David DeGraw: The “War On Terror” Is A $6 Trillion Racket, Exceeding The Total Cost Of World War II !
- The Illuminists generate wars as a means of building up their Military Industrial Complex (MIC). It is a means of stealing the sheeple’s wealth using them as cannon fodder to further the Illuminists’ New World Order, World Government and World Army plan. The sheeple are deceived useful idiots manipulated into needless wars for the profit of Illuminist corporations!
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The “War On Terror” Is A $6 Trillion Racket, Exceeding The Total Cost Of World War II
by David DeGraw, http://www.globalresearch.ca/
When Obama launched his re-election propaganda campaign to trick the American public into thinking that he intends to end the Af-Pak War, he said that the “War on Terror” has cost $1 trillion over the past decade. While that is a staggering amount of money, he was being deceitful once again.
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As you may have heard, a newly released study by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University revealed that the cost of the War on Terror is significantly greater than Obama has said. The little passing coverage the study received in the mainstream press cited $3.7 trillion as the total cost, which was the most conservative estimate. The moderate estimate, which the mainstream media ignored, was $4.4 trillion. In addition, interest payments on these costs will most likely exceed $1 trillion, which brings the total cost up to at least $5.4 trillion. The report also states that the following costs are not even included in this total:
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“THESE TOTALS DO NOT INCLUDE: Medicare costs for injured veterans after age 65; Expenses for veterans paid for by state and local government budgets; Promised $5.3 billion reconstruction aid for Afghanistan; Additional macroeconomic consequences of war spending including infrastructure and jobs.”
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David Callahan, reporting for The Policy Shop, summed up the report’s cost estimates:
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“… the total direct and indirect costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $6 trillion…. That figure comes from combining congressional appropriations for the wars over the past decade ($1.3 trillion), additional spending by the Pentagon related to the wars ($326 – $652 billion), interest so far on Pentagon war appropriations, all of which was borrowed ($185 billion), immediate medical costs for veterans ($32 billion), war related foreign aid ($74 billion), homeland security spending ($401 billion), projected medical costs for veterans through 2051 ($589 – $934 billion), social costs to military families ($295 – $400 billion), projected Pentagon war spending and foreign aid as troops wind down in the two war zones ($453 billion); and interest payments on all this spending through 2020 ($1 trillion).”
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Once you add up all these costs, and also consider the fact that these wars are not ending anytime soon, the War on Terror will easily cost us well over $6 trillion. To put the War on Terror’s cost in context, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of World War II, adjusted for inflation, was $4.1 trillion.
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Another major deception is the reported annual military budget. The FY 2012 military budget is often cited as being $690 billion. Again, that is a huge sum of money for one year. However, when you add up all the other military expenditures not included in this budget, you find that our true total annual budget “likely exceeds $1.5 trillion.”
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To put this cost in perspective, as the average American has little understanding of how much money this is, one trillion is equal to 1000 billion. If you took all the state budget deficits and combined them, which are leading to cuts in vital social programs that will negatively impact the lives of millions of Americans, you would need a small fraction of one trillion, $140 billion (roughly equivalent to the annual military interest payment), to balance every state budget and avoid cuts to all programs.
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Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars In Fraud And Waste
When you breakdown the spending on the War on Terror, you see hundreds of billions of dollars in shocking fraud and waste across the board. When it comes to fraud, a Defense Department report revealed:
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“The military paid a total of $285 billion to more than 100 contractors between 2007 and ’09, even though those same companies were defrauding taxpayers in the same period… What’s perhaps most shocking is that billions of dollars went to contractors who had been either suspended or debarred for misusing taxpayer funds. The Pentagon also spent $270 billion on 91 contractors involved in civil fraud cases… Another $682 million went to 30 contractors convicted of criminal fraud.”
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There have also been several cases where billions of dollars have gone missing. To name one recent revelation, the Federal Reserve shipped between $6.6 billion to $18.7 billion to Iraq for reconstruction that was stolen. The reason there is such discrepancy in the amount stolen in this case is due to the fact that the New York Federal Reserve is refusing to disclose the total amount. This is just one of several cases where billions of dollars in aid to Iraq and Afghanistan have gone missing. Not to mention the obscene and exorbitant fees charged by many private military companies. Earlier this year, the Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting revealed that “tens of billions of dollars” have been wasted on private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan – and the amount spent on private contracting has dramatically increased during the Obama Administration.
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When it comes to shocking examples of waste, it costs the military in Afghanistan $400 for a gallon gas, and the Marines alone use 800,000 gallons a day. Another report reveals that the military spends $20.2 billion a year on air conditioning. That’s $20.2 billion a year on AC. There are more absurdities in military spending than you can imagine. The list goes on and on.
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Let’s also not forget that the Pentagon’s “own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.” By these measures, the estimated overall total of $1.5 trillion in annual military spending would mean that $375 billion goes unaccounted for, per year.
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War Is A Racket
For anyone who researches this, it is easy to see that the primary goal is not our safety, it is huge profits for military companies and global banking interests. As famed two-time Congressional Medal of Honor Award winner Major General Butler said:
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“War is a racket… easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious… It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives…. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes….I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
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The global financial elite profit off of the war, while the American public bares the severe financial costs. In this regard, not to mention the loss of life and civil liberties, the War on Terror is a war against the American people. As President Eisenhower said, every dollar spent on war is a dollar not spent on education, food, health care, etc:
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“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
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Spiraling Toward World War III
When you research the geopolitical environment, as scary as it sounds, you will conclude that if we stay on our present course, we are headed for an escalation in wars. As we spiral toward World War III, with collapsing economies, increasingly extreme weather conditions, limited resources and rising demand, the US military machine is on steroids, creating enemies and arming brutal regimes all over the world.
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The pivotal US relationship with Pakistan is going from bad to worse. Leading American adversaries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia, Iraq, Syria and Iran have all been building strong alliances with China. Obama continues to support the US-NATO war with Libya and the Saudi Arabian led military crackdown on popular uprisings in many countries throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. In this region, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, Somalia and Ivory Coast, to name a few countries, are all flaring up in armed conflict. Not to mention Israel’s escalating conflicts with Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The highly under-reported international drug war is also becoming much more violent, with private military contractors once again reaping huge profits.
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Mix all these increasing tensions with runaway military spending and war profiteering, and you have Eisenhower’s worst fears realized, a world dominated by out of control military companies.
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Zionist War Crimes! Genocide And Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians by Zionist ’666′ Israel !
- Warning: very graphic and gruesome video scenes of death and dismemberment! See also:
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Gideon Levy: Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians, Or, Democratic Israel At Work?!
Israel Admits It Covertly Canceled Residency Status of 140,000 Palestinians!
The Jewish Genocide of 1.4+ Million Armenian Christians!
The Bolshevik Jews Behind The Deaths of 40+ Millions During The Communist Revolution!
YNET Israel News: Stalin’s Jews. We Mustn’t Forget That Some of Greatest Murderers of Modern Times Were Jewish!
Bolshevik Jews Plotted The Ukrainian Holocaust!
Mark Weber: The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia’s Early Soviet Regime! During Which 20+ Million Russians Died !
The 2002 Jenin Holocaust of Palestinians By Zionist ’666′ Israel !
Deir Yassin Remembered ! The 1948 Holocaust of Palestinians by Zionist ’666′ Israel !
Jewish Historian Ilan Pappe: History of Zionism – Genocide And Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine!
Jenin Massacre
Jewish Historian Teddy Katz: 1948 Tantura Massacre of Palestinians! Genocide And Ethnic Cleansing!
Zionist ’666′ Israeli Apartheid and The Nakba!
Forget Deir Yassin: Its Victims Were “Unworthy”! The Holocaust of Palestinians by Zionist ’666′ Israel !
Holocaustianity: Zionism’s Big Lie!
Repost: Holocaust, Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid?
Bolshevik Jews Plotted The Ukrainian Holocaust!
Jack Bernstein: The Life of an American Jew in Racist Marxist Israel !
Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land ! US Media And The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict!
’666′ Star of David, Satanic Curse / Hex(agram) On Humanity! Occult Symbol.
Jewish Estimate Sees Number of Holocaust Dead Drop To 2.8 Million!
Fred Leuchter: The End of The Auschwitz Gas Chambers Myth!
Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.: Inside the Auschwitz ‘Gas Chambers’!
The Rudolf Report: Expert Report on Chemical and Technical Aspects of the ‘Gas Chambers’ of Auschwitz!
Barbara Kulaszka: What is ‘Holocaust Denial’?
How Many Died At Auschwitz?
How the Illuminati Manipulates Jews!
Hitler Was A Rothschild Jew?!
Norman Finkelstein on Zionism And The Holocaust Industry!
Holocaust Denier Death, Mossad Linked. How Many Jews Died in the German Concentration Camps?
Again, Zionists Set Up Jews for Holocaust!
The “Holocaust” in the Memoirs of Western WWII Leaders Eisenhower, De Gaulle, and Churchill
NY Times reports in 1906 that Russia’s “6,000,00 jews” facing a final “solution” of “systematic and murderous extermination”
Jews at NY Times refer to “European holocaust” of Jews in 1936, several years before alleged “mass killings”
The Kabalistic-Occult origins and purpose of the Holocaust™ dogma, and the 6 million number
Holocaust Memoir Turns Out to Be Fiction
Herman Rosenblat’s Holocaust memoir of love is exposed as a hoax
- - Zionist ’666′ Israel is a Satanic counterfeit. Ashkenazi Khazars (80%-90% of modern Jewry) are not the Jews of the Bible! They were never the chosen race and their ancestors were never in Palestine! What these Zionists do to the Palestinians is called: genocide and ethnic cleansing! See also: The Zionist Story! Genocide And Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine! Through The Eyes of An Ex-Israeli Soldier!
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1980 Jewish Almanac
“Strictly speaking it is incorrect to call an ancient Israelite a ‘Jew’ or to call a contemporary Jew an Israelite or a Hebrew.”
(1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3)
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The Jewish Encyclopedia:
“Khazars, a non-Semitic, Asiatic, Mongolian tribal nation who emigrated into Eastern Europe about the first century, who were converted as an entire nation to Judaism in the seventh century by the expanding Russian nation which absorbed the entire Khazar population, and who account for the presence in Eastern Europe of the great numbers of Yiddish-speaking Jews in Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Galatia, Besserabia and Rumania.”
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The American Peoples Encyclopedia
… for 1954 at 15-292 records the following in reference to the Khazars: “In the year 740 A.D. the Khazars were officially converted to Judaism. A century later they were crushed by the incoming Slavic-speaking people and were scattered over central Europe where they were known as Jews.
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Exodus 22:21
“You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Exodus 23:9
“Also you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the heart of a stranger, because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Leviticus 19:33
‘And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him.’
Leviticus 19:34
The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 23:22
‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God.’
Leviticus 24:22
You shall have the same law for the stranger and for one from your own country; for I am the LORD your God.
Ezekiel 47:22-23
22 It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. 23 And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance,” says the Lord GOD.
- - The so-called Star of David is a Satanic symbol. Satanists and occult practitioners use it for calling Satan and demons!
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Former Satanist, Bill Schnoebelen (now born again Christian)
“A hexagram must be present to call forth a demon” and ” it is a very powerful tool to invoke Satan”.
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“To the sorcerer, the hexagram is a powerful tool to invoke Satan.” In fact, the word “hex” — as to put a “hex” or “curse” on people — comes from this word.
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If you examine the so-called “Star of David,” or hexagram, closely, you will discover something astonishing. It has six points, forms six equilateral triangles, and in its interior forms a six sided hexagon — thus it reveals the number of Satan’ antichrist beast, — 6 points, 6 triangles, and the 6 sides of the hexagram — 666 !!!

Revelation 2:9 – …. and I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
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Henry Makow: Bankers Built Private Empires on Public Credit !
- This article/excerpt by Henry Makow explains rather well what is happening today. What you see and hear from the financial MSM are what the Illuminist central banksters want you to know. It is all smoke and mirrors to hide who the real culprits of this engineered collapse really are! These snakes are finding it increasingly difficult to hide because of the internet.
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Bankers Built Private Empires on Public Credit
by Henry Makow, www.henrymakow.com
“The government and public does not notice that we issuers of the new notes are using the notes we create out of thin air to surreptitiously build economic empires at the expense of established interests.“
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Excerpt from “The Occult Technology of Power,” which purports to be a manual used to instruct an Illuminati heir, published in 1974. Internal references suggest that it was a work of imagination based on intensive study. Most of it is consistent with my conclusions and I regard it as an inspired account of reality.
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As you have a doctorate degree in economics from a great university I will touch as lightly as my verbosity allows on facts accepted by economic “science” and proceed to occult aspects of Central Banking.
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Since the division of labor is the key to all human achievement and satisfaction, a system of exchange is crucial. Barter is hopelessly complicated. A command economy, in which each does and receives what he is told, is also hopelessly cumbersome and fails to take advantage of individual initiative, ability, and concrete knowledge.
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A medium of exchange, money, is the obvious solution. (Even our highly centralized economies on the socialist model now enthusiastically embrace money as an indispensable simplifying tool in their economic planning.)
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When left to themselves people of a given geographical area settled upon a durable luxury commodity, usually gold or silver, to use as money. Because money is a store of value as well as a medium of exchange, people saved part of their gold income rather than spending it all.
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This gold was often stored in the vaults of a local goldsmith, the precursor of the modern banker, for safekeeping. The depositor received a receipt that entitled him to an equal quantity and quality of gold on demand from the goldsmith. At some point, the goldsmith realized that there was no reason he could not loan out some of the gold for interest as long as he kept gold on hand sufficient to meet the fairly predictable withdrawal rate.
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After all, he simply promised to pay on demand, not hold the gold as such. Better yet, be could simply issue more receipts for gold than be had gold and the receipts, renamed notes, could circulate freely among the populace as money.
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However, he soon found that there was a definite limit set on this process by reality. Not all the extra notes issued circulated forever among the public. The rate of note redemption began to increase rapidly as the receipts passed into the hands of people unfamiliar with his reputation and especially when competitive goldsmiths, always eager for more gold reserves, came into possession of his notes.
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To prevent a disastrous run on his gold reserves, note issuance had to be kept within bounds. But the spending power of over-issuance was a grave temptation. But the spending power of over-issuance was a grave temptation. Especially relished was the power over governments, industry, and merchants that the miraculous loan power of the goldsmith could obtain. Many succumbed to temptation, overextended themselves and brought ruin to their depositors while others slowly became wealthy bankers by pursuing conservative loan policies.
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At this point, according to economic “science,” Central Banks are instituted to protect the public from periodic financial catastrophe at the hands of unscrupulous fractional reserve bankers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Central Banks are established to remove the limitation on over-issuance that reality places on competitive banking systems.
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As early as ancient Babylon and India, Central Banking, the art of monopolizing the issuance of money, had been developed into a perfect method for looting the general public. Even today many bankers copy the traditions of the earlier exploitative priesthoods and design their banks to resemble temples! Defenses of Central Banking are simply part of the deception that lies at the heart of all power elites.
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THE BIRTH OF A CENTRAL BANK
Let us look at the way a new Central Bank is created where none has existed previously. We bankers approach the Prince or ruling assembly (both of whom always want more money to fight wars or to curry favor with the people and, typically, are ignorant of economics) with a compelling proposal: “Grant our bank a national Charter to regulate private banking and to issue legal tender notes, that is, force our notes to be accepted as payment for all debts, pubic and private.
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In exchange we will provide the government all the notes it prudently requires at interest rates easily payable with existing taxes. The increased government purchasing power thus created will simultaneously assure the power and prestige of the currently precarious nation and stimulate the sluggish, credit starved economy to new heights of prosperity.
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Most important the violent banking panics and credit collapses caused by unscrupulous private bankers will be replaced by our even-handed, beneficent and scientific management of money and banking. Our public-spirited expertise will be at the disposal of the state while we remain independent enough of momentary political pressures to assure sound management.”
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For a while this system seems to work remarkably well with full employment for everyone. The government and public does not notice that we issuers of the new notes are using the notes we create out of thin air to surreptitiously build economic empires at the expense of established interests.
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Because of the legal tender laws, few of the new notes issued by the Central Bank are returned for redemption in gold. In fact, private banks and even a few foreign banks may begin to use the Central Bank’s notes as reserves for further issuance of credit.
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Soon enough, though, prices begin to rise as the added notes increase demand relative to the quantity of goods and services. As the value of their savings decline more and more foreigners in particular begin to question the value of the Central Bank’s notes and start to demand redemption in gold.
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We, of course do not take responsibility for the rampant inflation when it comes. We blame inflation on evil speculators who drive up prices for personal gain, as well as the greed of organized labor and business who are promptly made subject to wage and price controls. Even the consumer can be made to feel guilty for agreeing to pay the high prices! Mistaking symptoms for causes, the government accepts the banker’s analysis of the problem and continues to give the Bank free reign in monetary policy.
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DEFLATIONARY CRASH
By slowing the rate of note issuance periodically, the ultimate crisis stage is postponed until many decades after the original Central Bank Charter was granted. Before the rapidly dwindling gold reserves on which faith in our Bank depends is exhausted, we abruptly contract our loan volume to private industry and government as well.
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With the contraction of the money supply, a great deflationary crash begins in earnest with all its attendant unemployment, bankruptcies, and civil strife. We do not take responsibility for the depression. We blame it on evil hoarders who are refusing to spend their money and the prophets of doom who are spoiling business confidence. The government accepts this analysis and leaves monetary policy in our hands.
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If things go well, we bankers channel the fury and unrest into puppet movements and pressure groups that carry our agents into full control of the government. Once in charge, we devalue our outstanding bank notes in terms of gold and make them nonconvertible for all but possibly foreign Central Banks and begin plans to restore a “prosperity” that will be totally ours.
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When lucky, we are able to confiscate the gold of private citizens as punishment for hoarding during the climax of the depression.
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Once the old order is subdued during the chaos of the crash and desperation of the Depression, the field is open for our full finance capitalist system to be realized. If the money lords behind the Central Bank can avoid lapsing into political and economic competition among themselves, a new and lasting order can be established. A war timed for this period of consolidation provides the perfect excuse for the regimentation required to crush all opposition.
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Makow Comment from 2007: “A book published in 1889, “The Red Dragon” by L.B. Woolfolk suggests to me that British (and American) imperialism originated in the need of Jewish bankers and their Gentile confederates to translate money they could create out of nothing (thanks to their control of credit), into real wealth (i.e. world ownership.)”
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Warning Over Irish Credit Rating!
- Who controls the financial markets? Illuminist banks and their central banking cartel. Some of these violent moves in the bond and currency markets are really engineered by Illuminists. This is to further their agenda of world conquest via fraudulent finance. There are no free markets any more. There are massive daily manipulations.
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Warning over Irish credit rating
http://www.irishtimes.com/
Ireland’s credit rating may be cut to junk by Moody’s Investors Service after Portugal yesterday lost its investment grade rating, analysts said today. Moody’s, which slashed Portugal four notches yesterday to Ba2 from Baa1, in April lowered Ireland’s credit rating to the lowest investment grade Baa3 and left country’s outlook on negative.
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The ratings company cut Portugal’s rating in part because the nation may not be able to return to debt markets in the second half of 2013. Ireland has been locked out of markets since September, and the yield on 10-year Irish bonds has climbed 2.43 percentage points to 11.77 per cent since November 26th, two days before the European Union and International Monetary Fund agreed the country’s rescue package.
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“If not re-entering the public funding markets has significance for a sovereign’s rating, then clearly if our view proves correct, then Ireland will suffer an imminent downgrade,” Cathal O’Leary, head of fixed income sales at Dublin-based NCB Stockbrokers, said in a note today.
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The downgrade of Portugal highlighted “contagion risks” for Ireland, Goodbody Stockbrokers said today. Moody’s said potential investor involvement in a new Greek bailout makes it more likely the EU will require creditors to eventually contribute to aiding the Portuguese. Representatives of the European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Commission, the so-called troika, are in Dublin today for the quarterly review of Ireland’s bailout.
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Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said yesterday he may seek a bigger budget correction than the €3.6 billion planned for 2012, to ensure the government meets its target of narrowing the fiscal deficit to 8.6 per cent of gross domestic product next year. “Ireland may not be treated in the same manner as Portugal,” Conall MacCoille, an economist at Dublin-based securities firm Davy, said in a note today, citing the government’s progress in meeting its deficit goals.
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Portugal joined Greece as the second euro country rated non-investment grade by Moody’s, which suggested the government may struggle to meet the terms of its bailout. In the aftermath, Portugal’s bonds slid, sending 10-year yields to a record. The cost of insuring all weaker euro zone countries’ debt against default rose and Portuguese two-term bond yields spiked by a whole percentage point on Moody’s decision.
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Portuguese Rating Cut, Greek Wrangling Fuel Bond Contagion!
- The bond market is feeling the effect of the Portuguese bond rating cut to junk status. Did the bailout work? It appears Portugal may need another bailout. The bailouts are not for Portugal, Greece or Ireland. QE2 was not for the American people. They are for the Illuminist banks! They are a means of financially raping the countries ie. stealing national assets/treasures via forced ‘privatization’ at fire sale prices! Eventually, the Illuminists will allow the entire debt edifice to collapse. They want to set the conditions for the introduction of their One World Currency, Global Supra-National Central Bank –> ’666′! World War will be used as a diversion and mass culling of the sheeple!
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Portuguese Rating Cut, Greek Wrangling Fuel Bond Contagion
By Sandrine Rastello and Joao Lima, http://www.businessweek.com/
July 6 (Bloomberg) — Portugal’s downgrade to junk status and wrangling over the role of investors in a new Greek bailout package fueled concern about the solvency of the region’s high- debt nations, sending their bonds tumbling.
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The extra yield investors demand to hold Portugal’s 10-year bonds over German bunds surged 148 basis points to a euro-era record 949 after Moody’s slashed yesterday its credit rating four levels to Ba2, below investment grade. The yield on Italy’s 10-year bond reached the highest in almost three years, while Ireland’s 2-year yield topped 15 percent for the first time.
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“It’s a reminder that the sovereign debt crisis does not end with Greece and that risks remain with other nations in addition to Greece,” said Gary Pollack, who helps oversee $12 billion as head of fixed-income trading at Deutsche Bank AG’s Private Wealth Management unit in New York.
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Moody’s decision may further strain relations between the rating companies and European Union policy makers, who are trying to ensure their plan for investor involvement in a Greek bailout doesn’t trigger a default. Moody’s said that Portugal may need a second aid package and that the Greek plan makes it more likely the EU will require creditors to contribute to that effort, increasing the risk of holding Portugal’s debt.
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Portugal saw its financing costs rise at a sale of 848 million euros ($1.2 billion) of three-month bills today. The notes were priced to yield 4.926 percent, more than what Germany pays to borrow for 30 years, up from 4.863 percent at the previous sale.
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Default Threat
Talks on investor involvement in the new Greek package are bogging down after Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings both indicated they would cut Greece to default if the EU went ahead with a plan to ask creditors to roll over expiring Greek bonds into new debt. The European Central Bank had pushed the approach as a way to avoid a default rating that might force bank to refuse Greek bonds as collateral, crippling the nation’s lenders that rely on the ECB for their funding.
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“The agency sees the participation of the private sector in the Greek debt restructuring as a factor implicitly impacting Portuguese ability to return to the capital markets,” Stefan Kolek, corporate credit strategist at UniCredit SpA, wrote today. “The agency utters what many were fearing: that a participation of the private sector will increase risk aversion in the market.”
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Debt Swap
With the credit companies saying a rollover would be default, Germany has revived an approach initially opposed by the ECB to ask investors to voluntarily swap their Greek debt into longer-maturity securities. The Institute for International Finance, which represents more than 400 banks and insurers and is participating in the talks, has also called for buying back Greek bonds in the secondary market to reduce its debt load. That idea was rejected by the EU
in March, when it set up a bailout mechanism that was only allowed to buy bonds at auction.
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Portugal Junked: ‘Bailouts – Outrageous Anti-Taxpayer Scam’!
- YouTube:
Europe’s ongoing struggle to save the Euro has been dealt another blow as Portugal has had its debt downgraded to junk status. Moody’s, the credit rating agency behind the move, says a default is likely unless the country is given another bailout. Many analysts have questioned the logic of saddling struggling economies with more debt as speculation grows over whether the EU is ready to come to Portugal’s rescue again. And the direction the EU and the IMF are taking in solving this crisis may well lead to severe consequences – that’s according to Douglas Carswell, an MP from the British Conservative Party.
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