Bill Gertz has an article running in this morning’s Washington Times, “Financial terrorism suspected in ’08 economic crash,” on a report prepared by the Department of Defense in June 2009. In the report, financial analyst Kevin Freeman argues that the 2008 economic crisis was assisted by outside forces. What the study (which we are providing a copy of exclusively here at PJ Tatler at the conclusion of this post) investigates is how outside forces could have helped things along by manipulating oil prices, naked short selling of U.S. financial firms (e.g. Bear Stearns), and attacking the U.S. dollar. Gertz reports:
Evidence outlined in a Pentagon contractor report suggests that financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations, contributed to the 2008 economic crash by covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.
The unclassified 2009 report “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses” by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, states that “a three-phased attack was planned and is in the process against the United States economy.”
While economic analysts and a final report from the federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission blame the crash on such economic factors as high-risk mortgage lending practices and poor federal regulation and supervision, the Pentagon contractor adds a new element: “outside forces,” a factor the commission did not examine.
“There is sufficient justification to question whether outside forces triggered, capitalized upon or magnified the economic difficulties of 2008,” the report says, explaining that those domestic economic factors would have caused a “normal downturn” but not the “near collapse” of the global economic system that took place.
Suspects include financial enemies in Middle Eastern states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Freeman said his report provided enough theoretical evidence for an economic warfare attack that further forensic study was warranted.
“The new battle space is the economy,” he said. “We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems each year. But a relatively small amount of money focused against our financial markets through leveraged derivatives or cyber efforts can result in trillions of dollars in losses. And, the perpetrators can remain undiscovered.”
“This is the equivalent of box cutters on an airplane,” Freeman added.
It should be noted that Freeman doesn’t claim that outside forces were responsible for the major factors of the economic crisis, namely the subprime mortgage fiasco, but that these outside forces might have intentionally helped things along. The report identifies three key stages in this possible economic attack:
- The first phase was a speculative run-up in oil prices that generated as much as $2 trillion of excess wealth for oil-producing nations, filling the coffers of Sovereign Wealth Funds, especially those that follow Shariah Compliant Finance.
- The second phase appears to have begun in 2008 with a series of bear raids targeting U.S. financial services firms that appeared to be systemically significant.
- The risk of a Phase Three has quickly emerged, suggesting a potential direct economic attack on the U.S. Treasury and U.S. dollar.
Here’s the unclassified DOD report we’re making available exclusively here at PJ Tatler:
Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses by Kevin D. Freeman
I believe the same Democrats who knowingly, intentionally undermined America at war to get back in power, also knowingly, intentionally sabotaged the economy to get back in power. Blocking reforms of Freddy and Fannie despite widespread warnings that failure to do so could result in exactly the kind of crisis we had, among other reasons.
The Democrat/Progressive/Liberal policies were in place long before 2008. The insolvency of Social Security took well over 60 years to reach this stage. Add to it, the trillions of dollars wasted in the so-called “War On Poverty” and “Great Society.” Fannie and Freddie were created in 1978 but it was the Clinton administration in the persons of Janet Reno and Jamie Gorelick who held figurative guns to the heads of banks forcing them to make hundreds of billions worth of risky loans.
So while there may have been an economic 9/11 perpetrated by outside forces, I think that tragically, we supplied the eco-jihadis with the box cutters and the aircraft.
Actually a correction to myself – Fannie Mae was created in 1938 and Freddie came some time later. It was Jimmy Carter’s (feh! [spin your "groggers]) Community Reinvestment Act that was enforced to the hilt by the Clinton criminals that was the seed of the crisis.
Consider me chastised.
OK, so where’s the link to the report?
And, BTW, did the same group that orchestrated this economic strike also perform a political strike by funneling untraceable foreign donations to a particular presidential candidate?
Did you say you were providing a copy of the report at the bottom of this post? Were the 7 indented paragraphs what you were referring to?
No, the link to the report got cut off. We’ve restored the link at the end of the post.
We had a technical glitch. The report is linked now, at the end of the post.
And here’s the link to the full report in case it gets lopped off again:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49755779/Economic-Warfare-Risks-and-Responses-by-Kevin-D-Freeman
Using leverage to attack what is fundamentally weak is a no-brainer to a speculator. No subsequent whining will do: Make the fundamentals strong, and you will have nothing to worry about. The speculator will lose his shirt.
Cultivating a prosperity bubble carries risks, and with them, consequences. So does flooding the market with paper currency that soon may descend to the value of wallpaper. Need to name the biggest attacker on the U.S. dollar?
As a (very) small time speculator myself, agreed. This smells strongly of scapegoating. There’s a saying in the stock market–shorts don’t kill good companies, good companies kill shorts. If the people betting a stock will go down win, it’s because the stock was ready to go down. There’s no need for a nefarious plot, what happened in 2008 will happen naturally in a mismanaged system.
Assuming the “Shorts” are playing with their own money. Also, the saying is not universal, many a solid bank has been brought down by a run caused by short selling.
Not necessarily so; there’s something called “scale effects” too – not to mention the “butterfly effect” in nonlinear dynamics.
1. I’m still waiting for the the Michelle Obama Whitey Tape. That it hasn’t been released means that the cover-up is even more powerful than I thought. What else could it mean?
2. Seriously, IMO conspiracies exist but the prospects are bleak for unraveling one via public information. IMHO the number of conspiracy theories dwarfs the number of conspiracies.
3. The Bush and Obama administrations have featured the most incompetent political class since, at least, Reconstruction. We Americans let ourselves be put in this situation. Taking responsibility should be our overriding priority. Whether the USA’s opponents and enemies took advantage of our national stupidity is secondary.
I certainly don’t know the how, but I think I know the who.
George Soros.
Does his last name begin and end with ‘s’, with an ‘oro’ in the middle?
Nah, he would never short sell the currency of a sovereign nation for his own personal gain.
Would he?
This has been a pet conspiracy theory of mine – the whole debacle right before the election.
It worked, and now we have the Benedict Obama living in the White House.
What is it the Chinese say? May you live in interesting times? And they don’t mean it as ‘good luck’, either.
Skimming over this document, one annoying bit is that Soros is cited 37 times in the document, frequently as an authority — Soros says this or Soros says that. Why are these all taken at face value?
Why take Soros’ input at face value? Well, it’s for the same reason we say “He who dealt it, smelt it.”
You mean “He who smelt it dealt it.” LOL
that’s been my theory all along – and by all along, I mean since September 2008
I agree with you on this. I’ve thought all along that Soros manipulated oil prices to trigger the Subprime bomb and put his groomed puppet in office. What caused oil to spike so high in 2008? The middle east and the world was a lot more stable than today, and we don’t see those prices today. We may never know; it is probably very well hidden, but it would be great if someone could do some financial forensics to see if any links can be found between Soros or others like him and the huge increase in oil in ’08
Shoot you beat me to it, just as I was prepping my own comment to this article. Seeing as hedge funds were (and still are) unregulated my immediate question is why no mention of Soros? We know that he operates silently and never under his own, but his set up organizations’ names! So where does he figure in this report? Perhaps the consultant is an Obama supporter and therefore wouldn’t want to impune Soros who spent enormous sums to elect Obama. In fact why should we even believe that the report is unbiased?
Sorry, but I ain’t buyin’ it.
Folks, this is just the normal market forces acting with regards to an abnormal market. There are sharks in the financial waters. They are not busy trying to tear down America. They are just feeding.
The problem is that the government created an abnormal market, and we got abnormal results. All those sharks could be purely patriotic individuals, but there was blood in the water.
Are there outsiders, and subversives within who seek to tear us down? Yes, of course. We have been king of the hill for quitre some time. Perhaps they contributed, but it would have happened anyway, because the government skewed the market, and is still doing so.
Elections have consequences, and people get the kind of government they deserve. Vote for Democrats and you get their terrible policies. Vote for Democrats in Republican clothing, and you get Democratic policies. Be apathetic, and you get Democratic policies. The Left is extremely active. They have to be. There is no rest for the wicked. The Right has to be active too, and our greater numbers will overcome.
“All that is required for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to do nothing.” – Mencke (?)
You are correct. This financial terrorism story is bullshit. People in the know were already expecting a crash, and were indicating that everything Greenspan was doing would lead to disaster.
I like how they claim this external sabotage is ongoing. Nonsense. The sabotage of the economy is being done by the Fed. If people in general and foreigners in particular are shorting the US, well then that means they have half a brain.
All the signs we were in a bubble economy were their before and all the signs that we still haven’t corrected are here. Plus the government is doing the same things that got us here on steroids to get us out, except it will only make things worse. Try free markets, won’tcha?
Ummm.. isn’t the Fed Rez owned by ‘outsiders’?
I guess nobody really knows..
Not only that … terrorism is the wrong word.
Yep, that’s the party line. That’s why this report is already squelched and the investigation by the SEC in 2008.
Nothing to see. Move along.
Plenty to see. How idiots think.
“All the signs we were in a bubble economy were their before ”
20-20 hindsight. You must be a very rich man.
Or perhpas it’s how idiots think.
I’m sure this has all been strategically done in the name of “economic justice” for the grievance classes.
Feeling enslaved yet, successful people? The yoke is on you.
So, when is the marketplace anything other than a site of economic warfare (always stimulating both constructive and destrutive forces)?
It’s worth considering that a few people predicted the collapse. Nations that for decades grows debt faster than their capacity to service it are going to present targets, sooner or later. And when that happens, is it right to speak of the “destruction of wealth”, rather than its revaluation? And is there really a point in seeking out “trigger” men to blame?
As for attacks “coming from outside”, well there really is no longer any outside of the single global economy, which is not to say that politics is not still primary, as it always has been, in shaping the forces competing within the market. If you send trillions in royalties to people who have no productive function or skill, but only political position, it is hardly surprising if they seek ways to further their political advantage?
p.s. Nothing in the above comment is to suggest that the political solutions Americans now favour should be ones that erode economic freedom. I’m kind of amazed how a supposedly right-wing, pro-Jewish site like Pajamas can publish a piece that, in its pure-mindedness about the supposedly proper nature of economic life, opens the door to a bunch of comments that reduce a national downfall rooted in over-consumption and excess government growth, relative to productivity, to an antisemitic conspiracy theory in which Soros is obviously the key that opens all doors.
It’s not about destruction. It’s about profit. Any major-league investor who sees an economic problem on the horizon is going to do whatever he can to profit from it. A bunch of said investors did just that. I doubt it was coordinated, but a lot of sharks had the same idea.
yes, but some forms of making profits are destructive, for better or worse. Those who profited by blowing a debt/real estate bubble were not being entirely helpful to the economic life.
On the other hand, some people are self-consciously destructive (of tired, old industries), thinking it for the best, sometimes regardless of personal profit. Entrepreneurs often can only succeed by first helping other people find new opportunities in destroying old forms, before they themselves can hope to profit. Would maybe Pajamas Media be an example?
It would be great if you would provide a pdf of that report instead of locking it up in scribd.
There’s a great big green download button on the right.
You’re welcome.
The great big green download button requires you to give Scribd access to a lot of Facebook information for whatever they want to use it for. A straight link to a simple pdf would be better.
I am annoyed at not being able to print or save the doc without having to sign up for facebook account. I don’t want to do that.
Amen – we block FB at work, so I cannot sign in. Just put up the pdf somewhere.
I said at the time that it looked like to me that these institutions had been looted. Notice that there hasn’t been a real investigation of all this even yet? Now fuel prices are headed to $4 a gallon again just in time to choke off what tiny gains we have made in the last two years.
I hope someone will manage to save this report because it will disappear soon enough.
Phase three, the draining of $550 billion from US money markets in under two hours on 9/15/08, certainly looks like an intentional attack, and in volume that suggests a nation-state.
One is always suspicious. However, the timing of it all, from Schumer’s “leaked” letter of insolvency through the Fed’s Bernanke actions all point to manipulations. If you look at the commodities charts for 2008, you’ll notice a huge bubble that formed along with the housing bubble. Maybe historians can dig out any facts but had it not been for the crash of 2008, Obama would still be sipping the kool aid.
If this is right and if the fed’s quantative easing is causing the revolts in the middle east, then I say we won.
All the more reason for fiscal responsibility.
There wouldn’t have been an opportunity to burst the housing bubble if we didn’t have bad government regulation that caused it in the first place.
It might have been a sucker punch, but we put our jaw out and held it steady for them to strike.
George Soros????
Gee, who has done this before more than once? Who has enough assets to move world financial markets? Who wants to rule the world?
George f-n Soros seems to fit the bill.
How would the world work without him? I’d like to find out. Sooner rather than later.
Of course it was Soros. He took down the British Pound for his own gain. He took down the American economy to buy himself a President.
It happened right after the McCain had picked Palin and was surging in the polls. McCain played along by suspending his campaign and voting for the ensuing bailouts – dooming us to an Obama Presidency.
We should toss him on a plane to France and let them jail him. Hopefully he would die there.
On the same day that GW Bush totally reversed his week-long stance of letting Congress sort out what to do and decided to give a speech telling us that the entire western world would be destroyed if we didn’t pass (what economists said was just a token measure) TARP… Barack Obama called John McCain, supposedly to suggest that they come out with a statement of the need to work together. By that afternoon John McCain was on TV saying he was suspending his campaign and wanted to call off the debates – the only hope he had of winning the election.
IOW, there was ONE DAY where GW Bush decided that the apocalypse was upon us if we didn’t make a token gesture of cooperation with the folks who wanted TARP AND where McCain decided to give up the presidency.
I’d REALLY like to know what Obama said to McCain in that phone call – and I’d bet money it was NOT to suggest a joint statement – unless he had his hatchet-men do the dirty work for him, as he did to the media companies a month later when his lawyers threatened the media companies with FCC annihilation after the election if they reported on the eligibility issue. There had to be some reason Roger Ailes didn’t tell Soros/Emanuel/Axelrod to go pound sand and then report the threats to the FBI so Obama would never have gotten elected and the threats couldn’t be carried out.
I strongly suspect that the real threat was that if they didn’t fall in line Soros would hit the economy again, just like he had the month before. That same threat would also explain why Judge Surick suddenly totally reversed his previous stance and passed off a decision that was FAXED TO HIM FROM SOMEBODY ELSE (accidentally leaving the original transmission’s time/date stamp as evidence on each page) as if it was his own, without a peep for objection, as well as blatant ethics breaches by nearly every judge in the eligibility cases – as if they wanted to leave signs that something was wrong, that they were doing what they did against their own volition.
It would also explain why the dem leadership has been able to get rank-and-file dems to fall on their swords by cramming bad laws down America’s throats, blatantly violating House and Senate rules, etc as if there would never be another election.
It also would explain why the lame-duck Congress was able to be a scorched-earth Congress, when all the republicans had to do was not budge until the session was over and then they could take up all the issues with a R majority in the House and a much better balance in the Senate. Why did the R’s give away everything including the kitchen sink? There wasn’t going to be another election for 2 years, so I don’t buy that the bargaining chip Obama had over them was politics. Somebody in a leadership position was aware of some other threat that Obama held over their heads.
There’s way too much that factors in, way too many pieces of evidence to mention in one post, but the more evidence I look at, the more I think that Soros orchestrated the run on the bank in order to overcome Palin’s popularity and then when the eligibility issue began to be a real threat to Obama ever getting to the White House he used the threat of ANOTHER run on the bank and the collapse of the entire western/capitalist economy as a way to get judges, media owners, and Republican leaders such as GW Bush, Dick Cheney (who never called for objections to the electoral vote certification), and John McCain to do whatever he demanded – which they have been doing ever since.
Remember, there was a web-site and initiative/movement before O was even elected, to end term limits on the Presidency. That site mysteriously vanished after O took office. Gives one pause to wonder just how much we’ve been manipulated.
So George is the guy who lent all that money out against a housing bubble and cause the internet bubble?
No – those were his drones in Congress who did their Bagdad Bob impression right to the end – denying that there was anything with Freddie and Fannie.
We are accusing Soros of arranging the September 2008 Money Market Run that caused a panic on Wall Street and in DC.
Yes, there was a financial terrorist. His name is Henry Paulson.
Things did not go nuts here until he went to congress and screamed, “Crisis! Give me a trillion dollars or we’re doomed!” That act spooked average Americans who then stopped spending.
Isn’t this what George Soros does for a living?
Soros and his international network is a logical suspect. $500B sales of TBills in about 1 hour ~ this is normal market behavior?
I spent thirty years in Wall Street and think that you are onto the real cause of some of our problems. Just to add a little more texture to the understanding that the commentors have already helped to flesh out, look to Bob Rubin, Secretary of Treasury under Clinton and his strong dollar policy which bubbled the stock and bond markets from 1996 through 2001. This was followed by the collapse of the stock markets right after the crooks of both sides had gotten President Clinton to sign the end of Glass Steigel and free up the markets for more concentration. The arabs were trying to crash the US Dollar and the US economy with the 9/11 attack as their protestations in the rumor mills before the crash indicated. The Clinton/Progressive/Soros gang has their finger prints all over this crash. Market manipulations now are so common place at all levels that to call any of these markets “free” is a stretch. But don’t narrow it down to just Soros, although much of the rot comes from his handiwork.
Thirty years in Wall Street? You should be far more informed!
Policy reforms, legislated or institutionally overtime, by the federal government, the financial institutions and Wall Street are [secondary to other] critical issues that have lead to a collasp of the economy and the world dominate USD currency…and what mis looming ahead.
I remember hearing that there was an extreme run on several financial institution in the final months of the Bush presidency.
this was never explain and only Rush Limbaugh talked about it.
so what happened and why was it unreported?
Somebody ..cough, Soros, cough… yanked $550 billion out of U.S. Money Markets in an hour on Sept. 18, 2008. This deliberate act set off an electronic run on American banks and nearly collapsed the U.S. economy.
http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=20090210_2008_run_on_banks_money_market_representative_kanjorski_cspan.htm
Sept 18 2008 is 7 years and seven days after Sept 11 2001.
Interesting? Anyone else find this interesting?
thanks for the link …you would think there is some criminality in what he did. but since the fox is guarding the hens house nothing is ever done.
regards
We dug this hole. Why complain when the guys on the surface start refilling it with us in it? We can crawl out or die.
A good place to start? Start drilling for oil. Start another refinery or three. End the Drug War – another financial weapon used against us.
The stated goal is the destruction of Capitalism.
I knew it! Ben Bernake is a member of Al Qaeda!
You mean it WASN’T George W Bush’s fault? (ahem)
So, these mythical ‘box cutters’ were first tried while Carter was Prez and again at the end of the Clinton term? And finally perfected in 2008?
The only person that’s been around that long is George Soros.
What rot. The housing bubble/mania fueled by Wall Street investment banks, sleazy mortgage brokers, greedy realtors, and millions of stupid “home buyers” trying to get rich quick using rigged and liar loans created the crash, which was more or less worldwide.
Yet, who among the crooked mortgage brokers, realtors, hedge fund managers, and house flippers has been frogmarched off to prison to pay for this humongous scam? Half the members of Congress, and many of their staff members, were involved in the housing Ponzi scheme. Obama himself got a rigged loan. And now a great many of the Wall Street crooks who orchestrated the whole mess are in his Administration.
In the Netherlands, the government is subsidizing, and trying to prop up, the crashing housing market by paying mortgages. Ditto for the UK and the USA. Houses were never worth their alleged values during the bubble, not anywhere close, but instead of letting the prices crash, as they need to, governments everywhere are going broke trying to avoid the inevitable. There isn’t enough money in the world to cover the fortunes sucked out of the system by the crooks behind the bubble, who are still living it up.
This wasn’t a terrorist act. It was an INVESTOR SCAM, abetted by governments rolling in sudden tax windfalls. Trying to shift the blame onto unseen distant bad guys is really the height of hubris. Anyone following theousingbubbleblog.com over the years could see the crash coming years in advance, and everything else that has happened since. The real criminals need to be prosecuted, but since they own the governments involved, that isn’t going to happen.
Let’s say that there was an ammo dump under the US economy. But most ammo dumps don’t explode and for those who do in some cases it is not an accident.
It seems Mr. Soros had a dog in the political fight at the time. A certain current president who remained claim and cool while his opponent scurried back to Washington. Hummmm
Gibberish – you’re wasting your time airing this.
voting citizens in this country have the ability to elect representatives to legislate in our interests
if we elect morons, corruptibles, and flipfloppers then we get policies that reflect this
the burden falls on us, the voters, and we need to wake more citizens up to the reality of unchecked statism that spreads like cancer
only a tiny proportion of potential voters actually vote and a hundred years of limited involvement allowed the party that preys on the weaknesses and vices of humanity has had time to fester and multiply
In this Orwellian age, I’m more inclined to think that someone is tyring to excuse Barry’s disastrous economic policies. That said, when your enemy is the number 2 holder of your debt, what could go wrong?
We can blame anyone we want, the reality is, American Political left caused the global meltdown. Thanks to Carter, Clinton, Frank, Dodd, fannie and freddie. whiteout the fair landing act none of this would happened. May be true that our enemies took advantage of American idiocy, but why blame them, if you are fat, stupid and lazy and you think someone will pay your bills you deserve what you get.
Yes but unfortunately for families like mine who pay our bills, take nothing from government, educate our own children and grandchildren etc. we have to suffer along with the fools who vote in elections based on what the media tell them, or those who don’t comprehend/speak english who go with their respective interest groups’ recommendations. My late husband and I became citizens in 1963 and we made it our business to know what we need to in order to make intelligent choices in our economic and political lives. Today I should share what we saved for old age with people who chose to live it up all their life? The fable about the ant and the grasshopper comes to mind.
It is a good number of ‘new era’ immigrants such as your family, who fully understand and appreciate all that the American dream of ‘opportunity’ was to be for every generation. The majority of the newer generations of natural born citizens have squandered away what so much of the worlds population would…and have, hock their souls for.
What a truly sad time in American history should the original American dream survive or not.
“They” can’t get at the Treasury because Obama has already emptied it out.
There is far more than this report indicates:
1. Paulsen and Bernanke made very public statements in the summer of 2008 proclaiming the economy was sound.
2. Economic indicators were all within normal ranges in the summer of 2008. The economy wasn’t spectacular, but it was no worse than slightly below normal. Solomon Bros had already collapsed, and there weren’t any dire consequences. The housing “crisis” had been in progress for years, and the markets had taken notice no later than October 2007, so it wasn’t like the challenges for the credit and housing markets was breaking news.
3. Chuck Schumer tried to cause a run on Indy Mac in the summer of 2008, by making a public statement naming that specific bank. Indy Mac was later purchased for pennies on the dollar by a Soros cabal. Now, why would Schumer do such a thing? Certainly such an unprecedented action would be considered unethical in an election year, particularly since the economy wasn’t much of an issue.
4. Harry Reid tried to cause a run on AIG in August of 2008. He didn’t mention AIG specifically, but it was clear who he was talking about. Now, why would Reid do such a thing? Certainly such an unprecedented action would be considered unethical in an election year, particularly since the economy wasn’t much of an issue.
5. Yet, the stock market crash that followed was far greater in 2008 than in any prior election year. You can look it up. In most election years, markets go up because the party in power does things to prop the markets up. For example, Bush threw 200+ billion in tax rebates in the economy in the spring. So the market collapse was in the teeth of administration efforts to prevent it.
6. The two month crash in Sept Oct 2008 was also far greater than any prior election year and has only been matched a few times in all of market history.
7. The oil crash was completely unprecedented. Nothing like it has ever occurred in the oil market. Gasoline was over $4 in the late summer on the East Coast. But that was a big issue for McCain, wasn’t it? By Nov 4, it was under $2. Such great break for Obama, and such a big coincidence, right?
8. Starting Sep 8, 2008, stock market volume jumped 60% and stayed there for 3 months. That has only happened one other time since WWII.
9. Soros made $2.4B in profits PRIOR to the crash in 2008. His profits during the crash have never been published.
10. Soros was convicted of market manipulation by Hungary for market manipulation in late 2008. The US has never investigated him, of course. He would never try to manipulate a market in the US.
11. Anybody familiar with the market action in Sep Oct 2008 knows that there were many days that were relatively calm until half an hour before close. Then volume would then jump astronomically, and by close, the loss would be several hundred points. That kind of action happened dozens of times.
12. Everything started Monday Sept 8. On Sept 7, the Gallup poll published Sept 8 had been leaked. That was the weekend after the Republican convention. For the first time in that poll, McCain took the lead.
13. Lehman Bros was taken over by the feds the next weekend of Sep 14. On the 17th there was the infamous Money Market run that Paul Kanjorski spoke about until he was forced to backtrack shortly after he said it. According to Kanjorski before he was shut down, the US MM market was on the verge of collapse that morning. Paulsen and Bernanke shut the market down and then convinced Bush to do TARP. Paulsen and Bernanke are both democrats. Paulsen was an ex CEO of Goldman Sachs, which profited enormously in 2008 and 2009. TARP eventually put many billions in GS’ coffers. GS has profited in 13 of 13 of the last “bubbles”. The odds against that in a 50-50 world are over 8 million to 1.
15. Obama never said a word about the collapse. It was almost like he expected it. McCain made a fool of himself during that period. He was totally unprepared.
There was one news report that downplayed the MM collapse. Other than that, the msm has shown zero interest in the most consequential economic events since 1929 and the aftermath. One could easily argue that the events of September/October 2008 are the most important world events since WWII. Zero interest by any significant newspaper or television network, including Fox News.
On Sept 7, McCain/Palin had taken a lead in the most respected poll in the country. Energy independence was their killer issue, since the economy appeared sound but the price of a gallon of gasoline was over $4. Two months later, millions of retirees’ life savings were wiped out. $7 trillion dollars had been sucked out of the economy. Millions of people suddenly realized that their homes were worth far less than they had paid for them, and many would later go bankrupt. In two months, a sound economy became a depression economy. A world-wide depression ensued, but a man who had never held a job in his life strolled into the White House and began “transforming” the United States.
But many assure us they were just random events.
PS: the SEC investigation of these events was squelched in early 2009. This Pentagon report was also shut down before it could do much real investigation…it’s not a Pentagon issue, you see.
great post.
some points #7 the drop of oil prices probably had more to do with the market collapsing then any planning. (I don’t give them that much credit otherwise I would already be breaking rocks in a gulag)
11 ..this is the one that is obviously being stagemanaged (the market manipulation). too bad we will never get to the bottom of who /how ..we do know the why.
15 obama not saying anything …it works for him …the pundits trip over themselves trying to connect dot that may or may not be connected. unfortunately I see a lot of republicans and conservatives doing just that. instead of trying to answer the questions obama will not answer they should press hard for him ..OBAMA to answer ..he supposedly works for the people.
by not pressing the issue all sorts of spin can be put out there for that moron Juan Williams to spout and then the white house takes their cue from the resulting poll.
the American people are getting played over and over by this child’s method of arguing.
Regards
yeh, I realize that part of the counterargument, for the few who have any interest at all, is that the numerous strange events were all linked and were therefore the same one thing.
But that never happened before either. Go look at 1999, 1987, 1974, the silver market crash, etc etc. It isn’t 100%, but for the most part, bubble crashes are independent of other markets, and in many cases, independent of the economy as a whole. 1974, I believe, was an exception (REITs and the stock market both crashed). Now, most crashes have correlary activity, but nothing like a major crash in 3 separate markets, like there was in 2008 (i.e., equities, oil, real estate, and you can probably add the credit market as well, and interest rates/CDs/Bonds, if you consider them separate).
2008 was extremely unique. And it is the DIRECT antecedant of the worst depression since 1929.
Yet you never hear a word about the cataclysmic events that have had more of an impact on people’s lives than anything since WWII.
I agree with the entire premise of what you wrote.
also the media and the stock manipulation was never coordinated like it was in 2008. it was obvious that the economy had to be tanked to get a democrat into the white house.
and tanking the economy and making sure a conservative government cannot fix it in 2012 is the second part of the strategy. obama has not backed off his plan to destroy the entire US economy ..the unrest in the middle east is just a side benefit for these bastards.
Bush is also complicit in the fraud. either through ignorance or willfully.
regards ..you need your own column.
Thanks GPM.
I also think that the Obama Depression is a lot closer to the 1930′s than people know.
The method of calculating unemployment has been changed since the 30′s. With the same method, the last two years would yield unemployment that has probably been HIGHER than in the 30′s.
Of course, the “progressives” would say….where are the breadlines if today is just as bad as them? Well, there aren’t any breadlines because the government has borrowed trillions from the future to give away today. Now, I’m not saying that is 100% a bad thing. I prefer some increased debt to starvation, but it doesn’t impact the point that things may not be any better now than they were in the 30′s. It’s just hidden because of an accounting trick and because the current government has chosen catastrophic debt over bread lines.
And many people think the Great Depression would have ended many years earlier if the government had not intervened. The same is true today.
Government is not the solution, it’s the problem.
yes the bread lines are hidden …now we pay to have the food delivered to the victims.
those on food stamps has increased dramatically ..I guess that is the measure of the bread line.
Thanks for the timeline, Proreason. I remember the same events, filed away each as they happened and finally connected the dots when I heard Paul Kanjorski’s simple explanation of the Money Market run on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” in January, ’09. Soros, an absolute monster, immediately came to mind.
Everybody is looking at only the more recent and superficial issues, ignoring the core causations of many decades. Two of many hints!
Centralized financial and global economy.
Transition to fiat currency.
You may be right about that TT. There are certainly enough people who believe that there centuries old transnational organizations that control a lot of events in the world. I don’t totally disagree, but I just don’t know anything about them.
The events since the 60′s, on the other hand, in my opinion at least, are right in front of your face. I know a lot of people think I’m a nut, but all I see are dots that connect, and they connect in one direction only…Cuddly Statistmarxism. All I see is overwhelming evidence of radical leftists causing trouble and enraging populations. The events are SO prevalent and SO consistent that they either have to be “life as it now exists” or a concerted and widespread effort to overthrow the freedom that the west has sacrificed so many lives to create. And since the objective is so easy to understand and fits so perfectly with precisely what has happened every single time the leftists manage to sieze control of another country, it seems to me the the pieces fit together like a jig saw puzzle. The only real argument I hear about that boils down to one thing: “oh don’t be paranoid, silly boy”. Meanwhile, events march on.
And I just don’t believe a few dozen shadowy bildergergers, no matter how wealthy they might be, could possibly have the impact that I see the Cuddly Statistmarxists having every single day.
proreason…I fully understand where you come from and how you arrive at your conclusions. The post 60′s brought us an [accelleration] of a strategy preceding it by many decades. With only a few exceptions, the preceding two-party system was pretty successful in defending against the strategy and its operatives in the U.S. Since then, it has been the reverse with traditional Americans of both parties on the losing side. Both parties since the 60′s have become infiltrated and in effect are useless to stop the enemies within….who in 2006 and 2008 became the majority within the federal government.
This applies to not only the processes of the federal and states governments but the national policies of domestic economies, financials and Wall Street.
Its all in an unsustainable mess exactly according to some very old stragegies!
8000:1, not 8 million:1
If evidence surfaces that George Soros was behind the global melt down, he should be declared an enemy of the state and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He has collapsed the economy of lesser countries and
the Bank of England,and his hand in our meltdown is obvious.George Soros,is an international criminal, and a proponent of One World Government.
he is already wanted in France for illegal stock manipulation.
don’t hold your breath waiting for the DOJ or holder doing anything ..but you may be getting an IRS audit.
I’ve always referred to it as an economic Reichstag Fire, myself. The timing was purely political and purely meant to usher in the socialists who were behind it… and it worked.
Relevant “Behind the Panic” editorial excerpt from 2008:
http://www.financialsensearchive.com/editorials/engdahl/2008/1009.html
“As I document in my forthcoming book, Power of Money: The Rise and Decline of the American Century, in every major US financial panic since at least the Panic of 1835, the titans of Wall Street—most especially until 1929, the House of JP Morgan—have deliberately triggered bank panics behind the scenes in order to consolidate their grip on US banking. The private banks used the panics to control Washington policy including the exact definition of the private ownership of the new Federal Reserve in 1913, and to consolidate their control over industry such as US Steel, Caterpillar, Westinghouse and the like. They are, in short, old hands at such financial warfare to increase their power. Now they must do something similar on a global scale to be able to continue to dominate global finance…”
Thank you for posting the link to the document.
The final 35 points are very interesting.
The document can be used for further investigations.
And it is a good diagnosis of future risks.
I think that just yesterday I wrote here that the strategy of the enemies of America is now
class warfare + debt + impotence in foreign politics
An attack on the dollar would make the other two points much easier to carry on.
I don’t know enough about economics to understand more than an overview.
However, even if these events had nothing to do with external economic attack, if a weapon exists, we must plan for it to be used, including detection of same. We are in much too vulnerable a position to just blow off the potential value of such weapons to our global adversaries.
There is another article here @ http://brayincandy.com/id10.html, titled “The 9/18 Attack” which also questions the possibility that there was collusion involved to cause the financial crisis. And of course, the Youtube video called “Burning Down The House” documents in significant detail the causes of the mortgage crisis which led “federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to blame the crash on such economic factors as high-risk mortgage lending practices and poor federal regulation and supervision”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4
In my opinion…people who had wealth were not going to share it like they were told they would have to do by the new president in 2008.
I’m not sure what you are talking about but I sure would appreciate it if Soros, Kerry, or the Kennedy’s would share some of their misbegotten wealth with me.
Obama and the others have never meant for the rich to pay taxes fairly, no matter whar they say. Their idea has always been to say “Why don’t YOU” (nodding to the middle class) give more in taxes to help HIM: (nodding to the poor.) The rich don’t pay; the poor dont pay; the middle class pay it all and shrinks (hence the tea party.)
As for all the talk of food stamps, must of the middle class doesn’t qualify, tho’ with the heavy taxes (esp. if no house or children), they bring home the least. But food stamps. like subsidized housing, ois only available to the elderly, the disabled, and those with ceildren.
A couple where one of them loses her job, and they are living on one ordinary salary, with no house to deduct (which means they have to take the standardized and can’t deduct anything else, like medical care) and no children, has nothing left but the marriage tax benefit. Thanks God the Dems didn’t take that away as they wanted to recently.
Ever seen those stories about how these people have the lowest discretionary income of all? Which means energy and food costs are making it impossible to save toward a newer car, an emergency, or a house.
“suggesting a potential direct economic attack on the U.S. Treasury and U.S. dollar.”
WTF? The financial terrorist network’s address is known: 33 Liberty Street, New York, New York.
Bernanke has done more in his tenure to destroy the USD than any foreign terrorist could dream.
“suggesting a potential direct economic attack on the U.S. Treasury and U.S. dollar.”
WTF? The financial terrorist network’s address is known: 33 Liberty Street, New York, New York.
Bernanke has done more in his tenure to destroy the USD than any foreign terrorist could dream.
This is a copy of my note to Washington Times today:
The financial terrorism hypothesis is correct, but it was an inside job. As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” It is quite improbable that anyone could put a worldwide financial conspiracy in place that left no tracks in the banking and financial systems.
The problems in the economy were relatively minor in 2007 (perennial Detroit autos and the Democrats’ growing Housing Bubble) but market indicators were benign at worst and very positive at best in mid-2007. In 2008, Fan and Fred were carrying $388 billion in sub-prime mortgages which may sound like a lot, but is a full two orders of magnitude (10/10, 100 times smaller) less than the eventual loss in the worldwide markets crash that was triggered by the collapse of the Housing Bubble. Most developed countries have recovered or at least broken even since the 2008 crash, but the USA is dead last among developed nations in the recovery process.
So, how did we get from a relatively small domestic problem to a worldwide markets meltdown? Aye, there’s the rub.
The markets were nervous from President Clinton’s Dot.com Bubble and the resultant recessionary collapse followed by the prompt recovery under President Bush, but with the ever greater national debt and then the Housing Bubble collapse clouding the picture. Market investors are a wary lot, and any threat to their economic well-being is quickly noted. Obama is widely perceived to be a Marxist, and what could be more threatening to a capitalist investor than a Marxist president of the USA? So, investors bailed and a stampede of followers jumped off the bandwagon. Read all about it at:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/markets_and_marxists_dont_mix.html
when I go to scribd only the first 62 pages of the document come up. Anybody else have that problem?
The ‘street smart’ has seen this setup playing out for a very long time! Our nation of ‘educated morons’…not so much as a faint clue, or……….!
Terrorism? NO!
Arrogant Stupidity? YES!
Communist Europe, Communinst Asia, the Arabs and other willing associates only had to sit back and take advantage of American perpetuated stupidity.
I’ll leave all the various mecahnism’s of stupidity for others to discuss.
I agree with the comments made right at the start. The Democratic Party is the source of Government intrusion, which causes mal-investment, causing booms, and which inevitably end in busts, and this time broke the bank. The public leader of the Dems also is a redistributionist, which causes regime-uncertainty in the business and investment sectors. Right here at PJM we have folks saying the Dems are not doing this on purpose, but I don’t think that many of us believe they are not guilty.
However Republicans seem to come wired to the third rail of the Metro, and when Barney says, “Boo”, they fall off the stage trying to exit before the switch gets thrown. The new Freshmen are starting right, but their blood will soon be spilled to such an extent that only support from those of us who understand what is needed can provide sufficient transfusion to keep them alive. Wisconsin is only a hint of our near-term future.
I have always enjoyed reading Gertz, and the point that was made “In an interview with The Times, Mr. Freeman said his report provided enough theoretical evidence for an economic warfare attack that further forensic study was warranted” is the point that should be taken. That said, you all must remember the threat Bin Laden made after 9-11, that he would take down our economy, and many of feel he meant it. While China was mentioned, they are in a difficult situation since their monetary investments are mainly in us. I would look more at bin Laden and the Dems, who both wish to redistribute our wealth.
Bin Laden studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University
so many coincidences?
hmm
OF course it was a set up. McCain was ahead in the polls until Goldman Sachs collapsed. Once that happened and the economic news thereafter was constantly bad, Obama stayed out front. Without the convenient collapse of those investment houses and banks, McCain probably would have won.
Also, remember there was one day where the stock market fell by over 400 points in a few hours. It was still dropping fast then the plug was pulled. It was believed then that that was an attack on the stock market and had it gone unchecked would have been far worse and possibly taken the whole economy down with it. Later another incident like that happened when a broker “accidently” hit the wrong key. More like a smokescreen to deflect attention from the original attack.
In all honesty, is any of this truly news? I think the vast majority of us were aware that people, such as China and Russia, have actively sought the destruction of the $USD for years; North Korea is the largest counterfeiter of US currency…there is no front in the warfront anymore – anything goes, and our nation has become to cowardly and acceptant of this assault.
However, I still argue that the most pressing threat is from within.
The report references two firms who seemed to come out of nowhere to become the largest traders in the stock and energy markets. The report purposely does not say the names. Anyone know who the firms are?
thanks
I am not buying this financial terrorism B.S.
The problem started with the CRA which created the money-losing sub-prime loan as a “socially responsible” business practice. It was first made legal, then made mandatory (by punitive legislations), and further made profitable (by urging Freddie and Fannie to buy these loans and replenish the lending pool). Wall Street financial wizards multiplied the problem by securitizing this junk and sell it to people all over the world, and kidded themselves by hedging with the infamous swaps.
Blaming “terrorism”, China, the Arabs, Soros, and what have you is absurd, and irresponsible.
The author fails to mention the likeliest suspect. The crash came just when McCain had taken the lead in the polls. The companies that started the meltdown, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were packed with Democrats and Obama supporters. Democrats had orchestrated an “October surprise” the past two presidential elections. They had motive, means, and opportunity to orchestrate the 2008 financial meltdown. There is no doubt in my mind that the left would deliberately sabotage the economy if they thought it would allow them to take power.
And while it is true that the conditions leading up to the financial collapse had been building for decades, the timing of the collapse was very suspicious indeed. We all know the financial sector was a tinderbox, the question is who lit the match?
Soros, as we see here,http://www.marketwatch.com/story/soros-buy-puts-shine-on-lehman-shares was a major player in Lehman Bros, conversely their energy expert, Ed Morse, bet that the gas prices would not rise to that $200.00 a barrellevel, whereas Goldman made exactly that bet,
they got rid of a competitor, which had also been involved with Green
Energy,
If Barry Soetoro’s handlers were able to put him up there in the WH, keep all his records hidden from the public for three years now, and put a shield of protection around him with this lapdog “press” currently in place, why not accept the premise that the subprime mortgage crisis of September 2008 was well orchestrated and staged as well?
Have you noticed how the Bushes and the messiah are getting along so well these days?
Where do the Bilderbergers meet next?
Karl Denninger skewers this silly theory:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=181349
Seriously people you are trying to absolve the plutocrats who own the banks along with govt policy from their responsibility?
If the right wing and tea party keep following this line of attack they will make themselves a laughing stock. Govt policy created this problem because govt policy is owned by Wall Street:
Ritholtz on the CRA:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/100000-cra-challenge/
Denninger on the Credit Bubble:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2137745
DON’T DO IT! DON’T BE A DUPE!
http://jiujitsutalk.com/index.php?topic=13427.0
The best way to get a copy of the report is to register at scribd which takes a few minutes. (Yep registration is tedious but if you want to be secure and not connect your FB account this is the way to go)
I also embedded the scribd file on my blog so in case you need another source (or the one here has a technical glitch again) you can get it here:
http://intellicept3.blogspot.com/2011/03/did-financial-terrorism-caused-2008.html
For easy reading you can also zoom in on the report by clicking on the magnifying lens at the bottom. You can also print by clicking on the printer button.
Soros stinks of evil and corruption, yet no one dares to challenge his Sherman’s march through the political and economic institutions of this country. He appears to be fearsomely powerful and untouchable. He is a known white collar criminal who, nevertheless, is treated like a respected economic guru in serious interviews in the media and in every other public venue where he eerily materializes from the shadows now and then. (He is like a creature out of Ian Fleming’s imagination.) His connections, fortune and influence grow exponentially as his Marxist assault on this country becomes ever more audaciously seditious. And still no legal or political action is taken against him. Those who appreciate the destructive magnitude he represents watch helplessly. What/who will it take to stop him if it is even possible any more? It seems unlikely that any countervaling force exists here and now, and current events feel like a march into totalitarian hell.
I think we are all missing the point, all I hear are republicans verses Democrats… we are in the same vain as Congress we are, in all respects.. Kicking… our own can down the road, there is enough blame to go around for everyone, even us.. and I mean all of us including myself! For not demanding that the elected officials both Republicans and Democracts do the job that they were elected to do, take care of ..OUR.. Country! Hopefuly it is not to late. I used to worry about my Children and my Grand Children taking on this debt that we have created for them, it has become more immediate than that, I am really concerned about the present generation…US…. So to make a long story short we should put so much pressure on the folks in Washington to take the Bull by the Horns and to do the right thing… that is to reduce our spending and cut the heck out of the budget, of course we will have some serious trials and tribulations that will be coming are way and we ..ALL.. stick together as we did during the great WWII. We have so much redundency and over lapping committies that I;m sure we could save ..Billions and Billions of dollars…
So Let us ..ALL.. do the right thing!!!!! enough said.
But of course this may very well fall on deaf ears and we will just be plodding down that same old road, and that road leads to nothing but to the destruction of this Beloved Country of ours…
You’re forgetting The Bilderberg Group
If you regard Wall Street TBTF banks as terrorists, the answer is yes.
From the start, it seemed awfully coincidental that such a major meltsd would happen just when Palin had given her successful speech, been idolized, and had pulled her party ahead for the first time. This lasted… what – day or two, and suddenly there is the biggest financial melt-down since the depression? McCain speaks honestly, saying he’s not an expert (most presidents arent’; they surround themselves with them), Obama pretended he knew exactly what to do, and the polls changed again overnight. McCain-Palin never led again, and Palin instantly became the target of all leftist and media wrath to be sure it would never happen again. C’mon, if that had been the plot of a politcal thriller, you know there would have been am evil, world-wide bank-breaking, nazi cooperator, and all-round bad guy taking responsibility in the end.