'THE BLOB' – HMG Censors – Failed Alarm – 'Fear Porn' – Disgraceful MPs AWOL – Banks go Gaga – Stormy Waters – Inflation Redux – China's Plan B – UK v SA - Letter from Great Britain - [04-29-23]

"The peoples enemies: 'Criminals and Government'; so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalised version of the first" - Thomas Jefferson

STOP PRESS:  CORRUPTION IN HIGH PLACES has been endemic in Britain for centuries.  It's all about 'The Establishment' (aka 'The Blob') which is in reality high-level members of the Civil Service and Intelligence Community in collusion with the political class. This is the 'New Elite', so what do they look like and what do they do?  Let's have a look inside the 'Halls of Power' –aka Whitehall; watch for 4 minutes, "A Very British Democracy".  Although screened by the BBC in the early1980s as comedy sketches, it has now transpired that the themes are in fact reality! 

BUT – the facts are at least 10 of Rishi Sunak's ministers  have been allowed to keep their roles as directors of private companies while serving in government after getting 'special' permission (aka 'old boys' network) to retain their business interests.  Allowing ministers increasingly to stay on as directors is a departure from precedent. They would normally be expected to give up their roles upon taking public office. It's a BIG CLUB.

NEWS FLASH: HMG CENSORSHIP IS HOTTING UP: Free Speech is now under serious attack from British MPs. However here's a win for the Free Speech Union which, if you believe in 'Free Speech', consider joining this wonderful organisation looking out for our freedoms: https://freespeechunion.org/join/

Jonathan Turley's philosophy encapsulates the legal concept of "res ipsa loquitor" which I was taught means: "the thing speaks for itself" – it is a doctrine in English common law. He describes how this vital doctrine plays out within the 'Tower for Twitter' when a UK Minister calls for - jailing 'Social Media' bosses who do not censor free speech!

This exposes that the House of Commons for the den of iniquity it is, beholden to the 'Deep State' and forsaking their statutory duties to the people of Britain. In both Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus condemns those who have been using the sacred temple as a marketplace, proclaiming that they have "made it a den of thieves."   To this day, writers use the word "den" to mean a place where iniquitous activities are carried out – seems to fit?

“Who’s to say that something is misinformation?” Musk asked the BBC’s befuddled interviewer, “Who’s the arbiter of that?” Good point and fair enough.  But the problem with this, and all of Musk’s critical remarks about the very notions of ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, is that Elon Musk’s Twitter is itself a signatory to the EU’s so-called ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’ and ‘the Code’ requires platforms like Twitter precisely to censor ‘mis-‘ and ‘disinformation’!  Full details here -  Hat Tip: The Daily Sceptic

FUN TIDBIT:  The National emergency alert system TEST FAILED “descending into farce” after it failed to work on >10 million mobile phones according to 'The Telegraph'. Although the government insisted the test had been a “success”, customers on 'Three', one of Britain’s biggest mobile networks, failed to receive the 10-second alert.  Some phones received the alarm up to 20 minutes after last Sunday’s scheduled 3pm test and Welsh speakers noted that the computerised system made up the word “Vogel”, which is a ski resort in Slovenia!

The Cabinet Office insisted that the “vast majority of compatible phones’ received the alert”.  But my wife only received her alarm whilst we were driving on the M3 on Monday at 0930hrs!  It frightened me enough to be squiggling across lanes!  So what's it all about?

Perhaps if you watch the first 4 minutes of this video at UK Column you will see some government 'fear porn' just in case you need to know how fearful you might need to be; however always ask: "why now?" as well as following the money: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-24th-april-2023

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: 'FEAR PORN' - Do governments in general and HMG politicians in particular, have the peoples' best interests at heart?  If the last three years has taught me anything it's likely that 'The Blob' is following an agenda which doesn't include you and me. To check this out I looked at some mind-blowing evidence about how governments shamelessly inflict fear on their own people and manipulate them into compliance.

QUOTE: "Governments use applied psychology and hypnosis to create fear and anxiety in the population, with the goal of changing their behaviour." says Brian Gerrish, Senior Editor, UK Column. Matt Hancock is documented as saying: "We frighten the pants off of everyone. When do we deploy the new variant?"  AND "We must ramp up messaging with the fear and guilt factor." added Simon Case – BoJo’s Cabinet Secretary.

There are many organisations fighting back against the British Biosecurity state.  To join our happy band try this one, it's FOC: https://togetherdeclaration.org/MHRA/

How much more do you need to know that HMG is at war with the very people they are required to protect according to the unwritten British Constitution?  Wake up – they are NOT YOUR FRIENDS – you are the prey!  Read on and be enlightened!

BREAKING NEWS: Andrew Bridgen, PhD, MP spoke the truth to the British Deep State and got sacrificed for his trouble when he was unceremoniously booted out of the Conservative Party this week. This speaks volumes about the dark British Establishment in control of our country proving that anyone opposing the official narrative of UN Agenda 2030 and executed by the WEF among many other unelected global NGOs will be totally vilified, censored and excluded from public office.

Andrew is a highly qualified biochemist and knows that the Covid-19 Vaxx bioweapon has failed in all respects resulting in 1: 800 adverse effects including serious health damage and death.   https://expose-news.com/2023/04/26/hancock-jail-vaccine-misinfo-online-safety-bill/

US BANKING GONE GAGA:  ‘The Federal Home Loan Bank’ system—established during the Great Depression to help promote mortgage lending and now a source of liquidity for banks of all stripes—issued a record $495 billion of debt in March to fund loans, [which are called in weasel words, 'advances'], the system’s ‘Office of Finance’ reported. Banks ramped up borrowing that month as customers pulled out deposits.

WSJ headline, “Banks Leaned on a Little-Known Lender in March as Customers Fled.”  It's curious how a financial institution, whose assets increased $524 billion last year to $1.25 trillion, has remained under the radar but are now quickly becoming better known. To issue a half a trillion of debt in a month is an unprecedented feat – even for a GSE.

The bond buying binge that took place during the scamdemic has left massive amounts of bond securities on banks' balance sheets which have now fallen in price as interest rates zoomed over the last 15 months. This has caused unrealised losses sitting on banks’ balance sheets in HTM (hold to maturity) bonds which are not yet realised. The moment a bank has to realise the loss by selling the bonds, as SVB et al demonstrated last month, the bank often becomes insolvent.

The US banks aren’t materially different from banks elsewhere in the world, because ever since 2008, interest rates globally were manipulated lower through QE. And so banks globally have been buying mispriced assets (high-priced bonds) and includes, critically, pension funds and insurance companies.  It’s ironic that just as Klaus Schwab and the global “elites” attempt to take the current Western socialist credit-based fiat system and spread it globally, in doing so they accelerate its collapse! When all this becomes overtly evident will be the time we risk international war because, when economic prowess is in collapse mode, what else is left in the arsenal other than a giant military?

Thus the Federal Reserve has stepped up to backstop depositors in US “strategic banks.” Remember that the Fed is owned by the big banks. It’s not a government organisation. It’s a private company; it’s neither ‘federal’ nor a ‘reserve’.  It is important to understand that not ALL bank depositors are backstopped; only those banks that represent a “strategic threat,” are covered, in other words, it's their co-conspirators that get bailed-out yet again.

Neil Oliver says it MAKES NO SENSE that HMG's ‘little wizards’ are working against the people as pundits speculate that a catastrophic CRASH is coming for the banks and explains more about energy, harassing of farmers, inflation, the cost of living, taxes, and child care. IMHO this is worth 11 minutes of your time to understand the depths to which a once great country has fallen. Neil Oliver at GB News says that history does make sense and relates the story of a shipwreck, with great loss of life, but the elites survive (surprise); history will keep happening until WE SAY NO.  

  

STORMY WATERS - Is a banking crisis in the offing?  Might it be combined with an economic recession going into a '1929-style' economic depression?  Here's a clue to looming US debt defaults – the Credit Default Swap (CDS) price is a guide which in practice is an 'insurance policy' to mitigate any loss. This is known as a 'Credit Derivative' reported quarterly by the 'US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency', which for Q4/22 remained concentrated in interest rate products totalling $139.8 trillion!  Remember, the credit risk isn't eliminated; rather it's shifted to the CDS seller:

Let's take a look at some history, although the past is no guide to the future as all crises are unique unto themselves, it does offer some valid clues.  First, a recession and a financial crisis are very different, we’ve had recessions in 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, 2000, 2007 and 2020 or about every seven years on average. I believe the US is in recession now, but official confirmation won't be published until H1/23 data are printed and I won't bore you with the nitty gritty – there's plenty of it.

Over the last 40 years there have been a succession of financial crises: the Latin American debt crisis (1982–1987), the Savings & Loan Crisis (1986–1989), the Black Monday crash (Oct. 19, 1987), the Nikkei collapse (1990), the Mexican Tequila Crisis (1994), The Asia-Russia-LTCM crisis (1997–1998), the dot-com crash (2000) and the subprime mortgage crisis (2007–2008) or around one every seven years being bigger each time.

As a side-note: the Bible speaks often about seven year cycles and many seven’s of things:  John to the seven congregations in the province of Asia:  “May you have undeserved kindness and peace from “the One who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne." [Revelation 1:4]; this book is packed with sevens.

What sets the 2007/8 crisis apart is that it was an existential financial crisis, when credit and trade froze, followed by a severe recession which was nearest to the Great Depression of 1929-40.  The evidence that we are in a recession is powerful. Low unemployment is almost irrelevant because labour force participation is also low. World trade is contracting. Industrial output is declining, shipping volumes have fallen, and wholesale inventories are high, which means markdowns and lower profit margins are in the cards. Interest rates are rising and inflation is eroding real wages.

Treasury yield curves are inverted, a condition last seen in 2007 which is a sign of economic storm clouds gathering. The recession part of the 'Recession/Crisis' condition is already here.  We know that a banking crisis appeared last month but it's hidden in the shadows for now.  In the name of financial stability, the Fed is lending to banks against their bond holding 'at par' using their new Bank Term Funding Program for any government securities tendered as collateral by member banks even if the collateral is worth less than par value. In reality this is a stealth bailout for banks by any other name.

The 2008 crisis reached the acute stage on September 15, 2008, with the bankruptcy filing of Lehman Brothers. But that crisis had begun in the summer credit-crunch of 2007 which I noted at the time with the failure of Britain’s Northern Rock and which was eventually nationalised. We may not be able to prevent the coming crisis, but if we can see it coming and prepare accordingly, your Plan 'B' will see you through.

Wolf Richter has a good analysis of the current US banking situation and concludes with a reassuring assessment.  He says: "I am sure we will see the number of bank failures rise in the months ahead.  Commercial Real Estate (CRE) debt will see some taken down. Other banks will fail by other factors: credit risk, interest-rate risk, concentration risk, reserves, and liquidity issues."

It’s a bank’s job to manage these effects, and those that don't will meet their inevitable end. Banks will report crappy earnings for years. Investors have been taking big losses on CRE equity and debt already. This will continue and probably get worse. Everyone will learn all over again that you can lose money in real estate as well as markets in general.  But CRE is unlikely to lead to the next big banking crisis. It’s just not a big enough market for the size of the banking sector.

But one indicator going forward I noted recently was when BoE Governor, Andrew Bailey, revealed in a speech that the Bank of England was working on updating Britain’s ‘deposit insurance scheme’, which currently offers a government guarantee on savings up to £85,000 in the event of a bank collapse.  It was with one eye on the recent shocks, and the other on events from 15 years ago that Bailey says the compensation scheme limit has to be looked at in the face of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, what he’s really saying is that the Britain must not face a 2008-style crisis again, especially now that our fiscal and economic condition is so fragile.

INFLATION WATCH:  HMG & BoE are predicting that inflation will halve by year end.  Former chief economist of the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, who left the Bank in 2021, forecasted that inflation would fall rapidly in the coming months.  The bad news is that persistently high food inflation might cause further labour actions by unions in Britain and other European countries throughout the summer. 

Technically they are right, subject to a Black Swan event, but this doesn't mean the 'effects' will dissipate any time soon which I explained a few weeks ago: "inflation compounds".  The math is telling me that, with inflation at 10.1% in January 2023, by year end it only needs to be 5% to claim that inflation has halved (fudge figures again)! “Markets seem to be convincingly anticipating that there will be no recession, that inflation will fall and at the same time, the Fed and the ECB could lower rates,”

SURVIVAL MONITOR: Global financial risks driven by geopolitics are increasing as a multipolar world emerges tracking Daniel's prophecy: "King of the North versus King of the South." The prophecy at Daniel (11) includes amazing details about great empires, political developments and end-time powers that will affect all peoples today.

Doug Noland - Credit Bubble Bulletin - worries about China’s “Plan B” [précis, lightly edited]:  "Beijing is clearly preparing its military and people for confrontation with the US, a conflict I fear will be increasingly likely when China’s economic gambit falters. Xi and the Communist Party (CCP) will never accept responsibility for mismanaging China’s financial system, economy, and international reputation. A crisis will have Beijing pressing the Taiwan issue, deflecting attention and responsibility, increasing the odds of a direct showdown with the US

I have explained how boom periods engender perceptions of an expanding global pie. Cooperation, integration, and alliances are seen as mutually beneficial. But when the cycle turns the pie is increasingly viewed as stagnant or shrinking when zero-sum-game thinking dominates. Insecurity, animosity, disintegration, fraught alliances, and conflict then take hold.

We are witnessing momentous change in the world as a powerful global south emerges. An historic global debt bubble has started to deflate. The war in Ukraine has unleashed pernicious forces that will be difficult to control. China’s government has ambitions inflated by debt - now 'leaking a lot of air' [aka deflating].

Japan has a new central bank governor that will need to end a monetary experiment which has run for more than a decade. Across the globe, economies big and small, wealthy and poor alike, confront unprecedented debt overhangs. Policymakers almost everywhere now face the predicament of elevated inflation and weakening growth prospects [aka stagflation].

We are at a critical juncture in the global debt bubble, where acute fragility is forcing another round of desperate measures meant to hold crisis dynamics at bay. Over recent quarters, we've witnessed major instability and volatility. I suspect this has become the new normal. We should be prepared for events to turn more uncertain and tumultuous, with odds rising for a major accident.

In conclusion, I see developments at home and abroad corroborating the new cycle thesis. I just wish I could be more optimistic about future prospects. Much has to go right and we need some lucky breaks to avoid a 'destabilising downturn' [aka depression] because so much is uncertain.  However, there’s one thing I am certain about: additional monetary inflation and massive government deficit spending are not the answer. This only makes things worse" [but this is likely what we’ll get from the BoE - "Silence Peasants! Bank of England tells Britons to "Just Accept" Being Worse Off!"  Plan accordingly.

THE NARRATIVE BATTLE: "WE HAVE TOLERATED TOO MUCH!" My collaborators at 'The Burning Platform' say: "You live in a world where paedophiles and child rapists are trying to normalise and celebrate their vile sickness as 'minor attracted persons'" and supported by schools and teachers - this is unforgivable: https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/04/27/you-have-tolerated-too-much/

UNTIL NEXT WEEK:

For more, read: “The Financial Jigsaw”: Scroll:   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358117070_THE_FINANCIAL_JIGSAW_-_PART_1_-_4th_Edition_2020   including regular updates.  [For free PDF copy e-Books, Parts 1 & 2, email;  peter@underco.co.uk]

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