Guitar one of the most well-know intsument in popular music of the 19th century and later. Countless jazz and popular songs have been composed within the structure of this series or progression of chords. The basic blues progression uses 3 chords - the Tonic (I) or the chord that the song is centered on, the Dominant (V) or the chord based on the fifth step of the Tonic scale, and the Subdominant (IV) or the chord based on the fourth step of the Tonic scale. In the example below, we use the key of F major. Thus the Tonic is F, the Dominant is C and the Subdominant is B-flat.
There is a cadence starting in measure 9 going from the Dominant (V) to the Subdominant (IV) finally to the Tonic (I) in measure 11. There are many variations on this cadence and may be V-IV-I or V-I or II-V-I, etc.
General Elements of the 12-bar Blues progression:
The progression is 12 measures long.
The 5th measure is typically the Subdominant (IV chord), or the chord based on the fourth step of the Tonic scale.
The 9th measure begins a cadence progressing to the Tonic (I chord).
a cappella Choral music performed without instrumental accompaniment.
Accelerando A symbol used in musical notation indicating to gradually quicken tempo.
Accent An emphasized note
Accent Stress of one tone over others, making it stand out; often it is the first beat of a measure
Accessible Music that is easy to listen to and understand.
Accompaniment Music that goes along with a more important part; often harmony or rhythmic patterns accompanying a melody.
Acoustics 1. The science relating to thecreation and dissipation of sound waves. 2. The way in which sound productionis affected by the physical properties of the room or chamber in which they areproduced
Action The height of the strings from the fretboard
Adagio A tempo having slow movement; restful at ease.
Allegretto Moderately fast, lively. Faster than Andante, slower than allegro
Allegro A direction to play lively and fast.
Alto Lowest of the female voices. Also contralto.
Anatomy of the guitar
Andante Moderately slow, a walking speed
Bar Also called a measure, a bar is a segment of written music in which there is a designated number of beats
Baroque Time in music history ranging from the middle of the 16th to the middle of the 17th centuries. Characterized by emotional, flowery music; written in strict form.
Bass Note Lowest note of a chord
Beat The unit of musical rhythm.
Binary form Two part form; the structure of a musical composition consisting of two main sections.
Body The guitar's body is of utmost importance: it provides the resonance that shapes the tone of an electric or acoustic guitar and provides the volume (or heft) of an acoustic guitar. It also may consist of: flattop (or just top): the "front" of the guitar.
treble/upper bout: the (usually) smaller curved part closest to the strings.
base/lower bout: the (usually) larger curved part behind the bridge.
waist: the inwardly curved part between the two bouts.
Factors that affect a guitar body's tonal qualities include the type of wood, the construction (whether layered or one-piece, hollow or solid-body), shape and size, and more. However, a solid-body electric guitar's shape is mostly aesthetic rather than functional.
Bridge The bridge is found somewhere between the middle and bottom of the body. Depending on the guitar, the strings may originate from the bridge or they might simply be supported by it. Most electric guitars allow the bridge to be raised or lowered, an adjustment necessary in setting up the guitar which may easily and safely be performed by any guitarist. This is typically done by adjusting screws, which are either thumbscrews which can be rotated with the fingers, or traditional screws requiring a screwdriver.
Acoustic guitars usually have a bridge and saddle arrangement. The strings originate at the bridge, usually held in by pegs. The strings then pass over a saddle, a flat piece of material held on its side. The saddle can be made of many materials, but the most common are either plastic or bone. Synthetic bone substitutes are becoming more common.
Cadence A sequence of chords that brings an end to a phrase, either in the middle or the end of a composition.
Cadenza Initially an improvised cadence by a soloist; later becoming an elaborate and written out passage in an aria or concerto, featuring the skills of an instrumentalist or vocalist.
Canon A musical form where the melody or tune is imitated by individual parts at regular intervals. The individual parts may enter at different measures and pitches. The tune may also be played at different speeds, backwards, or inverted.
Cantabile A style of singing which is characterized by the easy and flowing tone of the composition.
Cantata Music written for chorus and orchestra. Most often religious in nature.
Capo A device for transposing a fretted string instrument such as the guitar
Capriccio A quick, improvisational, spirited piece of music.
Carol A song or hymn celebrating Christmas.
Castrato Male singers who were castrated to preserve their alto and soprano vocal range.
Cavatina A short and simple melody performed by a soloist that is part of a larger piece.
Chamber music Written for 2 to 10 solo parts featuring one instrument to a part. Each part bears the same importance.
Chant Singing in unison, texts in a free rhythm. Similar to the rhythm of speech.
Choir Group of singers in a chorus.
Chorale A hymn sung by the choir and congregation often in unison.
Chord Simultaneous combination of three or more tones that constitute a single block of harmony.
Chord progression A string of chords played in succession.
Chorus A group singing in unison.
Chromatic scale Includes all twelve notes of an octave.
Classical Referring to that period from approximately 1750 1800, characterized musically by objectivity of the composer, emotional restraint, and simple harmonies.
Classical The period of music history which dates from the mid 1700’s to mid 1800’s. The music was spare and emotionally reserved, especially when compared to Romantic and Boroque music.
Classicism The period of music history which dates from the mid 1800’s and lasted about sixty years. There was a strong regard for order and balance.
Clavier The keyboard of a stringed instrument.
Clef In sheet music, a symbol at the beginning of the staff defining the pitch of the notes found in that particular staff.
Coda Closing section of a movement.
Concert master The first violin in an orchestra.
Concerto A composition written for a solo instrument. The soloist plays the melody while the orchestra plays the accompaniment.
Conductor One who directs a group of performers. The conductor indicates the tempo, phrasing, dynamics, and style by gestures and facial expressions.
Consonance A simultaneious sounding of tones that produces a feeling of rest, i.e., a feeling that there is no need for further resolution.
Contralto Lowest female singing voice.
Counterpoint Two or three melodic lines played at the same time.
Courante A piece of music written in triple time. Also an old French dance.
Crescendo Gradually growing louder
Da Capo From the beginning. A direction to repeat the entire compositon from the beginning to the place where the word "fine" appears or to the end.
Deceptive cadence A chord progression that seems to lead to resolving itself on the final chord; but does not.
Development Where the musical themes and melodies are developed, written in sonata form.
Diminuendo Gradually growing softer
Dissonance A simultaneous sounding of tones that produces a feeling of tension or unrest and a feeling that further resolution is needed.
Dissonance Harsh, discordant, and lack of harmony. Also a chord that sounds incomplete until it resolves itself on a harmonious chord.
Dolce Sweetly, softly
Double-Stop Playing two notes simultaneously on a string instrument.
Drone Dull, monotonous tone such as a humming or buzzing sound. Also a bass note held under a melody.
Duet A piece of music written for two vocalists or instrumentalists.
Dynamics Pertaining to the loudness or softness of a musical composition. Also the symbols in sheet music indicating volume.
Dynamics Varying intensities of sound throughout a given musical composition. (Piano, Mezzo Piano, Forte, etc.)
Elegy An instrumental lament with praise for the dead.
Encore A piece of music played at the end of a recital responding to the audiences enthusiastic reaction to the performance, shown by continuous applause.
Energico A symbol in sheet music a direction to play energetically.
Enharmonic Interval Two notes that differ in name only. The notes occupy the same position. For example: C sharp and D flat.
Ensemble The performance of either all instruments of an orchestra or voices in a chorus.
Espressione Expressively
Espressivo A direction to play expressively.
Etude A musical composition written solely to improve technique. Often performed for artistic interest.
Exposition The first section of a movement written in sonata form, introducing the melodies and themes.
Expressionism Atonal and violent style used as a means of evoking heightened emotions and states of mind.
Falsetto A style of male singing where by partial use of the vocal chords, the voice is able to reach the pitch of a female.
Fermata A pause, stop, or interruption as that before the cadenza of a concerto.
Fermata To hold a tone or rest held beyond the written value at the discretion of the performer.
Fifth The interval between two notes. Three whole tones and one semitone make up the distance between the two notes.
Finale Movement or passage that concludes the musical composition.
Fine The end of a musical piece
Flat A symbol indicating that the note is to be diminished by one semitone.
Form The structure of a piece of music.
Forte A symbol indicating to play loud.
Fortissimo Very loud
Fourth The interval between two notes. Two whole tones and one semitone make up the distance between the two notes.
Fretboard On the front side of the neck is the fretboard, or fingerboard. On it will be a number of metal frets, usually 20 to 24. Strings are held down behind a fret to change the note a string will produce. The first fret is the one nearest the nut (see below), unless there is one immediately after the nut, which is called a "zero fret".
Fugue A composition written for three to six voices. Beginning with the exposition, each voice enters at different times, creating counterpoint with one another.
Gain How much an amplifier increases the signal level is called the gain. This is usually measured in decibels (dB). Mathematically speaking, the gain is equal to the output level divided by the input level. (for power gain in decibels gain is computed by the relation G(dB)=10log(Pout/Pin)(Electrical)).
Galliard Music written for a lively French dance for two performers written in triple time.
Gavotte A 17th century dance written in Quadruple time, always beginning on the third beat of the measure.
Glee Vocal composition written for three or more solo parts, usually without instrumental accompaniment.
Glissando Sliding between two notes.
Grandioso Word to indicate that the movement or entire composition is to be played grandly.
Grave Word to indicate the movement or entire composition is to be played very slow and serious.
Grazioso Word to indicate the movement or entire composition is to be played gracefully.
Gregorian Chant Singing or chanting in unison without strict rhythm. Collected during the Reign of Pope Gregory VIII for psalms and other other parts of the church service.
Gusto In good taste, tasteful
Harmony Pleasing combination of two or three tones played together in the background while a melody is being played. Harmony also refers to the study of chord progressions.
Headstock (Head) The headstock lies at the end of the guitar's neck. The major mechanical purpose of the headstock is to support the tuning machines (tuners) which terminate the strings of the instrument. A secondary purpose is identification; many guitar makers use a distinctive headstock shape, perhaps with logo or model information, or imitate that of a more well-known brand.
Homophony Music written to be sung or played in unison.
Hymn A song of praise and glorification. Most often to honor God.
Impromptu A short piano piece, often improvisational and intimate in character.
Instrumentation Arrangement of music for a combined number of instruments.
Interlude Piece of instrumental music played between scenes in a play or opera.
Intermezzo Short movement or interlude connecting the main parts of the composition.
Interpretation The expression the performer brings when playing his instrument.
Interval The distance in pitch between two notes.
Intonation The manner in which tones are produced with regard to pitch.
Introduction The opening section of a piece of music or movement.
Istesso tempo The same tempo. (The tempo remains as before, after a change was made)
Just Itonation (just IN-toe-nay-shun) A manner of tuning in which the intervals are tuned so that they do not beat. In keyboard tuning, this means that the fifths are tuned very small in order to make most of the thirds pure.
Key System of notes or tones based on and named after the key note.
Key signature The flats and sharps at the beginning of each staff line indicating the key of music the piece is to be played.
Klangfarbenmelodie The technique of altering the tone color of a single note or musical line by changing from one instrument to another in the middle of a note or line.
Largo Large, broad, slow and stately
Leading note The seventh note of the scale where there is a strong desire to resolve on the tonic.
Legato Word to indicate that the movement or entire composition is to be played smoothly.
Leitmotif A musical theme given to a particular idea or main character of an opera.
Lento Slow
Libretto A book of text containing the words of an opera.
Ligature Curved line connecting notes to be sung or played as a phrase.
Madrigal A contrapuntal song written for at least three voices, usually without accompaniment.
Maestoso Majestic, dignified
Maestro Refers to any great composer, conductor, or teacher of music.
Major One of the two modes of the tonal system. Music written in major keys have a positive affirming character.
March A form of music written for marching in two step time. Originally the march was used for military processions.
Measure The unit of measure where the beats on the lines of the staff are divided up into two, three, four beats to a measure.
Medley Often used in overtures, a composition that uses passages from other movements of the composition in its entirety.
Melody An arrangement of single tones in a meaningful sequence
Meno Less
Mezzo The voice between soprano and alto. Also, in sheet music, a direction for the tempo to be played at medium speed.
Mezzo forte Moderately loud
Mezzo piano Moderately soft
Minor One of the two modes of the tonal system. The minor mode can be identified by the dark, melancholic mood.
Minuet Slow and stately dance music written in triple time.
Modes Either of the two octave arrangements in modern music. The modes are either major or minor.
Modulation To shift to another key.
Molto, molta Much
Monotone Repetition of a single tone.
Motif Primary theme or subject that is developed.
Movement A separate section of a larger composition.
Musette A Boroque dance with a drone bass.
Musicology The study of forms, history, science, and methods of music.
Natural A symbol in sheet music that returns a note to its original pitch after it has been augmented or diminished.
Neck The neck of a guitar extends from the body. Some guitars may have it glued on, which is a set neck, and some may have it bolted on. A few guitars are made entirely of one piece of wood, or at the least, one piece of wood comprises the neck and part of the body, up to where the bridge is located, with the sides attached. Set necks are almost universal amongst acoustic guitars. The bolt-on or screw-on neck is similarly common with electric guitars. Both acoustic and electric guitars usually have a steel truss rod going through the neck. It counteracts the pull of the strings on the neck, strenghtening it, and reducing its curvature to an appropriate amount, also allowing for further adjustments if needed. Classical guitars do not require a truss rod, because there is less tension from their strings. Adjusting the truss rod is a step in setting up the guitar, but only an experienced luthier are encouraged to perform this adjustment. There have been several examples of alternative materials for the manufacture of guitar necks, the most noteable being a carbon fibre composite, the neck being the only structural requirement for string tension.
Neoclassical Movement in music where the characteristics are crisp and direct.
Nocturne A musical composition that has a romantic or dreamy character with nocturnal associations.
Nonet A composition written for nine instruments.
Notation First developed in the 8th century, methods of writing music.
Nut All strings pass through the nut at the end of the fretboard. It roughly divides the fretboard and headstock. Its function is to maintain proper string spacing and provide an endpoint for the string. On acoustic guitars, the nut and saddle are usually made of similar material. Electric guitars commonly use plastic, synthetics, and sometimes metal. As tremolo bars can cause tuning problems, guitars equipped with them usually have some manner of locking nut, where the strings are clamped down. Fender has recently introduced the roller nut, a nut incorporating a system of ball bearings similar to a locking nut, but easier on the strings.
Obbligato An extended solo, often accompanying the vocal part of an aria.
Octave Eight full tones above the key note where the scale begins and ends.
Octet A composition written for eight instruments.
Opera A drama where the words are sung instead of spoken.
Operetta A short light musical drama.
Opus Convenient method of numbering a composer’s works where a number follows the word “opus”. For example, Opus 28, No. 4.
Oratorio An extended cantata on a sacred subject.
Orchestra A large group of instrumentalists playing together.
Orchestration Arranging a piece of music for an orchestra. Also, the study of music.
Ornaments Tones used to embellish the principal melodic tone.
Ostinato A repeated melodic or rhythmic fragment
Ostinato A repeated phrase.
Overture Introduction to an opera or other large musical work.
Parody A composition based on previous work. A common technique used in Medieval and Renaissance music.
Part A line in a contrapuntal work performed by an individual voice or instrument.
Partial A harmonic given off by a note when it is played.
Partita Suite of Baroque dances.
Pastoral A composition whose style is simple and idyllic; suggestive of rural scenes.
Pentatonic Scale A musical scale having five notes. For example: the five black keys of a keyboard make up a pentatonic scale.
Phrase A single line of music played or sung. A musical sentence.
Phrase A small section of a composition comprising a musical thought. Comparable to a sentence in language.
Pianissimo Very soft
Piano An instruction in sheet music to play softly. Abbreviated by a “p”.
Piano Soft, softly
Pitch The frequency of a note determining how high or low it sounds.
Pizzicato String instruments that are picked instead of bowed.
Polyphonic Music Music in which two or more melodies sound simultaneously
Polyphony Combining a number of individual but harmonizing melodies. Also known as counterpoint.
Polyrhythms Music in which two or more keys are used simultaneously in a given composition
Polytonality Combination of two or more keys being played at the same time.
Portamento A mild glissando between two notes for an expressive effect.
Prelude A short piece originally preceded by a more substantial work, also an orchestral introduction to opera, however not lengthy enough to be considered an overture.
Presto A direction in sheet music indicating the tempo is to be very fast.
Progression The movement of chords in succession.
Quadrille A 19th century square dance written for 4 couples.
Quartet A set of four musicians who perform a composition written for four parts.
Quintet A set of five musicians who perform a composition written for five parts.
Recapitulation A reprise.
Recital A solo concert with or without accompaniment.
Recitative A form of writing for vocals that is close to the manner of speech and is rhythmically free.
Reed The piece of cane in wind instruments. The players cause vibrations by blowing through it in order to produce sound.
Refrain A repeating phrase that is played at the end of each verse in the song.
Register A portion of the range of the instrument or voice.
Relative major and minor The major and minor keys that share the same notes in that key. For example: A minor shares the same note as C major.
Relative pitch Ability to determine the pitch of a note as it relates to the notes that precede and follow it.
Renaissance A period in history dating from the 14th to 16th centuries. This period signified the rebirth of music, art, and literature.
Reprise To repeat a previous part of a composition generally after other music has been played.
Requiem A dirge, hymn, or musical service for the repose of the dead.
Resonance When several strings are tuned to harmonically related pitches, all strings vibrate when only one of the strings is struck.
Retrograde A form of contrapuntal imitation in which the melody is played backwards.
Reverb
When sound is produced in an enclosed space ,multiple reflections build up and blend together, creating reverberation, or reverb. This is most noticeable when the sound stops but the reflections continue, decreasing in amplitude, until they can no longer be heard.
The time it takes for the sound pressure level of the reverberation to decay 60 decibels is known as the reverberation time, or RT(60).
Rhythm The variation of the accentuation of sounds or other events over time.
Rhythm The element of music pertaining to time, played as a grouping of notes into accented and unaccented beats.
Ricercar Elaborate polyphonic composition of the Boroque and Renaissance periods.
Rigaudon A quick 20th century dance written in double time.
Ritardando Gradually growing slower
Rococo A musical style characterized as excessive, ornamental, and trivial.
Romantic A period in history during the 18th and early 19th centuries where the focus shifted from the neoclassical style to an emotional, expressive, and imaginative style.
Rondo A musical form where the principal theme is repeated several times. The rondo was often used for the final movements of classical sonata form works.
Root The tone of the scale upon which a chord is built
Root Position The postion of a chord in which the root appears as the lowest tone.
Round A canon where the melody is sung in two or more voices. After the first voice begins, the next voice starts singing after a couple of measures are played in the preceding voice. All parts repeat continuously.
Rubato An important characteristic of the Romantic period. It is a style where the strict tempo is temporarily abandoned for a more emotional tone.
Scale Successive notes of a key or mode either ascending or descending.
Scherzo Pertaining to the sonata form, a fast movement in triple time.
Scordatura The retuning of a stringed instrument in order to play notes below the ordinary range of the instrument or to produce an usual tone color.
Septet A set of seven musicians who perform a composition written for seven parts.
Sequence A successive transposition and repetition of a phrase at different pitches.
Serenade A lighthearted piece, written in several movements, usually as background music for a social function.
Sextet A set of six musicians who perform a composition written for six parts.
Sforzando Explosively
Sharp A symbol indicating the note is to be raised by one semitone.
Single Coil A single coil or just single is a type of pickup for the electric guitar. As its name indicates, it is composed of wire wrapped in a single coil around magnets.
Slide A glissando or portamento. Also refers to the moving part of a trombone.
Slur A curve over notes to indicate that a phrase is to be played legato.
Slur A curved line drawn over two or more notes of different pitches, indicating that they are to be executed in a smoothly connected manner without a break.
Sonata Music of a particular form consisting of four movements. Each of the movements differ in tempo, rhythm, and melody; but are held together by subject and style.
Sonata form A complex piece of music. Usually the first movement of the piece serving as the exposition, a development, or recapitulation.
Sonatina A short or brief sonata.
Song cycle A sequence of songs, perhaps on a single theme, or with texts by one poet, or having continuos narrative.
Soprano The highest female voice.
Sostenuto Sustained
Spirito Spiritedly
Staccato Separate. Sounded in a short, detached manner
Staccato Short detached notes, as opposed to legato.
Staff Made up of five horizontal parallel lines and the spaces between them on which musical notation is written.
Stretto Pertaining to the fugue, the overlapping of the same theme or motif by two or more voices a few beats apart.
String Quartet A group of 4 instruments, two violins, a viola, and cello.
Suite A loose collection of instrumental compositions.
Symphony Three to four movement orchestral piece, generally in sonata form.
Syncopation The rhythmic result produced when a regularly accented beat is displaced onto an unaccented beat.
System A combination of two or more staves on which all the notes are vertically aligned and performed simultaneously in differing registers and instruments.
Tablature A six-line staff that graphically represents the guitar fingerboard, with the top line indicating the highest sounding string (high E). By placing a number on the appropriate line, the string and fret of any note can be indicated. The number 0 represents an open string. The 0's mean that string is played "open" (no finger) and the other numbers indicate which fret you place your finger on. An 'X' means to muffle, not let it ring.
Tablature A system of notation for stringed instruments. The notes are indicated by the finger positions.
Temperament Refers to the tuning of an instrument.
Tempo Indicating speed.
Tempo The rate of speed at which a musical compostion is performed
Tenor 1. A high male voice between alto and baritone. In early polyphonic music, it sang the cantus firmus in long held notes. 2. Instruments in the tenor range.
Tessitura The range of an instrumental or a vocal part.
Theme A melodic or, sometimes a harmonic idea presented in a musical form.
Theme A short musical passage that states an idea. It often provides the basis for variations, development, etc.
Timbre Tone color, quality of sound that distinguishes one verse or instrument to another. It is determined by the harmonies of sound.
Time Signature A numeric symbol in sheet music determining the number of beats to a measure.
Tonal Pertains to tone or tones.
Tonality The tonal characteristics determined by the relationship of the notes to the tone.
Tone 1. A musical sound 2. The quality of a musical sound
Tone The intonation, pitch, and modulation of a composition expressing the meaning, feeling, or attitude of the music.
Tone less Unmusical, without tone.
Tonic The first tone of a scale also known as a keynote.
Treble The playing or singing the upper half of the vocal range. Also the highest voice in choral singing.
Tremolo Quick repetition of the same note or the rapid alternation between two notes.
Tremolo Bar The tremolo bar, also called the "tremolo arm," "whammy bar," or "vibrato bar," is found on part of electric guitars. It was popularized on the Fender Stratocaster, and is now seen on many different models, including some hollow-body electrics. Another popular type of tremolo bar is the Floyd Rose. Its base will be located below the bridge. Pushing down on the bar will lower the pitch of the strings, and pulling it up will raise the pitch. Rapidly pushing and releasing (or pushing and pulling for exaggerated effect) will produce a modulation in pitch, called vibrato. Vibrato is often confused with tremolo (modulation in volume), hence the misnomer tremolo bar.
Triad Three note chords consisting of a root, third, and fifth.
Trill Rapid alternation between notes that are a half tone or whole tone apart.
Trio A composition written for three voices and instruments performed by three persons.
Triple time Time signature with three beats to the measure.
Triplet Three notes played in the same amount of time as one or two beats.
Tritone A chord comprised of three whole tones resulting in an augmented fourth or diminished fifth.
Tune A rhythmic succession of musical tones, a melody for instruments and voices.
Tuning The raising and lowering a pitch of an instrument to produce the correct tone of a note.
Tutee Passage for the entire ensemble or orchestra without a soloist.
Tutto, Tutta All, whole
Twelve tone music Music composed such that each note is used the same number of times.
Unison Two or more voices or instruments playing the same note simultaneously.
Verismo A form of Italian opera beginning at the end of the 19th century. The setting is contemporary to the composer’s own time, and the characters are modeled after every day life.
Vibrato Small fluctuation of pitch used as an expressive device to intensify a sound.
Vibrato Creating variation pitch in a note by quickly alternating between notes.
Virtuoso A person with notable technical skill in the performance of music.
Vivace Direction to performer to play a composition in a brisk, lively, and spirited manner.
Voice One of two or more parts in polyphonic music. Voice refers to instrumental parts as well as the singing voice.
Volume Degree of loudness or softness of a sound.
Waltz Ballroom dance type in triple meter; in the Romantic era, a short, stylized piano piece.
Whole tone scale A scale consisting of only whole tone notes. Such a scale consists of only 6 notes.
Whole note A whole note is equal to 2 half notes, 4 quarter notes, 8 sixteenth notes, etc.
Xylophone A percussion instrument consisting of a row of chromatically tuned wooden bars, arranged in the manner of a piano keyboard. The bars are supported by a wooden frame over resonator tubes and they are sounded by being struck with mallets. Currently, the standard xylophone has a range of three-and-a-half octaves (f to c4). Commercial sizes can have as few as three octaves and as many as five octaves. The xylophone sounds one octaves higher than the written note.
Yodel (yõ -del) A style of singing or calling that involves switching the registers of the voice rapidly from head voice to chest voice (or falsetto and natural voice). The peculiar high warbling of the Swiss and Tyrolean mountaineers.
Zither Family of string instruments with a sound box over which strings are stretched; they may be plucked or bowed. Zithers appear in many shapes and are common in traditional music throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.
We do love our cellphones. And we hate them, too, of course—when they drop a call, go dead in the middle of a conversation, or simply fail to work in another country. Soon we’ll probably be complaining about other things—perhaps that our handsets can’t receive satellite TV broadcasts or last more than a week on a single charge.
You might guess that better microelectronics will soon provide higher data rates, lower power consumption, and greater flexibility in the types of communication that our handsets can manage. To some extent, that’s true. But transistor advances alone will probably not be enough. The Moore’s Law world of regularly doubling transistor densities has brought us cheap PCs that outperform the multimillion-dollar mainframes of 30 years ago, but those incredible shrinking transistors might not do much to eliminate dropped calls. In this respect, the most significant improvements may, in fact, come from what seems a bizarre source: better mechanical components.
The idea of adding a bunch of moving parts to a radio handset conjures up images of cellphones outfitted steampunk style with brass levers and steel gears. This, of course, is not what I mean. Rather, I’m suggesting that tomorrow’s designs will benefit from advances in the kinds of mechanical devices already found in cellphones and other wireless equipment. If you don’t believe your phone contains such things, open up the back and take a look. You’ll see a battery and integrated circuits—and also such things as thin-film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs), surface acoustic-wave (SAW) resonators, and quartz crystals. These components, which convert electrical signals to mechanical displacements, do the work that electronics struggle with—for example, selecting a narrow band of radio frequencies and removing interfering signals from all the energy captured by the antenna, and synthesizing extremely stable oscillating waveforms, which are needed to process the incoming radio-frequency signals.
This vision of wireless gear evolving to include more and better mechanical devices of this sort is very different from the approach some radio engineers are now pursuing. They seek to eliminate analog filters and use digital circuits to handle everything—interfering signals and all—using software to do all the filtering. The problem with building such a fully software-defined radio is that the ultrafast analog-to-digital converters that could deal with interfering signals in such a setup are not yet available. Worse, when they do become available, they will probably use too much power to be practical for battery-powered handsets.
Doing more of a radio receiver’s up-front work mechanically has many advantages over relying solely on electronics and software. For example, it eases the demands on the electronics used for further signal processing—the additional filtering, analog-to-digital conversion, and so forth—and that in turn saves on the power consumed in that circuitry. This strategy would allow a portable radio receiver to monitor a wide swath of the spectrum at all times without swiftly burning through its batteries. That will be important in the much-anticipated world of cognitive radio, in which our handsets become agile enough to exploit frequencies that are fair game only when a higher-priority user hasn’t claimed them.
It’s likely that better mechanical components, and the cognitive-radio techniques they enable, will usher in the next wave of mobile telephony by giving our cellphones access to much more spectrum. These phones will operate in multiple bands, provide greater data throughput, and minimize if not eliminate the need for wireless providers to drop our calls because traffic exceeds capacity. Consumers will love the result, even if they don’t know anything about the high-tech mechanics that may soon make it possible.
How can mechanical devices outperform electronic ones? One reason is that they generally consume no battery power. Another has to do with the quality factor of the resonating components, a quantity that physicists and engineers denote with the letter Q. The higher the Q, the more selective the resonator will be in responding only to a narrow range of frequencies.
Like any good radio receiver, the one in a cellphone requires resonators with Qs greater than 1000. Resonant electrical circuits, typically built with capacitors and inductors, have great difficulty achieving values that high. Indeed, the inductors in conventional integrated circuits are dismal, generally yielding circuits with Qs of less than 10. Vibrating mechanical resonators, on the other hand, can easily provide values in the required range.
Unfortunately, the need for such resonators makes handsets more costly to manufacture. If tomorrow’s cellphones were to use many more of these mechanical components, the expense of including them could well dominate the cost of handsets. And the large sizes typical of these mechanical components could be a problem, too, although some are already quite small. Makers of FBARs, for example, use micromachining to construct on-chip gigahertz-frequency resonators with dimensions of about 200 micrometers.
* Barclays, RBS and HSBC face losing billions * Wall Street plummets by 2 per cent after late opening * FTSE falls by 1.5 per cent before stabilising * Banks see £14billion wiped off market value in one day * Dubai may consider selling QE2 to tackle debt
British banks were teetering on the brink of a fresh meltdown today after it emerged they had invested heavily in crisis-hit Dubai.
An $80billion debt default in the emirate has already reawakened the spectre of a global 'double dip' - that the first shoots of recovery could be wiped out by a second wave of recession.
But the level of exposure that the crippled British banking sector faces is now under renewed scrutiny.
The crisis was prompted by Dubai World, the development company behind three palm shaped islands as well as an off-shore replica of the globe , defaulting on its debt.
Today it emerged that:
* Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was Dubai World's biggest loan arranger since January 2007, according to JP Morgan * HSBC has an estimated £9.6billion in loans and advances to UAE customers * Barclays has an exposure of around £3billion
Gordon Brown
Another bailout? Gordon Brown (right) meets Dubai's ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at Downing Street earlier this week
The figures are particularly alarming as the sector has had to be bailed-out by the tax payer on a number of occasions over the last year-and-a-half
Earlier this month, RBS and Lloyds Banking group received another £50billion to keep them afloat
RBS - which has received the biggest state rescue anywhere in the world - is now effectively owned by the taxpayer.
As the money markets continued to falter, Gordon Brown moved to dispel investors' panic, claiming that he believed British banks were 'well-capitalised'.
Speaking at the Commonwealth summit in Trinidad, Mr Brown said: 'I think we will find this is not on the scale of the previous problems we have dealt with.'
Asked if the Dubai situation could spark a 'double-dip' recession, he said: 'You are obviously going to have setbacks with a bank here or an organisation there which has had problems, but I do believe the world has a better way of monitoring what is happening, so we can be sure that - despite setbacks - we will continue to go forward.' Dubai
Under construction: While the world's tallest tower the Burj Dubai nears completion, many ambitious building projects have come to a standstill Dubai airport
Abandoned: A filthy car left behind at Dubai airport after its owner became one of many ex-pats who fleeing the country after the bubble burst
Stock markets around the world have endured another turbulent 24 hours.
Wall Street plummeted 2 per cent when it opened at 2.30pm GMT this afternoon.
In London, the FTSE fell around 1.5 per cent first thing after a 3 per cent fall yesterday wiped almost £44 billion from blue-chip stocks.
The index recovered its poise to stand 0.5 per cent lower after the first hour of trading. It was at 5188.73 at 12.45pm, down from 5194.13 at start of trading this morning.
In Frankfurt, the Dax index fell 1.32 per cent to 5,540.34 while in France, the CAC lost 1 per cent to 3,639.66.
Asian markets were also under pressure overnight as Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell more than 5 per cent and Japan's Nikkei was 3 per cent lower.
Banks worldwide saw £14billion wiped off their market value yesterday.
Dubai's rulers have done their best to calm fears, claiming the situation was under control.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al Maktoum, the uncle of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, said: ''Our intervention in Dubai World was carefully planned and reflects its specific financial position.
'The government is spearheading the restructuring of this commercial operation in the full knowledge of how the markets would react.
'We understand the concerns of the market and the creditors in particular.
'However, we have had to intervene because of the need to take decisive action to address its particular debt burden.'
There were reports today that the emirate may consider selling the QE2, bought for $100million in 2007, to tackle some of its debt.l
Emirati traders react as they monitor data on screens at the Dubai Financial Market yesterday
A man in front of a Korea Composite Stock Price Index in Seoul this morning
Much of the debt default falls on Dubai World, which owns property developer Nakhell.
As of August, the conglomerate had $59billion of liabilities which it now hopes to avoid redeeming for six months.
Analysts had expected that the Dubai's oil-rich neighbour Abu Dhabi would offer financial support.
But Dubai may have to abandon an economic model that focused on developing swathes of desert with foreign money and labour.
Even the prospect of an Abu-Dhabi-backed bailout did little to allay concerns among investors, already worried the global economy may not be recovering quickly enough to justify a near doubling of prices for emerging market stocks and many commodities since March.
Tokyo traders have already dubbed the development Financial Crisis Part II.
'The panic button's been hit again,' said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong.
'The biggest worry I have is whether this will trigger a repricing in the overall emerging market,' said Arthur Lau, a fund manager in Hong Kong with JF Asset Management.
'This an important reminder that the credit crisis is forgotten but not gone,' Robert Rennie, strategist at Westpac Global Markets Group, said in a note.
Asian banks, like their European peers, scrambled to distance themselves from Dubai, a desert emirate that emerged from dusty obscurity to invest in global lenders such as Standard Chartered and lure fund managers with the promise of a tax-free lifestyle. Dubai
Bursting the bubble: The launch of Atlantis hotel (above), on one of the palm islands (below) last November was an extravagant celebration of Dubai's ambitions
Dubai The nerves showed in credit markets, at the centre of the financial storm triggered by the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy last year.
Asian credit default swaps, used to insure against default, were at their widest in a month, with the Asia ex-Japan iTraxx investment-grade index touching 124/129 basis points.
Dubai's credit default swaps were being quoted as high as 500-550 basis points, some traders said on Thursday.
Dubai's debt problems are a hangover from a property bubble that imploded after the financial crisis derailed its plans to become a magnet for tourists and a regional hub for everything from shipping to entertainment.
Banks' exposure to a Dubai default pales in comparison to the $2.8 trillion in writedowns the International Monetary Fund estimates U.S. and European lenders will have to make between 2007 and 2010 as a result of the credit crisis.
'Similar stories to the one in Dubai are likely to come out, leading risk money to pull out from assets such as commodities and stocks,' said Takahiko Murai, general manager of equities at Nozomi Securities in Japan.
Japan's biggest bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group fell as Japan's Nikkei average struck a four-month closing low. It also came under pressure from weak exporters after the dollar hit a fresh 14-year low against the yen. The Australian and New Zealand dollars retreated.
Shares in HSBC Holdings, one of the bookrunners on an outstanding $5.5 billion Dubai World loan, dropped more than 7 per cent and Standard Chartered losses topped 6 per cent.
The London listed shares of the two lenders led the biggest tumble in European bank stocks in six months on Thursday. Revelations of massive debts of Dubai World sent the markets into turmoil
Iconic: Dubai's seven star sail-shaped hotel, the Burj Al Arab, was one of the first prestigious projects to give the emirate an international profile
Until 1971 dollar was tied to gold content, so the US currency was supported with gold reserves of the USA. However since 1971 dollar and gold correlation was canceled and dollars were produced in unlimited amount. Dollar purchasing power was ensured not only with the USA GDP (as it usually happens) but also with the GDP of other countries in the world.
It is ok, but the states which indirectly supported the power of dollar with their economies never had control on volume of dollar emission. The USA government doesn’t have such control either. The right of control has only the Fed of the USA.
The Federal Reserve System (which is the central bank of the USA) is a privately owned organization and it is a property of 20 private banks of the USA. Their principal business is to produce the world money. The Fed owners devoted a lot of time (decades, even centuries) and efforts to achieve that privilege. Here we can mention the 1-st and the 2-nd World Wars and Breton Woods Agreement in 1944 etc., and certainly the establishment of the Fed in1907.
Thus finally a group of private individuals obtained a right to produce dollars, determine the volume and terms of production etc. In the period since 1971 till 2009 the volume of dollars in the world was increased in dozens of times, it exceeded the real volume of products in the world in many times.
Fed owners as private organization first of all and secondly the USA held all the aces in this situation. The advantages of the Fed owners we will discuss later. As for the benefits of the USA, this is the opportunity during the last 38 years (since 1944 and especially since 1971) to live beyond their means.
The USA GDP makes up 20% of the world’s production, and consumption of the USA is 40% of goods produced yearly in the world. How is it possible? It’s possible only as result of dollar emission without production increase and great demand for dollar in countries of the whole world. Exchange of goods and tangible assets for uncovered but popular dollars seems to be very similar to the situation when the Island of Manhattan was bought for $24 (in trinkets and beads) from the American Indians.
Many countries build in their economies to the system of dollar purchasing power support. If they also had a right to provide the control of dollar emission as well as if the USA government had the right of control, the world economy would never undergo a crisis. Real volume of dollars would correspond to the volume of assets, which support the currency.
However dollar emission control is provided only by several private individuals. After all, it is well-known that private individuals have private interests.
I didn’t mean to criticize the Fed, the United States of America or someone else. Let’s not rake anyone over the coals. However we should be realistic to get at a true picture of the world we live in. A true picture of the world will help you understand what is going on, what is doing to be next and what you can do to avoid crisis consequences or make them as soft as possible.
Now we have a question. What made the Fed to produce more dollars than the world economy required for stability?
The matter is that if you are a private individual and have a right to issue dollar, which is supported with the world economy, so you are tempted to start overproduction (if only you are no saint like Maria Theresa, but bankers of Fed are certainly not), as it gives you fantastic opportunities and privileges. That was the real purpose the Fed was established for, that was the real aim of affords to make dollar to become the world currency. Your dollar overproduction is your own business. It is the best business in the world. It is much more profitable than any other way to make money. Drugs, prostitution and arms traffic look like childish sports comparing with the right of dollar production.
Dollar overproduction was organized to get rich (what can be other reason?). With help of this actually virtual money you can buy not virtual but really liquid assets (companies, plants, gold and other asset).
In order to prevent the influence of unsecured part of dollar emission on the product market, which can lead to dollar devaluation (and this will inevitably happen if there are more dollars than products and assets in the world) genius Fed owners invented very effective ways to tie up, to freeze the considerable proportion of dollars in a virtual product.
First of all, they used stock market for this purpose. Usual and normal stock market was changed to a great extent into virtual. Shares of a firm really have a certain price. However, the main and almost the only shares value on a normal market depends on business profitability; that means that shareholders get their income as a part of company profit shared between shareholders. Shares grow in prices in case if annual profit from laid-down capital grows. That is the situation on normal stock market.
The situation will be different on a virtual stock market. You will be explained that profitability is not of a great importance. These 2, 3, 4 or 5% of corporate profit, which earn a corporation, and 10, 20 or 50% of this profit which are shared between shareholders don’t mean anything.
The key condition is increase of capitalization and increase of shares value correspondingly. It’s important that your share holding increased in value. That is the main income from investment. Actually that is a trick for chumps. And don’t be disappointed with a fact that very smart and competent people are among these chumps. "The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived." Unfortunately, this rule is universal, has no exception and applies to very clever people too.
The situation on a virtual stock market is the following:
Imagine that a businessman made one or several million dollars. He starts thinking about widening of investment, for example about building of a new plant. For this purpose he has to go out of his way to develop a high-quality product which will be on demand, to find a building land, to build a plant, to hire personnel, to train them, to lay in supplies of raw materials, to produce some products, to promote own trademark, to sale own products etc. These are huge inputs of own labor, time and health, and you get only petty money from the investment. This kind of work requires your attention and forces daily, monthly and yearly. No pains, no gains. However, a ‘sweet’ stock market comes to hand as an alternative. You don’t have to make any efforts. Your money and your share holdings rise in prices annually. Actually 10-15% annually is added to initial price for you just on paper. No headaches, no special muscle or mental efforts.
It is easy and clear, as free cheese in a well-known device. It is really difficult not to get deceived and not to trust economic analysts, who explain that the main thing is not a company’s profitability but increase of rate value.
This is really very important for those who changed stock market into virtual. Stock market based of increase of stock price can “utilize” or “tie up” dollar in dozen times more than stock market based on shares value evaluation according to the real corporate profitability. It is really important for virtual stock market creators as they count tens of trillions of dollars.
By the way, options, futures and other stock rubbish are also acts in the same performance which we call “virtual stock market”.
That’s why even very smart businessmen were interested in being deceived and in believing in stock market, they had a hope to lighten their burden. In fact, real money you earned doing a job of work were changed in such market into virtual capital.
A stock market trick founders solved not only the problem of ‘freezing’ dollars. Such market provided other fantastic opportunities for them; it provided them with chance to make vast sums of money.
If you control key events of this market and you are a man of means (if you publish dollars you have surely no problem with money as you can always open long-term credit account for yourself), if you create news which will influence the market, and if you set time and order for news to be broadcasted, you will make fantastic sums of money. For all that, your money (in spite of money of those chumps who also try to gamble on a stock exchange) will be not virtual at all, your real profitability will be not 10-15 virtual percents but real 40, 50, 60,…,100%. And it happens year by year.
The main thing is that you always know exactly when you are going to collapse the market after your money is derived from it. And until that moment you will buy up controlling stocks of really profitable enterprises year by year in order to have a great part of real actives in your hands after economy collapse.
Stock market for other participants can be compared with Russian roulette in its most extreme variant when there are five bullets in a six-shot revolver. That is also a gamble, and even in such kind of gambles there are chumps who win, but there will be not many of them as results are determined with certain starting rules.
Stock market was really ensured with money only by 1-2%. That means that only 1-2% of money can be taken out by invertors without losses, as this market is virtual and it wasn’t supposed that investors could leave this market simultaneously and take out at least the sum they paid at the entry.
This situation is similar to situation at a bank when all clients decide to take their deposits simultaneously. Such bank comes very close to bankruptcy. However, usually a bank should have assets which exceed its liability, and when a bank doesn’t have enough cash to pay clients’ deposits back, this bank is supposed to sell assets in order to meet commitments. In any case a bank will pay at least 80-90 % of deposit back to its clients.
Stock market is totally different, there is no liability at all, nothing is guaranteed and nothing will be paid back ever.
The lowest price of stock market is a real price for shares, which depends on profitability of an enterprise. This price is dozen times lower than shares price on a virtual market.
That’s why I smile when I hear that the USA will assign 700 billion dollars to save their stock market and experts claim that it would be enough.
They need to publish 100 trillion dollars to save virtual stock market; this sum should cover the whole value of the market. But if this money is published the dollar will tumble in 10 times. That’s why nobody is going to save stock market in the form it existed during last decades. It is simply impossible.
Stock market fulfilled certain tasks and its creators don’t need it anymore.
Certainly the market creators are very clever and they will imitate attempts to save stock market until a convenient moment. Prices on stock market will grow for several days (by the way, stock market creators can earn some more money once again as time and volume of growth is determined indeed by them). No stranger will be allowed to win in this gamble.
By the way, did you ever analyze the information given by ‘sophisticated’ experts and analysts about reasons of stock price or oil quotation growth and fall?
For instance, a sophisticated person claims on CNN channel (or any other channel) that the oil price increased $10 per barrel, and the reason of such increase was the information that oil supply in the USA oil storages appeared to be 1 million barrels less than it was expected. Who and in which volume “expected” this and why “expectations” level should be the starting point for published supplies evaluation? Nobody tries to answer this question, but this is another question of the same performance.
First of all, let us say couple words about these 1 million barrels. That is about 131 thousand tons for Brent trademark (or about 2500 tank-wagons of oil). Really such volume of oil is to be consumed in the USA during one hour. There was consumed about 21 million barrels of oil per day in the USA in 2005. Now this is about 24 million barrels. 1 million barrels is 1/8760 part or about 0,012% of annual oil consumption in the USA. One million barrels costs 100 million dollars (if price is 100 dollars per barrel). These 100 million barrels are not lost, they didn’t disappear. This oil is just not brought to oil storages yet. Actually it’s not really certain that oil is still not brought and there is no oil in the storages. He who knows nothing, doubts nothing. What we have here is a piece of informative news for the market. This ‘striking information’ results in cost increase of annual world oil production up to 228 million of dollars (10 dollars x 7,6 barrels in ton x 3 billion tons).
You can evaluate experts’ intelligence yourself when they explain you the reason of price increase up to10 dollars per oil barrel. 99% of other comments by financial experts from stock markets are of the same nature. And now you can make your own conclusion about how much was earned due to this piece of news and who did it.
And now let’s talk about high price of oil. During last 8-10 years we could observe an increase of oil price. High price of oil solved during this period the same tasks as a stock market. It tied up dollars, but in spite of stock market it tied up dollars in real commodity.
Oil is the best choice to tie great amounts of money. It is possible to choose a wrong object and increase price for commodity, which will not be in demand in case price is too high. Oil is really the only commodity which is always in demand. Each citizen driving his own car can hardly be forced to use public transport, it’s practically impossible. Such person would better prefer to stay hungry but save this money to buy petrol and drive his car further more. Actually 69% of oil is refined into petrol or diesel fuel. But for all that oil ties not only money of big corporations but also money of usual citizens, as during last 10 years people possessed too much money and these means became also an early danger for dollar, which is the main commodity of the Fed owners.
Apart from direct tying up several trillion dollars, high oil price is also the best tool to increase prices for other goods (food, mechanical engineering etc.), as each price includes also energy and transport constituents.
Such annual additional rise in prices gave the opportunity to tie up several trillion dollars more.
So the only reason of extremely high price of oil during the last decades was the dollar publishers’ interest. They needed to delay a downfall for several years and get prepared to ‘the managed collapse’ of the world economy.
In order to increase prices so much and clearly explain this fact later they organized a war in Iraq for ‘cheap oil’. But the real purpose was not oil control. The real purpose was to organize that Iraq oil wouldn’t come to the market for several years and that instability in this region would influence on rise in world oil prices.
Let’s continue.
It was ridiculous to observe the messages during spring and summer 2008 that special commission in the USA is looking for traders who are guilty of high oil prices, which makes economy of the USA suffer. Actually these traders were not found.
We shouldn’t blame the Fed of the USA owners. These are just smart as a whip people, who achieved fantastic financial, political and military opportunities to influence our world. They are not obliged to take care of the whole humanity; they are not God after all. They didn’t assume such obligations and don’t have any duties for anybody. They just do their business and build mechanisms for their business to develop and prosper. The purpose of this article is not to accuse anyone; the purpose is to show you a real situation and to help you save your money. Money of those of you who earned them with hard work and saved an average sum of money: 100 thousand up to 1-2 million of dollars. You will not save this money keeping cash. But that is a point for further discussion. And now we shall continue.
Do you know how ‘exchange’ price of gold is set?
Do you think that there are trades on the gold-exchange and balance of supply price and demand price is actually exchange rate? You are wrong. Gold price is set by very clever and respectful people (and that is not irony as people who created such mechanism are really smart and powerful).
Gold price is set by Rothschilds, who meet in their private residence in London. According to exchange bids, which origin is actually unknown, they set gold price. I applauded them in my mind 6-7 years ago when they gradually cut gold price until it became 250 dollars per troy ounce. Than as if somebody waved a magic wand there appeared a lot of articles claiming that gold doesn’t serve as treasure anymore, that gold lost its ensuring function of a part of gold and foreign currency reserves, and that central banks should get rid of gold. As result central banks of Switzerland and England sold half of their gold reserves to investors. This is about 2500 tones, as far as I know (just guess who bought it). Also as far as I know, central banks not only of England and Switzerland made such decision.
During next 3 years gold price increased to more than $1000 per ounce.
Now the price is about $ 750-800. But don’t worry, it will rise up to $2000 and $3000 if it is necessary. Actually the price will be claimed not in dollars but in other currency which will replace dollar.
Everyone can imagine the perspectives of his own welfare if he had the right to set gold price for the whole world. Would he need to have any other business or this business is worth all other businesses in the world?
And now it’s time to tell what is going on now in the world and what is going to be next.
Now we can observe a ‘managed collapse’. We should understand that there is nothing awful for virtual market creators. Everything is under control. This stage of ‘managed collapse’ is called to bring huge incomes and strengthen positions of the Fed owners in the whole world. A stage of collapse is inevitable as laws of Physics are at work and any financial pyramid is always breaks down in a certain time. Egyptian pyramids are for centuries, but financial pyramids are called to collapse.
It would collapse automatically a little bit later, actually 2-3 years later. But in that case the process wouldn’t be managed and could injure the interest of pyramid creators. A managed collapse was prepared for years. The matter is that during this stage the aim is to get the most important and the most profitable companies for peanuts. It is necessary to control all financial flows and to have a possibility to stop those which can damage interests of buying enterprises (we are talking about financial flows which can help an interesting for buyers enterprise to continue work until the end of crisis).
Can we talk about any preparation? Can we see the traces? We can. In the middle and at the latter half of the 90th bank secrecy was practically cancelled. The official cause for bank secrecy revision was the urgent need to fight against non-payment of taxes. Under the threat of losing USA, Canada and some other bank markets Switzerland and other declaring bank secrecy countries refused to deal with it.
However, it is not enough just to know that some money are transferred from one place to another. It is important to be able to influence the situation if necessary. The next step was September 11, 2001. Events which happened that day solved several tasks, but we shall speak about the only one we are interested in at this article. These events resulted in passing the laws for fighting terrorism financing. It’s easy to realize that terrorists are almost always financed not through banks at all. Actually terror acts need quite moderate sums of money to be organized, usually this are no more than several tens of thousands of dollars.
Actually the main purpose of these laws was to create the mechanism for long-term blockage of any sum of money without court decisions, if it is suspected to be finally a mean for terrorists. Judicial procedure in this case is inconvenient, there should be produced evidence that this was really terrorist money and it’s quite difficult to control a lot of trials around the world. That was the way they received a real tool of necessary influence on situation in future ‘managed collapse’.
It was important for successful forthcoming buying up of important assets that big interesting enterprises didn’t accumulate considerable reserves of money until the moment of decline, which would enable them to survive during the period of ‘managed collapse’.
The possible mechanism for enterprisers to accumulate such hidden reserves is nonpayment of taxes or cash.
As you remember since 2000 it was launched a serious world campaign against enterprises which don’t pay taxes. Do you remember WorldCom and others? They were learned from bitter experience that they should pay in any case, even if accounting situation really allows to have different interpretation and not to pay tax in certain conditions. Someone became a bankrupt, someone was imprisoned. That was demonstrative imprisoning.
The super-profits, which could be earned by companies due to high oil prices and due to trading on the exchange, were withdrawn by means of excise duties and other taxes. Companies actually earned about 20 % of earnings so that they could function and just a little bit prosper. That’s why extremely strict control on tax paying was very important. It was necessary to collect as much taxes as possible.
What purposes were tax sources for (except for financing of budget expenses)? They were the source for various reserved and other funds.
During last 3 years there also was a fight for cash. This solved two strategic tasks. The first task is that no one could make big cash supply, which would support business in case of crisis. The second task is to earn huge sums of money as cash cost was 11-12% of a sum.
From the one hand we can state that fight for taxes is a job of any civilized state and it’s not really preparation to ‘managed collapse’. It is really so. But we should mention that the strictest form of the fight for taxes and oil price grow started simultaneously. We must pay our attention also to the forms of taxpaying fight: they choose demonstrative victim (WorldCom), its relations with big bosses leads to conclusion that the main object of fight are big companies. We also should monitor the purpose this money was sent for (USA stock market, USA mortgage bonds etc.). All these facts lead us to the conclusion which has been already made.
Finally, the day which was expected so much by somebody came. A crisis occurred.
The way European and American banks lost their liquidity is well-known and there is no reason to talk about it once again.
With a wave of a magic wand (and you know whose hands hold this wand) demand on metal production fell down, oil also fell in price, capitalization of companies fell rapidly in several times, banks started credits recalling, mortgage lending and bank loans were stopped.
In other words, the process which can be called ‘the managed collapse’ started at full speed.
Stock market collapsed. Problems with products distribution made metallurgy, car, building, chemical and other industries suffer. There is no reason to look through all aroused problems; you can find a lot of such information in headlines.
However there are interesting peculiarities: stock markets collapsed immediately (during 1-2 days) and extent of collapse was great enough to make serious even fatal holes in liquidity of enterprises and banks.
Banks were the first target. Making their life easier banks didn’t like taking the trouble to credit real business sector; it was much more comfortable for them to gamble on a stock exchange with spare money of their clients. Since virtual stock market grew readily and rapidly. And one day it fell rapidly in 20%. If we say it in simple words – banks lost the fifth part of that client money which they gambled on a stock market. Selling shares at the new lower prices would mean setting huge losses and saying good-bye to all hopes that it was occasional fall and everything is going to be ok in a week. Everybody waited for previous prices. Prices however fell in a week more than in twice. The volume of losses became disastrous (prices on virtual stock markets fell in 5 times in some states for today).
Banks got in result big holes in their balances, banks can’t give credits anymore because they are lack of money. European banks start to recall credits which were given to foreign banks and companies because of problems in their countries, which make the situation even more disaster.
The biggest companies lose rapidly their capitalization, which is calculated according to share rates of the company on the virtual stock market. That is the next reason for banks to recall some credits and for rating agencies to decrease a company rating. Credit scale depends on ratings and on capitalization. If these indexes fall down some credits are recalled automatically and a company has no opportunity to take another credit anywhere to survive difficult times.
In general, banks and big companies which depended much on credits found themselves in a very difficult situation.
Actually in working economic model of the world no big enterprise or bank could work without credits during last decades. Credit recourses were widely available and interest rate was sweet for business. However enterprises and banks get in real trouble if they are required to pay credits back before due date. The reasons of recall are very objective; these reasons are mentioned in credit contract– «company's capitalization falls in 10 %». And we know that capitalization of all companies fell down.
By the way, doesn’t it remind you the beginning of the Great Depression, the crisis in 1929? There also was a situation that according to the share purchase credit conditions a creditor could call his money back during 24 hours (that is called marginal credit). When such requests were made unexpected and simultaneously, borrowers were forced to sell their shares urgently, which lead to immediate market default.
If this scheme worked in the thirties, why shouldn’t it be used today with some variations? Actually it is happening.
Now there is a task to buy up the most interesting and most profitable enterprises for peanuts. How can it be done? Should we just go to an owner and propose him to buy his business at a low price? Even if he has some problems, he will not agree for sure. He will probably wait until crisis is over. He will ignore court actions of creditors, delay legal procedures (which really can be delayed for 2-3 years).
That is not a way for the Fed.
In spite of its intellectual and financial power they don’t have enough resources to carry on thousands of lawsuits with people who would protect their business by hook or by crook. Time factor is also very important here. The whole operation should be finished in the short run, as after buying-up is finished the next more important stage will start. This will be discussed a little bit later.
How to buy-up enterprises and the whole branches of business in short terms and at reasonable prices?
It is simple: a state should save ‘damaged’ owners of big business, their banks and companies. A state would propose some ‘saving’ credits for strategically important companies.
The big business owner will have now a difficult choice:
– either the company’s bankruptcy of will start right now when there are no credits, no sales, and current expenses of the company so huge that they will kill the company in couple months even in case all production is stopped
– or he has to take a state credit and try to hold on as soon as all analysts and experts predict forthcoming upturn in spring and all rates will be of level as in July 2008
However, the matter is that when all expected companies will take credits and sign payment, finances will suffer really serious. When the term to pay credits will come, they will not have enough money to pay. Shares will fall in prices, oil prices also will fall up to 20 dollars per barrel, and demand will be really low. That is a scheme of global property redistribution, which is the main purpose of the stage of ‘managed collapse’. Certainly businesses will become state property first (officials will be strict towards non-paying owners), but later they will be bought by those who are expected to do this.
Now let’s talk about a ‘powerful’ dollar.
Dollar will be ‘strong’ all the time until big and not very big companies will have to pay their dollar credits back. There are a lot of such credits not only in the USA but also in other counties where a myth of the dollar as a strong currency is alive. A ‘strong’ dollar is much more difficult to be paid back and it is much more difficult to be bought in necessary volume for devaluating national currency. Dollar will be strong until the credited big enterprises will not change their owners.
Besides dollar will be ‘strong’ until this ‘strong’ dollar is needed to buy an interesting business. We are talking about profitable middle-size business, which will not become the state property until that moment. When business situation becomes really hopeless and businessmen will be close to lose their business, they will be proposed good sum of ‘strong’ dollars and they will be happy to sell their business.
When these two stages are done, the next in turn is the most interesting and the most dangerous stage.
I would like to mention that this article is for people who have some savings, for small and middle-size businessmen who saved $100 000 up to $2 000 000 with their own hard work. Today global processes can be destructive for results of their hard work. In order to avoid this destructive influence it’s very important to understand what is really going on in the world and what is going to be next. Knowing facts you will be able to make favorable decision in time and save the results of your long-term work.
It is a global property redistribution, which will lead to new configuration of the world with new centers of force. The main purpose of redistribution is of cause big companies, banks and enterprises, but not small and midsize business. Anyway everyone will feel a certain negative influence of redistribution and it’s necessary to get ready to avoid influence or at least to make it moderate.
Let’s continue our description of what s going to be after property redistribution.
Next is going an imminent event, which is dollar default. It’s imminently in any occasion, as dollar over-production by the Federal Reserve System is smart and huge, but still is a pyramid. Thus pyramid fulfilled its tasks and brought incredible profits to the creators, but it’s impossible from the one hand and unnecessary from the other to save it. It’s time for a new scheme to make money; it’s time for new Breton Woods agreements.
It’s impossible to pass to the new world system without rejection of the previous world currency, which is dollar.
There are not so many goods and real assets in the world as published dollars. The total quantity of dollars which were put in circulation is ten times more than the total cost of real assets.
There is no variant of further events left in which America could refuse from dollar default.
That’s why default and dollar rejection is going to happen within the next few months, whatever say different ‘experts’ and ‘analysts’.
The question is how it is going to happen, as it should be very serious and dangerous event for all people including organizers of dollar pyramid. Many of those who will lose everything will possibly reflect on who is guilty in this? The strongest move to solve this problem (and the safest for them) would be realization of default through “big blood”.
I think that they can organize a state of emergency on a world scale with hundred thousand of dead. The attack will be made on the territory of the USA or Israel. Attack on the territory of Europe is less possible, probably, together with the USA and Israel but not separately. Separate attack of Europe only would not meet the task to collapse dollar. The attack will be made probably with nuclear weapon or other ‘dirty’ bombs as there should be hundred thousand people dead and radioactive pollutions of large territories (a similar case in September 11, 2001 with 3 thousand people dead is not right for this time, the scale is too small for default).
Who and how will attack?
I suppose that nuclear weapon of Pakistan will be used in this operation, as it is the only muslim country which possess nuclear weapon. The powerful President Musharraf removed from this post for this purpose in August 2008 (actually the USA participated in that). Several months before Benazir Bhutto was killed (she also was a good leader and nuclear weapon couldn’t get out of hand). Zardari, the widower of Bhotto, came to the power after her death. That is ridiculous personality. A year ago he was a patient of a psychiatrist. While Bhotto twice served as Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zardari was kept in jail on corruption charges and accusations of murder, even his wife couldn’t help him to get cleared. This is the best kind of a governor to pass nuclear weapon to terrorists or to organize that Iranians could ‘buy’ or ‘steal’ it and use for bombing the USA or Israel.
I would remind that Zardari was actually a protege of the USA. In fact the USA today do a lot to provoke anti-American sentiments in Pakistan. How would you evaluate weekly attacks of Pakistan villages at the Afghanistan border by the USA air force, which is explained as pursuit of the talibs? There are 20-40 people dead each time, and usually these are women and children. And how would you evaluate recently published secret order dated July 2008 by Bush, which allows the USA air forces to cross Pakistan border and attack Pakistan territory for fighting with terrorist talibs without Pakistan authority permission.
Such actions have great influence on attitude towards the USA. Pakistan people as well as Pakistan air forces, which possess nuclear weapon, are actually provoked to have negative attitude.
It is obvious that after bombing the USA (or Israel) there will be a war with millions of victims. Since those who will attack America must be punished. It is doesn’t really matter who will attack – Iran with nuclear weapon of Pakistan, or Pakistan itself, or both states together, or Ben Laden who can in one way or another take the nuclear bomb. That will be such kind of important events that the question “if the dollar could be saved” will be inappropriate. You will be given a positive answer that that was a quilt of ‘damned terrorists’ or ‘aggressive states’ etc. They will state that they did everything they could: gave 700 billion of USA dollars in support of stock market, and that actions were proved to have positive influence (Dow Jones Index varies during the last time 8100 up to 9600 points). There was a summit of 20 states and we decided to reform International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to control ‘greedy’ bankers, who are the main crisis initiators, in a proper way. We did a lot to plaster and paint the front of the world financial system (a building which has blasted foundation and cracked bearing wall indeed). As plaster and pain are really two main ways to solve such problems.
We need to understand that humanity deals with genius and very influential group of people, who created the world structure which we live in. In order to understand a sense of their actions we should consider their occupation peculiarities. This will help us to understand their actions and forecast future events.
Accountancy is their education, ideology and mission. And such non-account values as ‘humanism’, ‘kindness’ and ‘compassion’ are outside of their vision.
The main things are figures, profit and bargains.
In situation which requires scarify people to get more profit they wouldn’t hesitate in what should be done. The only really important result for them is profit.
That is a great power of those people and their strategic susceptibility as well. The situation is that during hundred years their principles brought huge profits for them and made them powerful. However one day these principles will work against them and will cause damage to them or their business which their lives were devoted to.
Attendant expenses of their operations cost sometimes dozens million lives: the First World War – 20 million, the Second World War – 60 million of lives.
I hope that dollar collapse will be made in other way without war and without blood of innocent people.
It’s difficult to imagine other scenarios. However, everything is possible, everything is real. It depends only on intellect of the authors.
There are various variants. The most stupid is if the USA refuse dollar, announce default giving the reason that dollar can’t be the world currency anymore because of financial crisis and economic recession. ‘Experts’ and ‘analytics’ as well as a huge number of controlled by the Fed owners mass media outlets will tell stories for the whole world that it’s a historical truth that dollar became world currency for 90% and home currency only for 10%. And as dollar can’t be the world currency anymore (because of very objective reasons, because of the serious world crisis, which happened accidentally), it can’t also remain home currency of the USA. In order to save the most important world economy, which is the economy of the USA (in other words: in order to save the USA economy from a huge flow of dollars from the whole world) – only this great and humane mission makes the USA to refuse dollar and set ‘new dollar’ as home currency.
If during next three months after such announcement the world mass media outlets will promote such ideas 99,9% of people will really start to think that it was real the only and the best way to overcome the situation caused by the most impressive in the whole world history crisis.
In any case, there are much more humane ways to achieve a set purpose (without blood of innocent people of Israel, USA, Iran etc.)
They are also much cheaper than a war (only PR expenses).
This variant is acceptable for decision-makers only if after elimination of a one-polar world they will provide a many-polar world with other principles of getting their profit, other principles of their influence and other principles of world finance system correspondingly.
It seems to me for a while that everything is going to fall back into place: virtual stock markets, building of financial pyramids (using several currencies instead of a single), and so on according to the list.
However, there are also other world models, in which they can save their influence, but they don’t see them or just don’t want to.
If it is true, then the only variant of further events is blood. Only this variant allows claiming that everything was well organized and only due to ‘terrorist’, ‘enemies’ etc. everything was broken.
In other variants the truth will be surely revealed, so it would be rather difficult to prove the necessity to create new pyramids which pretty much similar to previous.
In general, dollar collapse and dollar rejection and default are inevitable. Inevitability is determined with the fact that today world finance system is build according to finance pyramid principle.
Whatever will be said by ‘experts’, who really work for pyramid creators, this pyramid can’t be saved and now it’s a time of it to collapse. This will happen in the next few months.
Be sure that it is going to happen 100 % unexpectedly for all except those who manage the process. Until the last moment dollar will be strong and everything will go quite all right.
Euro, ruble and other currencies will collapse simultaneously. There will be no default for these currencies but they will to go down in price in 10-15 times because of a great hole in world finances.
When everybody will feel lack of money a new world economic system will be grounded.
The main positions will have those who have profitable assets (real enterprises etc.). Correctly chosen assets will earn new money for owners fast and in great quantities. Such owners will outdo others.
And now let’s talk how you can save your savings if you have such. You can save your savings in today conditions only obtaining real asset. What does ‘real assets’ mean after currency actually is depreciated?
You can save your money buying property, which will be valuable even after the current events. Cars, furnishings or clothing can be in demand, but you should remember that these goods are not good to save your capital. Car becomes cheaper 15% next week after purchase and 50% in three years, so buying a car you are going to have losses. Your money will not be saved and for sure will not increase. Only really valuable assets, which are people’s bare necessities and which are always in demand, should be considered in the situation of crisis.
Works of art (paintings, sculptures) of famous artists are rather good variant. But ‘entrance ticket’ for such purchase is more than million dollars. Forgery is rather possible, so you can buy just a pig in a poke. You also will need very big bank cell which cost 5-6 thousand dollars per month. And actually at time of world economic turmoil people rarely appreciate art giving their preferences to supply daily needs.
There are pros and cons for jewelry. A work of a jeweler makes up a great part of jewelry cost that is why it’s quite difficult to forecast if a certain piece of jewelry is in price in few years, or it will to the contrary fall in price.
High-quality precious stones are good investment to wait till crisis is over. The only disadvantage is that after such global crisis they will be on demand not immediately but during next 3-5 years as people need to solve more important tasks first, such as food, shelter, clothes, business and only after all some money can be saved to buy precious stones.
Good variant would be real estate investment as people always need shelter to live in and offices to work in. Life goes on even during crisis. However, we probably shouldn’t talk here about any profitability as paying capacity of tenants is quite low during crisis and will grow gradually in compliance with growth of economy. You can’t earn on real estate within the next few years as mortgage lending is temporary stopped and there is almost no solvent demand. So real estate investment can be good long-term freezing of capital.
Gold bullions is one of the best variants considering very special attitude to gold of a certain group of people. They love and respect gold during almost thousand years. They will never let gold fall too much in price. But this rule is for their personal gold, the gold they posses, not for your gold or for gold of someone. Gold is the perpetual value, so you can wait for increase in price for ever, or probably 5-7-10 years. In a certain moment gold price will be 2 or 3 thousand dollars instead of $800 for today. I have already mentioned who and how set gold prices.
Are you sure that price is set for you in order you earned too much profit? I wouldn’t play that game. This is historical business of a certain group of people and it for authorized persons only.
The most logical and correct decision would be investment in production of the resources which people will always be in need in shifting sands – food, water, dwelling and tools for production of these goods. Whatever is going on with economy or currency – people will always consume these goods. Investment in these goods production will not only save your savings but also will give you advantage in hard times, when daily needs are brought to the forefront.
The decision should be made as soon as possible, until currency is not and financial systems functionate. Rich for resources Europe is already in a deep crisis, dozens of states are under the threat of default, and recourses of countries in Eastern Europe, where capital deficit is reality, are de facto for sale. Not only useless luxury goods but also lands, plants and farms here are cheap at half the price at the moment. Resources which are of state importance found new owners at the moment.
Ukraine and Eastern Europe are examples. Hundreds of the most valuable resources of this country are for sale now as local owners are on the beach. They just don’t have enough money to maintain their work. There are machine-building plants with several hundred hectares of land, expensive equipment with dozen million dollars potential output! Chemical plants also held up their work because of lack of capital, but there are only few plants like this in the world… Fertile lands, big farms – at the moment their price is thousand times lower then real price. Each invested dollar will bring thousand dollars next year! At http://www.uinvest.com.ua you can check the list of such profitable investments
Certainly it will come to the end soon. Sagacious American and European investors are buying up these resources in great amounts straight away. Buy low sell high. While many people try to squeeze vestiges of virtual money out of stock exchanges, affiliated mutual funds and investment banks, smart investors buy real assets for a mere song. Such assets will cost tomorrow dozen billion dollars again. Actions, which all this project was started for, are being carried out. This is a change of ownership.
Our team attracts capital for buying such kind of assets. People having average income can legally increase their capital in dozen and hundred times. Today they have real chance to do this.
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