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by MatthewCCox

When Confidentiality is Not Confidential

September 19, 2012 in Finance, United States

Privacy pleaseSince the IRS has figured out how to avoid foreign bank’s privacy laws, some people are looking for alternative strategies.

This story reports that eight percent of the population doesn’t have a bank account and one in four families has one or less.

Of course, these families may not have enough money for banking to be a reasonable option. Or, it is possible that those who have money are managing it through alternative techniques.

The motivation to use a bank to store money has certainly disappeared.

Interest rates aren’t keeping pace with inflation so the money in an interest-bearing account actually decreases in value as it sits there.

Besides, thanks to QE 3, banks don’t need customers’ money.

Therefore, the only reasons to put money into a bank are convenience or to provide collateral for a loan.

Banks know this.

Customers are learning it.

In addition, since cash is difficult to trace if it isn’t put into a bank account, some people may be shunning the use of banks to avoid taxes.

This becomes especially significant when we realize the IRS can jail bankers who want to maintain their customer’s privacy.

The IRS is seeking to breech other client confidentiality agreements too.

I currently earn part of my livelihood by preparing taxes. Therefore, I am actively aware of the newly implemented training and testing standards for tax preparers.

The Registered Tax Return Preparer (RTRP) requirements start this year with mandatory training. The RTRP test must be passed by the end of 2013.

Since I like to do things ahead of time, I have already passed the test and the IRS has recognized me as a RTRP.

During the training leading up to the exam, I was encouraged to take the next step and learn to practice before the IRS as a Registered Agent.

I was told this would increase business opportunities.

Then, I was told that Registered Agents could earn financial rewards from the service by helping the IRS collect taxes through snitching on clients.

I realized that learning to be a tax collector is obviously a point of emphasis for those who pursue becoming a Registered Agent. I have heard that CPA training requirements already include this emphasis.

I declined the additional training.

I work for my clients.

I do not work for the IRS.

A few weeks later, not long after receiving my RTRP Certificate, I watched this wide-ranging interview with Catherine Austin Fitts, Former Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H. W. Bush. I was surprised to hear her say the primary purpose of the RTRP testing requirements was to engage tax preparers as tax collectors.

I thought more about my recent training.

RTRPs have client confidentiality requirements that must be kept at all times, except when the IRS has a question. In those cases, RTRPs have an obligation to provide the IRS with anything clients have provided to them.

The RTRP training was Big Brother’s attempt to soften me up so I would take the additional training necessary to learn to snitch on my clients, just as bankers have been encouraged to turn in their account holders.

These feel like desperate acts of a government agency stooping to newer lows in an effort to loot the American people of its earnings on behalf of the bankers while violating privacy laws.

Will we see more of this type behavior from government as QE 3 increases government debt and, along with it, the need to collect a greater amount of tax revenue?

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by MatthewCCox

QE 3 and Taxes

September 18, 2012 in Finance, United States

IRS The FedQE 3 will have another effect on the economy.

It will increase taxes.

In a perfect world, the mortgages purchased by The Fed will be paid back in a timely fashion and this will actually be a profitable investment.

However, with foreclosures at a record high, this is unlikely.

This means that any shortage will ultimately be paid with tax dollars.

When this happens, the banks will have received a bailout, similar to what they received in 2008, except it won’t be called that because it will be hidden within the magic world of The Fed.

In addition, since the purpose of QE 3 is to stimulate more home mortgages, no one should be surprised when this cycle repeats in a few years.

This will produce a home mortgage crisis on steroids.

But wait – there’s more.

Some experts believe The Fed will purchase Treasury Bonds next.

Should this take place, the Department of the Treasury will be required to pay bond interest to The Fed. This will absolutely require tax increases because, according to the Reagan-era Grace Commission Report, “100 percent of what is collected [through personal income taxes] is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt… In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services [that] taxpayers expect from their government.”

You may read more at these two links.

Wikipedia article on the Grace Commission

The Grace Commission Report

If this was true in the 1980s, it remains true today because the debt has increased steadily since the report was released.

This has turned the IRS into nothing more than a collection agency for The Fed, a private bank.

As more and more people understand this, they are leaving the system.

At one time, this was as simple as opening a Swiss bank account.

However, this is no longer a viable alternative.

The Internal Revenue Service has cracked down so much on this practice  that Swiss banks will no longer accept deposits from US citizens. They know these deposits will be followed by strong-armed tactics from the IRS that forces the banks to violate privacy laws.

One banker recently escaped jail time and received a financial reward when he gave the IRS info about his clients use of foreign accounts.

It seems the bank’s privacy policies don’t apply when a banker can be threatened with jail time for following them.

As taxes increase, and they will increase as a result of QE 3, we can expect people to come up with more and more creative means of managing their resources.

If they do so, they need to be careful who they tell about their plans.

Bank privacy policies are being violated.

And, other client confidentiality agreements are being violated too.

I’ll write more about those topics tomorrow.

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by MatthewCCox

Help Yourself

July 1, 2012 in United States

Help YourselfIs anarchy really a viable path for peace?

It is.

Please understand that I am NOT talking about riots in the street, acting irresponsibly, and uncontrolled chaos.

When I use the term “anarchy,” I’m referring to a leaderless society and all of the positives that go with it.

Ask yourself:

  • How would I behave differently if I were responsible for all aspects of my life including food, clothing, money, and health?
  • How would I life my live if I could not be dependent upon anyone else to take care of trash disposal, protection, message delivery, and business structure?
  • What would I do differently if there were no government or large business systems in my society?

I am NOT saying all of those systems are part of our current problems.

I am asking how your behavior would change if you could not rely upon these systems to assist you.

  • Would you rely upon the Social Security System for retirement income?
  • Would you rely upon your IRA-type retirement plan?
  • Would you do something else for your retirement plan?
  • Would you consider productive activities for the last half of your life?

I could ask a similar series of questions about education, medicine, religion, and a significant number of other areas.

How would our society be different if we each acted as if none of those systems existed?

While you are considering that question, you may want to consider implementing those differences fairly quickly because several systems have been compromised over the past few days.

This could just be an interesting set of coincidences or it could be part of the GREEN LIGHT activities or a response to them.

Cobra announced yesterday that the cyber attacks on the banks, which have stolen more than two billion dollars, are part of The Resistance’s work to infiltrate the bankers.

Cobra has previously claimed to be a spokesperson for The Resistance, which is a collection of forces that collaborates in the removal of Illuminati influence.

If this really is the work of The Resistance, it is significant because no enforcement agency has announced any progress on stopping the hacking and the subsequent transfer of funds.

A massive land hurricane or derecho broke out across an area from Chicago to Washington DC Friday evening, leaving more than four million people without power. It was originally reported that the storm was one hundred miles wide. However, the image in this article shows a much wider swath.

There are reports that some gas stations have run out of fuel and cell phone coverage is down in some areas.

Some are speculating that the stress of the power outage, combined with the record-breaking heat, could cause a power grid failure in the near future.

There are reports via Facebook that military units are moving into the DC area. It remains to be seen if these units are going to assist with the consequences of the power outage or if they are part of the GREEN LIGHT activities.

Then, there are the solar satellites. All of their websites have been down since last evening and, as of the time of the publishing of this article, they were still down. This may be related to the power outage or, it may be due to something else. Who knows?

I started this article under the premise that anarchy, where each person takes responsibility, without relying on an organized system, may be exactly what we need to move ourselves forward as a society.

However, as I reviewed these stories about the banks, the power grid, and the satellites, I have realized that anarchy may be more than a good option.

It may be a necessity.

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by MatthewCCox

The Banks are Gambling with House Money

October 29, 2011 in Finance

The current gambling games being played by the banking industry are mind boggling. One game is so outlandish that, when it became popular in 2003, Warren Buffet called it a “financial weapon of mass destruction.” Certain banks, labeled as too big to fail, lost badly at this casino game in 2008, resulting in a need for bailouts via taxpayer funding.

This game is called derivatives.

Now, before your eyes glass over and your mind goes cloudy, I suggest you shake yourself awake and read this article. I’ll do my best to keep it simple because this topic is important, especially if you want to understand the cause of the next financial crisis, one that promises to impact us more intensely than the last one.

Derivatives are bets. These bets are hedges against investments going sour. An astute investor invests in something with the hope of the price increasing. Then, he purchases a derivative or bets that the price will go down. That way, he wins no matter what the price does. The bet has significant odds in the investor’s favor so it is highly leveraged. In other words, the derivative costs less than its value.

This practice has become a booming business. In fact, since they are highly leveraged with favorable odds for the investor, many gamblers – er…investors purchase derivatives as their only investment. Some estimates put the combined value of these bets at six hundred trillion dollars. That’s ten times the entire world’s Gross Domestic Product.

Do you see the problem?

If all of those derivatives came due at the same time, there wouldn’t be enough money in the world to pay them. Granted, this is unlikely to happen. It would take a perfect storm of events.

Of course, unlikely doesn’t mean impossible because this IS exactly what happened in 2008 when the mortgage crisis hit. That segment of the market suddenly lost value and all the related derivatives came due. The banks and insurance companies didn’t have enough money to pay their bets so they asked the government for help. (The documentary Inside Job tells this story. I don’t agree with its message of a need for increased government regulation. However, it does an entertaining job of explaining exactly what happened.)

Banks, insurance companies, and investors did not learn from the 2008 situation. They are repeating the same behaviors today. The situation is setting up for another crisis with the  difference being that, this time, the banks are manipulating the system to guarantee that the government will provide funding. Last time, they had to beg. This time, the bailout will be legal.

FDIC GambleAs a rule, derivatives are not insured by the FDIC because they are not deposits in a bank account. They are uninsured investments that can suffer loss. Bank of America recently found a way around this and transferred derivatives, valued at seventy-five trillion (YES – that’s with a T) from its investment bank arm into its depository arm. This was done upon insistence by the Federal Reserve and without approval of the FDIC.

If those derivatives fail, government will be responsible for an amount that is greater the world’s Gross Domestic Product.

Will they fail? They will if they, like in 2008, are tied to the mortgage market. I’ll explain why in my next article.

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by MatthewCCox

Occupy Together and Mainstream Media

October 16, 2011 in World

This website is designed to respond to news and life from a peaceful perspective. That means we usually don’t report the news because there are large multi-million dollar organizations, commonly called the Mainstream Media or MSM, that do that. Peace of Mind News is an unbudgeted website with a small team of dedicated people who have a passion for seeing world peace become reality.

However, when the MSM looks the other way or is prevented from reported something or otherwise does not report things that appear newsworthy to Peace of Mind News, we will report news too. For example, there were numerous newsworthy events surrounding the Occupy Together Movement yesterday. This morning, I only find superficial coverage of any of it.

The lack of coverage has become so blatant that the little respect I had for MSM is disappearing. Their actions tell me that MSM employees are lazy, stupid, or operating on orders to ignore these significant news stories.

Occupy MediaSaturday, October 15, 2011 was proclaimed a day for global protests. According to Wikipedia, millions of people in more than one thousand locations in more than eighty countries participated in these protests. I have yet to find a MSM report on this overall size of this event. If the story is out there, it isn’t a major headline.

Alternative news sources are reporting these highlights from yesterday’s events:

More than two dozen people were arrested in New York yesterday when they tried to close their Citibank accounts. At least, they weren’t treated like this person in Singapore last summer who was apparently beaten to death by Citibank debt collectors.

In Washington DC, a Bank of America branch quickly closed its doors yesterday when  more than 200 people approached to close their accounts.

In scanning my Twitter account, I see that arrests took place across the country in Occupy Together events in New York, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, and other locations. Throughout the previous week, I learned, again through my Twitter feed, that tents and other personal property had been confiscated in San Diego, Denver, Sacramento, and other cities by police enforcing trespassing laws.

News from the protests continues today. In London, the protests were the topic of the day at St. Paul’s Cathedral as the vicar asked the police to leave so the protesters could occupy the cathedral. In Chicago, the police department arrested more than 200 protesters overnight at Grant Park. In Seattle, police did a predawn walk through the tent city of protesters. Will arrests follow?

Is the MSM turning their heads? Do they think this isn’t newsworthy? Is the media being turned away by the police so they can’t report on it? Is something else going on here?

Our team works from our offices in the mountains of New Mexico with high speed internet and a Twitter account and we can report on all of this. Why isn’t MSM doing the same?

I’ll look closer at this topic in an article I post later today.

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