consistency coupled with risk-taking profits. And thus, are lured into dangers.
World Bank chief urges G8 to act now as "world entering danger zone"
(Xinhua) -- World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick has called on leaders of the G8 as well as the major oil producers to act now to deal with surging food and energy prices, warning that the world is now "entering a danger zone."Zoellick's call is contained in a July 1 letter to the head of the upcoming G8 summit in Japan, in which the Bank, World Food Program (WFP) and International Monetary Fund estimate that about 10 billion dollars is needed to meet short term needs of people hit hardest by the crisis.
"What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster -- a silent tsunami or a perfect storm: It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people," Zoellick said in the letter made available to Xinhua on Wednesday.
HAHAHA. Scrooge McDuck's song and dance explains this pretty clearly! And this is not natural: it is human made. People can fix this and it is hilarious that the Chinese get to read this information. While in the US, everyone is finger pointing for blame and running away from the mess. But note what the fix is: we have food and fuel inflation which is attacking the nations with the most business with the US! And to 'fix' this, MORE dollars must be spent? And will we drain the coffers of the US to do this or will $10 billion in Funny Money™ appear like magic? It is obvious, what will be used here.
I have, for the past 35 years, expressed my grave concern for the future of America. The course we have taken over the past century has threatened our liberties, security and prosperity. In spite of these long-held concerns, I have days—growing more frequent all the time—when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some Big Events are about to occur. These fast-approaching events will not go unnoticed. They will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed.
There were several stages. From the inception of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to 1933, the Central Bank established itself as the official dollar manager. By 1933, Americans could no longer own gold, thus removing restraint on the Federal Reserve to inflate for war and welfare.
Like me, he loves to talk in a historical arc.
By 1945, further restraints were removed by creating the Bretton-Woods Monetary System making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. This system lasted up until 1971. During the period between 1945 and 1971, some restraints on the Fed remained in place. Foreigners, but not Americans, could convert dollars to gold at $35 an ounce. Due to the excessive dollars being created, that system came to an end in 1971.It’s the post Bretton-Woods system that was responsible for globalizing inflation and markets and for generating a gigantic worldwide dollar bubble. That bubble is now bursting, and we’re seeing what it’s like to suffer the consequences of the many previous economic errors.
Ironically in these past 35 years, we have benefited from this very flawed system. Because the world accepted dollars as if they were gold, we only had to counterfeit more dollars, spend them overseas (indirectly encouraging our jobs to go overseas as well) and enjoy unearned prosperity. Those who took our dollars and gave us goods and services were only too anxious to loan those dollars back to us. This allowed us to export our inflation and delay the consequences we now are starting to see.
But it was never destined to last, and now we have to pay the piper. Our huge foreign debt must be paid or liquidated. Our entitlements are coming due just as the world has become more reluctant to hold dollars. The consequence of that decision is price inflation in this country—and that’s what we are witnessing today. Already price inflation overseas is even higher than here at home as a consequence of foreign central bank’s willingness to monetize our debt.
Printing dollars over long periods of time may not immediately push prices up–yet in time it always does. Now we’re seeing catch-up for past inflating of the monetary supply. As bad as it is today with $4 a gallon gasoline, this is just the beginning. It’s a gross distraction to hound away at “drill, drill, drill” as a solution to the dollar crisis and high gasoline prices. Its okay to let the market increase supplies and drill, but that issue is a gross distraction from the sins of deficits and Federal Reserve monetary shenanigans.
As usual, Ron Paul is totally correct. His walking away from troubling the media and our official candidates was a terrific loss. He talks revolution but wants to sit at home and knit doilies. But then, it is up to the rest of us to make the noise that leads to change.
Dear Elaine.
Please come to Ron Pauls Freedom March, and rally in D.C. on July 12th. You should be a key speaker! G.Edward Griffin and Ron Paul will give speeches, as well as Naomi wolf. Iam going with my girlfriend to try and stand up for freedom. Its all we have, and its fading so fast. I love your writing. Can't go a day without reading it. You rule. Thanks so much.
Posted by: Ralph | July 03, 2008 at 03:58 PM
there are no golden hordes...they are only imaganiary....silver, now -- there might be something there....
Something all can appreciate...
Posted by: Buffalo Ken | July 03, 2008 at 04:15 PM
hey cromwell, may you burn ..........
tonight.
Posted by: Buffalo Ken | July 03, 2008 at 04:15 PM
hey - nothing is fading so fast. If it is fading it is only in your imagination.
Really,
The People Choose.
Posted by: Buffalo Ken | July 03, 2008 at 04:37 PM
This thread is like so many threads. They go where they will.
Threads and string though...I think they have attributes. Like thickness. Or even something else.
String theory. So many dimensions. Probably because of algebra which confused us from geometry. Geometry is where the answers lie. Seems as such to me.
To my splil-brain buffalo happening charlotte-living, everybody loving foolsish self.
Ha.
ken
Posted by: Buffalo Ken | July 03, 2008 at 04:39 PM
OK, truly signing off for awhile.
This thread and others.
I'll do my best.
Posted by: Buffalo Ken | July 03, 2008 at 04:41 PM
Ralph, I would love to be there but can't afford to go right now. Had to spend a fortune fixing my teeth this summer when one of the molars decided to take a hike.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | July 03, 2008 at 05:38 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Barks
Carl Barks, Scrooge McDuck's creator, was born in 1901 and died in 2000. McDuck was enraged by paid a US dime and was inspired by it to make wealth (hoard gold). I guess he remembers what it used to be when gold was a legal tender in the US;)
Posted by: Fetung | July 03, 2008 at 06:11 PM
The brilliant, blunt head of the Reserve Bank of Australia between 1949-1968, Dr H.C. Coombs, famously recalled that, when he was trying to explain the complexities of central banking to a friend, the friend replied:
"Come the revolution, you will be hanged as high as the rest, but as they bear you off to the nearest lamp post, you will be crying plaintively, 'But I am a CENTRAL banker.'"
A CENTRAL banker. A CENTRAL banker.
Isn't that quote hilarious?
Posted by: Karmaisking | July 03, 2008 at 07:18 PM
I should have looked up the creator of Scrooge McDuck. He certainly had quite an eye for details. This is why, despite the cartoon looking 'typical Disney' Scrooge, himself, has a darker side, a shrewdness that is rather astonishing behind the Disney foolish smiling faces. Very similar to all the Evil Queens and Evil Stepmothers who also have rich, interesting faces that are not vacuous but rather, full of cunning and malice.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | July 03, 2008 at 09:42 PM
BILDERBERG 2008 REPORT
http://www.americanfreepress.net/Bilderberg_2008_Report.pdf
Posted by: GK | July 03, 2008 at 10:06 PM
Thanks, GK. Love all those occult, secret meetings.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | July 03, 2008 at 11:28 PM
Elaine, there are a lot of reading in the FED archives just like you said.
Look at this:
"Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
December 19, 2002
Although the gold standard could hardly be portrayed as having produced a period of price tranquility, it was the case that the price level in 1929 was not much different, on net, from what it had been in 1800. But, in the two decades following the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the consumer price index in the United States nearly doubled. And, in the four decades after that, prices quintupled. Monetary policy, unleashed from the constraint of domestic gold convertibility, had allowed a persistent overissuance of money. As recently as a decade ago, central bankers, having witnessed more than a half-century of chronic inflation, appeared to confirm that a fiat currency was inherently subject to excess."
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021219/default.htm
That is what Alal G said only 6 years ago.
Posted by: hakan with the reindeer | July 04, 2008 at 03:01 AM
Carl Barks is very, very popular here in the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordic states. When I grew up I was a huge fan and even learned German in order to be able to read "die Lustigen Taschenbucher". Many of those were never translated to Dutch, but were in German.
You really should read the first series of stories that Barks made on the Scrooge character. They are truly great. In one of them, created ±1950, he explains inflation with the following story:
Scrooge has a farm and his famous money-bin. A tornado blows his money-bin apart and distributes all his money around Duckburg. Everybody running around…Ï’m rich !”. Srooge stays cool and says he will get it all back. In the mean time all the shops and businesses in Duckburg close and have signs like :”Closed due to world journey”. When all the newly enriched Duckburgers get hungry, the end up at Scrooges farm and line up to buy his produces. Signs at the farm state prices like: 2 eggs one million, etc.
Great story and made me understand inflation at age 6.
Posted by: dutch_renter | July 04, 2008 at 07:57 AM
Yes, I remember that story. I have read the series for much of my childhood. This is why I chose the Lustige Tagebuch for reading material. I had to be able to talk about money in German back then when banking, working, etc.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | July 04, 2008 at 02:57 PM
let's join our hands together to stop this kind of wrong doings. It may risk lives in the future if we just let them continue.
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