…the Fed did exactly what it was chartered to do here…. protect the US banking system. And it did that while paying lip service to coordinating central bank policy to keep US dollar funding markets liquid, which is also part of its job, as long as it is in service of its primary job, protecting US banks.
And, as I’ve argued over and over, while there are still massive holes in the global financial system because there aren’t enough dollars to go around, the Fed is now in control of who gets those dollars. Watching who does and who doesn’t get preferential treatment is now the key to understanding what happens next.
The crashes of Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and its related bank insolvencies are much more serious than the 2008-09 crash. The problem at that time was crooked banks making bad mortgage loans. Debtors were unable to pay and were defaulting, and it turned out that the real estate that they had pledged as collateral was fraudulently overvalued, “mark-to-fantasy” junk mortgages made by false valuations of in the property’s actual market price and the borrower’s income. Banks sold these loans to institutional buyers such as pension funds, German savings banks and other gullible buyers who had drunk the neoliberal Kool Aid believing with Alan Greenspan that banks would not cheat them.
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) investments had no such default risk. The Treasury always can pay, simply by printing money, and the prime long-term mortgages whose packages SVP bought also were solvent. The problem is the financial system itself, or rather, the corner into which the post-Obama Fed has painted the banking system. It cannot escape from ts 13 years of Quantitative Easing without reversing the asset-price inflation and causing bonds, stocks and real estate to lower their market value.
In a nutshell, solving the illiquidity crisis of 2009 in a way that saved the banks from losing money (at the cost of burdening the economy with enormous debts), paved away for the deeply systemic illiquidity crisis that is just now becoming clear, although I cannot resist that I pointed out its basic dynamics already in 2007 and in my 2015 book Killing the Host.
South Dakota Governor Krisi Noem appeared on Tucker Carlson’s television broadcast last night to send a warning to fellow governors. According to the background story, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill redefining currency and creating rules for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that would block all other digital currencies from being used in the state. Governor Noem vetoed the bill.
When asked why her legislature would do this, Noem responded the state politicians likely did not read the bill as it was constructed by lobbyists. Noem is exactly correct and hits on a subject we have discussed here frequently {GO DEEP}. However, one of the more alarming aspects to Noem’s discussion of the issue is that around 20 other states are considering similar legislation. WATCH:
Western governments, including the U.S. through Joe Biden, have limited and curtailed the production and exploitation of Oil, Coal and Natural Gas. At the core of the inflation within those same governments, this is the issue at hand. Energy prices have skyrocketed, driving the cost of everything through the roof. The central banks are raising interest rates in an attempt to shrink the economy to match the drop in energy production. This is their monetary policy (interest rates) attempting to support economic policy (Green New Deal / Build Back Better).
Urban Christian Academy is a private, K-8 school with an enrollment of 100 that describes itself as providing “a tuition-free, high-quality, Christ-centered education for low-income students.”
The school’s mission statement has always stressed inclusivity in general terms, noting that following Jesus “opens up doors and makes room at the table.” But last year it added a paragraph to its website, which read in part, “We are an affirming school. We stand with the LGBTQIA+ community and believe in their holiness. We celebrate the diversity of God’s creation in all its varied and beautiful forms.”
According to the school, that update prompted donors to stop contributing, many of them citing their interpretation of Christianity as the reason. Now, UCA has announced it will close at the end of the school year due to the loss of financial support.
Kalie Callaway-George, UCA’s executive director and co-founder, said this new language “is kind of what started the backlash from our donor base, which we anticipated. It was just that we anticipated a 50% loss in funding and made adjustments for that. We had an 80% loss in funding and that was too much to overcome.”
This is it. This is pure MAGA. President Trump is announcing the big one… “Economic Agenda 47“
This is the economic policy blade to drive a stake through the vampire heart of corporatism, globalism and the exploitation of the U.S. economy by multinational corporate interests. This “universal baseline tariff” approach, is the policy that slays the dragons of the World Economic Forum, destroys the Beijing dragon and simultaneously ends the EU Marshal Plan advantage. This is a big deal.
President Trump makes the economic policy announcement today, and it is an incredible structure of trade and economic proposals that would be resoundingly effective at restoring every financial mechanism within the United States as a sovereign country. The proposal is economic nationalism in policy form.
Yesterday, I wrote a brief critique of Steve Kirsch’s hedge fund plans. Some of what was behind a paywall will be reiterated in this more thorough, fully public article that aims to be both comprehensive and at least a little entertaining (but probably not). This is one of those articles that I encourage you to share with those who may have sauntered up to the stage to make hundred dollar bills rain on Steve.
American Buddhist Net 