[alokin]

Do you believe that the financial crash is planned to mask the decline of the oil production?
Here's what Mike Ruppert thinks: Ruppert It sounds logical, but it's a conspiracy theory more and there are lots around.

Another thought is that there might be lots of conspiracies, but these often don't turn out like planned. Take 9/ 11, how many people really believe in the official story? (well too much) But what will happen if the American people now find out what really had happened? OR did they really plan that the Congress vote against the plan? (if it was one)

[dukey]

Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no," and also drew ominous parallels to the development of the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union.

Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.

Speaking on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones radio show, Stiglitz defined the process of globalization as a system that was "rigged against the poor countries, rigged for the advanced industrial countries - the result of that is there were an awful lot of losers."

prisonplanet

Yes it was planned.

[CarlosFerreira]

No. I cam believe if you tell me human nature is to run all the way down the cliff. I don't believe this kind of "preparedness" to the crisis.

[RdSnt]

The conspiracy theory reasoning is almost always way to complicated to execute successfully.
I would suggest it is much closer to Naomi Kleins "Disaster Capitalism", whereby those at an elite level, with the resources and access, take advantage of events. They will take actions to "encourage" a particular direction, or in the case of 9/11 take no action, to shift events to their advantage.
Conspiracy theories require too much precision, whereas in reality the elite doesn't need that to take advantage. They wish to stay on top, that doesn't require that they stay in control.
Once a certain direction has been established, both momentum and inertia work in their favour.

[sittinguy]

No I don't think it was planned but they will ride the wave

[Roccland]

The conspiracy theory reasoning is almost always way to complicated to execute successfully.

Not really...
1) create a new pearl harbor - check

2) drops interest rates to 1% - check

3) loan money to those who can't pay and give them 3-5 years to prove it - check (ARMs were typically 3-5 year fuzes).

4) leverage this bad debt 80:1 check

Here's the kicker and my thesis...this collapse was set to occur precisley when PO hit. See PO was to usher in economic collapse anyway.

If you are king of the word...you would do this on your terms. And "they" have.

[CarlosFerreira]

The conspiracy theory reasoning is almost always way to complicated to execute successfully.
I would suggest it is much closer to Naomi Kleins "Disaster Capitalism", whereby those at an elite level, with the resources and access, take advantage of events. They will take actions to "encourage" a particular direction, or in the case of 9/11 take no action, to shift events to their advantage.
Conspiracy theories require too much precision, whereas in reality the elite doesn't need that to take advantage. They wish to stay on top, that doesn't require that they stay in control.
Once a certain direction has been established, both momentum and inertia work in their favour.

Brilliantly put. 100% agree.

[aggie]

Was the crash planned? No, but they didn't have to plan it. They only had to market never ending consumerism, and the average person fell for it.

[IslandCrow]

It seems that some people here have replaced God with a shadowy group of banking families as the omnipotent power governing the world.

We all know that pyramid schemes only last so long before they crash, and we are now in the crash. We know that bubbles burst, and now it is bursting.

No I don't think it was planned by a shadowy group of banking families.

[shakespear1]

For at least 4-3 years there has been enough data and discussion on PO and other sites to suggest that a Huge Mess was heading our way:
1) Derivative Instruments and lack of control over this financial business
2) US saving rate ( clearly seen heading in the negzative direction )
3) FED eliminating M3
4) Bankruptcy laws changed in the US
5) Carry Trade games needed to unwind with plenty of losers
etc.

It was there to be seen that the underpinnings were weak

[kpeavey]

It may not be planned, but it was projected, expected, planned for, and has always been unstoppable.
What we are seeing is contingency plans being put into effect at all sorts of levels, with governments, businesses, and individuals each doing what is best. Some plans ease the impact, some take advantage of expected problems and opportunity, some try to steer the ship as it washes out with the tide.

[mark]

If you've read John Perkins book, this looks mighty suspicious.

In the '60's the US began purposely indebting countries so as to have leverage over them to bend them to their will. The club to effect such control was debt; anyone else see the parallel?

With the people in debt, a slave to consumerism, dumbed down by frivolous media, education, politics and culture, how easy would it be for the PTB to maintain control down the energy deficit slide?

Read Greenspan's thoughts on gold and the dollar back in the early part of his career; seems someone got to him when he became Fed head.

I've learned that things are never the way they seem, especially near the end of a paradigm cycle.

[shortonsense]

Do you believe that the financial crash is planned to mask the decline of the oil production? Here's what Mike Ruppert thinks:

Ruppert thought peak oil happened in 2000. And that the country would disintergrate after Katrina. And then he fled the country and promised never to come back.

Except he got a tummy ache and came back. What a liar.

Referencing the easter bunny, Sanata Claus or Jesus has more credibility than that guy.

[dohboi]

What surprised me was how short and simple the original Paulson bailout plan was.

If they really wanted to pull a fast one, why didn't they make it long and complex like the Patriot Act so that all those busy (and lazy in some cases) legislators wouldn't bother to read it and would just pass it on trust and fear.

Either they thought they would be able to push this through easily because people would be so frightened by prospects of a global financial meltdown, or they are starting to get a bit lazy and sloppy themselves. Or maybe they didn't think things would come apart this fast this soon.

As Klein and others point out, they don't have to plan the collapse to take advantage of it. But you do have to have a plan ready to push through. They seem to have fallen down a bit on that second part this time.

[Ferretlover]

Do you believe that the crash is planned?

-Possible? Yes. The scariest part of this situation is that, with competent ethical management, it should not been allowed to happen.
-Probable? Unknown. Way too many people and companies trying to further their own agendas, and I don't have enough truthful, factual information to make an accurate decision.

[RdSnt]

Actually, I believe Paulson and crew framed the original plan deliberately to hurde Congress. It was such an obvious power play that the legislators could not possibly let it pass.
Thus, all the legislators have their fingerprints on this and all are now on the hook.

The elite can always take advantage, no matter which way the wind blows. They have insider information and plenty of resources, including control over all your money. You include leveraging in that and any fraction of a percent swing will mean millions and billions to them.

Consider Warren Buffet, he's not a genius at all. He may have worked hard to accumulate his initial fortune, but now he's personally worth 50 billion dollars. Putting 5 billion in a bank puts him in absolutely no personal risk at all.

What surprised me was how short and simple the original Paulson bailout plan was.

If they really wanted to pull a fast one, why didn't they make it long and complex like the Patriot Act so that all those busy (and lazy in some cases) legislators wouldn't bother to read it and would just pass it on trust and fear.

Either they thought they would be able to push this through easily because people would be so frightened by prospects of a global financial meltdown, or they are starting to get a bit lazy and sloppy themselves. Or maybe they didn't think things would come apart this fast this soon.

As Klein and others point out, they don't have to plan the collapse to take advantage of it. But you do have to have a plan ready to push through. They seem to have fallen down a bit on that second part this time.

[lawnchair]

On a more immediate note, it should be noted how effectively the bailout drama and politics (Palin) have kept the gas shortages in the southeast a regional panic. Had the gas problems been the #1 news story, with analysts all discussing the fact that gasoline stockpiles are at their lowest point in 40 years, we could be having a run on the pumps.

Slow crash versus sudden one.

[oswald622]

the current financial meltdown was certainly planned, but it's only in its beginning stages - the dollar is still alive for now. for the last half a dozen years, expert after expert, author after author, has come out saying, 'oooh, big shit is coming down the pike - this cannot be sustained.' it was predicted well in advance by insiders and outsiders alike. everyone at PO knew that this was just a matter of time.

so this huge crisis is coming, and what kind of policy do we see? anything to exacerbate the problem - tax cuts, stimulus checks, rampant corruption and waste, two massive war efforts, a huge new homeland security bureaucracy, bailout after bailout, one liquidity injection after another...

and this, coming from the group that did the same thing in the reagan years, the same group that says out of both sides of its mouth - 'deficits don't matter' and 'we want to drown government in a bathtub of debt'.

this does look quite a lot like what perkins and stiglitz have talked about, it looks a lot like argentina, and in fact it looks quite a lot like 9.11.

IMHO, the point of this mess is to set up a new world financial system. out of chaos, order.

it kind of comes down to the age-old conspiracy conundrum: are these folks staggeringly incompetent (yet smart enough to attain office, consolidate power, and implement their policies), or are they actually doing this on purpose?

as for the 'complexity' argument - e.g. XYZ is too complex, it requires too much information and too much power, there's too much uncertainty for a plan like that to work -

when you look at the molecules of a gas, from one perspective, you see utter chaos. there are millions and billions of little particles zipping around and you have no idea what any one of them is going to do next. way too complex to predict their behavior!

but zoom out a little, and isolate the relevant variables, and all of a sudden you find you can manipulate the lot of them, simply by knowing what kind of particles they are, how many there are, what kind of pressure they're under, and what the temperature is!

don't you think that, by this point in time, the manipulation of populations has been figured out with similar precision?

[aflurry]

The conspiracy theory reasoning is almost always way to complicated to execute successfully.

Not really...
1) create a new pearl harbor - check

2) drops interest rates to 1% - check

3) loan money to those who can't pay and give them 3-5 years to prove it - check (ARMs were typically 3-5 year fuzes).

4) leverage this bad debt 80:1 check

Here's the kicker and my thesis...this collapse was set to occur precisley when PO hit. See PO was to usher in economic collapse anyway.

If you are king of the word...you would do this on your terms. And "they" have.

Meh.

I feel like Occam's Razor cuts this kind of thing to shreds. Here's a simple premise that explains everything. We have all been living beyond our means since the Reagan Revolution and "morning in America."

That was the day we all created the Matrix, to use an analogy people here enjoy. And chose to believe in the divine market and wealth through optimism, rather than to put on the cardigan sweater of real-life like Carter fricking asked us to.

Yes. It is directly tied into Peak Oil, because that fundamentally defines what "our means" means. It is no accident that morning in America occurred at precisely the same time as the production curve went convex: still rising, but every day at a slower rate. Reagan was swept in on a peevish adolescent, "screw you mom and dad! you can't make me get a job. i'm just gonna follow the Dead around and live on miracles." Actually, very much like that because it was those very same Dead following boomers who after highjacking the honorable tradition of hard-working social liberalism and turning it into a dreadlocked key party circus, turned easily into single issue Golem voters.... "hiss... my precious taxeses...."

Yes. The current financial meltdown was inevitable, but that's different from saying it was planned. The complexities of debt derivatives are all designed to achieve the same goal which is to sequester return from risk for some temporal window of opportunity. A by-product of the common and increasing usage of these things is a generalized increase in leverage, AKA, reduction of savings, AKA, living beyond our means, AKA, using more energy than we are creating or finding.

Why build some story about planned events when it's all just logical. The market collapse isn't manufactured lto "mask" peak oil. It IS peak oil. And the fact that it arrives at exactly the same time as peak production need not have been planned to have been necessary, in fact it is mathematically necessary.

increases in economic leverage fundamentally require increases in energy input. if the energy increase is slow, you can always double down on leverage to create economic expansion. but as soon as the increase in energy stalls at zero, you can multiply that zero as many times as you want, and still get zero.

i think people on this board put far too much emphasis on the meaning of this bailout as a public event. the difference between "public" and "private" money is so arbitrary right now. We collectively agreed to live this way, publicly, by the politicians we put in office and the dances we made them do, privately by the unsupportable ways we've lived.

someone here posted this faux-pithy quotable that "taxes are just one group of people stealing from another group." i think he should go one step further and say, ala Pierre Joseph Prouhon "property is theft." We are all responsible for this. The Republicans led the charge, and then the Democrats kowtowed so they wouldn't go the way of the Whigs...

But we all invented those parties and we will be the ones to pay back the debt whether it is done through public bailout or private catastrophe. That doesn't matter hardly at all, and it's so anachronictic to read all you creepy "i was right all along" junky so-called libertarians jumping up and down about this thing like it makes a bit of difference at all.

they are just the leftover whiners who want to shirk their part in shouldering the debt. i'm not going to go down the path of arguing that you were as responsible for it as any other breathing person, and that the benefits you enjoyed include the fact that in all likelihood you have so far not been robbed of your meager yearly crop of rutabegas. i'm just saying, man, it doesn't matter if you were personally responsible. sometimes you just have to sacrifice and pay up for things you didn't break. so grow up and help out.

[Pops]

It may not be planned, but it was projected, expected, planned for, and has always been unstoppable.

I agree.

My question is why all the talk about who planned it and not about what you have been doing to keep from it affecting you till now, even more to the point; what you are doing now?