The Cardinal Crisis: Greece, The Euro, Wall Street, Germany, Sovereign Debt & Social Rebellion

The Cardinal Crisis

Part III

Greece, The Euro, Wall Street, Germany, Sovereign Debt & Social Rebellion

By Theodore White; judicial Astrolog.S

People continue to ask me if what they see, feel, and hear in the world will get worse, or better.

I wish I could be more positive, but from the global transits ahead, I have to continue to forecast things will get worse until major changes are made to the way business has been done over the last 18 years ~ especially at this time in history.

I have been forecasting this for some time, if anyone has cared to listen to one astrologer. I pray for the world as I read the transits of the skies day and night that tell me all I know about the future. This is my solitary life as a mundane astrologer while I continue to warn about the signs of the times.

There is hope. Just look in a mirror and you may see what I see. You are that hope. You are that change. You are the future.

Along with the rest of us ~ the little people.

Yesterday, Thursday, May 6th, saw Wall Street witness one of its most stressful days, according to reports. In 30 minutes, the Dow Jones dived nearly 1,000 points on fears that Greece's debt problems could slam on the brakes towards a much needed global economic recovery.

Wall Street did manage to recover about two-thirds of its losses, but closed down 347 points at 10,520. It seems the Plunge Protection Team got its first workout under the Obama Administration and did the right thing to stop the sudden slide.

Many people will be trying to digest what went down at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, May 6th, as many still are in shock and befuddled as to exactly what happened.

Here is a look at the extraordinary day's events on Wall Street:

• The Dow hit an Intraday high of 10879.76 May 6, up 11.64 points, or 0.11%
•  
• Then it hit an Intraday low of 9869.62 today, down 998.50 points, or 9.19%
•  
• Its Biggest Intraday POINT drop in its history.
•  
• A high-low swing of 1,010.14 points

These are global transits at work.

Credit: Henny Ray Abrams/Associated Press

This was the third day of sharp market declines. The Dow Jones had already dropped 284 points on Tuesday, May 4th and Wednesday, May 5th.

“I think three days makes a pattern, and we as investors grew complacent that every time we had a bad day we had a good day,” Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of Longbow Asset Management, said. “This is a terrible, terrible day.

 Then, we hear this ~

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it will cancel all trades of stocks at prices that were 60 percent above or below the last price at 2:40 p.m. or immediately prior.

The exchange operator said in a statement it will cancel all trades "greater than or less than 60 percent away from the consolidated last print in that security at 14:40:00 or immediately prior."

Nathan Martin, of Nathan's Economic Edge, who gets it ~ asks a very good question:

"Nasdaq said it coordinated the decision with all other exchanges. Let me ask you this, why should you be playing in a market where if you make a winning trade they can take it away from you?

Pure gambling, the criminals are in charge, there is no rule of law. These actions will destroy confidence, not build it and the people running the markets will eventually get what’s coming to them.

The media is absolutely shell shocked looking for any excuse plausible why the selling was not for real. It was for real, the market was saved by intervention, but the media can’t admit the crash much less the intervention. Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, that’s for sure…"

Another group of people who "get it" are those at Zerohedge.com ~

"What happened today was no fat finger, it was no panic selling by one major account: it was simply the impact of everyone in the HFT community going from port to starboard on the boat, at precisely the same time."

Check out what else they had to say about the so-called "fat finger blip" and what Zerohedge warned about High-Frequency Trading (HFT) back in 2009.

Karl Denninger of The Market Ticker says:

 "The banks and others who have argued for innovation have just proved once again that their brand of "innovation" means that the average investor gets bent over the table.  You cannot, as an investor, be in the market until these outrageous practices are permanently barred from the exchanges.

I was on the right side of the destruction today, but I could have very easily been on the wrong side and gotten badly hurt. As it stands I'm quite certain there were tens of thousands of individual traders who went so far into negative equity in the futures market and got immediately liquidated that we will be hearing of blown up accounts and bankrupted traders for weeks if not months."

There are going to be a lot of very pissed off traders about Friday, May 7th. See Denninger's advice & warnings here in: Mr. President: Unplug the F*ing Computers!

Oh, and let's not forget who we really need to hear from:
How About the Regular Joe American. What does He think about all this?

All major indexes lost three-percent May 6; which reminded many traders of the near chaos the American stock market experienced back in the gloomy autumn of 2008.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Avalon Partners, said there were a number of negative comments Thursday about the Greek crisis expanding beyond Europe, including a remark, he said, by James B. Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Mr. Bullard said debt problems in Greece and other European countries posed a risk to the United States economic outlook.

“What really happened here," Cardillo said, was that "gold was going through the roof, and the Euro went down to $1.25. There was a lot of panic selling that came in and the market fell apart.”

I keep forecasting that under these building cardinal crisis inclinations it is best to avoid impulse and haste. Still, there were reports out of Wall Street that a "technical glitch hastened the selling" which sent shock waves through the market.

This would have been the reaction to events in Greece, and fears of the emerging European sovereign debt contagion.

One trader emailed me with such emotion that I had to decipher his words because it looked as if he rushed so much and could not wait to send it to me.

Yes, emotions are running a bit high, but, these are world transits, and I continue to maintain, as I have for over a year now, for people to slow down.

Apparently, traders in all world markets are very concerned Greece's economic problems will hurt other European countries and ultimately, the American recovery.

Today, Greek lawmakers voted 172-121 to approve the highly unpopular austerity measures worth about €30 billion Euros through 2012. The cutbacks will slash pensions and civil servants' pay and further hike consumer taxes.

Other European governments are now rushing to get parliamentary approval for Greece's loans with leaders meeting Friday, May 7th in Brussels.

Back in Greece, things could not be worse. Right after the parliament approved the austerity conditions the opposition party torn into the government for imposing measures they say are much too harsh for the population to endure.

"The dose of the medicine you are administering is in danger of killing the patient," said conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras.

Angry, Samaras then expelled a dissenting lawmaker, former Foreign Minister Dora Bakovannis, which then left his conservative party share of parliamentary seats at 90.

Right after the vote in Athens, another round of fresh clashes broke out with tens of thousands of people battling police outside parliament. Though the violence was briefly contained by riot police firing tear gas at the protesters, protesters continued to pelt police with stones, oranges, and Molotov cocktails.

Demonstrators banging drums and shouting anti-government slogans through bullhorns, unfurled a giant black banner outside parliament earlier Thursday.

More than 30,000 demonstrators filled the downtown streets of Athens chanting: "They declared war! Now fight back!"

  Meanwhile, Prime Minister George Papendreou threw out three of his Socialist deputies who dissented in his party's austerity vote. That reduced Papendreou's number of seats to 157 in the Greek 300-member parliament.

"We have done what was necessary, not what was easy," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said after the vote. "Without these measures, we'd be thrown into the deepest recession this country has ever known."

Protester Thodoris Mougiakos said he was angry the IMF would control Greek finances. "It's blackmail," he said. "There is money, but they spend it on things like armaments and businesses. The church has money too. If we had been drawing money from all these sources, we wouldn't be in this situation now."

Under the coming global transits, I am forecasting Greece will experience a revolution and that the European sovereign crisis will worsen. Though the media would like to think that the worst is past, I am forecasting that the worst is yet to come. It makes me very sad.

I wish I had better news for everyone, but it is my policy as a mundane astrologer to tell it like it is. We are all grown-ups here.

Back to the Markets -

On Friday, May 7th, the transiting Moon will be in the early degrees of Pisces, and stocks should rebound slightly, but with continued high tensions due to the European debt crisis.

A quirky & tense Friday is in store for the stock market with lots of jitterbugging all around. All eyes will be not only on Greece, but on Germany, and, Europe as a whole, so the Plunge Protection Team should remain on duty in case emotions get out of hand again.

After a weekend of devouring the research analyst blogs, and going over the European bond yield numbers, especially in Germany, expect Monday, May 10th to continue the fever pitch with a last quarter Moon in Aries in square aspect to Pluto in Capricorn. Unfavorable.

Aries is another money sign, and with the Moon in this cardinal position, the aspects are still quite tense. A lot of money is moving into German assets for protection, and with the Euro currency falling against the Dollar, anyone watching this weekend will want to keep count of how much is flowing into Germany.

Mercury does not station direct until Wednesday, May 12, and the Moon will still be in a last quarter phase until it reaches new moon phase on Friday, May 14 when money can be made again.

On Friday, May 14, there's more so-called "good news," but with the Taurus Moon square to Neptune in Aquarius next Friday, stay away from the tech stocks, and stick with biotechnology stocks, pharmaceutical, and good ole bricks and mortar companies.

Other than that, May 14 is basically the best day from now to then. So, there's another week to go. All in all, expect next week to continue the wild up and down roller coaster market ride on fears of the contagion spread of European sovereign debt through Friday, May 14th.

These fears are based on the realities of global transits. These will continue to intensify through late spring and into the summer months. I'm not the only one saying this.

So, this is just the start of a new, deeper, and deadlier phase of the ongoing global economic crisis in my astrological estimation.

Right now, here in early May 2010, we are less than a month away from the start of a powerful series of Cardinal inclinations involving the outer planets which will take place during the months of June, July, and August 2010, and continue through into the mid-2010s before easing off.

However, between 2010 and say, 2014, the cardinal transits inclining the Earth will feature rebellions, revolts and revolutions directly associated with the massive levels of financial fraud and corruption over the last decade.

Until the root problems are dealt with ~ straight up ~ with justice and common sense being applied and practiced in the real world, say, with the return of Glass-Steagall, and hunting down our bad guys, i.e., Goldman Sachs, John Paulson & Co., ~ things will only get worse.

Let's not forget our "friends" shall we? Bastards. I'm working on some magnificent astrological transits all lined up for these fellows. Sit back and watch how they are brought down to their knees for what they've done to the world economy and our beloved America. Got this link from an informed friend whose eyes are wide open.

I've got my front seat and popcorn ready when you are fried for what all of you have done. This week's "market action" and what is happening in Greece is yet another example why I absolutely despise you losers.

You run from a fight rather than face it like men. You Armani suit-wearing liars, cheats, and sickos. 


In the city of Brotherly Love, in Philadelphia, we fight with everything we've got ~ with our bare hands, with heart and true intent. During the Revolutionary war, they invaded New York and stayed for six years. They invaded Philadelphia and evacuated after one month. 

Thus, our great country called the United States of America was born.

All the money in the world will not save you from what you've got coming. Believe it. I cannot wait. The global transits that will take you down ~ and out for the count ~ are nearly here. 

Welcome To Rocky Town, pals.
Watch what happens to you bad guys with the Cardinal Transits Coming.

We don't drink "tea" you corrupt jerks ~ we drink coffee ~ we're always awake, ready and willing. I hate you Armani-loving cheats right down to your very guts. Cowards.

I keep saying the same thing. The rats must not be allowed to stay in the kitchen, and the foxes can no longer be allowed to guard the hen house. And, before they are expelled - check out their bulging Goldman sacks of billions. That is where you will find all the stolen money, honey.

Europe In Crisis

As Europe shudders in the wake of the Greek Crisis, global markets continue to see the Euro currency sink against the dollar as the world awaits more bad market news about the exploding Sovereign Debts of European nations.

We see this now in Greece, and I continue to sadly forecast that it will be the same in other nations as well until healthy, common sense changes are made.

 All this comes in the prelude to the coming conjunction of Jupiter & Uranus into Aries playing significant roles in the Cardinal T-Square between Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto.

This T-square was last seen by mundane astrologers in the early 1930s, and features global crisis bordering on a worldwide economic depression.

It has been my forecast for years that the beginning of the decade of the 2010s will result in major economic collapse of nations from the direct causes of widespread financial corruption that has now thrown whole European nations into severe recessions.

On May 6th, the streets of Athens turned into pre-revolutionary chaos with other Greek cities reporting tens of thousands of protesters on the streets.

This comes a day before the Greek Parliament is expected to vote and pass a strict International Monetary Fund/European Union bailout that is highly unpopular with Greek citizens.

The austerity measures Greece must now live under have been called "draconian" even by IMF standards, and has caused a mass uprising of Greeks just as the Greek Parliament is set to approve the bailout agreement.

The violent clashes in Athens against the austerity package Greek prime minister George Papandreou accepted in return for a €110 billion bailout has fear gripping world markets that other heavily indebted Euro countries will also require massive bailouts.

The problems of Greece continue to show that a much wider crisis of Sovereign debt in Europe has many investors spooked about the true stability of the Euro Monetary Union.

See ~ Interactive Map of Europe's Debt Crisis.

In Europe, there exists the strong potential that Spain, a country with a very weak economy that dwarfs Greece, will come under pressure as well.

Andrew Garthwaite, a strategist at Credit Suisse, said in recent report that European banks held up to $1.3 trillion of Greek, Spanish and Portuguese debt at high risk of default.

Should this happen, and I am forecasting it will because of global transits, then Europe will face a severe banking crisis similar to events that occurred immediately after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008.

On May 6, it has been reported by European officials that, "The gap between the yield on longer-term debt of Greece, Portugal, and other weakened countries, and that of comparable German debt also widened.

The yield on the benchmark Greek government bond reached 10 percent, while yields on comparable Portuguese debt increased to 5.8 percent.

Spanish & Irish bond yields also rose. Spain remains the biggest concern. Despite the political factors, the IMF, and the European Union were able to raise funds to support Greece's bailout.

With the violent clashes in Greece, and grave announcements from German politicians, the Euro slumped below $1.29 May 6th against the U.S. dollar for the first time since April 2009.

Stocks were sold across European bourses as nervous investors sent prices, for what they see as the safest assets, like German government bonds, to a record high. The Greek government needs $11.6 billion by Wednesday, May 19 to cover its debt payments.

Experts say a resolution of Greece's problems is considered only a temporary fix and that similar issues are looming for Spain and Portugal, both countries who've had their debt ratings downgraded earlier this week.

According to an analysis by Barclays Capital, for Greece to meet the proposed target of a budget deficit of 4 to 6 percent of economic output by 2014, the government has to find savings of about 13.5 percent of its total output.

This kind of rapid turnaround in about three years has very little past precedent in Western Europe. Moreover, Barclay's says it will be "all the more difficult given the depth of the [global] recession and the inability of Greece to devalue."

May 5th ~ the day before today's major sell-off, showed signs of things to come:

• The Euro tumbled below $1.29 for the first time since April 2009
• Stock markets in Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain & Portugal all fell
• The yield on Germany's 10-year bond reached a record low

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Germany's Parliament, the Bundestag, that the "future of Germany in Europe is at stake," as she tried convince German lawmakers to approve a bail-out that will see Germany hand over billions to its weakest EU member country - Greece.

Axel Weber, the powerful German central banker said, "there is a grave threat of contagion effects for other member states in the monetary union and increasing negative feedback loop effects."

Talking about contagion: Spain is next.

It's bailout may cost as much as $600 billion, according to U.S. Representative Mark Steven Kirk, a republican from Illinois, who serves on the committee overseeing American financing to the IMF. "That is far more than the monetary fund has available to lend," he said.

According to sources, the monetary fund only has $268 billion on hand ~ a shortfall of $332 billion. Quite a number indeed.

Still, some economists are calling for a kind of American-type bailout that took place in October 2008 in suggesting that the European Central Bank (ECB) buy billions of Euros of the Greek, Portuguese and Spanish debt investors have shunned with the IMF potentially offering to bailout Spain next.

This would be well over the $700 billion the U.S. Congress approved in their TARP bailout of the big banks in 2008, that saved the American economy from collapse.

The problem is that for the most part, the pairing of the ECB and the IMF is a strange partnership to witness for many economists, who say they do not expect the Europeans to show the courage and flexibility needed for such large bailouts of entire nations in the euro zone.

Mercury Retrograde & The Greek Bailout Agreement

 My Astrological Advice: Review, Revise & Redo

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou

The Greek bailout agreement of May 1, 2010 took place under a Mercury retrograde in Taurus. A bad time to formulate such heady agreements like huge financial bailouts of whole countries.

The expected passage of the bailout by EU member nations is by Friday, May 7th. The Greek Parliament has already passed the measure May 6th.

All this, with Mercury retrograde. It's amazing. It really is just, well, amazing...

Now, European officials continue to make serious errors saying the bailout plan for Greece is sufficient and there that is simply no need for a broader aid proposal , or, for a formal debt restructuring in any of the other afflicted countries.

I say they are wrong. Very wrong.

For one, it is obvious that investors continue to push down the Euro, which fell to $1.28 on May 5. Then, today, on May 6th, a global decline in stock values. These are sure signs investor confidence is eroding ~ especially in Europe.

Second, and most important ~ the world transits on this situation are clear, and so is my advice on this matter:

It is time to review, revise, and redo.

It is my forecast that the Greek EU-IMF bailout agreement will have to be revised, with major alterations, and changed after Mercury stations direct at 2-Taurus on May 11th.

Do not the ECB, IMF and Greek government know that signing such important fiscal agreements ~ and then voting to pass the austerity measures ~ during a Mercury Retrograde, particularly in a money sign like Taurus ~ is a BIG NO NO?

My astrological advice would be to immediately slow down, stop, and then review, revise, and redo the bailout agreement with a focus to cut back the severe austerity measures on the Greek people, and then ~ come up with a better plan to relieve the Greek economy before all hell breaks loose.

And believe, me, it is closer than you may think.

There still is time to bring some calmer heads to this situation should the players and their staffs pull back and look seriously at revising the conditions being forced on Greece. 

Slow down. Do not rush under these cardinal inclinations or you all will make things worse.

The Germans would be an immense help here, and would improve their status by stepping in to give Greece help without pulling itself into the fray politically.

Germany is only protecting itself, and rightly so.

Caution is well advised here, and the Germans have been practicing it despite pressures from the EU, and others, those who continue to make serious errors by rushing things through haste, and impulse.

Another Big no no under the cardinal inclinations.

Those Germans reading this already know what I know about the coming new Deutsche Mark. If this decision has already been made, then there is simply no reason to pretend as if it is not going to happen, yes?

There is no need to pretend that Germany is not the sovereign nation that it truly is anyhow. Moreover, it is well-known that Germany was forced into accepting EU conditions despite its own concerns about the Euro, and integration of weaker European nations into the monetary union.

So, why pretend when much is at stake at this point? The Germans cannot be faulted for being very skeptical of the bailout plans given the history of Germany's concern about the monetary union over several decades.

Germany is being asked, again, to do something it does not want to do, and for very good reasons. What is happening is Germany is going to go its own way - fiscally, and through its own currency - since Brussels cannot seem to balance its own checkbooks.

A positive move for Greece would be to extend the provisions beyond three years, which is very shortsighted and over-optimistic in my view; considering the extent to which the world economy will need to recover for Europe to absorb the cutbacks in spending that is surely coming.

All this will do is to spread violent social rebellions in the years to come with possible overthrows of several governments in the process. This is very expensive as it is, and surely there are better and positive ways to handle this situation, yes?

I say there is.

In the short-term again: Review, Revise & Redo.

A proper time to review the changes to the Greek bailout agreement would be after the May 14 New Moon in Taurus, then, to enact the revised changes between May 28 through June 12th.

This would ease pressure on the Euro, and give investors more time to build up some market confidence. It would also give the Germans more time to think, and allow things to calm down on the streets of Athens with people knowing that the severe cutbacks are being re-thought.

It also allows the Greek government more time to ease into the conditions beyond the ridiculously short three months given to Prime Minister George Papandreou to begin the terms of the austerity package.

This will not only calm things down in Europe, but will save many lives in the process. This is most important.

I would give Greece the rest of 2010 to make adjustments in these draconian austerity measures, and allow the changes to take place gradually, not beginning until late August 2011. This will calm things down substantially.

World transits clearly show that forcing all this to take place, under these powerful cardinal transits, at this time, and through the summer and autumn months simply adds up to economic suicide ~ on a European-wide scale.

It does not allow for more favorable transits to arrive in time before such severe measures are forced on a country, with impacts outside of Greece, and affecting the entire global economy ~ especially in Europe.

But, then again, that's just me. I'm only a mundane astrolog, yes? So what do I know?

Meanwhile, Europe is holding its collective breath.

“It is not really about money,” says Timothy Congdon, an economist and Euro skeptic who said he foresees a wide exodus of savings in banks sitting on Europe’s periphery to flow into Germany because of serious doubts about some of the nations in the monetary union.

This is another matter that is very serious.

People tend to forget what the "weather" was like back in June 1997, when the move towards the Euro was cemented at the European Council Meeting in Amsterdam. More on that below.

German public opinion was always wary of giving up their beloved Deutsche mark, so the German government insisted on tough conditions for countries like Greece that wanted to join the monetary union back in 1981, when it entered the then-European Community.

Even as late as the June 1997 European Council Meeting in Amsterdam; Germans were still wary of what was happening ~

"At Amsterdam, sensitivities about sovereignty regarding EMU within Kohl's coalition and the impact of Article 23 in the German Basic Law, meant that the Chancellor could not override domestic opposition in the name of European federalist ideology.

The German interest is grounded in the legal and political realities determined by shared power in a federal system of government."

"Not a year goes by without some fresh blueprint being drawn up and fed into the continuing debate. Each succeeding blueprint can be likened to the way in which some artists go over their work again and again, gradually building up a deep richness to the emerging picture.

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. 

That is called 'pentimento' because the painter 'repented,' changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again." 

 See ~ Much Ado about Amsterdam.

The European monetary union rule was that the budget deficits of all member nations were supposed to be below three-percent of gross domestic product and that debt was not to exceed 60 percent of G.D.P. while inflation could not top three-percent.

Greece is not alone, and is not the only Eurozone nation under stress that has to withstand severe spending cuts while at the same time holding to the monetary unions' fixed regimen.

Central European countries like Latvia, which is now taking part in an IMF bailout program; and Lithuania, surviving on its own ~ have shrunk by more than 10 percent as a result of deep cutbacks in government spending.

No one expected the economic crisis of 2007-08, and now, ten years into the birth of the Euro, we find just that.  

See ~ TREATY OF AMSTERDAM AMENDING THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN UNION, THE TREATIES ESTABLISHING THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND RELATED ACTS.

I clearly remember the scene in Amsterdam when in June 1997 when the designs for the Euro were agreed upon. What I saw from the skies was a series of swirling dark clouds that descended over the very building leaders gathered to meet. It was an strange sight for sure, and - an ominous warning about the Euro.

It was the first time that newly-elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair was introduced to the other European leaders. Heady days. 

Everyone was all smiles, but the day began with those swirling dark clouds, as if sent by God Himself to make a point about the future of the European Union, and the Euro.

Those dark clouds, I knew, were a warning. What also took place in Amsterdam on June 16-18, 1997 was a resolution on something called ERM2 ~ an an exchange rate mechanism between the Euro and the currencies of the other EU countries was been designed.

Basic Information on the Amsterdam Treaty.

On the basis of this document, the European Council adopted a Resolution on the ERM2 at its meeting in Amsterdam in June 1997.

Let's take a closer look at this -

A speech given by Wim Duisenberg, President of the European Monetary Institute, at the conference - "The Euro & the European Innovative Industry" in Toulouse, France, on October 17, 1997 ~ titled "1999 - A New European Monetary System."

"The main operational features of ERM 2 may be summarised under four (4) points: 

First, for each participating non-euro area currency, a central rate vis-à-vis the euro will be defined. Unlike the present ERM, there will no longer be a "parity grid."

The new so-called "hub-and-spokes" approach puts the euro at the centre of the system. Around the euro central rates, a standard fluctuation band of +/- 15% will be established.

This rather wide band reflects the good experience with the operation of the current ERM. It avoids offering "one-way bets" in periods of speculative pressure.

It also allows temporary deviations from the central rates to accommodate minor asymmetric economic disturbances.

The recent experience in the ERM has shown that central rates exert a strong magnetic force for exchange rates, thus contributing to avoiding misalignments.

In practice, exchange rate fluctuations have, for most currencies, proved to be even more limited than in the former 2.25% narrow band of the ERM.

This effect has been reinforced after the decision taken at the Mondorf Informal ECOFIN in mid-September to announce bilateral conversion rates in May 1998.

In summary, ERM2 is an asymmetric system, centered around the Euro.

There have been in the past many discussions concerning the asymmetric nature of the current exchange rate mechanism, and the desirability of this asymmetry.

I think that there can be no doubt that ERM2 will have to be asymmetric, given the Euro area's size and the stability-oriented policies that will be pursued in the euro area, in particular by the European System of Central Banks.

A second feature is that central rates and the standard wide band will be set by mutual agreement between all parties.

These parties are the Euro-area Finance Ministers, the ECB, and the Finance Ministers and central bank Governors of the non-euro area Member States participating in ERM2.

The European Commission will, as today, be involved in the procedure. All parties to the agreement, including the ECB, will have the right to initiate a procedure for reconsidering central rates.

This will ensure that any adjustment of central rates will be conducted in a timely fashion.

A third feature is that, as today, there will be automatic and unlimited foreign exchange intervention and financing when exchange rates reach the fluctuation margins.

As a general principle, it is understood that intervention will have to be used to support - not replace - other policy measures, including appropriate fiscal and monetary policies.

Furthermore, an explicit safeguard clause has been introduced, and this is new, by which both the ECB and the participating non-euro area NCBs are allowed to suspend intervention and financing if these were to impinge on their price stability objective.

The central banks participating in the agreement will retain the possibility of coordinated intra-marginal intervention, to be decided by mutual agreement in parallel with other appropriate policy responses. 

Finally, there is the possibility to have closer links between non-Euro area NCBs and the ECB.

A non-Euro area Member State that has reached an advanced degree of convergence with the Euro area may request closer exchange rate co-operation. This may take various forms.

It can entail participation in formal narrower bands, to be agreed upon in a procedure analogous to that for central rate decisions. Alternatively, informal arrangements can be made, for instance target ranges, which might not be made public."

"Overall, ERM2 is equipped with the necessary instruments to ensure exchange rate stability and to avoid that the move to the Euro creates tensions and segregation in the European Union."

[Here is where Duisenberg's "academic" speech is more or less prophetic ~ considering what is now happening in Greece & Europe in 2010.]

 "I am fully aware that what I have been talking about until now may sound a bit theoretical. I do not want to shy away from the real question that you want to be tackled, which I believe is:

How can it be avoided that a country not entering the euro area from the start is "left out in the cold", to use the expression of an academic, with the consequence of severe exchange rate tensions, depreciation, competitive distortions that are a detriment not only to the country itself but also to the economies of the Euro area?

I am fully aware that ERM2 provides only part of the answer. It represents a framework for monetary and foreign exchange policy co-operation; it does not ensure by itself that the right policies are in the end implemented, in particular in the countries outside the euro area.

ERM2 is a necessary condition, it is not sufficient. But I believe that the creation of the Euro will represent an additional impulse for further economic integration in Europe.

In other words, I believe that the Euro need not be a factor of division of Europe but rather will have the potential of becoming an instrument for accelerating its integration." 

Wim Duisenberg's full speech is found here.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere.

It appears that my suspicions, by reviewing the world transits of the late 1990s, were correct. I remember that morning of June 16, with the Moon in Libra square to Neptune at 29-Capricorn, watching those dark clouds gathering ~ literally ~ over the very spot where the European Council was meeting.

At the time, the transiting Lunar Nodes were on the Pisces/Virgo axis, with the South Lunar Node at 23-Pisces in June 1997. This is exactly where transiting Jupiter is at now, with Uranus within orb, and at this time we see the Euro under stress.

In addition, looking at the June 16, 1997 transits for Amsterdam, we can see that Mars in Virgo then, is now being conjoined by transiting Saturn in Virgo, and, in opposition to transiting Jupiter in Pisces.

The progressed transits for this time to May show a Progressed Moon in Aries opposed to Chiron in Libra ~ this feature monetary stress, which is what the Euro zone is now encountering. By January 2013, the Progressed Moon of this time opposes Pluto, with more stresses on the Euro.

By April of 2014, during the month of the worldwide Cardinal Grand Cross, the Progressed Mercury of the June 1997 European Council Chart is square to its Progressed Saturn in Aries. At this time in 2014, the Euro will be 15-years old.

Should the sovereign debt crisis continue to get out of hand, it is my forecast that the Euro will be greatly weakened, thus increasing chances Germany may indeed return to their own currency, and issue a new Deutsche Mark ~ staying within the European Union, but effectively leaving the monetary union.

The Greek crisis has sparked an age-old clash between the EU's two biggest nations: France, and Germany. 

France, a republican country that has a tradition of interventions, and a casual attitude towards public debt contrasts that of Germany, with it strict attachment to rules and frugality that comes from its own currency traumas.

This is understandable, since Germany, a nation that lost their savings twice in the 20th century ~ once to hyperinflation in 1923 with Uranus in Pisces, and again, to currency reform after the Second World War ~ holds tight to its principles of central bank independence and budgetary discipline. The very core of the German financial psyche.

“Germans fear going bankrupt themselves,” said John C. Kornblum, a former United States ambassador to Germany. "Paris and Berlin have had many disagreements in the postwar world, but few are as deep-rooted as those on economic governance."

In fact, my mundane view show that quiet talks have been already underway in Germany to do just that - return to the Deutsche Mark. If this occurs, then the Euro, as we know it today, is doomed.

Meanwhile, Congdon said economic figures prove even after deflationary stresses on Spain and Ireland, for instance, and the much wider effect of the Greek crisis on credit-starved banks in Europe, that there actually has been no growth in the European Central Bank’s money supply.

So, “it's about how much pain the people in periphery can stand in order to keep this thing going. Once the confidence is gone, and Greeks and Spaniards move their deposits to Frankfurt ~ it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the whole thing implodes."

 

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus & Pluto

Preview of The Cardinal Crisis

On May 23, Jupiter will oppose Saturn for the first time in 20 years on the Pisces/Virgo axis. This comes less than a month since the fourth Saturn/Uranus opposition of April 26th.

Then, by June 8, 2010, transiting Jupiter & Uranus will meet in conjunction at tropical 00-Aries ~ the seasonal point which is very sensitive to transits of the outer planets. Saturn is forming an opposition to both planets and Pluto in tropical Capricorn squares them all.

This is a "preview" conjunction which forms over the months of June, July, and August 2010, before both Jupiter and Uranus return back into the late degrees of tropical Pisces for their conjunction over the fall months, and into winter 2011.

In my February 2010 and subsequent forecasts, I warned about the inclinations and influences of the Cardinal Crisis transits.

These planetary configurations began to build right after the arrival of the new astrological year that occurred March 20, 2010, when the Sun entered Aries, and the Earth reached the vernal equinox.

What will be most notable about the build-up towards the Cardinal inclinations in 2010 are the frustrations, temper tantrums, hotheads, and impulsive behaviors amongst supposed adults that stem from within those who are immature to their very core.

The Cardinal Crisis transits feature energies that will incline people to react powerfully.

One will observe that pettiness, impulsive acts and ignorance flowing from people who have what I call toxic personalities. Avoid them like the plague if you want to be happy, wealthy and wise.

What follows are the significant planetary aspects from April to October 2010 -

• April 6-7 - Pluto stations retrograde at 5-Capricorn
• April 7, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Virgo
• April 26, 2010 - Saturn opposes Uranus (4th opposition)

• May 23, 2010 - Jupiter opposes Saturn (first time since 1990-91)
• May 27-28, 2010 - Uranus enters tropical Aries
• May 30th, 2010 - Saturn stations direct motion

• June 5-6, 2010 - Jupiter enters tropical Aries
• June 6-7, 2010 - Mars enters tropical Virgo
• June 8, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus

• July 5, 2010 - Uranus stations retrograde at 0-Aries
• July 8, 2010 - Jupiter turns North in declination
• July 11, 2010 - New Moon total eclipse at 19-Cancer (not seen in N. America)
• July 21, 2010 - Saturn re-enters tropical Libra for good
• July 23, 2010 - Jupiter stations retrograde
• July 25, 2010 - Jupiter Squares Pluto
• July 26, 2010 - Fifth Saturn/Uranus opposition
• July 31, 2010 - Mars & Jupiter turn S in Declination

• August 3, 2010 - Jupiter, retrograde, Squares Pluto again
• August 6, 2010 - Venus turns South in Declination
• August 13-14, 2010 - Uranus re-enters tropical Pisces
• August 16, 2010 - Jupiter Opposes Saturn
• August 20, 2010 - Mercury retrogrades in Virgo
• August 21, 2010 - Saturn Squares Pluto

• September 8, 2010 - Saturn turns South in declination
• September 8, 2010 - New Moon at 15-Virgo
• September 8, 2010 - Venus enters Scorpio
• September 8-9, 2010 - Jupiter re-enters tropical Pisces
• September 12, 2010 - Mercury stations direct
• September 14, 2010 - Pluto stations direct
• September 14, 2010 - Mars enters Scorpio
• September 19, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus in Pisces

• October 8, 2010 - Venus stations retrograde in Scorpio
• October 18, 2010 - Jupiter conjoins Uranus in Pisces

 These transits are those of the first series of the Cardinal Crisis that will surely impact the world - mainly through the financial systems of nations, which we are now witnessing in the Sovereign Debt Emergency of 2010-2014.

I continue to state, as I have for years, that the decade of the 2010s will be akin to the Great Depression years of the 1930s, and will, in the long-run, lead to geopolitical tensions that will change the tone and character of the early 21st century.

Most of this will come about because people were not prepared, and did not make adjustments to meet the coming inclinations.

It also has occurred because policymakers, international bankers, speculators and those in industries like residential and commercial real estate allowed themselves to believe their own fantasies - with devastating consequences for tens of millions of people worldwide.

As I've written before, the strongest months of those of July, August, and September 2010 with August being the most powerful month under these powerful cardinal inclinations.

Travel is unfavorable. There are dangerous transits during the summer vacation season in the northern hemisphere. Accidents in and around bodies of water are highlighted, from the air, and on the high seas ~ perilous conditions exist that will lead to violent interactions, and in some cases, deaths involving large groups of people.

I continue to advise against taking chances during the months from July through September 2010 - especially in the northern hemispheric summer season.

Stay close to home, and use the rest of 2010 to relax, and observe the cardinal transits in action through the world news.

Meanwhile, I would ask that everyone pray for the countries of the world now suffering under the crushing weight of the economic crisis, and that those responsible be brought to justice for causing what will amount to the Second Great Depression ~ the first one of the 21st century.

Some people may think that all of this is, rather, well, "melodramatic;" however, I continue to remind people that my outlook is that of a mundane astrologer, and that I maintain that these times, when looked back on years from now ~ will be seen as nothing less than historic.

So, I warn those taking events of the present times a bit too lightly that they are making a serious mistake in doing so. Again, foretold is forewarned.

It is not wise to shut one's eyes to what is taking place in the hope that it will go away. It will not go away. In fact, things are going to change evermore so in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

Challenging and changing times require bold leaders who are skilled tacticians and visionaries. Those who failed to foresee and prepare for what is now taking place must be relieved of their positions and let go, or they will simply make things worse than they are now by their very presence.

We are all living and experiencing the start of an historic age.

Times are changing according to global transits, and will continue to change. I end this post as I began it. You are that hope. You are that change.

Those who can accept this, and see the truth of what is happening may also be able to envision a better future as I do when I look to the transits of the skies and the Signs of the Times as we begin the new decade of the 2010s.

Stay safe out there ~ and never give up. America and the world is worth fighting for and it ain't for sale either. Remember that.

Cardinal Crisis T-Square - Greece, America, Europe, The Global Economy & My Warning To Goldman Sachs & Cronies

The Cardinal Crisis T-Square

Part II

 Global Economy On The Brink

By Theodore White; judicial Astrolog.S

As the establishment of the last 18 years has led the world to the brink of economic collapse, and widespread social crisis, it is time for the children born in the 1960s and 1970s ~ Generation X ~ to step forward. We stand united with the people of Greece, and the world.

Why?

It is not a pretty picture out there. The photograph above depicts very angry Greek people who are facing their worst economic crisis in Greece's history. May Day 2010 was not a day of celebrations across Europe, but a day of consternation, protests, and riots.

Seething with fury at the promise of severe austerity for years to come; millions of Greek citizens say the bailout sends all of them into what amounts to forced servitude.

Tens of thousands of Greeks hit the streets in nationwide protest strikes and into fiery clashes with security forces.

Following the Greek government's acceptance of conditions by the European Union & International Monetary Fund bailout ~ thousands of Greeks then attempted to storm their own Parliament Building. 

In early May, riots continue to erupt on the streets, and it has been reported three bank workers were killed when a bank was set on fire in central Athens. 

"A demonstration is one thing and murder is quite another!" Prime Minister George Papandreou thundered in Parliament during a session to discuss the spending cuts announced May 1st. The austerity measures imposed on Greece were called "draconian" by the IMF.

Meanwhile, Greek lawmakers held a minute of silence for the dead bank workers — the first deaths during a protest in Greece since 1991. Greece is easily on the path of revolution.

Voice of America reports on the Greek Crisis.

Meanwhile, across Europe, tens of thousands of people took part in May Day Protests 

Back in Athens, thousands of demonstrators hit the streets over May Day shouting for job security and protection of workers' rights. The result was police dressed in riot gear positioned around government buildings as protesters walked the streets with banners.

Clashes took place. The police pumped out tear gas at crowds, and Greeks fought back with Molotov cocktails.

Greece faces “unprecedented” levels of austerity and must brace itself for “very demanding tasks” as the Greek government concluded agreements with the European Union and IMF on conditions for a three-year financial rescue," said Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou.

“We are at a critical point in the history of our country,” he said.

No doubt.

But, “huge doubts remain about the ability of the Greek government to implement these policy changes amid mounting signs of discontent within the population,” said economists at Citigroup in an published emailed report on the crisis.

“Even in the event of a successful implementation of the measures, risks remain of a vicious spiral between tighter fiscal policy and collapsing real growth.”

What many people must understand about the coming years of the Cardinal Crisis transits ahead is that it has come as a result of massive levels of economic corruption, fraud, and greed by an oligarchy obviously out of touch with the world.

This oligarchy, born in the 1920s, and now in their late 80s, and in 2010, entering their 90s, along with their offspring, the Pluto in Leo generation, or Baby Boomers, have caused what amounts to no less than a global depression.

There is nothing more clear than this, and to deny it is simply to have one's head deep in the sandpits of utter stupidity.

While the International Monetary Fund and the European Union race to fund a bailout package for the country it is becoming obvious that the global economic crisis is about to enter a new phase. Just in time for the Cardinal T-Square of June, July & August.

The picture above also tells much of the story of what many faces are going to look like over the next four years as the Cardinal world transits incline - bringing many of the world's populations out into the streets and threatening to overthrow their own governments because of rampant financial fraud the world over.

All of this was forecasted years before, but most of the world did not know of the massive levels of financial corruption being performed by the likes of Goldman Sachs, and other investment banks and hedge fund players.

What basically has happened since 1998 is that the world's finances have been gambled away in a game of three-card Monte' by the very people who were supposed to be safeguarding the resources of the future.

All they saw was money. Not people. They saw what they could take in unprecedented levels of greed and fraud unimaginable just a few years ago. International banker gambled away tens of billions of dollars and euros, and did everything they could not only to hide this, but some joked about it.

No one is laughing now.

It is estimated that it will take somewhere between $120 to $300 billion to bail out Greece over three (3) short years. Greece faces years of severe austerity measures that will resemble the deepest years of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

And Greece is not alone.

 In Europe, one can name countries like England, Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, among others, that are bordering on defaults of their own.

In Spain, for instance, unemployment levels are above 20-percent as the nation is choking on huge levels of debt with over-optimistic economic forecasts from the Spanish government.

Ireland's national debt, and unemployment picture worsens by the day. The United Kingdom is mired in economic stagnation ahead of national elections May 6th; while Spain's and Portugal's debt crisis threatens to spill over into world markets following that of Greece.

"Nothing less than the future of Europe, and with that, the future of Germany in Europe, is at stake," German chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament in Berlin.

 Meanwhile, Germany's newspapers are fueling Anti-Greek Sentiments saying Germans are being asked to bail out a country that has "over-indulged itself." 

Merkel urged German parliamentary members to quickly pass Germany's share of the Greek bailout which amounts to 22 billion Euros over three years — by May 6. "We are at a fork in the road," she warned them.

This "fork in the road," is the Sovereign Debt mess in Europe. It features the next chapter of the global economic crisis, and could not come at a worse time. It is wholly reflective of the coming inclinations of the Cardinal T-Square.

Planetary transits clearly show summer in the northern hemisphere will easily see massive public clashes directly related to the heavy debt burdens imposed upon entire nations such as Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Greece, and Spain and other European countries. 

"The economic picture in Spain is grim," writes Mike Shedlock of Mish's Global Economic Trends "Spanish Unemployment rose from 18.8% to 20.1%, union work rules helped wreck the economy, and Spain must shrink its deficit according to EU rules."

Rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's cut Greece's credit rating status to "junk" level, and then, on the same day, also cut Portugal's rating. It then followed the next day and also lowered Spain's credit rating.

People fear the European crisis could cause a Domino Effect that could reverberate around the world.

What the world has been witnessing is the results of over 10 years of unfettered corruption through the decade of the 2000s by a dying late 20th century oligarchy and their children ~ a generation that promised one thing, but did quite the opposite. 

The fleecing of economies and treasures of whole nations along with the geopolitical and social ramifications to come ~ all this leads into the Cardinal Crisis Years that has already begun in 2010.

The Hidden Role of Goldman Sachs

 How Corrupt Bankers Caused The Second Great Depression

You've got to see & hear this to believe it. Click on Linked Question Below:

How Much Of That Shitty Deal Did You Sell To Your Clients?

The Cardinal Crisis Transits of 2010-2014 is really about the events of 1998-2008 and the hidden levels of global economic fraud perpetuated by what can only be called world financial criminals not seen in the history of the Earth. 

Goldman Sachs is known as the number one investment bank on Wall Street. Now a "bank holding company," after the Banking Debacle Crisis of 2008, Goldman is accused of running a financial fraud on the entire planet

The first of what I forecasted would be among many cases shedding light on the global economic crisis involving Goldman Sachs, amounted to this, according to Jon Taplin ~

"Let's be clear. Goldman and Hedge Fund traders like John Paulson worked hard to package the worst piece of shit grouping of sub-prime CDO's into 'synthetic securities' that they knew would default the fastest.

They then pushed clueless rating agencies like Moody's into rating them AAA.

They then went out and found sucker Pension fund administrators who had an asset allocation model to buy x% mortgage securities every month to (in Blankfein's term) 'to source the other side of the transaction.'

And offered them insurance from equally clueless shops like AIG to make sure they would get paid 100 cents on the dollar when the inevitable default arrived. If this isn't criminal, it sure should be."

Coming ten days before the fourth Saturn/Uranus opposition of April 26 the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued this press statement accusing Goldman Sachs of major financial fraud. 

Afterward, financial firms posted the biggest weekly fall among 10 S&P 500 industries, declining 3.8 percent as a group ~ Goldman Sachs executives had to defend themselves at a Congressional Hearing.

The U.S. Senate questioned Goldman executives about their role in marketing financial products that they say "contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Federal prosecutors are weighing criminal fraud charges for Wall Street’s most profitable firm. Goldman Sachs fell 7.8 percent this week to $145.20. It plunged 15 percent in April after falling three straight weeks following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said Greece's survival was at stake in talks to gain $159 billion in International Monetary Fund & European Union-led bailouts in exchange for austerity measures that Greek unions denounced as “savage."

International investors then demanded 5.95 percentage points more to buy Greek 10-year bonds than German bonds amid widespread speculation Greece will default. 

“People are now questioning if maybe the worst is not over for Greece and Portugal,” said Mark Bronzo, an Irvington, a New York-based money manager at Security Global Investors, which oversees $21 billion.

“The rationale is: the sovereign risk will weigh on Europe and the global economy. It’s another unknown for the stock market.”

What is most disturbing about the European crisis is that major investment banks helped  Greece's own bankers and policymakers "hide" its internal financial troubles in order to meet the conditions of being a part of the European Monetary Union.

Stories will emerge that entities like Goldman Sachs were not alone in causing what is known as sovereign debt crisis.

Entire nations are now subject to years of severe austerity measures - the likes not seen perhaps since the 1930s - all because inside players working for investment houses, stock markets and banks, along with high-rolling hedge fund managers - found very creative and crooked ways to steal tens of billions from populations worldwide.

This is what people are now discovering to be true in the case of Goldman Sachs ~ a former investment bank (now banking holding company) whose tentacles are so deeply rooted in unprecedented fraud that many people will be shocked to discover just how far down the Rabbit Hole really goes.

As far back as 2005, I knew from reading global transits that Goldman Sachs was working secretly in a desperate effort to get rid of billions of dollars of very risky mortgage securities.

At the same time, Goldman was buying lots of exotic forms of insurance to "protect" itself from what they knew would be the collapse of the global housing market that eventually came.

But, for nine more months to about September 2007, Goldman Sachs did not inform the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of its actions in filings. It failed to also announce this to thousands of economic analysts, or to the financial media.

Goldman Sachs continued to tell its investors and the public that all was well while encouraging their own clients to to buy what Goldman knew was worthless junk.

Today, Goldman Sachs is under assault from many quarters, both inside and outside the United States. What is being discovered is something few on the outside knew, and others who may have suspected.

In effect, Goldman Sachs and their hedge fund cronies shorted the entire world's financial system.

All in the name of greed.

A brief outline from the Associated Press about the Goldman Sachs case:

"The Securities and Exchange Commission's civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs concern complex investments backed by mortgages that many blame for worsening the financial crisis as the U.S. housing market went into a nosedive.

Goldman Sachs denies the charges.
 

Here are definitions of some of the terms involved in the charges, and descriptions of some of the key players:

THE TERMS

Synthetic CDO, or Collateralized Debt Obligation

A complex investment vehicle whose performance is tied to a set of assets, in this case securities backed by subprime residential mortgages.

The SEC says Goldman didn't disclose to investors that a New York-based hedge fund manager, John Paulson, helped select the mortgages while he bet against them.

They all lost tremendous value as the housing industry collapsed. More on the curious case of John Paulson below...

CDS, or Credit Default Swap

A transaction between two parties in which one side buys protection from the other that a loan or other obligation will stay in good standing. If it doesn't, the party that bought the protection must be paid.

The SEC says John Paulson made a $1 billion profit by using credit default swaps to bet against Goldman's CDO. Some say Paulson made much more than that. Much, much more.

Subprime Mortgages

Loans made to borrowers with weak credit histories. They usually carry higher interest rates than conventional loans to compensate lenders for the additional risk.

RMBS, or Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

A type of security that is backed by a home mortgage or a group of home mortgages. They pay money out to investors based on the interest and principal payments received from homeowners. There are also CMBS, or Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities.

ABACUS 2007-AC1

The name of the collateralized debt obligation at the center of the SEC's allegations. The SEC says Goldman created and sold the CDO in early 2007, just as the U.S. housing market was starting to falter.

THE PLAYERS

Fabrice Tourre

A 31-year-old Goldman Sachs employee that the SEC accuses of committing fraud by marketing Goldman's CDO without disclosing John Paulson's role in helping create the CDO or the fact that Paulson had an incentive in choosing investments that would lose value.

Tourre famously wrote in a January 2007 email: 

“More and more leverage in the system, The whole building is about to collapse anytime now…Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab…standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!”

"We have a big short on ... ," Tourre wrote in a December 2006 email.

Daniel Sparks, a former head of Goldman's mortgages department, wrote to other executives in March 2007: "We are trying to close everything down, but stay on the short side."

According to the SEC's complaint, Tourre rushed the CDOs to market since investor appetite for mortgage-backed securities was waning ~ telling a friend in an email:

"The whole building is about to collapse anytime now."

John Paulson Hedge Fund

A New York-based hedge fund. John Paulson, the wildly successful hedge fund manager labeled as “The Man Who Made Too Much,” made a $20 billion fortune betting against America's banks and the global housing market.

According to the numbers, John Paulson would have made more than $1.4 million an hour, assuming a 40-hour workweek with no vacations — though we expect he worked a lot more than that, said one commenter. The average 58+ year-old Baby Boomer makes a little over $17 an hour.

In a deal on the synthetic CDOs designed to fail made in secret deals between Paulson and Goldman Sachs - now under scrutiny by U.S. federal authorities - it is known that John Paulson made his billions betting the entire U.S. housing market would collapse.

It did.

Now, how did Paulson accomplish that great feat? It seems we are about to find out... Paulson should have consulted an astrologer before doing such things all in the name of the greed for wealth. He will discover his serious errors in judgment in the months and years to come.

ACA Management LLC

Financial consulting company that had experience building and managing collateralized debt obligations.

The SEC says Goldman asked ACA to serve as the "Portfolio Selection Agent" for the CDO as a way to reassure investors about the CDO.

The SEC says ACA wasn't aware John Paulson was planning to bet against the CDO.

ACA's parent company, ACA Capital Holdings Inc., sold credit protection on part of the CDO.

ABN Amro Bank NV, based in the Netherlands

They ended up on the hook for ACA Capital's position through a series of credit default swaps. Parts of ABN Amro were later taken over by the Royal Bank of Scotland, which paid $841 million to Goldman Sachs to unwind that transaction.

Most of that money was then paid ~ John Paulson. His name keeps coming up again and again...

IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG

 A German commercial bank and one of the investors in Goldman's CDO. IKB lost its entire $150 million investment.

The bank ran into trouble with its investments in U.S. subprime mortgages and eventually had to be bailed out by German banks. It was later acquired by Lone Star Funds, a U.S.-based private equity firm. 

Read Goldman Sachs' Fraud Explained 

According to my reading of the world transits: we haven't seen anything yet.

In looking at the transits behind all of this: Goldman, and other players, like the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, have been involved in historic fraud against whole nations.

John Paulson's role is significant in all this. While the media has been a gaga for what "appears" to be Paulson's masterful "insights and predictions" on how things would go down; I say that he is no forecaster. 

He is a player behind the scenes of the historic collapse of the U.S. housing market, and that is not a nice thing at all. 

Moreover, Paulson's own transits will prove he was no forecaster at all.

Paulson is involved up to his eyeballs in the collapse of the U.S. housing market, and, of course, had help through Goldman Sachs, among others... 

One does not "choose" which packaged mortgages will fail, and then allow the CDOs to be sold through Goldman Sachs, and other brokerage houses to public and private investors - thus reaping billions off of the collapse of said mortgages betting against them.

If that is a forecaster, then the world is flat and I am Mickey Mouse.

According to his transits, it appears Paulson is truly worried his secret machinations in the collapse of the American housing market, as well as his designs on British banks, and their markets, will be discovered.

Paulson should have been reading his own transits, and not taken the bait of their inclinations. But he did, and now his future is set. He has little time now to make it right, and most of the damage has already been done.

I keep telling people ~ money isn't everything. 

When the archons come for your soul, they don't want to know how much is in your bank accounts.

They want to know if you got all that money being a good guy, or, a bad guy? 

That is what they will want to know.

John Paulson is about to discover how very true this maxim is, and should have taken the lessons of Bernard Madoff to heart. To date, it appears he has not, but, he will, according to his own astrological transits.

If I were him, and I'm glad I am not, I would return the billions Paulson stole off the people, institutions, pension funds, and clients who were suckered into buying the fake packaged mortgages he set up with the help of that corrupted money-sucking machine we know as Goldman Sachs.

Not only would this save the many lives and families who have, and continue to suffer greatly living hand to mouth in a depressed world economy - but it would also save John Paulson's very own soul ~ literally.

If only he knew what I know...

What is really going on in Washington DC is the knowledge that Goldman Sachs' complicity is true, but how to handle the situation without driving global stock markets down?

Astrological Warning To The Bad Guys: Prepare For "What Goes Around... Comes Around..."

That's real trick these days, isn't it?

Now, it worked fine in 2009, when Jupiter conjoined Chiron & Neptune in Aquarius, and the status quo and the markets were allowed to breath a brief sigh of relief while Goldman and other major players reaped billions; giving out hefty "bonuses" related to "past performance gains."

All this took place after the near collapse of the world economy in late 2008.

But it is not going to work in 2010. Not with the Cardinal Crisis Transits.

As an American, and a Philadelphian, I say that it is time to take down names, and time to kick some ass.

That is what time it is. 

The United States of America is a good and great nation. We are not a bad country. We have many good Americans who only desire freedom and the best for everyone.

We are not a sick people, but we do have some sickos running around in Armani suits who think that they are all that.

But, they are not all that, and their time is coming... that much is certain.

What goes around... comes around, pals. The power and ability of mundane astrologers is known to those who understand what a Magus is; and what we are capable of doing; with all praise to the Immortal God.

What we seem to have here is a failure to communicate.

You ignorant, greedy, corrupt fools. You should fear what you cannot see, and you cannot see your own transits, can you?

So, check out your transits in the days, weeks, months and years to come ~  those of you who have been hurting good people of the world and their families who are greatly suffering because of your evil, corrupt, sicko, greedy machinations.

There are astrological machinations you never even considered.

Have you?

For all things are naked & open ~ though you would believe that what you have been, and are doing, cannot be seen ~ you would be so very, very wrong. 

See my warning here. I watch you day & night through all your transits you sickos.

When you are sound asleep ~ I am working on your transits.

I am always working... And if little ole mundane me knows what you've been up to, then what do you think the Immortal God knows?

All of you are in so much trouble, you don't even know. But you are going to find out...

We see more than we care to, but we know your transits ~ all of them ~ including those of Goldman Sachs, who has only just begun to get a taste. Every hair on your head is numbered.

Every single crooked hair. You can be fully touched and impacted without being physically touched, but you are ignorant of this fact aren't you? You are about to get a full lesson in the works of metaphysicians.

I don't want a nickel of your "wealth" pals. Keep it you sickos. My riches are elsewhere, not on this Earth.

But, if I were you, I would give all the billions back to the people; you whore-loving carpetbaggers pilfered it from. You lying cheats going straight into the evil mouths of Tartarus.

This is only the first inning pals. I've already started pitching some astrological curve balls you will never lay a bat on, or even sense coming your way until it is far too late.

That includes your cronies, and all of you who pilfered America, and the world economy. Give back the hundreds of billions you have taken, or prepare for things you will never see coming.

Not in a million years.

I'm pitching an astrological no-hitter here. And I can do it sitting down reading your transits, you corrupt, greedy, heartless bastards who "think" that money is power? What fools you all are!

Didn't you ever hear the ancient saying that: "Knowledge is power?" 

And ~ the more you do not believe in Astrology, the better my conjunctions, sextiles, squares, oppositions and aspects you never heard of ~ sticks firmly on you ~ for a long time until you come to a full stop in what you have been doing. 

That is translated as meaning = come correct. Do the right thing. Chose doing good over evil, or pay the heavy price in full.

Do you not know what the power of a Cardinal T-Square is able to do to your lives?

Have you not noticed the declination of Saturn? The conjunction of Jupiter & Uranus? Don't you not know the Immortal God gives mundane astrologers the power to help Him?

Do you not notice the inclinations of the planets at this particular time in the world?

How they are inclining towards you?

Are you not aware of the ability to turn all the very bad things you have done to others back onto all of you and your cronies by the supreme power of the planetary and stellar configurations relative to the Earth?

Look to the skies pals ~ that is where all my own recipe of aspects will descend from. I've been reading all your transits, quietly, for years. Those of your hedge fund companies, and firms, and cronies. I have notes filled to the brim with all your transits - especially your progressions.

And I have memorized the personal transits of the big shots ~ the real sickos who "masterminded" the economic crisis.

Prepare for your weeks, and months, and years of asking yourself ~"WTF?"

You are about to get a very healthy dose of Astrological power & ability coming your way with the true assistance of world transits. You did not know the Cardinal crisis was coming - did you? I have, and for many years. 

Now, that time is almost here, and it is my turn.

All you had to do was to learn how to read an ephemeris that costs less than $25, but no, you were much too busy planning and pilfering billions; destroying the housing markets with your CDOs, and the lives of millions of good decent people and their families; weren't you?

But you cannot read your own transits.

I can. And all your billions upon stolen billions will never allow you to see, or to know, or to do what I am about to do in my little corner of the world to all of you sickos with the help of mundane astrology and the global transits.

There are no better planners than mundane astrologers. We are very patient chefs. And when the time comes ~ we always deliver the true meal you deserve. But the dishes coming to you sickos is best served cold ~ just like the environment where the planets live in space.

I am firmly committed to making sure all of you pay dearly for the immense levels grief and suffering you have inflicted on people who did you no harm ~ even down to little kids with families whose lives you have ruined in just three years.

You are about to get a serious lesson why you always treat the little people with respect and dignity. Watch your news, yes, mind your accounts, watch Bloomberg, and CNBC in the months ahead ~ and see and feel the power of mundane astrology.

Do not say I did not warn all of you sickos. This is not hubris. I am serious. Mess with a mundane astrologer, and see, just see what you will receive in return.

Try me. I'm begging you. 

See ~ The Little People
I am on the side of the little people: the mothers and fathers who struggle to keep their families afloat in very challenging times.

The small Greek business owner who fights to keep it all above water. The screwed over investor. The elderly person who has lost their life savings to Goldman Sachs & Co.

The foreclosed families the world over. The American single mother working three part-time jobs and eating peanut butter for dinner so her kids can eat more food.

The construction workers losing everything they've sweated blood and tears for. The British couple who cannot start a family. The Spanish college graduate who is giving up a career before starting one.

The tens of millions of worldwide unemployed workers. The regular Joe & Josephine who tries to make their ways in the world and just wants to live a normal life, but has been totally screwed over super-royally by the likes of Goldman Sachs and those who have chosen ill-gotten wealth over human beings.

I am on their side: The little people.

The events to come, those with the eyes and ears will see them as they really are meant to be. But, all is revealed to those who are keen to notice which bad guys are getting what, and when, and at what time.

Watch Mundane astrology at its best ~ and with the help of the Great Immortal God, I am committed to not ceasing day nor night doing my part until all of you get what you truly deserve.

So keep laughing and continue not to believe ~ because that works very well in my favor you sick, greedy, corrupt jerks.

There is nothing so perfect as astrological mathematics. I've devoted my entire life learning every nook and cranny of every single decan and aspect possible ~ and I've got you right where I want you ~ square in my mundane Magus sights and I'm casting so many mundane spells it will make all your heads spin.

Nostradamus was right about all of you sickos. Too bad you can't read his mundane codes ~ but I can, and got all dates memorized for battle. I'm very tough and a astrologically-committed Capricorn, the worst kind you do not want focusing on your evil, greedy, corrupted selves.

I do not give up easily, and I am very patient; a product of long years of profound mundane thought, power and ability. I'm about to throw my mundus magi into the fray and I hope my prepared aspects will fry your sad corrupt asses well-done ~ for all to see.

There is nowhere you can run, and you cannot hide from that which you cannot see. Prepare for it because I've already started, and I will not stop until each and every single one of you is brought to justice. Saturn is about to enter Libra, and is in the right place, at the right time.

Just watch what happens to all of you.

So keep chuckling. You will not be laughing for much longer. 

Foretold is forewarned. 

Astrologers, mark the dates of the events you see happening down and witness the transits for yourself ~ as the events on these sickos take place with the cardinal world transits. Pray for each and every transit to bring about the desired outcomes and bring the corrupted ones to their knees.

I love my America deeply and always will. But, those who use the United States as a vehicle for their sick dreams of super-wealthy corrupt "conquests" are the same ones who have driven down the lives of not just Americans, but also Brits, Greeks, Irish, the Spanish, the Portuguese and many other populations worldwide.

All in a race to accumulate & steal wealth they did not create themselves.

"The one with the most toys at the end wins?"

 Wins what, may I ask?

I tell you straight away ~ You win nothing at the end, but your own perdition. You lose your own soul for toys you cannot take with you? You are fools.

Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO Lloyd Blankfein grins. The man who said Goldman Sachs "are the good guys" and on the "side of the angels," and that he was doing "God's work" doesn't even know his own transits.

I do, and I can tell you ~ he's no "angel."

And, if he was doing "God's work" ~ then Goldman Sachs would not be pilfering billions upon billions from God's good people, now would they?

World transits are clear: unless good and faithful people step forth to take down those names, and yes, to kick those asses ~ then the great majority of the years ahead will be lost to economic depression, social breakdown, geopolitical disasters, and, in the end ~ a total global mess that will be very difficult to solve. In fact, it has already begun.

The "Humpty Dumpty" structures by the outgoing generational establishment and their parents will not be able to be put back together again. That much is obvious.

So, the only thing left is to recover that which was stolen, that which was lost, and to get back to the honest business of doing honest business. Or, all is lost. World transits confirm this.

What is about to happen is what I've been warning about for some time; especially regarding Goldman Sachs, hedge fund players and their cronies in New York, London, Washington, Brussels, Frankfurt, and elsewhere around the planet.

The world oligarchy is up to their necks in massive levels of corruption so perverse, so downright wrong: that when the whole truth emerges there will be no where to run, and nowhere to hide for those who took part, and for those who started it all.

What's Next?

It is clear that there is a lot of fear and worry in the world. The Cardinal Crisis years, again, is mainly about what has already taken place.

People ask me all the time, "Theo, will it get better?"

I say, "yes, it will."

"When?"

"Not for a while, I'm sad to say."

Being a mundane astrologer is not easy. I hate being the bearer of bad news. But the job of any astrologer is to tell it like it is, and to offer advice on how to make things better while navigating the messes of the world as inclined by the transits.

When you see things coming from afar, you do what you can to forecast and to warn people.

But, hardly anyone will believe you most of the time. I can't always blame them since many people tend to expect the future to be the same as their present conditions.

Or, worse, there are others who do not want to see anything at all that does not jive with their opinions and personal sensibilities.

Astrologers are not like that. We are not supposed to be. We see things remote from the intellectually-created mind and popular opinion. That is what we are supposed to do because it the very nature of astrological forecasting itself.

Astrology is not a game. And mundane astrology is certainly not entertainment. It deals with global issues of life and death.

Back in 1999, when I told a friend what was going to take place in the world economy in the first decade of the millennium. He looked at me like I was crazy.

People do that. They roll their eyes, and give a knowing nod to their friends when they hear what an astrologer has to say.

But, astrological transits do not lie. People do. And that there is the problem. The rosier-than-red roses economic forecasts that "all was going to be well" and the "skies the limit" and that real estate would forever shoot to the Moon were worthless forecasts to me back then.

I knew it was an outright lie. 

But are you going to believe an astrologer?

Do you believe us now?

The fact was, that one generation, and their parents, were about to fleece public and private institutions from within, and they were doing so because of two things - fear of aging, and fear of death. This then proceeded to whole states, then whole nations, and eventually - the world.

Sure they had "regulatory capture" ~ a fancy word that basically says regulators paid to do their jobs guarding the financial sectors were not doing their jobs.

Appraisers were overvaluing houses. Realtors were running amok getting fat commissions on overvalued properties. Mortgage companies were printing out liar loans 24 hours a day.

Banks were pressing to give out more housing and commercial loans in the billions. Wall Street was pushing for ever more complex derivatives to package and sell on the markets.

People were flipping properties like hot pancakes, and pension fund managers were gambling with the life savings of tens of millions of workers. 

All of this was based on the forecasts of fools.

That is what I saw. And, it turned out to be a correct forecast I was not happy to see come true.

But it did. We are seeing the results of this now in the world.

As one generation - Baby Boomers - leaves power after 18 years as the establishment, and another generation - Generation X - enters in as the new establishment, the world teeters on economic collapse.

This global transition is generational, according to the positions of the planets, and is fraught with serious, deep levels of systemic damage already done to the economies of many nations by outright corruption, greed, massive fraud, and flagrant generational denial.

This is something that I have continued to stress for years, but which has either avoided by Baby Boomers, the Pluto in Leo generation, or ignored outright. However, one cannot ignore the obvious.

An aging generation of Baby Boomers has allowed not only their life savings, but the resources of generations behind them to be squandered outright by their own hands.

This occurs just as tens of millions of elderly Baby Boomers just in North America will need to survive off the work of Generation X, and their own children, Generation Y. That will not happen with unemployment rates nearing 25-percent.

I continue to remind anyone who will listen that the Baby Boomer generation (1939-1953) will not only demand to live comfortably as the seniors they now are, but are facing a severe drought in services that were destroyed by their own hands. 

Moreover, this was the same generation as the establishment running things during the most corrupted financial period in world history (1993-2011.)

Tens of trillions of dollars and euros are estimated to have either be "lost" or "stolen" outright; depending on who you talk to. 

No matter, the point is this:

Unless the people of the world who continue to suffer the ravages of double-digit unemployment, real estate collapse, banking losses, economic stagnation, widespread corruption, financial fraud, lies, mismanagement, and constant crisis, do not see real change - then the Cardinal inclinations will bring change about. That much is sure.

So, here are some more facts about what the previous generation has wrought on the U.S., and the world:

By even the most conservative figures from the Congressional Budget Office; we see a weaker economy ahead - contrary to most consensus views of a sustainable upturn that was popular in 2009, and as recently less than a month ago.

• 2010 U-3 "official" unemployment at 10.2%, edging down to 8% by 2011 and 4.8% by 2014. True unemployment & underemployment figures somewhere between 16-28%. An economic depression outright.

• In 2010-11, over 12+ million Americans will be underemployed for the next five years, economic weakness & lower demand will continue to exert pressure on workers who are unemployed.

• Part-time work only will be available for millions wanting full-time jobs.

• Low consumption will persist through the year 2014.

• Unemployment benefits will continue drain state, county & city coffers already struggling to maintain basic services.

• Households will be pressured to make mortgage payments; pay for health care; meet other obligations, and provide for their families at a time when state & city budget crises force deep cuts in vital social services that are not made up by the federal government.

• Tax revenues are down 17%, and continue to drop. The sharpest declines since 1932

• $600 billion in investment losses will result, plus another $5.9 trillion in lost output through 2014.

• The federal deficit will nearly double over the next 10 years to about $20 trillion.

In July 2009, Egon von Greyerz, Founder & managing partner of Zurich-based Matterhorn Asset Management AG, specializing in precious metals and other investments, said ~ "The Dark Years Are Here" and he explained why:

"Because of the devastating effects of credit bubbles, government money printing (and) disastrous actions that governments are taking, (upcoming) tumultuous events will be life changing for most people in the world." 

They'll begin by year end (2009) and last for two to three years. Then be followed by extended economic, political, and social upheaval, perhaps continuing for two decades.

Greyerz cites three (3) main concerns: 

1.) Exploding Unemployment and government deficits

2.) Trillions of Unreported bank losses & worthless derivatives

3.) Deflation, then rising inflation, high interest rates, collapsed Treasury bond (and UK gilt) valuations resulting in more money creation, worthless paper, and a "perfect vicious circle (leading to) a hyper inflationary depression followed by the (potential) collapse of the dollar and British pound. 

"Reckless money creation achieved short-term hope, benefited Wall Street alone short-term, elevated world stock markets, and led some to believe the crisis was over when, in fact, it's worsening. 

Aside from expected short-lived upturns, every single sector of the real economy is deteriorating whether it is production, unemployment, corporate profits, real estate, credit defaults, construction, federal deficits, local government and state deficits etc.

"In response, the Fed keeps printing money and destroying its value. This is total lunacy! How can any intelligent person believe that printed pieces of paper can solve an economic catastrophe? 

"We're in the first phase of this tragic saga. Likely by year end, a second more serious one will start. Real unemployment now tops 20%. It hit 25% in the Great Depression with 35% of the non-farm population out of work and desperate. 

"It is our firm opinion that (US) non-farm unemployment levels will reach 35% at least....in the next few years" with all uncounted categories included. 

Growing millions with no jobs, incomes, savings, or safety net protections will create "a disaster of unimaginable consequences that will affect the whole fabric of American society" to a degree far greater than in the Great Depression. 

Growing unemployment now plagues Western and Eastern Europe as well, and by 2010 will more greatly affect most parts of the world, "including China, Asia and Africa.

Never before has there been a global unemployment crisis affecting the world simultaneously" Ahead, expect sharp drops in consumption and global trade leading to depression, poverty, famine and social unrest. Already, conditions are worse than in the 1930s, but the worst is yet to come."

Expect an extremely severe global depression in most countries with grave economic, political, and social consequences:

• Social safety net protections will end
• Private & state pensions will likely collapse
• Unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger & famine will cause a protracted period of economic, political, social, and institutional upheaval.

 

My personal views would sound something like this: "enough with the bad news already," ~ give me some good news.

I know how the reader must feel and I can relate. Since 2007, there has been a steady diet of nothing but bad news, interrupted by vague intervening months of what I call "denial pauses," where people try to forget what is happening all around them as the pundits claim things are getting better because the Dow Jones has reached 11,000+ points.

The daily drain of real economic news, and the financial struggles of at least three billion people is draining the life out of families worldwide.

People are beginning to fight back.

I remind policymakers of a simple mundane principle:

"When people have nothing to lose - they lose it."

This is what the Cardinal Crisis years is all about. People are very upset.

According to my astrological computations, this is just the beginning of a long 4-5 years of pissed off populations who know that they've been screwed over in a big, big way.

The ending of one age into another with the past age seen as one of unprecedented levels of corruption and greed that causes geopolitical and social instabilities worldwide.

The anger of betrayal is very real, and while people try to support their families they continue to hear of billions given out as bonuses at a time when most regular people, who constitute the majority of the people in the world, live from hand to mouth.

If the oligarchy believes that they can start another world war to end the crisis as what happened at the end of the 1930s - they should be reminded that this is not the 1930s.

This is the 21st century. People have wider access to information, know much more, and are more knowledgeable about the true causes behind the global economic crisis.

They will not be easily led to jump into the delusion to fight wars against other nations - but they may decide to fight one against those responsible for the crisis ~ at home.

Just look what is happening in Greece as one example. And, there will be many more examples to come.

I will continue to write on the global economic crisis, and how navigate and survive the Cardinal Crisis years in the weeks, months and year ahead. Know now that the planetary inclinations now through late summer 2010 are impulsive, hasty, and very tense.

Try to relax, not worry too much, and take it easy. Help is on the way. You are not alone out there. Remember, we outnumber them. We are Perpetual Change. Keep the Faith.

In light of what the current economic situations is in the world, it is a no-brainer at this point in time that people are going to be pissed off at just about everything. So, do take care out there, and again, remember, help is on the way...

For the time being; here are some quick tips for good people on how to deal with the cardinal inclinations and their influences:

Avoid:

• - Unreliable, rigid, disagreeable individuals & groups
• - Inconsistent attitudes, people who are emotionally/mentally unstable
• - Conflicts between old & new among friends & group associations
• - Frustrations in attempts to change conditions
• - Ulterior motives, dishonest people, cheating to get ahead
• - Lies, slander, gossip, pettiness among people
• - Estrangement from former colleagues & friends
• - Sudden reversals of fortune
• - Rebellion, disassociation from former workplaces, companies
• - Open & hidden enemies
• - Selfish people

Cultivate & Encourage

• - A Positive and Practical Attitude
• - Find People of Common Interests & Form Positive Alliances
• - Start Exciting New Projects & Follow Through on Them
• - Visualize what you want in your life. Attract it to you with knowledge of the transits
• - Be Calm, but not ignorant of current world events
• - Talk openly with friends & family & brainstorm on new ideas, alternatives
• - Honestly review the world economic situation & be bold about making changes
• - Relocate to Areas Best Suited to your lifestyle, goals & plans
• - Begin to find businesses you can create Barter Deals
• - Plan Moving Carefully & Associate with people of Goodwill
• - Look for Unusual People & Positive Opportunities That Arise Unexpectedly
• - End Outdated Relationships that restrict & are negative, and Move On
• - Express Tolerance for different points of view
• - Be helpful to those in need ~ you never know when you may need them in the future

Most of all - pray.

Pray for the future. Pray that the new generation of children born in the 1960s & 1970s will be able to forge a fresh, healthy, honest and positive path into the future: while having the strength, and willpower to clean up the global mess left behind by the previous generational establishment.

The future will depend largely on the success of Generation X