Michael Krieger

My name is Michael Krieger, and I am the creator and editor of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I'm originally from New York City.

As far as my academic and professional background, I attended college at Duke University where I earned a double major in Economics and Spanish. After completing my studies in 2000, I took a job at Lehman Brothers where I worked with the Oil analyst in the Equity Research Department.  In 2005, I joined Sanford C. Bernstein where I served as the Commodities Analyst on the trading floor. About halfway through my time there, I started to branch out and write opinions on bigger picture "macro" topics that no one else at the firm was covering. These opinion pieces were extremely popular throughout the global investment community, and I traveled around providing advice to some of the largest mutual funds, pension funds and hedge funds in the world.

I loved my job, but as time passed I started to educate myself about how the monetary and financial system functions and what I discovered disgusted me. I no longer felt satisfied working within the industry, and I resigned in January 2010.  At that point, I started a family investment office and continued to write macro pieces on economic, social and geopolitical topics. That summer, I drove cross country for six weeks and ultimately decided to leave the crowded streets of Manhattan for the open spaces of Boulder, Colorado, where I currently reside.

In the years that followed, I gradually recognized that my true passion centers upon writing on issues of significant societal importance given the extremely challenging times we live in. This realization culminated with me losing interest in financial markets and eventually launching this website in early 2012.

If you are interested in a more detailed description, replete with colorful anecdotes, of how I ended up making this bizarre professional transition, take the time to watch the video below.

https//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DcqMN-FXCIE?rel=0

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

Liberty Links 1/29/16

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Below are links to some of the more interesting and important reads I came across today, but will not be publishing on in detail.

Chicago Police Deliberately Sabotaging Recording Devices (Must read of the day, Reason)

Ted Cruz Abandons Criminal Justice Reform on His Way to the White House (The guy has zero principles, a pure opportunist, Reason)

Four Billionaire Donors Help Cruz Rise in GOP Bid (Associated Press)

Ha Ha: Hillary Clinton’s Top Financial Supporter Now Controls “The Onion” (The Intercept)

Paul Krugman Unironically Anoints Himself Arbiter of “Seriousness”: Only Clinton Supporters Eligible (The Intercept)

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Former Citigroup Trader Explains How Wall Street Came to Own the Clintons and the Democratic Party

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Former FX trader at Citigroup, Chris Arnade, just penned a poignant and entertaining Op-ed at The Guardian detailing how Wall Street came to own the Democratic Party via the Clintons over the course of his career. While anyone reading this already knows how completely bought and paid for the Clintons are by the big financial interests, the article provides some interesting anecdotes as well as a classic quote about a young Larry Summers.

Here are some choice excerpts from the piece:

I owe almost my entire Wall Street career to the Clintons. I am not alone; most bankers owe their careers, and their wealth, to them. Over the last 25 years they – with the Clintons it is never just Bill or Hillary – implemented policies that placed Wall Street at the center of the Democratic economic agenda, turning it from a party against Wall Street to a party of Wall Street.

That is why when I recently went to see Hillary Clinton campaign for president and speak about reforming Wall Street I was skeptical. What I heard hasn’t changed that skepticism. The policies she offers are mid-course corrections. In the Clintons’ world, Wall Street stays at the center, economically and politically. Given Wall Street’s power and influence, that is a dangerous place to leave them.

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Elizabeth Warren Releases Blistering Report on Corporate Criminality – Singles Out SEC Uselessness

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I was really disappointed by Elizabeth Warren’s recent vote against auditing the Federal Reserve, but I’ve decided to forgive her following the release of an extremely powerful and important 12-page report on corporate criminality titled: Rigged Justice: 2016 – How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders Off Easy. In fact, this may be the most meaningful report I’ve read since Princeton and Northwestern published a study proving the U.S. is an oligarchy.

The report encapsulates the meaning of public service, and demonstrates what U.S. Senators could be doing if they weren’t busy constantly whoring themselves out to the highest bidder. The fact of the matter is if Congress was filled with more individuals with the smarts, ethics and courage of Elizabeth Warren, this country would not be in the mess it’s in.

I know many of you will see that statement as an exaggeration, but it’s not. As I’ve maintained time and time again, the single biggest issue destroying America, the one that towers above all others, is the diminishment of the rule of law. Specifically, the fact that rich and powerful players in this country have amassed so much economic and political control they have created an untouchable class for themselves which is completely above the law. The definition of this sort of political arrangement is tyranny. As I noted in the piece, New Report – The United States’ Sharp Drop in Economic Freedom Since 2000 Driven by “Decline in Rule of Law.”

In my opinion, the U.S. is living on borrowed time. The entrepreneurial spirit is still very much alive, and a lot of innovative things are happening in the tech area, but other than that, the U.S. economy looks very much like a third word oligarchy. From my perspective, we need to reinstate the rule of law at once. The bad actors amongst the rich and powerful will continue to feast relentlessly on the productive parts of the economy so long as they they are never held accountable for their crimes. Simply put: The rule of law must be restored immediately.

That is not an exaggeration. Nothing, I mean nothing, will get sustainably better in this nation until the criminals in charge are either jailed or their influence obliterated from the entire social and economic structure. Thankfully, Senator Elizabeth Warren sees this problem as the core cancer that it is. Don’t believe me? Read the opening paragraphs to her report:

Laws are effective only to the extent they are enforced. A law on the books has little impact if prosecution is highly unlikely.

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Political Editor at Bloomberg News Quits – Cites Inability to Properly Cover Michael Bloomberg

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If there was ever an election year that exhibited an overwhelmingly less favorable climate for Michael Bloomberg to indulge his Presidential fantasies than 2016, I haven’t seen it.

The fact that the man is even considering a run tells you precisely how delusional and disconnected he is from the social mood, and the obvious reality that the American public is gravitating to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders precisely because they hate people like Michael Bloomberg. The fact that he sees himself as some sort of “Independent” would be amusing if it weren’t so sad, and demonstrates a remarkable lack of self-awaeness that is characteristic of American billionaires.

As an example of his politics, Bloomberg’s two biggest political passions seem to revolve around whoring for Wall Street and being aggressively pro gun control. So he’s essentially a less charismatic version of Hillary Clinton, which is no easy feat.

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Meet Vigilant Solutions – The Private Company Storing 2.2 Billion License Plate Photos & Selling the Data

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Vigilant Solutions is a company that will be familiar to longtime Liberty Blitzkrieg readers. It was first highlighted in the early 2014 post, Department of Homeland Security Moves to Install National License Plate Tracking System, in which we learned the following:

The Department of Homeland Security wants a private company to provide a national license-plate tracking system that would give the agency access to vast amounts of information from commercial and law enforcement tag readers, according to a government proposal that does not specify what privacy safeguards would be put in place.

The national license-plate recognition database, which would draw data from readers that scan the tags of every vehicle crossing their paths, would help catch fugitive illegal immigrants, according to a DHS solicitation. But the database could easily contain more than 1 billion records and could be shared with other law enforcement agencies, raising concerns that the movements of ordinary citizens who are under no criminal suspicion could be scrutinized.

The agency said the length of time the data is retained would be up to the winning vendor. Vigilant Solutions, for instance, one of the leading providers of tag-reader data, keeps its records indefinitely.

Fast forward two years, and “could easily contain 1 billion records” sounds trite compared to the reality. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, Vigilant Solutions has already has taken 2.2 billion license plate photos, and is adding more at a clip of 80 million per month.

From the Atlantic:

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HSBC Curbs Mortgage Options to Chinese Nationals Buying U.S. Real Estate

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Two days ago, I published a post explaining how the super high end real estate bubble had popped, and how signs of this reality have emerged across America. Here’s an excerpt from that post, The Luxury Housing Bubble Pops – Overseas Investors Struggle to Sell Overpriced Mansions:

The six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California’s Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna — the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.

Not now.

Zhang is shopping it for a discounted $3.68 million, but nobody’s biting. Her clients, a couple from China, are getting anxious. They’re the kind of well-heeled international investors who fueled a four-year luxury real estate boom that helped pull America out of its worst housing slump since the 1930s. Now the couple is reeling from the selloff in the Chinese stock market and looking to raise cash to shore up finances.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, where Zhang is struggling to sell the six-bedroom home, dozens of aging ranch houses were demolished to make way for 38 mansions built with Chinese buyers in mind. They have manicured lawns and wok kitchens and are priced as high as $12 million. Many of them sit empty because the prices are out of the range of most domestic buyers, said Re/Max broker Rudy Kusuma, who blames a crackdown by the Chinese on large sums leaving the country.

Well, I have some more bad news for mansion-flipping Chinese nationals.

From Reuters:

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The Luxury Housing Bubble Pops – Overseas Investors Struggle to Sell Overpriced Mansions

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It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London.

It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means to launder funds, typically “earned” by soaking their host countries dry via corruption and fraud. This has caused absurd and irrational spikes in high-end residential real estate in the English capital, as well as a flood of new construction.

With emerging markets now completely collapsing, the seemingly endless flood of foreign money is drying up, and with it, London real estate.

So has the London real estate bubble popped? Probably.

– From the September 9, 2015 article: Luxury London Home Sales Plunge 26% – Has this Mega Real Estate Bubble Finally Burst?

The first real signs that the global luxury home price bubble had popped emerged last fall in the world’s capital of oligarch money laundering: London.

Since then, we have seen weakness in high end Manhattan real estate, but the trend has now spread and is starting to make itself apparent all over the place.

Yesterday’s Bloomberg article titled,The Surge in U.S. Mansion Prices Is Now Over, is really interesting. Here are a few choice excerpts:

The six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California’s Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna — the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.

Not now.

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3% Downpayment FHA Loans Surge as Low Credit Buyers Enticed Back Into the Housing Market

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Americans across the country have been priced out of the U.S. housing market since the “recovery” began due to a combination of factors; stagnant wages, private equity purchases and money laundering foreigners. As such, many potential first time buyers have been sidelined despite the availability of meager 3% downpayment loans from the FHA as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fortunately for the U.S. ponzi scheme economy, the U.S. government has a solution. Lower mortgage insurance premiums.

Bloomberg reports:

First-time homebuyers are finally jumping into the U.S. property market.

Need proof? Look at the mortgage market’s fastest-growing segment: loans with low down payments insured by the Federal Housing Administration.

Originations of FHA-backed mortgages, used predominately by first-time buyers, were up 54 percent in September from a year earlier, according to the most recent data from CoreLogic Inc. By December, the FHA insured 22 percent of all loan originations, up from 17 percent a year earlier, according to data compiled by Ellie Mae Inc.

Yes you read that right. Up 54%.

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The REAL Donald Trump – A Fascinating Interview of the Man from 1990

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In 1990, Donald Trump conducted a lengthy interview with Playboy Magazine. It provides an absolutely fascinating window into the man’s mind, which I suggest everyone read in full. Unexpectedly, I came away with a more informed and nuanced perspective on the man. While it didn’t change my opinion of him as President, I do have a much greater appreciation for Donald Trump as a person, specifically how his mind works and what drives him.

I originally came across this interview after seeing a tweet referencing a 25 year old interview during which Trump expressed admiration for how strongly Chinese authorities cracked down on dissent in Tiananmen Square in 1989. I immediately thought to myself that this would be the perfect fodder to further elucidate the kind of cold, brutal, authoritarian leader Trump undoubtably would be as President.

While that particular quote didn’t disappoint, I decided to read further and came away with many additional observations. I think these observations are worth sharing since I think there’s a very real chance Trump will be elected President within the next ten years. His chances ride on the fact that the current system is terminally corrupt, as well as socially and economically bankrupt. It will crash and burn, whether in slow motion like the past eight years, or very rapidly over the next several. Someone will likely step in to fill this void, and Trump has the personality type and understanding of human nature to possibly propel himself into the position when the timing is right. Is the time right in 2016? Probably not, but a President Trump is far more likely to occur in our lifetimes than many of us want to admit.

So with that out of the way, let me share some of the things I learned from the interview. First, I think Trump is far less materialistic than people presume, which sounds like a contradiction considering he is unquestionably one of the biggest showoffs on planet earth. While this is true, the motivation behind his ostentatious public persona is primarily to further his brand. As he says repeatedly in the interview, it’s all a show. In other words, he claims it’s pure marketing and I believe him.

What motivates Trump isn’t the collection of material things, rather, it’s a constant need to stroke his enormous ego and stoke his narcissism. Life is merely a giant game for Trump. A game in which the winners collect lots of fame and money, and the losers don’t. He doesn’t simply want to win this game, coming out on top is his entire life’s purpose. The idea of not winning isn’t even an option.

So with this in mind, is the Presidency just the ultimate prize for Trump? Does he want it simply because it is one of the few “wins” he has yet to collect? I think so. Deep down, I think Trump can’t truly envision himself as life’s ultimate winner without the Presidency. This is not to say I think Trump isn’t genuine when he says America is going down the toilet. Indeed, he was hitting on many of the exact same themes back in 1990. In fact, it gives you the impression that Trump has thought America was lacking his entire life, precisely because Trump had yet to be named the country’s CEO.

Trump believes in winning, and he thinks he and America are one in the same. In that sense, I genuinely believe that as President he would do what he thinks is best for America. In that sense, he’s not the typical detached, corrupt, greedy, globalist U.S. President we’ve become so accustomed to. This is precisely what his supporters are picking up on and why they love him.

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Liberty Links 1/22/16

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Below are links to some of the more interesting and important reads I came across today, but will not be publishing on in detail.

Saudi Arabia’s Top Cleric Forbids Chess, Calls it “The Work of Satan” (New York Times)

Half the Foreign Policy Experts Signing Clinton’s Anti-Sanders Letter Have Ties to Military Contractors (The Intercept)

FBI Ran website Sharing Thousands of Child Porn Images (USA Today)

FBI May Have Hacked Innocent TorMail Users (Motherboard)

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