Commentary
The last Thanksgiving before GD2?
By David Chu
Online Journal Guest Writer


Nov 27, 2008, 00:16

Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Enjoy this wonderful family and friends celebration while you still can.

Because around the corner lurks GD2. More about this vile monster later.

Thanksgiving, U.S.A.

I remember fondly the Thanksgivings I used to spend with the Catholic family of my ex-wife in Southern California. I only mentioned that they are Catholic to emphasis that these festive celebrations were large gatherings. They usually took place either in Anaheim where her parents lived or in Orange where her uncle and aunt lived.

Thanksgiving in southern California is a special time. Weather is not cold as it is in most parts of the U.S. There is no snow on the ground. It feels more like a late summer than an early winter.

Usually, there would be almost 40 family members including a lot of grown-up kids and grandkids. The beloved matriarch who held this family together is an incredible lady whose first name is Gloria, having been born on Easter day in 1924. Gloria was one of these rare ladies whose refined manners and compassion could straighten out any delinquent and stray youth, and she did do that during her teaching days at a community college in Anaheim.

Even though I didn�t make it to her funeral (she passed away in 2005 after many years of courageously fighting a rare and painful lung disease), I respect this woman and consider her to be a true saint who touched the lives of many including mine. Because if there was ever an unassuming, flesh-and-blood saint that I have met in this lifetime, Gloria would be that one!

So I dedicate this �prescient� article on this Thanksgiving 2008 to �Lady Gloria.� (I think she would want you to know what is about to happen from her vantage point. She can certainly see it much better from up there!)

What the heck is GD2?

Simply, �Great Depression 2.�

But as the famous physicist, Neil Bohr, once remarked, �Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.�

However, just because something is difficult does not mean that we shouldn�t try to get a handle on it, especially on something dire that concerns our future, or attempt to read the �handwriting on the wall� to use an old Biblical expression.

Using my long ago analogy by calling the ship of state (financial and economic affairs) of the U.S. as the U.S.S. Titanic, America has already scrapped that massive iceberg: there is a huge gaping hole on the starboard side of the U.S.S. Titanic!

The U.S.S. Titanic encountered this iceberg during the week of October 6, 2008. Everything that happens afterwards and in the immediate days, weeks, months, and even years following is just governments and their corrupt, criminal fiends on Wall Street and elsewhere going through the motions. Like the band that kept playing aboard the real R.M.S. Titanic, the politicians and the �captains of industry� will paint a bright and rosy picture for the third-class passengers aboard the U.S.S. Titanic, while they all don on their financial life jackets and run like hell for the very few financial lifeboats!

What do you think the $850 billion TARP (�Troubled Asset Recovery Program�) was for?

Then visualize life jackets embossed with the letters �TARP� on the back!

Buried in a report from Biz.yahoo.com on November 12 titled �Stocks plunge for third straight session� was the following incredible statement: �According to the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 index [which reflects the value of almost all U.S. stocks], Wednesday�s [November 12] paper losses amounted to about $600 billion. By that measure, the [U.S.] stock market has shed $9.1 trillion since the index�s Oct. 9, 2007, peak.� The bolded emphasis in mine. The Dow Industrial Average or Dow, which is comprised of 30 �blue chip� stocks, closed out at 8,262 on November 12, and was at 8,046 at the close on November 21, so the estimate of $9.1 trillion of financial losses since October 9 is a pretty close guess, if not a conservative one.

More than $9 trillion has been wiped out since October 9, 2008!

Last year around this time, Citigroup, one of the few mega insider banks still left standing (well at least as of when this article was being written on Sunday, October 23), was worth around $180 billion, but by last Friday (October 21) it was valued only around $21 billion. A momentous loss of almost 90 percent! And Citigroup recently announced that it was going to kill over 50,000 jobs. Looks like that number might be wishful thinking.

I call this phenomenal with what�s happening to Citigroup and all the rest of the insider banks and many of the Fortune 500 companies, the �Bear Sterns Syndrome,� as the following stock chart for Bear Stearns shows graphically what happens when a company suddenly falls into the financial gutter and just dies:

See Bear Sterns Chart.

Take a look at Citigroup�s chart over a 12-months period:

See Citigroup Chart.

Here is General Motors�s chart over a 2-year period (What is that saying? As GM goes, so does . . . ?):

See GM Chart.

And finally the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Dow over a 12-months period:

See Dow Chart.

Ten thousand words, 30 reasons, and one final shoe

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The above fotos should qualify for at least ten thousands!

But if you still can�t get your thinking wrapped around the fact that we are headed for a great depression the likes of which no man or woman has ever experience in history, perhaps Paul B. Farrell�s article called �30 Reasons for Great Depression 2 by 2011� might provide you with that sobering, wake-up, cold shower.

This is one more, the elephant standing in the room that only a very few are talking about. The final shoe that will drop concerns the very likely great bond collapse in 2009.

Blogger �rich2010� probably wrote the best warning about this in Depression2.tv on November 21. His post is called �What�s The Next Big Thing For 2009?� and he talks about how the U.S. has been able to finance its trillions of dollars of debt without having to print all the money to do so (bolded emphasis is mine):

The Federal Reserve created $1 Trillion USD from 1913 until Sept 18, 2008 since then they have created another 1 Trillion in two months and are on track to create another 1 Trillion before the end of 2008. All of this debt has to be sold into the bond market in 2009 which frankly I doubt can happen.

About five years back I began scrutinizing US T-bill holdings. Three years ago to my great surprise it appeared that both China and Japan had stopped accumulating US debt. Out of nowhere came a new category of buyers referred to as �Carribean Banks� [sic]. My understanding is that this is a nice euphemism for FED-owned hedge funds who serve as a shill buyer to keep up the appearance of demand for US debt. This practice represents monetarization of US debt. Simply put, the money gets printed in the absence of a real live bond buyer.

In the years since Richard Nixon closed the FED�s gold window in 1971 the US government has convinced foreigners to accept more bonds to roll over the debt, and more bonds in �payment� of the interest owed. The question is what happens when the foreigners want to be paid in something other than more US debt. This tipping point should usher in the Great Bond Market Collapse of 2009. Most writers worth reading identify this as a signal of the coming hyperinflation.

I came to the exact same conclusion when I saw this data in mid 2005 that the U.S. was buying some of its own debt through the secretive hedge funds located in the Caribbeans including the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, and Panama. But I also concluded that the U.K. was lending a helping hand through the British hedge funds located in the Channel Islands and Isle of Man: their numbers are all lumped into those of the U.K.�s purchases of U.S. Treasuries.

To be 100 percent clear: the United States of America is buying its own debt--the U.S. Treasuries or bonds that it dumps to the world to finance all the trillions of dollars of deficit spending--with its fake money through the secretive hedge funds it controls in the Caribbeans.

When this colossal financial con game is up, i.e., when the world learns about this and stops buying U.S. debt and starts to unload the U.S. bonds that they are currently holding (of the $1.82 trillion total of U.S. Treasuries outstanding at the end of September, 2008, China holds $585.0 billion, Japan holds 573.2 billion, U.K. holds 338.4 billion, �Caribbean Banking Centers� hold 185.3 billion, �Oil Exporters� hold 182.2 billion, and Brasil holds $141.9 billion), the U.S. will be forced to resort to printing all the money to buy its own debt, and hyperinflation like that of Weimar Germany in the 1920s will result.

The master of trends

Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute is a master of trend forecasting with a proven track record. He has literally appeared on every television and radio program in the U.S. So accurate are his forecasts that CNN Headline News had this to say, �When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente.�

The Wall Street Journal, not to be outdone, said this about his institute, �Those who take their predictions seriously . . . consider the Trends Research Institute.�

Mr. Celente successfully predicted the 1997 Asian currency crisis, the current subprime mortgage mess, the collapse of the Dot Com bubble to within one month of when it happened, the ensuing quagmire of the Iraq War (before the war started), and the �Panic of 2008� in November, 2007.

He had the following to say on the Jeff Rense Radio Program recently. I am paraphrasing the gist of his warning concerning the huge difference and severity between the Great Depression of the 1930s and GD2 (�the deepest depression that we have ever seen in living times�): why this time around, it is a lot worse.

Back then, most people did not own homes. There were no such things as home equity loans. If you has a second mortgage, you were considered a loser.

Back then, people didn�t have credit cards.

Back then, they weren�t $14 trillion in debt.

Back then, the U.S. had trade surpluses, not $700 billion trade deficits each year.

Back then, the U.S. wasn�t fighting two losing wars that cost already over $2 trillion.

Back then, the U.S. wasn�t running budget deficits approaching $1 trillion each year.

Back then, when the U.S. did get out of the depression with WW II, there was a manufacturing base to build the U.S. out.

And back then, people did not see their entire life savings eaten up in their worthless IRAs and 401k�s.

Enjoy Thanksgiving 2008

To provide further evidence, as if the evidence given above and from what you can glean from the corporate mass media are not sufficient, as to the extreme dire straits that is facing the U.S. and the very likelihood of GD2 occurring very soon, I have taken liberty to include an extensive excerpt from my ebook, NO Foreclosures!, that was written in July 2008 (I have also taken the license to forgo most of the footnotes that are included in the ebook). As you probably will realize after reading this excerpt, that even in the short 3 or 4 months since those words were written, with the exception of the temporary rise of the USD and the temporary drop in gas and food prices, everything else have accelerated for the worse.

So America, on this Thanksgiving 2008 which may be the last one before GD2 becomes a cold reality, I have one suggestion:

Be grateful.

That you are still living in your homes. For those who lost their homes, be grateful that you have a roof over your head.

That the banks have not declared �bank holidays� like they did in Argentina and stole all their savings overnight.

That you still have food on the table and a big juice turkey to boot!

That you still have your good health, and family and friends to celebrate this Thanksgiving.

That there is peace and quiet on your streets, and your crime is not out of control as it is in many so-called Third World countries.

That your USD is still worth something.

That countries like China, Japan and others from the Middle East are still willing to hold and even buy your worthless government bonds called U.S. Treasuries. Otherwise, your country would go straight to bankruptcy like another Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

That there is no war on your soils--yet. Maybe be so grateful that you would say a prayer or two for the Afghans and Iraqis who are not so lucky.

That there is still time to get some storage or survival food--at least 3 months worth for each member of your family.*

That there is still time to buy and take physical possession of some gold and silver bullion coins to safeguard your life savings.**

That there is still time to get your money out of your losing 401k�s, IRAs, ETFs, stocks, mutual funds, money markets accounts, bonds, variable life insurance policies, and all the rest of the paper investments.

And, in conclusion, as one of my American friends emailed me last week:

May your stuffing be tasty. May your turkey be plump.

May your potatoes �n gravy have nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious. May your pies take the prize.

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs. 

MAY YOU ALL HAVE A BLESSED THANKSGIVING!