U.S. healthcare – there is nothing in the world like a cash-paying customer.… to clean things up. Solution: The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is a dynamic health care initiative with the power to restore citizen-centered health care for America.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan grants a substantial initial deposit, $25,000 per family member, into a participating family’s Medical Savings Account (MSA). This robustly-funded MSA would make it possible for families to pay cash for their day-to-day, primary care healthcare needs over the course of the initial 5-year plan period.

Cash payments for day-to-day health care needs would give patients the freedom of choice in choosing their providers, taking greater ownership in their healthcare decisions, and avoiding unnecessary red tape and delays in treatment.  It would avoid penalties families might otherwise pay — for not doing things, precisely, according to government mandates.

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan would eliminate massive amounts of administrative costs and bureaucratic overhead.  It would allow American families to tailor their spending according to their individual needs, rather than requiring costly coverage in areas that are irrelevant to their needs.

It would provide millions of Americans (those left “uncovered” by the current health law) with access to primary care – without expanding Medicaid.

Cash-paying customers would open the door for countless new efficiencies to be woven back into the system.

It would be a welcome development for nearly all providers.  Instead of turning patients away, due to unacceptable reimbursement rates, they would find ways to appropriately accommodate patients in this newly energized system.

…………………………….

Our current big government program is a massive, inefficient, bureaucracy-driven quagmire…

Columnist Holoman Jenkins, Jr., WSJ  9-25-13:

“Our point is that when Washington legislates on a grand scale, it sets in motion a game whose long-run outcome nobody can predict.  

ObamaCare, to be sure, was not reform—it was a piling on of subsidies that can only throw fuel on the fire of health-care inflation. Not even the usual mouthpieces pretend otherwise anymore.

But a society can’t give a subsidy to everybody for the same reason you can’t give a subsidy to yourself—you end up paying for your own subsidy and aren’t better off.  In fact, you are worse off thanks to the administrative overhead involved in taking money away from you and giving it back to you.      

You are also worse off because of the perverse incentives engendered by diverting yours and everyone’s health-care spending through a common pot. 

These pathologies have undermined U.S. health care for two generations, and nothing has been solved, nothing has been fixed…”

______________________________________

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan

It is time for a new strategy – that puts citizens back in charge of their health care resources and decision-making..

_________________________________

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

  1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
  2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
  3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
  4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
  5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
  6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
  7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
  8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

Benefits:                                                                                 

Lower health care costs – With the elimination of millions of minor insurance claims across the nation over the course of each month, system-wide efficiency would improve, medical costs would drop significantly, and the direct patient-provider relationship would be restored. Medical professionals would not have to answer to HMOs, insurance companies, or government agencies in providing basic day-to-day healthcare access for their patients.

Scoring – if 300 million U.S. citizens were to participate in the plan, the total dollar transfer into family-based Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) would amount to $7.5 trillion.

The potential cost savings from the $5,000 deductible provision for the approximate 150 million people currently enrolled in Medicare (55 million), Medicaid (72 million), VA (6.16 million), TRICARE (9.5 million), and FEHB (8.2 million) would amount to just  under $3.75 trillion over the first 5 years (or, one-half the $7.5 trillion initial roll out cost).

Summary:

This plan would generate trillions of dollars in cost savings from streamlining, vastly improved efficiency, and reductions in waste and fraud.

This plan would improve quality and ease of access to health care for all participating Americans.

 For patients: It would dramatically lower the cost of health care, while improving quality and access for all who chose to participate.

 For providers:  It would restore the patient-provider relationship and significantly reduce massive cost and time burdens imposed by a centralized system.

 The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan an integral part of a larger, comprehensive economic plan:

 

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2570)

___________________________________

Notes:

Exemptions:                                                                                         ObamaCare currently offers hardship exemptions for individuals who have a recognizable inability to pay for a plan or pay the penalty. The ACA also currently offers exemptions from certain provisions within the health care law, such as the reinsurance provisions, for various union organizations.

And certain U.S. Territories are exempt from specific ACA measures: The Hill, 7-17-14:  “Insurance companies in Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands are no longer required to implement a number of ObamaCare measures such as the community rating system, a single-risk pool, the medical loss ratio or guaranteed benefits.”

Administrative costs – bureaucracy:               

The Federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to construct the monstrous ACA ‘machine.’

Billions of dollars have been spent on the roll out costs, insurer subsidies, management, monitoring, advertising, technical ‘fixes,’

There will be hundreds of billions of dollars yet to come with legal costs/prosecution, audits, regulatory costs/burdens, and much, much more.

 

2012: Massive Mortgage Fraud Swept Under the ‘Fed Rug’ – Big Banks Win, U.S. Citizens Lose

September 2012: “QE3 – Pay Attention If You Are in the Real Estate Market” by Catherine Austin Fitts

Excerpts:

[Note:  The Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) is a private company that electronically tracks and records ownership and servicing rights of mortgages across the country.]

“The Fed is now where mortgages go to die. Thousands of mortgages on homes that do not exist or on homes that have more than one “first” mortgage are now going to the Fed to disappear. Thousands of multifamily and commercial mortgages will be bought up as well. As this happens, trillions of dollars that have been amassed offshore will be free to come back into the US to buy up and reposition land, farmland, residential and commercial real estate and other tangibles.”

With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure.

QE3 proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the extent of the fraud was as bad as I said it was. You can count up the bailouts and QE1, QE2, QE3 the numbers speak for themselves. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan.

Now, the $64,000 question for those whose house is underwater or whose mortgage is in default is whether or not you still owe on your mortgage.  Certainly, you still do as a legal matter.  If the bank has been paid off, arguably in some cases several times, why not you? Let’s see if Fannie, Freddie and the big banks are under orders to quietly pass through a portion of their largesse to troubled homeowners in amounts sufficient to unfreeze the market. If you are in a workout situation, you need to take notice. If enough mortgage write-offs flow through, the Democrats will quickly amass a lock on the elections in November.

If you are in the market to buy a home or other real estate, you also need to pay attention – a major turn is now underway. Watch to see how much the banks pass through to homeowners and property owners to see how fast and big the turn may be. Watch to see the inflow of funds from offshore. This is not only funds returning but investors around the world looking to exchange their dollars for tangible assets to protect themselves from debasement of the dollar denominated deposits and securities they hold. Watch to see what the renegotiation of federal tax policy and the reengineering of the federal budget in response to the “fiscal cliff” do to reposition housing and real estate prices and cost of financing for an inflow looking for large accumulations.

Finally, the way the Fed has engineered the Slow Burn to date is to continually offset monetary inflation with labor deflation. It is worth contemplating how much labor deflation will be required to offset QE3 and how sufficient additional labor deflation might be engineered. Ben Bernanke was quite clever to tie QE3 to unemployment. The problem has become the solution, which is the basis for QE-Infinity.”

About the Author
Catherine Austin Fitts began her career on Wall Street and eventually rose to managing director and member of the board of the firm Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. In 1989, she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Housing – Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush administration. Following this appointment, Catherine became president of The Hamilton Securities Group.

____________________________

Again… “With documents shredded, criminal liabilities extinguished and financial institutions made whole, funds can return without fear of seizure…. The fraud was indeed in the many trillions of dollars. It was intentional. It was a plan.

The Fed buried trillions of dollars in fraudulent real estate loans on its own books, and in the process ‘relieved’ major banks and insurers of massive financial liabilities and erased the trail of criminal enterprise.

It is now time to “retarget” liquidity infusions to upgrade the financial health of U.S. citizens.

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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2559)

 

America’s Colossal ‘Debt Overhang,’ Part 2: Solution: The Leviticus 25 Plan

Massive debt equals massive debt service obligations, and over the long run – U.S. citizens lose.

It is time for a new plan…

……………………………….

The Federal Reserve Has Never Printed ‘Money’: Part II

Seeking Alpha, October 19, 2017 – By Eric Basmajian

Excerpts:

The debt of the four critical non-financial sectors (Federal, State & Local, Corporate, Household) has increased to an aggregate of $70 trillion, or 370% of GDP.

 Total Public & Private Debt as a % of GDP (Excluding “Off-Balance Sheet” Items):

Source: Federal Reserve, Bank For International Settlements, US Treasury

Total Public & Private Debt (Trillions) (Excluding “Off-Balance Sheet” Items):

Source: Federal Reserve, Bank For International Settlements, US Treasury

The data is very clear that we, as an economy, are massively more indebted than any point during the last recession. As a system, there is $20 trillion more of debt. To put that into perspective, if that debt had an average interest rate of just 2%, that means the economy would be paying an additional $400 billion a year just to service that debt. That is nearly 50% of last year’s total increase in gross domestic product.

As debt levels increase, it takes a greater and greater percentage of the national income to service that debt, causing the saving rate to fall and causing a lower percentage of income to be invested into long-term cash-flow-producing goods and services.

The Federal Reserve, with their zero interest rate policy for an unprecedented length of time, was the primary driver behind this massive debt increase.

[snip]

Economist Lacy Hunt estimates that over the next year, of the current $70 trillion of total debt (Federal, State & Local, Corporate, Household), around 28% or $20 trillion dollars worth will have to be repriced to current interest rates. This is a combination of short-term debt that was taken out 1-2 years ago, as well as longer-term 5-year paper that was taken out in 2013 when interest rates made a short-term low of around 0.70% on the 5-year Treasury.

Using Lacy Hunt’s estimate, $20 trillion that needs to be repriced at an average interest rate that is 80 basis points higher translates to 160 billion of additional annual interest expense.

[snip]

A $160 billion hit to an average $600 billion GDP increase equates to a 25% reduction in growth. Growth has averaged 2.1% over the past 7 years so all else equal, we are looking at growth in the next two years to drop to around 1.6% simply due to an increase in debt expense.

This does not even take into consideration the decrease in disposable personal income growth, the decrease in the savings rate, or the increased rate of monetary tightening from the Federal Reserve, which is designed to stunt inflation and growth.

 This structural issue with the economy has been going on for decades. The level of debt increases, and each year, that takes a larger and larger percentage of our national income to service. Due to the fact that a larger percentage of our national income has to be used to pay down debt, slower economic growth is the result.

____________________

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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2552)

 

Andrew Huszar, Federal Reserve Official: QE was “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time”

Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer – WSJ

Nov 11, 2013

Andrew Huszar directed the Federal Reserve’s [QE1] $1.25 trillion agency mortgage-backed security purchase program which kicked off during March 2009.

Here are his after-thoughts…or “confessions”  (Andrew Huszar: “Confessions of a Quantitative Easer”) excerpts: 

“We went on a bond-buying spree that was supposed to help Main Street. Instead, it was a feast for Wall Street

I can only say: I’m sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed’s first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I’ve come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time. 

Five years ago this month, on Black Friday, the Fed launched an unprecedented shopping spree. By that point in the financial crisis, Congress had already passed legislation, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, to halt the U.S. banking system’s free fall. Beyond Wall Street, though, the economic pain was still soaring. In the last three months of 2008 alone, almost two million Americans would lose their jobs.

The Fed said it wanted to help—through a new program of massive bond purchases. There were secondary goals, but Chairman Ben Bernanke made clear that the Fed’s central motivation was to “affect credit conditions for households and businesses”: to drive down the cost of credit so that more Americans hurting from the tanking economy could use it to weather the downturn. For this reason, he originally called the initiative “credit easing.”

In its almost 100-year history, the Fed had never bought one mortgage bond. Now my program was buying so many each day through active, unscripted trading that we constantly risked driving bond prices too high and crashing global confidence in key financial markets. We were working feverishly to preserve the impression that the Fed knew what it was doing. 

It wasn’t long before my old doubts resurfaced. Despite the Fed’s rhetoric, my program wasn’t helping to make credit any more accessible for the average American. The banks were only issuing fewer and fewer loans. More insidiously, whatever credit they were extending wasn’t getting much cheaper. QE may have been driving down the wholesale cost for banks to make loans, but Wall Street was pocketing most of the extra cash.

Trading for the first round of QE ended on March 31, 2010. The final results confirmed that, while there had been only trivial relief for Main Street, the U.S. central bank’s bond purchases had been an absolute coup for Wall Street. The banks hadn’t just benefited from the lower cost of making loans. They’d also enjoyed huge capital gains on the rising values of their securities holdings and fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions. Wall Street had experienced its most profitable year ever in 2009, and 2010 was starting off in much the same way.

That was when I realized the Fed had lost any remaining ability to think independently from Wall Street. Demoralized, I returned to the private sector.

Where are we today? The Fed keeps buying roughly $85 billion in bonds a month, chronically delaying so much as a minor QE taper. Over five years, its bond purchases have come to more than $4 trillion. Amazingly, in a supposedly free-market nation, QE has become the largest financial-markets intervention by any government in world history. 

And the impact? Even by the Fed’s sunniest calculations, aggressive QE over five years has generated only a few percentage points of U.S. growth. By contrast, experts outside the Fed, such as Mohammed El Erian at the Pimco investment firm, suggest that the Fed may have created and spent over $4 trillion for a total return of as little as 0.25% of GDP (i.e., a mere $40 billion bump in U.S. economic output). Both of those estimates indicate that QE isn’t really working.

Having racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in opaque Fed subsidies, U.S. banks have seen their collective stock price triple since March 2009. The biggest ones have only become more of a cartel: 0.2% of them now control more than 70% of the U.S. bank assets.”

_____________________________

The Leviticus 25 Plan levels the playing field by granting direct liquidity extensions to U.S. citizens for massive debt elimination at ground level.

This would provide dynamic economic stimulus for Main Street America.  And it would restore economic liberty across the land.

America, it is time for a change.  It is time for a bold, new economic plan. 

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2543)

WSJ: “ObamaCare’s Tax on the Poor” – Time for a Dynamic New Plan.

WSJ: ObamaCare’s Tax on the Poor

By The Editorial Board – Sept. 22, 2017

Democrats claim to have a monopoly on caring for the poor and suffering, and this week the left is portraying a GOP health-care bill as an attack on society’s vulnerable. So check out the data on how ObamaCare is a tax on some low-income families.

IRS data offers insight into who paid the law’s individual mandate penalty in 2015 for not buying health insurance, the latest year for which figures are available. Spoiler alert: The payers aren’t Warren Buffett or any of the other wealthy folks Democrats say they want to tax. More than one in three of taxed households earned less than $25,000, which is roughly the federal poverty line for a family of four.

More than 75% of penalized households made less than $50,000 and nine in 10 earned less than $75,000. Fewer families paid the tax in 2015 than in 2014, yet government revenues increased to more than $3 billion from about $1.7 billion, as the financial punishment for lacking coverage increased.

These Americans are paying a fine to avoid purchasing a product they don’t want or can’t afford but government compels them to buy. Such individuals don’t suddenly have access to less expensive or higher quality medical care, but they do have less money for household expenses, which can consume a high share of income for this class of families.

The unfortunate irony is that ObamaCare destroyed the private market that offered options that in some cases made sense for these people. For example: High-deductible, limited coverage for unexpected events.

Then again, the point of this coercion was to substitute the government’s political preferences for individual judgment, while forcing the young and healthy to pay more to finance the mandated benefits that Democrats think everyone must have….

______________________________

It is time to set things back in order…

The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is the only comprehensive, citizen-centered health care plan in America.  It ‘resets’ the health care industry to present a clean, efficient and responsible system.  Most importantly, this plan restores individual freedom and liberty for all participating Americans.

The Plan:

  1. The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan is available to each and every U.S. citizen – with no coverage mandates. Each U.S. citizen who wishes to participate will be granted a full and complete exemption from the ACA.
  2. This plan offers freedom of choice and equal justice for all. Those Americans who might wish to stay with the ACA may stay (‘If you like your ObamaCare, you can keep your ObamaCare’).
  3. Each participating U.S. citizen shall receive a credit extension, through a special Federal Reserve Citizens Credit Facility, of $25,000, electronically deposited into a Medical Savings Account (MSA) – for direct allocation toward family health care needs.
  4. Private insurance – Families shall be allowed to enroll in high-deductible ($10,000 – $15,000) major medical plans, to include basic, ‘no frills’ medical plans which best suit their individual needs and desires. These streamlined plans would lower premium costs for employees and employers, encouraging employers to cost-share savings with employees through incentive-based employer MSA contributions.
  5. Policies would not be automatically loaded with expensive government healthcare mandates.
  6. Those with extraordinary medical issues may be included in a high-risk category, with such plans being eligible for a government subsidy (similar to current Medicare Advantage).
  7. Federal / state programs – Individuals enrolled in Medicare / Medicaid / VA / TRICARE / FEHB programs would maintain their covered status, with an annual deductible of $5,000 per year per enrolled family member, for a period of five years for those benefits. The dedicated MSA funds would fully fund the offset for the higher ($5,000) deductible feature for that five-year period. MSA funds could also be used to pay Medicare supplement premiums and other potential co-pay obligations.
  8. Where health care services paid by patients directly with MSA funds, providers would not be bound by federal / state rules pertaining to Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), and other unnecessary administrative burdens.

Benefits:                                                                                 

Lower health care costs – With the elimination of millions of minor insurance claims across the nation over the course of each month, system-wide efficiency would improve, medical costs would drop significantly, and the direct patient-provider relationship would be restored. Medical professionals would not have to answer to HMOs, insurance companies, or government agencies in providing basic day-to-day healthcare access for their patients.

Scoring – if 300 million U.S. citizens were to participate in the plan, the total dollar transfer into family-based Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) would amount to $7.5 trillion.

The potential cost savings from the $5,000 deductible provision for the approximate 150 million people currently enrolled in Medicare (55 million), Medicaid (72 million), VA (6.16 million), TRICARE (9.5 million), and FEHB (8.2 million) would amount to just  under $3.75 trillion over the first 5 years (or, one-half the $7.5 trillion initial roll out cost).

Summary:

This plan would generate trillions of dollars in cost savings from streamlining, vastly improved efficiency, and reductions in waste and fraud.

This plan would improve quality and ease of access to health care for all participating Americans.

 For patients: It would dramatically lower the cost of health care, while improving quality and access for all who chose to participate.

 For providers:  It would restore the patient-provider relationship and significantly reduce massive cost and time burdens imposed by a centralized system.

 The U.S. Health Care Freedom Plan an integral part of a larger, comprehensive economic plan:

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2543)

Central Bank “Money Conjuring Collusion”- Big Banks Win. Ordinary Citizens Will Eventually “Pay the Price.” Solution: The Leviticus 25 Plan

Naomi Prins:  “Since late 2007, the Federal Reserve has embarked on grand-scale collusion with other G-7 central banks to manufacture a massive amount of money…” 

……………………………………….

Nomi Prins: A Decade Of G7 Central Bank Collusion… And Counting

ZeroHedge, Aug 30, 2017 – Excerpts:

The Winners and Losers

Since the global financial crisis, the biggest G7 winners have been the Big Six US banks that profited from access to cheap money. They benefited from central bank purchases of their securities that exaggerated the value of the remaining securities on their books. They used “printed” or electronically crafted money to stockpile cash and fund buybacks of their own shares and pay themselves dividends on those shares. By producing and distributing artificial money, central bankers distorted reality in global markets. Multi-national banks were co-conspirators in that maneuver.

After the Big Six banks passed their latest round of stress tests, they began buying even more of their own shares back. The move elevated their stock prices further. The largest U.S. bank, JP Morgan Chase, announced its most ambitious program to buy back its own shares since the 2008 crisis, $19.4 billion worth. Citigroup followed suit with a $15.6 billion buy-bank plan.

The Fed’s all-clear was just another version of quantitative easing (QE) for banks. Instead of buying bonds via QE programs, the Fed greenlighted banks to further speculate in their own stocks, creating more artificiality in the level of the stock market. In all, US banks have disclosed plans to buy back $92.8 billion of their own stock to say thank you to the Fed for the “A.” That was piling on to their existing trend; according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, “Stock repurchases by financial companies in the S&P 500 rose 10.2% in the first quarter [of 2017] and accounted for 22.2% of all buybacks.”

More ominous than that was another clear sign that a decade of money-conjuring collusion helped the same banks that caused the last crisis. Proof came in the form of a letter to the U.S. Senate banking committee from Thomas Hoenig, the vice-chairman of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the government agency in charge of guaranteeing people’s deposits. He wrote that in 2017, U.S. banks used 99% of their net earnings toward purchases of their own stock and paying dividends to shareholders (including themselves).

They thus legally manipulated markets in plain sight by pushing their own share prices up with cheap money availed to them by the central bank that is supposed to regulate them.

As of this year, global debt levels stood at 325% GDP, or about $217 trillion. The $14 trillion of assets the G-3 central banks held on their books is equivalent to a staggering 17% of all global GDP. The European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of Japan (BOJ) and Bank of England are still buying collectively $200 billion worth of assets per month.

In the wake of that buying, noncash instruments – crypto currencies and hard assets like gold, unrelated to the main G-7 monetary system – have become increasingly attractive on the fear that in another major downturn or crisis, central banks and private banks will retract cash and liquidity from their customers.

In that likely event, banks will protect themselves and turn to governments and central banks again. In the absence of some sort of outside central bank benchmark, like a modern gold standard or use of currency basket benchmarks like the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR), currency wars will continue to be fought.

With rates hovering between zero and negative in some countries, there would be little to no room to maneuver in the face of another crisis. Thus – another thing has become increasingly clear: Central bankers have demonstrated gross negligence regarding the consequences of their monetarily omnipotent actions.

If rates were to rise higher in the US (and I don’t think we’re in for more than another 25 basis points, this year which is under last year’s Fed forecast) so would the cost of servicing that debt. That would hurt companies domestically and abroad, induce more defaults and a rush by the banks involved in derivatives associated with that debt to concoct more toxic assets. The vicious cycle of central bank bailouts would reverberate again. 

Savers and pensioners are getting close to no interest on their nest eggs. Depositors are paying banks to house their money through fees that offset negligible interest. Small businesses have to jump through hoops to get loans for expansion purposes. Wages are stagnant. Ultimately, big banks had played the system — and us — again, this time with central banks helping to fund them. The threat of an even larger collapse looms as stock markets and global debt have been propelled higher.

As we approach the ninth anniversary of the collapse of one of my former employers, Lehman Brothers, and the 10th anniversary of the beginning of central bank collusion into the financial crisis, there has been – no change – in global G7 central bank monetary policy.

While speaking to the monetary policy glitterati at central bank base-camp [Jackson Hole], Yellen declared any dialing back of regulatory reform measures for banks should be “modest.” She said, “The evidence shows that reforms since the crisis have made the financial system substantially safer.” There was no mention of the unprecedented decade of easy money bolstering the financial system – that makes it appear – solvent.

For all the cheap cash offered up, much at the expense of taxpayers who will bear the burden of the associated debt this enabled, and the bank fraud it plastered over, it will be ordinary citizens who will pay the price – yet again.  In the era of money fabrication and monetary policy collusion, a decade of ongoing “emergency” procedure spells an eventual recipe for disaster.

Big US banks are bigger than before the crisis. They float atop a life-raft, among other things, of $4.5 trillion Fed asset book, as part of a total $14 trillion G7 central bank asset book. Yellen’s speech was code for preserving the status quo and central bank elasticity high……

Take the composite of all that and what are you left with? Ongoing G7 central bank monetary policy collusion, zero percent interest rates globally, unlimited QE potential, and major asset bubbles.

 _________________________
Review:  Major global banks, the very banks that precipitated the 2008 credit meltdown, received massive liquidity transfusions, courtesy of G7 Central Banks, during the great financial crisis to magically make their gambling debts ‘disappear’ and restore them to ‘financial health.’
Ordinary citizens received nothing to stave off the financial burdens and stresses imposed on them from the ensuing financial turmoil.
There is now one clean, powerful way to level the playing field...
Grant citizens the same direct access to liquidity that was provided to major players in the global financial markets.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2526)

“The U.N.’s Fat Kleptocrats”.. and why we need the Leviticus 25 Plan

Keep Your Eye on the U.N.’s Fat Kleptocats – WSJ

Sep 14, 2017 – Excerpts:

Corruption costs the world $2.6 trillion a year, according to one estimate cited by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This endemic problem cannot be lost on institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, yet they continue to hand billions of dollars to nations whose leaders are on the take. Why not put these jokers through an audit?

Brazil has so many crooks—convicted and alleged—that you need a scorecard: … the Inter-American Development Bank lent Brazil at least $11 billion. Since 2000, the World Bank has poured more than $30 billion into the same rabbit hole. Transparency International ranks Brazil 79th out of 176 countries on corruption.

Then there’s Angola, which Transparency International ranks 164th. The World Bank has granted the country more than $1.7 billion since 2000, and the IMF another $1.4 billion. Neither group seems interested in investigating how the daughter of President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled Angola since 1979, became what Forbes calls “Africa’s richest woman” (net worth $3.5 billion)…

When Western institutions drop money into the capitals of developing countries, they think themselves do-gooders. Instead they’re tools in an unprincipled scheme. Here’s how the racket works: German plumbers and New York waitresses pay taxes. Their respective governments contribute some of that money to the IMF, the World Bank and an alphabet soup of other outfits. Those groups funnel money to nations with corrupt politicians…..

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The U.S. pours billions of dollars each year into the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) – a fair amount of which supports global corruption… and monetary support for America’s enemies.

If the U.S. can take U.S. citizens’ hard-earned tax dollars and ‘firehose’ it out in such a manner, then U.S. citizens absolutely deserve equal access to the same liquidity transfusions.

It is time to grant U.S. citizens that access.

The inspiration for The Leviticus 25 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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2520)

A look back: Bank of America and the ‘fleecing’ of the American public, Part 1

Bank of America – and the magical money trail

The following is one part … of one story … of one very large U.S. bank – and how the American public got ‘fleeced’ in the bailout process.  Financial oligarchs received some very special treatment at the expense of American taxpayers.

The money trail outlined below should provide all the justification anyone might ever need for why American citizens deserve the same direct access to ‘liquidity’ that many of the major (domestic and foreign) ‘commercials’ received.

And here is “The big fleecing, Part 1:”

From the book, Bailout Nation [Excerpts] –         

Bank of America – the money trail

June 2005:  Bank of America takes a 9 percent stake in China Construction Bank for $3 billion; china’s market tops out in 2008 and then plummets 72 percent.

January 2006: Bank of America acquires MBNA for $35 billion. The world’s largest issuer of issuer of credit cards is taken over right before the world’s largest credit crunch occurs, and (whoops) just before the worst postwar recession begins.

August 2007:  Bank of America invests $2 billion in Countrywide Financial, the nation’s biggest mortgage lender and loan servicer.  It is a jumbo loser, dropping 57 percent in a few months’ time.

January 2008: Bank of America doubles down and announces a $4.1 billion acquisition of Countrywide.  The timing is flawless, and the purchase is announced as the worst housing collapse in modern history is accelerating.

September 2008:  Bank of America pays $50 billion for Merrill Lynch, including Merrill’s portfolio of toxic assets (along with some previously unannounced trading desk errors).

Note:  On February 20, 2009, Bank of America’s stock hit a low of $2.53.  Before the Countrywide acquisition went bust, Bank of America’s stock was at $52 (October 2007).

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August 2011                                                                                

“The Fed’s Secret Liquidity Lifelines”

Bloomberg – August 22, 2011

“Bank of America Corp., which got two rounds of U.S. Treasury Department capital injections totaling $45 billion to stay afloat during the credit crisis, borrowed twice that amount in secret from the Federal Reserve. On Feb. 26, 2009, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank held $78 billion of loans from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility, $8.65 billion from the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, $4.75 billion from the Term Securities Lending Facility. The financing helped bolster the largest U.S. bank by assets as investors worried its 2008 acquisitions of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Countrywide Financial Corp. might lead to nationalization.”

Bank of America Corp.  

Peak Amount of Debt on 2/26/2009:  $91.04B   

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August 2011: “Bank of America’s back-door TARP”  

CNN Money –  August 20, 2011 by Abigail Field, contributor

[Excerpts]:

FORTUNE — Taxpayers may not realize it, but they just bailed out Bank of America again, this time to the tune of more than a half billion dollars.

The Charlotte, NC-based bank was one of the biggest recipients of bailout funds during the financial crisis. But Bank of America (BAC) continues to face deep problems related to its troubled mortgage portfolio and investors have battered the stock, which has plunged over 40% so far this year…. the federal government is determined to resurrect BofA: the Wall Street Journal reports the feds have just used Fannie Mae, which is controlled by the U.S. government, to infuse BofA with $500 million and ease one of the bank’s biggest headaches.

According to the WSJ, Fannie Mae spent $500 million to buy the servicing rights to a big chunk of the “seven million loans still causing the most problems.”  Although the $500 million is a paper loss to BofA, in that the rights were “originally worth more,” it looks like BofA is still getting a good deal because the portfolio’s “value is expected to deteriorate further.”

In fact, the deal is worth much more than $500 million to BofA, because getting rid of those servicing rights lifts a huge cost burden off BofA’s shoulders. And if securitized loans are involved, which they most likely are, the sale also limits the BofA’s potential liability to investors for its current servicing violations. Finally, the $500 million is surely more than the servicing rights are worth in an arms-length transaction. How do we know? Beyond the comment that the loans are expected to “deteriorate further,” the goal of the intervention can only be to fix Bank of America’s capital structure, which is easier for the government to do if it overpays for the rights.

In short, purchasing these servicing rights was another Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Servicing defaulted loans can be good business if cheaply produced foreclosure paperwork isn’t questioned, and if the foreclosures have equity and can be resold easily with lots of junk fees. But the mortgage servicing rights Fannie Mae bought are stinkers: they have a 13% delinquency rate, which means lots of foreclosures and loan modifications.

But the loans Fannie Mae now has to deal with are even worse than 13% delinquency rate suggests. According to the WSJ, “more than half of the loans are in troubled U.S. real-estate markets.” This likely means markets where a high percentage of the houses are underwater and there’s a huge oversupply, driving prices down further and making defaults more likely.

Fannie Mae is purchasing “the servicing rights in order to transfer the day-to-day management of those loans to a different company.” That’s another huge sign that Fannie Mae is overpaying. If the rights were really worth $500 million, wouldn’t a private company pay that for them? Instead, it sounds like Fannie Mae is doing a bailout two-step, one to BofA and one to whomever takes these rights off Fannie Mae’s hands.

Another thing needs to become clear: where did Fannie Mae get the money to do BofA the favor of buying these rights? Fannie Mae just asked for another bailout of its own, seeking a new $5.1 billion infusion last week.

Think about how good this deal is for BofA: it gets to stop the bleeding, or at least cauterize much of the wound in its balance sheet that lousy mortgage servicing rights and mortgage securities liabilities are creating. And it gets half a billion dollars to boot.

And taxpayers? Well, we get to own yet another good chunk of BofA’s mess.

Full article:  http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/10/bank-of-americas-back-door-tarp/

February 2012  Bank of America Fined $1 Billion for Mortgage Fraud

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The Leviticus 25 Plan offers a U.S. “Citizens Credit Facility” – to provide for direct credit extensions to American families.

American citizens deserve precisely the same access to direct liquidity extensions that dozens of major banks, such as Bank of America, received.  And nothing less.

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 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2516)

 

 

Central Banks ‘printing,’ nationalizing economies. Danger ahead. America’s ‘powerhouse’ rescue strategy: The Leviticus 25 Plan

Central Bank debt-based monetary measures are leading global economies toward an eventual fiat currency grand cliff-dive..

We are getting ‘set up’ for a catastrophic collapse… but there is a powerful corrective action to change everything…

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Are Central Banks Nationalising the Economy?

Mises Institute – 08/24/2017 – Daniel Lacalle

The FT recently ran an article that states that “leading central banks now own a fifth of their governments’ total debt.”

The figures are staggering.

  • Without any recession or crisis, major central banks are purchasing more than $200 billion a month in government and private debt, led by the ECB and the Bank of Japan.
  • The Federal Reserve owns more than 14% of the US total public debt.
  • The ECB and BOJ balance sheets exceed 35% and 70% of their GDP.
  • The Bank of Japan is now a top 10 shareholder in 90% of the Nikkei.
  • The ECB owns 9.2% of the European corporate bond market and more than 10% of the main European countries’ total sovereign debt.
  • The Bank of England owns between 25% and 30% of the UK’s sovereign debt.

A recent report by Nick Smith, an analyst at CLSA, warns of what he calls ”the nationalization of the secondary market.”

The Bank of Japan, with its ultra-expansionary policy, which only expands its balance sheet, is on course to become the largest shareholder of the Nikkei 225’s largest companies. In fact, the Japanese central bank already accounts for 60% of the ETFs market (Exchange traded funds) in Japan.

What can go wrong? Overall, the central bank not only generates greater imbalances and a poor result in a “zombified” economy as the extremely loose policies perpetuate imbalances, weaken money velocity, and incentivize debt and malinvestment.

Believing that this policy is harmless because “there is no inflation” and unemployment is low is dangerous. The government issues massive amounts of debt and cheap money promotes overcapacity and poor capital allocation. As such, productivity growth collapses, real wages fall and purchasing power of currencies fall, driving the real cost of living up and debt to grow more than real GDP. That is why, as we have shown in previous articles, total debt has soared to 325% of GDP while zombie companies reach crisis-high levels, according to the Bank of International Settlements.

Government-issued liabilities monetized by the central bank are not high-quality assets, they are an IOU that is transferred to the next generations, and it will be repaid in three ways: with massive inflation, with a series of financial crises, or with large unemployment. Currency purchasing power destruction is not a growth policy, it is stealing from future generations. The “placebo” effect of spending today the Net Present Value of those IOUs means that, as GDP, productivity and real disposable income do not improve, at least as much as the debt issued, we are creating a time bomb of economic imbalances that only grows and will explode sometime in the future. The fact that the evident ball of risk is delayed another year does not mean that it does not exist.

The government is not issuing “productive money” just a promise of higher revenues from higher taxes, higher prices or confiscation of wealth in the future. Money supply growth is a loan that government borrows but we, citizens, pay. The payment comes with the destruction of purchasing power and confiscation of wealth via devaluation and inflation. The “wealth effect” of stocks and bonds rising is in-existent for the vast majority of citizens, as more than 90% of average household wealth is in deposits.

In fact, massive monetization of debt is just a way of perpetuating and strengthening the crowding-out effect of the public sector over the private sector. It is a de facto nationalization. Because the central bank does not go “bankrupt,” it just transfers its financial imbalances to private banks, businesses, and families.

[snip]

No wonder that government spending to GDP is now almost 40% in the OECD and rising, the tax burden is at all-time highs and public debt soars.

Monetization is a perfect system to nationalize the economy passing all the risks of excess spending and imbalances to taxpayers. And it always ends badly. Because two plus two does not equal twenty-two. As we tax the productive to perpetuate and subsidize the unproductive, the impact on purchasing power and wealth destruction is exponential.

To believe that this time will be different and governments will spend all that massive “very expensive free money” wisely is simply delusional. The government has all the incentives to overspend as its goal is to maximize budget and increase bureaucracy as means of power. It also has all the incentives to blame its mistakes on an external enemy. Governments always blame someone else for their mistakes. Who lowers rates from 10% to 1%? Governments and central banks. Who is blamed for taking “excessive risk” when it explodes? You and me. Who increases money supply, demands “credit flow,” and imposes financial repression because “savings are too high”? Governments and central banks. Who is blamed when it explodes? Banks for “reckless lending” and “de-regulation”.

Originally published at DLacalle.com

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It is time to end this big government central-planning madness, and put U.S. citizens back in charge of personally allocating their own  financial resources.

The Leviticus 25 Plan will restore economic liberty, eliminate massive amounts of debt burdening citizens, generate $1.02 trillion federal budget surpluses, solve the entitlement crisis and permanently downscale dependence on government, re-ignite powerful economic growth… and engender financial stability and social blessings all across America.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2508)

U.S. Banks – $222 trillion in derivatives underwriting / hedging. What could possibly go wrong?

U.S. banks are up to their eyeballs in financial derivatives…

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 Financial Weapons Of Mass Destruction: Top 25 US Banks Have 222 Trillion Dollars Derivatives Exposure             ZeroHedge, May 17, 2017  Excerpts:

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The recklessness of the “too big to fail” banks almost doomed them the last time around, but apparently they still haven’t learned from their past mistakes.  Today, the top 25 U.S. banks have 222 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives. 

As long as stock prices continue to rise and the U.S. economy stays fairly stable, these extremely risky financial weapons of mass destruction will probably not take down our entire financial system.  But someday another major crisis will inevitably happen, and when that day arrives the devastation that these financial instruments will cause will be absolutely unprecedented.

During the great financial crisis of 2008, derivatives played a starring role, and U.S. taxpayers were forced to step in and bail out companies such as AIG that were on the verge of collapse because the risks that they took were just too great.

The following numbers regarding exposure to derivatives contracts come directly from the OCC’s most recent quarterly report (see Table 2), and as you can see the level of recklessness that we are currently witnessing is more than just a little bit alarming…

Citigroup – Total Assets: $1,792,077,000,000 (slightly less than 1.8 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $47,092,584,000,000 (more than 47 trillion dollars)

JPMorgan Chase  – Total Assets: $2,490,972,000,000 (just under 2.5 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $46,992,293,000,000 (nearly 47 trillion dollars)

Goldman Sachs  – Total Assets: $860,185,000,000 (less than a trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $41,227,878,000,000 (more than 41 trillion dollars)

Bank Of America  – Total Assets: $2,189,266,000,000 (a little bit more than 2.1 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $33,132,582,000,000 (more than 33 trillion dollars)

Morgan Stanley  – Total Assets: $814,949,000,000 (less than a trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $28,569,553,000,000 (more than 28 trillion dollars)

Wells Fargo  – Total Assets: $1,930,115,000,000 (more than 1.9 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $7,098,952,000,000 (more than 7 trillion dollars)

Collectively, the top 25 banks have a total of 222 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

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Note – The system is only as strong as the weakest link(s). And when one or more of the under-reserved counterparties fails, things can, and will, unravel.

And then Central Banks will again open up the liquidity transfusion channels for another massive bailout for the global financial industry. And ordinary ‘citizens’ across the globe will ultimately pay – for the inevitable degrading of the fiat currency system.

It is time to enact a preventative economic ‘back-fire’ event with a massive, ground-level debt elimination plan.  It is time to grant U.S. citizens the same direct access to liquidity that was provided to Wall Street’s financial sector during the last great financial crisis.

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 –  $75,000 per U.S. citizen

The Leviticus 25 Plan 2018 (2488)