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 – Protester Confronts Hillary Clinton About Her Calling Inner City Black Youth “Super Predators”

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NBC News reported the following:

A Black Lives Matter activist disrupted a fundraiser for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last night in South Carolina, calling into question the candidate’s rhetoric on race and criminal justice. 

Ashley Williams began her demonstration at the $500 a plate event, revealing a sign to guests that read, “we have to bring them to heel.” The quote is from the speech Hillary Clinton delivered in New Hampshire in January 1996 when she told an audience at Keene State College that, “these are not just gangs of kids anymore, they are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Now watch the video in all it’s glory:

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Obama to Expand Surveillance State Powers by Signing a 21 Page Memo

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As the Apple vs. FBI battle rages in the court system and throughout the halls of Congress, Obama decides to do what he does best. Using “his pen” to make consequential decisions unilaterally.

Just another day in the American banana republic.

The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is on the verge of permitting the National Security Agency to share more of the private communications it intercepts with other American intelligence agencies without first applying any privacy protections to them, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

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CONFIRMED – The U.S. Military Asks Tech Companies to Tweak Their Algorithms to Promote Certain Content

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You probably had no idea, but representatives from Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the U.S. government came together earlier this week to privately discuss how they could jointly fight ISIS propaganda online. Never mind the fact that ISIS is the child of reckless and inhumane preemptive wars of aggression perpetrated by the U.S. government. Such introspection naturally never crosses the mind of government bureaucrats ostensibly attempting to understand the epic disasters they created in the first place.

So who attended the meeting? We don’t know for sure because the plebes aren’t entitled to know such things. Fortunately, we have become privy to some information thanks to Buzzfeed News. Here’s what we learned:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — They flew in from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles to hole up in a windowless D.C. conference room for nearly five hours on Wednesday — representatives of the country’s top tech and entertainment companies brainstorming with U.S. counterterrorism officials to tackle one tough question: how to stop the spread of ISIS online.

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As China’s Economy Craters, Economic Data Starts to “Disappear”

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For several years now, I’ve periodically observed that China’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissent serves as a harbinger of far more difficult times ahead. The thinking goes that if anyone is privy to the severe fragility of the country’s economic situation, it would be Chinese leadership. As such, desperate moves by Chinese leadership should foretell drastically worse economic and social conditions.

The scramble to crack down on dissent has become so intense, Chinese authorities seem to be now exerting illegal force against residents of Hong Kong. Of course, this story is long in the making, as the massive protest that broke out a little over a year ago known as the “umbrella revolution,” was in fact a protest against Beijing’s moves to ensure that Hong Kong leadership remain loyal puppets to the authorities on the mainland. 

– From the post: Hong Kong Publishers Reportedly Being Kidnapped by Chinese Authorities and Taken to the Mainland

When it comes to the Chinese economy, you can always tell how bad the situation is based on the panicky actions of the authorities. If the latest moves are any indication, things are not getting any better.

The New York Times reports:

BEIJING — This month, Chinese banking officials omitted currency data from closely watched economic reports.

Just weeks earlier, Chinese regulators fined a journalist $23,000 for reposting a message that said a big securities firm had told elite clients to sell stock.

Before that, officials pressed two companies to stop releasing early results from a survey of Chinese factories that often moved markets.

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Black Economic Lives Don’t Matter – Examining the African American Plight Under Obama’s Fake Oligarch Recovery

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Turns out electing the first black President hasn’t helped the black community all that much.

Wall Street says thanks for the bailout.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The lowest state jobless rate for black workers in the country matches the highest rate for white workers in a new analysis.

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Why Hillary Clinton Cannot Beat Donald Trump

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This morning, I read a fantastic article by Nathan J. Robinson in Current Affairs titled: Unless the Democrats Run Sanders, a Trump Nomination Means a Trump Presidency. Several months ago, I would have disagreed with this statement, but today I think it’s entirely accurate.

One thing Clinton supporters remain in complete denial about (other than the fact most Americans who don’t identify as Democrats find her to be somewhere in between untrustworthy and criminal), is that a significant number of Sanders supporters will never vote for Hillary. Forget the fact that I know a few personally, I’ve noticed several interviews with voters who proclaim Sanders to be their first choice but Trump their second. Are they just saying this or do they mean it? I think a lot of them mean it.

Mr. Robinson’s article is a brilliant deep dive into what a real life Trump vs. Clinton matchup would look like, not what clueless beltway wonks want it to look it. What emerges is a convincing case that the only person who could stand up to Trump and defeat him in November is Bernie Sanders. I agree.

So without further ado, here are a few excerpts:

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Subprime Auto Loan Delinquencies Jump to Highest Level Since 2010

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Just in case you need some more evidence that the U.S. economy is rolling over.

Bloomberg reports:

More borrowers with spotty credit are failing to make monthly car payments on time, a troubling sign for investors who have snapped up billions of dollars of securities backed by risky auto debt.

Delinquencies on subprime auto loans packaged into bonds rose in January to 4.7 percent, a level not seen since 2010, according to data from Wells Fargo & Co.

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Liberty Links 2/24/16

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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.

U.S. Sought Data From 15 Apple iPhones in Last Four Months (FBI wants a lot more than data from one phone, Reuters)

The End of the Establishment? (Excellent read by Robert Reich)

It’s Time to Kick Erdogan’s Turkey Out of NATO (Huffington Post)

Obama’s Plan to Close Guantanamo Would Establish Indefinite Detention on U.S. Soil (The Intercept)

Google Fiber Expanding Faster, Further — And Making Comcast Very Nervous (TechDirt)

Bahrain Jails Secular Activist Over Political Speech (The Guardian)

The NSA’s SKYNET Program May Be Killing Thousands of Innocent People (Ars Technica)

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Gangster Tactic – Pro Hillary Union Threatened to Pull Funding if Labor Official Spoke at Sanders Rally

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We’ve all seen Hillary’s shadiness on display time and time again throughout the campaign, but one thing that hasn’t been said enough is that with the Clintons, you don’t just get the Clintons. You end up electing a cadre of some of the most villainous and corrupt corporate criminals, manipulators and unethical political mercenaries America has to offer.

With Hillary in the White House, the American people are also signing up for an all-star roster of associated cronies who have spent much of the last few decades raping and pillaging both Americans at home, and innocents abroad.

– From the post: Madeleine Albright Says “There’s a Special Place in Hell for Women Who Don’t Help Each Other”

As I pointed out in the post above, the Clintons are basically white collar gangsters. You don’t attain the kind of political and now financial power that they have in modern America without your fair share of shadiness.

Of course, everybody knows this, which is why she’s considered to be untrustworthy by 60% of the American public. It’s not just her though. It’s the people who have climbed the ladder with her, and who hope to climb it further once she becomes President, that we need to be concerned about. These people can be just as vicious, power hungry and unethical as Hillary.

Yesterday, the Huffington Post highlighted the latest gangster move perpetrated by Hillary supporters:

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2016 Refugee Level is Eight Times the Rate Witnessed During Same Period Last Year

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Although everyone watching has been convinced that Europe’s disastrous economy and related debt crisis would be the spark to unravel the European Union project, it appears history has its own plans.

While EU technocrats have demonstrated an uncanny ability to scheme, threaten, kick the can and lie their way around the debt crisis, the migrant crisis will prove to be a much graver threat to the project. Strikingly, all it took was a few weeks of unrelenting migrants crossing into EU borders to put an end what is essentially the only achievement of the European Union — the Schengen system of borderless travel.

Without that, what is the EU really? A collection of nation-states forced by bureaucrats to pretend they are part of an artificial fantasy superstate called Europe? An amalgamation of debt serfs and technocratic overlords? See what I’m getting at?

– From the post: Does the Migrant Crisis Represent the End of the European Union?

Conventional wisdom told us that refugee levels would plunge to a manageable level over the winter months before picking up again in the spring and summer. While they certainly have come down, they appear to be much higher than expected at a shocking eight times the level compared to the same period last year.

The Telegraph reports:

More than 100,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe so far this year – more than eight times the rate seen during the same period in 2015.

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