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

Neo-Feudalism Has Officially Arrived – Congressman Suggests Building a Moat Around White House

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Screen Shot 2014-11-19 at 1.46.23 PMWhat has been occurring over the past several years is not a recovery, rather, it’s a painful transition of the U.S. into a neo-feudal society. Earlier this week in the post, Welcome to the Recovery – U.S. Child Homelessness Hits Record as Poverty in Mass. is Highest Since 1960, I wrote:

While the general population is aware something is seriously wrong, people remain extremely confused about the root of the problem. This is because what’s happening all around us isn’t socialism and it isn’t free market capitalism. It is actually a return to something much more ancient and much more oppressive. It is a return to serfdom, neo-fedualism and oligarchy.

Well now we have definitive proof. It can’t get any more in your face than this.

From MarketWatch:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)—Faced with an increasing number of White House intrusions that led to the resignation of a Secret Service director, a congressman on Wednesday suggested that maybe a moat should be erected around the president’s home.

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Welcome to the Recovery Part 2 – Washington D.C.’s Homeless Population Expected to Rise 16% in 2014

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Screen Shot 2014-11-19 at 11.47.36 AM

Earlier this week, I published a post titled: Welcome to the Recovery – U.S. Child Homelessness Hits Record as Poverty in Mass. is Highest Since 1960. That was actually the second in a recent series of pieces highlighting the real world impact of this so-called “economic recovery,” which is now supposedly in its fifth or sixth year, despite having provided little or no benefit to the average citizen. The first in the series was: Child Poverty Jumps by 2.6 Million in Developed World Since 2008, While Number of Global Billionaires Doubles.

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Uber Executive Suggested Company Hire Team to Dig up Dirt on Journalists

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Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 5.07.16 PMFirst there was Grubergate. Now we have Ubergate.

Reports of questionable behavior emanating from the executive suite at ridesharing company Uber are nothing new. My antennae first shot straight upward when I read that the company had hired one of Barack Obama’s chief political strategists, David Plouffe, as a senior vice president of policy and strategy. The Washington Post covered this in the article: Uber hired David Plouffe when it realized ‘techies’ can’t do politics.

Around the exact same time, The Verge reported on the company’s playbook for sabotaging its competitor, Lyft. You can read that article here. Something seemed a little fishy, but I pretty much forgot all about it.

Well the latest revelation is simply something I can’t ignore. Thanks to a piece published yesterday at Buzzfeed, we now have an idea of the sick mindset of one of the company’s senior executives. Even worse, this guy sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.

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This is Why Rand Paul is Hillary Clinton’s Worst Nightmare

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Screen Shot 2014-11-18 at 11.44.02 AMAs Hillary Clinton starts to ponder the curtains she wants to hang in the Oval Office, there is only one person who can realistically stand in her way: Rand Paul.

Readers of this site will be well aware that I spend very little time focusing on Presidential politics. There are many reasons for this, but more than anything else, I believe there are two key components to genuine cultural change, and none of them have to do with electing a savior. These are:

1) Knowledge – Ignorance is not bliss. Particularly when it comes to the advance or decline of a civilization. Thomas Jefferson said it best:

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. 

I am trying to do my own little part in that regard here at Liberty Blitzkrieg.

2) Internal Change – It is much easier to complain about others and the world at large than it is to improve oneself. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but I am cognizant that you can’t change the outside world unless you have changed what’s inside. Gandhi said it best:

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How the IRS and Department of Homeland Security are Expanding Undercover Work (IRS Agents Can Even Pose as Clergy)

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Screen Shot 2014-11-17 at 3.40.39 PMThose guidelines apply only to the law enforcement agencies overseen by the Justice Department. Within the Treasury Department, undercover agents at the I.R.S., for example, appear to have far more latitude than do those at many other agencies. I.R.S. rules say that, with prior approval, “an undercover employee or cooperating private individual may pose as an attorney, physician, clergyman or member of the news media.”

Across the federal government, undercover work has become common enough that undercover agents sometimes find themselves investigating a supposed criminal who turns out to be someone from a different agency, law enforcement officials said. In a few situations, agents have even drawn their weapons on each other before realizing that both worked for the federal government.

– From the New York Times article: More Federal Agencies Are Using Undercover Operations

If this article doesn’t prove to you without a shadow of a doubt what the prosecutorial priorities of the U.S. federal government are I don’t know what will. I have been railing for years on this site about how the rule of law is dead and buried in the USA. How the “justice” system is targeting average citizens for non crimes, while allowing the large financial criminals responsible for destroying the global economy to get off on DPAs, or deferred prosecution agreements originally crafted to deal with juveniles (see: The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally).

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Welcome to the Recovery – U.S. Child Homelessness Hits Record as Poverty in Mass. is Highest Since 1960

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Screen Shot 2014-11-17 at 1.40.49 PM

While the general population is aware something is seriously wrong, people remain extremely confused about the root of the problem. This is because what’s happening all around us isn’t socialism and it isn’t free market capitalism. It is actually a return to something much more ancient and much more oppressive. It is a return to serfdom, neo-fedualism and oligarchy.

Attempting to explain this reality to people is the primary focus of my life at the moment. It’s incredibly difficult to do, because stories spun by mainstream media and other vested interests convince the gullible population to fight amongst themselves in petty, meaningless narratives.

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Open the Floodgates – Chinese Inquiries on U.S. Real Estate Soar 35% After Easing of Visa Rules

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Screen Shot 2014-11-17 at 10.46.33 AMIn a nation in which 1 out of every 3 homes is unaffordable, you’d think the primary goal of public policy wouldn’t be to ensure real estate becomes even more out of reach for the average citizen. However, we live in a country in which policy isn’t being driven by logic and what’s in the best interest of “the people,” rather, we live in an neo-feudalistic society in which policy is being driven by what is best for a handful of white-collar criminals.

It’s bad enough that American financial oligarchs have leveraged free money polices of the Federal Reserve to purchase tens of billions of dollars in real estate only to rent it back to people who were kicked out of their homes during the 2008 crisis, but the government is now going out of its way to allow Chinese (and other foreign criminals) to launder money via U.S. property.

In case you aren’t up to speed on this issue, I suggest reading the following:

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Chart of the Day – This is What Neo-Feudalism Looks Like

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I got this from Naked Capitalism. Before presenting the chart, here are some words to bear in mind from Yves Smith:

Short omits some key elements from his discussion. One is that until recently, a profit share of GDP of 6% was perceived to be a cyclical peak; no less than Warren Buffet deemed a higher level to be unsustainable. And in fact, we see an explosion of profit share from 6% to 10% of GDP in the runup to the crisis, roughly from 2003 to 2007. The “rescue the banks and financial markets” measures succeeded in bringing the profit share back to its pre-crisis levels, at the expense of workers.

Notice the inflection point in profit share is 1987, when Greenspan became Fed chairman. Correlation may not be causation, but the timing is almost exact.

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The U.S. Department of Justice Handles Banker Criminals Like Juvenile Offenders…Literally

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Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 1.52.39 PMThese agreements were created 100 years ago to give juvenile defendants and first-time offenders a chance to for rehabilitate themselves. Only in the last 20 years have DPAs migrated to the field of corporate criminals, treating them like kids who’ve just gone down a bad path in life.

The Justice Department is leaning on these toothless agreements more and more. Of the DoJ’s 283 deferred prosecution agreements since 2000, half have come since 2010, Reilly found in a working paper for BYU Law Review.

Why has the DoJ been so keen on deferred prosecution since 2010? It coincides exactly with investigations into the 2008 financial crisis.

– From the Guardian article: In market-rigging case, US Justice Department treats corporate criminals like juvenile offenders

We all know by now that if you’re a woman with an overgrown lawn, a child walking by himself to the park, a homeless person, or someone feeding a homeless person, you’re a contemptible criminal in the eyes of the U.S. injustice system. As such, police and prosecutors will come down on you as hard as they possibly can. Subjecting you to the full and brutal force of the law, including jail sentences for non-crimes.

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Glenn Greenwald on Hillary Clinton: “Soulless, Principle-Free, Power Hungry…”

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Screen Shot 2014-11-14 at 10.08.22 AMOne attribute I like most about Glenn Greenwald is that he never pulls punches. One of his most prescient and cutting political lines came earlier this year when he made some observations on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election, in which two status quo, corrupt, bloodthirsty con-artists will compete for the Oval Office. While we don’t yet know which crony the GOP will put up, Hillary is pretty much a foregone conclusion for the Democrats. Greenwald observed:

Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

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