The Enronization of Our Critical Thinking Skills
Undoubtedly the Enronization of our media has evolved into the Enronization of our educational system. Though this is a topic that commands the devotion of an entirely separate article, the financial elites have heavily influenced the curriculum taught at leading American educational institutions for decades now. For example, over the last century, the Rockefeller family has donated millions upon millions of dollars to leading economic schools such as the University of Chicago and Harvard Business School. Even if you don’t buy into the strong likelihood that millions of monetary donations to educational institutions buys the financial oligarchs' influence over our educational curriculum, you should at a minimum consider this possibility. Perhaps it is the monetary influence of financial elites such as the Rockefellers that is largely responsible for erroneous economic beliefs about inflation and our monetary system that persist today.
To grant further support to the suggestion that the financial elites likely utilize their money to guide certain aspects of the curriculum at leading educational institutions in America, recall that in 2002, David Rockefeller stated in his own autobiographical memoirs:
For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists” and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.
The only difference today is that the cabal working against the best interests of the US and all American families is no longer secret, but well documented and well known.
Since the above statement is sure to stir up cries of conspiracy regardless of the fact that it is directly attributable to a member of the financial oligarchy, let us take a minute to consider the Enronization of our critical thinking skills. Why do those with a keen interest in suppressing the truth about the origins and nature of our current global financial crisis have great success in doing so merely by simply using the word “conspiracy” to marginalize the well-constructed arguments of others? Why do the people that attempt to discredit these truthful revelations never offer more than flimsy verbal accusations devoid of any evidence to validate their accusations?
And why do we rarely, if ever, challenge the fact that the vast preponderance of people that flippantly dismiss valid arguments about our current global financial crisis are those whose personal wealth depend upon deluding masses of people about the health of our stock markets and the soundness of our financial institutions and monetary system? Today, the Enronization of our institutional education system has dulled our aptitude of critical thinking to such a degree that we now look to others to do our thinking for us. Instead of challenging the propaganda that makes zero sense, we are all too willing to be duped into believing erroneous concepts just because they are written in a textbook or a newspaper.
As a prime example of this, consider the propensity of Central Banks and the IMF to pre-announce massive gold sales that they rarely execute. From a purely logical standpoint, can anyone well versed in logic truly argue one beneficial reason for doing so? In 1999, when now UK Prime Minister pre-announced the sale and actual eventual execution of 400 tonnes, or more than half, of the Bank of England’s gold reserves, his announcement promptly caused the gold market to plummet to $250 an ounce, the lowest price in the last decade. For an institution interested in making profits, it is a foregone conclusion that pre-announced large sales of gold reserves will significantly depress prices; thus what is the reason behind such an announcement other than to purposely depress prices? Yet, when skeptics are presented with such evidence and can offer no valid counter-argument, instead of intelligently considering the validity of another’s viewpoint, too often we are apt to shut off our brains and repeat beliefs that have been repeatedly rammed down our throats rather than critically assessing the situation for ourselves.
In the seminal book about warfare, The Book of Five Rings, legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi wrote,
True enlightenment can be seen by what a person has done, not by what he says. Those who have missed the mark may chatter all day long about this and that, but they have never done anything. Anyone can make a good argument, but few can show good results.
If we as Americans wish to stop the Enronization of our country and to reinstitute our rights of self-determination and our Constitutional rights to a sound monetary system that are paramount to a free society, we must judge people not by what they say but by what they do. We must listen not to those that present hollow arguments and that can demonstrate no positive track record of results, but rather focus on the thoughtful arguments of the few that have been able to illustrate the intelligence and validity of their views because their predictions have been vetted over time.
As a nation, we have become Enronized because we too often focus on the false arguments of those that are well versed in the art of persuasion yet have a persistently poor track record of results. As a prime example, consider this video of Congressional testimony where former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson disingenuously claims that he advocates greater transparency in US markets when in fact, Goldman Sachs (GS), under his direct leadership, aggressively lobbied to repeal laws that granted financial markets transparency. We are much too apt to accept the words of people rather than to take the more intelligent approach of analyzing their actions to judge the validity of their words.
The Enronization of Our Leaders
The final phase of the Enronization of America has occurred through our power structure and politics. The financial oligarchs that wish to suppress the truth about their role in this crisis have been very opportunistic in forming close relationships with the highest echelons of government and then using this inordinate power to polarize the masses and further consolidate their power. The revolving door among Central Banks (i.e the Bank of Italy, the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve), Goldman Sachs, the US Treasury, JP Morgan (JPM), and Citigroup (C) has been well documented so I won’t repeat the prolific work of others here. However, using politics or nationalism as a divisive maneuver is often a favored tactic of the financial elites, so we must remain vigilant against immoral attempts to deflect our attention away from the true causes of this crisis, such as the scapegoating of immigrants or other shameless tactics.
When obfuscation of fact and misinformation systemically replace transparency and integrity as they have in our modern society, we have little chance of producing a favorable outcome to this current crisis. Twenty-six banks have failed thus far in the United States this year and every single bank failure announcement, without fail, has occurred on a Friday afternoon after market close so that the revelations of these bank failures cannot adversely affect markets while they are open. Additionally, such announcements are timed as such to grant investors two weekend days to forget about these failures.
America has been Enronized over the past several decades not because of Democrats and not because of Republicans, but because of the financial oligarchs that have ruled and continue to rule our country. The Enronization of America has happened under President Clinton’s watch, it continued under President Bush’s watch and it is now progressing under President Obama’s watch. Until we wake up and correct many of the flaws in our thinking and in our justice system, the Enronization of America will continue. Arthur Shopenhauer, a noted German philosopher, once stated, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
We have already passed through the first stage where truth has been ridiculed. For several decades, those that attempted to reveal the price suppressions schemes executed by governments and Central Bankers against gold and silver were ridiculed as conspiracy loonies. Today, the evidence of this manipulation is so overwhelming (please reference all of Ted Butler’s tireless work to expose silver price manipulation) that men that dwell firmly inside the confines of the mainstream, men that previously would never have dared to publicly state such sentiments just 10 years ago, are now stepping forward and publicly acknowledging the existence of price suppression schemes that interfere with free markets (i.e., Donald Coxe, chairman of Harris Investment Management in Chicago).
Today we have progressed to the second stage of truth, when truth is violently opposed. Within the past year, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson testified multiple times in Congress that it is not reality that is important to stock markets, but only what people think they know, even if what they think is wrong. Though he did not make that statement in these exact words, Paulson regularly emphasized the vital importance of consumer confidence to the performance of capital markets. In the end, confidence levels measure consensus belief and often have very little correlation to the reality of underlying economic fundamentals. In a bear market, such as the one in which we are currently engaged, it is safe to say that rising stock markets serve as a barometer of deceit. The greater the deceit by our leaders, the more likely stock markets will act irrationally and rise when there is no foundation to support the rise, including the most recent rally that we have witnessed in US markets in March and April of 2009. I will go on record here in believing that we will see another waterfall decline in US and global markets by the end of this summer.
It is no wonder, given the propensity of our leaders to deceive, that US consumer confidence jumped to its highest level this month since last November. As long as markets react positively to lies that prevent the masses from understanding the grave situations of our faltering economy and monetary system, our government and financial leaders will continue to prevent people from knowing or understanding the truth. One merely has to consider that FASB conveniently altered mark to marketing regulations immediately prior to first quarter 2009 earnings season and immediately prior to stress tests that were to be conducted on these same institutions to realize that our current administration is not any more interested in disclosing the truth or increasing transparency than previous administrations. Again, we would be wise to remember Miyamoto’s sage advice to judge someone not by his or her words, but by his or her actions.
The fragility of America’s emotional state regarding the dire economic situations that existed during the last US Presidential campaign left America vulnerable to blindly accepting anybody that promised change, but again we must consider the actions, not the words, of this current administration. We must look at the men appointed to “solve” this crisis and understand that almost all of these men come from the same unethical institutions such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan, that were largely responsible for creating this crisis. The most efficient way to solve a crisis caused by lack of ethics and morals is not to put the most morally bankrupt people in the nation in charge. It should disturb us all that men like Paul Volcker have been appointed to lead a Presidential advisory board when he once stated in reference to rising gold prices in the 1980’s:
That day, the U.S. announced that the dollar would be devalued by 10%. By switching the yen to a floating exchange rate, the Japanese currency appreciated, and a sufficient realignment in exchange rates was realized. Joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake.(Source: Volcker’s memoirs printed in the Nikkei Weekly, November 15, 2004).
Men that clearly state a position that collusion to rig markets is preferable to the transparency and integrity of free markets should never be appointed to any position of leadership in our country. Despite the lack of leadership from the financial elites during this crisis, they have made it clear that their agenda of concealing the truth from us will not prevent them from shamelessly pinning us with the blame for their errors by increasing our taxes and devaluing the purchasing power of our dollars.
And this is precisely why the energy of those that participated in the recent teabag protests is improperly focused. Yes, our government has contributed to the instability of our economic infrastructure. However, the government is not the root cause or the prime perpetrators of our global financial crisis. This honor belongs to the financial oligarchs and the fraudulent monetary system they have instituted. Today, governments have devolved into nothing more than an instrument of execution for the financial oligarchs. The late great John F. Kennedy was the last US President to understand and recognize the massive flaws and amorality of our modern day monetary system, as evident in his signing of Executive Order 11110. Were the honorable President Kennedy still alive today, but a regular citizen, voicing the exact same displeasure against our current monetary system as he did half-a-century ago, I have little doubt that those in power would have already marginalized his arguments and labeled him as a “conspiracist”.
The End Game: How to Stop the Enronization Process
The lack of transparency and the veil of secrecy that has existed in our financial world for a very long time now have enabled the Enronization of America. Furthermore, the misinformation campaigns that the financial elite have engaged upon for decades have further supported and maintained the ignorance of the masses. If one merely focuses on gold and silver markets, one can uncover a mountain of deceit. Consider that when Central Banks lease gold, they still claim it as an asset on their balance sheets, an obviously fraudulent practice. In fact, I could fill another ten pages with the deceitful reporting practices of Central Banks regarding gold that I have uncovered, but I don’t want to dilute the central focus of this essay, which is not to focus on the Enronization of commodity markets but to focus on the systemic-wide problems of fraud in America. This is not an indictment of American citizens, but an indictment of those that reside at the very top of the power structure, and most specifically, the financial elites.
In the end, let us not look to the words of our financial and government leaders for truth, but to their actions. If there has ever been another institution in the history of America with a persistently worse track record of accomplishing their stated mission than the US Federal Reserve (that of maintaining price stability), I can not think of one. Thus, we should permanently shutter institutions that have a track record of utter failure and that have consistently failed to act in the interests of their citizens. This list would include the US Federal Reserve as well as the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, and the ECB. We should also permanently shutter those financial institutions led by corrupt executives that have cumulatively made billions from the purposeful deception and bankrupting of American families. Finally, if you are a shareholder with voting rights, it is incumbent upon you to exercise your rights at general meetings to oust all corrupt directors and executives at corrupt firms. Because it is near impossible to regulate morality, the only sustainable solution to stopping the Enronization of America is to remove the very institutions and people responsible for this process. As current administrations of major governments all around the world have demonstrated an unwillingness to do so, it is patently clear that this movement must originate from the people.
If we all desire the freedom of self-determination that is impossible with a corrupt monetary system, this change will have to come from the people. If we all desire a sound monetary system devoid of the ability to be mercilessly manipulated by elements of the US Treasury, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, this change will have to come from the people. If we all are opposed to leaving a legacy of indentured servitude to the financial elite for future generations, then this change will have to come from the people. The alternative consequence of our inaction will be the manifestation of Shopenhauer’s third stage of “truth as self-evident” at a not-so-distant time in the future when it will be far too late to affect a positive outcome from our current financial crisis.
