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Spitting in the Eye of a Hurricane
by Helen Joffe from Slidell, Louisiana
Edited with Commentary by Ole Bear, Editor for FSO Realty Reality
September 21, 2005

Editor’s Forward Backwards –
Implications on Scrabble Play, Real Estate, and
Belly-Flopped Financial Markets

Jim Puplava has penned The Perfect Financial Storm essay series here at FSO, in multiple essays. It is quite a read. The Boys at the Federal Reserve would hope that you would not read it, nor G. Edward Griffin’s Creature from Jekyll Island – a second look at the federal reserve. For no one wants any of you to know how fragile the global money system is unbacked by specie [gold and silver]. It is my personal opinion and view that the Federal Reserve and the GSEs,  through the ABS [asset backed securities] and MBS [mortgage backed securities] markets had substituted the lack of specie in this fraudulent money system with supposedly inflating real estate prices as a smoke and mirror to the unseeing public eye. Through FIRREA 1989 after the S&L Bailout,  the FED and the GSEs [and the banking cartel] were able to rig and control the real estate valuation industry to pump real estate prices and mortgage loans to the ABS and MBS secondary markets to grow the book of business of the [bloated, false, spurious] GSEs et al, in order to keep the paper money system afloat. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve Fraud in 1913, these Rascals [bloated, false, spurious] have destroyed about 95% of the value of the purchasing power of the  American US dollar since 1913. A US Dollar Constitutionally Defined is 371.25 grains of fine silver based on the Spanish Piece of Eight. No, you cannot find that at any bank in North America. The US Dollar ceased to exist Constitutionally in 1968 when the Silver Certificates were removed from circulation. We got clad fake coins in 1965 setting up the removal of the Silver Certificates. In 1971,Tricky Dick Nixon removed the gold standard on balance of foreign trade payments to our trading partners, making our currency legal tender fiat paper funnie monie!

There has been no audit of the gold in Fort Knox, Kentucky since President Eisenhower back in the 1950s. Gold [it is actually paper gold] is currently trading in limited markets at near $450 an ounce, and silver is capped by the paper traders on the COMEX at near $7…. Since Biblical times, the silver to gold ratio has been about 15 to one… If we ask Alan Greenspan, our favorite central banker at the FED, we would only get another obfuscation and conundrum as to why the silver to gold ratio is about 65 to 1. Well, Alan, that is a Screaming Buy, you Fool! – and I am telling the Folks!

The concept of using low mortgage interest rates and real estate as a basis of the fraud money system isn’t new. Real estate was tried as a basis for paper money in France during the French Revolution, and it did not work worth a flip. Mortgage interest rates in the USA are at 40-45-50 year lows, and help inflate realty prices in every state, in every town, every city, and every community… including the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Currently, our Federal Reserve Notes are in part backed by real estate as the specie and the promise to pay. It works the same in Columbia, Missouri as it does on Gulf Coast, and in California out in San Diego, and in Ohio, Florida, Arizona, and New York City. Wake up Appraisal Institute! – you may not be in business next year!

The amount of paper dollars Greenspan has created since the last Andrew in Florida is astronomical. The amount of notational derivatives that the Big Boys like JPChase and Goldman Sachs and the Bank of New York play with on Wall Street defies sound financial reason. All these boys are playing God… and I doubt that they are. Helen’s story, with my commentary correlated to the global markets, is why Wall Street cannot assume that they are a better God than The Almighty. Should global financial markets implode… Katrina is nothing but a mere shower in the bigger financial storm.

The stories are coming out about idiots at FEMA, the Oval Office Good Ole Boys, Bubba Bush doing a “What me worry,” crazy folks in New Orleans, Big Government Leviathan Ineptitude, Fraud, and Waste associated with Hurricane Katrina, and everybody and their dog’s cover-up. Internet news is filled with insurance companies covering up, government agencies covering up, and the possibility that the mortgage banking industry could take a major hit on the Gulf Coast on REOs [real estate owned]. And, yet The Congress Leviathan is printing $62 Billion dollars in Federal Reserve Notes and counting to send to the Gulf Coast. In whose pockets is the money really going to? The folks that really need it, or somebody elses’ coffers? 

About Helen…

Helen is a non-reformed Scrabble-holic. She plays at the Masters Level in National Tournament Scrabble Play, and her story first appeared on the Scrabble Internet Play Website, to which my bride is also a non-reformed addict. She has a very sweet writing style, and when I talked to her right after her essays appeared, she told me that she had a devoted faith in The Almighty. We briefly discussed the intense loss of life on the Gulf Coast, and how she was praying for all the families there.  Helen is a very sophisticated, very Southern, and a most articulate Lady of Charm. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, I recognize a Steel Magnolia when I meet one.

Helen is safe and sound with friends and family in Southern Alabama until she can return home. I talked to her on the 8^th of September to get this essay series on-line, and we talked about all the lost life on the Gulf Coast, how all these folks there were in our hearts and prayers. Helen graciously allowed me to try to present a personalized view of Hurricane Katrina, and I explained to her that it was a perfect financial storm, although created by Mother Nature. In an instant act, real estate values were diminished and real property of all kinds damaged beyond belief. The descriptions Helen later reveals of property damage are most visual. Helen is a very gracious Southern Lady with pets and a love of Scrabble, plays in national tournaments, and on-line at the Scrabble play Internet site, where these essays first appeared.

Implications of Katrina on Financial Markets,
Printing Presses, & Your Checkbook

A lot of commercial, multiple family income producing, and single family residential real estate has been damaged, and some of it flooded. The regions’ infrastructure with respect to utilities, jobs, factories, homes, businesses, roadways, you name it, are out of commission. Some folks with mortgages on their homes, won’t go back and may just let the bank have it. We expect an increase in non-performing residential and commercial loans in the Region. We suspect this may impact interest rates and the secondary mortgage markets. That means the GSEs, Ford, GM, and GE as well as Daimler-Chrysler,  which are all financial companies. We expect an emergency meeting at the FED for more damage control to the money system. We expect some lending institutions in LA, MS, and AL to go belly flop for their [false, bloated, spurious] mortgage loans on home equity lines and home purchases at 100% to 150% of loan to value. We expect the FDIC to be putting extra folks on the payroll to monitor these lending institutions, since the FDIC does not have the liquidity to bail out the Gulf Coast without Alan Greenspan inflating the heck out of the current fraud money system. When you get right down to it, the FDIC doesn’t have enough money to bail out Columbia, Missouri here in Boone County if every FDIC insured lender went belly up. The FDIC is a joke. Walk into a local lender and everybody and their dog has signs saying everyone is insured up to $100,000 on all their accounts. Hey, let’s do an audit of the FDIC!

In the short haul, Hurricane Katrina sent Alan Greenspan into heart arrhythmia, now retiring in January 2006, is it? Ben Bernanke is now probably on Quaaludes and Prozac, and my favorite Texan McTeer from the Dallas FED [now I hear retired from the high jinx of central banking down there in Dallas] is probably hoping folks in New Orleans will wade to the nearest SUV dealer to hold hands and buy a flood damaged Lincoln Navigator! – through some of the nastiest waters right now on the planet Earth. We also expect that foreclosure, mortgage servicing, and other financial frauds to increase in the region. On the 12^th of September, I caught on the Internet or on the CNBC [Bubble-Vision], one of the two, where Congress just appropriated a little over $50 billion US Federal Reserve Notes for Katrina Gulf Coast Relief. Well, where do you think they got the money? The are having the Federal Reserve create it out of thin air! Somewhat inflationary, huh? Congress certainly didn’t go to the US Treasury and pull out the gold and silver to help out the Gulf Coast! – they inflated the money supply!

Welcome to a world where paper Greenspan funnie monie [Federal Reserve Note] is king, and credit cards without electricity won’t get you anywhere or buy nothing… that is… if the local Piggley Wiggley or Winn-Dixie are even open! Welcome to Helen’s Spitting in the Eye of the Hurricane!

We suspect Hurricanes are highly inflationary!

Spitting in the Eye of a Hurricane
by Helen Joffe from Slidell, Louisiana

Slidell is NE of New Orleans across Lake Pontchartrain

Part 1 – Storming Into My Life…

Hurricane Katrina stormed into my life and the lives of hundreds of thousands of others living in the greater Gulf South on Monday, August 29, 2005. Actually, she began disrupting mine two days before that. On Saturday, against my better judgment, I kept a date to meet with some Scrabble pals at the home of Bill Clark, uptown, for a day of tourney style Scrabble, ostensibly in preparation for the Bayou Bash tournament in Houston, scheduled for Labor Day weekend. While it was a fun day overall, Bill kept being interrupted by phone calls inquiring when he was evacuating. He wasn’t even sure he was going to evacuate, but his family and friends encouraged him to watch the news. This was the “big one” that New Orleans had been dreading forever.  He told them he would think about it.

While I was one of the three “experts” at our little gathering, I played poorly and drew letters even worse, and my only wins were against the sole 1000 rated player there. I told myself and my opponents that I was just getting the bad luck out of my system before Houston – and in many ways,  I suppose I did.

At the end of the day I heard ominous reports from the television. Bill left the TV on in another room, and we overheard that the dreaded and much reviled “contra-flow” traffic had been put into effect. Since Katrina was supposed to hit New Orleans,  and I lived across the lake to the east of New Orleans, I was hoping that I wouldn’t get jammed in the contra-flow traffic, as I needed to shop for pet food, cigarettes, batteries, and bottled water pre-hurricane, since I felt I could not evacuate even if I wanted to. It would have been difficult before with my six cats and two dogs, but since the previous weekend when my brother, Billy, dropped off my deceased mother’s three cats, I considered it impossible, particularly in my 1991 Corolla with its limited space and 172,000 miles already on it. However, my luck was still running against me, and 6 miles from my house I was diverted onto I-59 North and not allowed to exit until Picayune, MS. I was then directed to 43, then 603 to 90, then to 190, but it was pitch black and under the best of circumstances I have no sense of direction, so I ended up at Stennis Space Center, where I was again given directions I could not follow. The guys there were kind, though, and one old gentleman told me that if I reached Fort Pike I would have gone too far, but not to worry, I could take 433 back into Slidell. Three and a half-hours later I made it home, too stressed and exhausted to think about heading to Wal-Mart.

On Sunday, about mid-morning, my sister, Leanne, who lives a block from me, called to say her husband had decided that they would evacuate as Katrina was predicted to be a category 5 storm and their home was surrounded by too many old trees. I told her she could leave her three cats with me, since I was staying with my nine, and it would be easier for them to find accommodations with two dachshunds than with the two dogs AND three cats.

After talking to Leanne, I headed to Wal-Mart and discovered it was not open. OK, Sam, so what’s up? The Chevron station, which was a backup spot for cigarette purchases was also boarded up, as was the Winn-Dixie on the other side of town, along with the Pontchartrain Food store. I began to get nervous as I had only one and a half packs of cigarettes left and very little food in the house, although I was well stocked with dry pet food.  My critters are spoiled, though, and I knew they were not going to be pleased with the deprivation that was to ensue. I finally found a price-gouging convenience store that was still open and with the very last of my cash bought three packs of cigarettes, canned cat food, and two twin packs of D-cell batteries for an amount equivalent to a week’s worth of groceries. That’s what cash will buy, and what we call price gouging the American Public in the path of a hurricane.

I began to get phone calls, one after another, asking if I was going to evacuate.  My sister, Alma, who lives in Pearl River, had also decided to stay. She asked whether she should pick up her cats and head to my house so we could weather the storm together. This is the same sister I had offered to let stay in my home for a couple of months until she could get on her feet and it had taken me one year, two months, and thirteen days to get her OUT of my house. I had only been rid of her for less than two months and, unkind though it might have been, I was NOT in favor of letting her or her two horrible, vicious felines back in my house! I suggested that she might want to ride out Katrina with my brother, Richard, who lives in Abita Springs, and who had also chosen not to evacuate. Apparently, he was not in favor of the idea and talked her into staying in her own apartment.

I began hurricane preparations in typical Helen fashion. I mowed the front and back yards, did the weed-eater thing, cleaned my house from stem to stern, washed and dried EVERYTHING, including furniture covers, bedding, all area rugs, etc., etc. If one is going to die in a hurricane, let it not be said that one was a dirty slob who deserved to die in a hurricane!

My friend from elementary school, Bunny Goycochea, called from San Diego. She had put me up, along with Rhonda Roederer, Maneck Contractor, and Inez Kerth, for the San Diego Nationals, after she and I had been in touch only once in 18 years. She had seen the news about Katrina and urged me to evacuate. I gave her the same spiel I had given my family and other friends about how I live on a ridge and don’t even need flood insurance, blah, blah, blah. The concern in her voice was palpable. Always buy the high ground!

I spoke with my friend, Marlene Milkent, in Hattiesburg, MS. She had decided not to join us for the Scrabble marathon at Bill’s house because the hurricane was threatening. She and I agreed we would probably be safer in our homes than in our cars trying to evacuate, but we were both beginning to worry, seriously worry.  I felt nauseated and the meaning of “sick with worry” became quite clear to me at that point. If only I had been able to procure the requisite supplies... If only I didn’t have so MANY animals... If only I had enough money or credit even to pay for a hotel room somewhere out of harm’s way... If only this stupid hurricane could have waited until after I got paid on the 31^st. If only my car weren’t so old and decrepit... Life can be full of “If onlys,” and I knew God and Jesus were watching me…. a small tiny lady of 50-something plus a couple…. Nah, a lady never tells her age!

I decided to play some Scrabble on-line to take my mind off the storm. I got a message from Susi Tiekert posted on ISC that I had best be reading her message from Minnesota or someplace safe. Then Cheryl Cadieux, “Stellacious”, IM’d me and expressed concern for my well being. I tried to explain my rationale for staying, but she wasn’t buying it.  She transmitted hugs and kisses and promises of prayers. I needed them all.

The news was then reporting that the eye of Katrina, or the worst part of the storm, would hit Slidell at about 1:00 p.m. on Monday. I filled the bathtub with water. I marshaled all the candles into one room. I started to take the photo albums upstairs, then decided that might not be a good idea as the roof was more likely to be blown off than the house was to flood. My mother’s cats had still not assimilated into the cat population at large and had staked out hiding places in my computer/sewing room, rendering it impossible for me to shepherd all of the animals into one room. At around 1:00 a.m. I decided to take a nap and set the alarms (yes, plural – it takes more than a rooster clock, a clock radio, and a buzzing alarm to wake me up). This was yet another dumb move – the power went off at about 2:30 a.m., rendering the alarms useless. This was of little importance as the sound of heavy winds and driving rains in advance of the hurricane made sleep impossible.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

© 2005 Realty Reality