Jim Rickards, Gold, and Digital Money

[ThePythonicCow]

One of the financial commentators to whom I pay close attention is Jim Rickards.

I pay close attention to Rickards not because I trust him ... I don't.

Jim Richards is very intelligent with long experience in financial inner workings at the highest levels. He was the general counsel for the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), and he was the principal negotiator in the 1998 bailout of LTCM by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The collapse of LTCM in 1998 was a major financial crisis at the time. He is a "Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor" to the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence."

He is very articulate, and I presume that he is telling us what "they" (the occult bastards in power) want us to be told (which is, of course, not the truth.)

Aside:
After writing the above, based on my own observations of Rickards for some time, I just now came across this critique of Rickards by Rob Kirby, who is one of the more experienced and reliable commentators in this area. Rob also does not trust Rickards.
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My main point is noticing what Rickards is telling us, and speculating as to why "they" want us to hear this.

Here are a couple of videos showing what Rickards is telling us. Rickards has a new book out, The New Case for Gold (https://amzn.com/1101980761). In this video (posted here (https://goldsilver.com/video/jim-rickards-new-release-the-new-case-for-gold/)), Rickards introduces this new book: nntPaUFCNhE

Max Keiser interviewed Rickards a few days ago, providing a bit longer, but quite listenable, view into what Rickards is telling us: 9x_47_MWDic
What Rickards is telling us:
Get at least a little physical gold, in hand, because any wealth "online", "electronic", is at risk of being destroyed by Russian cyber hackers.

Another aside:
Pastor Lindsey Williams, another capable and long standing spokesman for the "elite" (as he called them), has often reminded us that "if it's printed on paper, it's worth the paper it's printed on", which was a warning that any assets you thought you held (stocks, bonds, bank accounts, ...) thanks to some paperwork would be destroyed by the coming collapse. Lindsey is still warning us of this, at http://www.lindseywilliams.net/. Lindsey speaks to southern US Bible Belt Christians, whereas Rickards speaks to the upper 1% of American society.

What I think this really means:

The Banksters have been using a "double entry" method of bookkeeping since at least the time of the Financial Vipers of Venice, in the 1400's. This has been automated and scaled up and is now supported by a vast computation, storage and communication infrastructure ... but at its heart, the accounting still works the same way, as counter-balancing ledger entries in books (or databases) controlled by the individual participants.
The Banksters are about to replace their ancient "double entry" bookkeeping technology with block chain technology. Now that the necessary computer and communication infrastructure is in place, block chains provide a superior method of "bookkeeping" ... more efficient, more pervasive, more centrally controllable.
The Banksters require a major monetary crisis to motivate this change. The Russians (or aliens or sunspots or Iranian EMP nukes (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-18-14-12-14) or something) will be blamed for a catastrophic failure of the current banking system. Much debt, derivatives, assets, and fraud (likely including all of Deutsche Bank) will be swept under the carpet in the confusion, never to be seen again.
The Chinese are spearheading the building of the backup legacy system, CIPS (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-09/de-dollarization-encircles-globe-china-completes-swift-alternative-may-launch-soon-s), to enable the monetary system to continue functioning, for those allowed, during the transition, while the main system, using such infrastructure as SWIFT (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb945274.aspx), fails, catastrophically.
I have other posts, explaining further how I expect that blockchain technology (but not Bitcoin itself ... that's just a prototype that will crash and burn) will replace double entry bookkeeping as the technical foundation of the global monetary system. See for example No, Jim Willie, the next world money will NOT be gold backed -- Post #46 (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91678-No-Jim-Willie-the-next-world-money-will-NOT-be-gold-backed.&p=1081640&viewfull=1#post1081640).
People are easier to manage through a disaster if they have "something to hold onto", a "life preserver" of some sort. The "watchdogs" of society, the parents and other stronger adults who tend to watch out for themselves and the weaker, older or younger, are being guided to have a few pieces of gold on hand, as the financial "life preservers", for themselves and their families, through this transition.
Once the current financial system (both the US Petro-Narco-Dollar and the underlying double entry bookkeeping technology) is sunk, and the survivors have paddled their way to the New Island of Monetary and Financial Prosperity, the "life preservers" of gold pieces will become relatively worthless again, at least in common usage. Old men will keep a gold piece framed on the wall, like Southerners framed a Confederate Dollar Bill, after they lost the Civil War in the US, in the 1860's.
Those who resist, or riot or fail to "get with the program" will have a very hard time of it. They face a higher risk of death, starvation, tyranny, or enslavement.

[ThePythonicCow]

P.S. -- It's not just the US-Petro-Narco-Dollar that blows up. The Euro and the Yen also blow up, as will many currencies tied to the US Dollar.

The Brexit vote was another key milestone in the demise of the European Union and its Euro. The structure of the Euro monetary system, with a regional currency financed by national debt, was fundamentally flawed from the start ... like giving your ne'er-do-well drug addict bother-in-law joint access to your checking account. The Euro Experiment will not end well (http://www.cfr.org/eu/eurozone-crisis/p22055), and was, I suspect, never intended to end well.

The Japanese Yen and government debt (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/11/olivier-blanchard-eyes-ugly-end-game-for-japan-on-debt-spiral/) has been on life support for two decades, and will collapse when the failing Western monetary system can no longer keep it going.

[naste.de.lumina]

Post transferred to the correct topic

No, Jim Willie, the next world money will NOT be gold backed. (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91678-No-Jim-Willie-the-next-world-money-will-NOT-be-gold-backed.&p=1082571&viewfull=1#post1082571)

[ThePythonicCow]

I think the mind behind the blockchain has exoteric knowledge because it emulates the living organisms that have decentralized information. That is, every cell of the body has all the information (DNA) as a whole. A fractal or DACs (decentralized autonomous Corporation).
Yes - block chain currency - the holographic currency :).

My own (brand new) speculation: If digital block chain technology pervades all levels of the monetary system, from central bank transfers to buying a coffee at Starbucks with your smart phone, then buying and selling gold and silver could also be done directly, using digital crypto-currencies, without requiring cumbersome transfers of funds via bank wire or such.

Currently, the monetary system exerts control over nations, corporations and individuals via its banking agents, be that the Federal Reserve, ECB, IMF and BIS, or your local bank.

With a world-wide digital system, such intermediaries (banks and such) no longer play the critical role in processing monetary transactions. Individuals, corporations and nations appear to handle their own financial transactions.

However:

The entity on the planet with the largest computing power can exercise fine grained micro-control and surveillance over all such digital transactions (<wave> to the Money Masters now moving to China.)
Existing, surviving, re-regulated banking institutions will still (I presume) handle savings and loans, for individuals, corporations and nations, large and small. Debt-money, where the new money is lent into existence, will remain a powerful tool of the Bastards in power.

[Baby Steps]

awesome

when we say 'debt money' we are implying double entry, because the debt (debit) is created at the same time as the credit(promissary note).

so I think that the double entry, that is the root of our servitude, will continue when the units become blockchain currency.

they would never issue a currency backed by a scarce valuable resource, as in a growth scenario, the value of the backing asset appreciates, so people have an incentive to salt away the currency rather than exchanging it for goods and services.

it is preferable to have a fiat unit, whatever the tech platform, that inflates gently, so people have the incentive to pass it on, trade and create economic activity.

banks then hold reserves of metals and other currencies as their 'big stick' to defend their fiat issue

[naste.de.lumina]

My own (brand new) speculation: If digital block chain technology pervades all levels of the monetary system, from central bank transfers to buying a coffee at Starbucks with your smart phone, then buying and selling gold and silver could also be done directly, using digital crypto-currencies, without requiring cumbersome transfers of funds via bank wire or such.


Yes my friend Paul, the exclusion of banks in transactions (person to person) among people is in my opinion a great innovation in this technological concept.

The application development is just beginning. I see the general concept of this technology as the internet in the early 90s Anything can happen, even let the parasites talking alone and starving.

[ThePythonicCow]

awesome

when we say 'debt money' we are implying double entry, because the debt (debit) is created at the same time as the credit(promissary note).

so I think that the double entry, that is the root of our servitude, will continue when the units become blockchain currency.

they would never issue a currency backed by a scarce valuable resource, as in a growth scenario, the value of the backing asset appreciates, so people have an incentive to salt away the currency rather than exchanging it for goods and services.

it is preferable to have a fiat unit, whatever the tech platform, that inflates gently, so people have the incentive to pass it on, trade and create economic activity.

banks then hold reserves of metals and other currencies as their 'big stick' to defend their fiat issue

Yes, the act of creating new money in a debt-money system is at its very essence double entry bookkeeping. The mortgage or loan note offsets the amount lent. The bank trades new money for an agreement (debt paper) to repay some larger amount back, in the future. That will continue. New money will be lent into existence, in exchange for debt paper.

Money will not be gold or silver backed, in the classic sense. The national banks will not always have a store of gold and silver, that they promise to exchange for paper money, on demand, always, and in any amount. Rather nations (and corporations and individuals) will borrow new money from their central banks, as now. The Banksters will not give up that control lever over nations, corporations or individuals without a fight to the death (*).

The gold and silver in open circulation will become rather like another commodity, such as tin or copper, to be bought and sold between willing parties, ad libitum.

However, most of the gold is not, and won't be, in open circulation; central banks, especially those of China and Russia, and some elite families and institutions (Vatican?) will hold most of the gold, privately. Nations holding gold, or silver, like nations holding any other marketable resource, would be able to strengthen the value of their currency in the foreign exchange (forex) markets by selling some of their gold or silver into the market for their currency.

When most of the world's above ground gold and silver is held in the hands of a few elite institutions and families, we cannot and will not have anything resembling classic gold and silver backed currencies. The days of (supposedly) gold and silver backed money are past, never to return, at least for the duration of the current civilization on this planet.

===

What we will be seeing, in my view, is a separation between (1) the means of transactions, (2) the means of creating new money, and (3) the means of investing. This will be coincident with the splitting up and re-regulation of the banks. Presently the banks (1) handle most non-trivial money transactions, (2) lend new money into existence, and (3) play a major role in investing. Banks will lose their dominant role in the first and third of these roles.

Transactions will be digital updates of block chains. Banks large and small will continue to lend new money into existence (to their great benefit.) Investment firms will handle the major markets for stocks, bonds, and other, existing, forms of capital.

(*) Unfortunately, the Banksters idea of a "fight to the death" is "we fight and kill each other, using funding lent to us by the banks."

[ThePythonicCow]

Yes my friend Paul, the exclusion of banks in transactions (person to person) among people is in my opinion a great innovation in this technological concept.
Rather like other uses of cryptography, crypto-currencies exclude all the intermediate level players from any significant control. The "big guy" (some covertly authorized agent of the ultimate Bastards in Power) on the planet will have the compute power and back doors needed to monitor and manipulate transactions, down to whatever fine level of detail they desire.

Common crooks and the local police cannot monitor https (SSL) encrypted web packets, nor break into iPhones and watch them, covertly, at will. But I presume the NSA can.

Common bit-coin miners cannot corner the Bitcoin market. But China can now, as it has enough of the world's Bitcoin miners within its national borders, running large mining operations relying on low cost electricity provided by Chinese utilities, to enable China to control Bitcoin.

Just as Amazon disintermediates (puts out of business) a broad range of distribution and retail chains, similarly a broad range of current banking functions will be "disintermediated."

Zbigniew Brzezinski 's lament (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO2U9jJoWsM) that "Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than it is to control a million people" will be resolved. The world-wide communications and computation infrastructure that we have been putting into place will enable centralized surveillance and control of billions of people, to a fine level of detail. By "centralized" I don't mean from some nation or other, but rather some half-hidden global entity, minions of the planet's ultimate Bastards in Power.

Whether or not one would label this a "great innovation" depends, I guess, on the intention of those who acquire that control. I am not optimistic.

[naste.de.lumina]

Yes my friend Paul, the exclusion of banks in transactions (person to person) among people is in my opinion a great innovation in this technological concept.
Rather like other uses of cryptography, crypto-currencies exclude all the intermediate level players from any significant control. The "big guy" (some covertly authorized agent of the ultimate Bastards in Power) on the planet will have the compute power and back doors needed to monitor and manipulate transactions, down to whatever fine level of detail they desire.

Common crooks and the local police cannot monitor https (SSL) encrypted web packets, nor break into iPhones and watch them, covertly, at will. But I presume the NSA can.

Common bit-coin miners cannot corner the Bitcoin market. But China can now, as it has enough of the world's Bitcoin miners within its national borders, running large mining operations relying on low cost electricity provided by Chinese utilities, to enable China to control Bitcoin.

Just as Amazon disintermediates (puts out of business) a broad range of distribution and retail chains, similarly a broad range of current banking functions will be "disintermediated."

Zbigniew Brzezinski 's lament (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO2U9jJoWsM) that "Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than it is to control a million people" will be resolved. The world-wide communications and computation infrastructure that we have been putting into place will enable centralized surveillance and control of billions of people, to a fine level of detail. By "centralized" I don't mean from some nation or other, but rather some half-hidden global entity, minions of the planet's ultimate Bastards in Power.

Whether or not one would label this a "great innovation" depends, I guess, on the intention of those who acquire that control. I am not optimistic.

In theory the maximum amount of bitcoin mined is set at 21 million units. It will become increasingly costly mining bitcoin and at some point these Chinese 'plants' will have to migrate to other service. Probably for the validation / transaction confirmation.

I think that we are programmed with words. Imagine the different languages as programming languages and cultures as softwares. We use the same concept in our technology. Also scheduled to words.

It's the idea of this concept of 'authority' decentralization within the mind of many people, which in my view could enable a paradigm shift.

This concept is a new software with new programming.

[ThePythonicCow]

In theory the maximum amount of bitcoin mined is set at 21 million units. It will become increasingly costly mining bitcoin and at some point these Chinese 'plants' will have to migrate to other service.
Likely so ... after everyone else, running off more expensive power, has already left :)

But what matters more in my view is the block chain technology and implementations used in future major monetary transaction systems. There is where I would expect the most powerful forces on the planet to strenuously preserve a monopoly on the most powerful surveillance and control mechanisms. They would not allow a block chain implementation to be put in a major application if they did not have such mechanisms.

I remain confident that Bitcoin will not be one of those block chain implementations that plays a major role in the New World Monetary System.

[ThePythonicCow]

What I think this really means:
The Banksters are about to replace their ancient "double entry" bookkeeping technology with block chain technology. Now that the necessary computer and communication infrastructure is in place, block chains provide a superior method of "bookkeeping" ... more efficient, more pervasive, more centrally controllable.


Yves Smith, at naked capitalism (www.nakedcapitalism.com), just posted an article commenting on the inefficiencies of the current financial system: How Finance Costs Too Much and Fails to Deliver (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/07/how-finance-costs-too-much-and-fails-to-deliver.html).

It's a good read (as Yves usually is.) He figures that the “everyday” costs to the US economy of high finance amounted to between $6.3 trillion and $8.2 trillion between 1990 and 2005.

As one can observe from some of the nicer homes and cars around New York City, the cost of high finance has continued to rise dramatically in recent years, even as much of the rest of the economy is in a (not yet officially admitted) recession.

I am anticipating that the Western Banksters will be meeting their comeuppance, big time, in the not too distant future.

[ThePythonicCow]

I have other posts, explaining further how I expect that blockchain technology (but not Bitcoin itself ... that's just a prototype that will crash and burn) will replace double entry bookkeeping as the technical foundation of the global monetary system. See for example No, Jim Willie, the next world money will NOT be gold backed -- Post #46 (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?91678-No-Jim-Willie-the-next-world-money-will-NOT-be-gold-backed.&p=1081640&viewfull=1#post1081640).

Here's a quite listenable half hour introduction to the future role of blockchain technology in the financial industry, by Blythe Masters. She is an economist and former executive at JPMorgan Chase. She is currently the CEO of Digital Asset Holdings, a start-up providing settlement and ledger services for both digital and mainstream assets.
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In the above, Blythe Masters presents at the 2015 Exponential Finance conference on how major financial institutions and their regulators should explore the potential for technologies like the blockchain. She explores how distributed ledger technologies can help make financial transactions more transparent, efficient and secure, with thoughtful protection and collaboration by the industry.

This presentation was made June 2, 2015 at the Exponential Finance conference in New York City.