Author Govert SchullerPosted on Categories Economics
For several reasons I feel compelled to write this blog about some of the output of video-blogger John Titus. Titus is a prolific vlogger usually commenting on all kinds of shenanigans in the financial world. In 2012 he produced the feature-length documentary Bailout after which he became a regular commentator. He has been interviewed many times, speaks at conferences and has published some articles.
But he makes some alarming claims which are not backed by evidence. For example, he came out as a Covid-19 conspiracist, stating that “the arrival of the 2020 pandemic was about as accidental as an assassination. The pandemic narrative is nothing but a cover story to conceal from the public what in reality is the biggest asset transfer ever”[1a]. In another video he makes bizarre claims about a mainstream TV interview with a FED official [1b]. It is hard to analyze, so you have to watch it for yourself.
Recently I dove also into his presentation at the 2021 conference of the American Monetary Institute, with which I am affiliated. Its title was “Did BlackRock Originate the Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Pandemic Response Six Months beforehand?”[2]
My analysis of that presentation is that Titus was construing a false connection between 1) a BlackRock semi-public economics paper discussing the possibility of the FED ‘going direct’, defined there as “the central bank finding ways to get central bank money directly in the hands of public and private sector spenders”[3] and b) a later instantiation of that policy by the FED during the Covid-19 emergency.
Titus tries to make us believe that BlackRock had originated this policy and even ordered the FED to implement it. Titus states at 21m (till which point the video is very instructive and even enjoyable) that the BlackRock paper “tells the FED what to do when there is another downturn” and at 31m “that it is no accident, but according to a plan”.
The two points of meaningful coincidence he mentions to back up his allegation are 1) the paper was delivered at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the yearly gathering of the central and commercial bank big shots in August 2019, and 2) the FED implemented the policy about six months later at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on this coincidence–which is not even a correlation, leave alone causation–Titus bases his conclusion that BlackRock both originated the plan and ordered its implementation.
What he overlooked, and what pulls pretty much the rug out from his origination and coerced implementation thesis, is that ‘going direct’ and its close cousin ‘helicopter money’ have been discussed far and wide and comes up almost automatically when there is some financial crisis happening.
The media seems awash with talk about rotary flight – the ‘helicopter money’ or ‘helicopter drop‘ of Milton Friedman and Ben Bernanke fame.
This was stated by Oxford Professor of International Economics Roger Baldwin in 2016 in a paper with an overview of economists’ views of ‘going direct’ [4].
And some monetary reformers look at it like a possible step towards a sovereign money system [5,6]. Thomas Mayer, of the Swiss institute Flossbach von Storch Research Institute with sympathies for monetary reform, stated,
Helicopter money would facilitate the change-over from our present credit money system to an alternative money system, in which money is no longer created as private debt but as an asset backed by the reputation of the issuer. Crypto money technology would be well suited for the creation of and payments with reputation money.
And all these papers, including BlackRock’s, not only overlap in their policy proposals, but also in their analyses of the very minimal monetary policy space left for monetary authorities since the 2007 Global financial Crisis, which would justify the unusual policy.
Titus’ construal however–interpreting the policy as a novelty imposed on the FED–is based on unacceptable cherry-picking of just two events (the BlackRock paper and The FED policy), severely de-contextualizing the situation, then insinuating suspicious shenanigans, all laced with an entertaining “gotcha” element.
Titus does have a case in pointing out the entanglement between BlackRock and the FED, creating a big conflict of interest, either real or perceived. But he unnecessarily undermines this alarming fact by framing it in a highly speculative, conspiratorial set-up.
Given the frequency of Titus’ defective analyses I would conclude with the two following points, one of which is about research strategy and the second about the relationship between the monetary reform movement and researchers like Titus.
First, similar to my advise on how to use Wikipedia and conspiracist sources, if Titus (or Wikipedia or a conspiracist) makes a plausible claim, go to the source provided and engage the source itself. And if the material pans out and you get into a debate, refer to the source, not Titus, not Wikipedia nor any conspiracist.
Second, if the movement for just money aspires to applying the highest epistemic standards in making its case to the public, academia and the policy formation community, we have to keep our distance from researchers who mix too many unsubstantiated conspiracist claims into their discourse, as good and informative their non-speculative material might be.
But not all is lost. Many researchers started out in conspiracist or religionist circles and extracted themselves from such and learned to apply higher, epistemic standards to their output. And you would be surprised to find out the many to whom that might apply. Personally speaking, ‘been there, done that’, and left on my old web site the evidence for all to see and remind myself of my own jagged arc of epistemic maturation.
Govert Schuller
Shillong, Sept 2022
Sources
[1a]. Titus, John. 2020. “Summary – Going Direct Reset”. The Solari Report.
[1b]. Titus, John. 2020. “Presenting The Federal Reserve Script for Totalitarianism”. Best Evidence channel on YouTube, 20 April 2020.
[2]. Titus, John. 2021. “Did BlackRock Originate the Federal Reserve’s Unprecedented Pandemic Response Six Months beforehand?” AMI channel on YouTube, 24 Nov 2021.
[3]. Bartsch, E., Boivin, J., Fischer, S., Hildebrand, P., & Wang, S. 2019. “Dealing with the next downturn: From unconventional monetary policy to unprecedented policy coordination“. Macro and Market Perspectives, 105: 1-16.
[4]. Baldwin, Richard. 2016. “Helicopter money: Views of leading economists.” Voxeu.org, 13.
[5]. Mayer, Thomas. 2016. “From Zirp, Nirp, QE, and helicopter money to a better monetary system.” Flossbach von Storch Research Institute, Economic Policy Note 16.3 (2016): 2016.
[6]. Jourdan, Stan & Lonergan, Eric. 2016. “Citizens’ Monetary Dividend: Upgrading the ECB’s toolkit”. Quantitative Easing For People, Policy Brief, September 2016.
Titus’s heart is in the right place, but he lacks the expertise and credentials to be a credible commentator. Govert relies on the expertise of many and historical precedents as his excellent bibliographies show.
Steven Zarlenga relied on many experts and historic precedents as his remarkable website and book show. He also collaborated and debated with elite experts. Such practices lead to verifiable knowledge.
Assuming Titus is an idealistic truth-seeker, he needs to enter the world of peer testing, and to communicate humbly with knowledgeable people with legitimate questions, people like Govert.
Your “analysis” for me is disappointing and lacking in depth. For example, you begin by stating that Mr. Titus “makes some alarming claims which are not backed by evidence” and then you fail to produce any solid evidence of your own.
To prove your point you essentially put words in Titus’ mouth and, as if it mattered, you present a flurry of academic papers that – in your words – have dealt with “’going direct’ and its close cousin ‘helicopter money’ operations.” As an aside, Mr. Titus himself mentions additional similar earlier documents – including two from the Bank of England (2009 and 2014).
You even go so far as to point out that “some” monetary reformers look at such going direct and helicopter money operations as representing a possible step to a sovereign monetary system, as if that were somehow relevant or a good thing.
Titus clearly lays out his thesis. This excerpt is from your first reference, the Solari Summary: “What marks the Fed’s maneuvers in March 2020 as unprecedented . . .was what the Fed did with its new reserves: it disbursed them so as to cause the parallel, mirror-image creation of $3.5 trillion in new bank money. That simply did not occur during the [2008] GFC.”
Some key pieces used by Titus to come to this conclusion:
• The 2008 QE “helicopter money” did not result in significant inflation. This because the 2008 QE program kept its QE operations in the Reserve Circuit wherein the bankmoney supply was unaffected – as clearly shown by applicable Fed sources.
• The Blackrock paper presented in August 2019.
• September 4, 2019 marker where the Fed abruptly reversed its “tapering” policy and began expanding its balance sheet. (On September 17th came the NY Repo crash, indicative of the already obvious: the system was breaking apart at the seams).
• During this September period the Bankmoney Circuit started tracking the Reserve Circuit. So “the inflection point” of a new kind of operation is really September of 2019
• Six months later the Fed began making some truly mind-bending, spectacular moves that went almost unnoticed by the general public, but which are “Exhibit A” of the new “going direct” operation. (Foremost among these moves was the “Fed’s March 24 appointment of BlackRock to manage its massive corporate debt purchase program” allowing the creation of $3.5 trillion in new reserves and bankmoney in the space of just a few weeks. See this article for additional context: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/04/08/blackrock-takes-command/ )
Contrary to your claim, Titus actually says that Blackrock “BASICALLY” tells — as in EXPLAINS, NOT orders — the Fed what to do when there is another downturn. Thus, at minute 24:19 Titus says in summary, quote: “There it is — Blackrock’s ADVICE to the Fed.”
The Fed took that advice because our debt is, according to our own Fed Chair Powell, “on an unsustainable path,” growing at a faster rate than it can be paid back.
Using Fed and Bank of England materials listed in the show notes of a video cited in the Solari Summary, entitled “Quantitative Easing Is the Biggest Sham Ever,” Mr. Titus also shows empirically that explosive growth in bank money began tracking growth in the Reserve Circuit during and immediately prior to the pandemic.
Bottom line, this Covid QE operation was vastly different than the 2008 QE and is resulting in unbelievably massive transfers of wealth to the already obscenely wealthy and a virtual tidal wave of new bankmoney going into the stock market. Meanwhile the public is being massively and very effectively distracted by the extended “pandemic.”
Just FYI, former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd (among others) substantially agrees with John Titus on this: https://rumble.com/v1mny36-ed-dowd-covid-and-the-global-financial-collapse-a-tale-of-catastrophes-and-.html
I suspect that your larger objection to Titus is due to the position he has taken on the so-called pandemic, a position you call “conspiratorial” and not based in evidence. As a certified natural health consultant (now retired) for over 20 years, I was one of thousands who very early in 2020, (having been alerted by the truncated 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic), smelled something very fishy about the official narrative that was being pushed out to the public.
I myself began a “Covid in Context” page on my health website as a way to keep track of the REAL science and highly reputable experts along with the mountains of egregious inconsistencies in the narrative and the data we were being force-fed. So much solid material was coming forth that I simply could no longer keep up and abandoned my project several months ago.
I offer here a small sampling of very high quality sources to examine – in addition to Dowd above. One example of an extremely reputable (now retired) neurosurgeon very substantively speaking out can be found here: https://surgicalneurologyint.com/surgicalint-articles/covid-update-what-is-the-truth/ . Books might include The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The Bodies of Others by Dr. Naomi Wolf, Virus Mania, now in its 3rd edition by three medical doctors. And much, much more.
I suggest that perhaps it is you who needs to work at raising your “epistemic standards.”
PS: For the purpose of stimulating further discussion please feel free to post my comment, unedited, on your MR discussion board.
Joe, hope you’ll find time to respond at a substantial level.
I read through this as another John Titus hit-piece attempt by Govert, another guilt-by-association coating to his work, and I don’t know why. I sent Govert’s Groups.io posting of this piece to John Titus, just as an FYI.
I was perhaps unduly impressed.
On Govert’s topic of : “John Titus is not up to Snuff? Or the Need for Epistemic Maturation ”
John Titus replied to me.
“Yawn. A lot of labels. Lengthy and feeble “analysis” from someone I’ve never heard of. And I’m supposed to be interested in this because….?
Help me out here. “
Then.
“Perhaps Grover (Govert) should invest his time in some writing lessons to bring his stuff up to publishable form. “. (my emphasis)
Sorry about the Grover, Govert.
So I’m left to make my own observations on Govert’s John Titus lament.
And on John Titus’ blase response.
When I have time.
The Money Apprentice