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

Video of the Day – Bitcoin: A Banker’s Worst Fear

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It’s been a big week for Bitcoin. Several days ago I noted the significance of Chinese web services giant Baidu accepting bitcoin for its Jiasule service. With a $53 billion market cap, I believe this is the largest company globally to-date to accept the four year old crypto-currency. It is also highly significant that bitcoin is … Read more

TSA Air Marshal Arrested for Taking Photos Up Passengers’ Skirts

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Let’s look at the latest scorecard in the so-called “war on terror.” We recently discovered that contrary to earlier estimates of 54 thwarted terror attacks, the NSA has actually only stopped “one or perhaps two” attacks. Furthermore, while it somehow couldn’t prevent the Boston attack, the FBI had no qualms with assassinating a friend of one of the suspects under highly suspicious circumstances. A bizarre situation to which we still have no answers.

It’s not just the NSA though. The kind folks at the TSA, you know the people who pat you down at the airport, apparently have a pervert employee problem (shocker). Specifically, a federal air marshal was arrested today in Nashville for taking photos up women’s skirts. While on duty.

From WKRN-TV in Nashville:

A federal air marshal was arrested on Thursday after he allegedly took cell phone photographs up passengers’ skirts.

According to a police affidavit, a witness grabbed Adam Bartsch’s cell phone after seeing him take the inappropriate photos and notified a flight attendant. 

Bartsch, who was on duty at the time, was removed from Southwest flight number 3132 and taken into police custody after admitting to taking 10 to 12 pictures underneath women’s skirts. 

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The Carlyle Group’s Latest Investment…Trailer Parks

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Earlier this month, I highlighted the fact that the Carlyle Group was the latest in a series of “smart money” private equity firms to decide it was time to exit the suddenly extremely crowded “buy-to rent” residential real estate trade. At the time I noted that:

As it sells apartments, Carlyle is focusing investments in areas such as senior housing, self-storage units and manufactured homes, where demand tends to be driven by life changes such as retirement or marriages, and isn’t so closely tied to changes in employment and gross domestic product, Stuckey said.

Well it appears Carlyle has already started to make its move. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday: Carlyle Jumps Into Niche Space – Private-Equity Firm Adds Trailer Parks to Its Diverse Portfolio. In case you can’t figure out what appears to be the key logic behind the shift in focus, try this line on for size: 

Because the cost of relocating a home is expensive, residents are less likely to move away. “Our customers have no alternative shot at homeownership, nor do they [normally] even have the credit scores and quality to seek anything better,” Mr. Rolfe said. “They never leave the park they are in, and the revenues are unbelievably stable as a result.”

In neo-feudalistic America, always, always go long serfdom.

More from the WSJ:

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Sandy Hook Elementary to be Demolished – Contractors Forced to Sign Confidentiality Agreements

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Am I the only one that finds this incredibly strange? While I completely understand community concerns surrounding potential exploitation of the tragedy, they seem to be going way overboard in their precautions. I’d love to hear readers’ thought on this because it seems extremely bizarre to me…

From the AP:

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — When the old Sandy Hook Elementary School is demolished, building materials will be pulverized on site and metal will be taken away and melted down in an effort to eliminate nearly every trace of the building where a gunman killed 26 people last December.

Contractors also will be required to sign confidentiality agreements and workers will guard the property’s perimeter to prevent onlookers from taking photographs or videos.

Demolition is set to begin next week and be finished before the Dec. 14 anniversary of the shootings. Town voters last month accepted a state grant of $49.3 million to raze the building and build a new school, which is expected to open by December 2016.

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Gold Price Premiums Hit Record in India – 8% Above London Spot

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This story is just further proof of the complete and total mess that has been made of the Indian gold market over of the course of this year due to government intervention. The other part of the problem is that when you are dealing in physical supplies you can’t just deliver paper contracts. Somehow I don’t think that would cut it for Indians on festival days or their daughters’ weddings.

From Reuters:

(Reuters) – Gold premiums in India, the world’s biggest buyer of the precious metal, hit a record $100 an ounce, about 8 percent over London prices, on a shortage of supplies to meet festival demand, traders said on Tuesday.

“There are no supplies in the domestic market, and there is a little demand due to festivals… what little supplies that come, go to exporters,” Bachhraj Bamalwa, director at the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF) told Reuters.

Most suppliers in Mumbai and Kolkata have started quoting premiums in excess of $100 an ounce above London prices, more than double the $40 charged last week, Bamalwa said.

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Glenn Greenwald: “The Most Shocking Stories Have Not Been Published”…Is This Why He Left The Guardian?

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Just yesterday, I was taken aback by an article in Time magazine in which Glenn Greenwald was quoted as saying: The archives are so complex and so deep and so shocking, that I think the most shocking and significant stories are the ones we are still working on, and have yet to publish. The above statement … Read more

Chinese Web Search Giant Baidu Now Accepts Bitcoin

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As I have maintained on many occasions, reports of the death of Bitcoin have been greatly exaggerated. If anything, the news related to the most popular crypto-currency ever has only gotten considerably more positive in the wake of the raid on Silk Road. The most recent development is that massive web services site Baidu, Inc. has started to accept Bitcoin for its Jiasule service. I wonder if this is in any way related to the recent Chinese calls for a new reserve currency, as I can’t imagine the company would go ahead with accepting BTC without at least some “all clear” from authorities. If this signals implicit approval for Bitcoin by political leaders in China (it’s too early to tell), it would have paradigm-shifting global consequences.

Here’s the BTC chart. You make your own judgement:

Screen Shot 2013-10-15 at 12.24.34 PM

From CoinDesk:

Search engine giant Baidu has announced it is now accepting payment in bitcoin for its Jiasule service, which improves websites’ performance, speed and security.

Founded in January 2000, Baidu is similar to Google in that its offers a variety of tools and services to produce information and products in response to search terms, however, Baidu is specific to Chinese-language search terms.

Rough translation of the company’s news release:

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N.Y. Fed Looks to Seal Documents in the Latest Whistleblower Case

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As was widely reported last week in both the alternative media and the mainstream presstitute media, former senior bank examiner at the New York Federal Reserve, Carmen Segarra, has filed a lawsuit against her former employer accusing them of wrongful termination after she determined that Goldman Sachs had insufficient conflict-of-interest policies. As usual, anything that threatens to … Read more

A Political Earthquake Hits France: Is a European Union Referendum Next?

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I will negotiate over the points on which there can be no compromise. If the result is inadequate, I will call for withdrawal. Europe is just a great bluff. On one side there is the immense power of sovereign peoples, and on the other side are a few technocrats.

– Front National Leader Marine Le Pen

I haven’t been paying as much attention to Europe as I was a few years ago. After all, monitoring the oligarch theft, shit-show in my own backyard is a full time job. Even back when I was watching the Continent more closely, I never paid particular attention to the happenings in France. That needs to change.

Ambrose-Evans Pritchard of the UK’s Telegraph has written an excellent article detailing the extraordinary success of Marine Le Pen’s Front National in recent elections. What was once seen as a fringe right-wing party is now collecting a surprising amount of votes from socialists attracted to the anti-bank/anti-euro platform. With all the talk of Greece, Italy and Spain over the past several years, wouldn’t it be ironic if France was the one country that ended it all…

From The Telegraph:

We have a minor earthquake in France. A party committed to withdrawal from the euro, the restoration of French franc, and the complete destruction of monetary union has just defeated the establishment in the Brignoles run-off election.

The Front National is now the most popular party in France with 24pc according to a new Ifop poll. Both the two great governing parties of the post-War era have fallen behind for the first time ever. The Gaullistes (UMP) are at 22pc, and the Socialists at 21pc. 

Asked if she intended to pull France of the euro immediately, she hesitated for a second or two and then said: “Yes, because the euro blocks all economic decisions. France is not a country that can accept tutelage from Brussels.”

Officials will be told to draw up plans for the restoration of the franc. Eurozone leaders will face a stark choice: either work with France for a “sortie concerted” or coordinated EMU break-up: or await their fate in a disorderly collapse.

“We cannot be seduced. The euro ceases to exist the moment that France leaves, and that is our incredible strength. What are they going to do, send in tanks?”

Well now that you mention it…

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Blast from the Past: Harry Reid Claimed Income Taxes are “Voluntary”

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With Harry Reid in deep negotiations with crony Republican fraud Mitch McConnell, the American public is surely in the process of getting royally screwed once again. Thus, it seems like an appropriate time to revisit an interview in which Mr. Reid claimed on camera that income taxes are “voluntary.” He must have accidentally described the … Read more