Controversial online influencer Andrew Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian citizens have been indicted in Romania on charges of rape, human trafficking and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women, prosecutors announced on Tuesday.
The Tate brothers were first arrested at their Bucharest home in December. In March, they were moved from custody to house arrest following a ruling by a Romanian judge, the BBC reported.
The indictment deposited with the Bucharest court says that the four defendants formed an organised criminal group in 2021 to commit human trafficking in Romania, but also in other countries including the US and the UK.
It names seven alleged victims who it says were recruited by the Tate brothers through false promises of love and marriage, the British news broadcaster reported.
The alleged victims were later taken to buildings in Ilfov county in Romania where they were intimidated, placed under constant surveillance and control and forced into debt, according to a statement from Romanian prosecutors.
The defendants allegedly then forced the women to take part in pornography which was later shared on social media.
One defendant is accused of raping a woman twice in March 2022, the statement adds.
The accused also had assets seized, including properties, cars and more than $300m (£235m) in cryptocurrency.
The trial will not start immediately and is expected to take several years.
A Romanian judge now has 60 days to inspect the case files before it can be sent to trial.
The media team for the Tate brothers said: “While this news is undoubtedly predictable, we embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation.”
It added that the indictment “allows us to present a comprehensive body of evidence, diligently collected and prepared over time, which will undoubtedly substantiate the brothers’ claims of innocence”.
There are also separate charges still under investigation which could lead to a separate indictment, including money laundering and trafficking of minors.
In 2016, Andrew Tate, a British-American former kickboxer, was removed from British TV show Big Brother over a video which appeared to show him attacking a woman.
Tate also became infamous for his viral online rants preaching male dominance, female submission and the pursuit of wealth.
He went on to gain notoriety online, with Twitter banning him for saying women should “bear some responsibility” for being sexually assaulted. He has since been reinstated.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) on Thursday issued a statement denying reports that it had refused to issue a censor certificate to the movie ’72 Hoorain’ and its trailer. The CBFC said that the film ’72 Hoorain’ directed by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan is already certified and the trailer certification of the film is in process. This press note by the CBFC came in response to some reports in the media claiming that the film certification has been restricted owing to certain corrections.
In the press note, the CBFC said, “Misleading reports are being circulated in certain sections of media that a film and its trailer titles ‘Bahattar Hoorain (72 Hoorain)’ has been refused certification by Central Board of Film Certification.”
Misleading reports are being circulated that a film and its trailer titled "Bahattar Hoorain (72 Hoorain)" has been refused certification by Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Contrary to the reports, CBFC states that the film was granted 'A' certification. Now, the… pic.twitter.com/6k2cw4zKbX
According to the CBFC, it has asked the makers of the movie to make certain changes to the trailer and has not rejected it, as portrayed in reports. However, the trailer was released without the certificate, following which the CBFC issued a show-cause notice, and asked to implement the changes.
The CBFC stated in the press note, “The film ‘Bahattar Hoorain (72 Hoorain)’ was granted ‘A’ certification and the certificate was issued on 4-10-2019. Now, the trailer of said film is under due process which was applied to CBFC on 19-6-2023 and examined in accordance with the guidelines issued under section 5B(2) of the Cinematograph Act, 1952.”
The board further said, “The applicant was asked for the requisite documentary submissions under intimation and upon receipt of the same, certification was granted subject to modifications. A show cause notice communicating the modifications was issued to the applicant/filmmaker on 27-6-2023 the same is pending the applicant’s response/compliance. Thus, any misleading reports may not be entertained or circulated hereinafter when the matter is under due process.”
On Tuesday, June the critically acclaimed film ’72 Hoorain,’ produced by Ashoke Pandit was given a list of modifications by the censor board to be made in the movie’s trailer. But the trailer was released on Wednesday without the changes. Producer Ashok Pandit said that the changes were asked at the last moment, and they had already prepared for the launch of the trailer. He also questioned the board for asking cuts in the trailer, when the trailer is made from scenes taken from the movie which was already cleared by the board in 2019.
Pandit said, “72 Hoorain won the National award as well as an award at IFFI. The film’s trailer has been cut from the film itself. So, either the National Award was wrong or this rejection of the censor certificate is wrong. I want to know on what basis our trailer was not given a censor certificate. I request Prasoon Joshi to find out who were the officials who didn’t give the certificate. I also request the I&B Minister Anurag Thakur to issue an inquiry into this matter. We are very hurt and shocked by this reaction.”
He said that the shots asked to be removed from the trailer, a shot with a foot and a word from Quran, are these shots are there in the movie cleared by the CBFC. “I would like to tell that this film is not against any person or religion. This film is dealing with terrorism. All we want to ask is why the shots that are okay in the film are not okay in the trailer,” Ashok Pandit said. He also demanded an inquiry against those people who have rejected the certificate for the trailer.
The film is scheduled for release on July 7. The film, directed by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan and featuring Pavan Malhotra and Aamir Bashir in prominent roles, explores the repercussions of religiously motivated Islamic terrorism.
It was pure evil when Nazis did it. Fortunately, those fiends were expelled. Now it is woke liberals who run Holland:
Nearly 40 people who identified as autistic or intellectually disabled were legally euthanized in the Netherlands between 2012 and 2021, according to a Kingston University investigation of Dutch euthanasia cases.
This isn’t murder, because authorities had determined that their difficulties were untreatable obstacles to a normal life. Good thing for transsexuals that those in charge won’t say the same about their sexual psychoses — at least, not unless LGBTism falls out of fashion.
In the roughly 10-year period the study focused on, nearly 60,000 people decided to die via euthanasia in the Netherlands, according to the Dutch government’s euthanasia review committee. …
Many of the patients cited a number of mental, physical and age-related ailments as the reason for ending their lives — including unbearable loneliness.
Eight people, however, named the sole cause of their suffering as factors related to their intellectual disability…
Someone who is intellectually disabled does not decide to die in any meaningful sense, any more than children decide to undergo sex change procedures. That decision is being made for them.
The migrant mayhem seen in June, although only a thin slice of the overall picture, shows why Alternative for Germany (AfD) is surging in popularity. The scale of the events, and the growing fatigue of the German population against what appears to be an endless stream of newcomers, is hard for even mainstream media outlets to ignore.
These same outlets, while primarily staffed with left-wing journalists who promote the country’s left-wing parties, can no longer disregard the problems wrought by multiculturalism, and their coverage showcases what Germans already know.
At the same time, these same publications are fighting what appears to be a concerted war against the surging AfD, writing polemical pieces about how the party represents a threat to democracy.
Clan battles in June dominate national headlines
Der Spiegel, for instance, is one of the most powerful pro-Atlanticist publications in Germany, yet, its video on the ongoing ethnic clan battles in the Ruhr valley of Germany this June went viral. The reason? The German public is both captivated and concerned about the country’s growing multiculturalism, and the ongoing sagas with the clans, including mass brawls, shootings and large-scale museum heists, have often led to feverish coverage. Der Spiegel, as much as it might want to sweep the issue under the rug, realizes the click-and-view potential of these clans.
That is why its latest mini-documentary on the clan battles in the Ruhr Valley had over a million hits within 24 hours — no small feat for Germany’s news market. In a week, it had nearly 2 million views. Spiegel was not the only publication covering these battles, and Germans, who have seen this same story play out for years, especially during a time when their own standard of living is dropping, may be tired of the same narrative — one the AfD has warned against for a while now
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The Spiegel narrator explains that the police are overwhelmed as Lebanese and Syrian clans continue to battle in the city — with police resources stretched thin:
“(The German city of) Essen on Saturday night. The police must mobilize all reserves in order not to fall behind again. In the meantime, the monopoly on the use of force lay with two Arab clans. The scene of the feud is a Syrian restaurant in a prime downtown location. On Friday night, the inn was targeted by hundreds of men, as this video shows. Although the police are on-site, dozens of attackers break in and destroy the furniture. The Essen Chaos Night culminates in a mass brawl between Syrians and Lebanese. One day after the robbery, the restaurant is well frequented again and protected by two police vans.”
During the brawl, 80 men were taken into custody, and police confiscated baseball bats, knives and other weapons. Der Spiegel describes how the feud has been ongoing, with Lebanese clan members attacking Syrians days before in a neighboring city. Those events were filmed and widely distributed in German media and social media, showing the Lebanese and Syrian brawlers seemingly unconcerned with a police presence as they battled in the streets.
El pasado día15 Batalla campal entre sirios y libaneses en Castrop-Rauxel, Renania (Alemania) Con cuchillos y machetes, pusieron en peligro a personas inocentes y a la policía que tiene que mediar entre las partes; de éstas reyertas importadas por la UE ¡Celebremos la diversidad! pic.twitter.com/UaDNyj1Zq7
As Süddeutsche Zeitung notes, there are more clans in the city of Essen and Germany’s largest state by population, North Rhine-Westphalia, than anywhere else in Germany:
According to the LKA, there are more than 100 extended families in NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia), some of which form such criminal structures. Most have Lebanese or Turkish roots. In 2021, the police registered 3,600 suspects from the milieu, who together committed almost 5,500 crimes. Hardly anywhere else in Germany have so many so-called clans settled in the past years and decades as in NRW, much more than in the other focal points of Berlin, Bremen or Lower Saxony…
In Essen, for example, members of several Lebanese extended families have dominated the scene for a long time. Experts warned several years ago that family reunification from their homeland and immigration from other parts of Germany would quickly increase the number of Syrian clans — which could lead to considerable tension. The number of Syrians in Essen has risen rapidly since the civil war in their home country, from just 500 in 2010 to almost 16,000.
German swimming season open to mass brawls and “macho culture”
Germany’s public swimming pools are practically a national institution, with many Germans cherishing memories of their youth spent at these establishments. They are, in principle, supposed to be a place safe for families and the elderly. However, an exploding foreign population is not only making these establishments more crowded but also more dangerous, with the mainstream German press routinely pointing out that foreign males constitute the vast majority of cases troubling the public pool system.
Remix News has long reported on this trend, including mass brawls, sexual assaults and attacks on police, security officials and even lifeguards working at the pools.
Just last year, Remix News covered how the president of the Federal Association of German Swimming Champions (BDS), Peter Harzheim, said he can no longer recommend that families visit such facilities on weekends. Harzheim claimed he would be “acting irresponsibly” if he attended an outdoor pool with his own three grandchildren due to violence and assaults, which the Remix News article details.
The beginning of this year’s summer is no different, with the latest incident just days ago. Again, the video on this topic, from Welt, was a “ratings” success, with nearly half a million views.
The report details how the entire Columbiadamm swimming pool in the multicultural neighborhood of Neukölln, Berlin, was closed down due to over 40 warring youth. Welt lays the blame squarely at the feet of “macho culture” from immigrant youth. In Pankow, a swimming pool had to be shut down twice in one week due to mass brawls between young people.
In the German city of Celle, 20 “rampaging youth” attacked swimmers, sexually assaulting them, including beating one female who rejected their advances. When lifeguards attempted to stop them, they threatened them as well. As a result, the entire swimming pool was shut down.
Just seven days ago, Germany’s Bild newspaper, the best-selling newspaper in Germany, featured an article with the headline, “Germany, your bad swimming pools” with the subheadline: “Can’t we just go to the outdoor pool in peace?”
The paper describes a mass brawl involving 40 youths, which resulted in one lifeguard suffering a concussion, even though he had nothing to do with the fight. He said the incident started with a small fight, but family members of the participants all began joining in until it was a mass brawl.
“It was the worst day of my life! I was lying behind the hedge, 20 meters from the entrance, when suddenly it started,” said the lifeguard. The Bild also describes another brawl in Berlin, in which a Lebanese youth refused to take off his street shoes in the swimming pool. The feud escalated until 30 young people fought four security officials at the swimming pool at Am Schloßpark. According to Welt, one of those injured was stabbed with a knife, and a total of five people were injured.
Another mass brawl in Steinrausch in the German state of Saarland was also posted on Twitter.
#Steinrausch Darf man sagen das immer wieder die gleichen Personengruppen auffallen oder ist man dann wieder Rechts? Armes armes Deutschland pic.twitter.com/xUtQAdmZDb
Germans notice these trends, year after year, and they have cast a shadow on what should be a peaceful area of respite. As Bild notes: “On hot summer days, the outdoor pool is considered the most important relaxation oasis in Germany. But meanwhile, our swimming pools have become “bad” pools! Again and again, there are mass brawls — grown men beating each other wildly.”
Gangs plague Hamburg
While German politicians claim Germany is going “brown” due to its support for the AfD, this same political class cannot stop Germans from being mortally concerned that their way of life and their security is at stake in the unfolding saga around immigration.
Nearly every city has a group or groups of young migrants who terrorize the local citizens, as Remix News has documented in cities from north to south, and many publications are using that exact word: terror.
For example, Focus magazine writes that a gang called the “315ers” is “terrorizing” downtown Hamburg, including assaults, stabbings, and robberies, with sometimes as many as a hundred gang members involved. The gang is mostly made up of young Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian teens, as well as Syrians, all housed in local refugee accommodations.
Police have arrested members, recovered weapons, and noted that many of these members fight within the gang, with their mostly German girlfriends recording the fights and offering their encouragement.
Banning knives to fix migrant crime?
It has long been reported that Germany suffers approximately 50 knife attacks a day, with the vast majority of suspects foreigners. June has been no different, but many publications are increasingly addressing the “elephant in the room.” For example, Berliner Zeitung wrote this month that Germany’s 16 state interior ministers want to address growing migrant crime, with the article specifically mentioning the migrant who stabbed a young German couple to death on a regional train in January earlier this year.
The question of the perpetrators, however, is reluctant to be asked and is preferred to be ignored. The interior ministers are talking about the proverbial elephant, a fact that everyone knows but nobody wants to talk about.
The fact is what the crime statistics show. Let’s take Berlin as an example. In 2022, the police registered a total of 3,317 “knife attacks” here. 2,428 suspects were found, of whom 1,234 had foreign nationality, i.e. more than half.
Even with half of the knife attacks in Berlin listed as having been committed by foreigners, as Remix News has reported in the past, many of the “Germans” arrested for crimes are actually foreign-born but are listed as “German” because they obtained German citizenship. This skews the statistics significantly. For example, one official noted that approximately 75 percent of criminal clan members in Berlin have German citizenship, and every time they stab or assault someone, federal authorities list the crime as being committed by a “German.”
The Berliner Zeitung notes that Germany’s federal interior ministry has proposed banning knives on trains, but points out the absurdity of the proposal, noting that controlling who has a knife on a train is a nearly impossible task. At the same time, it may guarantee that only criminals and those seeking to do violence will have the knives in the end.
In another testament to why Germans may be turning to the AfD, the Berliner Zeitung writes: “The interior ministers have a duty to protect the population from brute force. This includes border protection. But despite all the scandals and human catastrophes, that still doesn’t exist.”
Meanwhile, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has seen its popularity surge over the last year, nearly doubling its support, with many polls showing it has the backing of between 19 and 21 percent of German voters. There is no doubt that soaring inflation, the war in Ukraine, and Germany’s ongoing deindustrialization have played a significant role in the AfD’s growing support base. However, immigration and the problems it has brought to Germany have been central to AfD’s story up until now, and if anything, this story is set to become even more of a central theme to Germany in the coming years.
A search was carried out in the house of MEP and ex vice of the European Parliament Eva Kaili in Psychiko suburb of northern Athens by men of the Greek economic police, following an order from the European General Prosecutor.
A Greek and a Belgian prosecutor were present at the investigation. According to information of newspaper ethnos.gr , computers and hard drives were confiscated.
An investigation was carried out also in the house of Kaili’s sister, Magdalena, in Kifissia.
Investigations were reportedly carried out from Monday to Wednesday, June 26-28, 2023.
According to daily kathimerini.gr , the Belgian public prosecutor was executing a European order for an investigation by the Belgian judicial authorities. The Belgian prosecutor asked financial police officers to carry out on-site searches, confiscating computers and related hardware.
Sources from Eva Kaili’s environment stated that the checks were carried out and nothing was found, “as expected”.
“They despaired that they found nothing in Brussels and elsewhere in the world and are looking for the houses, once again “coal is the treasure”.
it should be recalled that the Kaili’s lawyers, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, Sven Marie and Christophe Marchand, announced on Tuesday that their client can now move freely in the Schengen area, without the permission of the investigative authority, according to a decision of the Brussels Court of Appeal.
Eva Kaili has submitted a request to the European Parliament, for the defense of her immunity. In essence, the MEP is asking her colleagues to determine whether her immunity was breached during the Qatargate investigation.
According to Kaili’s side, the MEP was under the surveillance of secret services during the time she participated in the PEGA committee, which was institutionally charged with the investigation into the existence of illegal software, which monitored the activities of MEPs and other citizens, in the European Union.
The London Court of Appeals has ruled against the High Court’s previous judgement, finding that Rwanda is not a safe country for deportations and thereby ruling out the UK government’s resettlement scheme.
Senior judges found two-to-one that Rwanda, with whose government the UK has signed a memorandum of understanding to pay for the African nation to host irregular migrants on its behalf, is not actually a safe country. Having reached this decision, the Rwanda deportation plan of Suella Braverman becomes unworkable because the government is not permitted to deport to ‘unsafe’ countries.
The government can appeal the decision at the Supreme Court, and is reported to be doing so. It is conceivable it could then be appealed yet again, to the European Court of Human Rights. As things stand, the progress of the long-discussed Rwanda scheme is pretty much exactly in line with the prediction of Brexit leader Nigel Farage, who dismissed it as an illusion conjured at the end of the Conservatives’ time in power and doomed to be endlessly challenged in court until the party is — as seems likely now — voted out next year.
As it is, the Conservative Party has now had 13 years in power in the United Kingdom, and immigration is higher than ever, breaking new records annually. Prime Minister Sunak has repeatedly spoken of increasing the size of the workforce as a means to tackle inflation in recent weeks.
The Rwanda scheme itself is a plan to pay a third party — in this case Rwanda — to house migrants who have come to the United Kingdom by ‘irregular means’ while their asylum claims are processed, and then thereafter. The logic of the plan dictates that as long as those legitimately claiming asylum are kept safe, it doesn’t actually matter where that happens. Besides, the cost of living in Kigali is considerably cheaper than London, so it would work out as better value for money for British taxpayers.
Critics say Rwanda isn’t actually as safe as claimed and assert the Rwandan government wouldn’t keep to its side of the bargain. Rwanda itself has rejected the ruling, saying it was disappointed to be accused of being unsafe. PerThe Guardian, they said in a statement: “While this is ultimately a decision for the UK’s judicial system, we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers and refugees.
Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world and we have been recognised by the UNHCR and other international institutions for our exemplary treatment of refugees… Rwanda remains fully committed to making this partnership work. The broken global migration system is failing to protect the vulnerable, and empowering criminal smuggling gangs at an immeasurable human cost. When the migrants do arrive, we will welcome them and provide them with the support they’ll need to build new lives in Rwanda.”
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of murdering a girl his age whose body was found in a shopping trolley next to a garbage container in the northwestern Primavalle district of Rome on Wednesday evening. The suspect, of Sri Lankan origin but born in the Italian capital, allegedly stabbed the girl to death in the apartment where he lives before disposing of her body in a trash bag in the trolley. Investigators say the two were not going out and that the victim, who has been named as Michelle Maria Causo, from Rome, was not pregnant.
screen grab youtube
Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said on Thursday he was “deeply shocked by the brutal murder”, describing it as “yet another unacceptable femicide”. “Michelle’s friends and acquaintances say she was a cheerful girl who loved life and study, known to everyone in the neighbourhood,” Gualtieri wrote on social media. “At this time of sorrow, I want to express my deepest condolences to her family, friends and all the people who loved her. Our whole city stands in solidarity with the Primavalle community in the face of this terrible and unjust death that has deprived a young woman of her future,” he continued. “We strongly condemn gender violence in all its forms. We must all strengthen our commitment to fight it, prevent it and support the women who suffer it,” concluded the mayor.
Thuringia intelligence chief Stephan Kramer. (Wikimedia Commons)
The president of Thuringia’s regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, said he considers one in five Germans to be right-wing extremists, specifically using the phrase “brown dregs.”
“We’re at about 20 percent brown filth in the Federal Republic,” Kramer told broadcaster NDR Info after Alternative for Germany’s landmark election victory in the district of Sonneberg, which came after the AfD hit a polling high of 20 percent nationwide, or one in five Germans. The “brown” reference is clearly an allusion to the Nazi brownshirts, with many on the left and within the establishment media routinely attempting to frame the AfD party as National Socialists.
Kramer, who is himself a member of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), said that he still has “hope” of reaching AfD voters.
“If you now see that 53 percent voted for the AfD, then there is still a margin in between that you can still reach,” he stressed, referring to the party’s election victory in the Sonneberg district.
In principle, he said, all AfD party members are right-wing extremists.
“Party members know what the party stands for. That’s why they are members, that’s why they are right-wing extremists,” he said.
However, the AfD regional party leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke fired back over the claims.
“(Stephan Kramer), president of the so-called Office of the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia, classifies 20 percent of the population as literally ‘brown dregs.’ An official who uses such language not only violates the rule of moderation, but also dehumanizes,” wrote Höcke on Twitter.
Linksextremist @Stjkramer, Präsident des sogenannten Verfassungsschutzes in Thüringen, ordnet 20% der Bevölkerung als wörtlich "braunen Bodensatz" ein. Ein Beamter, der so eine Sprache pflegt, verletzt nicht nur das Mäßigungsgebot, sondern entmenschlicht.https://t.co/v4cmQYEHxxpic.twitter.com/QkgMQx1rHZ
Kramer, however, described the AfD election victory in Sonneberg as a “slap in the face.” He said it had long been foreseeable that something like this would have to happen at some point. Nevertheless, he did not have the impression that the other parties had heard the “wake-up call.”
Kramer also warned against what he described as a merger of left and right-wing “extremists.” He claimed there was an ideological overlap between the Left Party wing that supports Sahra Wagenknecht and AfD supporters. He said it is “problematic that many actors in the political arena keep dismissing the possibility of the emergence of a cross-front between the far left and the far right as absurd theater and malicious propaganda.”
Kramer is known for speaking out against the AfD and his aggressive stance toward the party. His office has labeled the regional branch of the party in Thuringia as “proven right-wing extremists,” which means the office is permitted to use extremely intrusive intelligence methods, including surveilling emails, browsing history, and phone calls all without a court warrant. The office only requires knowledge that a target is a member of the AfD party.
Generally speaking, central banks are empowered to control the supply of money by employing a number of tools that include buying government debt, selling government bonds, adjusting reserve requirements, and setting official interest rates. Operating under various legal mandates to sustain an overall healthy economy, central banks ostensibly pursue policies that will produce relatively low inflation, steady economic growth, and low public unemployment.
What if these stated goals are merely talking points meant to justify a central bank’s continued monopoly over a nation’s creation of money, and the true objective of any central bank is to maximize wealth for the wealthiest economic players? Central banks, after all, are usually institutionally independent from government interference. They are private firms managed by the world’s financial elite. How might a central bank pursue a hidden agenda to grow the wealth of its friends at the public’s expense?
The easiest and most effective way would be to create artificial “boom and bust” cycles during which economies greatly expand and then quickly shrink. How does this work in practice? First, a central bank lowers interest rates — the cost of borrowing money — and thereby encourages ordinary citizens to take out loans. These loans are used to buy houses and cars and start small businesses. By artificially lowering interest rates below the natural market rate, central banks stimulate consumer purchases and small business expenditures beyond what Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” would have rendered on its own. Investors who have an economic interest in selling houses, cars, and inventories for small businesses all benefit from the central bank’s intervention.
Additionally, because central banks have encouraged borrowing, they have pumped more money into the greater economy. With the supply of money artificially increased, some individuals are willing to pay more now than before for the same goods or services. Consequently, the prices of goods and services increase, producing inflation. There are two important effects stemming from inflation: (1) a middle-class citizen on a fixed income must now pay more for living expenses, while (2) a higher-class citizen who owns stocks, homes, and other assets will see the currency-denominated value of those assets increase. In other words, inflation acts as a tax on poorer individuals who own little and a supplement for wealthier individuals who own much. While a middle-class citizen living paycheck-to-paycheck will effectively have less income, a higher-class citizen whose principal wealth exists in the form of assets will have increased net wealth. Inflation effects a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.
Now, a central banker will insist that artificially low interest rates and easy borrowing have made it possible for consumers to own more things and for fledgling entrepreneurs to start small businesses that would have otherwise never existed. A less charitable description would be that low interest rates have induced ordinary citizens to buy things that they cannot afford, take on long-term debt, and risk their financial futures on business start-ups that may well fail. Sometimes those risks pay off and produce rags-to-riches success stories. When interest rates suddenly rise, however, they often end with unpaid bills and the eventual bank seizure of those cars, homes, and business assets. A central bank’s easy money programs momentarily increase consumer ownership and small business creation before inviting financial distress and repossession as rent, payroll, inventory expenses, and other fixed costs increase.
During the “boom” side of the cycle, central banks produce a lot of momentary “winners” and increase overall national wealth by encouraging consumer spending and inflating the currency-denominated value of assets. During the inevitable “bust” side of the cycle, however, the real winners emerge when the super-wealthy scoop up a bankrupt population’s primary assets for pennies on the dollar.
For the globe’s largest corporations, banks, and investment groups capable of quickly transitioning into gold, silver, or other relatively stable mediums for preserving wealth, economic crises are like giant “going out of business” sales, where everything a nation owns “must go,” no matter how low the final sale price. While ordinary consumers lose their life savings and small businesses quickly fold, the über-wealthy who directly or indirectly run central bank policy gobble up housing properties and other assets that have been used as collateral to secure risky loans. Multinational corporations acquire competing mom-and-pop stores for peanuts; banking conglomerates fold local and regional banks into their portfolios; and monster-sized investment groups take controlling interests in an even greater share of a nation’s raw materials, commodities, and publicly traded stocks.
When central banks manipulate interest rates and inflation to create the illusion of real economic growth, some boats float with a rising tide, while other boats sink.
When the dust finally settles, fewer people own more than ever before. Then, invariably, after enough public suffering and business consolidation, the “boom and bust” cycle begins again. Momentary “winners” rise again. Inflationary bubbles expand again. When those bubbles burst, the über-wealthy acquire even more than they did the last time around. The whole process is like the reverse of a snake shedding its skin, wherein central bankers and the financial behemoths behind them add one layer of wealth after the next, until they own everything. By that time, any mouse that happens to get in their way is so scrawny and desperate that he will gladly be eaten or accept the smallest morsel in return for a promise to obey. In this way, central bank snakes see everyone else as either easy prey or a future debt slave.
Why would nations give a bunch of global bankers a monopoly to control the supply of money, when that awesome power allows them to impoverish and manage everyone else? Why would politicians who claim to care about income inequality perpetuate a system that specializes in producing income inequality? The answer is simple: governments are concerned exclusively with power and do not care about preserving democratic ideals, personal freedom, or the livelihoods of their people.
In front of television cameras, politicians voice commitment to civic virtues. When those cameras turn off, everything they do is transactional. If I do this, what will you do for me?
Central banks permit politicians to supersize their transactional powers in two ways: (1) by buying government debt and increasing the supply of money, they make it possible for governments to spend much more than tax revenues would otherwise permit, and (2) by devaluing currency over time and hollowing out middle-class savings, central banks force citizens to depend more upon government services and benefits for basic needs. In effect, central bank money-printing enables politicians to spend money for votes and influence, as well as to offer welfare and other forms of government assistance to an increasingly impoverished population in exchange for their continued electoral support.
There is no one so obedient as a man who must depend upon another for his survival. If the costs of health care, heating fuel, gasoline, and food are all too expensive after years of steady inflation, then government discretion over who gets what turns politicians into princes.
Conversely, a person free from debts to either financial institutions or government apparatchiks is a person free to chart a life beyond the reach of their coercion. Therefore, those who seek to maximize wealth and power have a perverse incentive to rule over destitute nations.
Call it the road to serfdom. Call it socialism hiding inside the Trojan horse of late-stage capitalism. Call it Marxist globalism intent on creating a small class of masters and several continents of slaves. Whatever it is called, it represents the controlled demolition of entire nation-states. When central banks and politicians work together to fleece ordinary citizens, they create the conditions for despotism, poverty, and…sometimes…revolutions for change.
