[1031] The Truth About . . . Financial Oligarchy – 16 May 2009

Posted on May 16, 2009 by stacyherbert| 56 Comments

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56 Responses to [1031] The Truth About . . . Financial Oligarchy – 16 May 2009

Mike/Liverpool | May 16, 2009 at 10:56 am |

You know there some GOOD things about the collaspe. I just bought tyres for my vRS Turbo…..£120 each, not £144 they where just 6 weeks ago when i checked the price.

I also hear the prices on the “Whore exchange” have fallen quite a lot as well……………..no one getting £1000 a nite any more.

Mike
William | May 16, 2009 at 11:14 am |

Max and Stacy,

I’ve really enjoyed your last three shows.

You should point out that “profit” is reward (not greed) and “loss” is a punishment. Operating or working at a profit is the market telling the people involved that they are providing useful, needed things. Operating at a loss should be telling an entity that what they are doing doesn’t make sense.

The Big ’3′ auto makers in the U.S. is a good example. The model is unsustainable.(How long have they’ve been operating at a loss?) Really, it’s an upside down pyramid built on car manufacturing (ie. the workers); But who’s getting scapegoated…….the worker. (You did mention how factories are functioning without the factory manager). Cuts have to be made at the companies (obviously), but who’s going to build the cars?

But like I said, your last three shows have been great.
Mike/Liverpool | May 16, 2009 at 12:06 pm |

Max/Stacy
Thanks for the info again, i DO have a “Master Plan” & would love to share it with you guys. Do you want to e-mail me or give me an e-mail…….all will be expained!

Cheers
mike
Mr Supergeek | May 16, 2009 at 12:15 pm |

@mike and @danny

Man You….are brilliant

Man You….are unstoppable

Man You….are unbeatable

Man You….are amazing

Man You….are the best

Man You….are winners

Man You….are champions

All the best
Scott from Oregon | May 16, 2009 at 12:35 pm |

http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-10-30_058_americas_slow_motion_fascist_coup.mp3

Lew Rockwell interviewed Naomi Wolfe (I thought it was Klein in my memory), but the idea of “catching up to speed” was very apparent in this interview…
Rian Orr | May 16, 2009 at 12:38 pm |

On the radio show, basic socialist theory does not ignore the importance of exchange. It is obvious that worker control of production and distribution would be pointless without also control of exchange. I think Naomi Klein is simply trying to put
some old ideas out there, to spur american workers to action before there is nothing left.
Don (Joe bag O chickens) | May 16, 2009 at 12:59 pm |

I wish they taught fractional reserve banking in college as a required course. If people new more about these shyster banking practices and the ramification of them on the economy, I doubt the system would have ever gained ground.

Great show! Thank you thank you!! What a team!
Free Drive Ro | May 16, 2009 at 2:06 pm |

Couldn’t quite grasp the connection/similarity between German Jews being persecuted by brown shirts and people losing their homes today; why would you mention that in the first place, I see no connection whatsoever (unless I’m missing the point completely).
Don (Joe bag O chickens) | May 16, 2009 at 2:13 pm |

@ Free Drive

I think Max was alluding to the fact that the US is a fascist state and the “Brown Shirts” exist in the US only now they are called “Boy Scouts”
http://www.infowars.com/government-readies-youth-corps-to-take-on-vets/

As far as Naomi Wolfe goes, I think any one questioning here in the US walks a very fine line between life and death. So, you get the message out where you can and hold back a little. We have been conditioned to “self sensor” ourselves. So much for freedom of speech, when you have to live with fears about what to say, when to say it, to whom are you saying it to etc.
Rebecca | May 16, 2009 at 2:49 pm |

I have a few questions regarding this whole fiasco:

How can an oligarchy run a fascist dictatorship after the system of money is valueless? Who would work for a measly wage?

We hear about China being the new reserve currency. Are people going to accept a new currency value based on another culture hundreds of thousands miles away? (I may be off a little).

I believe the option of revolt would then ensue for even the local and federal military operations that would evidently grind to a sad halt. Who would want to enforce draconian laws for pennies? That just doesn’t make sense.
richard | May 16, 2009 at 3:07 pm |

@Don ( bag of chicken ): “…self-censorship….”? Now don’t get me wrong as I find your comments asorbic and for the most part very poignant…But Naomi Klein is an author and just maybe she is savoring a few choice bites for her next book??…just sayin’…and besides and please correct me but as I watched the interview begin w/ Amy Goodman didn’t she recite word for word the exact same thing I had heard on this topic in an interview that this is a ( lateral) transfer of wealth from the “private sphere to the public sphere” that I heard Michael Greenberger say on C-SPAN two days ago!!!! ??? Now I really like Mrs. Klein,,,and the Shock Doctrine is an eye opener…and so quite possibly might be the movie: “The Take”….And I like the Charlie Rose’s interview w/ William Greider…who might have said “take back your mind”…rather than “Come Home, America”, the title to his book….Frankly, I haven’t seen any interview w/ Naomi Wolfe in a while…her 10 points that lead to fascism is magnificent…There are a lot of folks who are speaking out and even going to demonstrations…I recall what Lee Weiner ( one of the Chicago Seven), also one of the faculty said to a small crowd as we gathered about campus @ Rutgers the night someone lit up the ROTC building: “it’s like zen. sometimes you damage the little finger and that’s enough” …small bites rather than the jugler vein!!!! If it’s the jugler bite that interests you: go back and listen to alex jones…he’s definitely a pit bull on two legs….well, it’s saturday night and I ain’t got nobody…something something and I just got paid…sure could use someone to talk to….something something..HA!HA! just a little internet humor..warm regards, Richard@lattittude30N
richard | May 16, 2009 at 3:39 pm |

@Rebecca: Oh yes my dear maybe you and I can steal away to your secret hideaway and live forever in total comfort, protected from the elements, the wild things and the neighbors…have you thought about chopping wood and carrying water??? Try it !!! That’s what I did for most of the mid 1970′s…it’s a rugged lifstyle…here in Amerca it was called the poineer spirit..back to the land movement—communalism ( actually it was communitarianism!! so as not to mistake it from communism)…the wild west…we could live on a remote island as Brookes Shields did in the movie Blue Lagoon….Sorry if I seem flippant,,,,BUT that’s what we are all asking…when is the collective pot of boiling water ever going to boil to the point where the frog says to himself…”I better get a gun and shoot that guy who turned on the flame”???HA!!!! No I’m not advocating violence…but you get my point, don’t you??? We’re all in the fish bowl…”year after year” ( Pink Floyd )…As for the law enforcement folks…yes we are told some of them are resisting ( be it internally)…But once the mind has been trained to face an “enemy” and kill; it has a hard time to see that person as a human….just ask Gov.Jesse Ventura…recently on LKL he recited a poem estolling the Navy Seals marksmanship in taking out the teen age Somali pirates on Easter weekend!!!! And he’s for decriminalization of weed!!!???? WOW!! I know someone else will send along your answer in due time…as always, Richard@lattitude30N
Mep | May 16, 2009 at 3:57 pm |

I really liked the points that you guys made about language . . . the whole socialist/capitalist thing. One of the things that drives me nuts about Democrats is that they sit back and allow ridiculous claims about socialism and communism to go unchallenged. I don’t know why they do that . . . they’d have to be stupid not to realize how powerful labels like that are. I don’t know anything about the left in other countries–don’t know if people on the right are so easily able to denigrate anything that they perceive to be leftist (eg. civil rights, environmental protection/activism, human rights, workers’ rights, etc.) as they are here in the US–but I find it remarkable how easy it is for the corporatist blowhards and far-right wingers to demonize the left here. The newest thing to dismiss and ridicule as “leftist” seems to be organic farming. NOT JOKING! There was a segment on The Daily Show last night where a guy affiliated with the pesticide lobby bitched about the Obama’s promoting “dangerous, cancerous” organic farming. (I thought it was a joke at first, but it wasn’t. The DS always finds the crazies for these segments who aren’t afraid to advertise their idiocy.) He called people who buy, grow, and promote organic food “organic limousine liberals”!

Check it: http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2009/05/15/sam-bee-organic-gardens-lead-to-teen-ass-play/

(Gotta love Samantha Bee.)

About Naomi Klein, I think that Rian has it right: she’s trying to get people thinking about alternatives to losing their jobs. In the Shock Doctrine, she quotes Milton Friedman as saying “When [a] crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” So I believe what she’s doing is trying to plant seeds re: ideas for workers to have at their disposal.

I am surprised that she’s not talking so much about privatization of public assets, because that has already started occurring in places like Chicago where the mayor decided to respond to the debt crisis by privatization. When I learned that the company that was sold the public’s parking meters was none other than Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure arm–after Morgan received a bailout–I could not believe that the people didn’t run Daley out of office. He gave away the meters for 75 years!! And, immediately, the people saw the cost of parking increase.

@ Free Drive, I believe the point was that where the brown shirts had to go to people’s homes and physically remove them, folks here are so brainwashed re: who is responsible for this crisis that they are willingly leaving their homes and heading for tent cities, sleeping in their cars, etc. There is no force necessary.
David | May 16, 2009 at 4:04 pm |

Hey Big Choppa & sista Stay

‘m still hangin’ in there, my ambivalence slowly fermenting to indifference, not quite. As of late I’ve been haranguing my local politicians on various issues (energy, honest money) to no avail. At present there’s MEP elections on so we have the useless tools knocking around to our doors, they don’t take too kindly being told their the fuckin’ problem.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, shower of jumped up micks deserve a good kick up the bolix .

I was attempting to do a podcast (radiodiskontent), a sort of public service broadcast but I found that the sound of my own voice does me fuckin’ head in, don’t know how the wife and kids put up with it, I’d atold meself to put a sock in it a long time ago.

Apparently the ECB is buying up Irish Gov. bonds on the knowledge that in return we’ll vote yes in the upcoming EU referendum, essentially we’re back to the oul rotten boroughs type of democracy, which makes me think what was the fuckin’ point in ever gettin’ rid of the Brits, why all the hardship when we’re not even back where we started, we’re minus, god I despair at being Irish. At least under the Brits the head of state could trace their family back a thousand yearsto the Normans, and beyond, our head of state if ye trace his family back 50yrs you’ll find he comes from fuckin’ livestock, a mix between chicken & pig, huh all ye can do is shake yer fuckin’ head in disbelieve.

Anyway I’m of the opinion that you should do a film about the upcoming referendum in Ireland, it’s impact goes well beyond our little borders.

So there ye have it in a nutshell, be lucky.
Marc Chabot | May 16, 2009 at 4:33 pm |

Hey…
check it out.
the mp3 is from ia301535.us.archive.org

it looks like Max’s bandwidth bill got pretty high recently…

doesn’t dreamhost.com says “UNLIMITED Bandwidth!”?

maxkeiser.com = 67.205.6.173 = 67.205.0.0/18 = AS26347 = New Dream Network, LLC

dreamhost.com = 208.97.187.204 = 208.97.128.0/18 = AS26347 = New Dream Network, LLC

Stacy, how come you don’t have unlimited bandwith like dreamhost.com’s ad pretends?

Encore de la foutaise publicitaire je suppose?

Marc
richard | May 16, 2009 at 4:43 pm |

@David: great sense of humor!! Yes I totally agree the Lisbon Treaty must be stopped at all costs…As we have a Writ of Habeus Corpus for the individual right to redress the court and that treaty provision would do away with yours: STAND FIRM!!; In addition here in America more than 30 of the 50 states are passing Article 9 and 10 resolutions to begain their sovereign rights back from the federal government as well!!!( this action is equivalent to retaining your Irish sovereignty now before the EU disassembles all your personal rights of redress as delineated in the Treaty)…The loss of liberty anywhere is a loss of liberty everywhere…Hang in there and let ‘em know Ireland stands alone and free!!! regards mate, Richard@lattitude30N
David | May 16, 2009 at 5:05 pm |

Had meant to say that I’ve enjoyed yer NZ broadcast, yer ignorance of other cultures is endearing.
David | May 16, 2009 at 5:18 pm |

Good man Richard@lattitude30n
Daniel S | May 16, 2009 at 5:32 pm |

Thanks for the show M & S.

I had a friend listen to the early part about fractional reserve banking because coming from me I get denial and ridicule.

Only one percent typically made money? yikes. I thought it was bad, but not that bad. I seem to recall a study claiming that the markets lost 14.7% per year over a multi-decade period but I thought that brokerages would do better than lose money for nearly every client. oy.

I have a gifted account. I started with $2600 in April of last year, followed that with $4065 more deposited over time, and it’s now worth about $9260. It isn’t worth all the work trying to decipher the criminal and sucker flows of money from the shadows on the wall, though. I made so many mistakes and got lied to and robbed so many times, ugh. That amount of money isn’t worth the stress. It’s parked in gold and silver now. Or the promise of gold and silver in a vault anyways.

So I’m gonna say I’m gifted now haha, Max says so. Okay not really, but I’ll say it anyways.

P.S. I’d recommend people be careful of ETFs. Check the historical “slippage” by comparing the bull and bear positions over the same time period for example.. If you’re not right over the short-term, “slippage” can rob you blind. As in, my money! I can’t see my money!
Don (Joe bag O chickens) | May 16, 2009 at 7:38 pm |

@Richard,
I listened to the interview, I can appreciate what you are saying now. She totally turned the interviewer into the interview-e. So it seems that she is just running with the ball, and following the leads and adding up the the rest. She acted totally amazed at the fact that the gov. has it’s meat hooks into the school system. She was kidding right? I smelled a rat. How can she be “awake” and so far into the theories and not know about cthe corporate school system in the uS.

She’s another hijacker of the movement.
Don (Joe bag O chickens) | May 16, 2009 at 7:44 pm |

Where the hell is Sharon??? Did m1(I)5 take our girl or what????

SHARON!!!!! SHARON!!!!! (In Ozzy voice)
Danny | May 16, 2009 at 8:37 pm |

@david

i want to buy you an overpriced pint of guinness ( or maybe a beamish if you came visit me) and then gave you a big hug!!

After a big yarn… I’d brake out the guitar and sing ‘A Song For Ireland’….Luke Kelly style…….talkin’ all the day……
Danny | May 16, 2009 at 8:44 pm |

@ Mr Supergeek

I don’t get pillow talk that good!!
Cheers- but I’m learnin’ from you’z just as much.
Mep | May 16, 2009 at 9:19 pm |

Just wanted to add that I enjoyed Stacy’s “long stream of consciousness”! And, like others have said, I really enjoyed this broadcast, too. You two were really on your game.
snoop diddy | May 16, 2009 at 10:07 pm |

would be interested to know the Keiser def’n of chattle. You there Max?
Leroy | May 16, 2009 at 10:08 pm |

Stacy,

Can you comment on what is happening in California in your next show?
snoop diddy | May 16, 2009 at 10:27 pm |

I wasnt paying attention and missed the context – chattle as in private property, or a new Max word describing chattering cattle, a bit like sheeple?
David | May 16, 2009 at 11:32 pm |

How the hell did the Loch Ness monster get in there !! Brilliant madness !
stacyherbert | May 16, 2009 at 11:37 pm |

@William – thanks. re: profits and losses, I believe the banks have made zero profits over the past two decades. It was all a mirage as we now discover and are having to make good on all the profits they paid out to themselves. I would really love to see what would happen if we got rid of every bank CEO down through all the managing directors and didn’t replace them. Just let the banks run on deposits taken and loans made by retail chains. I suspect there would be no difference to our overall economy.

@Free Drive – I think I said fascists used to have to actually physically steal their populations’ wealth and beat them physically; now it seems in US corporate controlled govt, the people themselves turn over the keys, hand over their stuff and crawl away to live in a tent city.

@Marc – ha ha, no bandwidth bill; we have never had one of those. We were recently botted by yahoo, but we weren’t billed for that. I always post our stuff to Archive.org and always change our links to point there after a week or two. I posted it immediately this time to see if there was any difference.

@David – oh how happy we are to hear your voice!
snoop diddy | May 16, 2009 at 11:45 pm |

lol, nevermind, just relistened – chattle – livestock. nice one.
snoop diddy | May 17, 2009 at 12:14 am |

British Gas has been buying coys in Australia and there is some hope for coal bed methane in UK. Underground coal gasification may also make some coal seams in UK accessible. A new source of energy for the UK is achievable in the gas sector, but these technologies will also help other nations gas supplies as well so it may not be as exportable as the Nth Sea oil was.
snoop diddy | May 17, 2009 at 12:25 am |

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/world/europe/16gazprom.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Falling Gas Prices Deny Russia a Lever of Power

MOSCOW — As energy markets shrink, the same tactics that the Kremlin used to build Gazprom, the giant energy company, into a fearsome economic and political power that could restore Russian influence in the world are now backfiring, slashing both its profits and its influence.

Throughout his eight years as president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin pursued the strategic goal of dominating natural gas supplies to Europe and the pipelines that deliver them. His success was underscored in January, when for the second time in three years a pricing dispute with Ukraine disrupted the flow of natural gas, leaving hundreds of thousands in Eastern Europe shivering in the deep winter cold.

But in his zeal to monopolize gas supplies, Mr. Putin, who is now Russia’s prime minister, committed Gazprom to long-term contracts with Central Asian countries for gas at a cost far in excess of current world prices. Now that the world economic crisis has sharply curtailed demand for gas, Gazprom is saddled with a glut of expensive Central Asian supplies that it is forced to sell at a loss.

In a painful twist, the company also finds itself forced to close its own wells in Russia, which produce gas for a fraction of the cost of that from Central Asia, in order to balance its supplies with declining world demand. In effect, a strategy that made business and political sense in a time of high and seemingly ever rising prices is threatening to create years of losses and declining influence, if energy prices fail to rebound.

“It’s an extraordinary turnaround from what everybody was expecting,” said Jonathan P. Stern, the director of natural gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Demand for Gazprom’s natural gas will plunge by about 60 billion cubic meters this year, according to Mr. Stern — about equal to the amount the company is contractually committed to import from the former Soviet states.

The turnaround for Gazprom has been as swift as it has been devastating to the company’s business model. As recently as last September, Mr. Putin, as prime minister, flew to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to wrap up a deal that consolidated Russia’s strategic gains after the war in Georgia.

Under the deal, which Russia’s RIA state news agency has described as valid until 2028, Gazprom will pay, on average, $340 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas in 2009. The price is arrived at through a complex formula based on world oil prices with a six-month delay. But that same volume of gas sells in Ukraine for an average of about $230, while European prices have sagged to an expected average of $280 for all of 2009.

Gazprom, in a written statement, acknowledged that it had lost money on the Central Asian contracts this year but said they would be valuable when demand recovered.

“Gazprom’s contracts with its Central Asian partners are concluded for many years into the future,” the statement said. “The world economic crisis, without doubt, is negatively influencing demand for energy. In the long term, however, demand for gas in Russia and abroad will grow. “

The declining fortunes are creating unaccustomed stresses for Gazprom, which strutted onto the world scene during the energy boom and came to symbolize the new might and swagger of Russia under Mr. Putin’s leadership.

Investors, in fact, once viewed Gazprom’s close ties to the Kremlin as good for business. For example, when Gazprom raised gas prices in Ukraine after the street protests known as the Orange Revolution, the move supported the Russian foreign policy goal of pressing a pro-Western government on its southern rim.

It also made money for Gazprom. Now, the political goals of Gazprom’s business in the former Soviet Union will cost the company.

That trend is already visible. Last week, the European Union signed an agreement with Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Egypt that could revive the long delayed Nabucco pipeline, which is intended to break Russia’s monopoly on Caspian Basin energy supplies. That was quite a turnabout for Azerbaijan, which after the war in Georgia last summer had offered to sell Gazprom its entire future output of gas from an offshore development.

Another former Soviet supplier, meanwhile, has accused Russia of sabotaging a pipeline to shut down deliveries of expensive gas.

On the night of April 9, a portion of the pipeline carrying Central Asian gas to Russia exploded in Turkmenistan, temporarily cutting off shipments. Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement blaming Gazprom for closing the valve leading to Russia, preventing gas from flowing north and creating overpressure in the pipe. News reports are sketchy, but as of May 1 the pipeline was still out of commission.

Gazprom has declined to comment, but a Russian energy expert, speaking on Russian state television, said the aging Turkmen pipelines were to blame.

Turkmenistan responded with an immediate overture to the West on energy issues, signing an exploration deal with the German company RWE for a bloc in Turkmenistan’s sector of the Caspian Sea shelf. RWE is a participant in the Nabucco pipeline consortium.

With the affairs of Gazprom and the Kremlin so intertwined, financial troubles at the company have immediate consequences for state finances.

Gazprom earned profits last year of $30.8 billion on revenues of $160.5 billion, according to annual results released this month. This year, Troika Dialog, a Moscow investment bank, has estimated that Gazprom’s profits will drop to $16.7 billion on revenues of $104 billion.

As the country’s largest taxpayer, Gazprom contributed $40 billion to the state’s coffers last year, including export tariffs, profit and mineral extraction taxes. This year, financial analysts who follow the company estimate, those payments will fall by nearly half, to around $22.5 billion.

Gazprom’s profits are expected to remain under pressure as long as energy prices stay at or near their current level and energy demand remains subdued. Even if the purchase price of Central Asian gas trends downward, following the decline in world oil prices, Gazprom will still have to accept delivery of that gas while keeping its own reserves — which can cost as little to produce as $4 per 1,000 cubic meters — in the ground.

The current problems also carry the potential to hamper the company’s future performance.

Gazprom has budgeted capital expenditures this year of $27.46 billion, according to the company, and is still planning to spend $44.8 billion in 2010, even as its revenues shrink.

If it maintains these spending plans, however, it will have a negative cash flow by 2010, said Alex Fak, an oil and gas analyst at Troika, and will be compelled to borrow.

“Either the oil price will have to surge, or it’s not going to happen,” Mr. Fak said of the development program.
David | May 17, 2009 at 4:11 am |

Alright Danny,

I’ll take ye up on the offer of a pint next time I’m down yer neck of the woods.

On an optimistic note at least Fianna Fail are finished Free State bastards that they are.
Pingback: “migration in the cyber space” « Media war
sharon | May 17, 2009 at 8:06 am |

@Don (Joe bag O chickens)
I’m here, I’m here!
I posted on the other part of the site where I’d initially put the post re: M15/M16. I’ve pasted and copied it below. But given this part of the site has been superseded by other topics you may not see this. Tell you what, I’ll post it on the latest topic.
I’m so pleased that you noticed my absence because if anything does happen at least some one out there will suspect something and perhaps then if I’ve been sectioned under the mental health act you could raise the alarm, Ha Ha!
Anyway, here’s my response to your post kindly giving me credit for getting the police onto the MP’s:-

@Don Joe (bag O chickens). Yep, and they should all go to jail in my view. I mean, what a p*ss take! Bloody massage chair! Cleaning out someone’s moat or swimming pool and claiming for mortgages that didn’t exist! What a joke! I don’t think I can take credit for the police investigation though, I think I was one of many, many people who contacted the police. The British people are disgusted by the behaviour of their MP’s, for a number of reasons but this last just take the biscuit. The media are saying that this could lead to the dissolving of Parliament.
I am very suspicious regarding the agenda on this one. In my experience the msm do not run with anything unless they’re allowed to, so there must be a reason for this. The robber baron’s usual MO is to cause chaos and in that they are succeeding. It could be that they want to get rid of Parliament and replace it with something else or force us in to Europe lock, stock and barrel. The other possibility is that Lord Black, the owner of the newspaper that broke the story wanted his revenge against the politicians and the robber barons because they scapegoated him (he is currently sat in a US prison serving a 7 year sentence). Anyway, we’ll see what happens but I don’t think it’s gonna go away and people have said they’re not voting for any of them in the next election. In fact I think someone said they’d rather see them all hung from lamp posts. Now that would be a sight worth seeing.
Mr Supergeek | May 17, 2009 at 8:17 am |

@ migration ….

Abbattagge? = avatars
D Parisee | May 17, 2009 at 8:25 am |

Sorry Max.There will be no inflation. Look at market history since 1700. Every great boom is followed by a great bust. The value of money declines in a boom vs tangible assets and in a bust the value of money increases vs other assets. That is what is playing out. Since the value of money increases, we will be safe investing in gold miners. If this thesis is wrong then you definetely want gold miners…..Funny how that works out……

Thanks for your guidance and for putting it out there!
Palantíri | May 17, 2009 at 8:48 am |

Re: show – Actually Norway had its oil production peak in the year 2000 with 181 Million Sm3 o.e. oil, last year production in 2008 was 122 Million Sm3 o.e. oil. You can expect to see a production drop of maybe 4-5% each year in the future to “save” the oil reserves a few more years.
solomio | May 17, 2009 at 9:39 am |

Max Stacy, you seem smart people…
I have a question: who owns the central bank of China
1) the people (hahaha)
2) the communist party mafia (more likely)
3) or is it the same financial elite that owns Goldman Sach etc.

(Does anybody know if Eustace Mullins is still around
haven´t heard from him quite some time)
YerMawm | May 17, 2009 at 10:00 am |

The key challenge in the union vs. business battle, is getting Goobermint out of the way and letting the market sort it out.

Goobermint plays both sides by creating regulation that skews the supply/demand equation (fewer auto co’s, and few qualified workers). If labor is allowed to organize, businesses should be allow to union bust, or choose the union with which they wish to trade labor.
Carol Brouillet | May 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm |

In the US, some of us are very much aware of the financial oligarchy and working on trying to change the system- including the monetary system. There are a number of new films coming out, trying to explain the problems and point towards solutions. The challenge is generally the corporate/and “independent media” ignore or marginalize the most daming info and solutions.

I just wrote this review:

The Bubble’s Edge- Bursting the Myth- Revealing the History of Power
Review of the Film- “Life On the Edge of a Bubble- Blowing the American Dream”
Produced by William Lewis and Michael Berger
Review of the book- The Lost Science of Money – The Mythology of Money – The Story of Power
By Stephen Zarlenga, founder of The American Monetary Institute

The rules of the national and international financial system keep changing, as we move from crisis to bubble, from prosperity to bankruptcy, from the American dream to the American nightmare. As the American Empire has evolved over centuries and totters on the abyss of decline, it behooves us to step off the quickly moving carousel of daily revelations, and look beneath the surface of events at the historical patterns that have led to this ever changing, yet remarkably the same, moment in time.
Life on the Edge of a Bubble- Blowing the American Dream is a fast-paced kaleidoscopic look at the bubbles, panics, and depressions that have rcurred almost like clockwork every twenty years since the United States government joined forces with the banking interests, back in the 1700s. Using vintage footage, slick TV ads, revelatory statements made by politicians and Federal Reserve chairmen in the course of the most recent bailouts, the film is paced like a roller coaster, punctuated by thoughtful statements and the dramatic chronicling of past human follies.

Sir Isaac Newton is quoted as saying, “I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” Newton was not immune to the folly of his own time and made 7000 pounds and 100% profit on the speculative South Sea bubble, only to lose 20,000 pounds later, when he bought in at the height of the market. While most of the attention focuses on the US, an exploration of the Dutch tulip mania and financial innovations mirrors the dot com bubble of recent times. Exposing the “con” in the confidence game, how profits are privatized and losses socialized, how the rule makers bend and break the rules to enrich themselves and their financial backers, the film skillfully identifies key aspects of the systemic nature of the problem, a first step in the awesome task of breaking that pattern.

The Lost Science of Money- The Mythology of Money- The Story of Power draws from 35 years of experience, nearly a decade of research, and from 800 sources to narrate a detailed history of money that has been obscured for centuries by powerful, wealthy interests. The hardback edition with 736 pages demands time and attention. Zarlenga has unearthed a treasure trove of history. He convincingly argues that those economists and writers whose work supports the creation of money by private banks are placed on pedestals, and the writings of those who challenge the bankers rarely make it into print and are ignored.

Zarlenga’s main thesis is that our “money system should belong to society as a whole,” that it “is too important to trust to unrepresentative and unaccountable private hands, preoccupied with private gain, with little regard for the detrimental consequences of their actions on the country.”

“This “private vs. public” battle for the control of the money power is part of a great ongoing social battle recurring throughout history to this day. This factor shapes the most important outcomes determining how well a money system works. A good system functions fairly; helping the society create values for living. A bad one obstructs the creation of values; places special privileges in the hands of some to the disadvantage of others, and promotes unfair concentrations of wealth and power, and disharmony and social strife.”

Money has evolved and devolved over time. Money has been created from clay, wood, leather, bronze, copper, gold, silver, shells, paper, and electronic bookkeeping entries and has served multiple functions. According to Aristotle “All goods must therefore be measured by some one thing…now this unit is in truth, demand, which holds all things together…but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it has the name nomisma – because it exists not by nature, but by law (which in Greek was nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make it useless.”

Zarlenga takes a close look at the evolution of the Roman monetary system whose political foundation was laid by its second king, Numa Pompilious (716 BC). Numa’s name might have been acquired from his introduction of nomisma, money that had no intrinsic commodity value, but served very well as a medium of exchange within the political boundaries of ancient Rome. The bronze money that Rome issued insulated them from the powerful East and wealthy traders. When gold and silver were introduced into Rome’s monetary system and money became “commoditized,” a plutocracy arose which served powerful interests rather than the common good.

Zarlenga summarizes that Rome’s experience teaches us that the control of the money power is inseparable from national sovereignty. If that control becomes alienated, so has sovereignty, and the nation will degenerate. Basing the monetary system on commodities rather than law accelerates the concentration of wealth and power, destroying the possibility for social justice, and paving the path towards destruction.

When precious metals back currency, tremendous energy is required to prospect, mine, refine, and mint coinage encouraging slavery, conquests, and plunder of other people and their lands. The ability to determine an official gold to silver trading ratio also enabled the rich to take advantage of the disparity between the trading ratios in Europe and the Orient. One’s gold or silver could be doubled by taking advantage of or determining the rate of exchange. Violence and fraud were both used to protect and expand empires. The struggles for control over national currencies, trade routes, the gold to silver ratio and rates of exchange determined the violent rise and fall of various empires throughout the world.

Dutch and English laws denied the early American colonies coinage in order to have access to the raw materials that were being produced and to maintain control over the colonies. Out of sheer necessity, the colonies became a monetary laboratory and tried to create money out of a wide variety of commodities until Pennsylvania devised a successful paper currency. Subsequent prohibitions against issuing paper currency were a major factor in fomenting the American revolution.

In 1775 the first Continental Congress issued $2 million bills of credit- Continental Currency which eventually increased to $200 million. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, a proclamation was also issued stating that anyone who refused to accept the currency was a public enemy and authorizing George Washington to imprison such persons and to seize their supplies. The British did their best to counterfeit the Continentals in enormous quantity to destroy their value. The individual states also continued to issue their own notes from 1775 to 1783.

When the Constitution was written, it failed to clarify who would have the power to issue currency, although it denied that power to the individual states and did allow Congress to coin money. The battle over private or public control over the monetary power continues. Hamilton and his associates wished to seize it and enshrine a national bank, like the Bank of England which gave money the force of law and allowed private interests behind the bank to reap the profits. Jefferson, Van Buren, and Andrew Jackson fought against the formation of a national bank and a national debt. The drama has been punctuated for centuries by depressions, panics, wars and bubbles. Abraham Lincoln’s successful greenbacks issued during the Civil War demonstrated again that the government could create rather than borrow money to meet its needs.

The first twenty-three chapters of The Lost Science of Money detail the history of money and the battle of ideas over the definition, the creation, and the regulation of money and banking. The final chapter is a proposal for monetary reform which includes three major parts:

#1) The nationalization of the Federal Reserve

#2) Ending fractional reserve banking, instituting a 100% reserve solution (prohibiting private banks from “creating money”)

#3) Institution of anti-deflation programs including spending money into existence for infrastructure, health, and education

Since the book was published in 2002, the American Monetary Institute has fleshed out the reforms in the American Monetary Act which are posted online.

The vast majority of people are beginning to realize that they are the victims of the biggest financial heist in history and that the deregulators and bankers who created the current fiasco are enriching themselves with bailouts, and trying to burden the public with enormous, unpayable debts. The revolving door between the financial industry and the government is more apparent than ever. Clearly to have systemic change, we need to know our past, understand the current situation, oust the criminals, demand accountability, transparency, and honesty of government at every level. Life on the Edge of a Bubble and The Lost Science of Money are excellent resources to educate ourselves, the public, and genuine public servants to break the tragic economic treadmill that threatens to transform life into profits for the few.

End of review.

There is also awareness that the 9/11 Commission Report was based on tortured evidence and the link between Cheney and tortured evidence required to sell the war on Iraq. There is a Truth Movement (See http://www.911blogger.com), We just have a long way to go to reach the atomized folks who have no clue why they have lost everything and obliged to live in tent cities….

Thanks for the work you do. It is a challenge to disseminate the critical info to the general public and your website is a great resource.
solomio | May 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm |

max/ stacy

I am a musician and it was the fact that I felt that the news media are not
telling us the truth about the recent crisis, that got me into all this. So I watched the movie Zeitgeist where the third section, concerning banking, got my attention (I turned away from that movie after finding out that the theosophists are behind it, just seeing the photo of Blavatsky scars the hell out of me). Than I found the classical movie Money Masters which was really an eye-opener to me. Why I never learned or even heard the things explained in M&M. I was very interested to find out what resources all this was drawn on. So after some research I discovered the author Eustace Mullins and red his Secrets of the Federal Reserve and his World Order and understood that he is mainly the only single source to M&M Zeitgeist etc (correct me if I am wrong). The odd thing is that nobody really mentioned him as a source. Why is that, is there somme thing I am not getting?

You see there is where I got the understanding of terms like Central Banking, Fractional Reserve Banking, Fiat Money etc. But there are still some issues I do not really get, e.g. what are bonds of the FED what they are an how they work.

My suggestion is to create some kind of glossary or dictionary or explain each week some of these issues (a kind of crash curse, hahaha, of banking) so that people like me can come to a better understanding of all this (e.g. I have no idea what the previous post is about).
Finally, in one of your recent outrages, max, you screamed that you have a linces for Wall-street…. that is odd I did not know you need a license for Wall-street I thought a criminal recored is more that sufficient!
Matt E. | May 17, 2009 at 2:00 pm |

good show as usual, but Stacy, you dont really think Cheney single handed started Iraq war to make some $$$?
Mr Supergeek | May 17, 2009 at 2:16 pm |

@Carol Brouillet ….Isn’t it considered good manners to at least say thank you or aknowledge when you use somebody elses space to plug yourself or somebodys product….otherwise a link with a short discription usually suffices…..just a thought….
Danny | May 17, 2009 at 3:04 pm |

@Mr Supergeek

i agree with your last post.

@solomio

i support your idea of a glossary, you could call it- ‘Maxims of how they steal your money and future’. thats alot of work though: i think we sometimes forget its just max and stacy doing all these things. I’m sure theres a smart person on here that could do it….I nominate MEP!!
Mr Supergeek | May 17, 2009 at 4:45 pm |

@Danny
Yeah… A glossary of Maxisms could be cool too, Or If we ever get a forum I think MEP would make a great moderator…Both tough jobs either of them could take up a lot of time…….
Joe | May 17, 2009 at 8:20 pm |

Frank Sinatra is a musical God. Only a fool would call him a lightweight.

“Après vous… That means go, baby.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w25TylDyQBY

Great show. Thanks very much.
Roger | May 17, 2009 at 8:29 pm |

US dollar = fool’s gold
solomio | May 17, 2009 at 10:57 pm |

It might be truth what max says that klein does understand much of
banking… or starts to get it rather late….
But her shock doctrine at least shows that Milton Friedman,
opposing the FED, isn´t a good guy after all….
solomio | May 17, 2009 at 11:04 pm |

sorry it is early one morning, so again…

It might be right what max says that klein does not understand much of banking… or starts to get it rather late….
But her shock doctrine at least shows that Milton Friedman, opposing the FED, isn´t a good guy after all….
solomio | May 18, 2009 at 12:37 am |

max, ones again, it is not fair to trampoline one naomi, because so got into it to late: WE ALL GOT IT RATHER LATE! You, Mullins, Alex Jones were the very few shouting in the lonely dessert….. and that is why the bloody banks got away with it for such long time!
Concerning the car industry and what really happens William. and the part of the story that Karl Marx did not understand fully too, I believe.
1) the crisis is staged by the few central banks (the three most important are bank of England, FED and the European Central Bank). I believe we all agree on that one.
2) When commercial banks get into trouble next, industry gets into trouble too.
3) finally consumers get into trouble which means that industry gets even into more trouble.
4) Industries go bankrupt and the US and Europe and the rest of the world start the bailout fraud “helping those in trouble”. But this scam is actually nothing less than a cover up for the trillions that are transferred to the very few large commercials banks such as Goldman Sach and some others (which own the FED etc.) to buy up the rest of the suffering industry AND THAT IS WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN DOING WITH EACH AND EVER STAGED CRISIS.

When Henry Ford, the owner of the ford plants, noticed that the banks wanted to grab his fabrics, he turned into a anti-Semitic, because he thought that banking is a Jewish thing. But one should know that his anti-Semitism is rooted into the sever suspicion towards banking cartels that are buying up the whole big world.
You do not need to be an economist to understand all this, do you!
Vicktor Storr | May 18, 2009 at 8:42 am |

Re: Amerikan Uprising

Although I agree with your statements on this subject, neither of you seem to realise the risks associated with a general uprising in the U.S. If an uprising occurs in the U.S., it will quickly go to armed conflict. This is due to the fascistic nature of the U.S. police forces, who have been brain-washed for decades with a paramilitary paradigm.

Look at how the immigrants were allowed to wreck extreme violence across W. Europe just a few years ago. There was very little police activity opposing the violence. I was stunned by what I saw.

This would not be the case in the U.S. Even mild protests *en masse* would be met with violence by the police. This leaves the Amerikans with little option of serious revolt that isn’t also violent, just to counter the violence of the PTB. And when it rises to that form of revolt, it takes more suppression before the people fight back.
Carol Brouillet | May 18, 2009 at 9:52 am |

Apologies. Forgive me for not following proper etiquette, but I listened to the show and was trying to respond to the points that Stacey and Max made about the level of awareness in the US. I only recently discovered this website and have added links to it from my website- it is an excellent source of information. My main purpose wasn’t to plug a partiular book or film- there are actually lots of them- but to say that some of us in the US are working fulltime on raising public awareness and trying to change the system.
Nat | May 18, 2009 at 10:25 am |

Max, you threw in the word “Back-Benching” to describe UK politicians around minute 38 or so.. Eh? What does one do when one back-benches? Can I do it at home? Does it involve going “Hrarh hrarh hrarh” when someone speaks?
bzmoore | May 18, 2009 at 11:56 am |

I think Max hit Naomi Klein on the head, that doesn’t sound right, he nailed her, oh shit that doesn’t sound right either.

Naomi is doing a fabulous job and her insights are great. She is young and slightly naive like many young socialists. She is evolving quickly from a JAP (Jewish American Princess) who was concerned with fashion (No Logo) to a person with deeper geopolitical insight (Shock Doctrine).

The trouble with the polyanna world of socialists is that they don’t really understand basic economics or the tricks of the Banksters and that is why Max says she should learn from the realist Peter Schiff.
martin | May 18, 2009 at 10:46 pm |

is it just me or did they sound slightly drunk?