Digital Monetary Trust

This article describes an Internet-based anonymous banking project, known as The Digital Monetary Trust, Ltd. The Digital Monetary Trust (hereafter: DMT) is a proposed financial trust (which may be optionally viewed as a mutual fund, or a money market fund) all of whose assets will be invested in cash, commodities (such as gold), and high-quality (low credit-risk) securities denominated in various national currencies. DMT is a Laissez Faire City corporation.

The basic business of DMT will be the provision of private, anonymous accounts, which may be used by individuals and entities within the system to securely store anonymous capital or to make anonymous monetary transactions. That is, the DMT will be in the business of providing privacy, and doing so in a cryptographical framework which provides a more solid basis for customer anonymity than the traditional ones of (allegedly) tight-lipped bankers or (often-leaky) banking secrecy laws. In fact, much stricter provisions will be made to protect against spies, hackers, and misguided law enforcement agencies with subpoena or seizure powers. DMT will not know who its customers are, but will nevertheless be able to securely determine when asset transfers are authorized.

The DMT software system 1) will allow customers to securely access accounts and transfer money via the Internet; 2) will anonymize transactions and account creation within the DMT system, so that these activities cannot be observed by other DMT customers, by the DMT itself, or by outside parties; and yet, 3) will also provide a publicly observable accounting of DMT's asset holdings. DMT is an anonymous account system—not a digital cash system. But alliance with other (third-party) vendors will allow for the receipt or withdrawal of anonymous digital coins. (That is, digital cash systems can be layered on top of the anonymous account system.). Employment information for those who wish to participate in the creation of the DMT, or those who wish to participate as investors, will be given later in this article.

There are conceptually three distinct layers to the Digital Monetary Trust (DMT). These are:

Layer 1. A secure Internet webserver which acts as the public presentation of the bank, and which interacts with bank customers via their web browsers over a secure Internet channel. (Customers may optionally interact with the bank via anonymous email.)

Layer 2. Digital account software which is layered on top of the secure Internet channel. The software will include:
a. A customer module which generates and stores relevant customer numbers.
b. A trust module which generates the relevant trust numbers, and produces reports.
c. A data base for storing trust account information.

Layer 3. An interface with the normal, non-anonymous banking system ("outside system"). The anonymous digital bank (DMT) accepts payments from the outside system, and makes payments back into the outside system. Ordinary wire transfer payments into or out of the DMT system will be observable, although they will not be linkable to a DMT account-holder's identity. Deposits or withdrawals of anonymous digital coins will not be linkable to any outside bank account, much less to a DMT account. Payments (account transfers) taking place entirely within the anonymous system (DMT) will be neither observable nor linkable.

The three-layered framework will allow DMT to carry out its basic business, which is to provide privacy services to its customers. DMT will earn income from interest payments on its holdings of government and other high-credit quality securities (part of which may be returned to depositors, after extraction of custody and transaction fees). DMT will also earn transaction fees from transfers out of the anonymous system, and some fees from the transfers of funds between accounts.
The structure of the system here is important. Without remote, Internet-based banking access, DMT would have few customers. Without the elements of security and privacy, DMT would not be able to service its citizens in a manner consistent with its stated objectives. Without a convenient user interface, DMT would not be able to efficiently manage such a process, and customers would require a higher degree of motivation to use the available services. Without demonstrable anonymity, the DMT accounts would be just one more competitor in a vast sea of similar products.

Note that the profit mechanism here is the provision of privacy services in return for interest earned on asset holdings. We believe that providing anonymous assets is the market opportunity. It is the one service that no one is providing—outside the traditional framework of "secret" accounts, which are not in fact very secret. By holding assets and operating as a bank or trust, the DMT will have reserves with which to provide earnings. Note that if DMT captures only a small part of the privacy business now serviced by Swiss and other banks, it will gain a substantial asset base.

Others in the digital cash world are hoping to earn seigniorage via the traveler's check model, or by selling software. They face serious barriers to profitability—the main one being public acceptance of particular digital currencies. The only currency in this regard that has ever portended some market acceptance was (the now defunct) Digicash's half- anonymous "ecash". DMT can use the ecash coin format for its purposes, and provide additional privacy services to its customers, without having to worry whether the ecash activity is itself seriously profitable.

DMT as a Financial Intermediary
Before describing the technical and software aspects of the Digital Monetary Trust project, it is important to address the nature and operation of the institution as a financial intermediary.

For all practical purposes, DMT can be indifferently thought of as a money market fund, a mutual fund, or a bank. Like all of those, it will have assets and liabilities. The assets are the things the trust owns, while the liabilities are the trust's obligations to its account holders. The difference between total assets and total liabilities represents DMT shareholder's equity.

The initial assets will be holdings of gold and high-quality interest-bearing securities denominated in U.S. dollars, Euros, Japanese yen, and British pounds, as well as some residual cash (if only because of the lump sum nature of security purchases). The liabilities (trust accounts) are analogous to ordinary checking accounts. The DMT balance sheet will thus have the following initial form:
The Digital Monetary Trust Balance Sheet

Assets
CashGoldInterest-Bearing Securities
· U.S. dollar
· Japanese yen
· Euros
· British pound

Liabilitiies
Trust Accounts
Equity
Shareholder Equity

In order to create an anonymous account on behalf of a customer, the customer will be required to make payment from some ordinary bank, credit, or commodity account, or else deposit blinded coins. These payments must be made into ordinary bank or commodity accounts owned or controlled by DMT. The latter accounts will be termed DMT overt accounts.

Customer payment ---------------> DMT overt account

The overt accounts will be held in various banks or warehouses around the world, and will be denominated in various currencies or commodities. From the overt accounts, the money will be moved (perhaps after chaining) to other DMT-controlled security and commodity accounts. The latter accounts will be used to purchase securities, or to hold commodity assets.

DMT overt account--->[chain]--->DMT security or commodity account

Upon notification from the relevant bank that funds have been received from a customer into a DMT overt account, the DMT will issue a customer claim ticket in the Trust module. The customer will be able to access the Trust module via the Internet, and claim value in terms of DMT allowed currencies, including DMT rands.

The DMT rand will be a currency of denomination for Trust accounts at DMT, along with dollars, euros, British pounds, and Japanese yen. If a customer choses the rand as the currency unit of account for his/her deposit, money paid into the Trust will be allocated 20 percent for purchases of gold, and 20 percent each for purchases of high quality securities denominated in Japanese yen, euros, British pounds, and U.S. dollars. The exchange rate for the rand with respect to money paid into the Trust system will be determined by a daily price fix. The fixing rate of the rand with respect to the U.S. dollar will be the total U.S. dollar market value of the gold and securities that back the rand, divided by the number of rands issued at the time of the fix. (Thus, new money entering the system will be neutral with respect to the current value of the rand.)

A customer may, however, simply choose to hold accounts in dollars, yen, pounds, or euros. These accounts will be backed, respectively, by dollar-, yen-, pound-, or euro- denominated securities.

The Trust will charge transaction fees for money leaving the system (anticipated to be 1/2 of 1 percent per transaction). Money that exits the system will initially appear in a DMT security or commodity account, and from there will be transferred to a DMT overt account for credit to the owner. In addition, the Trust will earn interest on its assets denominated in high-quality securities. Some of this interest may be returned to trust account holders. If so, an account holder will be able to anonymously claim interest according to the rand or designated currency value of his account.

DMT account holders will be able to conduct ordinary business with other DMT account holders, and to make anonymous payments among themselves. Such business dealings are at the discretion of the parties concerned, and take place entirely outside the DMT system. But in a DMT monetary transaction between two parties, each of the two parties will be required to communicate with the Trust Module for an anonymous debit-credit transaction to be carried out. (This communication will not be simultaneous. The receiving party will supply the paying party a number to be associated with the payment or transfer. The receiving party will then anonymously collect the payment in a secure manner that is described later in Part 2 of this article series.)

One account will be debited and the other credited, but the overall liability of DMT will not change. (The total liability will be slightly reduced by the fee charged for such transactions, which is anticipated to be 1/10 of 1 percent per transaction.)
New money entering the system will be used to purchase gold and government or other low-risk securities. The net holdings of gold and high-quality securities will be public knowledge to account holders, with the relevant information as to total asset holdings displayed on a World Wide Web page. Making this information available to account holders will increase user and potential user confidence in the underlying soundness of the DMT operation. (Potential adversaries, such as FinCEN-type mafias, will have to open a DMT account in order to obtain the same information.)

The DMT will not accept physical (as opposed to electronic or digital or "wired") cash payments into its system. All transfers have to be made through the medium of a pre- existing banking relation. The requirement for a pre-existing banking relationship will help screen out funds from possibly questionable sources, such as the proceeds of fraud or theft or other activities that do not respect the fundamental property rights of individuals. Of course, any bank that accepts cash will be able to wire or transfer the funds to a DMT overt account. In addition, the DMT will accept direct deposits of gold into system, upon presentation of the proper documents.

In short, the DMT is a fund that will take in money and invest it in a predefined portfolio of commodities and high-quality securities. The total assets of the fund will be known to account holders. But shares (deposits, trust accounts) in the fund will be held anonymously, and moreover can be transferred anonymously between account holders. In its basic operation, it doesn't matter whether the DMT is considered a trust, a bank, a money-market fund, or a mutual fund.

The basic problems to be solved by the software system are DMT security, in that no value is to be given out without corresponding value paid into the system; customer privacy, in that a customer's account ownership and account transactions are not known to anyone except the customer himself; and public accounting, in that information on DMT asset holdings is always available to account holders.

Some of the computer system requirements implied by the DMT operation are therefore:
· bi-directional communication between the customer (or the customer's User Module) and the Trust (Trust Module) over a secure Internet link
· generation and management of customer (User Module) symmetric communication keys
· generation and mangement of Trust (Trust Module) symmetric and public/private keys
· generation and storage of account and collection numbers associated with deposits into DMT anonymous accounts
· return of bank digitally-signed account information to the collecting party
· generation and storage of numbers associated with withdrawals from DMT anonymous accounts
· return of bank digitally-signed modified account information to the paying party
· generation and storage of number associated with transfers between DMT anonymous accounts
· email interface to assist in the optional encryption and transfer of module-created numbers to the DMT via anonymous email or a nym server
· DMT asset accounting of invested funds (this will likely be handled by a separate system)
· DMT Web Page display of asset allocation
· currency module (for keeping track of exchange rates, including the par value of the rand, for currencies and commodities)
· menu-driven customer (User Module) interface
· menu-driven Trust (Trust Module) interface
More specific requirements will be discussed later

Computer System Objectives
The Provision of Anonymous Accounts. There are many reasons for anonymity. People with visible assets are inviting targets for theft or extortion; for lawsuits from customers, strangers, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, family members, patients, and others seeking an easy and convenient way of enhancing their own financial well- being; for arbitrary assessments from governmental agencies which have budgetary problems or which have visions of expanded influence through a greater command of resources; for asset seizures based on inane and arbitrary laws such as those relating to minor drug possession (laws which allow parents' assets to be seized as a result of their children's activities); and for political pressures exerted by the implicit threat that if one does not toe the current political line, then one's personal belongings may become a government target.

In short, the possession of financial assets can limit freedom as well as enhance it. Anonymity reduces the negative impact on freedom that comes from building personal wealth. Hence there is a demand for anonymity from freedom-seeking individuals.

An anonymous account provides much more security than does, say, a Swiss numbered account. A Swiss numbered account is not anonymous. The identity of a numbered account owner is not generally available within the Swiss bank, but is nevertheless known to a small number of upper level managers. A Swiss numbered account reduces the number of individuals who have access to information in the account, but it does not reduce this number to zero. Moreover, little consideration is given to the security of transactions made with such an account.

Anonymity provides protection for the bank as well as the customer. Bank employees cannot be placed under legal, economic, or physical pressure to reveal what they know ("rubber-hose cryptanalysis"), because they will not know anything. Bank employees cannot be bribed to give out information for the same reason. If bank records are seized, the only data that can be gained is information that is already public. Hence there will be no reason to take such action in the first place. Neither will any customer be placed in the position of worrying that information about his activities may be given to others: the bank will not possess such information.

In short, there is a market demand for completely anonymous accounts, and this demand is not being met by current purveyors of digital cash systems. Anonymity is a product for which the current demand clearly exceeds the available supply: hence the provision of anonymity should earn rates of return well above average.

Is anonymity practical? All current systems we have looked at fail to address this issue. At best such systems are interested in the anonymity of digital coins, not account holders. By contrast, the system presented here concentrates on account-holder anonymity. But it also provides a mechanism for transfers between anonymous accounts, which may take place for whatever reason. Possible business deals between account holders are not the business of DMT. Hence the DMT does not collect information on them—and does not guarantee payment by one party to the other, in the manner of the credit-card model. Rather, what DMT will do is make authorized, anonymous transfers between accounts.

Because account balances are altered as needed, the total number of accounts will be a simple multiple of the number of people in the system. (It is assumed that individuals may desire several accounts.) Hence the size of the database should not create on-line waits, unlike digital coin systems which attempt to anonymize small-value, everyday payments.

This point cannot be emphasized enough. Money serves two principal functions. It is a medium of exchange, and it is a store of value. A few digital cash systems seek to anonymize money in its role as a medium of exchange. The DMT project is primarily a project to anonymize money in its store of value function.
Current and proposed digital cash systems that anonymize coins do not provide anonymity in asset holdings: but only anonymity in payments.

Moreover, the biggest market opportunity, in our view, is not in the minor seignorage recapture that can be obtained by issuing one's own coins (and facing the difficulties of competing with ordinary government-sponsored cash), but in providing a haven for flight capital. Swiss banks have made a living from this for years. But Swiss banks are as now leaky as a sieve.

Anonymity is the market opportunity. The provision of anonymity will provide high returns. Digital cash itself may not ever provide significant returns. But the provision of anonymous accounts will allow DMT to earn significant interest on its asset holdings.

Most individuals with dollars to hide want secure dollars. They are not interested in seeing their well-understood, spendable dollars disappear into what they may consider "flaky digital cash." On the other hand, if DMT is in the business of anonymity, then it would be nice to make available transactional anonymity in small, everyday payments also.

We have had discussions with projected suppliers of digital cash software, and reached the following conclusion:
DMT can issue and accept anonymous digital coins in connection with its anonymous digital accounts.
Keep in mind, however, that ordinary business transactions can be conducted using DMT accounts. One party pays from his DMT account, and the second party collects the payment into his (possibly newly created) DMT account. This will be more practical for large payments than for the small everyday payments envisioned by digital cash systems.

User Interface Via the Internet. The DMT software will involve two principal parts. The first part will be a Trust Module that operates in connection with a web server to control the overall DMT operation. The second is a User Module that operates in connection with a generic web browser for access to trust services. The reasons for the latter are now explained.

Mobility is important to the lifestyle of a Netizen. The demand for mobile banking services can be met by providing access to DMT from anywhere in the world Internet connections are available.

Of equal importance, Internet access has become a manditory part of any future banking operation because of cost factors. A survey of European and American banks by Booze, Allen & Hamilton found that the cost of the average payment transaction on the Internet was 13 cents or less, compared with 26 cents for a personal computer banking service using the bank's own software, 54 cents for a telephone banking service, and $1.08 per transaction for a bank branch.

Where the DMT itself is concerned, political factors are also important. The DMT computer (computers) will be located in geographical jurisdictions where it can carry on its business without political interference. The key to a profitable DMT operation is therefore not neighborhood banking but rather telecommunications access. As time progresses, political factors will become increasingly important to the DMT operation for other reasons, in particular the possible erroneous targeting of the DMT for "money laundering" (the usual Statist rallying cry as a frivolous excuse to attack financial privacy).

There are essentially three approaches to Internet banking software. The fat client model relies on the customer having dedicated banking software on his PC, like Intuit's Quicken software. Data and business logic is stored on the customer's PC. But this type of model has traditionally had little flexibility, and is not easily integrated with other Internet applications. The thin-client-stateless model only expects the customer to have generic software, such as a web browser, and the interface relies on a generic Internet language (such as the World Wide Web's HTML). This is sufficient for supplying acount information or transferring funds, but it doesn't allow the customer to add much value by processing the data in any way. It doesn't meet specific security requirements.

The thin-client-stateful model represents the probable future direction of most Internet banking. This model combines a generic interface like a web browser with PC resident software. Here one might think of, for example, a plug-in to Netscape which allowed the customer to set up her own parameters, DMT-related encryption keys, and whatnot. Such a plug-in might allow security parameters of the transactions process to be controlled without unduly restricting customer convenience.

Be this as it may, the DMT software application proposed here is essentially a stand- alone Java application (not an applet), for reasons made clear later. Despite claims to the contrary, a browser with Netscape plug-ins or Microsoft ActiveX components is not really very thin. Nor are the plug-ins portable in the same way as a stand-alone Java application is. By contrast, the DMT software envisioned here will operate much like the thin-client stateful model. The DMT User Module can be thought of as a stripped down web browser, number processor, number storage module, and email interface unit that handles just a few MIME-types, and enacts the SSL/TLS protocol.

The User Module and the numbers stored therein will give the customer Internet access to his account or accounts. Only the customer will know the identity of his own anonymous accounts and the balances in those accounts. (The Trust Module will always know its total liabilities to account holders, but will never know who these account holders are.)

Asset Accounting and Banking Security. The Trust Module will allow the transfer of money into and out of anonymous accounts, and the transfer of money between anonymous accounts. Instead of tracking coins, the system would keep track of balances, and may (depending on the protocol chosen by the customer) create new accounts with new account numbers as these balances are changed. Transfers between anonymous accounts can be done by anonymous email or (more conveniently) by User Module on- line requests to the Trust Module.

The bank itself will know nothing about the accounts held by customers, except for transfers into or out of the system. (When money is transferred into the system, the bank may know the identity of the bank account from which the money came, because the bank may receive the funds by wire transfer. When money is transferred out of the system, the bank will have to know the account to which funds are to be paid—payment of digital coins excepted. Note, however, that there may be no observable connection between the identity of the person transferring money in, and the customer who collects it.) The bank will always know the sum total of individual account obligations. Internal DMT transfers cannot change the total. In or out transfers can change the total, subject to double-entry verification of funds received/paid.

The bank asset accounting software (which may be separate from the Trust module) will allow for the convenient updating of asset holdings and exchange rates. Any changes will be automatically reflected in the publicly displayed screens on asset holdings and exchange rates.

Interface With Existing Banking Systems. Interface with existing banking systems is simple. Money transferred into the DMT system will come from ordinary bank accounts, and will be paid into ordinary bank accounts owned by DMT. The balance accounting in the latter case will be done by the banks of which DMT is a customer.

The key is to provide a mechanism which allows these funds to be anonymously deposited into anonymous accounts.

The funds in ordinary DMT bank accounts will be used to purchase commodities and high-quality securities. Accounting for these assets is conceptually separate from the operation of the anonymous deposit system. Bank transfers and securities and commodities purchases will be entered into the bank asset accounting system as they occur, both for accounting verification and for public display. (In addition to accurate accounting, a principal concern in this part of the DMT operation will be to preserve the value of the DMT's assets from blockage, default, repudiation, or seizure. This, however, is separate from the software operation.)

User Convenience. The software will be simple to use in that it will be menu-driven. Both the User Module and Trust Module will feature point-and-click functionality.
The customer will be able to access his account information at any time, because the information relevant to his account(s) will reside in the User Module on the customer's computer. Only if the customer wishes to change his account—by making transfers to another customer, by adding to his account, or by transferring money out of the account—will it be necessary to contact DMT.

The customer can also use the User Module software to view DMT asset allocation and current exchange rates.

The User Module will handle all the necessary cryptography needed to interact with the DMT system, and provide convenient export mechanisms for those who prefer to conduct transactions via anonymous email.

Protection Against Hostile Intruders. The environment must be considered hostile at all times for certain aspects of the DMT's operation. This includes the possibility someone will casually acquire or tamper with the DMT's secret keys (for public key cryptography), or corrupt, tamper with, or maliciously monitor the execution of the operational code for performing certain cryptographical operations. Such tampering could come from outside intruders or possibly even DMT employees.

One aspect of addressing these problems is to use a secure cryptographic coprocessor for storage of critical keys and cryptographical variables (such as group generators and moduli) and for performing other critical cryptographical operations (such as modular exponentiation and calculation of hash values). In particular, it is intended that no customer "account number" will ever be observable in an unencrypted form by any DMT employee. Such a customer account number, as will be seen in the description of the banking protocols detailed later, is a public key (although not attacted to an identity known to the DMT), and will be created by and known to the customer. This number will be used by the bank, but does not need to appear in an unencrypted form outside the secure coprocessor.

We are well aware that "secure" coprocessors do not provide any ultimate security. We believe, however, they can be highly useful in keeping bank employees ignorant of transaction information that could potentially be linked to an account holder's identity. This in itself provides a large measure of bank and customer security.
Another security risk is the possible seizure of the bank's records or database. Such a seizure must yield no useful information about DMT's customers to the seizing party. How this will be accomplished in explained later in the banking protocols.
Digital Cash Extensions. As mentioned, the DMT is an anonymous account system, not a blinded digital coin system. However, using third party software, the DMT intends to allow digital coin transfers into, or out of, anonymous accounts. Moreover, nothing precludes DMT becoming a digital coin issuer itself at some point. The decision to do so will depend on an evaluation that says this makes sense in terms of DMT's core business.

The digital cash extention will allow DMT to take advantage of markets created by others, but ones that we do not feel will in and of themselves be very profitable.

Skandal Emas LBMA

Tahun lalu 2009 bulan oktober ada pengapalan emas batangan dari Amerika ke China. Pengapalan ini dalam rangka pembayaran cicilan hutang dan bunga atas pinjaman AS kepada China. Pengaturan pengiriman emas dalam jumlah besar ini dilakukan oleh London Bullion Market Association ( LBMA). Total jumlah emas yang dikirim adalah 5700 emas batangan dengan berat masing masing 400 OZ. Ketika emas itu sampai, pihak china melakukan test metal dengan tekhnologi canggih. Ternyata hasilnya itu bukanlah emas asli. Itu emas palsu. Memang secara tekhnologi dasar yang selama ini dipakai oleh ahli emas tidak bisa mengetahui bahwa itu palsu. Karena emas model ini dihasilkan dari penyulingan inti tungsten untuk menghasilkan Berat jenis mendekati sama dengan emas dan diluarnya dilapisi emas asli. Menurut Ahli China, biaya untuk memproduksi Emas Aspal ini hanya 2,5% dari harga emas asli

Selama ini pihak pedagang Emas di bursa London , Hong Kong, Swiss, Dubai selalu menuduh china memalsukan emas tapi dengan fakta ini membuktikan bahwa AS lah yang melakukan penipuan atas emas yang ada dibursa. Berpuluh puluh tahun AS sejak era Clinton bersama team ekonominya yang terdiri dari Robert Gubin, Sir Alan Greenspan dan Lawrence Summers , AS telah melempar emas Aspal ( asli tapi palsu ) ke bursa mencapai 1,5 juta batang emas ( berat per batang 400 Oz). Atau dengan total senilai USD 600 Miliar atau lebih dari setengah triliun dollar amerika atau setara dengan GNP Indonesia.Tapi keberhasilan AS mengelola perdagangan emas Aspal hingga tidak terdeteksi oleh pasar global karena didukung oleh bursa utama Emas di London.

London dikenal sebagai bursa emas terbesar di dunia. Perputaran perdagangan emas di lantai bursa London dipicu oleh kekuatan pedagang utama yang legendaris yaitu keluarga Rothschild , di bawah bendera NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. Banyak pihak mencurigasi di balik operasi emas Aspal di bursa ini adalah Rothschild group bersama The Fed. Semua tahun bahwa Rothschild group salah satu pendiri dari Fed dan sampai kini termasuk salah satu pemegang saham di Fed. Sejak tahun 2004 ,GATA (The Gold Antitrust Action Committee ) sudah mencurigai tentang praktek perdagangan emas palsu ini, Ternyata bukan hanya bursa London tapi juga bursa NY. Upaya GATA yang begitu keras untuk membongkar ini telah berhasil memaksa Kejaksaan Agung dan Pengadilan AS untuk melakukan audit antara phisik emas dan yang tercatat dibursa. Namun hasilnya tak ada satupun pengelola bursa bisa dimintai keterangan. Mereka berlindung dibalik UU Bursa yang mengatur kerahasiaan.

Tahun 2004 , entah kenapa NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd keluar dari Bursa Emas London sebelum GATA melakukan investigasi atas Bursa London. Banyak pihak terkejut. Hampir semua media massa membicarakan keluarnya Rothschild dari bisnis yang sudah digelutinya hampir 7 generasi. Pada saat itu tidak ada yang tahu pasti alasan Rothschild. Namun tahun 2009, ketika China menerima Emas dari AS sebagai bentuk pembayaran hutang, diketahui bahwa semua dokumen emas ( Certificate Origin ) dan data perpindahan emas di bursa di bawah register NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. Yang pasti skandal ini semakin membuka tabir dunia bahwa penipu ulung soal mata uang dan perdagangan dunia serta penyebab terjadinya krisis global adalah Amerika.

Krisis dipicu oleh membanjirnya uang dipasar yang bersumber dari cara cara culas dengan merampok lewat system. Setelah krisis global, Rothschild tampil gagah berani melakukan akuisisi saham saham strategis pada perusahaan berkelas dunia dibidang pertambangan, Perbankan, Industri dan Perdagangan. Yang jadi pertanyaan bagaimana dengan nasip 1,5 juta batang emas Aspal yang masih berada dipasar dan sebagian besar dipegang oleh banyak negara sebagai cadangan devisa, dan semuanya tercatat berasal Rothschild. Siapa yang berani menuntut Rothschild ? Yang notabene adalah pemilik dari the Fed (Bank Central Amerika). Kehebatan Rothschild, bukan karena senjata tapi kemampuannya menguasai ring satu kekuasaan setiap negara dan dengan cara itulah mereka membungkam elite politik.Dan karena itulah loby politik Amerika terhadap China jadi tumpul.

The End of Dollar Hegemony

A hundred years ago it was called “dollar diplomacy.” After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, that policy evolved into “dollar hegemony.” But after all these many years of great success, US dollar dominance is coming to an end. It has been said, rightly, that he who holds the gold makes the rules. In earlier times it was readily accepted that fair and honest trade required an exchange for something of real value.

First it was simply barter of goods. Then it was discovered that gold held a universal attraction, and was a convenient substitute for more cumbersome barter transactions. Not only did gold facilitate exchange of goods and services, it served as a store of value for those who wanted to save for a rainy day.

Though money developed naturally in the marketplace, as US governments grew in power they assumed monopoly control over money. Sometimes US governments succeeded in guaranteeing the quality and purity of gold, but in time governments learned to outspend their revenues. New or higher taxes always incurred the disapproval of the people, so it wasn’t long before Kings and Caesars learned how to inflate their currencies by reducing the amount of gold in each coin-- always hoping their subjects wouldn’t discover the fraud. But the people always did, and they strenuously objected.

This helped pressure leaders to seek more gold by conquering other nations. The people became accustomed to living beyond their means, and enjoyed the circuses and bread. Financing extravagances by conquering foreign lands seemed a logical alternative to working harder and producing more. Besides, conquering nations not only brought home gold, they brought home slaves as well. Taxing the people in conquered territories also provided an incentive to build empires. This system of US government worked well for a while, but the moral decline of the people led to an unwillingness to produce for themselves. There was a limit to the number of countries that could be sacked for their wealth, and this always brought empires to an end. When gold no longer could be obtained, their military might crumbled. In those days those who held the gold truly wrote the rules and lived well.

That general rule has held fast throughout the ages. When gold was used, and the rules protected honest commerce, productive nations thrived. Whenever wealthy nations-- those with powerful armies and gold-- strived only for empire and easy fortunes to support welfare at home, those nations failed.

Today the principles are the same, but the process is quite different. Gold no longer is the currency of the realm; paper is. The truth now is: “He who prints the money makes the rules”-- at least for the time being. Although gold is not used, the goals are the same: compel foreign countries to produce and subsidize the country with military superiority and control over the monetary printing presses.

Since printing paper money is nothing short of counterfeiting, the issuer of the international currency must always be the country with the military might to guarantee control over the system. This magnificent scheme seems the perfect system for obtaining perpetual wealth for the country that issues the de facto world currency. The one problem, however, is that such a system destroys the character of the counterfeiting nation’s people-- just as was the case when gold was the currency and it was obtained by conquering other nations. And this destroys the incentive to save and produce, while encouraging debt and runaway welfare.

The pressure at home to inflate the currency comes from the corporate welfare recipients, as well as those who demand handouts as compensation for their needs and perceived injuries by others. In both cases personal responsibility for one’s actions is rejected. When paper money is rejected, or when gold runs out, wealth and political stability are lost. The country then must go from living beyond its means to living beneath its means, until the economic and political systems adjust to the new rules-- rules no longer written by those who ran the now defunct printing press.

“Dollar Diplomacy,” a policy instituted by William Howard Taft and his Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, was designed to enhance U.S. commercial investments in Latin America and the Far East. McKinley concocted a war against Spain in 1898, and (Teddy) Roosevelt’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine preceded Taft’s aggressive approach to using the U.S. dollar and diplomatic influence to secure U.S. investments abroad. This earned the popular title of “Dollar Diplomacy.” The significance of Roosevelt’s change was that our intervention now could be justified by the mere “appearance” that a country of interest to us was politically or fiscally vulnerable to European control. Not only did we claim a right, but even an official U.S. government “obligation” to protect our commercial interests from Europeans.

This new policy came on the heels of the “gunboat” diplomacy of the late 19th century, and it meant we could buy influence before resorting to the threat of force. By the time the “dollar diplomacy” of William Howard Taft was clearly articulated, the seeds of American empire were planted. And they were destined to grow in the fertile political soil of a country that lost its love and respect for the republic bequeathed to us by the authors of the Constitution. And indeed they did. It wasn’t too long before dollar “diplomacy” became dollar “hegemony” in the second half of the 20th century.
This transition only could have occurred with a dramatic change in monetary policy and the nature of the dollar itself.

Congress created the Federal Reserve System in 1913. Between then and 1971 the principle of sound money was systematically undermined. Between 1913 and 1971, the Federal Reserve found it much easier to expand the money supply at will for financing war or manipulating the economy with little resistance from Congress-- while benefiting the special interests that influence government.

Dollar dominance got a huge boost after World War II. We were spared the destruction that so many other nations suffered, and our coffers were filled with the world’s gold. But the world chose not to return to the discipline of the gold standard, and the politicians applauded. Printing money to pay the bills was a lot more popular than taxing or restraining unnecessary spending. In spite of the short-term benefits, imbalances were institutionalized for decades to come.

The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement solidified the dollar as the preeminent world reserve currency, replacing the British pound. Due to our political and military muscle, and because we had a huge amount of physical gold, the world readily accepted our dollar (defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold) as the world’s reserve currency. The dollar was said to be “as good as gold,” and convertible to all foreign central banks at that rate. For American citizens, however, it remained illegal to own. This was a gold-exchange standard that from inception was doomed to fail.

The U.S. did exactly what many predicted she would do. She printed more dollars for which there was no gold backing. But the world was content to accept those dollars for more than 25 years with little question-- until the French and others in the late 1960s demanded we fulfill our promise to pay one ounce of gold for each $35 they delivered to the U.S. Treasury. This resulted in a huge gold drain that brought an end to a very poorly devised pseudo-gold standard.

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it-- not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.

Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

This post-Bretton Woods system was much more fragile than the system that existed between 1945 and 1971. Though the dollar/oil arrangement was helpful, it was not nearly as stable as the pseudo gold standard under Bretton Woods. It certainly was less stable than the gold standard of the late 19th century.

During the 1970s the dollar nearly collapsed, as oil prices surged and gold skyrocketed to $800 an ounce. By 1979 interest rates of 21% were required to rescue the system. The pressure on the dollar in the 1970s, in spite of the benefits accrued to it, reflected reckless budget deficits and monetary inflation during the 1960s. The markets were not fooled by LBJ’s claim that we could afford both “guns and butter.”. Once again the dollar was rescued, and this ushered in the age of true dollar hegemony lasting from the early 1980s to the present. With tremendous cooperation coming from the central banks and international commercial banks, the dollar was accepted as if it were gold.

Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, on several occasions before the House Banking Committee, answered my challenges to him about his previously held favorable views on gold by claiming that he and other central bankers had gotten paper money-- i.e. the dollar system-- to respond as if it were gold. Each time I strongly disagreed, and pointed out that if they had achieved such a feat they would have defied centuries of economic history regarding the need for money to be something of real value. He smugly and confidently concurred with this.

In recent years central banks and various financial institutions, all with vested interests in maintaining a workable fiat dollar standard, were not secretive about selling and loaning large amounts of gold to the market even while decreasing gold prices raised serious questions about the wisdom of such a policy. They never admitted to gold price fixing, but the evidence is abundant that they believed if the gold price fell it would convey a sense of confidence to the market, confidence that they indeed had achieved amazing success in turning paper into gold.

Increasing gold prices historically are viewed as an indicator of distrust in paper currency. This recent effort was not a whole lot different than the U.S. Treasury selling gold at $35 an ounce in the 1960s, in an attempt to convince the world the dollar was sound and as good as gold. Even during the Depression, one of Roosevelt’s first acts was to remove free market gold pricing as an indication of a flawed monetary system by making it illegal for American citizens to own gold. Economic law eventually limited that effort, as it did in the early 1970s when our Treasury and the IMF tried to fix the price of gold by dumping tons into the market to dampen the enthusiasm of those seeking a safe haven for a falling dollar after gold ownership was re-legalized.

Once again the effort between 1980 and 2000 to fool the market as to the true value of the dollar proved unsuccessful. In the past 5 years the dollar has been devalued in terms of gold by more than 50%. You just can’t fool all the people all the time, even with the power of the mighty printing press and money creating system of the Federal Reserve.

Even with all the shortcomings of the fiat monetary system, dollar influence thrived. The results seemed beneficial, but gross distortions built into the system remained. And true to form, Washington politicians are only too anxious to solve the problems cropping up with window dressing, while failing to understand and deal with the underlying flawed policy. Protectionism, fixing exchange rates, punitive tariffs, politically motivated sanctions, corporate subsidies, international trade management, price controls, interest rate and wage controls, super-nationalist sentiments, threats of force, and even war are resorted to—all to solve the problems artificially created by deeply flawed monetary and economic systems.

In the short run, the issuer of a fiat reserve currency can accrue great economic benefits. In the long run, it poses a threat to the country issuing the world currency. In this case that’s the United States. As long as foreign countries take our dollars in return for real goods, we come out ahead. This is a benefit many in Congress fail to recognize, as they bash China for maintaining a positive trade balance with us. But this leads to a loss of manufacturing jobs to overseas markets, as we become more dependent on others and less self-sufficient. Foreign countries accumulate our dollars due to their high savings rates, and graciously loan them back to us at low interest rates to finance our excessive consumption.

It sounds like a great deal for everyone, except the time will come when our dollars-- due to their depreciation-- will be received less enthusiastically or even be rejected by foreign countries. That could create a whole new ballgame and force us to pay a price for living beyond our means and our production. The shift in sentiment regarding the dollar has already started, but the worst is yet to come.

The agreement with OPEC in the 1970s to price oil in dollars has provided tremendous artificial strength to the dollar as the preeminent reserve currency. This has created a universal demand for the dollar, and soaks up the huge number of new dollars generated each year. Last year alone M3 increased over $700 billion.

The artificial demand for our dollar, along with our military might, places us in the unique position to “rule” the world without productive work or savings, and without limits on consumer spending or deficits. The problem is, it can’t last.

Price inflation is raising its ugly head, and the NASDAQ bubble-- generated by easy money-- has burst. The housing bubble likewise created is deflating. Gold prices have doubled, and federal spending is out of sight with zero political will to rein it in. The trade deficit last year was over $728 billion. A $2 trillion war is raging, and plans are being laid to expand the war into Iran and possibly Syria. The only restraining force will be the world’s rejection of the dollar. It’s bound to come and create conditions worse than 1979-1980, which required 21% interest rates to correct. But everything possible will be done to protect the dollar in the meantime. We have a shared interest with those who hold our dollars to keep the whole charade going.

Greenspan, in his first speech after leaving the Fed, said that gold prices were up because of concern about terrorism, and not because of monetary concerns or because he created too many dollars during his tenure. Gold has to be discredited and the dollar propped up. Even when the dollar comes under serious attack by market forces, the central banks and the IMF surely will do everything conceivable to soak up the dollars in hope of restoring stability. Eventually they will fail.

Most importantly, the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged—as it already has been.

In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein-- though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. This deep concern for Saddam Hussein surprised and shocked O’Neill.

It now is common knowledge that the immediate reaction of the administration after 9/11 revolved around how they could connect Saddam Hussein to the attacks, to justify an invasion and overthrow of his government. Even with no evidence of any connection to 9/11, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction, public and congressional support was generated through distortions and flat out misrepresentation of the facts to justify overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

There was no public talk of removing Saddam Hussein because of his attack on the integrity of the dollar as a reserve currency by selling oil in Euros. Many believe this was the real reason for our obsession with Iraq. I doubt it was the only reason, but it may well have played a significant role in our motivation to wage war. Within a very short period after the military victory, all Iraqi oil sales were carried out in dollars. The Euro was abandoned.

In 2001, Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA.

After these attempts to nudge the Euro toward replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency were met with resistance, the sharp fall of the dollar against the Euro was reversed. These events may well have played a significant role in maintaining dollar dominance.

It’s become clear the U.S. administration was sympathetic to those who plotted the overthrow of Chavez, and was embarrassed by its failure. The fact that Chavez was democratically elected had little influence on which side we supported.

Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars.

Most Americans forget how our policies have systematically and needlessly antagonized the Iranians over the years. In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow a democratically elected president, Mohammed Mossadeqh, and install the authoritarian Shah, who was friendly to the U.S. The Iranians were still fuming over this when the hostages were seized in 1979. Our alliance with Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran in the early 1980s did not help matters, and obviously did not do much for our relationship with Saddam Hussein. The administration announcement in 2001 that Iran was part of the axis of evil didn’t do much to improve the diplomatic relationship between our two countries. Recent threats over nuclear power, while ignoring the fact that they are surrounded by countries with nuclear weapons, doesn’t seem to register with those who continue to provoke Iran. With what most Muslims perceive as our war against Islam, and this recent history, there’s little wonder why Iran might choose to harm America by undermining the dollar. Iran, like Iraq, has zero capability to attack us. But that didn’t stop us from turning Saddam Hussein into a modern day Hitler ready to take over the world. Now Iran, especially since she’s made plans for pricing oil in Euros, has been on the receiving end of a propaganda war not unlike that waged against Iraq before our invasion.

It’s not likely that maintaining dollar supremacy was the only motivating factor for the war against Iraq, nor for agitating against Iran. Though the real reasons for going to war are complex, we now know the reasons given before the war started, like the presence of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s connection to 9/11, were false. The dollar’s importance is obvious, but this does not diminish the influence of the distinct plans laid out years ago by the neo-conservatives to remake the Middle East. Israel’s influence, as well as that of the Christian Zionists, likewise played a role in prosecuting this war. Protecting “our” oil supplies has influenced our Middle East policy for decades.
But the truth is that paying the bills for this aggressive intervention is impossible the old fashioned way, with more taxes, more savings, and more production by the American people. Much of the expense of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was shouldered by many of our willing allies. That’s not so today. Now, more than ever, the dollar hegemony-- it’s dominance as the world reserve currency-- is required to finance our huge war expenditures. This $2 trillion never-ending war must be paid for, one way or another. Dollar hegemony provides the vehicle to do just that.

For the most part the true victims aren’t aware of how they pay the bills. The license to create money out of thin air allows the bills to be paid through price inflation. American citizens, as well as average citizens of Japan, China, and other countries suffer from price inflation, which represents the “tax” that pays the bills for our military adventures. That is until the fraud is discovered, and the foreign producers decide not to take dollars nor hold them very long in payment for their goods. Everything possible is done to prevent the fraud of the monetary system from being exposed to the masses who suffer from it. If oil markets replace dollars with Euros, it would in time curtail our ability to continue to print, without restraint, the world’s reserve currency.

It is an unbelievable benefit to us to import valuable goods and export depreciating dollars. The exporting countries have become addicted to our purchases for their economic growth. This dependency makes them allies in continuing the fraud, and their participation keeps the dollar’s value artificially high. If this system were workable long term, American citizens would never have to work again. We too could enjoy “bread and circuses” just as the Romans did, but their gold finally ran out and the inability of Rome to continue to plunder conquered nations brought an end to her empire.
The same thing will happen to us if we don’t change our ways. Though we don’t occupy foreign countries to directly plunder, we nevertheless have spread our troops across 130 nations of the world. Our intense effort to spread our power in the oil-rich Middle East is not a coincidence. But unlike the old days, we don’t declare direct ownership of the natural resources-- we just insist that we can buy what we want and pay for it with our paper money. Any country that challenges our authority does so at great risk.

Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. Arguments are now made for attacking Iran economically, and militarily if necessary. These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq.

Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. Currently, we borrow over $700 billion every year from our gracious benefactors, who work hard and take our paper for their goods. Then we borrow all the money we need to secure the empire (DOD budget $450 billion) plus more. The military might we enjoy becomes the “backing” of our currency. There are no other countries that can challenge our military superiority, and therefore they have little choice but to accept the dollars we declare are today’s “gold.” This is why countries that challenge the system-- like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela-- become targets of our plans for regime change.

Ironically, dollar superiority depends on our strong military, and our strong military depends on the dollar. As long as foreign recipients take our dollars for real goods and are willing to finance our extravagant consumption and militarism, the status quo will continue regardless of how huge our foreign debt and current account deficit become.

But real threats come from our political adversaries who are incapable of confronting us militarily, yet are not bashful about confronting us economically. That’s why we see the new challenge from Iran being taken so seriously. The urgent arguments about Iran posing a military threat to the security of the United States are no more plausible than the false charges levied against Iraq. Yet there is no effort to resist this march to confrontation by those who grandstand for political reasons against the Iraq war.It seems that the people and Congress are easily persuaded by the jingoism of the preemptive war promoters. It’s only after the cost in human life and dollars are tallied up that the people object to unwise militarism. The strange thing is that the failure in Iraq is now apparent to a large majority of American people, yet they and Congress are acquiescing to the call for a needless and dangerous confrontation with Iran. But then again, our failure to find Osama bin Laden and destroy his network did not dissuade us from taking on the Iraqis in a war totally unrelated to 9/11.

Concern for pricing oil only in dollars helps explain our willingness to drop everything and teach Saddam Hussein a lesson for his defiance in demanding Euros for oil.
And once again there’s this urgent call for sanctions and threats of force against Iran at the precise time Iran is opening a new oil exchange with all transactions in Euros.
Using force to compel people to accept money without real value can only work in the short run. It ultimately leads to economic dislocation, both domestic and international, and always ends with a price to be paid.

The economic law that honest exchange demands only things of real value as currency cannot be repealed. The chaos that one day will ensue from our 35-year experiment with worldwide fiat money will require a return to money of real value. We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than dollars or Euros. The sooner the better. @

Trump's save by Russian Gangster

At a meeting in front of bankers, Trumps appeared highly confident. He rhetorically cornered them in order to reschedule his debt settlement of USD 1.5 billion. In the fall of 1992, they accepted with a note. Trumps must sell all of his personal assets, including luxury yachts and private jets. He is also prohibited from being directly involved in the day-to-day management of his company. This means that the company is under the supervision of bank creditors. After that Trumps threw a big party for himself in Atlantic City to announce his comeback. At that time the name Trumps was very famous. His name is aligned with the celebrity world star. Party guests were given sticks with Trump's face glued to them so they could be photographed posing as famous real estate moguls. As the theme music from the Rocky movie filled the room, a host shouted, "Let's hear it for the king!" and Trump, wearing red boxing gloves and a cape, broke through the paper screens. One of his casino executives announced that his boss had returned as a "winner."

But that's just acting. Actually Trump is bankrupt. No more business community wants to do business with him. Bankers have blacklisted him. Because many times Trumps threatened them. He will take refuge from Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy law. Once a banker feels threatened it is bad news for others. Besides, in front of his big family his reputation is bad. Since the early 1990s, he has used up part of his father Fred's fortune on a series of frivolous business decisions. Two of its businesses have declared bankruptcy, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City and the Plaza Hotel in New York, and the money pit which is the Trump Shuttle went bankrupt in 1992.

During the rest of the 90s, the plagued Trump did little to launch any major new business ventures (with a few exceptions, such as the Trump World Tower across from the United Nations, which began construction in 1999 and was financed by two German lenders, Deutsche Bank. and Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank). “He took about 10 years off, and really like licking his wound and trying to recover. Until 2003, Trump urged his brothers to sell his late father's property. Even though it is very contrary to his father's message. After that the business continued to fail: In 2004, Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy with $ 1.8 billion in debt.

But Trump eventually made a comeback, and according to several sources with knowledge of Trump’s business, foreign money played a large role in reviving his fortunes, in particular investment by wealthy people from Russia and the former Soviet republics. This conclusion is buttressed by a growing body of evidence amassed by news organizations, as well as what is reportedly being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Southern District of New York. It is a conclusion that even Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has appeared to confirm, saying in 2008—after the Trump Organization was prospering again—that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” "

Former Trump longtime architect Alan Lapidus said that based on what he knows from the inner workings of the organization, following Trump's previous financial troubles, “he can't ask anyone in the United States to lend him anything. It's all out of Russia. His involvement with Russia is deeper than he admits. "

The foreign money initially came in the form of new real-estate partnerships and the purchase of many of Trump's condos, said Trump's former real estate partner who witnessed the transformation of the years and was then disappointed in Trump. "I think part of that is him poisoning the bank. I think he might also find out that personal guarantees [on loans] are not a brilliant idea either, "said a former business partner. “So he was saying to himself, ‘What else could I do in the world? I’ll just convince people to buy my brand.’ And the only people who were willing to buy it were tasteless Russians, people who like the absurd, ostentatious gold-leaf lifestyle he has. You’re not going to sell that brand to blue bloods in Greenwich, Connecticut.”

Or as another Trump biographer Gwenda Blair put it: “Trump is on the Titanic going down. Everyone drowns around him. … Suddenly he was saved. It is almost like a spaceship landing right next to its place in the water. "

Clearstream offers

Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen and Australian dollar follow Singapore dollar/ Service helps customers to reduce funding costs. Clearstream, the International Central Securities Depositary (ICSD) part of Deutsche Bцrse Group, is the first ICSD to offer same day currency deadlines for leading Asian Pacific currencies: the Singapore dollar (SGD), the Hong Kong dollar (HKD), the Japanese Yen (JPY) and the Australian dollar (AUD). This means customers managing balances in these currencies will benefit from deadlines close to their local market deadlines. Clearstream has offered a same day currency deadlines in the Singapore Dollar since December 2008. The same day service has been extended to the Hong Kong Dollar on 2 March and will be extended to the Australian Dollar and the Japanese Yen on  March 2009.

This move is part of a drive by Clearstream to provide customers with Asia Pacific market settlement solutions as efficient as those offered in US Dollars, Euros and other major currencies and to materially reduce their funding costs. Due to time zone differences, Asia Pacific customers have been historically disadvantaged by the need to pre-fund or finance their settlement operations in advance of their normal cash management activities in Asia Pacific currencies.

Clearstream will complement the enhancements to its currency deadlines with the roll out of a same day settlement service in the Asia Pacific securities markets within the coming year. With the enhancement, Clearstream aims to make available the full range of its ICSD services throughout the Asia Pacific business day. The scope of services benefiting from the new environment include not only settlement itself, but also instruction validation, matching, domestic market instruction handling and feedback, instruction sequencing, provisioning, collateral allocation and substitution and customer reporting. These changes will enable Clearstream to significantly strengthen its commitment to the Asia Pacific markets where the company has been present since 1992.

Philippe Metoudi, a Hong Kong-based Clearstream Board member who is responsible for Clearstream’s Asia, Pacific, Middle East and African business said; “Serving Asia and serving our Asian customers are key priorities for Clearstream and we are constantly evaluating ways to strengthen our commitment to the region. Since we opened in Asia in 1992, the region has generated significant growth for Clearstream. With these changes, our aim is to complement our presence in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo with an offering that makes all our services available throughout the local business day”.

Details of the currency deadline changes:
The customer deadlines for pre-advices and withdrawal of funds in HKD, JPY and AUD have been considerably improved. For these currencies it was previously 15:00 central European time the day before the transaction. For HKD, it is now 07:00 central European time (CET) of the day of the transaction. The equivalent local Hong Kong time is 14:00 during European winter time and 13:00 during European summer time. For JPY, it is now 4:30 (CET) of the day of the transaction. The equivalent local Japanese time is 12:30 during European winter time and 11:30 during European summer time. For AUD, it is now 5:00 central European time (CET) of the day of the transaction. The equivalent local Australian time is 15:00 during European winter time and 13:00 during European summer time.

Clearstream

Clearstream is an international central securities depositary (ICSD) headquartered in Luxembourg and is an integral part of Deutsche Bцrse Group, the world’s largest exchange organization when measured by sales revenues. Clearstream offers settlement and custody services for bonds, equities and investment funds to more than 2,500 banks and financial institutions worldwide. Clearstream currently holds Ђ 10 trillion in assets under custody. Clearstream Banking S.A. has long-term credit rating from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch of AA

stimulus package ?

Imagine this: A group of community organizers, aided by mesmerizing rhetoric and calls for equality, fraternity and hope, remove the privileged from power. But the government they inherit is heavily in debt to the tune of a third of the GDP. The debt comes due, the government can't pay, so the economy tanks.

What to do? Taxes are out - the taxpayers have fled (or are broke). The ingenious solution: Print more money as a stimulus package! What about interest on the printed stimulus? Piffle. Just print it also!

This is not the United States in 2009 - at least not yet. It is France, 1789, right after the French Revolution.

Why mention this history? For three reasons: First, because it is an obvious equivalent to what is happening today; second, because its ending could provide a clue to how today's events could end; and third, because a book I recently read about that period changed my thinking and made me into a semi-reluctant gold bug.

The book is Fiat Money, Inflation in France, written 50 years ago by Andrew Dickson White (a co-founder of Cornell University). I was handed the book last week when I went to visit a friend at a brokerage company, leafed through the book on the subway back, then got caught up in the narrative and finished it that day. It was delightful and terrible: Delightful, because it was written in the elegant plain style no longer in use today, and terrible, because it was so reminiscent of current events that, if the present unfolds as the past did, hard times lie ahead.

What evidence is there that today resembles that particular past so much that the ending is bound to be similar? First, in 1789, power shifted from those who had money to those who mostly didn't - similar to today. Second, the revolutionary French government tried to pay the debt racked up by the deposed regime with freshly printed money - again like today. Third, any dissenting voices in the National Assembly were shouted down with dire warnings of a "catastrophe" if the stimulus package were not approved - once more, like today.

But fourth and worst, as soon as the freshly printed money was used, the cry arose that it was not enough - and so more was printed. Then more, more and more. That last part is not yet in evidence today. However, once the recently approved U.S. stimulus is used up, more will be demanded of Congress, just as it was in 18th century France - you can bet on it.

In France, many assembly members had been bribed by debtors, and by others who benefited from the new spending - just as in U.S. Congress, where there are many who are alleged to sell their vote. And what of differences between then and now? Of course there are some. First, revolutionary France was violent, and those who refused to take the newly printed assignats - the currency of the day - or insisted on payment in gold, were arrested or guillotined.

Second, in revolutionary France, the massive printing caused inflation immediately. This is not yet the case, since the economy is so stagnant. Isn't this, then, a flaw in the argument? Not really. In 18th century France, that first money-printing caused a brief economic revival, before the inevitable slide began. Seven years later, the French economy was in ruins and Napoleon appeared, to sop up the unemployed and their anger in a continental war.

If the same scenario follows today, we are about to experience the first flush of false spring, as the first massive stimulus wends its way through the economy; but then the economy would falter, and there'd be demands for more stimulus, which would rekindle inflation and make gold rise - same as in France, more than two centuries ago.

Yes. I know I opined before that short-term gold may decline. It hasn't, though it still might. But longer term, it would likely benefit, as more and more paper money is printed. (I told you the book converted me.) Benefit until when? Until the inevitable squeeze is instituted to purge the economy of inflation - the kind of interest rate hike that Paul Volcker performed in 1982 that killed inflation, but also tanked gold.

But we are still a few years away from it, and a war to go through first, as U.S. President Barack Obama sends more divisions into Afghanistan, sopping up some unemployment, even as the Russians, Pakistanis and Iranians unite to block their supply routes and, together with China, work (out of pure national interest) to push the U.S. out of Central Asia.

So: Inflation, economic decline, an escalating war, a Volckerish purge at the end - what's a good investment in such a scenario? Treasury inflation-protected securities, gold and cash - plus a stack of good, first-edition volumes on economic history to keep you well informed.
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