Behind the Rise in Prices: The Plan to Torpedo the Dollar MUST READ

[Why Syzygy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-schechter/behind-the-rise-in-prices_b_102330.html

Now let's fast-forward to the present, well after this widely foreseen crisis erupted. As oil prices climb, the public is angry. And who do they mostly blame -- the oil companies and the oil-producing states, of course. They have no clue that this crisis was the consequence of decisions made by the Bush Administration to devalue the dollar with its "crisis manager" Jim Wilkinson playing a central role.

Political writer Jerry Policoff questioned the "politicized polls" on who is responsible for the oil hikes. Only a few respondents blamed the Bush Administration for causing them. He noted that most people and pollsters don't realize that the fall of the dollar precipitated all of this.

I asked him if he thought this squeeze had been orchestrated.

His response:

"I don't think there is any doubt about that, and the Saudis said as much when Bush asked them to rev up production to bring down the price. Their reaction was pretty much that the U.S. should stop undermining the value of its own dollar before asking other countries to take a financial hit on oil."

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Shock and awe, baby. Smirk." -Commander AWOL & republicon homelanders

[Why Syzygy]

2. Still the reigning Thief in Chief

more from blog:

The result was summed up in his headline: "The U.S. Dollar is kaput. Confidence in the currency is eroding by the day."

Whitney saw then what our media has still yet to report or understand.

"The financial crisis that we now face was created by design. It is intended to destroy the labor movement, crush the middle class, quash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, reduce our foreign debt by 50 or 60%, force a restructuring of America's debt, privatize all public assets and resources, and create a new regime of austerity measures which will divert more wealth to the banking and corporate establishment."

[rainy]

4. It sounds like what the WTO does to other nations. They

go in and privatize all their natural resources and sell off their common municipalities to the lowest bidder.

[sam sarrha]

7. read the 'shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism.' IS the book of the century

cheap at Amazon... Naomi Klein's book explains this process in detail.. the Shock Doctrine id the economic policy of the ReThuglican party, it is how they will create their Utopia out of our ashes

her book is a RESEARCH PAPER.. 92 PAGES OF FOOTNOTES AND INDEX.. A HISTORIC PAPER, READ IT AND WEEP

[rainy]

9. I downloaded it onto my ipod and listened to it while I walked.

It is a fantastic book. I passed it along to my Dad when I was finished.

[sam sarrha]

10. where do i get a download..?? i have Aspergers, reading is traumatic, i have Synesthia, i have the

book, it is soo difficult, heart breaking.. frightening.

i suffer from multiple PTSD's, brutal terrorism, bullying as an autistic child in public school, being raised an autistic child in the Free Holiness Pentecostal Cult.. being forced to "Pray Through" my demon possession and the laying on of hands exorcisms with a hundred crazed Fundies screaming and wailing to gOD and jesus, speaking in Tongues to cast out my deamons...AUTISTIC FUCKING INPUT OVERLOAD, and the Peace Corp experience on West Africa in Drought Relief, since 1974 i have known we faced what i saw in Africa, dead people in the streetS who starved in the night.. 2000 starving diseased people in a space of a few city blocks, 2 water faucets, no toilets, rivers of shit and rancid piss the stench of death. NOT JUST ONE NUT ONE AFTER ANOTHER.. 2 years of McCain and we will live and die that.

i perceive thoughts "Visually" and have to translate them to words. i get hung up with any stress, i can draw a picture, but cant say the word. reading anything but technical material can create VISUAL thought floods. another problem is i come from a long line of Clairvoyants, hard to sort out the Empath part from PTSD FEARS, i'm a technical mechanical savant, an IQ OF 164, but i am functionally illiterate.

I listen to tapes a lot, i have an huge library of Buddhist material, robert Thurman, pema chodron, ken wilber, Alione, etc. i listen to Pure Land Buddhist chants driving..

where can i get a download of the Shock Doctrine and others like, Conservatives without conscience, etc. i am always buying books and cant read them.

thanks

[rainy]

13. I actually bought that book on CD and easily downloaded it onto

my ipod. I often check out books on CD at the local library and just download them. That way it's free.

[Kaleko]

29. That is one mind-blowing post there, sam.

Really, I'm speechless.

My heart goes out to you. :hug:

P.S. I'm also into Ken Wilber and many others who speak with such clarity.:hug:

:pals:

[Nostradammit]

30. I never knew that about you, sam sarrha

I've been enjoying your posts for years.

Much respect.

[Why Syzygy]

20. Here'e the website

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

There's a short film. There may be a download section. Haven't looked yet.

[EstimatedProphet]

3. It's about time people started to realize this

People don't get why devaluing the dollar is the real goal of the superrich. Here's how it works:

Let's say there's a society that's reasonably healthy economically. We have a few poor, a large and vibrant middle class, some rich, and a few very rich. Everyone wants to move up economically, even the superrich. A milliion dollars would be a huge windfall to just about everyone in society - except for the superrich. If someone has 20 billion dollars, what's another million? They probably make that in an hour.

In this case, how do you keep the buzz going? How do you keep moving up economically, when you have so much money that it no longer matters to make any more?

Cut the value of the dollar. In the above example, if the dollar's worth were halved, suddenly the poor become destitute, the middle class become poor, even the rich get hit hard. the superrich remain superrich. someone who has 20 billion dollard under the old vollar value has comparatively 10 billion dollars when the dollar value is cut by half - which is still such a ridiculously large amount of money that they remain wealthy beyond dreams. At the same time the rest of the system crashes. Therefore the proportional wealth of the superrich increases from a devalued dollar.

This is all being done on purpose, for a reason.

[unblock]

12. not exactly. close, actually, but the reasoning is a bit different

the superrich do not think this way. they always want their wealth to increase. it's true they don't give a rat's ass about the little people, but they still want their own wealth to increase.

what they DO think is that they are well-positioned to have their wealth continue to increase as the dollar drops.
for the very rich it is easy to shift assets to another currency or get some other form of protection against a decline in the dollar. i'm very far from rich, but shifted my retirement savings to foreign mutual funds several years ago. i'm making a mint in dollar terms (although of course the dollars buy less).

of course, my biggest asset by far is my house, and i have no way to hedge that. its value is declining in dollar terms and each remaining dollar buys less, more than erasing out the profit in my 401(k). i'm not nearly wealthy enough to come out ahead even though i saw the decline in the dollar coming quite a while ago.

for the superrich, though, the declining dollar is just another investment opportunity. look at warren buffett touring europe for investments, e.g.


at the end of the day, though the declining dollar is a good thing for the u.s. economy. eventually, it will make imports and offshoring too expensive, and finally it will make sense to hire americans and to buy american products.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. True

The superrich will likely make money off the falling dollar. However, people need to learn that a falling dollar value also benefits them. Proportionally their relative wealth increases, which increases their relative power in society.

[unblock]

16. agreed.

[KharmaTrain]

5. The Dollar Has Stopped Sinking

Here's the problem with this theory...with so many cheap dollars, what do you expect the Saudis will do? The same as they have in the past...spend it. And where? And with what? The money comes back, it's just that it goes from your pocket into theirs and then back to a defense contractor or high class jeweler or buying up cheap property (I see that coming)...they're getting a lot of "bang" for their buck right now and they sure have a lot of 'em. It's kinda the same shell game that's played when people discuss foreign aid...much of that money never even leaves our shores but goes directly to defense contractors or some other GOOP pet.

It's been said, but rarely in places that many hear them, that the price run-up is on speculation...the price of oil is based on a futures delivery and the game is to drive up the price...like any other commodity as your contract nears expiration...thus if you bought the futures on a $100 barrel of oil 60 days ago, you're sitting with a nice profit now. 99% of us can't play this game, but the big boys can and do.

As mom always said...when someone loses money, someone else is making it. The Saudis see no need to increase output because there isn't an immediate need...the price run-up is the latest "bubble" for the rich...note how the real run-up began when the housing mess began. Just follow the money...

[canoeist52]

6. I can't recommend reading " The Shock Doctrine" enough

Naomi Klien's book explains how this was done to other countries from the '70's to the present. This is not incompetence! It is part of a plan.

[nichomachus]

8. Another recommendation

Read "Opposing the System" by Charles Reich. Reich wrote this about 13 years ago, but it was much ignored because we were in the middle of the Internet bubble, where everyone was going to day-trade their way into being billionaires by tomorrow morning.

However, Reich accurately predicted much of what we've seen in the intervening years -- and he even offers some ways on how to counter it, although 13 years later, it might be too late.

[Romulox]

11. So massive trade deficits and overconsumption have NOTHING to do with it, eh?

How ridiculous. Our lifestyle is unsustainable, George Bush or no George Bush. You don't have a right to cheap imports.

[sam sarrha]

14. i dont want any more shit.. we need to get out of this credit consumer economy

i think that is really the message here

[TNOE]

17. Kick

[Why Syzygy]

18. kick

[Uncle Joe]

19. I believe so, point number 13 on this post.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3316477&mesg_id=3320430

Thanks for the thread, votesomemore.

[Why Syzygy]

21. yqw

You should make that reply an OP of it's own. The way I see it, the only way to get through this is to NOT PANIC. They count on FEAR and PANIC. If people understand what is really going on, we can remain calm and regain control.

[Uncle Joe]

23. I may do it tomorrow morning but I leaving for the day, I'm just curious though

what does yqw stand for?

[Why Syzygy]

24. (you're quite welcome)

[bdamomma]

32. sounds logical, for us to remain focused on what they (neocons, repigs or

whoever) but so many of us will fall back into their trap again, but we did see how our government treated those who were involved in Katrina and it wasn't a pretty picture either especially the delay of action to help people. Most of us got it that this filthy administration did nothing and we picked up on that, plus there were some in the media, who showed how heartbreaking this was for so many.

your one comment says it all:

"If people understand what is really going on, we can remain calm and regain control".

[robertpaulsen]

22. All part and parcel of the BFEE Peak Oil Final Solution: Demand Destruction.

I think Michael Ruppert said it best:

“Demand destruction” has become a priority not only to mitigate Peak Oil but also to mitigate global warming. The United States, with 5% of the world’s people, consumes (wastes) 25% of the world’s energy. How do you destroy demand? You collapse the economy. Homeless, unemployed “refugees” (what a cold, depersonalizing term) don’t buy gas, take trips, fly on airplanes or buy consumer goods (made with energy and requiring energy to operate). They don’t use air conditioning because they can’t afford it. They are the embodiment of Henry Kissinger’s infamous term “useless eaters,” a phrase from the Nazi vocabulary.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/090205_bet_life.shtml

[Why Syzygy]

25. wow, I haven't seen that website in a long time

Thanks!

Interesting, yes? How the Kissinger's of the world feel that everyone who eats somehow robs them of their fair dues. Like they own the planet.

[I Have A Dream]

26. Thanks for posting this, vsm. K&R! nt

[dweller]

27. cool, he quotes the Mogambo Guru

'the angriest guy in economics'

and linkskipping around a bit, i end up here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15440.htm
The Dollar's Full-System Meltdown 10/30/06

" So, how will recession affect the dollar?

Capital has no loyalties. It follows the markets. When America’s bustling consumer market stalls, we’ll undergo capital flight just like everywhere else. The 3 million lost manufacturing jobs, the 200,000 lost high-paying high-tech jobs, the tax incentives for major corporations doing business outside the country; all signal that corporate America has already loaded the boats and is headed for more promising markets in Asia and Europe. A sluggish consumer market could further weaken the dollar and force Americans to begin saving again but, (and here’s the surprising part) the decision-makers at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Dept don’t really care if the face-value of the greenback goes down anyway.

What really matters is that the dollar retains its position as the world’s reserve currency. That allows the Federal Reserve to continue to print the money, set the interest rates, and control the global economic system. The dollar presently accounts for 66% of foreign currency reserves in central banks across the globe, an increase of nearly 10% in one decade alone. The dollar has become the international currency, a de-facto monopoly. This is the goal of the globalists and the American ruling elite who dream of one system, the dollar-system; with us running it.

So, how will this cadre of plutocrats coerce the other nations to continue to use the dollar while it plummets from its perch?

Oil.

As long as oil is denominated in dollars, the central banks will be forced to stockpile American scrip regardless of its value. It’s no different than holding a gun to someone’s head. They will use our debt-plagued greenbacks or their cars and trucks will sputter, their tractors and factories will wheeze, and their economies will grind to a halt. It’s just that simple.

America cannot maintain its superpower status unless it continues to control the global economic system. That means the linkage between the dollar and oil must be preserved. The Bush troupe sees this as an existential issue upon which the future of America’s ruling class depends. By 2020, 60% of the world’s oil will come from the Middle East. Bush will do everything in his power to control the resources of the Caspian Basin, thereby expanding US dollar-hegemony and paving the way for a new American century"

can't say we weren't warned.
dp

[bdamomma]

33. but those countries who dealt with the dollar are ditching

it for the Euro, which does not sit to well with Cheney and his cabal. Especially the oil rich countries.

[southerncrone]

28. This devaluation of the dollar has effected our purchasing power on everything

not just gas & oil.

Expect prices to escalate even more, as current inventories purchased when $ held more value are replace with goods at the new lower $ value.

We've in essence all had our pay cut @40%.

Why we haven't impeached these bastards is the question! :grr:

[Kaleko]

31. Kick