Blog Archives
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [4]: THE MISSING TRILLIONS
In the spring of 2017, a research study was initiated to determine the facts regarding the possibility that untold multiple trillions of dollars had gone missing from government accounts.
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THE DAY BEFORE 9/11
You might recall video of an event that took place at the Pentagon on September 10, 2001 when Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense in the new Bush Administration, stunned the buttoned-down sensibilities of honest accountants and bookkeepers everywhere with the following matter-of-fact statement:
“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion dollars in transactions.” [1]
After a Pentagon audit, this massive amount of Department of Defense spending was unaccounted for. It had somehow gone missing. For perspective, the DOD budget for the year 2001 was $313 billion.[2] The equivalent of roughly seven years of Pentagon budgets had vanished. On that day, Rumsfeld was declaring war on financial waste and possibly fraud as he announced a new plan to “save” the Pentagon. The next day, those plans, whether legitimate or not, were forgotten.
THE 2017 MISSING MONEY REPORT
As the years went by more huge sums appeared to vanish. In the Inspector General Report for the Department of Defense for 2015 the amount was $6.5 trillion.[3] Keep in mind that these two reports from 2001 and 2015, which served as the catalyst for the missing money research study, only involve the DOD and not any other government departments.
It was Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush administration, who brought the $6.5 missing trillion to the attention of Dr. Mark Skidmore, a Michigan State University economist, in early 2017. Because the figure was so ridiculously huge he initially thought she was mistaken. Over that summer they continued the project with the assistance of two graduate students to help with a larger study and by September of 2017 had accounted for many more missing funds, officially termed “unsupported adjustments.” The total monetary amount in their report, in researching and compiling documents for only the Department of Defense between the years of 1998-2015, was a whopping $21 trillion. They found an additional $350 billion missing at HUD.
To put these numbers in proper perspective, the entire Gross National Product of the USA in the year 2019 was 21.429 trillion.[4] Where does such money go? How is it possible that the DOD cannot account for a number effectively matching the entire 2019 GDP of the nation? It is impossible that these numbers are mere government accounting errors. How would such errors originate? How would such errors continue to progenerate?
ACCESSING THE 2017 MISSING MONEY REPORT
The report is entitled: Summary Report on “Unsupported Journal Voucher Adjustments” in the Financial Statements of the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
You can access the history and documentation page of the report at The Solari Report website, published by Catherine Austin Fitts, containing an embedded link of the five page report, here.
ADDITIONAL SOURCE MATERIAL
For further reading and to get better acquainted with the facts and history of this monumental work, I suggest the following:
MSU Scholars Find $21 Trillion in Unauthorized Government Spending; Defense Department to Conduct First-Ever Audit (© Michigan State University, December 11, 2017)
Is Our Government Intentionally Hiding $21 Trillion In Spending? (© Forbes Magazine, July 21, 2018)
EPILOGUE
After Catherine and Mark authored their report and posted it, including the many links and documentation, it was soon discovered that government report and document links had been disabled, which suggested a purposeful response by parties who may wish to keep the information concealed. In Part 3 of this series I informed you that as of October 1, 2018, there was no longer any guarantee that government accounting and budget figures could be verified. One wonders if that FASAB change was also made in response to the missing $21 trillion. These actions are largely unprecedented and all Americans should be rightfully concerned. Why did elected officials sign off on this? Why are next to no elected officials shining any light on this? The President and leaders of the Senate and House have approved of the processes resulting in multiple trillions of dollars gone missing. Where did it go? What are they using it for? Someone must be held accountable.
I hope you have enjoyed this series and that it added to your knowledge on the subject. I would appreciate it if you would share my site, continue your own research, and spread the news.
All of us must continue to be better informed.
© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 4]
[1] https://youtu.be/NkgQ4GpIalI (Quote located at 7:54)
[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spending-defense-budget
[3] DODIG-2016-113-1.pdf
[4] https://www.statista.com/topics/772/gdp/
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [1]: YOUR FUTURE IS BEING STOLEN
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [2]: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING (AND REFORM?)
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [3]: “FEDERAL FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS 56, CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES”
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [3]: “FEDERAL FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS 56, CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES”
Two years ago, while America was captivated by the contentious Kavanaugh hearings, a new government accounting statement, much more significant in scope was issued, essentially in secret.
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Dear readers: If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend reading Part 1 and Part 2 of this series before proceeding with this article. Part 2 is especially necessary as a prerequisite to set the tone for understanding and receiving the full scope of the information contained here.
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING GONE DARK?
Many Americans were closely following the Congressional hearings regarding the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh two years ago in September and October of 2018. In what became a showboating ridiculous political circus charged with posturing and innuendo at the expense of one man’s reputation and the nation’s as a whole, another event took place behind the scenes out of the public eye. Whether or not it was planned that way, the reality show-esque hearings certainly gave great cover to the announcement of a new government accounting statement of great import and vast ramifications. FASAB [1] released the statement on October 4, 2018 and made it retroactively effective after Sunday, September 30, 2018.
Entitled Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, Classified Activities,[2] it has apparently transformed what was previously and ostensibly the normative practice of transparent government-wide accounting procedures into one in which exact details and amounts of publicly available financial reports are potentially in whole or part subjected to classified status for the sake of national security.
Of course, it is not stated exactly that way but such is the apparent effect. It thus appears that Americans can thus no longer know the exact truth about any department or agency budget or expenditures. For the sake of national security the numbers we are given may be correct or may be adjusted. There is now, seemingly, no way to know. The likelihood is that most Americans are still not aware of this and never will be.
I found out about it not long after it happened through simple research and following the work of a few key people online who keep an eye out for such open source information available to everyone. Perhaps you may be discovering this for the first time.
POLITICAL THEATER?
It will also interest you to know that two years ago, while the Republicans and Democrats were at each other’s throats and presenting to the world a picture of absolute hatred for the other during the wacked-out Congressional hearings, the top Republican and Democrat leaders, including the President, were cheerily signing off on the new FASAB accounting statement. You may wonder why there was no Rose Garden ceremony or large press conference before the Capitol building to announce this far-reaching and all-encompassing change. Could it be due to the nature of the statement?
In Part 2 we learned that a better overall government accounting method was initiated back in 1990 due to admitted problems in prior times, intended or not. Whatever became of the full extent of that effort regarding actual positive change will probably never be known, and now, with the onset of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56 a mere twenty-eight years later, it likely no longer matters. Any accounting errors that may exist may be unknowable. Any need for internal reform would seem to be pointless. Do Americans still have access to where their tax money goes and what it is used for? I’m sure financial statements of such will continue to be produced but due to the nature of the new statement, how will anyone know if such are actually accurate?
Is government accounting now unaccountable?
© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 3]
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For more information on this subject, I would like to first introduce you to a brilliant person of sterling reputation and prolific work from which I first received this news two years ago—Catherine Austin Fitts. I am sure some of you are already familiar with her writings and interviews. Her website, which I highly recommend, is The Solari Report available here.
An excellent in-depth Solari Report article on this subject is available here.
[1] The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board. See Part 2 of this series for introductory information.
[2] files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/original_sffas_56.pdf
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [1]: YOUR FUTURE IS BEING STOLEN
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [2]: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING (AND REFORM?)
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [2]: A BRIEF HISTORY OF GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING (AND REFORM?)
Americans assume the government has always kept good books. We assume that since the very beginning of the Republic, government accountants have kept strict written financial records of all transactions accessible to all.
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“And when He calls me to account, what will I answer Him?” [Job 31:14]
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING
I confess this is an area I have never delved into or have any interest in and therefore have no idea what the facts actually are regarding historical government accounting practices. And, due to the nature of such an all-encompassing subject that would appear to take several lifetimes to get a handle on, I will leave it to others to research the subject as I’m sure many already have.
All of us have a need for accounting. We all must keep financial records. I would think the record keeping of most people is likely not so complicated but can always present a challenge. Small businesses must have extensive accounting departments to keep track of everything. Two hundred years ago it was obviously much simpler. Over the course of the prior century keeping proper financial records grew much more burdensome due to an exponential increase in mandatory compliance toward new government agencies on every level including massive new infrastructures to support, but also as the monetary byproduct of a higher standard of living. In other words, simpler times when much less was required to live were also simpler to account for and document.
I’m sure there’s a graph out there illustrating government growth over the last 245 years, and I would think it shows a low steady climb from the bottom of the left side (1776) to maybe the mid-1800s as we move toward the right when it probably has a small upward jolt (The Civil War) and continues on a slightly higher steady climb until about the magical year of 1913 at roughly the middle of the graph. At this point there would be a higher climb until a huge jump during the 1930s and into WWII. After this one would hope the paper on which the graph was printed was tall enough because government spending likely grew beyond a 45-degree ascent and continued unabated exponentially toward dizzying heights until the present. As of now we are precariously balanced on a sharp nearly vertical pinnacle shooting majestically off the graph on the far right side into government accounting oblivion.
Did federal accounting manage to keep up in its transition from millions to billions to untold trillions? Is there an actual honest record of all expenditures? Is such a record available to every American taxpayer/investor? Could someone choose a particular year of our history and access all accounting records? The answer, of course, is a resounding no. And even if one could, one could never know about any money spent that was officially “off the books.” Known in some circles as dark money, there is certainly a need for utilizing such for various reasons, especially national defense, primarily regarding the comprehensive though indeterminate reason of national security. Therefore, one must assume that there must be at least two sets of books and also the possibility in some cases of no books at all. And in this we must conclude that no, there can likely never be any actual accounting for of all monies appropriated and spent by government agencies.
Again, being pretty much the opposite of an expert in this field with no desire to research it out, I cannot say when or if attempts first began to possibly rectify poor accounting procedures so I will simply start with fairly recent developments.
THE FEDERAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS ADVISORY BOARD
Mission Statement:
The FASAB serves the public interest by improving federal financial reporting through issuing federal financial accounting standards and providing guidance after considering the needs of external and internal users of federal financial information.[1]
According to its website, FASAB had its initial origins in 1990 when Congress passed the Chief Financial Officer’s Act (CFO Act), requiring audited financial statements, in accordance with applicable standards, for selected federal reporting entities. It was a step toward the comprehensive requirement for audited financial statements established in 1994 by the Government Management Reform Act. Congress passed the CFO Act in part due to concerns about highly publicized financial management problems at various federal agencies.[2]
One must assume this meant there was a serious systemic accounting problem prior to that time. Low level problems and basic accounting fraud in general would not have registered as a great enough offense to require the new law. The CFO Act must have therefore had not mere elementary reform in mind but something much more substantial. And how does that happen? How do the heads of the aforementioned federal agencies allow for such highly publicized management problems? A great many accountants, auditors, and congressional staff [3] were aware of major problems. It must have been exceptionally bad with so many government workers from various agencies blowing the whistle.
By this time you may be getting the big idea that government accounting in general has historically not been so accountable. An effort was made for reform in 1950 with The Budget and Accounting Procedures Act but this was apparently not deemed mandatory and did not involve anything close to full participation. Indeed, some questioned whether it was constitutional for a legislative agency to define accounting standards for an executive agency.[4]
One can only imagine the depth of government accounting incompetence and a total lack of proper oversight and standards that took place over the next forty years (1950-1990). Again, you are getting this information not from government critics but from the government itself. All the information in italics is from the FASAB website. The very creation of FASAB was due to the government itself answering the call to implement system-wide reforms. How much this was driven by concerned American taxpayers in general is not specified but I would think it was not much of a factor, especially during that time period. It was an era when Americans so fully trusted its government most people were completely unaware of any number of scandals and secrets which have since been revealed. Remember, the majority of the country fully supported the Vietnam War (1965-1973) and that tells us pretty much everything.
It was not until 1990 that the government finally decided to get a handle on the accounting “problem” by instituting corrective reform of general accounting procedures with the specific provision of utilizing both the executive and legislative branches working together. Imagine that.
On October 10, 1990, then Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady, Director of OMB Richard Darman, and Comptroller General Charles Bowsher jointly agreed to create and sponsor the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) by signing a “Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Among the General Accounting Office, the Department of the Treasury, and the Office of Management and Budget on Federal Government Accounting Standards and a Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board.” FASAB would consider and recommend the appropriate accounting standards for the federal government. For the first time, the legislative and executive branches agreed to work together in an agreed framework, with an open, public process, to determine the accounting standards that federal agencies should follow.[5]
In our next segment we will discuss a recent relatively unknown but extremely serious development within FASAB that takes government accounting on an unaccountable magical mystery tour.
© 2020 by R.J. Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 2]
[1] https://fasab.gov/about-fasab/mission-objectives/
[2] https://fasab.gov/about-fasab/fasab-history/the-history-of-fasab/
[3] https://fasab.gov/about-fasab/fasab-history/the-history-of-fasab/
[4] https://fasab.gov/about-fasab/fasab-history/the-history-of-fasab/
[5] https://fasab.gov/about-fasab/fasab-history/the-history-of-fasab/
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [1]: YOUR FUTURE IS BEING STOLEN
HIDDEN WEALTH TRANSFER [3]: “FEDERAL FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING STANDARDS 56, CLASSIFIED ACTIVITIES”
DEFINING SIN: Declaring Independence (4)
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Keep yourself free from sin. [1Timothy 5:22]
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JULY 4, 1776
It’s been 240 years since the Declaration of Independence was written. America declared to the entire world on the above date that it had grown to adult status and would be moving on into full independence.
It was a forced departure. The distant government had come down way too hard on individual liberties and had not appreciated what the colonists had achieved. It instead treated them as mere chattel, took them for granted, and insisted on rule simply for the sake of rule. It was dictating from afar with little or no respect for the people.
Their strong arm had the opposite effect. The American colonists thus made the right decision to secede and rid themselves of an overreaching, bureaucratic, close-minded, and entrenched power concerned only for its own interests.
Therefore, the United States of America was founded on the principles of freedom, God-given individual rights, and personal liberty at any and all costs. The only possible way to facilitate these was for Americans to say goodbye to their arrogant overlords and be willing to fight.
And now, 240 years later, on a much lesser scale but in the same spirit, the British people have said the same things to the European Union. Why? Because the leadership of the European Union has become extremely top heavy, unresponsive, dictatorial, and unappreciative of the British. As I said before, the EU needs the UK much more than the UK needs the EU. Let’s hope the United Kingdom maintains its backbone, doesn’t cave, and makes the absolute best of the current British Exit.
WHAT HAPPENED TO US?
And now, with the express agreement of the American people by voting into office those who are doing the very opposite of that which our Founders fought and died for, America has become much like the EU. America has caved in long ago to a leadership structure that is far worse than what the leadership of England was prior to the Revolution.
Has the American government at present become what it was designed by the Founders to be? Not at all, but it is not the government’s fault. The government itself is largely benign. There’s a lot of great people working in government. The Word of God says government in general is actually good and necessary. Americans should never be anti-government. But limited government is best. Limited government is the government of a free, strong, and independent people. The desire for limited government was exactly what the American Revolution was all about.
The Constitution as written by the Founders certainly advocated for extremely limited government and the promotion of great individual freedom. As the government has grown in scope and power, however, individual freedom has greatly shrunk. This is a basic mathematical corollary. When one increases the other decreases. It’s impossible to have big government and great liberty at the same time. It works the same with light and darkness.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
On July 4, 1776 there existed a pronounced desire for individual freedom, a spirit of independence, the strength and courage to seek it, unlimited hope, a belief in the future, and tremendous opportunity. Today, there is comparatively less of all of the above. Liberty is fading.
This fade to darkness is due only to the following: A turning away from the Lord Jesus, a growing acceptance of and redefinition of sin, and a huge lessening of human morality and righteous resolve.
How did this happen? Does the escalation of America’s moral failing dovetail with the nanny state and mammoth government? Are the two related? Are they connected? There is no way the Founders envisioned our current arrangement. Individual freedom is presently not only crashing but burning.
Here’s how government growth happened in part: It responded to those lobbying the most. These are the ones who gain the most influence. This is what created the blatant dual standard of justice that has become so obvious as of late. Individual Americans have never managed to create a large enough voting bloc to lobby for their own interests and are therefore left out of the inner circle of great influence. It is in part why the great Middle Class of America that once was is no more.
Much of this has happened due to a basic Divide and Conquer strategy that has worked perfectly. Such a strategy not only promotes division, it also promotes hate.
Also, Americans put far too much trust in political parties. Political parties always have their own personal agendas and until this year, only promote their own. And even though the original framers of the government structure built it in such a way to eliminate or at least limit the inevitable greed and corruption they were all too familiar with that was used against them, the limitations have failed.
Though built with strong checks and balances to severely limit corruption, those checks and balances have largely been overcome and eliminated by corruption. It is not necessarily the case that the founding documents have changed in letter to violate the founding principles; it is that the founding principles are largely ignored. The Bill of Rights is routinely violated every day and the violations are increasing with no apparent solution in sight. Without great change, individual rights will continue being outlawed one by one. The more disruptions that take place in society, the less freedom there will be and the more individual rights will be violated, except for the rights of those in the protected class. Darkness has thus descended upon the land. The remedy?
“Let there be light.” [Genesis 1:3] [1]
© 2016 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued…]
Real Christianity—The Nature of the Church
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
PLEASE SUPPORT THIS POWERFUL SERIES:
DEFINING SIN: The New “Evil is Good-Good is Evil” Paradigm (1)
DEFINING SIN: The Lord Jesus Endorsed the Old Testament Definition of Sin (2)
DEFINING SIN: The Growing Movement To Ban the New Testament as Anti-Semitic Hate Speech (3)
