Video - Dylan Ratigan with Bill Fleckenstein - Feb. 3, 2011
At the National Press Club yesterday, Bernanke was asked if Fed money-printing is causing unrest in Egypt, Tunisia and other nations, by spiking commodity and food prices. Bernanke denied it, but we know his history with telling the truth. The correct answer, as Karl Denninger and others have pointed out, is YES.
Bill Fleckenstein largely agrees, telling Ratigan:
- Money printing correlates quite well to rise in commodity prices, but not precisely
- When you "print money out of thin air", you don't know where it will go
- Printing money turns the average person into a speculator (think Chinese farmers buying copper)
- 80% of money in countries like Egypt goes to buying food (and that's for the lucky ones who have jobs)
- 40% of political donations in the U.S. comes from giant banks ... so the banks own Washington
- The Fed won't ever face it's mistakes, and always just wants to print more money
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Further reading...
The Egyptian Tinderbox: How Banks and Investors Are Starving the Third World
Underlying the sudden, volatile uprising in Egypt and Tunisia is a growing global crisis sparked by soaring food prices and unemployment. The Associated Press reports that roughly 40 percent of Egyptians struggle along at the World Bank-set poverty level of under $2 per day. Analysts estimate that food price inflation in Egypt is currently at an unsustainable 17 percent yearly. In poorer countries, as much as 60 to 80 percent of people's incomes go for food, compared to just 10 to 20 percent in industrial countries. An increase of a dollar or so in the cost of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread for Americans can mean starvation for people in Egypt and other poor countries.
http://www.truth-out.org/the-egyptian-tinderbox-how-banks-and-investors-are-starving-third-world67424
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Essential Resources: The Final Bubble?
As the riots spread like a plague from Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, now to Mexico and South America, soon to Europe and beyond, the thundering chorus of confusion reigns supreme. We are told that these situations are “politically unsustainable” and require regime change, “peacefully and immediately” but the details and the root causes are conspicuously omitted.
You are witnessing the progression of speculation-fueled global inflation in the realm of commodities: real world essential resources in a collapsing system of paper-based valuation. And that speculation is being fueled by none other than Bernanke’s collapsing paper, as he pumps massive waves of betting chips into the global casino engine.
So the root cause of riots and unrest can be traced back to the activity of the FED and its impact on global essential resources.
Continue reading...
http://letthemfail.us/archives/7339
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