The recent decline in commodity prices has pushed some of the major global trading firms towards the brink of default, including the Swiss based giant Glencore*, whose stock has fallen over 50% this year. If their bonds collapse, the related multi-billion dollar "derivatives" pyramid could also implode, a potential debacle many times larger than the failure of the venerable Jewish investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 which set off the last financial crisis:

"Which will be first: Trafigura, Mercuria or Glencore?... A quick look at Trafigura bonds reveals that the contagion from the Glencore commodity trader collapse...has spread... Trafigura, the world's third largest private commodity trader after Vitol and Glencore...has publicly-traded bonds. They just cratered...in a move comparable to what happened to Lehman bonds the day after the [2008] bankruptcy filing. Clearly the Lehman bondholders could not believe what just happened until it was too late...

Trafigura was formed in 1993...when it split off from a group of companies managed by [Jewish financier] Marc Rich, aka "the king of oil". Who is March Rich? Why the founder of Glencore of course who...was indicted [in the U.S.] in 1983 on 65 criminal counts including income tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and trading with Iran during the oil embargo... Rich promptly fled to Switzerland..."

-- Zero Hedge

"Not only is Glencore confirmed to be systemically important... All those very banks which have $100 billion in exposure to the giant commodity trading company will quietly do their best to hedge their exposure, ostensbilty by buying default protection adding even more stress to Glencore's "shadow" funding channels, in the process unleashing the very same chain of events that ultimately led to Lehman's downfall."

-- Zero Hedge

Remember the sudden collapse of energy trader Enron back in 2001 and the convenient destruction of the SEC files on 9/11?

"The core of Enron’s business appears to have been dealing in derivative contracts based on the prices of oil, gas, electricity and other variables... Since the markets in which Enron traded are largely unregulated, with no reporting requirements, little information [was] available about the extent or profitability of Enron’s derivatives activities.... With the swift collapse, shareholders, including thousands of Enron workers who held company stock in their retirement accounts, lost tens of billions of dollars."

-- Congressional Research Service (2002)

"Glencore has, in some circles, been called not only the Lehman of the commodity-trading world but even gained the far less reputable nickname of Glenron... As the WSJ reports, "some investors have described Glencore’s trading business as a 'black box' in which the risks are impossible to value... Brompton Group, a Toronto fund that manages $2.2 billion, doesn’t invest in commodity-trading houses because of the lack of transparency... "Companies like Glencore say, ‘Trust us,’ but trust is not enough of a reason to invest your money."

-- Zero Hedge

Consider the history of the past century and the track record of these secretive, parasitic organizations. Are the recurring financial crises merely the result of unplanned market forces as advertised, or part of a carefully contrived "controlled demolition" process? Either way, the oligarchs win and everyone else pays the price.

"People who worked with Marc Rich described him as secretive and this persona was embodied at Glencore, which for many years as a private company [until 2011] did not publish sales or earnings figures and had a one-page website that merely listed its address. Rich sold his interest in the [trading unit of] Marc Rich Group in 1993, when the company, renamed Glencore, was doing $30 billion of business a year in 125 countries...

In January 2001, by then living in a Swiss mansion, Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton on his last day as US president... The outcry intensified as it emerged that Rich's ex-wife Denise had given $450,000 to the Clinton Library and $1.2 million in donations to Democratic party campaigns, including Hillary Clinton's bid for the Senate... Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and former prime minister Shimon Peres made personal pleas to Clinton on his behalf to secure the controversial pardon."

-- The Guardian (2013)

"[The elites] have openly admitted to the public on numerous occasions exactly what they want — namely, the institution of a truly global and centralized economic system revolving around a highly controlled world currency framework and dominated by a select cult of banking oligarchs... In January 1988, the financial magazine 'The Economist' published an article titled “Get Ready for a World Currency by 2018,” in which it outlined the framework for a global currency system called the “Phoenix” (see cover)...

The plan is to introduce a basket currency system as an alternative to the dollar as world reserve, then slowly but surely phase out all sovereign currencies... A "Phoenix" rises from the ashes of calamity, reborn. What 'ashes' are the elites expecting the new global currency to rise from?... 'The Economist' is not just any random financial publication; it is in large part owned by the Rothschild banking family** and is based out of the London financial center. The Economist does not have to “guess” on the economic developments of the future; it has an inside track on exactly what is planned to occur."

-- Brandon Smith article

* The CEO of Glencore is Jewish billionaire Ivan Glasenberg. Fellow billionaire Nat Rothschild is reportedly a major investor.

** Billionaire Evelyn de Rothschild was chairman of The Economist when the "Phoenix" article was published. His current wife, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton, is now a director. The couple spent their honeymoon at the White House as guests of the Clintons.