I am no expert but I can see a distinction between the Bill Still camp, the Ron Paul camp, and the Lyndon LaRouche camp on monetary reform and central banking. This difference seems to be the crux of the "national bank" debate we see citing the Federal Reserve as the root of all monetary evil in the United States - an opinion which I also hold. Keep in mind that all three of these camps are IGNORED by mainstream media because they are controlled by the big banks.
First, the Bill Still camp supports the end of fractional reserve banking altogether. A good idea so long as there is a transition from our current 10% reserve requirement to 100% that doesn't completely dry up the money supply. Bill Still also supports Ellen Brown and the Public Banking Institute and the notion of State owned banks like that of the Bank of North Dakota. If enough of these banks are put in motion, we could counter the need for the Federal Reserve. I am all for it. He is also for competing currencies and ending the ability for governments to borrow. Both are damn good ideas.
Second, Lyndon LaRouche and his LPAC group support the return of Glass-Steagall, the 1933 act that split the commercial and investment banking arms - a damn good idea since the investment banks are constantly inventing new ponzi schemes for making money, like the current several hundred trillion dollar derivatives market, at least $225 trillion is now held by the big five banks and supposedly covered by the FDIC. If there was another Lehman moment, the derivatives would bankrupt the FDIC.
Third, LaRouche supports the return of a new Bank of the United States, one which is possibly more transparent than the Federal Reserve but still a Federally controlled central bank with fractional reserve banking, not backed by any hard and scarce commodity such as gold or silver. This bank would be owned in part by the US government and the remainder by treasury holders, such as China, Japan, OPEN nations, all the major banks, etc. LaRouche has a completely polar opposite opinion of history as it relates to Andrew Jackson, and Alexander Hamilton. I believe you could refer to him as a Federalist.
Fourth, Ron Paul, primarily from the Austrian school of economics, believes in competing currencies, including the legalization of silver, as it was prior to the crime of 1873, and / or gold as it was before 1933 when we were on a full gold standard. He believes in small government and that the Federal Reserve is suppressing interest rates and creating mal investment, such as the housing bubble, the bond bubble.
There are so many more points that should be debated, live on the Ron Paul Channel or elsewhere in mainstream media. Lauren Lyster, Bob English, Max Keiser, Peter Schiff, Scott Horton, Ben Swann, and others could mediate and broadcast.
This is a big deal. Each of these perspectives believes that the privately held Federal Reserve and its charter members (a subset of its owners) are destroying the global economy. Make no mistake. There is something wicked and nefarious about the Federal Reserve, its just that the opposition is not united, nor do they control the media so they are not heard. 90% of Americans could read this blog post and not have the slightest clue about what I am saying, but all those that are familiar with the "#EndTheFed", "#GlassSteagall", and "#PublicBank" memes are certainly familiar with part of it.
In a separate article here, I argue that Occupy and the TeaParty should unite to fight the big banks and government corruption. This is THE ISSUE we should unite on!
I may be slightly wrong about each of these positions. No doubt I am. However, I am an average American with a Keynsian Economics degree that has spent at least 3 years of intense research on the question of the money supply, macroeconomics, banking, and insurance, and the crimes bankers commit and if I don't get it, it seems unlikely that the general public gets it. Therefore, the public debate is necessary. It would take months if not years to get the distinctions out. Meanwhile, maybe we could awaken, stir up, and unite enough people to make real progress on the problem.
This article appeared in the New York Times this morning. Recognize that the supposed liberal media suggests that Mexico should open up its oil markets to foreign investors, just like it was nearly 100 years ago when Rockefeller's Standard Oil dominated the industry. NAFTA basically opened the door to this move. Just as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) will open the doors to foreign multinationals to plunder the United States even further than it has.
For a glimpse into the future of the United States, we should visit Mexico. 7 years of drug wars waged by the American and Israeli intelligence networks, all working for Big Oil and their Bankers, have destroyed mi querido Mexico.
In Move for Economy, Mexican President Seeks Foreign Investment in Energy By ELISABETH MALKIN August 12, 2013 MEXICO CITY — President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico on Monday, pushing one of the most sweeping economic overhauls here in the past two decades, proposed opening his country’s historically closed energy industry to foreign investment. The president’s plan, which would rewrite two constitutional amendments, challenges a bedrock assumption of Mexico’s national identity — its total sovereignty over its energy resources — by inviting private companies to explore and pump for oil and natural gas. ... Already, Mexico must import almost half its gasoline, mostly from the United States. Mexican companies pay 25 percent more for electricity than competitors in other countries, the government says. Although Mexico has some of the world’s largest reserves of shale gas, it imports one-third of its natural gas. In advancing the plan, Mr. Peña Nieto is making a gamble that the support he has built with opposition parties to make deep changes in education and telecommunications policy will carry over into the debate over energy and a related tax proposal he will send to Congress next month. ... In energy, the divisions are much deeper. In particular, Mexico’s left-wing parties have been adamant that the Constitution’s 75-year-old prohibition on private investment should remain ironclad. From the right, the National Action Party, or PAN, proposed energy reform last month that would go even further than Mr. Peña Nieto to invite in private investment. Public opinion is also suspicious about opening up the industry. A survey last year by CIDE, a Mexico City university, found that 65 percent of the public opposed private investment in Pemex, the state-owned oil monopoly. “The entire energy reform is a potential source of conflict,” said Luis Miguel Labardini, a consultant with Marcos y Asociados, a Mexican energy consulting firm. “Sometimes in Mexico we are conflict-averse.” The proposal would allow private companies to negotiate profit-sharing contracts with the government to drill for oil and gas. Under such a scheme, the reserves would continue to belong to the Mexican state, but investors would get a share of the profits. Private investment would be allowed in refining, oil pipelines, and petrochemical production. ... The left-wing leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who won more than 30 percent of the vote in last year’s general election, is planning street marches to protest the change. If he succeeds in filling the streets of the capital it may be harder for party leaders to stand behind the plan. Since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement exempted energy from Mexico’s broad economic opening, presidents have attempted to loosen the prohibitions that give Pemex sole control over all oil and gas exploration and production. No joint ventures are allowed. Those past proposals have often withered in Congress. But this time, the precipitous decline of Mexico’s energy industry may work in Mr. Peña Nieto’s favor. Pemex, which was long an important source of crude imports into the United States, is spending more to pump less. As Mexico’s giant Cantarell oil field in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico has declined, production has dropped 25 percent from the peak in 2004, to just over 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. At the same time, the amount the government budgets for Pemex to invest has steadily climbed to $26 billion this year. To increase production and reserves, Pemex needs to drill in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and in onshore deposits of shale oil and gas. But the company has neither the capital nor the expertise to increase production significantly, analysts say.
Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the US embassy closures in the Middle East due to some vague Al Qaeda terrorism threat; allegations that the White House is threatening the families of CIA officers to shut up about the Benghazi incident; and John McCain’s new lows on kowtowing to the Israel lobby in the US Senate.
In his latest book End the Fed, Ron Paul draws on American history, economics, and fascinating stories from his own long political life to argue that the Fed is both corrupt and unconstitutional. It is inflating currency today at nearly a Weimar or Zimbabwe level, a practice that threatens to put us into an inflationary depression where $100 bills are worthless. What most people don’t realize is that the Fed — created by the Morgans and Rockefellers at a private club off the coast of Georgia — is actually working against their own personal interests. Congressman Paul’s urgent appeal to all citizens and officials tells us where we went wrong and what we need to do fix America’s economic policy for future generations. Read the comments here.
Four Horsemen, Eight Families andTheir Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network
By Dean Henderson
“…hair-raising and a masterpiece which deserves not less than the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism…What I like most of it is that Henderson gets to the point from the first page, without unnecessary prologues or digressions. This book should be a requisite for every American to study.” -Dr. Carlos J. Canggiano, M.D., Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico.
“…an extraordinary expose of the powers and events that are exacting a heavy toll on us, the people”. – Nexus New Times Magazine, New South Wales, Australia
“…your book ties more things together than any other I’ve come across… I’ve got a collection of about 300 conspiracy related books… You’ve gotten to the heart of the matter.” – Steve Dudley, American Airlines pilot
“Written with an activist’s urgency, Big Oil pulls together a story that is as complex as it is crucial for contemporary world citizens to understand. At the very least, the story Henderson tells should give pause to anyone who believes the mainstream’s simplistic story of how terror came to characterize our time. Big Oil is designed to motivate understanding and action.” –Dr. Bill Chaloupka, Chair, Political Science Department, Colorado State University
“I really have to recommend this important work”. – Len Osanic, Blackop Radio, Vancouver, BC, Canada
“This is an important work. The world needs to know what is behind the Bush Regime. Dean has done an amazingly thorough job. He pulls together an impressive array of material from primary and secondary sources to tell a disturbing story that all Americans should read, learn from, and act upon.” – Jennifer Van Bergen, author of In the Absence of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America
Big Oil… shines a giant spotlight on a centuries-old cabal of global oligarchs, whose hegemony over the global economy is based on control of the planet’s three most valuable commodities: oil, guns and drugs – combined with ownership of the world’s central banks.
This Money Power that secretively rules the world has orchestrated a string of conspiracies from Pearl Harbor to the Kennedy Assassination to 911 to further their agenda. Follow the trail of dirty money up the food chain and discover the interbred Eight Families who – from their City of London base – control the Four Horsemen of both Banking & Oil, the global drug trade and the permanent war economy.
(Part three of a five-part series excerpted from Chapter 19: The Eight Families:Big Oil & Their Bankers…)
According to former British intelligence agent John Coleman’s book, The Committee of 300, the Rothschilds exert political control through the secretive Business Roundtable, which they created in 1909 with the help of Lord Alfred Milner and South African industrialist Cecil Rhodes. The Rhodes Scholarship is granted by Oxford University, while oil industry propagandist Cambridge Energy Research Associates operates out of the Rhodes-supported Cambridge University.Read the rest of this entry »
To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also emerged that the firm used to buy many of the "put" options [related to 9-11] - where a trader, in effect, bets on a share price fall - on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by "Buzzy" Krongard, now executive director of the CIA. Until 1997, Mr Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc, America's oldest investment banking firm. Alex Brown was acquired by Bankers Trust, which in turn was bought by Deutsche Bank. His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust - Alex Brown's private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world. - Chris Blackhurst, “Mystery of Terror 'Insider Dealers'”, The Independent (UK), October 14, 2001
A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 [2001] as part of a strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter…which recommended these trades. - 9/11 Commission Report, W.W. Norton, 2004, footnote on p. 499
Alvin Bernard "Buzzy" Krongard was Executive Director of the C.I.A. from March 2001 until November 2004. Previously he had served as a consultant to C.I.A. Directors George J. Tenet (1997-2004) and Robert James Woolsey, Jr. (1993-1995).
The informed insider trading of stock options carried out by people with prior knowledge of the terror attacks of 9-11 is once again in the news. Max Keiser of the Keiser Report recently interviewed Lars Schall, a German journalist who has written extensively on the "terror traders" of 9-11. In the center of the discussion of the informed trading done by people who evidently knew the attacks were coming stands one very conspicuous individual, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard, then Executive Director of the C.I.A.. Krongard would be considered a "person of interest" in any proper criminal investigation of 9-11 or the insider trading that preceded it.
Krongard has been suspected of being connected to the suspicious trading since October 2001. In one of my first articles about 9-11, "The Profiteers of 9-11", I wrote the following:
Investigations into the unusually high number of "put" options, betting that the price of United Airlines (UAL) and American Airlines shares would fall, have revealed that Alex Brown Inc., an investment banking firm, purchased many of these option contracts. Alex Brown Inc. was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now the executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. Krongard, 64, former head of Baltimore-based Alex Brown, America's oldest investment bank, joined the CIA three years ago as a counselor to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet. Krongard switched careers shortly after helping engineer the $2.5 billion merger of Alex Brown and Bankers Trust New York Corp., gaining $71 million in Bankers Trust stock in the process.
President Bush appointed Krongard executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency on March 26. From February 1998 until March 2001, Krongard served as counselor to the director of central intelligence. Until 1997 Krongard was chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown, having previously worked in various capacities at Alex Brown. Krongard was quoted on the relationship between Wall Street and the CIA in a Washington Post article. If you go back to the CIA's origins during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, Krongard told the Post, "the whole OSS was really nothing but Wall Street bankers and lawyers."
WHO IS BUZZY KRONGARD?
The hypothesis of my book Solving 9-11: The Deception that Changed the World is that the terror attacks were a false-flag operation planned and carried out by Israeli military intelligence with the assistance and support of Zionist agents in high positions in the U.S. government. These Zionist agents would include people like Dov Zakheim at the Pentagon and Michael Chertoff, then Assistant Attorney General, who was responsible for the federal investigation and prosecution of the crimes of 9-11. In this position Chertoff managed the federal "non-investigation" of 9-11 in which the crucial evidence was confiscated and destroyed without being properly examined.
My hypothesis is not that 9-11 was an "inside" job, but that it was an Israeli-planned false-flag operation. The Israeli operation was facilitated by highly-placed Zionist agents within the U.S. government, military, and intelligence spheres. If Buzzy Krongard is a suspect in the crimes of 9-11, the question that needs to be answered is: Was Krongard acting as an agent for Israeli military intelligence at Alex Brown and the C.I.A.? The evidence indicates that he served as an agent for Israel in both positions.
Alvin Bernard Krongard, born 1936, is the son of Raphael Harris Krongard and Rita Keyser Krongard. Both his mother and father were born in Baltimore to Jewish immigrant families from Poland/Russia. His first wife, Patricia Lion, was also Jewish. While Krongard's Jewish roots are never mentioned in the various articles about him, his Jewish ethnicity clearly plays the key role in his efforts to support Israeli enterprises in the United States. When a high-level person like Krongard conceals his Jewish roots while actively serving the state of Israel it indicates that he is seeking to hide his true identity and loyalty to a foreign state. For such a person to be the administrative chief of the Central Intelligence Agency says a great deal about the degree of Israeli penetration of the U.S. intelligence community.
Alvin Bernard Krongard at Princeton, 1957
Krongard's paternal grandparents immigrated from Lowicz, Poland, to the United States in 1904. The family name and first names were changed. Krongaard is a Scandinavian name that his grandfather took after they arrived in the United States. Krongaard means land or property of the "crown". The immigration records indicate that his grandfather Morris Krongard did not enter the U.S. under that name.
Krongard's mother, Rita (Rebecca) Keyser, was born in Baltimore to Abraham and Ethel Keyser, Russian Jewish immigrants who had also arrived in the U.S. in 1904. She was raised in Washington, where she attended high school and graduated from Strayer Business College. She worked as a legal secretary for a Washington maritime lawyer before her marriage to Raphael Harris Krongard in 1931. The Krongard's lived in Ashburton, Maryland, and had three children: Alvin, Howard Joel, and a daughter, Marilyn, who died in 1946.
Alvin Krongard graduated from Princeton and went on to serve on "active duty" in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Mediterranean from 1958-1961. Although the details are not given it seems likely that he served in Lebanon where the U.S. Marines were sent in 1958. He returned to the United States and married Patricia Lion. He worked at her family business, Lion Brothers, from 1961-1969. After a two year stint at Bache/Stern Brothers Boyce he joined the Baltimore investment bank of Alex Brown in 1971. After twenty years, Buzzy Krongard became C.E.O. of Alex Brown in July 1991.
ALEX BROWN AND ISRAEL
As C.E.O. of America's oldest investment bank, Krongard was well placed to assist companies spawned by Israeli military intelligence. Under Krongard, Alex Brown became a leading U.S. partner for these Israeli companies. In May 1996 Krongard and Mayo A. Shattuck went to Israel on a three-day trip during which they met with then prime minister Shimon Peres. As theBaltimore Sun reported shortly before their trip to Israel:
A. B. Krongard, Alex. Brown's chairman and chief executive, and Mayo A. Shattuck III, president and chief operating officer, are to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Dov Lautman, the prime minister's special emissary for economic development... "Obviously, this is a trip of some significance," Mr. Shattuck said. "We want to be perceived as the premiere underwriter and adviser for high-tech and health care companies in Israel. The time has come to build stronger affiliations at the senior management level."
The meeting with Mr. Peres was arranged through Giza Group, one of Israel's leading private investment banking firms, Mr. Shattuck said.
When Alex. Brown officials meet with Mr. Peres, they expect to talk about how the company can link Israeli firms to U.S. capital markets, Mr. Shattuck said.
Alex. Brown, which had $809 million in revenues in 1995, is known worldwide for its expertise in taking high-tech and health care companies public. Last year, it managed 64 initial public offerings, tops in the United States.
R. William Burgess Jr., head of Alex. Brown's technology investment banking group, compared Israel to Silicon Valley in California and Route 128 in Boston, which have spawned some of the world's largest high-tech companies.
"My hope would be to do several initial public offerings a year for Israeli companies and several mergers and acquisitions," said Mr. Burgess, who will also make the trip.
Alex. Brown has been doing business with companies in Israel for at least five years.
In 1996, Alex Brown was serving as the financial advisor for Scitex, an Israeli company connected to military intelligence. Yair Shamir, the son of Yitzhak Shamir, the Zionist terrorist who killed Folke Bernadotte before becoming prime minister, was general manager of Scitex. Krongard's three-day visit to Israel and meeting with the prime minister was arranged by the Giza Group, a Tel Aviv-based investment banking firm.
At the time of Krongard's visit, Aviv Boim was a vice president of Giza Ltd. Boim remained at Giza for two more months, until August 1996, and then joined Krongard's company as an associate of Alex Brown from August 1996 to February 1998. Aviv Boim worked with Alex Brown's technology group in London, where he managed initial public offerings, mergers, and acquisitions concerning Israeli companies.
On October 2, 1996, the Baltimore Sun reported that Krongard was "still bullish on Israel." Krongard had addressed the Maryland/Israel Development Center the previous day. "There is great market demand for Israel's products," Krongard said. "Israel has the brain power. Its human capital is exceptional."
The Maryland/Israel Development Center was started in 1992 as a nonprofit group to form business partnerships between Maryland and Israeli companies. The article noted that just the week prior to his speech at the Maryland/Israel Development Center, Krongard and Alex Brown had taken the Israeli company Orckit Communications Ltd. public. "Tel Aviv-based Orckit makes systems that enable telephone companies to provide high-speed voice and digital transmission," the Sun reported. Yair Shamir was a director of Orckit.
ORCKIT AND UNIT 8200 OF ISRAELI MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Orckit is a company that was created by the former commander of Unit 8200, the signal intelligence branch of the Israeli military, as Efi Landau reported in Globes (Israel).
Even Orckit’s win in the large tender of the US telephone company GTE, one of the eight largest telephone companies in the world, did not persuade company president Yitzhak Tamir to grant an open, on the record, press interview. However, cracks can be seen in the shrouds hiding the company from the media, contributing perhaps to the recognition that the company’s most precious asset is its workers, and it cannot hurt if more is known about them.
Orckit was established in 1990 by Military Intelligence electronic unit 8200 graduates Eric Paneth and Yitzhak Tamir. The unit has provided Israeli high-tech a significant proportion of its engineers and managers. Paneth was commander of the unit, replacing Zohar Zisappel, chairman of the RAD-Bynet group.
Orckit (and Tikcro) are not your usual companies. These are typical Israeli military "dual-use" companies. They have hidden military and intelligence functions but are presented as normal commercial enterprises. With companies like Orckit, Buzzy Krongard and his team at Alex Beam certainly must have been aware that they were investing in companies closely tied to the Israeli military.
In February 1998 Buzzy Krongard joined the C.I.A. as a consultant to director George Tenet. In a bizarre move, Krongard left his $4 million a year job as head of Bankers Trust (BT). He had just completed the BT merger with Alex Brown in the fall of 1997 and suddenly he was leaving. Aviv Boim also left BT Alex Brown in February and joined Orckit as Chief Financial Officer. The merger between Bankers Trust and Alex Brown, the first between a bank and a securities brokerage since the Depression, however, went sour shortly after Krongard left the company. The newly merged company reported a record loss in 1998 and was soon taken over by Deutsche Bank. Mayo Shattuck stayed on at Alex Brown but resigned suddenly the day after 9-11.
While it is clear that Krongard jumped ship because he knew that the BT Alex Brown merger would soon fail, why did he go to work for the C.I.A.? What we do know is that Krongard had worked closely with computer companies spawned by Israeli military intelligence. After he joined the C.I.A. as counselor to the director, Krongard soon became engaged in setting up the C.I.A. venture capital firm called In-Q-It (In-Q-Tel) that was supposed to keep the agency abreast of computer technology. How much Israeli software do you think found its way onto the C.I.A. computer network under Buzzy Krongard's reign?
In October 1999, the Washington Post reported on the genesis of In-Q-Tel:
A lot of people wondered what CIA Director George J. Tenet had in mind a year and a half ago when he brought in Wall Street heavyweight A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard to serve as his "counselor." Now they know-- part of the story.
The man who helped underwrite Microsoft and AOL as head of Alex Brown & Co. has done it again, helping Tenet & Co. start up a CIA venture capital firm called In-Q-It that's supposed to keep the agency abreast of computer technology.
But Krongard's influence at Langley extends well beyond this foray into Silicon Valley. "George will say, 'Make this happen,' " said Krongard, 61, explaining in a telephone interview exactly what it is he does for the director of central intelligence.
"The idea is for In-Q-It to fund promising technologies..."
"The idea for the venture-capital fund was hatched in conversations between the new CIA director, George Tenet, and a former investment banker named A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who joined the agency in February 1998 as counselor to the director.
The director of the C.I.A. is often little more than a mannequin who gives a name and a face to the agency while the day-to-day operations are managed by the executive director like Krongard. George Tenet is similar to Leon Panetta. Both are sons of immigrants who owned diners, one in Little Neck, New York, the other in Monterey, California. What is it about Tenet and Panetta that made them suitable to be directors of the C.I.A.? They are clearly not leaders of men or strong thinkers. Could it be that they were men who were known to be weak and amenable, and who could easily be controlled by people like Krongard?
Krongard became the Executive Director of the C.I.A. in March 2001 and remained at that position for more than three years, until November 2004. He was responsible for getting C.I.A. security contracts for Blackwater in Afghanistan and Iraq. Later, his brother Howard (a.k.a. "Cookie"), as Inspector General of the State Department, denied knowing that Buzzy sat on the board of Blackwater during Congressional hearings into his obstruction of the investigation of contract fraud and crimes carried out by Blackwater. The Congressional investigation did not result in any criminal charges being laid against either of the Krongard brothers.
"Krongard exhibited the requisite secretiveness when asked to explain his interest in intelligence and how he came to land a job in [George J. Tenet]'s inner circle," the Washington Post reported on March 17, 2001, the day after he was named Executive Director of the C.I.A. "If you go back to the CIA's origins during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services, he explained, "the whole OSS was really nothing but Wall Street bankers and lawyers." Krongard was the chief operating officer, the day-to-day administrative leader of the C.I.A. from March 2001 until November 2004. In this position he was certainly aware of the plane-into-building drill planned for September 11, 2001 at the National Reconnaissance Office, a sub-agency of the C.I.A. Although Krongard is probably not an architectural level planner of the terrorism of 9-11, the evidence indicates that he served as a highly-placed manager who served as an important conduit linking Israeli military intelligence with the C.I.A.
Alvin Krongard, his second wife Cheryl, and Jim Kimsey. Cheryl Gruetzmacher was raised in Iowa and married Edward S. Gordon in May 1992.
The Krongard house sits on a 80 acre wooded estate off 1400 W Seminary Avenue in Lutherville, just north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Howard Joel Krongard, Alvin's brother, as Inspector General at the State Department, blocked investigations of massive fraud by military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. At Congressional hearings, Howard feigned ignorance that his brother was a director of Blackwater, one of the key contracts being examined. Buzzy had awarded the C.I.A. contract to Blackwater.
Meet Wall Street Lawyer, Banker, Blackwater Merchant of Death, and CIA Director Buzzy Krongard and 9/11 Insider Trading, Another Guilty Bastard?
Alvin Bernard "Buzzy" Krongard[1] (more commonly "A.B.", born c. 1936) was the Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was appointed by George Tenet on March 16, 2001.
The Executive Director is the third ranking position within the CIA and the incumbent functions essentially as the Chief Operating Officer of the Agency. For three years prior, Krongard had served as Counselor to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).
A longtime consultant to DCIs, Krongard joined the Agency full-time in February 1998, following a 29-year business career. During his private sector career, he served as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Alex. Brown & Sons, the nation’s oldest investment banking firm, and Vice Chairman of the Board of Bankers Trust.
Krongard resigned from the CIA shortly after the arrival of DCI Porter Goss in September 2004. While at the CIA, he was the connection between Erik Prince of Blackwater Security Consulting and the CIA. Through his influence, Blackwater was able to receive its first black contract.[citation needed]
On March 18, 2005, Krongard was appointed as an outside US director to the Global Board of Directors organized to oversee and coordinate the worldwide operations of DLA Piper, one of the world’s leading law firms.
Krongard's name was brought up in conjunction with investigations into suspected 9/11-related insider trading because of timely Wall Street trades made through the investment bank he used to head, Alex. Brown.[6]
"A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 (2001) as part of a strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter…which recommended these trades."[7]
SUPPRESSED DETAILS OF CRIMINAL INSIDER TRADING LEAD DIRECTLY INTO THE CIA's HIGHEST RANKS
CIA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR "BUZZY" KRONGARD MANAGED FIRM THAT HANDLED "PUT" OPTIONS ON UAL
FTW, October 9, 2001 - Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S.media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon. In the case of at least one of these trades -- which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed -- the firm used to place the "put options" on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. Until 1997 A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of Banker's Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering. Krongard's last position at Banker's Trust (BT) was to oversee "private client relations." In this capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate and other investigators as being closely connected to the laundering of drug money.
Krongard (re?) joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Director George Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Executive Director by President Bush in March of this year. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. And, as we shall see, Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to the September 11 attacks.
THE SCOPE OF KNOWN INSIDER TRADING
Before looking further into these relationships it is necessary to look at the insider trading information that is being ignored by Reuters, The New York Times and other mass media. It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades - in real time - as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades.
It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades, "selling short" and "put options".
"Selling Short" is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months.
"Put Options," are contracts giving the buyer the option to sell stocks at a later date. Purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, they are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 - regardless of where the market then stands. A call option is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.
A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled "Black Tuesday: The World's Largest Insider Trading Scam?" documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:
- Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these "insiders" would have profited by almost $5 million.
- On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance; Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent "insiders," they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
- [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
- No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
- Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley's share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
- Merrill Lynch & Co., with headquarters near the Twin Towers, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill's shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by "insiders," their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
- European regulators are examining trades in Germany's Munich Re, Switzerland's Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a "double whammy" for them.]
On September 29, 2001 - in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media - the San Francisco Chronicle reported, "Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.
"The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors - whose identities and nationalities have not been made public - had advance knowledge of the strikes." They don't dare show up now. The suspension of trading for four days after the attacks made it impossible to cash-out quickly and claim the prize before investigators started looking.
"October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. [This represents 230,000 shares]. Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called "put" options outstanding [valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares] according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp."
"The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options." This was the operation managed by Krongard until as recently as 1998.
As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.
CIA, THE BANKS AND THE BROKERS
Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let's look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history.
Clark Clifford - The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.
John Foster and Allen Dulles - These two brothers "designed" the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was OSS station chief in Berne, Switzerland, where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful - to this day - Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell.
Bill Casey - Ronald Reagan's CIA Director and OSS veteran who served as chief wrangler during the Iran-Contra years was, under President Richard Nixon, Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and stockbroker.
David Doherty - The current Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange for enforcement is the retired General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.
George Herbert Walker Bush - President from 1989 to January 1993, also served as CIA Director for 13 months from 1976-7. He is now a paid consultant to the Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the nation, which also shares joint investments with the bin Laden family.
A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard - The current Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency is the former Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown and former Vice Chairman of Banker's Trust.
John Deutch - This retired CIA Director from the Clinton Administration currently sits on the board at Citigroup, the nation's second largest bank, which has been repeatedly and overtly involved in the documented laundering of drug money. This includes Citigroup's 2001 purchase of a Mexican bank known to launder drug money, Banamex.
Nora Slatkin - This retired CIA Executive Director also sits on Citibank's board.
Maurice "Hank" Greenburg - The CEO of AIG insurance, manager of the third largest capital investment pool in the world, was floated as a possible CIA Director in 1995. FTW exposed Greenberg's and AIG's long connection to CIA drug trafficking and covert operations in a two-part series that was interrupted just prior to the attacks of September 11. AIG's stock has bounced back remarkably well since the attacks. To read that story, please go tohttp://www.fromthewilderness.com/ free/ciadrugs/part_2.html.
One wonders how much damning evidence is necessary to respond to what is now irrefutable proof that CIA knew about the attacks and did not stop them. Whatever our government is doing, whatever the CIA is doing, it is clearly NOT in the interests of the American people, especially those who died on September 11. Now down the rabbit hole to learn more about these nefarious events and evil people.
California became the twenty-fourth state in the nation in which a resolution has been introduced calling on Congress to pass Glass-Steagall legislation, which is before both Houses of Congress. The measure, ACR 73, was introduced August 5 by Assemblyman Roger Hernandez, a Democrat from Los Angeles, and, so far, has one cosponsor. As a "concurrent" resolution, it can be brought before the Senate, as well.
In its preface, the resolution states that the "measure would urge the President and the Congress of the United States to enact federal legislation to protect the public interest by reviving the separation between commercial banking and speculative activity embodied in the Glass-Steagall Act." In the following "Whereas" clauses, the resolution describes what Glass-Steagall did; that it was repealed in 1999, which allowed commercial banks to engage in "speculative activity [which] worked against the public interest by placing the commercial banks themselves in financial jeopardy and contributing to the Great Recession"; states that Dodd-Frank "does not provide the same level of protection...as the provisions of the Glass- Steagall Act"; and that the "public interest will continue to be at risk until commercial banks are prohibited from engaging in speculative activity again."
After identifying the House (HR 129) and Senate (S 985) bills, the memorial has a whereas clause which identifies the support for restoring Glass-Steagall from "diverse" groups and individuals, citing, among others, the AFL-CIO, AFT and IAM; Thomas Hoenig, David Stockman; economists Luigi Zingales and Lyndon LaRouche; Robert Reich; and "various state legislatures...."
That this resolution was introduced demonstrates that the line, that "California is back," which is being spread due to the "achievement" of a "balanced budget" pushed through by a Democratic Party super-majority in the legislature, is recognized as a fiction, and that the state is suffering from an accelerating collapse in agriculture and manufacturing. This collapse was "overcome" in the budget by the combined effects of a short-term revenue increase related to capital gains from the stock market bubble, which is not sustainable; accounting gimmicks; and the cumulative effects of more than $100 billion in cuts, especially in life-saving social programs, over the last decade.
The part-time, temporary and low-wage jobs created by this "recovery", combined with "green" spending, represent no alternative to national action, which has been acknowledged by many in the legislature, who agree that federal action, beginning with passage of Glass-Steagall, is a necessary pre-condition for a real recovery of the state, and national, economy.
It was during the 1980’s US/Saudi-financed mujahadeen offensive on the Afghan people that Dubai – one of the emirates comprising the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – became a duty-free port and drug money laundry, serving much the same role as Hong Kong had for the Illuminati banksters during the Vietnam War. In 2007 Halliburton moved it’s headquarters to Dubai.
Where Hong Kong had financed CIA opium for arms swaps in the Golden Triangle, Dubai served the CIA smack for weapons trade in the Golden Crescent – an area which comprises parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read the rest of this entry »
There are three cornerstones to our current view that risk far outweighs opportunity.
As 4 ½ years of $1 Trillion of fiscal stimulus and $1 Trillion of monetary stimulus per year wind down, there are likely to be negative repercussions.
Since 2000, the rate of economic growth has been approximately half that of the previous 70 years. As such, we don’t believe that warrants paying above the historic multiple for the market.
Finally, while earnings have recovered and registered new highs, overall the growth is low quality and as such unlikely to be sustainable without the economy picking up.
One can go further and talk about risks like a different Fed next year, Debt Limit and Budget battles, and relatively slow global growth. But why?
You and I know that shit just costs more. A lot more in most cases. The KGB-like Federal Reserve says the inflation target is 2%. Here is what others says:
Indeed, look at this breakdown of inflation and deflation from 1872 to present. Notice anything? How can our government, businesses, and individuals plan appropriately, take the appropriate amount of risk on the market, save or spend, invest, or borrow, when the Federal Reserve is manipulating market data?
And if that isn't enough reason, then just try buying the same things you've always purchased with the same income you had 40 years ago. NOT! At least we know the US dollar will be good for something after all is said and done.
Now this is interesting. Maybe HSBC's recent forced account closures have something to do with this. from yesterday's news:
HSBC has asked foreign diplomats in London to close their accounts as part of efforts to reduce business risks. Among those who have been asked to stop using the UK's biggest bank are the Vatican, Papua New Guinea and the west African nation of Benin. More than 40 embassies, consulates and high commissions are said to be affected, with their position made worse by other banks' refusal to take their custom. The decision is reported to have created “havoc” for the diplomatic missions, according to one official, told the Mail on Sunday that consulates need a bank “not just to take in money for visas and passports but to pay staff wages, rent bills and even the congestion charge.” Following fines by US authorities for allowing alleged money laundering activities last year, the bank has announced that embassies were subject to certain 'safety' assessments, similar to other business customers.
Then there's this old video, back from the beginning of this revolution.
Sure looks familiar to me but I am spending hours every day reading and listening to alternative news. I could be wrong.
