America is silently suffocating its economy under a monstrous debt load that the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) terms, “unsustainable.”

Do our Washington Democrats and Washington Republicans have a strategy to deal with this? Answer: “No.”

Does the Federal Reserve have a plan..? Answer: “No.”

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Federal Reserve Bank of New York

HOUSEHOLD DEBT AND CREDIT REPORT (Q1 2022)

Mortgage and Auto Loan Balances Help Push Up Total Household Debt

The Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit for the first quarter of 2022 shows a solid increase in total household debt of $266 billion, to $15.84 trillion.

Balances now stand $1.7 trillion higher than at the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Mortgage and auto loan balances rose by $250 billion and $11 billion, respectively, in the quarter, although originations for both subsided from historically high levels in 2021.

Credit card balances declined by $15 billion, in line with seasonal trends typically seen at the start of the year, but are still $71 billion higher than in 2021:Q1, representing a substantial year-over-year increase.

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St. Louis Fed – Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED)

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Main Street America does have a plan.

The Leviticus 25 Plan has the power to eliminate enormous amounts of mortgage debt, credit card debt, school loan debt, and auto loan debt.

It will generate massive gains in tax revenue flows and outlay reductions for federal, state, and local governments.

The Leviticus 25 Plan will conservatively generate $583 billion surpluses each of the first five years of activation (2023-2027). And it will completely pay for itself over a 10-15 year period.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4131 downloads)

A recent study by social scientists from Harvard and the University of Exeter examined the potential benefits of ‘free money’ transfer payments in relation to quality of life outcomes. 

The Wall Street Journal, The High Cost of Free Money, July 20, 2022, discussed the results of this study.

Excerpts:

Liberals argue that no-strings-attached handouts encourage better financial decisions and healthier lifestyles. The theory is that low-income folks become more future-oriented if they’re less stressed about making ends meet. The Harvard study put this hypothesis to the test and found the opposite.

During a randomized trial conducted from July 2020 to May 2021, researchers assigned 2,073 low-income participants to receive a one-time unconditional cash transfer of either $500 or $2,000. Another 3,170 people with similar financial, demographic and socioeconomic characteristics served as a control group. The trial was funded by an anonymous nonprofit.

Participants earned an average of about $950 a month and had $530 in unearned income (e.g., food stamps). About 80% had children, and 55% were unemployed. Over 15 weeks they were surveyed about their physical, mental and financial well-being. Forty-three percent also agreed to allow researchers to observe their bank balances and financial transactions.

The top-line result: Handouts increased spending for a few weeks—on average $26 a day in the $500 group and $82 a day in the $2,000 group—but had no observable positive effect on any individual outcome. Bank overdraft fees, late-payment fees and cash advances were as common among cash recipients as in the control group.

Handout recipients fared worse on most survey outcomes. They reported less earned income and liquidity, lower work performance and satisfaction, more financial stress, sleep quality and physical health, and higher levels of loneliness and anxiety than the control group. There was no difference between the two cash groups.

These findings contradicted the predictions of 477 social scientists and policy makers the researchers surveyed. That’s not surprising. Most liberal academics and politicians believe government handouts are the solution to all problems. If transfer payments were a ticket to the middle class, the War on Poverty would have succeeded long ago.

The roots of poverty are complex, but the study isn’t a one-off in documenting a link between transfer payments and worse outcomes. A 2018 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined the diet quality of food-stamp beneficiaries from 2003 to 2014, a period in which average benefits increased more than 50%. Similar low-income people who didn’t get food stamps ate more healthily than those who did. The non-food-stamp group consumed significantly fewer sugar-sweetened beverages, and their diets improved more over time.

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What exactly are transfer payments?

Answer:  “In macroeconomics and finance, a transfer payment is a redistribution of income and wealth by means of the government making a payment, without goods or services being received in return. These payments are considered to be non-exhaustive because they do not directly absorb resources or create output.”

How would The Leviticus 25 Plan differ from traditional government ‘free money’ programs?

Answer:  The Leviticus 25 Plan does not involve redistribution of income and wealth from one group to another, since every U.S. citizen is potentially eligible to participate, pending credit check.

Applicants, applying through registered financial institutions, must pass a job history / credit history / illicit drug history credit check to be eligible to participate. 

The Leviticus 25 Plan is not a ‘free money’ program. There are major ‘strings attached.’ It does require U.S. citizen participants to give up income tax refunds and specified government transfer payments for a period of 5 years.

The Leviticus 25 Plan will generate $583 billion federal budget surpluses for the initial 5 years of activation (2023-2027), and completely pay for itself over the next 10-15 years.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America 2023

Economic Scoring links:

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 billion Federal Budget Surpluses (2023-2027), Part 1: Overview, Deficit Projection

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 2: Federal Income Tax and Means-Tested Welfare Recapture Benefits.

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 3: Medicaid/CHIP and Medicare Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 4: VA, TRICARE, FEHB, SSDI Recapture Benefits

·  The Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 – $583 Billion Federal Budget Surpluses Annually (2023-2027), Part 5: Subtotals, Interest Expense Savings, Summary

Full Plan:Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4123 downloads)  

Website:   https://Leviticus25Plan.org

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Preview 1:

The Leviticus 25 Plan provides a $90,000 credit extension, direct from the Federal Reserve, to every participating U.S. citizen:  $60,000 into a Family Account (FA) and $30,000 into a Medical Savings Account (MSA).

Example:  Qualifying family of four would receive $240,000 in their FA, and $120,000 in their MSA.

Primary goals:  Massive debt elimination at family level: mortgage debt, consumer debt, student loan debt.  Federal budget surpluses.

Eligibility:  U.S. Citizen.  Job history, credit history requirement (similar to traditional credit checks for bank loans).  Clean recent drug history.  Clean crime history.

Requirements:  Forego all federal and state tax refunds for 5-year period.

Forego selected means-tested welfare benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego all income security program benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego new federally-subsidized ‘Family Medical Leave’ benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego Child Tax Credit benefits – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego enhanced federal rental forbearance/assistance – for minimum 5-year period.

Forego SSI and SSDI for minimum 5-year period.

New $6,000 deductible on primary care access to: Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TRICARE, FEHB – for minimum 5-year period.

The Plan assumes that the elite-wealthy will not participate, because their refunds are too valuable to give up over the requisite 5-year period.

The Plan also assumes that many who heavily depend on social welfare benefits will also choose not to participate, because the overriding value of those benefits, vs foregoing them, over the 5-year period.

Preview 2:

The Leviticus 25 Plan grants the same direct access to liquidity, through a Fed-based Citizens Credit Facility, similar to the credit facilities that were created by the Fed to transfuse trillions of dollars in direct transfers and credit extensions to Wall Street’s major banks, credit agencies and insurers during the great financial crisis. 

The following facilities were created and activated by the Fed for this massive Wall Street bail out operation: Term Auction Facility (TAF), Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF), currency swap agreements with several foreign central banks,  Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility (AMLF), Money Market Investor Funding Facility (MMIFF), and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), and access to the Fed’s Discount Window.

Additional perspective:  SIGTARP, the oversight agency of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), in its July 2009 report, vetted by Treasury, noted that the U.S. Government’s “Total Potential Support Related to Crisis” (page 138) amounted to $23.7 trillion. While this figure represents a backstop commitment, not a measure of total potential loss, it is nonetheless an astounding degree of support, in the form of liquidity infusions, credit extensions and guarantees, various other forms of assistance for financial institutions and other business entities affected by the financial crisis.

Preview 3:

The Leviticus 25 Plan website has been accessed on one or more occasions by the following financial enterprises/agencies: 

JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, State Street, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Barclays Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale S.A, UBS AG, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas,The U.S. Department of Treasury, General Accountability Office (GAO), The European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of England (BOE), Swiss National Bank (SNB), Bank of Canada, Bank of Montreal, Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

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The General Accountability Office has stated that America’s ongoing debt crisis is unsustainable.

It is time for America to initiate a bold, new plan.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is loaded up and ready to launch.

Citigroup Has Made a Sap of the Fed: It’s Borrowing at 0.35 % from the Fed While Charging Struggling Consumers 27.4 % on Credit Cards

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 2, 2020 ~

The first thing you need to know about Citibank and its parent, Citigroup, is that they have an extensive rap sheet. (See here). The second thing you need to know is that Citigroup is a serial predator that perpetually promises its regulators that it’s going to reform, but never does.

The third thing you need to know is that Citigroup has made a sap out of the Federal Reserve – not once, but twice. During the last financial crisis of 2007 to 2010, Citigroup somehow induced the Fed to secretly give it $2.5 trillion cumulatively in below-market rate loans for 2-1/2 years to prop up its sinking carcass. Citi got the cheap loans (often at below one-half of one percent) and then went right on charging its struggling credit card customers high double-digit interest rates.

Citi played a major role in creating the financial crisis, according to the official report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC). Three of  Citigroup’s executives were referred by the FCIC to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution but zero criminal action was taken against them.

Today, the Fed has quietly reimbursed Citibank $3.077 billion under its  Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility, a program that reimburses banks for the loans they made under the CARES Act PPP program, which are guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. The Fed accepts the PPP loan as collateral and charges the bank a paltry interest on the loan of 0.35 percent.

Continue reading: https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/07/citigroup-has-made-a-sap-of-the-fed-its-borrowing-at-0-35-from-the-fed-while-charging-struggling-consumers-27-4-on-credit-cards/

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The Leviticus 25 Plan will re-balance these types of liquidity distribution injustices.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4122 downloads)

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July 2022 quote: “The safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and blessing of Almighty God; and the national acknowledgement of this truth is not only an indispensable duty, which the people owe to him, but a duty whose natural influence is favorable to the promotion of that morality and piety, without which social happiness cannot exist, nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed.”  -John Adams, “Proclamation for a National Fast” 1798

Do these Fed ‘give-aways’ to anything to strengthen the financial health of America’s hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing U.S. citizens…? Or set America on course for reducing the out-of-control, snowballing federal debt..? Or bolster long-term stability of the U.S. Dollar..? Or restore the powerful dynamics of a free market economy…?

Answer: No. No. No. No.

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The Fed Is Quietly Handing Out $250 Million To A Handful Of Happy Recipients Every Single Day

by Tyler Durden – ZeroHedge

Thursday, Jun 30, 2022 – Excerpts:

The Fed’s QE may be over, and QT may be just starting (it won’t last long), but don’t think the Fed free money giveaway is ending any time soon. In fact, for a handful of happy, mostly anonymous counterparties, the real free-money bonanza has just begun!

Case in point: the Fed’s reverse repo facility. While one can debate for hours why there is a record $2.330 trillion in cash parked at the Fed’s overnight facility and what it means for systemic plumbing problems, the fact is that there is a record $2.33 trillion in cash parked at the Fed’s overnight facility, doing nothing.

Well not nothing: it was nothing when rates were zero, but at 1.55% which is the current reverse repo rate, that $2.33 trillion is a golden goose for the 108 counterparties that are parking cash at the facility, a mixture of money market funds, banks, GSEs and various other financial intermediaries.

How big is this particular Golden Goose? The chart below shows the payment in interest that the Fed makes day on this record $2.33 trillion in funds: as of today it amounts to just over $100 million every single day! That’s right, more than $100 million in interest payments on funds parked with the Fed, which is by definition the world’s only risk-free counterparty!

But wait, there’s more!

Remember excess reserves? Well, technically excess reserves ended in March 2020 when the Fed reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero, thus converting the trillions in reserves held at the Fed from “excess reserves: to plain old “reserves” and which as of today amount to $3.13 trillion.

Whatever they are called now, however, reserves parked at the Fed (which is technically an incorrect phrase since the reserves are created by the Fed) also collect interest, and as of today, the Fed’s Interest on (Excess) Reserves rate, or IOER, is 1.65%. This translates into $141 million in daily interest payments every single day to the various banks (mostly foreign) whose reserves are parked at the Fed!

Combining the two we get nearly a quarter billion, or to be precise $242 million and rising, in interest payments by the Fed – this is money which is printed into existence – every single day.

All of the above is with the Fed Funds rate at 1.75%. As a reminder, the Fed hopes to keep hiking at least another 175bps (or more) in the next 6 months, which will push the rate to 3.50% and will mean that the Fed will be paying half a billion in interest every single day to a handful of mostly unknown counterparties every day, money which for said counterparties is also known as (riskless) profit and which is only the result of the Fed’s previous money printing.

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It is time to ‘balance out the Fed’s books.’

It is time for U.S. citizens to be granted the same direct access to liquidity that the Fed has been giving away to “the various banks (mostly foreign) whose reserves are parked at the Fed” … and “money market funds, GSEs and various other financial intermediaries.”

It is time to get America back on track as the economic leader of the free world.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4114 downloads)

Excerpt from The Economic Consequences of the Peace, written by John Maynard Keynes in 1919:

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency.  By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.  By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some.  The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

“Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become “profiteers,” who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.  As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

“Lenin was certainly right.  There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.  The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

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This, without question, describes precisely the barbarism going on in America.

It is time for a ‘new beginning’ for our country.

“He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” – Sir Francis Bacon

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4102 downloads)

Do hard-working, tax-paying U.S. citizens benefit from any of this Congressional pork-barrel insanity …?

Answer: No.

Does this type of ‘discretionary spending’ in any way help U.S. citizens to become more financially secure..” Or reduce the national debt..? Or promote economic liberty..?

Answer: No.

Are our Washington Democrats and Republicans doing anything to change course on this mindless spending..?

Answer: No.

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Where our tax dollars are going…

Monday, Jun 27, 2022 – By Adam Andrzejewski of Open The Books Substack

The ever-rising national debt just surpassed $30 trillion this year – at least $91,613 for every person in the U.S. So, just how much federal waste, silliness, weird or unnecessary spending are your tax dollars funding?

Delving into the trillions of dollars in annual spending, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, recently examined Washington’s discretionary spending—beyond such big-ticket items as health, welfare and defense.

We found staggering examples and highlighted some of the worst in our new oversight report, Where’s The Pork?

Dead people paid billions: 2.2 million deceased people received $3.6 billion in economic stimulus checks. The government asked for it back, but dead people are notoriously bad about paying up. The federal government is equally bad about clawing it back.

How did this happen? Well, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) didn’t check the Social Security Administration’s “deceased persons” list. Why have a deceased persons list if you don’t check the list before cutting the check?

The Do Not Pay list–Got Paid: The Small Business Administration (SBA) doled out 57,000 Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) forgivable loans to entities on the Do Not Pay list housed at Treasury. Again, why have a do not pay list if you are not going to check it. Cost to taxpayers? $3.6 billion.

We found that the federal government is literally gambling away hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars – on pigeons.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) doled out a $463,330 grant to researchers at Reed College (Portland, Oregon) to “create a token-based economy where pigeons are taught to gamble with slot machines.” The pigeons were given tokens, and could choose whether to spend, save or gamble them. No explanation in how the gambling habits of pigeon translate to humans.

Then, there are the crappy projects.

For example, the National Science Foundation gave a $556,584 grant that in-part funded a study of beasts pooping – yes, The Hydrodynamics of Defecation. Animal bowel movements were measured, studied, and documented, including the release of four very gross videos.

Nearly $7 million was spent on technology to film your butt – while you’re on the toilet. National Cancer Institute gave this grant to Sanford University, whose researchers admitted, “To fully reap the benefits of the smart toilet, users must make their peace with a camera that scans their anus.”

These grants defy imagination, however, there are many others.

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases spent $478,188 in an attempt turn monkeys transgender, the National Science Foundation gave a $300,000 grant for a virtual reality penguin study and gave Harvard $75,000 grant to “blow lizards off trees with leaf blowers.”

Somehow, Congress still has their hidden slush fund for workplace disputes. First uncovered during the early days of the #MeToo movement, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights paid $18.2 million since 1997 to settle 291 case of workplace disputes. It’s beyond time to open those books.

When flashing back to egregious spending examples in recent years, we uncovered:

In 2018, the U.S. Air Force spent $1,280 per “hot cup” to keep coffee warm for their fighter pilots. Then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley asked the Air Force for an audit, which found it spent $300,000 on the expensive cups over three years. This waste was stopped.

In 2016, we found that Veterans Affairs spent $20 million on a high-end luxury art portfolio during a period when sick veterans were dying because the agency claimed a lack of budget to hire enough doctors. It was 27 foot Christmas trees costing $21,000; six-figure artwork; and $700,000 sculptures. The VA secretary apologized.

Since 2020, federal spending has been especially wasteful, as the political class used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to spend wildly on anything and everything under the sun.

Musician and former presidential candidate Kanye West, who claims a net worth of $3.2 billion, took $2.4 million in coronavirus relief from the PPP for his clothing and sneaker company, Yeezy LLC.

And a legal loophole in the PPP was used by 125 defense firms with strong ties to the Communist Chinese Party to collect between $200 million and $400 million meant to help American small businesses.

It’s an open question whether or not Chinese hackers funded an entire year of China’s military budget ($206 billion) by stealing U.S. unemployment aid. Primarily Chinese and Russian hackers stole up to $400 billion. It’s the largest public fraud in U.S. history.

Read more here:   https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/just-how-much-federal-pork-and-waste

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The Leviticus 25 Plan is the most powerful economic acceleration plan in the world.

For the United States, it will generate $583 billion surpluses for each of the first five year of activation (2023-2027). It will pay for itself entirely over a 10-15 year period.

It will allow U.S. citizens to eliminate massive amounts of Household Debt and restore free market dynamics and economic liberty in America.

It will immeasurably strengthen the U.S. Dollar – and set America back on track for long-term economic growth and prosperity.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4099 downloads)

Delusion Reigns At The Eccles Building

ZeroHedge – Tyler Durden, Monday, May 02, 2022

Authored by Shanmuganathan “Shan” Nagasundaram via InternationalMan.com,

Excerpts:

Never in the history of the world has the financial well-being of so many been tied to the economic competence of so few.…

Make no mistake—we are in extreme bubble territories for the asset classes of equities, bonds (despite the recent routing, valuations are still very frothy—more on that later), and real estate. US GDP (gross domestic product) numbers these days are pretty much largely dependent on the reserve currency status and is just a pin prick away from a cascading collapse on multiple fronts. What lies ahead is sheer mayhem in the equities, bonds, and real estate markets, and consequently on the economy and currency markets as well.

A legitimate question at this point would be what has changed in the immediate past to convert what was an inevitable event to an imminent one?

First, the fundamentals of the US Economy have been deteriorating for at least two decades, and it was the apparent low consumer price inflation despite all of the monetary inflation that masked the disease. Economists, investors, and the general public have been mistaking the equity, real estate, and bond bubbles (which are a direct consequence of the monetary inflation) as indicative of a sustainable economy.

The March FOMC Meeting

Interested readers can read the complete FOMC minutes on the Federal Reserve website. We will just examine two aspects that are relevant to the current discussion.Why Is Quantitative Tightening IMPOSSIBLE?

Let me explain. I am not saying that the Fed cannot embark on QT (quantitative tightening). They can, they have in the past (in 2018 under Yellen, and this was prematurely abandoned within a year due to adverse market conditions), and they will probably again do so in May.

But they can NEVER take it through to the projected closure. They will have to abandon the attempt midway due to tightening liquidity conditions that would manifest in ways such as the junk bond markets freezing, repo crises, etc. What causes the reversal of the oncoming QT is impossible to speculate, but suffice it to say that some weak link in this domino chain will break.

For the same reasons that each round of QE (quantitative easing) was bigger than its previous version, each QT would be shorter as compared to the previous attempt. It is also a reasonable supposition at this point that this will be last (unsuccessful) attempt at QT and all that we will have after 2022 is only QE to infinity. Mises provides the perfect QE/QT analogy with that of a drug addict on an artificial high—the victim will require increasing doses overtime and the withdrawal symptoms from a higher level of dosage would be that much more severe and difficult to endure.

The Justification: QE is just a fancy way of stating inflation or monetization of deficits or buying assets that other investors / central banks will not buy, or at least not at the price at which it is offered. The US government has been running gigantic deficits to the tune of a few trillion dollars, and the US Fed has been buying up these treasury sales at pretty much “next-to-nothing” yields for the last decade. The pace has intensified over the years, as one can observe from the chart below.

Source: American Action Forum.

The deficit of the US government for 2022 would be to the tune of $3 trillion. If the US Fed, which has been the biggest buyer of Treasurys in the last few years, now becomes the second biggest seller (after the US Treasury, of course) who is going to be the buyer? Even assuming they can find a buyer, at what price can such transactions be effective?

The biggest buyers of these treasuries before the US Fed stepped in were the central banks of China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. It is doubtful that these buyers will return to the table for the foreseeable future. Not even the other “friendlier” central banks such as the Bank of Japan or the European Central Bank are going to step in, as they have their own inflation problems to deal with.

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America needs a powerhouse economic plan that will de-stress the system and set America back on track for long term stability and prosperity. This plan will need to:

(1) Generate massive new federal budget surpluses; (2) Eliminate trillions of dollars of debt for America’s hard-working, tax-paying middle-class families; (3) Re-ignite a powerful new economic growth cycle; (4) Solve the entitlement spending time-bomb; (5) Restore the long-term financial viability of the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds; and help insulate the system from the dreadful effects of another major financial crisis.

That plan is loaded up and ready to launch – generating $583 billion surpluses over the course of the first five years of activation (2023-2027).

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4095 downloads)

Washington Democrats have another new race-centric subsidy plan.

Washington Republicans, once again ‘dead in the water’ – have no better alternative to present to American families…

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Fannie Mae’s New Racial Bias – WSJ

The government-sponsored housing giant embraces race-based subsidies.

June 13, 2022 – Excerpts:

It was probably inevitable that the Biden Administration would enlist housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to advance its woke agenda, and now it has. Last week the government-sponsored enterprises released plans to promote housing “equity” that are chock-full of race-based subsidies.

Fannie and Freddie have been under federal conservatorship since Treasury rescued them during the housing meltdown with a $190 billion taxpayer bailout. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has since regulated their capital, liquidity and underwriting, as well as the mortgages they can acquire. Trump FHFA director Mark Calabria kept the monsters on a tight leash, but there was always a risk that a future Administration would ease up and politicize home lending again. That day has come.

In September the Biden FHFA announced it would require Fannie and Freddie to “prepare and implement three-year Equitable Housing Finance Plans that describe each Enterprise’s planned efforts to advance equity in housing finance.” Translation: They must find ways to boost minority homeownership no matter the risk for taxpayers.

Calling all of this mission creep is an understatement. The GSE equity plans would let the Administration spend billions of taxpayer dollars on housing without Congress appropriating a cent.

Freddie Mac’s equity plan also includes credit programs to address “systemic barriers” to housing for minorities but at least tries to camouflage its racial preferences. Fannie makes its subsidies for blacks explicit, but they don’t appear to extend to other racial groups such as Hispanics and Asians. Low-income white borrowers are also excluded.

These racially targeted subsidies are probably unconstitutional. Multiple federal courts have blocked a $3.8 billion Covid relief program to forgive loans for minority farmers. The Biden Administration may argue that a different legal standard applies to private companies like Fannie and Freddie, and that the credit programs are aimed at remedying past redlining.

But the GSEs are de facto state actors, and the Supreme Court held in Richmond v. Croson (1989) that governments may adopt racial set-asides only to remedy specific episodes of past discrimination that the government had a hand in. The GSE plans are supposedly intended to compensate for government-sanctioned redlining in the 1930s that Congress banned in 1968.

…… No economic good, and much social harm, will come from turning Fannie and Freddie into agents of progressive racial division.

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America needs economic initiatives that provide equal opportunities for all Americans – and honor the sacred principle of equal justice under the law.

Washington Republicans again have nothing to put on the table – to transcend the politics and to ‘lift all ships.’

Main Street ‘ground level’ Republicans do have a plan, the most powerful economic acceleration plan on the face of the earth – one that treats all U.S. citizens equally, and provides a dynamic boost to home ownership opportunities and massive debt elimination for millions of American families.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4089 downloads)

The U.S. Federal Reserve performed a massive ‘secret liquidity lifeline’ bailout of the Wall Street financial sector, and failed their leveraged speculation strategies, during the great financial crisis (2007-2010).

Many of those same Wall Street banks are now taking another financial ‘hit’ from their Russia exposure.

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Western Banks Brace For $10 Billion Hit Over Russia Exit

ZeroHedge, May 08, 2022 – Excerpts:

Western banks are bracing for a $10 billion collective hit as they prepare to shutter operations in Russia over the invasion of Ukraine – a move which mirrors several US lenders last month.

According to the Financial Times, international sanctions have “forced banks to consider turning their backs on a country that some lenders first entered more than a century ago.”

This week a string of European banks set aside billions of euros in provisions ahead of the closure of their Russian operations, following similar moves by US lenders last month. Western banks collectively have $86bn of exposure to Russia — with close to 40,000 staff — and are setting aside more than $10bn in expectation of losses on their ventures, according to Financial Times calculations. -FT

French lender Société Générale, which has operated in Russia for 150 years, has set aside €561mn for the first quarter, and expects to lose €3.1bn ($3.3bn) on the sale of its Rosbank subsidiary – which was founded by billionaire Vladimir Potanin. The bank has 3.1 million retail customers throughout Russia and €18bn ($19.3bn) of total exposure to the country. Around 12,000 people are employed by Rosbank.

Graphic via FT Research (Steven Bernard and Patrick Mathrin)

Other European banks preparing to take a hit are French bank Crédit Agricole, Austria’s Raiffeisen, Swiss lender UBS, and Credit Suisse.

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The Fed ‘fired up’ a line of credit facilities during the 2007-2010 crisis and again during the 2020-21 pandemic crisis to help these global banking operations to help them reduce their bad debt exposure and regain their ‘financial health.’

It is time now for the Fed to create a Citizens Credit Facility to grant the same direct access to liquidity to individual U.S. citizens – to reduce ‘ground level’ debt in America and restore financial health to American families.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – loaded up and ready to launch.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4080 downloads)

Fed futility in full blossom…

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How Governments Expropriate Wealth With Inflation And Taxes

May 10, 2022, Authored by Daniel Lacalle, – Excerpts:

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that the chain of stimulus plans implemented by the U.S. administration helped create the problem of inflation. “Inflation is a matter of demand and supply, and the spending that was undertaken in the American Rescue Plan did feed demand”, Yellen admitted. Of course, Yellen went on to say that the spending was appropriate due to the collapse of the economy as governments were trying to prevent a recession.

This reminds us of a few of the problems of disproportionate government intervention and the negative impact on the middle class…. Central banks and governments have exhausted all demand-side policies at the expense of the middle class by eroding real wages and deposit savings.

Even worse, governments created a larger inflationary spiral by maintaining all “pandemic relief” packages even after the re-opening, well beyond the recovery. They expected a spectacular aggregate demand increase and they got it. Now the result is higher inflation and lower economic growth. But government size and deficit spending remain.

Everything that government spends is paid by you. There is no free money. Even for the recipients of benefits in constantly depreciated currency. Inflation, the tax on the poor.

Governments do not avoid recessions through spending, they simply make the accumulated problems larger by constantly adding debt that central banks monetize via quantitative easing. This uncontrolled increase in M3 money supply (a broad money proxy) leads to asset inflation first and everyday goods price inflation afterwards. Both consequences lead to inequality and a constant deterioration of the purchasing power of the currency, making salaries in real terms lower.

Central-planned money creation is never neutral. It disproportionately benefits the first recipients of money, government and those with assets and debt, and negatively impacts those with a monetary salary and some savings in cash deposits, which dissolve over time. No socialist excel spreadsheet can erase the fact that massive deficit spending financed with newly created money destroys the poor and the middle class. They may say that government spending goes to social programs that benefit the poor, but that does not happen. Social programs in a constantly devalued currency become irrelevant, inefficient, and worthless while at the same time the wrongly named welfare state condemns a substantial proportion of the population to being hostage clients of government plans.

Government does not give excess reserves as social programs. Government takes away from existing and future wealth of the economy via currency printing, taxation, spending and debt, but math never works for those who believe extractive and confiscatory policies will work. 

The “tax the rich” crowd are doing an enormous disservice to the citizens they pretend to support. Interventionists may use the excuse of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, but the reality is that government spending is so enormous that they cannot finance every entitlement and social program with the money of one percent of the population. Government takes from the 99% to give devaluated and increasingly worthless funds to 45% of the population, and in the process bloating an ever-expanding bureaucracy to administer it all.

Did you feel happy when the government gave you a cheque paid with printed money? Watch now as your daily groceries, gas and power become unaffordable.

Government always takes three when they promise one. Huge public debt accumulation will be paid by the 99% via inflation, taxes, or both.

Deficit spending and artificial money creation are just two sides of the same coin, dissolving the existing wealth of a nation by issuing more promissory notes. Wealth is the same, just more units of currency in circulation. Hence, prices do not rise, the purchasing power of money diminishes.

The mirage of enormous government spending and exponential currency printing is a process of expropriation. Government expands its size at the expense of the rest of the population, especially those that defend rising public expenditure programs.

Demand-side policies expropriate wealth in three ways.

• On the way in, by running uncontrolled deficits financed with debt, which means higher taxes in the future.
• Second, raising taxes to “reduce deficit”.
• Third, with inflation.

Government weight in the economy rises in all three steps.

If you wanted more government, this is more government: Less growth, higher inflation, and poorer citizens.

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The Leviticus 25 Plan will re-balance the economic system in America.

Instead of “Central-planned money creation … disproportionately benefiting the first recipients of money, government and those with assets and debt, and negatively impacting those with a monetary salary and some savings in cash deposits,” it will re-target U.S. citizens as the “first recipients” of the Fed’s “money creation” gambit – immeasurably strengthening the financial health of American families, and the financial health of the U.S..

The Leviticus 25 Plan will reignite economic growth, reduce the footprint of the enormous government-run entitlement programs, improve labor productivity, generate massive new tax revenue flows (without raising taxes), and pay for itself entirely over a 10-15 year period.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2023 (4077 downloads)