This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

The Ten Crack Commandments (and the Notorious F.E.D.)

EB's picture




 

Reprinted with permission from EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Fiat money is like crack. It’s produced cheaply by a central bank cartel whose members will compete and go to war with each other for production and distribution rights. But, when the bond vigilantes come a knocking, the central banks will circle the printing presses to defend the product. When viewed through the lens of a common street hustler, the global central banking system reveals itself to be just that: a hustle. Learn the hustle and you have a chance at profit. Ignore it, and you will lose.

The late Christopher Wallace, a/k/a, the Notorious B.I.G. a/k/a Biggie Smalls, wrote the definitive street hustler manual with the Ten Crack Commandments. As we’ll see, the Notorious F.E.D. is a devoted disciple.

1. Rule numero uno: never let no one know how much dough you hold

Right off the bat, Biggie nails it. The greatest threat to a hustler is for people to know just how good he’s getting it. The NY Fed conducts all open market operations on behalf of the Fed, and nearly all are done at a loss because, by definition, it is attempting to distort real market prices. Buying high and selling low is the Fed’s hidden graft to the primary dealers, so it would be instructive to know just how much this comprises the nearly spotless trading records of Goldman, BAC and others. In addition, all holdings in the Fed’s piggy bank, the System Open Market Account, are reported at par, or face value. How much of a hit have the taxpayers taken on the $1.25 trillion in mortgage backed securities it bought? Because the Fed only reports at par and on a cash flow basis, we won’t know how worthless its holdings are until the cash flows simply cease. It would also be nice to know if our gold actually exists beyond a ledger entry.

Ron Paul’s audit the Fed Bill (and not the watered down version) is like a gun to the Fed’s head, and the release of a marked-to-market Fed balance sheet would pull the trigger. The public knows those eight figure Wall Street bonuses are coming from them, they just have yet to realize exactly how. “The cheddar breed jealousy,” indeed.

2. Number two: never let em know your next move
Don't you know Bad Boys move in silence or violence

Wallace takes no prisoners here. In the good old days, the FOMC could simply shutter its doors for a couple of days, then let the NY Fed trading desk in on the scheme. No public announcement, no minutes, no transcript (hey, they could even lie about its existence). After decades of arm twisting, the Fed has slowly dribbled some morsels but, to this day, keeps its most precious information secret. This goes back to that pesky audit. So silence, yes, but violence?

A war’s greatest ally is the printing press. It used to be the case when the world was on a (loose) gold standard, that the bond vigilantes would force some restraint after the war ended (or end the war because of it). With a pure fiat and global reserve currency behind it, there have been very few limits on the Pentagon budget and, hence, no reason to take some time off. Oh, and there are those “bizarre” incidents where the Fed is directly implicated with Saddam and Watergate.

3. Number three: never trust nobody

Well, that goes without saying. The conundrum the global banksters find themselves in is that they all know they’re playing the same game. They don’t trust each other because they (correctly) assume everyone else is doing what they are.

4. Number four: know you heard this before
Never get high on your own supply

Here, Biggie foreshadows the end game. There’s a point in many a hustlers’ lives when they start imbibing on what they’re slinging. It’s easy at first, as it seems like the supply is unlimited. But in the end, they don’t consume it--it consumes them. Theoretically, the Fed could print an unlimited number of dollars, but those dollars are all chasing the same goods and services. You can’t print purchasing power or productivity. Fiat money printing dilutes the money supply and eventually results in inflation. This is a redistribution scheme that stops working when the money loses too much purchasing power too quickly. It’s like a dealer cutting the product too much, or worse, selling fakes.

5. Number five: never sell no crack where you rest at

This too tells us when the end was in sight. Use to be, we would send pieces of (Treasury) paper to China—actually, add zeros to their account with the Fed—and get back DVD’s, plasma TV’s and MP3 players. China’s currency peg to the dollar assured their prices would be artificially low and that they would continue recycling their dollars back to the Treasury. That all changed with quantitative easing, where the Fed started buying not only Treasurys, but Fannie and Freddie paper, and even home loans packaged in MBS. The government really began buying its own crack decades ago, with the social security administration and others acquiring Treasury debt. But that is quickly coming to an end, if it has not already. The Fed is now both the lender and buyer of last resort, and it can’t keep that shell game going forever.

Who, but Oscar Wilde, would suspect that a song written by a self-styled street hustler thirteen years ago (just before his own violent death) would anticipate and mould the great financial crisis of the twenty first century? The banksters have clearly been taking cues from Wallace's playbook, but are also breaking some cardinal rules. He's gone five for five so far, so stay tuned for part two, where we’ll see if he continues his sage winning streak (hint: he does).

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 17:20 | 361652 oklaboy
oklaboy's picture

EB mofo dat's da schizzle!!!!

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 15:13 | 361384 Internet Tough Guy
Internet Tough Guy's picture

Where's 5-0 when you need him?

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:57 | 361328 hooligan2009
hooligan2009's picture

I think this bears full scrutiny and correlates to the analysis I have done on the annuity business also. I take no comfort from supporting the large salaries and bonuses being earned by the financial industry who are perpetrating this fraud. I don't have the time to mount a full blown (internet based) campaign that would inevitably be funded from the very people who had been defrauded.

Perhaps we can draw comfort from the fact that we are paying extra tax so we are in fact acting like a charity. Sure as hell if this scam/fraud/embezzlement wasn't being perpetrated, our taxes would be raised to make up for the rip-off.

Wouldn't it be nice to design a system that was transparent and fair!

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 17:07 | 361618 Bitch Tits
Bitch Tits's picture

Hey hooligan, very interesting.

"Wouldn't it be nice to design a system that was transparent and fair!"

Let's hope that's where this "awakening" will take us.

However, I draw no comfort from my charitable "donations", knowing that all those poor, old folks on a fixed income have been hit hardest of all.

How can these scammers sleep at night?

I just don't understand some people.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:58 | 361331 hooligan2009
hooligan2009's picture

ugh...chit i was replying to "bitch tits" (interesting name!) sorry

 

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:23 | 361215 Won_Over
Won_Over's picture

'My Man', as Denzel would say!!!!

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 13:06 | 361039 Dicite justitiam
Dicite justitiam's picture

It's nice to be among people who 'get it'.  My old man is an ex-con hustler and now incredibly successful businessman.  And Fat Tony is why I like Taleb.  Sometimes it feels like this industry is filled with nothing more than a bunch of easy marks.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:46 | 360791 EB
EB's picture

Thanks all.  Good to be back.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 14:47 | 361291 Reggie Middleton
Reggie Middleton's picture

Hey, I should have been the first one to out Biggie in a macro analysis! :-)

Job well done.

I guess I'll have to come out with some Rakim...

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:39 | 360781 jdrose1985
jdrose1985's picture

I like the article. Hustled heroin for years and served my time. Must think like a criminal to have a chance of figuring or envisioning what's going on in the smoky rooms where globslism is played like a chess game. Sad world.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:04 | 360700 Gordon_Gekko
Gordon_Gekko's picture

Indeed, our monetary and financial system today can ONLY be explained if we look at it as a criminal enterprise instead of highfalutin [Keynesian] "economics" BULLSHIT.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:57 | 360814 doublethink
Wed, 05/19/2010 - 11:50 | 360795 old_turk
old_turk's picture

+1,000,000,000,000,000

Yo!  You got it right, dawg.

But take care, you know, black helicopters and all that.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 10:46 | 360639 bugs_
bugs_'s picture

Most Excellent post.  Anxious to see part 2.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 10:35 | 360593 Bitch Tits
Bitch Tits's picture

Re: Social Security. This particular governmental scam always gets my blood boiling. As a boomer on the tail end scheduled to retire last, I once did the necessary research (all government websits, such as the census, etc.) on this subject. According the government's own figures, the bankruptcy of this program (based on averages) is virtually IMPOSSIBLE, if what I learned is true.

1.) The average retiree retires at 66 and lives for an average of 11 more years.

2.) The average worker works 50+or- years and pays on average $3700 per year to social security.

3.) The average check paid out to retirees is $900 per month.

4.) The baby boomers represent one of the largest demographics ever, working during some of the biggest boom-times our country has ever seen, paying into social security  nearly twice what their predecessors did.

5.) The average retiree dies long before he ever comes close to taking out what he put in. Although I don't remember the exact numbers, it came out to something like this: the average worker contributes approximately $225,000 during their work life, and dies having actually used only approximately $118,000.

Surplus.

Biggest government scam ever against its own population.

Except, of course, for the bigger scam yet to come.

 

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 10:27 | 360586 Apostate
Apostate's picture

Yo. This is hot.

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 10:26 | 360583 Trial of the Pyx
Trial of the Pyx's picture

BOOM! baby BOOM!

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 09:57 | 360503 JacksCompleteLa...
JacksCompleteLackOfSuprise's picture

cool

Wed, 05/19/2010 - 23:08 | 362219 Juan Venti
Juan Venti's picture

Timmy G is the Illest

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!