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

U.S. Intelligence Agencies Have No Clothes

by

The true patriotism, the only rational patriotism is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

– Mark Twain, The Czar’s Soliloquy”

At this point, pretty much everyone in America has seen the results of Hillary Clinton media pet, John Harwood’s recent Twitter poll.

The significance of the above cannot be overstated. U.S. intelligence agencies, like so many other national institutions, have lost nearly all credibility in the eyes of the American public. The list is long, but includes economists, politicians, the mainstream media, central bankers, the financial system, and a lot more. The loss in credibility is well deserved and has nothing to do with Russia. Rather, it’s a function of a disastrous 21st century outcome for U.S. citizens both at home and abroad. A result that was achieved under eight years of Republican rule and then eight years of Democratic rule. The results were the same whether a donkey or elephant was in charge, because the people determining policy behind the scenes never really changed (same economists, central bankers, intelligence officials, etc), and the people selling the catastrophic policies to the public definitely never changes (mainstream media and its worthless pundits).

So here we stand at a moment where trust in essentially all U.S. institutions is at a well deserved all-time low, and the best the establishment can come up with is to blame Russia. Even worse, those pushing the whole “Putin is to blame for everything” conspiracy theories, consistently refuse to back up their assertions with any evidence whatsoever. In fact, with each passing week the case looks increasingly flimsy, with the latest declassified document issued Friday being particularly suspect. Even many of those largely convinced of Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election admit the most recent report was pathetic, embarrassing and proved absolutely nothing.

Robert Parry of Consortium News summarizes the farce perfectly in his recent piece U.S. Report Still Lacks Proof on Russia ‘Hack’. Here’s how he begins the article:

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Leading Economists Experience a Panic Attack in Chicago Over Lost Credibility

by

Over the weekend, America’s leading economists gathered in Chicago for their annual AEA conference. The mood perfectly encapsulates the state of affairs of a profession that is more to blame for our current predicament than any other.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

CHICAGO—The nation’s leading economists are suffering an identity crisis as many of the institutions they helped build and causes they advanced have come in for public scorn and rejection at the ballot box.

The angst was on display this weekend at the annual conference of the American Economic Association, the profession’s largest gathering. The conference is a showcase for agenda-setting research, a giant job fair for the nation’s most promising young economists and, this year, the site of endless discussion about how to rebuild trust in the discipline.

Many academic economists have been champions of free trade and globalization, ideas under assault among rising populist movements in advanced economies around the world. The rise of President-elect Donald Trump, with his fierce rhetoric against elites, in particular, left many at this conference questioning their place in the world.

“The economic elite did many things to undermine their credibility while people’s economic fortunes were taking a turn for the worse,” said Steven Davis, an economist at the University of Chicago. But a road map for regaining trust is elusive…

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Liberty Links 01/07/17

by

If you appreciate our work, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page. Must Reads Special Alert: Horoscope U.S.A. (Yes, it’s astrology. It’s also the most accurate forecast I’ve ever seen. Written in 20006. Vanity Fair) A Well-Kept Open Secret: Washington Is Behind India’s Brutal Demonetization Project (Absolutely eye-opening, Global Research) New Status Anxiety Fuels Trump … Read more

Steven Mnuchin Donated to One Democrat in 2016 – The Woman Who Declined to Prosecute His Bank

by

Wednesday’s post, Donald Trump Has an Enormous and Very Dangerous Wall Street Blind Spot, highlighted the fact that the bank run by Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee, Steven Mnuchin, was given a pass by California attorney general Kamala Harris, despite the discovery of over a thousand legal violations. Kamala Harris has since been (s)elected to the U.S. Senate.

Let’s recap some of what we learned:

In the memo, the leaders of the state attorney general’s Consumer Law Section said they had “uncovered evidence suggestive of widespread misconduct” in a yearlong investigation. In a detailed 22-page request, they identified over a thousand legal violations in the small subsection of OneWest loans they were able to examine, and they recommended that Attorney General Kamala Harris file a civil enforcement action against the Pasadena-based bank. They even wrote up a sample legal complaint, seeking injunctive relief and millions of dollars in penalties.
 
But Harris’s office, without any explanation, declined to prosecute the case.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Very Powerful People in the U.S. Government Want War – This is Their Sales Pitch

by

The rising hysteria about Russia is best understood as fulfilling two needs for Official Washington: the Military Industrial Complex’s transitioning from the “war on terror” to a more lucrative “new cold war” – and blunting the threat that a President Trump poses to the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist foreign-policy establishment.

By hyping the Russian “threat,” the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, who include much of the mainstream U.S. news media, can guarantee bigger military budgets from Congress. The hype also sets in motion a blocking maneuver to impinge on any significant change in direction for U.S. foreign policy under Trump.

– From the post: Who Benefits from War with Russia?

The following will probably be one of the most important articles I’ve ever written. After spending some time watching the recently concluded intelligence briefing to the U.S. Senate, I’ve determined it to be one of the most disturbing and ominous things I can remember. I have several takeaways from what I saw, and none of them are good.

Before I get started, I want to remind you of something I wrote last summer in the piece, Japanese Government Shifts Further Toward Authoritarianism and Militarism.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Donald Trump Has an Enormous and Very Dangerous Wall Street Blind Spot

by

The biggest disappointment regarding Donald Trump since being elected President has been his total embrace of dangerous Wall Street thieves. As it is currently structured and incentivized, the financial services industry represents one of the most destructive and least beneficial forces within the U.S. economy. It is essentially a parasitic industry.

Unfortunately, Trump didn’t merely pick one or two competent finance guys to be in charge of finance-related jobs. Rather, he decided to surround himself with some of the worst of the worst (see links at the end) within an industry that often operates like a criminal syndicate. Treasury Secretary pick Steven Mnuchin is one of these people, and I believe this choice represents the single biggest mistake Trump has made as President-elect.

A very large percentage of the American public (including myself), remain irate at the complete lack of any justice served with regard to finance criminals in the aftermath of the economic collapse of 2008/09. When it comes to greedy, unethical behavior in the wake of that tragic period, Steve Mnuchin is in a class of his own. To appoint such a toxic financial oligarch to Treasury Secretary is a serious slap in the face to all American citizens.

Journalist David Dayen accurately described Mnuchin as the “Anti-Populist from Hell” in an excellent article published back in May of last year. Yesterday, he published what can be seen as a followup to that piece, in which he details the findings of a leaked memo from top California prosecutors who were looking to bring forward a case against OneWest for over a thousand legal violations they discovered. Inexplicably, the case never went forward, and the woman who had been in charge of the investigation, state attorney general Kamala Harris, has now been elected to the U.S. Senate.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Did Chuck Schumer Just Threaten Donald Trump?

by

As the financial crisis jolted the nation in September, Senator Charles E. Schumer was consumed. He traded telephone calls with bankers, then became one of the first officials to promote a Wall Street bailout. He spent hours in closed-door briefings and a weekend helping Congressional leaders nail down details of the $700 billion rescue package.

The next day, Mr. Schumer appeared at a breakfast fund-raiser in Midtown Manhattan for Senate Democrats. Addressing Henry R. Kravis, the buyout billionaire, and about 20 other finance industry executives, he warned that a bailout would be a hard sell on Capitol Hill. Then he offered some reassurance: The businessmen could count on the Democrats to help steer the nation through the financial turmoil.

“We are not going to be a bunch of crazy, anti-business liberals,” one executive said, summarizing Mr. Schumer’s remarks. “We are going to be effective, moderate advocates for sound economic policies, good responsible stewards you can trust.”

The message clearly resonated. The next week, executives at firms represented at the breakfast sent in more than $135,000 in campaign donations.

He succeeded in limiting efforts to regulate credit-rating agencies, for example, sponsored legislation that cut fees paid by Wall Street firms to finance government oversight, pushed to allow banks to have lower capital reserves and called for the revision of regulations to make corporations’ balance sheets more transparent.

At times in Congress, Mr. Schumer has teamed up with Republicans, like former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who aggressively promoted a free-market agenda. Mr. Schumer pushed for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley law, passed in November 1999, which knocked down the walls between investment banks and commercial banks and allowed financial supermarkets to flourish.The law also weakened regulatory oversight by fracturing it among different agencies.

– From The New York Times article: A Champion of Wall Street Reaps Benefits

Great way to start off the new year for the Democrats. New Senate Minority leader, and Wall Street mega-defender, Chuck Schumer just went on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show and warned Donald Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies could retaliate against him for disagreeing with their claims (based on no public evidence thus far) that Russia hacked the DNC/John Podesta and released it to Wikileaks with the intent of helping Trump win the election.

Here’s what he said courtesy of The Washington Examiner:

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Here’s the Best Summary of The Washington Post’s Latest ‘Fake News’ Fiasco

by

It’s quite ironic that the one newspaper most hysterical in warning the American public about the dangers of “fake news,” has become the most prolific publisher of it. The most recent example, of course, relates to the entirely made up story that those dastardly Russians had hacked into the U.S. power grid through a Vermont utility. The paper’s source for the story? Anonymous government officials. Unsurprisingly, the entire thing was a fairytale.

Most of you will already be aware of the story, but this is such a monumental example of journalistic malpractice, it deserve far more attention and scrutiny.

In that regard, Forbes contributor Kalev Leetaru, has done an excellent job of shining further light on how it all went down in his piece, “Fake News” And How The Washington Post Rewrote Its Story On Russian Hacking Of The Power Grid. Here are some key excerpts:

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Who Benefits from War with Russia?

by

There is absolutely no upside to any conflict with Russia when it comes to 99.9% of us. The fact so many pundits, anonymous intelligence officials and Hillary Clinton cultists are encouraging such an outcome based on zero publicly available evidence that Russia hacked the DNC/John Podesta and provided it to Wikileaks for the purpose of electing Trump, should be seen as the gigantic red flag that it is. So what’s actually going on? As is so often the case, it is all about money and power.

The best and most concise article I have read thus far explaining the driving influences behind all the anti-Russia/Putin hysteria was written a couple of weeks ago by Robert Parry of Consortium News. The post is titled, Making Russia ‘The Enemy’, and here are some key excerpts:

The rising hysteria about Russia is best understood as fulfilling two needs for Official Washington: the Military Industrial Complex’s transitioning from the “war on terror” to a more lucrative “new cold war” – and blunting the threat that a President Trump poses to the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist foreign-policy establishment.

Indeed, this is primarily about a failed establishment trying to maintain power in the face of repeated public catastrophes and pervasive corruption.

By hyping the Russian “threat,” the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, who include much of the mainstream U.S. news media, can guarantee bigger military budgets from Congress. The hype also sets in motion a blocking maneuver to impinge on any significant change in direction for U.S. foreign policy under Trump…

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Vinny Lingham aka ‘The Bitcoin Oracle’ Maintains a $3,000+ Price Prediction for Bitcoin in 2017

by

One of the things I try to do here at Liberty Blitzkrieg is identify and comment upon major macro trends before they become apparent to the public at large. Sometimes these trends are positive, while other times they are decisively negative. Since I started writing publicly, I’d say the emergence and success of Bitcoin has been the most positive macro development I’ve observed. While I certainly wasn’t an “early adopter” of the technology, I did identify it and highlight its significance well before most people had ever heard of it.

My first post on the topic was way back in August 2012, and since most of you weren’t following me back then, here it is for your enjoyment: Bitcoin: A Way to Fight Back Against the Financial Terrorists? A few weeks later, I received my first bitcoin donations from generous readers and the rest is history. The price was $10.

A couple of years later, I came across serial entrepreneur Vinny Lingham far before he became known as the “The Bitcoin Oracle.” He really caught my attention with a 2014 post describing why the price was acting so weak following its tremendous run the prior year. I found his thought process extremely compelling and I highlighted his thesis in the post: Guest Post: Why is the Bitcoin Price So Weak? I continued to follow his Bitcoin writings and have published them consistently ever since.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.