Saturday, March 21, 2009

AIG AND CITIGROUP

by Michael C. Ruppert

March 21, 2009 -- People wonder how I make my predictions. I tell them I made a map. Perhaps some of my prior reporting on two current hot topics will fill in your maps.

AIG

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/part_2.html

CITIGROUP

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/oct152001.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_09_01_krongard.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/01_09_02_death_profits_pt3.html

I will be making a book announcement very soon... It will be big.

MCR
***********************************************************************************

Jenna Orkin adds:

Eastern Europe
Signs of Power Shortages in Chechnya
Polish Hitman Visited India/Pakistan Border Village
Ukraine Government Salaries Halved Amid Crisis
Ukraine May Face Unrest Due to Nonpayment of Salaries
Clinton: NATO Should Continue to Open Door to Georgia, Ukraine

IMF
Asia Declines New EZ IMF Loans
EU Backs Stronger IMF

European Industrial Output Plunges by Most on Record

Farming
UK: Advice to Rural Communities on Surviving Credit Crunch
Farming for the Future (North Carolina)

US Calls it a Coup in Madagascar; Suspends Aid
Posted by at

21 comments:

v said...

Good to hear from you Mike, and it's a nice refresher for us to read those articles again.

I can't believe the bad news I'm hearing and reading on a daily basis regarding the economy. The snowball is getting bigger and bigger....it's getting scary.

Can't wait to order and read your new book....it's gonna be a hot hot summer!!

Take care

V(incent)

2:56 PM
Michael Pinilla said...

Mike,

Good to hear from you Buddy.Stay safe.

Michael Pinilla
www.alienworld.typepad.com

3:31 PM
Dave Crossland said...

Mike, this is great news. The gold drop under $900 and shoot up to $950 was magic this week, and I expect you saw Spitzer's latest article in Salon.

6:04 PM
tbagg said...

Erratum: The link you provided for the Polish Hitman story was wrong, probably a pasting error. Here's what's probably the correct link:
http://www.indopia.in/India-usa-uk-news/latest-news/526548/National/1/20/1

9:36 PM
v said...

The Big Takeover:
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

V(incent)

7:04 AM
Jeff said...

This is really sick,it seems money is really more important than water,and at the end of the article he says it is good for the environment.
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE52J6AP20090320

12:14 PM
Unknown said...

The Rolling Stone article was first rate. I feel I understand things better now. Kind of a timeline and who's who of the financial doo-doo.

But wait. Do I understand? Or am I just being victimized yet again by a media oversimplification with a half twist? Really, I don't know enough about economics to be sure that the author is talking sense. Sounded good, though. If it's for real, I do understand something as a result. Also lots of leads to learn more.

Can anyone with an economics background critique that one?

On a different topic...
(Unable to untangle the economy to anyone's satisfaction,) Gordon Brown vows to take terror-fighting to a "new level". Oh boy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/22/gordon-brown-terrorism

Mike: More on the people of Columbia "poised on the brink of the next Vietnam War" It's still true, although extricating the weary army from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan would have to come first. Biden is all over both arrangements. There must be something we can do.

12:50 PM
Unknown said...

In reference to Georgia and the Ukraine, some may find these articles interesting. New at the State Department is
Melanne Verveer
Once Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff (as First Lady), Verveer has just been appointed Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. She’s very Ukranian, as the link will show.

Appointed the same day, as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, was Philip Gordon , a specialist in Georgia who encouraged the last administration to back Tiblisi. Like Verveer, he's with CFR.

The American team is stating, “True, we can’t do much about those two countries just now, but we actually do care, so you may find us seizing some opportunity to make mischief in the future.”

Putin, of course, is threatening anti-aircraft missiles in Persia and advance air bases in Venezuala. He wants Nato to back off, and the plan for missiles in Poland to be scrapped. But what is the Obama team really after? What would be a win?

At next month's summit, parties could shrug and move closer to a reasonable configuration, or dedicate a lot more mental and material energy to destructive competition. Can shredded economies afford more grandstanding? Or is The Plan to shred and reshred our imperfect but formerly useable institutions into mulch for the gardens of oligarchs?

1:36 PM
Palooka's Revenge said...

m... given the work of CAF - your female counterpart-ner in couragous investigative reporting - its no surprize the insurance industry is involved with AIG as the main component. if i recall from fitts' story, a key component in the looting of the treasury coffers via HUD as well as the laundering of massive drug money was mortgage insurance and the reinsurers of that insurance.

it is indeed a mad and twisting trail that makes up this map that is the rabbit hole. gov agencies, corporatocracies, and individuals often seemingly contradictory to one another but in collusion as a cartel even though they may go to the mattresses as mob families in a turf war do. i don't know how you continue to connect all these pieces of such a sinister puzzle together for so long and still keep your sanity. it is truely awe inspiring and humankind owes you and your peers like PDS a great debt.

ya, spitzer said alot. but what he isn't saying is that the 165M is now a diversionary tactic drawing attention away from the billions paid out to counterparties at 100% on the $ while everybody else is expected to make consessions. $1 a year liddy tells congress what? these gurus did a great service to the risk exposure of humanitie's economy by reducing the AIG book from 2.6T to 1.5T. thats just the number claimed on-book which is likely peanuts to the off-book numbers. AIG... from satan to saint eh!! and the public thinks they sold us out by cutting checks for a measly 165M!

used to be that being broke was a source of great dismay for me. now i'm actually grateful! i ain't seen a $ yet that ain't tainted!! along with most of the people that hold theirs dear or covet that of those that do. it is truely amazing how many "informed" have no clue that their justification for capitalizing to "get mine" is feeding the very monster they condemn. after all, how else can i finance my escape to doomer-ville and buy more guns and ammo? i'm one of the good guys right?

4:12 PM
Kim said...

Someone emailed this link to me this morning, it's a good read. Certainly simplified things for me. See what you think (short extract, followed by the link):

LET IT DIE
Douglas Rushkoff - March 15, 2009

With any luck, the economy will never recover.

In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our nation’s banks. Yes, unemployment would rise as hundreds of thousands of formerly well-paid brokers and bankers lost their jobs; but at least they would no longer be extracting wealth at our expense. They would need to be fed, but that would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in the luxurious conditions they’re enjoying now. Even Bernie Madoff costs us less in jail than he does on Park Avenue.

http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/16/let-it-die-rushkoff-on-the-economy/

6:32 PM
Velobwoy said...

Palooka's Revenge, your last paragraph: Amen, brother.

7:09 PM
ecosutra said...

Just realized that it will only cost $16,000 for Civil War. With 300 families on 2000 acres in South Georgia building permaculture design. When the new design sciences are installed and the systems are creating a new wealth. The better example will be threatening to the current culture.
When I can get the 300 people times 16 grand that equals 4.8 million.
That brings in the development on 2000 acres on the wetlands of south Georgia.
Each of the 300 families will get 5 acres and they will build the sustainable settings with the green energy technology and blow the world away with progress that will turn into a civil war for Independence .
Energy Independence, Tax free

That has been my pitch....

Am I getting anywhere? No

Well how about another pitch?
We buy a tanker. Put in a pyrolysis machine and go around Island hopping for energy using waste.

We could mine lands fills and store energy on Islands and create an edible landscape. Hoping around one Island to the next creating eco villages on waste. The ship refills the camps with hydrogen, butanol, bio gas, ect. The ship could stay at port for a long time and just collect land fill. How's that for an expedition? I am game for many ideas that I have inside me.

10:22 PM
v said...

By Eliot Spitzer:

The Real AIG Scandal
It's not the bonuses. It's that AIG's counterparties are getting paid back in full.


V(incent)

1:20 AM
gamedog said...

Re: Palooka's last paragraph.

I've found living below the taxable income level (4 yrs now) to be rewarding on many levels. I'm actually eating healthier! Barter is fun, tax free & increases community networking, resourcefulness is better practised, and the knowledge I'm staving the machine, and feeling of independence, gives a personal uplift akin to spiritual reward.
It seems only a total collapse of the machine will wake the sheeple, I wait with trepidation, but part of me says "bring it on".

Good to see your post Mike, good luck with the book, stay safe.

1:57 AM
Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

Like most who are attempting to stay on top of things, my mind reels from the information entropy ripping at my synapses. Separating the information from the noise is no simple task. The saving grace is that it all points towards one simple outcome: collapse, implosion, endgame.

The extent of the criminality surrounding the FIRE economy's collapse, i.e. the last gasp of finance capital, seems to now be at a point where not even the corporate media can any longer put a safe spin on it. The rats are fleeing the ship and it is all too evident. The great equalizer is that there is not only no place to hide, there is also no place to which to run. Which is more real: the global financial system or the depleted physical store of energy that underwrites the global financial system?

eyeballs, re "Like Verveer, he's (Gordon) with CFR."

Verveer and Gordon merely join a Department of State that is already top-heavy with Obama appointees connected to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Trilateral Commission (TC), or Bilderberg Group (BG) connected. In total, Cabinet and otherwise, the Obama appointees are:

Geithner, Treasury: BG, TC
Clinton, State: BG, CFR
Rice, United Nations: TC
Jones, National Security: CFR, TC, BG
Donilan, National Security: CFR
Kissinger, Special Envoy: CFR, TC, BG
Volcker, Economic Recover: CFR, TC, BG
Blair, National Intelligence: CFR, TC, BG
Gates, Defense: CFR, TC, BG
Steinberg, State: CFR, TC, BG
Haass, State: CFR, TC, BG
Greenspan, Presidential Advisor: CFR, TC, BG
Holbrooke, State: CFR, TC, BG

Some “change” yes? If it walks like a duck, then quack, quack.

I anticipate a fairly hot summer.

5:47 AM
no1hears said...

Here is an excerpt from an automatically generated email I received from an investment consultant:

But the money spent or committed by the government so far is also too much for another, relatively less-known reason: Hidden in an obscure corner of the derivatives market is a unique credit default swap that virtually no one is talking about — contracts on the default of United States Treasury bonds. Quietly and without fanfare, a small but growing number of investors are not only thinking the unthinkable, they're actually spending money on it, bidding up the premiums on Treasury bond credit default swaps to 14 times their 2007 level. This is an early warning of the next big shoe to drop in the debt crisis — serious potential damage to the credit, credibility, and borrowing power of the United States Treasury.

Hmmm...

5:57 AM
Dave said...

Article about the growing number of 'regional currencies' popping up in the United States.

http://detnews.com/article/20090323/BIZ/903230389/Detroit+cash+keeps+the+hometown+humming

6:59 AM
kiki said...

Money disappears into the pockets of 'others' and the loss becomes the driver of individual fear. Whip it up a little and you get more fear. It really seems to me while everyone is worrying, counting what's left and figuring out who to blame, lots of mischief could be done behind just this one major distraction. So, what is more important to each of us than how much money we have ? That may be a clue about what we should be looking for re. mischief. For me, it's liberty and my personal freedoms.

7:02 AM
Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

no1hears, re "Hidden in an obscure corner of the derivatives market is a unique credit default swap that virtually no one is talking about — contracts on the default of United States Treasury bonds."

Too much! Gotta love it! Now the "players" are taking bets on whether the United States survives as a nation or not. It's just too fucking crazy!

7:54 AM
Unknown said...

Hey Sebastian!

I've counted 29 high level Obama appointees - so far - who are members of CFR, from the poisonous Diana Farrel, Deputy Director of SEC, to Rand Beers (possibly the real power at Homeland Security)to David Medina, Deputy Chief of Staff to the First Lady.

However, although CFR is pretty much a think tank for promoting Wall Street interests abroad, it's not strictly a cabal of blood-drinking satanists. Up-and-coming wunderkinder often route through CFR, Brookings and so forth on their way to high office, which gives them contacts and assures that they are "with the program".

CFR is easy to spot on a resume, but Trilateral and especially Bilderberg are usually kept private, so it's hard to tell who's in and who's not. By and large, Chase Manhattan and other Rockefeller influences will indicate the possibility, as will associations with Kissinger. Brzezinski, who was advising Obama during the election, is of this ilk.

Again, Trilateral is not necessarily the world's worst evil. Although it aims at world control, that's pretty much on the minds of every ambitious politician. The difference between Trilateral and PNAC is that the latter wants a few American tycoons to run the world, and Trilateral wants to spread out the oligarchy somewhat to include the interests of foreign tycoons. This is possibly less likely to result in Amerika Uber Alles mentality, and possibly more likely to preserve world peace than The Bush Doctrine.

As for the Bilderbergers, sheesh, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do? I dunno, I guess they make plans that reformat the world, but are they THEM? Is there a THEM? I really can't be sure.

Anyway, I exist. They do what they do, climate change does what it does, there might be flu plagues or TV plagues or guys in uniforms or psychos knocking on my door with bibles or hand grenades, I dunno. I'm gonna keep on living Life and passing sanity as best as possible. Even when it gets weirder.

At some point it may be the bankers who hit the fan. Keep tuned, eh? It's a 6.6 billion ring circus not to be missed. Amazing time to be alive.

By the way, Sebastian, I know you exist, too. Bless.

10:15 AM
Sebastian Ernst Ronin said...

Yo, eyeballs!

Re "At some point it may be the bankers who hit the fan."

I repeat, the only saving grace is that no one gets to dodge this big, fat bullet that is heading in our direction...Lucifer's Hammer on a terrestrial scale. (My favourite verbal image for oil is "Devil's Tears.") Time of impact is NOW. Several months or several years on such an historical timeline are irrelevant. Even the 25,000 or so gated communities on the continent have to have energy, food exchange, etc. with the external environment. We have leverage! The forgotten art of siege tactics takes on whole new meaning in the 21st century.

Where might things actually blow? I'd put my money on good ole Detroit. (I wonder if I can swing a credit default swap around that?) Should it make it to the news, should we hear of any fragging going on on home turf, then that would be a fairly clear signal that things are underway.

Stay tuned for a fairly important secessionist announcement which will also likely make its way through here...with approval of Madame-Behind-the-Curtain, of course. =;-D

Re "By the way, Sebastian, I know you exist, too."

Phew! Thanks for that! Sometimes a pat on my head just doesn't cut it. LOLOL With my most polished jive and bop towards the treeline, blue suede shoes on fire. Later.

11:57 AM

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