U.S. Transformational Crisis 2015-16 [Part 1]

Transcribed from “Mark The Rabbit Hole” with Mark Metheny on WithInsightsRadio.
(Airdate: July 31, 2015)

Mark Metheny: We have a fantastic guest lined up for you.  William Stickevers, a financial astrologer [is] joining us. …  So, good day, William.

William Stickevers: Good day, Mark!  Thank you for having me on the show.

Mark:  Well, we appreciate you spending an hour or so with us today then, to explain some of the things that I’ve explained poorly in the past.

William Stickevers:  Well, [explaining the economic crisis] is a really complex and difficult subject to articulate, for most people get lost after the first 10 seconds [into it] because of the complexity of the global economy, the complexity of government and geopolitics goes beyond your eighth grade civics [and social studies] classes that were taught to most of us in school.  Also most people these days are very uninformed or uneducated about how [capitalism and] markets work, for markets are essentially the basis and means by which all wealth creation and wealth destruction occur. And it ties very much into the political history [and psychological complex] of the United States, as we’ll talk about shortly when we discuss Pluto which is now constellating powerfully in the U.S. horoscope, regardless of what U.S. horoscope an astrologer uses. So again, it’s a subject matter that loses people very quickly, and people [these days ] want to just turn on mainstream media news and get quick, instant relief that all is well, ‘steady as she goes’ perspective, that ‘the world is pretty much all the same as it was 10 years ago’.  Which as we know, it’s not.

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Mark:  Right.  As my sister says, sometimes a little bit of information is a lot more dangerous than no information.

William:  Well, I think that’s true to an extent, but right now there is a lot of dangerous things going on, and much of it has to do with your money, my money, and everyone else’s money. That has to do with what’s been going on a mundane level since 2010 [with the emergence of the Cardinal Climax], where we’ve had an escalating intensifying series of geopolitical and global financial events that have been playing out on the world stage, that coercing a major power struggle between nation states, between the rich and poor, between generations, cause much social distress and class warfare in many of the G7 nations.

Mark:  Agreed.  So one of the things that’s been in the news recently was the whole Greece fiasco where, from my understanding, was an attempted forced takeover by the international monetary fund to try and bully Greece into accepting a bailout that was essentially going to keep them prisoners to the EU.  Am I in the ballpark there?

William:  Yes, absolutely.  Here’s the real problem with what’s going on in Greece and what many people are overlooking, including many astrologers who are commenting on this, as the crisis unfolds. And that is, the big problem that Europe now faces is that ultimately Greek debt has to be forgiven, else Greece will not survive.  That is a fact. Right now even the IMF wants to forgive the Greek debt, but Germany is not prepared to do so.  Why?  Because if Germany forgives Greek debt, that means that the other indebted nations such as Spain, Italy, Portugal, Cypress, Malta, etc. will have to have their debt written, because they can’t afford to pay it off as well.  In fact, these nations owe a lot more money than Greece does.  And they are also unable to make those [increasing] payments to Germany.  So again regardless, Greece needs debt-forgiveness; otherwise, they can’t survive.  Period.

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Now, if there’s debt-forgiveness, then you have a massive problem in the European banking system. Why? Because the European banks won’t survive if they give debt-forgiveness, because the European banks and the European Central Bank have major outstanding lines of credit to Greece.  And the European Central Bank [ECB] is essentially bankrupt, just as Greece is bankrupt.  And now Greek debt is worth zero. The same is also true for Italy’s debt, as well as Spain’s debt, and Portugal’s debt.

Also, if there was forgiveness granted to Greece, the other European countries that have lent to Greece may not survive.  So you have to keep in mind that if they provide debt relief to Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy will want the same [level of] debt-forgiveness for themselves, else they will default.  However, if Greece defaults then all these other countries that have invested in the Greek debt will default.  So it’s a Catch 22.

So keep in mind, this is what keeps German leader Angela Merkel awake at night.  It’s not the cries from the Greek pensioners, nor the penniless Cyprians, nor the starving Portuguese, nor the politically explosive number of unemployed Spanish workers, nor the impoverished Italian households. It creates the rise of the Euro-skeptic. Because Europeans realize what’s really going on here now, and basically, the only solution for Europe [at this point seems to be] is a political union.

Mark:  From the videos and information I saw, the Greek people, the majority that I saw seem to be in favor of just letting it collapse and getting out of the EU and getting themselves out from under the thumb of the EU.  But the political entities involved there did not seem to mirror what the citizenship wanted.

William:  Exactly.  So it comes down to it, Germany can’t provide the Greek nation and its people the debt-forgiveness that they need. The IMF actually agrees that they need debt-forgiveness.  But they also realize that once you provide it for one nation you have to provide for the rest.  However, if they let Greece fail, all of that leveraged debt will implode the system. Let me explain what I mean by this. All debt today is encapsulated into government into bonds [which is sold on the markets].  And if those bonds [which is considered money] goes to zero in worth, all the leverage and all the derivatives connected to that debt, will set-off [a series of] credit default swaps.  So for example there is approximately $330 billion of debt that Greece owes to Germany and the EU banks. However, there is $24 trillion of derivatives connected to that debt [in the form of bonds] that would be set off immediately by [a daisy chain of] credit default swaps, if there is a total debt default by Greece. And if that happens, that will implode the entire European continent into a deflationary depression which would be greater in intensity [and impact] than what was experienced in the ’30s.  Also, at some point it would likely impact the U.S. banking system and soon after the entire global banking system.

Mark:  Yes.

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Greek pensioners demonstrate against pension cuts in front of the prime minister’s office. / AFP / LOUISA GOULIAMAKI

William:  And by the way, there’s been no resolution to date.  It’s been “pretend and extend, pretend and extend.”  And this goes back to now to what we were talking about with Pluto – for this is all Pluto at play here.

Mark:  Right.  I found that very funny because it was on the front page for over a week in the newspapers and then it just disappeared, and I thought, I don’t really remember there being a decision or settlement reached.  It just vanished.

William:  Exactly, because they can’t provide a settlement.  The settlement would be to provide Greece debt relief along with the other European nations.  However, they can’t provide that because there isn’t enough money to provide that because European Central Bank are essentially insolvent. And the political blowback [of debt forgiveness] by Germany would ignite a social revolution in that nation. So, this is a big problem, and it’s a problem that’s  going to [socially] explode in the EU much sooner than anyone realizes.

Mark:  Agreed.  And a minute ago you had mentioned debt swapping and that should be a very familiar phrase for people here in the U.S.  That was a lot of what created our 2008 blowup here, and it appears that we are on the same track again if I am correct.

William:  Absolutely.  Right now what many astrologers are overlooking is the fact that Pluto has been very active in the U.S. natal chart from late 2012 onward. And Pluto will be active, making direct hits to the U.S. Sun, all through early 2017 if you use a conservative 5 degree orb, applying and separating.

I think we should talk a little bit about what Pluto does on a mundane level.  Many astrologers know or have an idea of what Pluto does on a personal level. But on a mundane level Pluto deals with [the collective] power of the masses, along with the compulsive, totalitarian, and covert collective pressures [covertly] at work in society, along with the forces of elimination, regeneration, and resurgence. Pluto relates to emerging nations and nations in a state of reconstruction after some type of [civil] breakdown or war.  Pluto relates to fanaticism, and to an obsession with impersonal collective ideas and ideals. Pluto also represents the periodic need to purge the body politic of old, deep-rooted problems that often result in social upheavals, class warfare, and power struggles.  Constellated by a populist leader, Pluto can awaken compulsive instincts for power and dominance.  Pluto rules secrets. Covert organizations such as the CIA, the NSA, and all known and unknown agencies of a nation’s national security state. Pluto rules the black budget, government black-on-black projects [with no government oversight], and/or what has been termed by the alternative media as the “shadow government,” or Deep State. It rules illegal gambling, racketeering, along with the criminal underworld and organized crime such as the America mafia.  And it also rules the underworld of the banking elite. For Pluto rules debt, but not personal debt, but rather debt on a massive scale, which is often formulated into government bonds. It also rules financial leverage, therefore it also rules derivatives. Pluto also rules political grassroots, “populist” movements that initiate massive reform, sweeping change [with Uranus] at a national level. Pluto also rules nuclear power, along with a nation’s nuclear arsenal and other weapon systems of mass destruction.  Pluto also rules plutonium, radium, zinc, tungsten, and nickel.  Pluto rules natural and man-made disasters, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, large-scale destructive wars, and any [secular] event that incurs any type of [long-term] economic recession or depression.

Mark:  I totally agree.  As people who attend my classes probably get bored of hearing, I always correlate Pluto with death-rebirth transformation.  So whatever mundane chart or events we’re looking at for Pluto, you’re going to see massive transformation on some level.  One of the best examples of this is the 9/11 chart, where we had Pluto at 14 Sagittarius, I believe, opposed to Saturn which was at 14 Gemini on the morning of 9/11.  And so Gemini is the twins and Saturn is structures, so you literally had Pluto — death, transformation — oppose Saturn, which was the twin towers, the twin structures.  So that’s how literally this can play out sometimes.

William:  Right and also at that time, mind you, transiting Pluto was conjunct, or pretty close to the U.S. [Sibly] Ascendant at 12 Sagittarius, at that moment, am I correct?

via http://williamstickevers.com/graphsandcharts/astrology-charts-1991-present-new-world-order.html

Mark:  I believe that’s correct.

William:  Actually, let me confirm that right now…  Yep, right there.  Pluto was sitting all over, right about 12, 13 degrees Sagittarius during the 9/11 event.  So that’s a very good example.  And that also correlated with the turbulence in the stock market, because at that time the stock market in the spring of 2000 and into 2001 peaked.  And then went through a significant correction.

Mark:  Yes.  What was interesting was some areas had already down-turned at that point.  I remember the place I was working at the time had been around for 30 years and had never had a layoff, and they actually had a big layoff about 10 days before 9/11.  So, some sectors were already feeling what was coming in the other sectors at that point.

William:  Right.  Well, I’d like to talk about what I’m seeing here because I think the astrological community needs to catch up with both the reality on the ground on what is showing on the graphs. And it is showing itself in very powerful ways using both very sophisticated mundane cyclic techniques. And just for everyone out there to know, I’m really a mundane astrologer who looks at [the market data and] financial cycles and notices the correlation between the unfolding of planetary cycles and how they converge with financial and secular cycles.  [For the record,] I’m not a day trader trying to beat the market by using astrology — that’s what many financial astrologers attempt to do — but rather someone who advises clients on how best to preserve their wealth and what strategy would be the best [both] long-term or short-term in regards to their asset allocation to ensure maximized returns on their investments rather than trying to beat the market doing any type of risky speculation or trading.  So I just wanted to make that clear as we proceed.

Mark:  Excellent.

William:  What I’d like to emphasize here, and one does not need to use all the sophisticated software that’s employed by many mundane financial astrologers is that [transiting] Pluto is opposition to the U.S. natal Sun as it sits near the 2nd house cusp of the U.S. Sibly horoscope chart. And at the same time transiting Saturn will be sitting right on the U.S. Sibly Ascendant. All that all begins to occur exactly in late December 2015, and early January [2016].  And as most of us know, major astrological mundane portents are generally leading indicators of events.  So often, these astrological events occur just before a crisis erupts. So those who are observant to these [historical events], notice that a crisis of major international significance is in the making.  And so [from this observation] I believe we will see the first shot across the bow, [in regards to the U.S.] certainly by mid to late September, to early October [of 2015].  By then it will be undeniable even to the mainstream media, which risk having a major credibility issue, that we are in some form of a crisis. And the crisis will be intensifying and moving toward a crisis that will be greater than 2008. That’s my prediction.

Mark:  And to back that up, you’re absolutely correct with Pluto correlating with the earth change events and financial events.  So just something for those listening out there, something to mark on your calendars is Pluto makes its next station on Friday, September 25 [2015] and that will be at 2:55am EST.  So I would say, the couple days leading up to that maybe is a time we may want to pay attention to.

William:  True, and let’s not forget too, that Neptune is squaring the U.S. natal Uranus at that time.  So we’re looking at Saturn conjunct the U.S. Ascendant, Pluto opposing the U.S. Sun, Neptune squaring the U.S. Uranus, and Uranus making an opposition to the U.S. Saturn. And that’s not all, for we also have transiting Pluto squaring the U.S. Saturn. And the natal U.S. Saturn occupies the 10th house of the nation’s leadership in the Sibly horoscope.

Mark:  Yep.

William:  So those are very powerful auguries, mundane testimonies, indicate that we are going to undergo a major shakeup.  And if you project forward — we don’t have time to go into all the detail of this — but if you take these transits and look at the fact that they are occurring during the time that the Mundane [Barbault] Planetary Cyclic Index started its precipitous downward plunge in May 2014 and will continue to decline, hitting bottom in March 2022. All this augurs that we are heading into a perilous period where much of the damage control put into place during the 2007-2009 financial crisis by the Central Banks and the government will begin to wear off and unravel.  And [in that unraveling] I believe we can expect powerful shocks to occur to the system resulting in drastic changes in the nation’s financial positions along with [the unfolding of] titanic geopolitical power plays that continue to accelerate and intensify.

We’ll also see massive market volatility; we’re already seeing that now with China for example, right? And we’ll see major market corrections, bank panics, along with unexpected and sudden wide-scale economic failures occurring worldwide. This will be happening worldwide, not just in the United States.  Not just with U.S. municipal pension funds. Not just with the state pension funds.  Not just with the bond markets.  Not just with real estate. Not just with equities. Not just with debt. But rather we’re going to see the possible implosion of all the sovereign debt.  Look at what’s happening now in Puerto Rico.  Look what’s happening now in Europe with Greece.  Look what’s happening now in China.  Look what’s happening now with Russia.  Look what’s happening now with commodity prices — basically nose-diving.  Look at what’s happening now with the over-heated bond markets. Look what’s happening with the Global trade indexes, they are collapsing. These are all indicating that we are going through a massive global contraction While this is all happening you can expect that we are going to be hearing lot of rationalization by the mainstream [corporate controlled] financial news media, along with unprecedented proclamations “that all is under control” by governments and their respective leaders. This will be especially in the United States, in order to prevent the loss of credibility with the growing skeptical populace. I’m going to tell you right now — other than the hardcore partisan political voters who believe it all can be fixed by just voting their candidate of choice into the White House, most Americans are going to realize that we are in a real “full-blown” crisis, making them to rethink what the hell we’ve been doing as a nation over the past seven years.

Mark:  Yes, agreed.  We really should’ve had a collapse financially a couple of years ago but as long as the “powers that be” or whatever you want to call them have an open access to the bank, they’re going to keep artificially propping this up.  I mean, if you had the key to the vault, you wouldn’t be in any hurry to let the bank crash as long as you’re able to keep funneling money in.

William:  Exactly.  That’s very true.  Because what they’re doing is they’re printing money [out of thin air], keeping interest rates artificially low, and they’re forcing banks and financial institutions to buy bonds. So when the U.S. doesn’t collect enough money from its taxes [due to a contracting economy], the Federal Reserve will then issue bonds and provide liquidity [money] to banks to buy those government bonds, and in that way they can continue to keep interest rates artificially low and prop up the markets. And then they also provide liquidity [injections] to financial institutions directly to invest into the stock market, giving the perception — the applied perception management if you will, — that all is well and the economy is thriving again.  I think we can say [and agree that] there is a complete disconnect of the economy from June 2009 [when the Great Recession ended] to present day, between what’s happening on Wall Street and what’s happening on Main Street. And many don’t make this connection, and that’s my biggest grip I have with many financial astrologers these days who say the Recession is behind us.

Mark. I see.

William: I think at this point, all we can say right now is that we may not know exactly what is invoke a meltdown that will cause the massive deleveraging worldwide, but when does happen… which has already really begun in Asia — it’s going to happen quickly, and there aren’t going to be enough lifeboats to go around. Because in the end there is not going to be another set of government bailout, like what we saw in 2008. Which was emergency monetary government intervention to ensure the continuation of defunct and insolvent financial institutions. I really think that the world’s economy today is like an ocean liner with lifeboats and when the next big iceberg hits, or should one hit, we’re not going to have enough lifeboats to save everybody. Why? Because right now we have a staggering $200 trillion of debt globally and almost three times the size of the global economy. So the world’s economy is like the Titanic without a lifeboat and when another recession hits — it’s going to feel more like a depression. Of course they [the mainstream media] will never call it a depression, — but it will look and feel like one because it will be truly a titanic struggle for governments and policy makers to deal with, and in the end hurt everyone.

Mark:  Right.  And when they come out and say a run on the banks or recession or depression or something that panics people and puts them on guard and they would rather have things collectively go as it is without too much hub-bub about it while they still have access to our funds, which we may not have access to in the future.

William:  Correct.  So, when we look at the mundane astrological portents. along with the planetary cyclic index based on the work of Andre Barbault, it clear that we have entered a period of pain, change, and crisis as we witness radical reconfiguration events take place in the collective. Such as collapsing global currencies, contracting national economies, along with the breakdown and collapse of unsustainable, obsolete, and untenable systems of finance and banking.

Mark:  I 100% agree.  All the numbers that they put out on jobless rates, I just don’t buy anything.  I don’t buy any numbers the government puts out.  From my reality, what I see, with my family and with people I know, is that everyone has downsized so significantly or drastically changed their style of living that that’s the only way really a lot of people have been able to survive.  Or people having two part-time jobs to try and keep themselves afloat while cutting back costs as much as they have.  So these unemployment rates they put out are just completely bogus because if a lot of people have run out of their unemployment or just so downscaled their life that they are not an accurate reflection of what’s going on.

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William:  That’s absolutely correct.   We had over 96 million people looking for work that fell off the government radar, that cannot get work.  Out of the 214 million people living in the United States who we can account for, only 154 million people are employed.  Of that 154 million people employed, over 23% are underemployed, meaning they were making $58,000 on up to six-figure salaries and greater in 2007, and today only make half of what they were earning, whom many are working part-time while looking for full-time work. [Keep in mind] when they say there’s 5% unemployment what that really means is that is the percentage of people who filed for unemployment and receiving an unemployment check based on the people present in the workforce. That has nothing to do with the total number of people not working.  By the way, we have the lowest job participation rate since 1981.  It’s down 63%.

Mark:  Oh, man.

William:  This is just absolutely stunning. And it’s more stunning to me when there astrologers who pontificate from their podiums at these astrological conferences about the promising future of America, the economy, as if this is 1999 during [the peak of the dot.com] boom market and happy days are here again. To me it completely boggles my mind when a many of the astrological community are somehow buying into this, when over 20% of American families income scale now earns [significantly] less money than they did prior to 2007. It’s actually closer to 30%.

Mark:  Yeah, I can verify that from personal experience.  When I look at 2007, all five members of my family had full-time work.  At this point, none of the five of us have a full-time one job working for one company.  You have to take something very under your pay level just to survive.  And a lot of people I’m seeing now, the more aware people I know are seeing that maybe one of the better ways to do this is to have multiple income streams instead of being tied to a singular corporate entity where it’s much easier to be victimized by companies going out of business or being bought and sold.  So that’s one of the things I’ve seen people are doing to try and counter this on some level.

William:  Do you want to know the reason for all this?

Mark:  Absolutely.

William:  Because the breakdown of the Velocity of Money that’s why. See, the Federal Reserve has been basically clearing the debt of the banks, major financial institutions, brokerage firms, and too big to fail companies, while at the same time injected money [that they create out of thin air] back into accounts. Most of those institutions don’t spend that money or lend it; they hold on to that money by purchasing derivatives with it. This is major problem for the economy and important, because any healthy economy has a steady stream and exchange of money. The greater the level of monetary exchange the better the economy. This is called the velocity of money. And the velocity of money is a very important indicator for it’s the rate at which dollars move from one person to the next through the economy. The velocity of money as of today is lower than at the height of the Great Depression.

Mark:  Wow.

William:  You can look up those statistics for yourself.  These statistics are everywhere on the internet. You can look up the graphs.  So that in itself tells you that all the injection of liquidity into the system back in 2008 – 2013 did not translate to any capital formation which would result in the job creation, business expansion, small business development, upward social mobility, and growing middle-class, ect. Basically what we have going on today is complicit financial fraud both on Wall Street and in Washington.

– End of Part 1 –

Continue reading: Part 2