RAPE OF RUSSIA, CONNECTICUT STYLE

Well, no sooner said, than done, if this article shared by Mr. B. is any indicator. No sooner said than done? Rape of Russia? Connecticut? Huh!?

Let's pause and back up a bit. During our last quarterly "wrap-up," Catherine Austin Fitts and I outlined what we think might be a possible scenario in play: the Rape of Russia, brought home to North America, and marketed to a credulous public in the name of "draining the swamp", "downsizing the government", "privatization", and "conservatism" and so on. The Rape of Russia, you'll recall, was a scheme - hatched at Harvard (another long story) - whereby the Soviet Union's state-run enterprises would be sold off as the economy was "privatized" and "made safe for democracy" and all the other cliches we heard bouncing around at the time. What they were not saying, however, is how those enterprises were auctioned off at pennies on the dollar, or I should say, kopeks on the ruble. Power began to be concentrated in private corporate hands - the so-called oligarchs - while the Russian state dwindled away. Caught in the crossfire, of course, were millions of poorer Russians, left out in the cold, literally. It was the literal rape of Russia...

...until a certain Mr. Putin put an end to the process. It is this fact alone which is sufficient to explain why the western kleptocracy hates him so.

Now imagine the same scenario, but not in Russia, but here.  "Impossible!" you might say. Not so. Pay attention to the following story, and how it is being marketed:

Private Equity Firm Offers Cash-Strapped Connecticut $2BN For Government Buildings

The deal is simple enough, at least, on the surface: the city of Hartford and the State of Connecticut need money, and a private real estate developer has offered to buy some buildings from the city and state:

Given the precarious financial circumstances of Hartford, Conn. - not to mention the state as a whole - it's hardly surprising that private investors sense an opportunity to buy up valuable state- and city-owned properties at a good price.

And in the first of what we imagine could be a flood of offers, A Chicago-based private equity firm specializing in real-estate investment has sent letters to the city and to the state of Connecticut offering to spend $2 billion to purchase publicly owned office buildings, health-care facilities and trasit-related properties - and anything else the state and municipal governments might be willing to part with.

Problem-solution. It seems like a perfect deal: what better way to show up the incompetence of a bloated state government than to privatize its assets, right? Well, there's a teensy weensy catch to this sweetheart deal, and it's of a scale that only a Russian oligarch or a Goldman Sachs officer could scheme up:

However, there's one catch: The firm is insisting that it secures a 7.25% annual yield on its investment by raising rents and leasing the properties back to their former owners, according to Bloomberg.

For the record, that's nearly double the 3.43% yield Connecticut pays on 20-year general obligation bonds sold in January.

Yes, you read that correctly: the deal is (1) we will buy $2,000,000,000 worth of your properties, which (2) we will then rent back to you for a 7.25% return on our investment, thus (3) picking up state assets for pennies on the dollar when measured over years of occupancy (and rents) and (4) further indebting the state. In effect, what the "deal" is is a double whammy to the taxpayers of Connecticut, who first paid for those buildings, and who will be paying for them again (and again, and again) in the form of rents!

Oh, and by the way, notice one further marketing ploy: this is all being done to allow Connecticut to fund its underfunded pensions:

Still, the firm believes Connecticut might be interested in its offer, considering that the state and city could use the money to help balance out their badly underfunded pensions.

Now imagine the same scenario... on a national scale, as public assets are auctioned off (probably under similar conditions of "guaranteed returns" on investments in the form of rents): roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, parks, buildings, hospitals, schools, libraries, universities, armories (yes, even the military's weapons are just assets folks, which they'd be happy to have the military paying usage fees to use)... you name it, it's all up for sale...

...pennies on the dollar...

But don't worry, we'll rent it all back to you...

See you on the flip side...

 

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

26 Comments

  1. zendogbreath on April 13, 2018 at 12:01 am

    Pensions r only an asset. Not a problem. Nor the problem. Just as infrastructure like roads n buildings r not a or the problem. They r assets. Any accountant can raid assets by calling them a problem. Aka underfunded, reorganized,…. hypothecated,… didnt congress declare in last few years that most powerful union’s pension to be in default unless fully funded 75 years out? So much 4 securi ty of usps pensioners. Think those folk won’t get privatized n their pensions cut in half repeatedly like commercial airlines did to their pensions? How much will those postal werkers have paid into their funds to get them to 75 years out. Just like teacher pensions. Teachers don’t get a gift there. Their pensions r deducted from their paychecks. They don’t pay into or collect social securi ty.



    • zendogbreath on April 13, 2018 at 12:05 am

      They fund their own pensions n collect them. Unless wall street investments turn more fraudulwnt. Or the govnr of illinois borrows from it. Or all of it.



    • zendogbreath on April 13, 2018 at 12:07 am

      Dmitry orlov proves accurate again. So trump is the nwo’s yeltsin in ussa. Anyone have a clue yet qho will b putin?



  2. basta on April 12, 2018 at 9:39 am

    In a world of fiat, the rentier class is king.

    Einstein didn’t call compound interest the most powerful force in the universe for nothing.



    • Robert Barricklow on April 12, 2018 at 12:01 pm

      Napoleon had words to take affect/effect as well.



  3. FiatLux on April 12, 2018 at 7:01 am

    A similar thing is happening in France right now, courtesy of the ex-banker in charge there. I’m with C. A. Fitts on this one–in America it’s not a financial problem, it’s a lawlessness problem. No respect for the rule of law on the part of the rulers.



  4. GW on April 12, 2018 at 6:00 am

    When thinking about these things, this is worth to look at:
    http://wid.world/
    Tip: Choose graph by country, top 1% share plus bottom 50% share. Then make comparison between USA and Russia (or you can find the graphs comparison in mid-section area of this article: http://outsidermedia.cz/jak-se-vsichni-mame-dobre-medialni-lzi-a-fakta-wid/ ). Everybody can see now, why western neoliberals hate Putin so much. As would Alexander de Large say, it is as clear as an azure sky of deepest Summer…



    • RAJM on April 12, 2018 at 8:58 pm

      Your quoting a fictional rapist of two ten year olds. Well done. Bravo.



  5. James on April 12, 2018 at 1:50 am

    How long will it take for all to understand that mathematics and the simple truths in its function has been obfuscated to the detriment of those who do not understand mathematics?



  6. duncan mckean on April 11, 2018 at 11:18 pm

    And the alternative to self government is? differentiate privatize and private property? public domain ? croney capitalism vs capitalism ..like the cynical statement you made with katherine ..i am a member by the way ..you wouldn’t privatize military and start selling off nuclear weapons ..where does imminent domain proclaim its power. who gives it the right to sell?.many a slippery slope .private vs public vs corruption vs greater good ..my heads smokin.. do i have to be a constitutional lawyer to bring down America ? yep .enforcing the constitution is our only hope ..with you joe 100%



  7. TRM on April 11, 2018 at 10:29 pm

    There has been lots of coverage over at Zerohedge, amongst other sites, of the “public pension” problem. You’ve heard of “too big to fail” and “too big to jail” now get ready for “too big to bail”.

    The government employees and their unions have got pension plans that nobody in their right mind would agree to give them. Almost all the private pensions have gone “defined contribution” but the government workers get sweet “defined benefit” and what benefits they get.

    If the people of any state are dumb enough to let them get away with it they will use this to kick the can down the road further. They will eventually have to deal with these ridiculous pension promises and give everyone a serious hair cut (think crew cut or buzz cut, no fancy styling). But in the mean time they will have a solution until they are paid out.



  8. marcos toledo on April 11, 2018 at 6:57 pm

    The problem as I have stated before is that TPTB in Europe especially the northern central Europeans don’t know, don’t care what a government or state is. They have never understood the concept, to begin with, they are overgrown children who think money is really more real anything else. Reality will come crashing in on them when they have killed this world and if they can escape their mess fleeing into space. Well, they are dumb enough to enjoy being whatever they run into pets.



  9. goshawks on April 11, 2018 at 4:48 pm

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-10/jerome-new-janet-stockman-rages-feds-systematic-lies
    “The overarching point here is that the great problems plaguing American society – scarcity of good jobs, punk GDP growth, faltering productivity, raging wealth mal-distribution, massive indebtedness, egregious speculative bubbles, fiscally incontinent government – are overwhelmingly caused by our rogue central bank. They are the fetid fruits of mas sive and sustained financial repression and falsification of the most import[ant] prices in all of capitalism – the prices of money, debt, equities and other financial assets.
    (…)
    That is to say, never before in history has a people so completely and abjectly surrendered to an occupying power…

    So it is no exaggeration to say, therefore, that the Fed is an alien state unto itself.”



  10. Robert Barricklow on April 11, 2018 at 11:30 am

    Basically a formulae that’s been done as many as times as there are variations to the basic violence of infrastructure inherent w/in the fraudulent financial foundations that are engineered for such massive frauds.
    Richard Condon’s Mile High novel’s storyline.

    Now it’s:
    First they come for Connecticut;
    then they come for you,
    wherever on Earth you maybe.

    The they leave Earth for the stars….



    • Robert Barricklow on April 11, 2018 at 11:35 am

      and speaking of space…
      When is Part 11 of that Wrap-Up?



  11. Neru on April 11, 2018 at 10:15 am

    This scheme is nothing new, already done in Belgium after 2008 bank debacle and sold to the public as the solution. They swallowed it hook line and sinker.
    Very basic math is not feasible for the multitudes.



  12. WalkingDead on April 11, 2018 at 9:59 am

    FedGov, Inc. has been operating under bankruptcy since 1789. That bankruptcy has been renegotiated three times since then. After 200+ years, it’s finally over. Everything FedGov, inc owns, including all assets of its subsidiary State, county, and city governments (all incorporated) are for sale. Read Executive Order 12803.
    Our “government” does not work for us, they are employees of the beneficiaries of the bankruptcy. Since American history is no longer taught in school, at least since I was a child, you wouldn’t understand any of this unless you did the research and learned it yourself. I doubt that this aspect of American history was ever actually included in any history course.
    It has all been obtained through fraud, usury, personage, and identity theft.
    The American population is, without doubt, the dumbest population on the earth, they know nothing of the actual history of their nation and are spoon fed propaganda on a daily basis by every media outlet; and they buy it without question.
    If the Russians and Chinese don’t bomb us into oblivion, we will self destruct in the near future. The grand experiment in “self governance” is over and has been for two centuries.



    • Lost on April 11, 2018 at 11:40 am

      WD:

      The text of Executive Order 12803 doesn’ t support you.

      Additionally regards:

      “If the Russians and Chinese don’t bomb us into oblivion, we will self destruct in the near future. The grand experiment in “self governance” is over and has been for two centuries.”

      We’ve been reading similar claims for 240 years. Now there is a different method of dissolution which you seem to support.



    • metaOne on April 12, 2018 at 12:03 pm

      @ WD : the first Bankruptcy (BK) of the US resulted in the British via their banking proxy London crown seizing the federal government…

      the 2nd BK resulted in them seizing the state governments…

      the 3rd resulted in them seizing the money (gold)…

      this 4th one, being renegotiated now, seems to be going after the people them selves…or they’ll wait another 70 years @ international law and take them after they take the assets of the state and rent it back to the foolish kids…

      glad i did’t consent (or its involuntary servitude) and i’m on (their) record 🙂



  13. anakephalaiosis on April 11, 2018 at 8:00 am

    PYRAMID HAIKU 29
    Dust Bowl vampire.
    Giza tomb chamber frog soup.
    Wall Street communism.

    American FedEx – by proxy – has become tax collector on European borders, on behalf of European governments.

    Next step is to privatize all tax collection, into oligarch hands, and then national sovereignty is out the window.

    Against Wall Street one has no say whatsoever, unless one has a nice little nuke on the kitchen table.



  14. Helden Spirit on April 11, 2018 at 6:48 am

    The Rape of Saudi Arabia is in full swing. The Crown Prince just privatized the Kingdom to Branson. Think about it, the vast desert would make a great Space Hub terminal here on Earth, and a hyperloop through the deserts of the Middle East, all owned by Bronson, the Hassidim, the royal head and those pesky banksters with their Sachs of Gold:

    https://www.rt.com/business/423719-saudi-prince-branson-virgin-economy/

    … and the aftermath of the Rape of Libya and the Rape of Detroit look pretty similar, just different climates. But war-torn destroyed infrastructure and population. Welcome to Talmudic Paradise !



  15. goshawks on April 11, 2018 at 6:20 am

    Yep, this is another example of what economist Michael Hudson calls ‘rentier’ behavior: buy something on the cheap and then use your newly-acquired monopoly status to impose ruinous ‘rent’ increases upon your new serfs. This usually works fine until some self-styled ‘royalty’ figure says the equivalent of “let them eat cake” during a crisis period, and the serfs rebel…

    I should point out (once again) how this works, from the top down: First, the controllers agitate for some tax cut or estate-tax cut or some other scheme to return money to their pockets (while saying it is for the good of the populace, of course). Next, these same controllers note that the government (federal, state, or local) is *surprise* now running a deficit. These same controllers now mount a campaign for the government to cut-back services (not MIC spending, of course), claiming to be fiscally-responsible types. Finally, the providers & recipients of those services are left to fight it out for micro-funding, while the controllers – knowing the sheep won’t recognize cause and effect – will chuckle all the way to their bank…



    • goshawks on April 11, 2018 at 6:59 am

      (In the case of this article, the ‘services’ being cut-back are both the provision of government office-space at cost and the payment of ‘adequate’ pensions to workers. Now, go back and re-read “from the top down” to understand WHY the city of Hartford and the State of Connecticut *surprise* need money…)



    • goshawks on April 11, 2018 at 3:18 pm

      Well, that didn’t take long:
      https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-reducing-poverty-america-promoting-opportunity-economic-mobility/

      After the recent corporate tax cut, wealthy-folks tax cut, and estate-tax cut, *surprise* the “FedGov” has come out with a weasel-worded way to cut services to impoverished (by the 1%) folks. Never mind that the living-wage jobs have been exported overseas. (Last jobs report showed a 130,000 loss of full-time jobs, and a gain of 120,000 part-time jobs. TPTB future…)



      • goshawks on April 11, 2018 at 6:22 pm

        https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-10/jerome-new-janet-stockman-rages-feds-systematic-lies

        “Stated differently, since January 2001 the US has generated just 15.4 million new jobs and 96% of them have been in the Part-Time Economy ( leisure, hospitality, retail, temps and other gig-oriented categories) or the HES Complex (health, education and social services).

        That is to say, job growth has overwhelmingly been in the low pay and low-productivity employment that most definitely does not fuel the sustainable growth potential of the main street economy; and which also is heavily dependent upon the fiscal largesse of a government that is tumbling into fiscal collapse.”



  16. DanaThomas on April 11, 2018 at 5:29 am

    Banks and their shills tried to push this “creeping privatisation” in Italy a few years ago for “working real estate” such as government offices but it did not catch on; the operation has largely been limited to former barracks put on the market for redevelopment, and small semi-abandoned properties.



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