Showing posts with label Citizens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citizens. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

FBI Orwellian Cyber Police State: Citizens Not Allowed to Have Secrets

""The police and surveillance state predicted in the forward-looking 1940s classic "1984" by George Orwell, has slowly, but steadily, come to fruition. However, like a frog sitting idly in a pan of steadily-warming water, too many Americans still seem unaware that the slow boil of big government is killing their constitutional liberties.

The latest sign of this stealth takeover of civil rights and freedom was epitomized in recent Senate testimony by FBI Director James Comey, who voiced his objections to civilian use of encryption to protect personal data – information the government has no automatic right to obtain.

As reported by The New American, Comey testified that he believes the government's spy and law enforcement agencies should have unfettered access to everything Americans may store or send in electronic format: On computer hard drives, in so-called i-clouds, in email and in text messaging – for our own safety and protection. Like many in government today, Comey believes that national security is more important than constitutional privacy protections or, apparently, due process. After all, aren't criminals the only ones who really have anything to hide?

In testimony before a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee entitled "Going Dark: Encryption, Technology, and the Balance Between Public Safety and Privacy" Comey said that in order to stay one step ahead of terrorists, as well as international and domestic criminals, Uncle Sam's various spy and law enforcement agencies should have access to available technology used to de-encrypt protected data. Also, he believes the governmentshould be the final arbiter deciding when decryption is necessary.

What could go wrong there?

Find more articles on the police state at PoliceState.news

Government, at all levels, is responsible

During the hearing, TNA reported, technology experts warned the panel that giving the FBI limitless access to the personal electronic data of Americans would open it up to exploitation by "bad actors." But Comey was having none of that.

"It is clear that governments across the world, including those of our closest allies, recognize the serious public safety risks if criminals can plan and undertake illegal acts without fear of detection," he told the committee.

"Are we comfortable with technical design decisions that result in barriers to obtaining evidence of a crime?"
So, in essence, Comey  like many before him, especially since the global war on terror was launched – believes that, in the name of national security Americans ought to give up more of their individual and constitutional rights because that's the only way we can be adequately protected.

Perhaps realizing that his Senate hearing testimony was public, Comey gave the Constitution a passing glance, noting that the government should respect the "requirements and safeguards of the laws" and the country's founding document. However, as Americans now know, spy agencies during the past two presidential administrations have been tasked increasingly with conducting warrantless, unchecked surveillance of Americans' electronic data and communications.

But all of this is not on men like Comey and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Congress bears its share of responsibility, too.""



Tuesday, July 21, 2015

American Internment Camps For Disloyal Citizens Says Former 4 Star General Wesley Clark


""Retired US Army General Wesley Clark called for the internment of persons deemed “disloyal” to the United States government in an interview with MSNBC last Friday.
Warning of the threat posed by “lone wolf” attacks similar to last week’s mass shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Clark advocated stepped-up surveillance of US communities and pre-emptive detention of persons suspected of ideological or political opposition to US government policies.
“We have got to identify the people who are most likely to be radicalized. We’ve got to cut this off at the beginning,” Clark said.
“On a national policy level, we need to look at what self-radicalization means, because we are at war with this group of terrorists,” the former top military commander added.
“They do have an ideology. In World War II, if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.”
He continued:
“If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States, as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right, and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.
“And I think we’re going to have to increasingly get tough on this, not only in the United States, but our allied nations like Britain, Germany and France are going to have to look at their domestic law procedures.”
Clark’s recommendations, proclaimed openly on national television, amount to a recipe for mass detention of political opponents of the American state.
His assertion of the “right and obligation” of the US government to conduct round-ups and mass internment operations against political opposition, specifically citing as his model the methods employed against ethnic Germans and Japanese during the Second World War, provides a chilling insight into the thinking of powerful sections of the US ruling establishment.
Clark’s insistence, moreover, that such measures remain in force “for the duration” of Washington’s temporally and geographically limitless “global war on terrorism” amounts to advocacy of the permanent imprisonment of individuals deemed guilty of no actual crime, but merely being “radicalized” and “disloyal.”
These are not the ravings of some television talking head or military crackpot. Coming from a figure of Clark’s pedigree, such comments necessarily reflect views widely discussed within the US state.
As supreme commander of NATO, Clark held one of the most senior and politically influential posts in the US military. While serving as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Clark oversaw the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, Operation Allied Force, beginning in March 1999.
In both the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, Clark was considered among the Democratic Party’s leading contenders. He would likely have gained a senior position in the Obama administration had he not backed Obama’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton after dropping out of the 2008 primary campaign.
His role as a high-profile supporter of Hilary Clinton’s latest presidential bid suggests, however, that Clark’s political ambitions have only been placed on hold. Under a Clinton presidency, Clark could well get the chance to implement his proposals for mass “segregation” of dissidents.
Preparations for the sort of measures advocated by General Clark are clearly well advanced.
In recent weeks, as videos shot in locations from Arizona to New York show, US military units have conducted training exercises, practicing military internment and crowd control techniques at mock internment camps, with military personnel posing as detainees.
Clark’s statements, made last Friday on the major cable news outlet MSNBC, have been met with total silence from the corporate-controlled media, failing to receive even a passing reference in the pages of the New York Times,Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal.
This silence in the face of an open call for internment of domestic political opponents, issued by one of the country’s leading political generals, underscores the fact that the entire political and media establishment has decisively broken with centuries-old bourgeois democratic norms. The media silence will no doubt serve to encourage forces within the US military and intelligence apparatus to intensify the drive toward dictatorship.
For decades, the military and intelligence bureaucracies have developed the administrative, infrastructural and police components of an embryonic totalitarian state. Congressional hearings in 1987 on the Iran-Contra covert operations conducted by the Reagan administration exposed the existence of a plan developed by the Pentagon, codenamed Rex 84, to detain hundreds of thousands of immigrants and political dissidents and imprison them in militarized prison camps.
One Rex 84 sub-component, Operation Cable Splicer, envisioned the replacement of existing bourgeois political institutions by a shadow dictatorship controlled by a select group of some 100 executive branch cadre.
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the Bush administration staged a dry run of updated Continuity of Government (COG) plans for a “shadow government, deploying dozens of pre-selected officials to a network of secret command-and-control bunkers across America,” the Washington Post reported in March of 2002.
The George W. Bush administration made further preparations for new prison camps in 2006, signing a $400 million contract with KBR to build up the Department of Homeland Security’s “detention and processing capabilities.”
The Obama administration has expanded the authoritarian legal and policy framework developed under previous administrations. Since taking office, Obama has issued annual decrees renewing the state of emergency declared by the Bush administration after 9/11 and further entrenching emergency powers granted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
In a series of annual National Defense Authorization Acts, the Obama administration has codified the anti-democratic measures implemented under Bush, asserting unlimited power to indefinitely detain or kill individuals without trial.""


The preparations for mass detention:


Thursday, June 11, 2015

Precrime Hits Mainstream as DHS Secretly Video Records Citizens


""Traveling through the T. F. Green Airport of Providence, Rhode Island?
If so, the Department of Homeland Security may be collecting video of you as part of a project to sniff out behavioral indicators of “malicious intent.”
In other words, the DHS wants to use video images of passengers to predict crimes.
On Tuesday, the DHS quietly released online a “privacy impact assessment” that provides the legal justification for an ongoing experiment it is calling “Data Collection for the Centralized Hostile Intent Project.”
The 14-page document, reviewed in full by WND, reveals the DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate will conduct an exercise at the Providence airport at an undisclosed date.
The DHS is planning to collect video images at designated areas throughout the airport, including at TSA security checkpoints, ticket counters, baggage claim and the airport entrance. No audio will be recorded at any time, states the document.

The stated goal is to evaluate “whether the behavioral indicators used to screen for passengers with hostile intent can be reliably observed by BDOs (Behavior Detection Officers) via live video images as opposed to in person.”
The document states the video data acquisition will entail collecting and even storing “Personally Identifiable Information in the form of video images that include the face and body of trained actors and members of the traveling public.”
The experiment, the paper makes clear, is focused on video collection of trained actors at designated airport areas. However, it concedes that the agency “may incidentally collect Personally Identifiable Information from members of the traveling public and airport personnel who may be near them.”
The DHS paper says it will delete and not store any video of passengers “inadvertently” collected while filming the trained actors.
Besides testing to see if DHS agents can detect “hostile intent” from video images as opposed to in-person observation, the videos will also used to see if computers can successfully be integrated for automated hostile intent detection and tracking. DHS is developing algorithms for what it calls “person and object detection and tracking.”
‘Right to record’
The DHS contends it has the legal right to record passengers, citing existing U.S. law dictating the mission of the TSA is to protect U.S. transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.
Continues the paper: “In order to execute this mission, TSA employs a multifaceted approach to passenger and airport security. The Behavior Detection and Analysis (BDA) program is among TSA’s many layers of security.”
Project Hostile Intent, initially established in 2008, is an ongoing effort of the DHS to detect behavioral clues indicating an individual’s intent to deceive, do harm or commit a crime.
Some private firms also have been hard at work generating algorithms that can be used to predict future behavior.
In February 2013, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the Massachusetts-based multinational corporation Raytheon – the world’s fifth largest defense contractor – had developed a “Google for Spies” operation that can predict future behavior.""



Monday, June 8, 2015

White House Memo Outlines Military Action on US Citizens and Gun Control Online Speech Being Outlawed on Forums and Websites Against Public


""A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans.
The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers.
The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest.
“This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens,” said a defense official opposed to the directive.
Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”
“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.
“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.
The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”
“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.
Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.
A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.
Mr. Bundy is engaged in a legal battle with the federal Bureau of Land Management over unpaid grazing fees. Along with a group of protesters, Mr. Bundy in April confronted federal and local authorities in a standoff that ended when the authorities backed down.
The Pentagon directive authorizes the secretary of defense to approve the use of unarmed drones in domestic unrest. But it bans the use of missile-firing unmanned aircraft.
“Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” the directive says.
Defense analysts say there has been a buildup of military units within non-security-related federal agencies, notably the creation of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. The buildup has raised questions about whether the Obama administration is undermining civil liberties under the guise of counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts.
Other agencies with SWAT teams reportedly include the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department.
The militarization of federal agencies, under little-known statues that permit deputization of security officials, comes as the White House has launched verbal attacks on private citizens’ ownership of firearms despite the fact that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens.
A White House National Security Council spokeswoman declined to comment.
President Obama stated at the National Defense University a year ago: “I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”
Pentagon official who defended the directive said it was signed in December 2010 after four years of thorough consultations within the Pentagon and with other federal agencies The 2010 directive replaced several previously published directives in 1980, 1991, and 1993. The last time military forces were used to quell civil unrest was 1906 following the San Francisco earthquake to protect the federal mint and restore order in the city.
The official said: “I suppose that in a very extreme case, one can imagine a combination of natural and man-made disasters that result in the cascading failure of communication infrastructure, or some electro-magnetic pulse that shuts down all electronic communication.”
“In the event that it should happen in today’s day and age, we would want our senior military leaders in the field to do all they can to assist their fellow Americans to prevent significant loss of life or malicious destruction of property and to protect federal property or federal governmental functions,” the official said.
HOUSE HITS ONA DOWNGRADE
The House defense authorization bill passed last week calls for adding $10 million to the Pentagon’s future warfare think tank and for codifying the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) as a semi-independent unit.
The provision is being called the Andrew Marshall amendment after the ONA’s longtime director and reflects congressional support for the 92-year-old manager and his staying power through numerous administrations, Republican and Democratic.
Mr. Marshall’s opponents within the Pentagon and the Obama administration persuaded Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this year to downgrade the ONA by cutting its budget and placing it under the control of the undersecretary of defense for policy. The ONA currently is a separate entity within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Members of the House Committee on Armed Services objected and added the $10 million to the administration’s $8.9 million request, along with a legal provision that would codify ONA’s current status as separate from the policy undersecretary shop.
The committee was concerned Mr. Hagel’s downgrade would “limit the ability and flexibility of ONA to conduct long-range comparative assessments,” the report on the authorization bill states.

“The office has a long history of providing alternative analyses and strategies that challenge the ‘group think’ that can often pervade the Department of Defense,” the report says, noting an increasing demand for unconventional thinking about space warfare capabilities by China and Russia.""

Continued here:
""Commonly used and unregulated internet discussions and videos about guns and ammo could be closed down under rules proposed by the State Department, amounting to a "gag order on firearm-related speech," the National Rifle Association is warning.
In updating regulations governing international arms sales, State is demanding that anyone who puts technical details about arms and ammo on the web first get the OK from the federal government — or face a fine of up to $1 million and 20 years in jail.
According to the NRA, that would include blogs and web forums discussing technical details of common guns and ammunition, the type of info gun owners and ammo reloaders trade all the time.
"Gunsmiths, manufacturers, reloaders, and do-it-yourselfers could all find themselves muzzled under the rule and unable to distribute or obtain the information they rely on to conduct these activities," said the NRA in a blog posting.
"This latest regulatory assault, published in the June 3 issue of the Federal Register, is as much an affront to the First Amendment as it is to the Second," warned the NRA's lobbying shop. "Your action is urgently needed to ensure that online blogs, videos, and web forums devoted to the technical aspects of firearms and ammunition do not become subject to prior review by State Department bureaucrats before they can be published," it added.

At issue is the internet. State is updating International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which implement the federal Arms Export Control Act (AECA). The rules govern everything from guns to strategic bombers.
The NRA said that the rules predate the internet, and now the federal government wants to regulate technical arms discussions on on the internationally available web.
State's proposal is highly technical. It took 14 pages in the Federal Register to explain. But the NRA boiled it down for gun owners with this warning:
"In their current form, the ITAR do not (as a rule) regulate technical data that are in what the regulations call the 'public domain.' Essentially, this means data 'which is published and which is generally accessible or available to the public' through a variety of specified means. These include 'at libraries open to the public or from which the public can obtain documents.' Many have read this provision to include material that is posted on publicly available websites, since most public libraries these days make Internet access available to their patrons.
"The ITAR, however, were originally promulgated in the days before the Internet. Some State Department officials now insist that anything published online in a generally-accessible location has essentially been 'exported,' as it would be accessible to foreign nationals both in the U.S. and overseas.
"With the new proposal published on June 3, the State Department claims to be 'clarifying' the rules concerning 'technical data' posted online or otherwise 'released' into the 'public domain.' To the contrary, however, the proposal would institute a massive new prior restraint on free speech. This is because all such releases would require the 'authorization' of the government before they occurred. The cumbersome and time-consuming process of obtaining such authorizations, moreover, would make online communication about certain technical aspects of firearms and ammunition essentially impossible.""


Below are the State changes drawing the NRA fire:

Continued Here:

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Mega Rich are Preping for Bank, Finance, Biological, and Political Warfare on Souls of the World

""Candidly, I don’t have the time right now to be writing an article that most in the West would ignore or repudiate. I wrote this piece, however, for the staff of WND with whom I have consulted over the years. WND is one of the few news organizations in America that is interested in truth, and unconcerned with the consequences of reporting it. I admire that, and so should you. Few news organizations remain that are not just inundating us with misinformation and propaganda. But I digress.
We are at the precipice of war, and this is a call to action. While it might not come tomorrow, the threat does grow by the day as conflict between the largest and most powerful nation states becomes inevitable, driven by the impending implosion of the empire of debt accumulated by Western democracies, and by the yearning of Russia and China (and their surrogates) to escape the constraints of almost 70 years of American hegemony.
I am not talking about another one-sided skirmish in the desert, but rather a real war, where satellites fall from the sky, ships sink, supply chains are disrupted and there is a loss of life not seen since the last century; a war of such a magnitude that few Westerners alive today can comprehend it. Such a war will alter the world as we know it. And, reading the tea leaves, it seems there is little we could do now to stop it. At this stage, all that is missing is the spark that ignites the inferno. It might come tomorrow, it might delay a while longer. We can prepare, but preparation takes years and years, and requires a threshold level of certainty that the threat exists, that it merits attention, that it demands action.
Why do our kids’ novels and movies (“Hunger Games,” “Divergent”) assume a game-changing war, but writers and talking heads on our mainstream news sites and channels serve up mindless banter about the Kardashians, the climate, Twitter trends and gender engineering? Even thinking Americans have traded serious conversation about geopolitics for Facebook page updates, thereby providing every intelligence organization on the planet the opportunity to further profile them. We are sinking further and further into blind ignorance about how the world really works, even as we strengthen the powers threatening us.
Are you still with me? Then read on. You need to reprioritize your life today and start fulfilling the most important obligation you have to your family aside from serving God. It’s not your next vacation, a new car, or a club membership that I am talking about. No. It is the need to protect and provide for your family in a conflict situation where the supply chain no longer works. Do you think your wealth will protect you? Or that ready access to modern aircraft will make a difference? Or maybe you are fortunate enough to own a second home, or even a boat? I am sorry to say that these luxuries will prove all but useless when the coming storm arrives.
If you question my advice, then tell me, why did Mr. Jamie Dimon buy an island? Or why does Hank Paulson actually live on one? Or what about James Cameron, who up and moved to New Zealand? Or the thousands of bankers and hedge fund managers that have sought safety in havens throughout the Caribbean, and in Central and South America? Oh, you didn’t know about that? Or maybe you are having trouble placing those names? Well, Mr. Dimon is the current chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan/Chase Bank. Mr. Paulson was the chairman of Goldman Sachs, before becoming the U.S. secretary of the Treasury. And Mr. Cameron is the director and creative genius behind the movie “Avatar,” among others – which made him a billion dollars or so. But don’t be envious. Based on my experience building havens, Mr. Dimon and Mr. Cameron overlooked some serious geopolitical threats during their haven selection process, and this is despite their huge resources, connections and intuition about where the world is going. In my opinion, Mr. Paulson made a wiser choice to stay in North America, and so have hundreds of others.
Let me explain further. You see, each of these very smart and successful people understands that the political leadership of our nation, irrespective of party affiliation, are as much in denial regarding the threats we face as they are wholly unprepared and ill-equipped to make the hard financial decisions that are essential to preserving our way of life. They recognize that we are steaming right along, business as usual, such that virtually every governmental action is partisan and is made without restraint or consequence, and that the population remains blissfully ignorant as to how this inability to change direction tightens the proverbial financial noose around our necks. Think about it – how many times have you heard a politician or member of the media comment about the size of our national debt and how our path is unsustainable? Yet nothing changes.
While it sounds like a joke, ask yourself, what is the difference financially between Greece and the United States? In many ways, very little. Both nations are broke, both are living well beyond their means, and both are hobbled by politicians incapable of making the hard (i.e., right) decision for their citizens. Think about the news lately. If it were not for the Federal Reserve and the ability of the U.S. Treasury to borrow with impunity, our leadership would be begging for loans from creditors, much like Greece is begging its EU creditors (read: Germany), for additional financial help.
In short, our leadership won’t change the trajectory we are on until they are forced to do so. Don’t listen to what they say, but observe what they do. For example, the Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, Bush (43) and Obama administrations have each saddled the nation with successively larger and now record amounts of debt (and please, don’t give me any nonsense about Clinton not adding to the debt; he was just a little more clever about trying to market the narrative). We have all seen these numbers before, but, to refresh your memory, they are as follows (approximately):
Think about the implications. The federal government is spending $5-$5.5 trillion annually (using GAAP-adjusted accounting) yet taking in approximately $3.1 trillion in annual revenues. We are thus only paying for, roughly, 60 percent of expenditures; the rest is being borrowed. How would that go over in your household?
Yawn, you say, I have heard all this before and we are still here – what makes it different this time? Answer: The Federal Reserve has, in the last year, begun to monetize our national debt, which means we are buying our own debt back with borrowed (or newly created) dollars. So what? Well, this is the sign that sophisticated financial insiders have looked for as the beginning-of-the-end, and this is why they are preparing to flee their metropolitan bases of operation.
Bear with me while I explain: The insiders understand that the monetization of our debt will eventually drive an increase in interest rates, which will in turn increase the cost of the nation’s borrowing (think of it as an increase in the rate on your credit card), thus creating the need to spend more money to pay the increased interest cost to service the national debt, which increases the budget deficit, that in turn increases the need to borrow more money and monetize even more debt, eventually creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of increasing interest rates to attract more and more capital, which in turn increases the cost of servicing the underlying debt etc. etc.; eventually hastening the coming financial collapse insiders fear. Furthermore, they know the Federal Reserve’s current and careful balancing act is susceptible to an upset due to some black swan event that triggers a global financial panic, thereby ripping the legs out from under the debt-supported Western democracies with the United States at the hub of that collapsing wheel. What does this mean? No one is quite sure, but analysts predict a forced bank holiday, (i.e., the banks, including ATMS, close for some indefinite period of time), massive employment layoffs, disruptions of the usual supply chain (i.e., of truck and rail transportation of food, medicine and other staples), non-payment of pensions and social assistance programs (welfare) and the destruction of much of the nation’s paper-based wealth (i.e., your stock portfolio, among other assets), along with the emergence of broad social upheaval to include gangs, mobs, riots and other social disruptions. Remember that following the financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Paulson, as U.S. Treasury secretary, stated that at the time of the $700 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve, we were within 24 hours of the collapse of the global economy. If this information does not create a pit in your stomach, then perhaps this story will.
While you were preparing to celebrate this past Christmas with your family, in mid-December 2014, hidden away on page 615 of a 1,603-page Continuing Resolution that was passed by Congress and signed by the president, there was a little-known provision that put the American taxpayer on the hook for derivative trading losses by major trading banks. What? Really? What does that mean? Well, our illustrious leaders thought it appropriate for the American taxpayer to guarantee any derivative trading losses the banks suffer, through subsidiaries that are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In other words, the banks can continue to write, sell, and trade these sophisticated financial instruments, and profit from them, and, if they become financially untenable (read: BAD), walk away from them and let the American taxpayer wear the liability. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you the best part: These same banks currently have over $303 trillion of these financial instruments (derivatives) on their books.
Going just a bit deeper, remember (what my fourth-grader knows) that a trillion dollars is a thousand-billion dollars. Further, in 2014, the value of ALL the economic activity in the world, commonly referred to as the global domestic product, or GDP, was $72.6 trillion. So, yes, the guys on Wall Street figured out how to stick the federal government (read: you, the American taxpayer) with a potential further liability of $303 trillion, representing over four times the world’s entire GDP. And you wonder why Jamie Dimon bought an island?
I remind you of the adage of MI-5, the British Internal Security service: Western civilization is only four meals away from anarchy.
People like Dimon, Paulson and thousands of other members of the banking and financial communities recognize that during the financial crisis of 2008, our leadership did not make the hard decisions necessary to fix the system, but merely applied a $700 billion Band-Aid. By kicking the proverbial can down the path, they simply delayed and laid the groundwork for an even larger and broader crisis in the future. Hence the reason that so many have established havens where they can ride out the coming financial tsunami that will envelop the world; while others have killed themselves, with some 60 odd bankers/financiers dying either by their own hand or under mysterious circumstances in the last couple years.
So this is the lens through which many in the financial and banking industry look. They know the system is untenable, yet they know they have been provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity to legally make obscene sums of money. (Note: Many won’t admit this fact; they just think they are (were) much smarter than everyone else.) Yet they know that it is mathematically and financially impossible for the United States, much less all the other Western democracies, to repay the mountains and mountains of debt they have borrowed to finance our lifestyles. They have resigned themselves that a collapse is inevitable. They don’t yet know the date, the time, or the ferocity of that collapse, but they intend to use their wealth to insulate themselves as best they can, e.g., by buying an island in the South Pacific, stocking it well and hiring a bunch of Navy SEALs for protection.
What I believe most people overlook is that politicians will always be politicians, and there is no way they will ever allow themselves to be blamed for the excesses of the last 30-odd years. Think about it. If a collapse were to take place, the politicians would need to hide from the citizens who lose everything. Literally. What would you do if, in a matter of days, you lost almost everything you had worked for during your entire life, including your pension, IRA, Social Security benefits, insurance benefits, etc.?""

On the Brink of Humanity Chaos:


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