Crystal Ball 2000 - Part 1

I would like to dedicate my end of the millennium crystal gazing to the Gold-Eagle Forum, its managers and faithful contributors, to Harry Schultz, Frank Veneroso, Bill Murphy, Ted Butler and the many others, who are doing so much to bring present on-goings in the corridors of power to light. I admire the courage with which you dare to proceed. Forgive me for not participating in the daily forum discussions, but I must confess that I check up on them regularly. Long range is more my line. And with events unfolding faster by the day it is of the utmost importance to keep track of events in perspective over time and not get lost in temporary details.

Contrary to most of you using charts to deduct the future, I discarded all charts and statistics some years ago. When the end of their journey is near and the waves hit the cliffs in high volume, all patterns are thrown into chaos, with the "scum" all over and the lemmings racing toward the precipice. For more about my views on charts, see my two earlier articles on : "THE MYTH OF FREE MARKETS" -No free markets: no natural charts! And "GOLD, RISK MANAGEMENT AND CHARTS". See also the strong rebuttal of Prechter and the Elliot Wave Theory by Benoit Mandelbrot in the Scientific American of June 1999 under letters to the editor. I now use a crystal ball with built-in chip. On the chip I enter the historic back ground and all the data and tendencies I consider of overriding importance. As time passes I either stick to my program, events confirming, or I make step by step changes when events point differently. The background programmed-in concerns mainly my INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN HISTORY AND MASS PSYCHOLOGY over periods of time. The data and the tendencies taken into account depend largely on gut feeling and common sense.

Recognition of long term repeating patterns of human behavior and the comparison of these in historic perspective is of great importance. The historian who far outranks all the others in this respect is IMHO Oswald Spengler who wrote "the Decline of the West" around 1911. His basic philosophy is that living beings as a group, be it ants, bees, herds and humans, can act together as one living being in its own right. In nearly the same way an individual's life is sequenced by birth, adolescence, adult life, old age and death, Spengler defines spring, summer, autumn and winter for the life of a community. Birth and growing up he defines as the creative or cultural period and adulthood as the expansionist sequence built on the achievements of culture. Old age ending in calcification, corruption and decadence. The latter two taken together he calls the period of civilization. Human history far from having been an uninterrupted sequence of development, is the sum of many independently grown civilizations in different places, usually with long dark chaotic intervals between. It is only recently has humanity has begun to intertwine. Spengler in his Decline of the West defines the Sumerian, the Egyptian and the Chinese periods as independent developments. Some civilizations he classifies in pairs: the Babylonian-Assyrian, the Greek-Roman and the European-American or Western Civilization, all dualistic systems, where the former carries most of the creative or cultural stage and the latter the civilization, the expansionist period. Spengler's greatest achievement can be found in his COMPARISON BETWEEN THE GREEK-ROMAN AND OUR PRESENT WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

To understand modern times Spengler is a must. Compare Rome's imperial highways with our freeways, panem et circenses with our TV and sport, arcs of triumph with the ticker tapes, in organized labor Varro with Hoffa, the clipping of the coinage with our fiat money and currency debasement. The immigration and infiltration of "foreigners," the corruption and decadence creeping in at the end of civilization are all too similar. Speeches in the Roman Senate would not be out of date in Washington, D.C. today!

What is important for us at Gold-Eagle to understand are the chapters where he writes about the "GRANDEES OF FINANCE" getting control of the whole of the Roman Economy, the food supply, highway construction, maintenance of the armies, transport, the coinage etc. ending in total corruption and mismanagement and with finally "Imperial Power" pushing the Grandees aside and taking total control "for the best of the Romans." Not that "Imperial Power" turned out to be the solution. Far from that Rome kept on sliding further and further into nepotism and chaos till overrun by the Vandals. The Great Migrations came and overturned all what was still Roman. Then Europe slid into THE DARK AGES FOR ONE THOUSAND YEARS. And having said so, let us now analyze and compare the present and "the West".

LATE AUTUMN OF THE WEST

Something must be very wrong with our heralded new world order:

• Financial tsunamis keep sloshing around the international capital markets.
• Throughout Europe unemployment remains obnoxiously high.
• Consumer debt in the USA keeps growing through the roof.
• The credit and derivative markets keep on ballooning.
• Ever greater financial and media power is condensing into fewer hands.
• The Japanese malaise is lingering on and on.
• More and more underdeveloped countries are getting bogged down in the morass of eternal misery.
• Terrorism, fundamentalism and drug problems are persisting.
• Political confrontations smoulder on, without a solution in sight.
• And the suppression by central governments of regional ambitions in many countries is only feeding the flames.

A sense of unease and insecurity is creeping into man's life.
The GREYING OF WESTERN SOCIETY underlies today's happenings:

• falling standards and a lack of upkeep,
• loss of elasticity and adaptability to change,
• a widespread calcification of the welfare state,
• capitalism out of bounds, the divergence between super rich and poor becoming extreme,
• the entrenchment of the political and financial elite and
• the slow homicidal strangulation by State and society in their homespun web of regulations, laws, lawyers and futile details.

All things which happen when dedication is far to seek and morals decline in a society on the way out.

Morals and ethics are the main characteristics of the survival or failure of society and keeping a civilization going. How can people keep faith in their government and country when corruption, manipulation and intrigue reign at the top? The corruptive promises made during competitive electioneering and the insatiable appetite of the State are putting an ever growing burden on people and business and are conducing the productive members of the country into financial bondage. If the State would not be that hungry and taxes would not be so oppressive bank credit would not be needed. "MODERN SLAVES ARE NOT IN CHAINS, THEY ARE IN DEBT" as one forum member quoted to the point! At the beginning of the 20th century the State's share of the GNP did not surpass the 10% and the financial institutions played only a minor role by constituting less than 3% of GNP. Today the average Western State's share of the GNP has risen to over 45% and not only has the financial institutions' share of GNP passed the 20% level, but the institutions now also control the greater part of business. Especially the creation of the "Funds" has transferred the voting power in enterprise from the share holders to the Grandees of Finance.

THE BANKS CAME MARCHING IN and took over the running of society. But their way: upside down. Not the availability of artificial implant capital, but grass root private initiative, entrepreneurship and inventiveness backed by a certain degree of business ethics are the forces which lead to prosperity. The tail is wagging the dog and the tail has not the slightest idea how to run business. The banks are pushing credit creation through the roof. Money is being directed for the bank's sake and not where the economy needs it. Mega enterprises are being favored to the detriment of the small entrepreneur. Unnecessary "ROCOCO" financial instruments are being created to milk the markets. With the blessing of the State the Banks have taken control of peoples' lives, their savings and their output, as far as the State has not done so already. By dictating from the top instead of letting natural growth come up from below, banks only are promoting unnatural growth and artificial markets destabilizing the economy. Money and credit have become politicized through the holy collusion between the banks and the State. They used to say: what is good for General Motors is good for the USA. Today we can say: What is good for the mega banks is good for the USA. And the government does not tire of bailing out banks from the spoils of greed, with tax-payers' money!

Our familiar world is spinning out of control. And even if it could ever return to the old disciplines and even if the State and the financial institutions could be cut back to size, the world would never be able to return to the past. It is too late: people are losing all trust in their rulers and institutions. ( look at the forum!) The State is running out of "real" money. The taxpayers are voting with their feet. And the money the public entrusted to the financial wilderness is being squandered left and right and might be gone for ever. In the meantime THE POWER OF THE WESTERN GRANDEES HAS NEVER BEEN GREATER. They control the financial institutions, industries, universities, newspapers, governments, international organizations and ......people.

The best book I read some 25 years ago about the structure of financial interests in the USA is "THE RICH AND THE SUPER RICH." A "must" book to obtain insight into high finance. It gives a detailed account of the private financial empires in the USA, their control, set-up, organization and dependencies. It is not a Who is Who, but WHO CONTROLS WHAT which counts.

By far the greatest financial power of them all in the US the book describes are the Rockefellers. And adding their intertwinement with the Rothschilds, who are not directly mentioned in this book because of their European base, one can only awe. However on the website you will find "a STUDY OF CORPORATE INFLUENCE" compiled by Don Allen dated 1976, where their relationship is detailed. The European Rothschilds fall into the French and the British branch. The book "THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD" published in the fifties portrays their ascent. I myself do not have detailed information about the Rothschilds, but I am sure the Gold Eagle forum would appreciate it very much if somebody would come forward who would have access to substantial information about them and their connections, like the royal houses of Europe,. The Rothschilds and the Rockefellers seconded by their respective clans, the Schroeders, Morgans, Lazards, Montagus, Warburgs, Kuehn Loeb, Lehman brothers, Goldman Sachs and others have acquired an unimaginable influence and control over a greater part of the financial and industrial world, over the media, Central or Reserve Banks, the governments and their currencies. When I was on a visit to Buenos Aires with my wife in the mid eighties and was enjoying a nice quiet English tea in the mezzanine of the Plaza Hotel, who comes marching by through the passage passing next to our table? David Rockefeller with his entourage on a mission to the Argentine. I have never seen a man radiating so much power and resolution. Shortly afterwards the political scene in the Argentine started to change.

There is still another more recent junior partner to the Rockefeller-Rothschild alliance: the Oppenheimers of South Africa. The Oppenheimers are in control of Anglo-American and of de Beers Diamonds. In the seventies Anglo-American was the world's biggest gold producer and de Beers the world's biggest diamond producer. The Anglo-American stable produced just over 70% of South Africa's gold at the same time that South Africa produced about 70 plus percent of the world production. De Beers besides being a producer also embodies the CSO, the Central Selling Organization, which holds the monopoly of the world diamond trade.

In the seventies when the first platinum from the Merensky Reef started to come on the market. Harry Oppenheimer, the second generation, was invited to the US the meet Engelhard, the US platinum refiner. Race horses were the excuse. Shortly afterwards the Engelhards paid a return visit back to South Africa. Although the international isolation of South Africa during the apartheid years had served the Oppenheimers in the beginning well and helped them to get control of plus sixty-five percent of the South African economy thanks to the suspension of competitive foreign investment, their empire now had reached the stage that international expansion and status were on the program. Through the Oppenheimers' relationship with the Rothschilds and through clever lobbying in the USA by the South African ambassador to the United Nations, Pik Botha, the Rockefeller-Rothschild-Oppenheimer link was established. It had also become clear that the writing was on the wall for the Apartheid government. And for the Oppenheimers it became a must to establish international credibility. Rumors about a secret National Party Fund in Switzerland were mysteriously leaked. Diederich, the president of the South African Reserve Bank had to resign. The National party came under pressure and the more liberal de Klerk became president. Secret negotiations began on Robin Island with Mandela, leader of the ANC. During all that time of negotiation, till the ANC took over the reigns of power, Pik Botha who had spent before many years in Washington was the key negotiator.

Next to Switzerland and France in Europe, Hongkong developed into the hub in Asia for South Africa's exports lead by gold and diamonds and the import of strategic materials. The main banking facility used at the time, as filtered through the grapevine, became the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp, the HSBC. With all the business done during the apartheid years some considerable capital must have accumulated in the HSBC account of the Oppenheimers. And so at the time I programmed into my crystal chip the possibility that the Oppenheimers could have taken a little bit more interest in the HSBC than just a current account. The first confirmation of this hunch came when the Bank of Gruyenzeller, the de Beers bank in Zuerich was taken over by the HSBC. De Beers would never have given up such a vital banking platform in Switzerland to third party control. It also meant that the Oppenheimers must have had control of the HSBC before HSBC took over Gruyenzeller. The second confirmation came when the CEO of the HSBC's London HQ, additionally became chairman of the LBMA. The HSBC through the Midland Bank which it had taken over a few years ago inclusive the extensive Midland interests in the USA is now the world's most powerful banking institution.

The RRO triumvirate of the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds and the Oppenheimers has become the mightiest financial alliance the world has ever seen. Bretton Woods, the IMF, the World Bank, the Bilderberg Society, the Council of Foreign Relations and their British counter part, the World Economic Forum i.a. are just a few of their offsprings. How many US Presidents have not been groomed and promoted by the Rockefellers and made lackeys? Without the Rockefellers and their control of the Media, Clinton would never have survived the scandals on his own. How many secretaries of State, govenors of the FED, secretaries of the Treasury? Nobody knows! There are other powerful groups in this world, but none of them has obtained control over finance and currencies as they have.

But empires, even less financial empires last for ever. Financial empires do not have armies. Cracks in the RRO alliance are already beginning to show. Empires like these are continuously under siege from the outside and even more from the inside. As an empire grows it becomes an impossible task for the top to keep overall control. Already at the very top itself there is usually distrust, envy, conspiracy and ongoing power struggle, especially when family is involved. Further down the line, the many lieutenants, counselors and lackeys will ever be so keen to stuff their own pockets first and pursue their own interests before they will think of their boss's. In the eighties the Oppenheimers tried to have a go in establishing a foothold in the USA and bought Phillip Bros, the metal traders. They might have bought the company but they did not get the loyalty of management nor the US business relations with it. Then Phillip Bros. went south and the Oppenheimers via Phillip Bros came onto the control of Salomon Bros. Also this venture ended in failure. Salomon did not do well under the ex-pat owners and the Oppenheimers sold out. Most probably the proceeds of the sale went into the acquisition of a majority in the HSBC. Someway or another the Oppenheimer's entry into the US did not work out. The present takeover waged by HSBC of the Republic Bank could be seen as a third effort by the Oppenheimers to get a foothold in the States. Will this renewed effort again be stalled and by whom? Only time will tell.

In "GOLD IN MACRO PERSPECTIVE" (see under gold-eagle research) I mentioned that the aim of the Grandees is to acquire gold as anonymously as possible, as cheaply as possible by means of relentless short selling, by belittling gold on every occasion, as much as possible by looking for it where most available: leasing from the Central Banks, talk the gold mining industries into hedging, and give shoestring finance to small mining and exploration companies, only to acquire these later for pittance, when they cannot service the burgeoning debt any longer.

Taking into consideration the revelations about the conduct of Barrick, would it be far fetched to suspect Peter Munck of collaborating closely with one of the Grandees or acting on behalf of them? And would it be far fetched, that Barrick was already "set up" from the outset? Why did the shares of Camflo, a prosperous and well managed mining company suddenly collapse in the seventies? So Barrick could take them over for nothing? What happened behind the scenes when Lac Minerals was taken over? And why did Barrick decide to go all out for hedging? When Peter Munck went to Indonesia to make a deal with Bre-X he must have found out about the salting of their claims. Even if he had a non-disclosure agreement as claimed, should not a revelation of criminal conduct been an overriding legal obligation when one knows that people are being screwed? Or was it professional courtesy? Why did Barrick's take-over of Argentina Gold turn sour? Did the Argentina management not want to play ball? Barrick with its hedging and its finger in the pie of tens of exploration companies world wide could be the ideal gold vehicle. To hell with the share holders, they were never the idea anyhow!

Why is it that not an ounce of gold has been sold by the USA for many years, while all other Central Banks have been encouraged to sell theirs? Either was Ed Durrell right in 1970 when he stated that substantially all of the gold held by the US Treasury had been dishoarded ( see Freemarket, Gold and Money Report, Thinking the Unthinkable, James Turk). Or do some people in the US not want to part with an asset they know will soon rise to the stars? Why was the Washington declaration suddenly made? Did Europe mean enough is enough? Commercially first but now also financially Europe and the States have become serious rivals of late. A split between the Rockefeller and the Rothschilds followed by a split between Europe and the States, impossible?

The leader of the Rockefeller clan, David, must be nearing his eightieth birthday if he has not passed it yet. Who is going to become his successor? The exponential growth of the Rockefeller financial empire must have made barons in their own right of many of its lieutenants. In the financial extravaganzas and crookeries of late which are now coming to light, greatly thanks to Gold-Eagle's and Allies publicity, I can see these "Barons" acting out of control and using the RRO structure to their own advantage. The way Nick Leeson acted! As long as money was being made and everything looked civilized all was fine, but when the tide turned little Nick took the whole of Barclays with him! I believe that there are at this moment many Nick Leesons around. But when, not if, the tide turns this time, also the Grandees themselves will be made personally responsible thanks to the public knowledge now accumulating on the Web. For it is not only the "petty" misdeeds of their lieutenants, but the whole structure of greed ultimately created by the Grandees themselves. Not only a handful of miners in Africa will ask reckoning, not only subsistence farmers in Southern and Central America and Asia, but the millions who are destined to lose all their income and savings in the looming financial collapse. (See my editorial under gold-eagle research "THE UNITED WEIMAR REPUBLICS.")

The two latest statements by the Rothschilds where they distance themselves from the Bank of England bullion sales and the Washington declaration by Duisenberg also point to a rift opening up in the Rockefeller-Rothschild relationship. The more conservative Rothschilds do not want to have anything to do with publicity and the aggressive banking methods of New York. That the Financial Times was "allowed" to publish comments about the Ashanti affair is also indicative of a change in attitudes. The Rothschilds might like to have a relationship with the Rockefellers but only as long as the Rockefellers or their lieutenants do not interfere on their side of the Atlantic.

In my editorial "GOLD IN MACRO PERSPECTIVE", December 1998, the time the euro was launched, I mentioned "....Now an attack on the euro must be in the cards. How and when this attack will begin is still a secret however." And so on the first of January 1999 I made again a little entry on my chip. Against all opinion the euro has been losing ground till today. Could it be that somebody has been shorting the Euro since birth like was done with the Yen earlier and as it is now being done with gold? If anybody does have pertinent information in this matter, please do come forward on the forum!

I have a feeling that the Rockefeller stable must be getting worried. When Rubin's term as Secretary of the Treasury expired, instead of returning to Goldman Sachs, he was "reassigned" as CEO of Citi-Group. But something must have happened because suddenly after only a few months at Citi-Group, Rubin was transferred to General Motors! What about Citi-Group? Why? Rubin might have been one of the most brilliant Secretaries of the Treasury, but may be too brilliant for somebody.

The mightiests are not that mighty. The mightier the more they depend on others. Let us watch carefully what is going to happen to the other "servants" of the empire. When listening to what Greenspan has to say, I feel sorry for the man. In my eyes he is a decent man, a very bright man, also a good actor, but an employee. He knows how to say what he has been told. I challenge Greenspan, Eddy George and the CEO's of the Media and all the others who "know" to gather their guts and speak out and come into the open with what they know about the affairs of the Grandees. The Web is (still) free and gives the opportunity to all who wish to express their ideas and knowledge. But even if they don't, the web forums like our gold-eagle forum will and are bound to get to the truth and nothing but the truth. That is the POWER OF THE INTERNET.

All of a sudden an anti-capitalistic sentiment has reared its head. It started a year ago with demos in the City of London. Now it was Seattle's turn. These demos might herald the beginning of more to come. In Mexico, subsequent to the banking crisis five years ago, a powerful movement "el Barzon" has made its appearance. El Barzon is an alliance of middle class people duped by banks recalling loans unilaterally in consequence of the tequila crisis. The Barzon sees this action by the banks as illegal and defends its members' rights where it can. So it happened a year ago that in the town of Morelia a bank's debt collector, who came to foreclose a property, was shaved bald, stripped naked, had paint thrown over him and was chased out of town. In Mexico City and many bigger towns there are regular Barzon demonstrations with trucks, tractors and even cattle driven into the center of town. The Barzon has made international connections.

Modern communication and information broke the Berlin Wall, opened up Russia and China. And so will information open up "THE OTHER SIDE OF CAPITALISM." I am for free enterprise, initiative and competition, but where capitalism has changed into MONOPOLISTIC SUPER CAPITALISM it has gone one bridge too far. The day might not be far off when parents registering a new born might be asked, ...."and under which bank's jurisdiction?" I had never thought that at my age I would still become a revolutionary but with what is going on at present, the scams, the crookeries, the cheating, deceit and total lack of ethics and morals, I cannot keep silent. Mankind might have advanced technically into the third millennium, but socially we are still in the stone age and acting like a bunch of baboons and bloody on top of that. And so the West is entering the winter.