A Pentagon contractor report authored by financial analyst Kevin D. Freeman suggests that the U.S. may have been, and may still be, the victim of financial terrorism. As the Washington Times says, the 2008 economic crisis may have included “financial subversion carried out by unknown parties, such as terrorists or hostile nations … covertly using vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.”
Suspects include financial enemies in Middle East states, Islamic terrorists, hostile members of the Chinese military, or government and organized crime groups in Russia, Venezuela or Iran. Chinese military officials publicly have suggested using economic warfare against the U.S.
“This is the equivalent of box cutters on an airplane.”
— Kevin D. Freeman
The report probably asks more questions than it answers?
Was it a terrorist group?
If it was China, why would China want to bring down our economy?
China has a goal of being the world’s dominating economy.
The attack occurred in three general phases …
Oil Market
Stock Market
Currency Market
According to Freeman’s new report, the attack has three stages, two of which may have already been implemented:
The first phase was a speculative run-up in oil prices that generated as much as $2 trillion of excess wealth for oil-producing nations, filling the coffers of Sovereign Wealth Funds, especially those that follow Shariah Compliant Finance.
The second phase appears to have begun in 2008 with a series of bear raids targeting U.S. financial services firms that appeared to be systemically significant [such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers]. … This created a system-wide crisis, caused the collapse of the credit markets, and nearly collapsed the global financial system.
The risk of a Phase Three has quickly emerged, suggesting a potential direct economic attack on the U.S. Treasury and U.S. dollar. Such an event has already been discussed by finance ministers in major emerging market nations such as China and Russia as well as Iran and the Arab states. A focused effort to collapse the dollar by dumping Treasury bonds has grave implications including the possibility of a downgrading of U.S. debt forcing rapidly rising interest rates and a collapse of the American economy. In short, a bear raid against the U.S.financial system remains possible and may even be likely.
Our response was more government debt, which put the possibility that our reserve currency is removed.
The work by Kevin D. Freeman was put in the spotlight by The Washington Times (see Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash)
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The original document from Kevin D. Freeman, CFA …
Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses
Analysis of Twenty-First Century Risks in Light of the Recent Market Collapse
Kevin D. Freeman, CFA
Cross Consulting and Services, LLC
Originally published June 2009
Serious risks to the global economic system were exposed by the crisis of 2008,raising legitimate questions regarding the cause of the turmoil. An estimated $50 trillion of global wealth evaporated in the crisis with more than a quarter of that loss suffered by the United States and her citizens.
A number of potential causative factors exist, including sub-prime real estate loans, a housing bubble, excessive leverage, and a failed regulatory system.
Beyond these,however, the risks of financial terrorism and/or economic warfare also must beconsidered. The stakes are simply too high for these potential triggers to be ignored.
The Obama administration‘s recent call for greater financial regulation stipulates to the facts that hedge fund activity has been virtually unregulated and that dark-pool trading,Credit Default Swaps, and naked short selling provide tremendous vulnerabilities in the system. This report concurs with these concerns as recently outlined by the heads of the SEC, US Treasury, and Federal Reserve and provides supporting data.
Beyond that, this report exposes the fact that these vulnerabilities are subject to exploitation not only by greedy capitalists seeking profit but also by financial terrorists, intent on destroying the American financial system.
From a historical perspective, there are numerous examples of financial attacks onspecific companies and industries both for economic and non-economic reasons. Inaddition, there are other examples of financial attacks conducted against individual nations both for economic and non-economic reasons. Based on this awareness, the economic collapse of 2008 must be critically examined to determine the possibility that afinancial attack took place as well as an assessment of future risks.
The purpose of this report is to consider the implications of financial terrorismand/or economic warfare and to identify and realistically list prospective threats to U.S. economic security from a means, motive, and opportunity perspective.
The preliminary conclusions of the research suggest that, without question, there we reactors who had the motive to harm the U.S. economy. These motives can be categorized as both economic and non-economic. In addition, these same actors have clearly demonstrated the means to carry out such an attack. Finally, the opportunity was clearly present given the existing economic condition and regulatory framework in operation. The hypothesis under consideration is that a three-phased attack is underway with two of those phases completed to date.
Complete document: Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses (Scribd.com) …
The first