6139008-History-of-Money

loan basis with minimal interest payments that are taxed at 30% anyways. With such a simple policy to fund its deficit foranother year, it's no wonder the United States can get by without any brain power at the Treasury Department. In effect,the US and its Gulf Arab allies just pulled off the biggest central-bank heist in the history of the World. The price of oil justwent up 60% or more, which really cuts down to size that $3.4 trillion of net foreign holdings of US financial assets. As aloyal American, one would like to cheer one's government's deft move to pick the pockets of our trading and financingpartners. Moreover, the US gets the Arabs to fund a large share of our deficit, subsidize our interest rates, and help keepour taxes low for another year. Surely I can afford to buy another gas-guzzling sport-utv, get a rifle, and wave a flag.The United States is extracting tribute on oil from the World. If the World wants Middle Eastern oil, it must pay for itthrough the US dollar. Why do the heads of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, etc, hold dollars? If theydon't buy dollars, why would the US keep them in power? It would simply not be in our interests to do so. Rememberwhen Saddam Hussein talked about pricing Iraq's oil in euros? "Shock and awe" quietly followed. This program of oil fordollars and dollars for the US Treasury deficit is the simple tribute that we, as the superpower, can expect. Unlike theVietnam era - when the US was trying to finance guns and butter - getting others to pay now for our guns allows us tomilk the oil out of the sand and turn it into butter. The next question will be how the Asians respond to a 60% hike in theprice of oil. Notice in the chart below there are some big, smart, anonymous dollar holders (such as hedge funds) locatedin the Caribbean. No one knows who they really are. Major known foreign holders of US Treasury securities(figures are much higher now after the Bush regime increased the debt from $3 Trillion to $9 Trillion, e.g.Saudi Arabia now holds nearly $4 Trillion of Treasury bills which they are not allowed to spend):Japan (in billions of dollars) 702Mainland China 194England 163Caribbean 93Korea 68Taiwan 59Hong Kong 59Total (including other countries with fewer holdings) 1,960The public debt is already projected to grow from a level of 34 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (the basic measureof the size of the U.S. economy) in 2000 to nearly 70 percent of GDP by 2030. The borrowing called for under the planadvanced by the President’s Social Security Commission would raise the debt to nearly 100 percent of GDP by 2030.Under some other individual account plans, the debt would be raised to even higher levels. These elevated levels of debtwould increase the risk of a crisis in which the government faces difficulty paying the interest on this debt or issuing newdebt in the bond market. The borrowing that would create such a fiscal situation could be obscured or omitted from thefederal budget.Understanding The Meaning of GDP Gross Domestic ProductThis is an aside note about GDP or gross domestic product, but I might as well bring it up since we are talking aboutmoney. Simon Küznets (1965) pointed out that “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement ofnational income as defined by the GDP…goals for ‘more’ growth should specify of what and for what.“ As a gauge ofeconomic performance and well-being, the GDP embodies at least seven major fallacies:First, the GDP regards every expenditure as an addition to well-being, regardless what that expenditure is for and theeffects. By this reasoning the nation's economic hero is the terminal cancer patient going through an expensive divorce,whose car is totaled in a twenty-car pile-up. The economic villain is the healthy person in a solid marriage that cooks athome, walks to work and doesn't smoke, gamble or spend the evening surfing Web porn. The hero borrows and spends;the villain pays cash and saves for the kids' education. What economists call "growth", in other words, is not always thesame as what most Americans would consider good.Second, the GDP ignores the crucial economic functions that lie outside the realm of monetary exchange. GDP excludesthe value of unpaid housework, child care, volunteer work, and leisure. Parents do real work. So do neighbors,communities, open spaces, rivers and oceans, the atmosphere, and trees. Anyone who doubts this might try getting alongwithout them. Such things contribute more to well being than does much that we buy from the market. Yet the GDPregards these life-sustaining functions as worthless - until the economy destroys them, and we have to buy substitutesfrom the market or from government. Then the GDP says that the economy has "grown." When parents default and kidsneed counseling or foster care, the GDP go up because money has changed hands. When a parent cares for kids at homethe GDP stagnates; when that same parent takes care of other peoples' kids at day care the GDP goes up. When the citycuts down shade trees to widen a street, and homeowners have to buy air conditioners for cooling, the GDP goes upagain. It looks like economic growth; but in reality no increase has occurred. Instead, something that used to be free nowcosts money; social and environmental decay has been transmogrified into "growth" through the myopic lens of the GDP.Third, the GDP does not account for natural resources that are required to sustain current and future economicdevelopment implying that the future has no value. The GDP excludes natural resource capital, environmental resourcesservices,human resources and research and development. All that matters is the present. The implications of currenteconomic activity for our kids and grandkids do not enter the calculation. For example, the GDP counts the depletion ofThe Hidden History Of Money & New World Order Usury Secrets Revealed at last! Page 143