Guest Commentary - Darryl R. Schoon

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From The Big Takeover, Rolling Stone Magazine, Matt Taibbi, 3/19/09

The emergence of Goldman Sachs in the US pyramid scheme of Ponzi-capitalism is not
unexpected. Of all the Wall Street banks, Goldman Sachs effectively focused its efforts
on influencing the political process in order to achieve its ends, a focus that has now
handsomely paid off.

Because money controls politicians and bankers control money, bankers now control
entire nations through their control of the money supply; and, of all the banks, Goldman
Sachs has the most control and influence in the US. Economics is not rocket science,
neither is political science—and neither, in fact, is a science.

Power in capitalist economies can best be understood when viewed as a franchise, a
franchise which Goldman Sachs has been granted in America. Just as top Pentagon
officials are routinely hired by US defense contractors for all the obvious reasons,
Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms enjoy a revolving door policy regarding
bankers who shuttle between Wall Street and Washington DC, ensuring that one filthy
hand washes the other—“Hey, look, ma, no soap.”

Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Alan Greenspan, Stephen
Friedman, Henry Paulson, Stephen Rattner, etc. are names that often arise in regards to
the lucrative relationships forged in the corridors of power between Washington DC and
the sewers of Wall Street.

Lawrence Summers, now Obama’s top economic advisor, was paid $135,000 by
Goldman Sachs for a one day visit in April 2008. This is how payoffs are made. Of
course, Wall Street and Washington DC are quick to remind us that such payoffs are
legal. Of course they are. All laws are legal, not matter how egregious the crimes they
allow.

WAR PAPER MONEY GOLD AND GOLDMAN SACHS

Even the most powerful are vulnerable and the powerful know this most of all
The foundation stone of the ruling elites is their control and issuance of paper money.
Over the years since paper money was substituted for gold and silver, the power of
bankers and government has steadily grown.

Their power, however, is being threatened by their abuse of that which made their power
possible. The accelerating debasement of paper money by bankers and government now
threatens the power of each; and gold which was eliminated by public governments at the
behest of private bankers now threatens the franchise of power and wealth of both
bankers and government.

The greed of bankers is equally matched by the greed of government. Only the nature of
the greed distinguishes the two. Bankers crave profits whereas governments crave power
and it was the mutual pursuit of each that caused their dark alliance over three centuries
ago.

King William of England, bankrupted by his wars with France and wanting more, agreed
to allow private bankers to issue their paper script as England’s money in return for the
banker’s credit that would allow him to wage more wars, credit which became debt to be
assumed by the people of England as a national burden.

Nonetheless, as long as gold was considered to be the basis of money, commerce
flourished during the 18th and 19th centuries even as England exerted control over much
of the world through its ability to raise armies and navies on credit.

The unraveling of currencies began, however, when Europe abandoned the gold standard
in the early 20th century as it edged closer and closer to war—wars are fought much more
cheaply with paper money than with gold—and after two World Wars, all nations were
bankrupted by the considerable cost of war—all nations except the US.

At the end of WW II, the US owned more gold than any nation previous, even more than
England at the height of its empire. However, this was not enough for the US. Aspiring to
exert global control just as had England one century before, the US would overspend its
entire gold reserves in less than twenty years.

You can never get enough of what you don't really need.

Eric Hoffer

After WW II, because of its then enormous gold reserves, 21,775 tonnes (metric tons),
the US dollar backed by gold became the world reserve currency. But in the next 25
years, the US would overspend its gold reserves by supporting a worldwide military
presence in peacetime and could no longer convert its US dollars to gold by 1971; by so
doing, all currencies of all nations then became but paper currencies of indeterminate
value.

Ever since then, central banks and especially the US Fed have fought to maintain the
advantage that paper money gives them. But, because the original basis of paper money,
gold, had been squandered by the US government’s insatiable need for power, the paperbased
franchise of power and money began to unravel after the 1970s.

The unraveling has been fought with all available resources by bankers and government
for the considerable privileges of each are now at risk. Indeed, without central bank credit
and paper money, most bankers and those who benefit by government largesse would be
forced to seek gainful employment in order to survive.

In the battle to maintain their considerable franchise of money and power, Goldman
Sachs has been at the forefront in actively supporting the suppression of the gold price; as
any rise in the price of gold belies the value of the paper money by which governments
and bankers are advantaged.

It is perhaps appropriate that Lawrence Summers, co-author of Gibson’s Paradox and the
Gold Standard (a bizarre paper that fueled central bank efforts to suppress the price of
gold in the 1990s) is now the top economic advisor to Barack Obama at the very time the
US attempts to maintain its world dominion based on an increasingly unstable US
dollar—a dollar no longer backed by gold.

For an in-depth explanation of the gold standard, free of the prejudices of those who
personally benefit from the fraud of paper money such as Lawrence Summers, I suggest
the Gold Standard University Live lecture series of Professor Antal Fekete, see
http://www.goldvid.com/fekete/sales.html.

Goldman Sachs has been alleged by many to be at the center of the central bank
conspiracy to manipulate the gold price. In 1999, when England announced it would sell
the majority of its gold reserves at the very bottom of the gold market, the rumors were
that Goldman Sachs had a 1,000 tonne short position in the market and couldn’t cover its
short position if the price of gold moved higher.

In May 1999, Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced the sale
of 415 tonnes of gold, 57% of England’s gold reserves. This sale forced the price of gold
lower thereby saving Goldman Sachs’ large bet that the price of gold would continue
lower, albeit temporarily.

Goldman Sachs’ attempts to suppress the price of gold have not abated nor have the
efforts of European and the US central banks even has gold has risen from $275 to over
$900 in the last ten years. The Swiss central bank especially has been a large seller of
gold whenever gold prices rise quickly.

Such efforts have not abated because the on-going credit crises now threatens to become
a full-blown currency crisis; and, the paper money franchise by which bankers and
governments exist is vulnerable as never before—a meteoric rise in the price of gold
would spell the end of the fabled franchise of wealth and power.

Now in 2009, the US, the UK, their gold reserves almost depleted, and the world are on
the verge of another Great Depression as the bankers’ crisis has turned into a global
nightmare. At the same very time, however, Goldman Sachs is about to record profits
enabling record bonuses while Gordon Brown is now the Prime Minister of England.

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF NATIONS:ECONOMIC GROWTH, STAGFLATION, AND SOCIAL RIGIDITIES

By Mancur Olsen
Many have been puzzled by the mysterious decline or collapse of great empires of
civilizations and by the remarkable rise to wealth, power, or cultural achievement of
previously peripheral or obscure people.

Mancur Olsen 1982

Mancur Olsen’s thoughts about empire, economic growth, stagflation and social rigidities
bear special reflection at this time. It is clear that the present times, while new to us, may
not be new to the cycles of history, cycles which continue whether we are aware of them
or not.

Although history happens in the aggregate, it is experienced personally and each of us
has a different window on what is now transpiring. That the collapse of the US is
unexpected to most is because most took refuge in denial, willingly believing the lies told
them by those in power, lies that were compatible and acceptable to their unexamined
and carelessly accepted world views.

The following comment should be considered by all, especially those in the US, who are
now about to have their once well-ordered lives turned upside down and inside out by
forces they do not understand:
…we're a country that, for the last decade, acquiesced meekly and quietly as our
Government transferred huge amounts of national wealth to a tiny elite; launched a
devastating war based on purely false pretenses; tortured, spied on us and literally
claimed the right to invalidate law and the Constitution; and turned itself over to the
highest bidders.

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, 3/21/09

And as long as the credit flowed, the band played on. The music is now about to stop.
Buy gold, buy silver, have faith.

Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
Blog www.posdev.net/pdn/index.php?option=com_myblog&blogger=drs&Itemid=81

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