Celente: “What did Snowden say that we didn’t write about over a year ago?” The real stories are the imploding economy and coming war.

Ron Paul Farewell Speech

...IT'S NOW THE LAW OF THE LAND THAT THE MILITARY CAN ARREST AMERICAN CITIZENS, HOLD THEM INDEFINITELY WITHOUT CHARGES OR TRIAL. ...WE NEED AN INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING. WITHOUT AN INTELLECTUAL AWAKENING, THE TURNING POINT WILL BE DRIVEN BY ECONOMIC LAW, A CRISIS WILL BRING THE CURRENT OUT-OF-CONTROL SYSTEM TO ITS KNEES. IF IT'S NOT ACCEPTED THAT BIG GOVERNMENT FIAT MONEY, IGNORING LIBERTY, CENTRAL ECONOMIC PLANNING, WELFARISM AND WARFARISM CAUSED OUR CRISIS, WE WILL EXPECT A CONTINUOUS MARCH TOWARD COMPARPTISM AND FASCISM WITH EVEN MORE LOSS OF OUR LIBERTIES...

Obama Power Grab

American Free Press

By Ralph Forbes

“The new White House Executive Order of March 16, 2012, the so called ‘National Defense Resources Preparedness Order,’ is a clear blueprint for total government control over the civilian economy, under the guise of ‘national defense,’” warns Maj. Gen. Albert “Bert” N. Stubblebine III, former commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.

The White House has set in motion the regulatory basis for an American version of Lenin’s “War Communism” whereby the entire civilian economy is militarized, says distinguished doctor of law Ralph Fucetola.

Fucetola analyzed this executive order (EO), which gives the president the power to take over the means of production. It annuls private contracts and commandeers all the resources of all the people. This EO, if allowed to stand, sets the legal basis for total government control over: “food, energy, health, civil transportation, water and all other materials, services and facilities.”

Dissecting the lengthy diktat, the president and his secretaries have the authority to seize all transportation, energy and infrastructure inside the United States. The federal government would not only control all necessities—but the lives of 99% of Americans. The EO claims the president even has the power to forcibly draft American citizens into the military. The EO also contains language on harnessing American citizens to fulfill “labor requirements” for “the purposes of national defense.”

Everything means everything, including:

“Food resources” means all commodities and products, (simple, mixed, or compound), or complements to such commodities or products, that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals, irrespective of other uses to which such commodities or products may be put, at all stages of processing from the raw commodity to the products thereof in vendible form for human or animal consumption. “Food resources” also means potable water packaged in commercially marketable containers, all starches, sugars, vegetable and animal or marine fats and oils, seed, cotton, hemp and flax fiber. . . . “Water resources” means all usable water, from all sources.

The EO does not require “national emergencies” or times of war. This EO can be invoked for confiscation and control by presidential whim “when needed to meet defense requirements during peacetime, graduated mobilization and national emergency.”

There is no evidence that any of the GOP candidates—other than Ron Paul—has the guts to stand against this treason.
——
Ralph Forbes is a freelance writer based in Arkansas. He is also a member of AFP’s Southern Bureau. Contact him at rforbes@centurytel.net

Diminishment of Sovereignty and More Fed Manipulation

The International Forecaster

An excerpt from Bob Chapman's weekly publication. 

 

February 1 2012: Davos pact diminishes sovereignty of european nations, deflation and inflation, employment not improving for election, more money managers bullish on gold, money chaos cover up is political, gold rush in China as the year of the dragon starts, Fed bolsters commodities despite economic decline.

 

On Friday from the Bilderberg conclave at Davos,       appointed European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi proclaimed that Europe had averted financial disaster and cited the improvement in euro zone markets in recent weeks. He said it was the ECB’s duty to guard against deflation as well as inflation. The fact of the matter is that he and his friends at the Fed arranged a currency swap of $1 trillion of which the ECB dispersed $660 billion to 523 EU banks, at 1% interest for three years. He also cut interest rates twice and extended loans for 1 to 3 years. Mr. Draghi could be expected to take the easy Anglo-American way out. He is fully Illuminati trained and that is where his orders emanate from.
He continued about how the conclusion of a fiscal pact, the ESM, the European Stabilization Mechanism, where budgets and fiscal spending policies would be determined by unelected, Treasury appointees, who have been officially immunized by the EU government. Mr. Draghi makes no note of these qualifications and forgets to let us know that in this new ESM pact all the nations lose their sovereignty.
As yet, after a month, there is no evidence that the funds had reached the real economy. The banks that just received the funds at 1% interest have been depositing them at ¼% interest with the ECB. They have not lent to each other because bankers say they do not trust each other. What a sad state of affairs. In addition to the above the ECB now accepts loan collateral of much lower quality than previously was approved. As you can see there were a lot of facts Mr. Draghi deliberately left out.
Now the banks have to use these funds to refund old and new debt and lend to keep the economies afloat. They also have to play their parts in keeping the six problem nations afloat.
Concerning the subject of Greece we were told last Friday a deal would be announced but nothing has happened as yet. The outlook is grim and the fundamentals are terrible. We won’t rehash Greece, because we have been over it so many times. We will wait to see what this week brings.
The Portuguese economy is falling deeper into austerity. Bank lending has fallen by the most on record. It fell $6.5 in December the biggest monthly decline since December 197, when the ECB began collecting data. Portugal, if they’ like to recover, should be using the LTRO funds to make loans to small and medium sized companies.
The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says Portugal would have to have a budget surplus of 11% of GDP annually. If they had 2% growth, which is a tall order, it would need a 56% haircut on its debt to get back on a sustainable path to recovery.
Gold finally out of that early on mess, finally had a good month, up just under 10%. That is the best January since 1980. We remember January 1980 well – it was the final month of the gold rally. Oddly enough the shares topped out in June with gold trading at $680 to $720. We would like to say that the 3 gold and silver suppressions of this past 2011 and 2012 has pointed out in stark relief that the US government has been very actively manipulating gold and silver prices, legally, since 1980. We mention this because short-term charts are terribly distorted and for us you cannot use them. The advocates are out again with their charts and believe we hope they are right. As usual as they have been, they will be wrong. They’ll soon call for reversal and as they do gold and silver will go higher.
After having loaned the ECB $1 trillion they now tell us we’ll receive QE 3. In fractional banking that could be $10 to $20 trillion. Any substantial part of those funds are used and monetized you’ll see some stunning inflation.
Election is in view and employment is not improving. The Fed has pledged that it is prepared to provide for further monetary accommodation. Inflation is headed higher, not lower. All that money and credit will influence inflation. Yes, the EU, US and UK economies will be flat this year and probably slightly higher. What we are doing with QE 3 and other types of stimulus is just extending the game.
If everything is fine why did the US Mint sell 114,500 ounces of American Gold Eagles with still two days left in January to accommodate buyers? Maybe the total will be 145,000, the largest sale in 1-1/2 years. It’s because people do not trust their economies and their governments that is why and they are buying gold and silver coins to protect themselves.  They only have to look at the Republican Presidential primaries where votes are stolen by computer, dead people vote and Ron Paul doesn’t get a chance to state his case.   Our government is a criminal syndicate. All those American gold and silver buyers know this, and that is why they want gold and silver coins, not fiat dollars.
Finally we are starting to see money managers, hedge funds, and others getting more bullish on gold. This should lead to short covering in gold and silver and the shares.
Here we have QE 3 in the works as we predicted months ago. We said it would consist of the Fed buying the banks garbage so they have cash to follow the Fed’s orders. Those orders will be to buy Treasuries, Agencies and to make loans to small and medium companies. Before the Fed bought $1.4 trillion of this paper, mostly MBS and CDO’s. We never found out what the Fed paid for previous purchases and we won’t this time either. This is another gift the Fed, or should we say taxpayer gives the to the banks. What we are seeing in Europe and again shortly here is another stuffing of the system with money and credit. The Fed is headed down the road of no return and they know exactly what they are doing. That is playing money and credit creation to the bitter end. Historically no central bank has had the power to do this. If played out to the end we have to expect hyperinflationary depression, which will end in a deflationary depressionary collapse. This will destroy the value of the US dollar and its purchasing power. The entire system will probably collapse to a great extent including perhaps 60% of commerce, 40% to 50% unemployment, and the end of the financial system and resorting to bartering, the social support system and government. They will all collapse, so you had better prepare for it. All this will be expedited if Ron Paul is not elected our next president. If he were to be elected he could short-circuit many programs and policies that are destroying our nation.
The moves by the elitist Fed via the ECB to cover-up the monetary and financial chaos in Europe and in the US via QE 3 is in part political. Political in France and toward the next elections. France is a nightmare for the elitists and obviously those in power want Obama returned. He having done everything asked of him.
Bob Chapman - Discount Gold & Silver Trading - 27 Jan 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMHIq0KIq4A&feature=email
Interview 457 – The International Forecaster with Bob Chapman
http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-457-the-international-forecaster-with-bob-chapman/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CorbettReportRSS+%28The+Corbett+Report%29
Bob Chapman - Financial Survival - January 30, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCy_OUyd5Ts&feature=email
Bob Chapman - Oracle Broadcasting - Jan. 28, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QgKm67sjt0&feature=email
Bob Chapman - USAprepares Radio Show - Jan. 31, 2012 – Vincent Finelli
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAL4u0o5xCk&feature=email
As we predicted last fall that QE 3 will come in the form of another bank bailout. This time it will be the clearing of toxic bonds from the banks’ books, which was done by buying $1.4 trillion in these bonds previously. We expect $800 billion to $1.3 trillion this time around. The disbursement of these funds should last 12 to 18 months. These moves were in part responsible for our change in GDP for the US this year from minus 1-1/2% to 2% to plus 1-1/2% to 2%.
In the latest out of Europe, Germany is pushing Greece to relinquish control over its budget policies to a euro zone “budget commissioner,” who would be able to veto domestic fiscal decisions, similar to the powers they want to grant to the ESM.
German logic is if further funds are not dispersed, Greece cannot threaten its members with default, but will have to accept outside fiscal control with funs. The game being paid by Germany is dangerous and could lead to immediate default. In addition any deal made in February by the PASOK government is subject to change in two months by a new election victor and party in charge. The German position is dumb and ultimately won’t work.
The Greeks are not going to like or accept the German demands. There will be demonstrations and the new policies may go nowhere. From the Greek side, when you have lost almost everything there is little more to lose. Unfortunately, we predicted all this but few were listening.
After putting the present regime in power 25 years ago in Iran the US has had nothing but problems, the latest and most important has been the sale of oil in currencies other than the US dollar. Asked many times, Iran refuses to comply. This is the main reason the US and Europe are so aggressive in pursuing Iran. Underneath it all it is all about petrodollars. This is why Iraq was destroyed and Libya as well. The US could not tolerate Iraq selling oil in euros. Anyone who steps out of line gets zapped, no matter who it is. At the IMF a year ago director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called for a different currency to, a new world currency, to end the dominance of the dollar. As a result he was set up in a hotel in NYC for rape. We immediately pointed out this was a bag job and so it was, but it got him out of his IMF job, he couldn’t run for the French presidency and they destroyed his reputation. This shows you how far and even further the US Illuminists will go to protect their oil monopoly and fixed oil payments in US dollars only. Strauss-Kahn is a top Illuminist and they still destroyed him. If the dollar becomes only one of many currencies in which oil is sold, the dollar will then collapse. For the US, the barn door has closed, but the farm animals are already loose.
At Davos this past week the US Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, urged the euro zone to boost its cache of bailout cash and protect Italy and Spain against the threat of a market rout. At the same time the new IMF leader Christine Lagarde urged Greece and its creditors to agree on cutting debt burdens.
What we see here is a request for more funds. The Fed just did a swap, a loan, for $1 trillion for the ECB in behalf of 523 EU banks. Obviously it wasn’t enough and obviously they would rather borrow from the ECB and the Fed rather than go the fractional route. We will see more money spilled but never really enough.
While these events ran paramount on Friday night, while most everybody was enjoying themselves, Fitch cut Italy’s rating 2 notches to A minus. Joining the group n being downgraded we saw the same medicine applied to Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Cyprus.
Last week the Dow fell 0.5%, S&P was little changed, the Russell 2000 gained 1.8% and the Nasdaq 100 rose 1.0%. Cyclicals rose 0.8%; utilities were unchanged; transports gained 1.2%; consumers fell 0.4%; banks fell 1.4% and broker/dealers fell 3.0%; high tech rose 0.3%; semis fell 0.2%; Internets fell 0.3% and biotechs rose 5.4%. Gold bullion rose $72.00, the HUI Gold Index rose 9.4% and the USDX fell 1.6%.
Two-year T-bills fell 3 bps to 0.21%, as 10-year notes fell 13 bps to 1.89%. German 10-year bunds rose again.
The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgage rates rose 10 bps to 3.98%; the 15’s rose 7 bps to 3.24%. The one-year ARM’s were unchanged at 2.74% and 30-year fixed rate jumbos were down 4 bps to 4.46%.
Fed credit expanded $1.5 billion to $2,905 trillion, which is up 20.1% yoy. Fed foreign holdings at Treasuries and Agencies rose $14.4 billion to $3.406 trillion. Custody holdings for foreign central banks rose $55 billion yoy, or 1.6%.
M2, narrow, money supply rose $8.0 billion to a record $9.763 trillion. That is up 10.2% yoy.
Total money market fund assets fell $14.7 billion to $2.679 trillion.
Commercial paper rose $3.4 billion to $971 billion. That is down $17 billion from a year ago, or 1.7%.

            A "gold rush" swept through China during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday this year, with demand for precious metals and jewelry surging since the Year of the Dragon began.
            Sales of gold, silver and jewelry rose 57.6 percent during the week-long holiday at Caibai, one of Beijing's best-known gold retailers, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) on Saturday.
            Other jewelry stores across the country also saw sales boom during the period, with customers favoring New Year-themed gold bars, gold ingots and other types of Dragon-themed jewelries.
            "Long treasured by Chinese, gold is no longer owned only by a privileged few, but has become a new investment channel open to all," said Guan Qiang, assistant manager at Caibai.
            The Spring Festival gives people a chance to preserve and present gold as gifts, offering hopes that it will increase in value and not be impacted by inflation, Guan said.
            During the week-long holiday, which lasted from January 22 to 28, the sales volume in Caibai and Guohua, another of Beijing's top gold retailers, reached about 600 million yuan ($95.28 million).
            The figure showed a 49.7-percent increase over that of last year's Spring Festival, said a report released by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce.
Caibai began selling gold bars as investment items during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, but the trend of buying gold or silver bars during the Spring Festival has really taken off in the past two years, Guan said.
            For Guan and his colleagues, the Spring Festival rush was an exciting but exhausting experience, as customers flooded the store and surprised clerks with their purchasing enthusiasm.
            "With customers crowding and rushing in, we did not even have time to eat and drink," said a sales clerk at the gold bar counter surnamed Li.
            She said each shop assistant had received hundreds of customers per day and wrote several times more orders than on ordinary days.
            "You can hardly even see the gold bars, necklaces and pendants in the display case. People seem crazy about gold, snatching it up more like a 'cheap cabbage' than such a precious metal," said Beijing resident Miao Miao.
            "You have to quickly decide whether to make a purchase, or it will be taken away by others."
            Miao was shopping for a pair of gold bracelets to give to her granddaughter as a gift for the New Year.
            "When my daughter was born in 1984, we had no means or savings to buy her one as a keepsake. We can finally realize this dream by sending it to her daughter," Miao said.
            However, Chinese do not value gold only in only sentimental terms. The precious metal is also expected to maintain or increase its value, as evidenced by the surging investment demand seen around the country, insiders have said.
            "To most Chinese, gold is more convenient to cash in than other investment instruments. Despite common investment risks, the price of gold is clear and easy to judge," said Guan.
            Compared to unpredictable investments, such as those in the stock market or housing sector, gold is cherished more by Chinese for its increasing value as an asset as well as the unlikelihood that it will be affected by inflation, Guan said.
            China is expected to overtake India as the world's top gold consumer in the next few years. Strong demand for investments in gold and jewelry will have driven China's total gold demand to 750 metric tons in 2011, according to the World Gold Council.
            Despite the record-high price of gold, the demand for investments in gold and jewelry has continued to soar, with the market expected to reach about 955.2 metric tons by 2020, thanks to a growing middle class and a more affluent society, said Binghai, director of the Shanghai Gold & Jewelry Trade Association.

The NY Fed’s Index of Coincident Economic Indicators shows how putrid the economic ‘bounce’ is for New Jersey. NYC, due to the trillions poured into Wall Street bounced well but is now rolling over. The bounce of NYC obviously helped NY State, but that bounce was modest and is also rolling over.
US Q4 GDP increased 0.7%, 2.8% annualized; 3% was expected. However, consumption increased only 2%. Inventory growth contributed 2 percent points to the 2.8% growth! Real final sales rose 0.8%.
The Commerce Department greatly boosted GDP by lowering the GDP deflator to only 0.39% from Q3’s 2.56%. This created 2.16% more GDP q/q…Using CPI to deflate GDP would have produced negative GDP.
The absurdly low GDP Deflator also greatly overstates income, which increased only 0.8%...Government spending declined 4.6% in Q4 and 2.1% for 2011 due to massive defense cuts. This is the biggest decline since 1971…Part of the surge in inventory could be inflation.

Consumer Metric Institute: If the highly positive swing in the inventory number is real, it is certainly not sustainable and when combined with actual consumer spending the numbers themselves would be prima facie evidence that manufacturers over-corrected in anticipation of huge holiday spending. Such an over-correction should lead to reversals in the coming quarters. On the other hand, if the swing is an artifact of firming commodity prices it is just a further indication that the headline number is hopelessly noisy subject to erratic phantom movements as the BEA's "deflaters" struggle to track pricing changes.
And lastly, the volatility of the inventory parts of the BEA's equation continue to distort the headline number enough to render it useless as a source of genuine economic information. In the best of times the inventory data provided by the BEA is late and incomplete, but it is necessitated by the need within the BEA's equations to reconcile the production based manufacturing portions of their equation to the consumption based consumer portions. Because of that it is both partly plugged (at least in the monthly and quarterly updates) and highly susceptible to fluctuations in pricing levels.
In short, this report is disturbing because of how the headline number masks real and troubling weakness in the more substantive details

The PCE number was the most-understated and worthless, regularly-followed inflation number the Fed could come up with, shy of the “core” PCE deflator, net of food and energy, which Mr. Bernanke traditionally has been fond of touting.
GDP for 2011 increased only 1.7%. US Debt increased almost 9% in 2011; the Fed’s balance sheet increased over 20%. $1.22 Trillion of US Treasury debt and QE2.0 and Operation Twist II produced about $260B of GDP.
How many times can this occur before an implosion occurs?
Employment in Alabama has surged since July 2011; however this has caused great controversy.
Alabama's unemployment rate has dropped more than any of its bordering states according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the data, Alabama's unemployment has dropped by 1.9% since July 2011 when the rate reached its high for the year at 10% unemployment…
The legislature passed a handful of measures that were touted as ways to recruit industry to Alabama.
They included tax incentives for companies to relocate to Alabama and a law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration which was sold as an economic development bill… [Bill passed in June]

[Fed officials and other solons are complicit]
The amount of money the federal government hands out in direct payments to individuals steadily increased over the past four decades, but shot up under Obama, climbing by almost $600 billion a 32% increase in his first three years…
According to the Census Bureau 49% now live in homes where at least one person gets a federal benefit — Social Security, workers comp, unemployment, subsidized housing, and the like. That's up from 44% the year before Obama took office, and way up from 1983, when fewer than a third were government beneficiaries…
This year, more than 46 million (15% of all Americans) will get food stamps. That's 45% higher than when Obama took office, and twice as high as the average for the previous 40 years…
The number of people on Social Security disability has steadily climbed since the 1970s, thanks mainly to easier eligibility rules. But their numbers jumped 10% in Obama's first two years in office, according to the Social Security Administration. That sharp rise was due largely to meager job prospects since the recession ended in 2009…
The government's role in health care has grown over the past decades, with 45% of all health spending now coming from the federal government, up from 32% in 1990…
In just nine years, entitlement spending is on track to eat up 61% of the federal budget, according to the CBO. And unless these programs are cut back, they will soon consume all federal taxes, one CBO budget scenario predicts…

Due to the Fed, several commodities are surging despite universal forecasts of global economic decline.
Cattle prices are at an all-time high due to the lowest herd count in 50 years (due to grain prices last year).
Orange juice hit an all-time high (Looking good, Billy Ray!)…Cash corn is trading at premium in January for the first time since 1975 (due to tight supplies)…Gasoline futures hit an all-time high for January.
As we keep asserting, if the Fed were to implement QE 3.0, the inflation surge could be much worse than the inflation surge that accompanied QE 2.0, which killed economic growth and fomented global revolt.

In Honolulu… there’s a four-bedroom home priced at $785,000 that has views of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. The beaches of Waikiki are 15 minutes away.   Starting this month, the property is available to buyers with a subprime credit score, limited cash reserves and a 3.5% down payment using a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration. Without the agency, a buyer would need a 20% down payment and an unblemished financial history for a jumbo mortgage…  The agency increased the size of mortgages it’s willing to insure to as high as $793,750 in Hawaii and $729,750 in the costly real estate markets of states including California, Florida, and Virginia.

Freddie Mac Bets Against American Homeowners.
But the trades, uncovered for the first time in an investigation by ProPublica and NPR, give Freddie a powerful incentive to do the opposite, highlighting a conflict of interest at the heart of the company. In addition to being an instrument of government policy dedicated to making home loans more accessible, Freddie also has giant investment portfolios and could lose substantial amounts of money if too many borrowers refinance.
“We were actually shocked they did this,” says Scott Simon…the head of the giant bond fund PIMCO’s mortgage-backed securities team…“It seemed so out of line with their mission.The trades put them squarely against the homeowner, he says.

CBO has released a study comparing the wages and benefits of private sector and federal non-military workers. The study uses statistical techniques to make comparisons with adjustments for education level, experience, and other factors.
Here are the overall results:
- The wages of federal workers are 2 percent higher than similar private-sector workers, on average.
- The benefits of federal workers are 48 percent higher than similar private-sector workers, on average.
- The total compensation (wages plus benefits) of federal workers is 16 percent higher than similar private-sector workers, on average…

The percentage of safe assets to total assets in the US economy has been roughly the same since 1952, at about 33 per cent…The stability of demand for safe assets has held during a time in which the assets of the financial sector as a percentage of all assets in the economy have climbed from 25 to 40 per cent, with most of the growth in total assets being financed through debt rather than equity…
Since the relevant topic is how to prevent a run in the shadow banking system, we’re primarily talking about debt here specifically, the debt eligible to be used as collateral in repo and short-term secured lending markets…
Gorton and Metrick have previously argued that the panic wasn’t caused directly by the revelation that subprime-related ABS values were plummeting; this had already happened earlier than 2007. The problem was that the lack of transparency in repo markets meant that investors had no way of distinguishing between repo borrowers whose collateral was subprime-related and those whose collateral was relatively safer. So they started raising haircuts, from zero in most cases, indiscriminately across all
repo counterparties. The run was on and so was the credit crunch…
The core problem is that there is no such thing as a safe asset, as the world has so painfully learned.
”Safe asset” is just a phrase that describes assets perceived to be safe enough. But we can never completely eliminate the possibility that an asset will go from safe enough to not safe enough.

US personal income increased 0.5% in December; but 23% of income growth was due to personal transfer payments. Spending was flat. Savings surged 4% - in December!!! This does not compute!
Illinois’ unpaid bills may more than triple to $34.8 billion by 2017 unless lawmakers and Democratic.
Governor Pat Quinn immediately bring Medicaid and pension spending under control, said a research group. The “potentially paralyzing” backlog, projected to reach $9.2 billion when this fiscal year ends June 30, would be fueled by an “unsustainable” increase in Medicaid spending, according to the Civic Federation, which calls itself a nonpartisan government research organization
House Republicans are proposing to spend about $260 billion over the next 4 1/2 years on transportation programs, as well as substantially increase the size of trucks permitted on highways, according to a draft bill being introduced this week… [Bribing the constituents with more goodies from borrowed money]
Residential real estate prices fell more than forecast in November, showing distressed properties are hampering improvement in the U.S. housing market.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities declined 3.7 percent from November 2010 after decreasing 3.4 percent in the year ended in October, the group said today in New York. Economists projected a 3.3 percent drop, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.
Another wave of foreclosures threatens to keep the pressure on prices and delay recovery in the industry that precipitated the last recession, underscoring the Federal Reserve’s view that housing “remains depressed.” More stability in real-estate values may be needed to persuade Americans to take advantage of record-low mortgage rates.
“We’ve seen home prices take a turn for the worse after showing some signs of a bottom, and we do think that there is more downside from here,” said Ellen Zentner, a senior economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, who correctly forecast the price decline. “If you get stronger jobs and wage growth, it’ll go far in alleviating some of the pipeline foreclosures that have yet to happen.
Consumer confidence unexpectedly dropped in January and a gauge of business activity fell, underscoring forecasts that the U.S. economy will cool after expanding at the fastest pace since the second quarter 2010.
The New York-based Conference Board’s confidence index decreased to 61.1, lower than the most pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists, from a revised 64.8 reading the prior month. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said its business barometer declined to 60.2 from 62.2 in December. Readings above 50 signal growth.
Employers aren’t hiring fast enough to drive bigger gains in wages and consumer spending, while higher gasoline prices are cutting into household budgets. Another report today showed home prices fell more than forecast in November, eroding the wealth of families as they seek to rebuild savings.
“This quarter will be a bit slower,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc. in Pittsburgh, who had the lowest sentiment estimate. “Consumer confidence appears to have leveled off, as job growth isn’t quite as good and gasoline prices have moved back up.”
Business activity in the U.S. cooled in January as orders and employment slowed, indicating last quarter’s pickup in growth will not be sustained into 2012.
The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Inc. said today its business barometer declined to 60.2 from 62.2 in December. Readings above 50 signal growth. Economists forecast the gauge would rise to 63, according to the median of 57 estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
Three consecutive readings exceeding 60 are still the strongest since early 2011, signaling manufacturing remains a mainstay of the expansion even as the world’s largest economy decelerates. Nonetheless, the risk of a recession in Europe prompted by its debt crisis and slower growth in some emerging markets pose a risk to export growth.
Business activity in the U.S. Midwest grew more slowly than expected in January, according to the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago's index of Midwest business activity.
"January's Chicago PMI reading of 60.2 compares to 62.2 in December and a market consensus of 63.0, but remains quite healthy," said David Sloan, an economist with IFR Economics.
"Firmer data from other surveys appear to be catching up with the Chicago PMI," he added. "Internals were generally somewhat softer with the exception of a rise in delivery times."
Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former CEO of American International Group Inc. (AIG), and the company he runs, Starr International Co. (Starr), have sued the U.S. Government for the alleged unconstitutional federal takeover of AIG in 2008, according to Reuters.
The lawsuit seeks $25 billion in damages and alleges violations of the Fifth Amendment, which says private property can’t be taken for “public use, without just compensation.”  Moreover, Starr accuses the U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank of New York of wrongly seizing control of AIG and using it as a vehicle to funnel tens of billions of dollars to AIG’s trading partners, and also alleges that the AIG bailout was done as “a vehicle to covertly funnel billions of dollars to other preferred financial institutions including Goldman Sachs.”
“The government’s actions were ostensibly designed to protect the United States economy and rescue the country’s financial system,” the complaint asserts.
The complaint adds that, “[a]lthough this might be a laudable goal, as a matter of basic law, the ends could not and did not justify the unlawful means employed. The government is not empowered to trample shareholder and property rights even in the midst of a financial emergency.”
The $25 billion estimate reflects what Starr calls the value of the government’s stake on January 14, 2011, when it swapped AIG preferred stock for 562.9 million common shares.  AIG was once the world’s largest insurer by market value.
The federal claims case is Starr International Co. v. United States, No. 11-779(Fed. Cl. filed Nov. 21, 2011). The Federal Reserve case is Starr International Co. v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, No. 11-8422 (S.D.N.Y. filed Nov. 21, 2011)

            JPMorgan Chase & Co. was sued by Germany’s largest cooperative lender for allegedly making false and misleading statements in connection with the sale of residential mortgage-backed securities.
            DZ Bank AG sued yesterday in New York State Supreme Courtin Manhattan, saying it bought about $85 million of the securities from JPMorgan based on offering materials that misrepresented the underwriting standards used to issue the underlying loans.
            "Plaintiff did not know the true facts regarding defendants’ misrepresentations and omissions in the offering materials, and justifiably relied on those misrepresentations and omissions," Frankfurt-based DZ Bank said in the complaint. The German lender is seeking $85 million in damages.
            Pools of home loans securitized into bonds were a central part of the housing bubble that helped send the U.S. into the biggest recession since the 1930s. The housing market collapsed, and the crisis swept up lenders and investment banks as the market for the securities evaporated.
            Tasha Pelio, a spokeswoman for New York-based JPMorgan, declined to immediately comment on the lawsuit.
            The case is Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank AG v. JPMorgan Chase & Co, 650293/2012, New York State Supreme Court(Manhattan).

"US financial economic collapse?!" Max Keiser Gonzalo Lira

Gerald Celente: We're going into an economic 9/11

David Icke: Essential Knowledge For A Wall Street Protestor

Deficits And Stimulus Only Delay The Inevitable Collapse

Bob Chapman
International Forecaster
July 21, 2011

America is insolvent and has been so for a long time, and these games of massive deficits, stimulus and quantitative easing only delay the inevitable deflationary depression and economic and financial collapse, which has been deliberately created by Wall Street and banking to force us to accept World Government.
The actions of Senator Mitch McConnell were absolutely reprehensible and a disgrace. An effort to continue spending to keep his benefactors behind the scenes happy. His proposal was to allow the President to increase the debt three times before the end of 2012, which would be accompanied by Mr. McConnell’s spending cuts. This would avoid a vote and allow the President to act as dictator. Another scam and no mandated cuts. What this boils down to is political theater and the elections not that far away. They’ll be no cuts if any agenda passes, only cuts of future increases.
The national debt will not be touched and the wild spending will continue including $4 trillion to continue more wars. That means $1.5 trillion annual deficits forever. The climbing debt is 80% consumed by the Federal Reserve, which creates money out of thin air. Are we to believe that the Fed will create $2.5 trillion a year for the next three years and perhaps longer? The answer is yes, and the result will be hyperinflation, which will ruin the value of the US dollar. It is obvious the elites are not really looking for a solution; they simply want to destroy the value of the dollar to extinguish economic and financial stability, thereby forcing Americans, Brits and Europeans to accept World Government.
Europeans are finally realizing they cannot bail out six countries for more than $4 trillion without pushing themselves into insolvency. We pointed this number and possibilities out 1-1/2 years ago. There will be a Greek default followed by five other defaults, which will lead up to the end of the euro and perhaps the end of the European Union, that unnatural association. Such defaults over the next few years would wipe out most European banks and that will spread across the world. The catalyst for world financial catastrophe. The money being additionally loaned by EU sovereigns reaches Greece and does a U-turn and returns to European bankers to service debt. In the meantime via austerity Greece descends into a great dark pit. IMF funds take the same route of which almost 20% comes from US taxpayers. In addition the European bank exposure in Greece in part is covered, or insured, by American banks for $160 billion. The reason the banks do not want a default is that the US banks will have to pay off and they do not have the funds to do so. That event could trigger a world banking collapse, or another bailout via US taxpayers and the Fed. There is now no question that the euro will pass into history as another utopian nightmare. For those who were paying attention Greece and Italy should have been bailed out in 2001, not be admitted to the euro zone.
Contagion is doing its work and it is only a matter of time before the dominoes fall. Italy’s public debt to GDP is world class at about 120% and as interest rates climb servicing gets more expensive. Italy and Spain are the real linchpins. If they default everything in those six nations collapses. As we said previously the financial contagion will not only take down the euro and euro zone, but probably the EU as well.
As a result of onerous debt Greek bonds have lost 50% to 75% of their value and the bonds of the other five insolvent countries are in fact in negative pursuit. In just the first quarter Greek spending has fallen 40% just as salaries have. As a result tax revenues have plunged, as we predicted they would some time ago. This is no way to help an economy.
Greece has $480 billion in debt outstanding and about $160 billion is insured by credit default swaps sold by NYC legacy or money center banks. The same thing is true regarding Ireland. Needless to say, the CDS exposure is a guess because there is no reporting or regulation on OTC derivatives. These banks and others as a result just make arrangements that please them. This is why these instruments of financial destruction should be totally banned.
The writers and users of credit default swaps and other derivatives are aiding in continuing this speculation by forces within governments, prominent people such as Sir Alan Greenspan and the media. A change in derivatives reporting is out of the question, so that they can be bought and sold unhindered. In the end when the writers get in trouble it is the taxpayer who guarantees the bill and gets to pay for it.
As you have seen recently in Europe there has an outcry concerning derivatives and the ratings dispensed by rating agencies. Russia and a number of other nations will no longer accept the ratings of S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, because they are bogus and are politically motivated. What agencies do is write a report on a company or nation. Presently the report and demand the entity pay for the report. If they do not pay more often than not a new report follows that is not so flattering. It is called extortion. Wall Street and banking control these agencies. Look at the fraud and criminal collusion in the MBS-CDO market. Outright criminal fraud and the courts refused judgment. These people, who run these companies, should be in jail. They are not because they are part of those who run the system. The Europeans have known this for years, but for whatever reason they have tolerated it. The ratings given by the raters, and the massive use of derivatives have been responsible in great part for the credit crisis. They prompted massive speculation on a scale previously unheard of. It was used for enrichment as well as to keep the system functioning.
What comes to mind is the recent flurry of credit rater downgrades of weak European countries and their sovereign debt. The problems these countries have were known more than ten years ago and now all of a sudden they become a major issue. If Wall Street and US banking control these agencies and the agencies keep downgrading these sovereigns what can be the motivation? We surmise the problems in Europe serve as a distraction from America’s problems, but there could be a more compelling reason. That could be that the powers in NYC and Washington want to destroy the euro as an alternative to the US dollar as the world reserve currency. There could be a major conflict taking place at the highest levels behind the scenes, as to how the world will be run and finances are at the heart of the conflict. It is something to contemplate. We have already come to that conclusion. In this process lower sovereign debt ratings lead to higher interest rates that put more and more financial pressure on these already crippled countries. You can never fully contemplate what goes on in the twisted minds of these predators. Plots so diabolical and evil that the normal descent mind cannot comprehend them.
As we have pointed out the EuropeanCentral Bank, ECB, has made many mistakes. This is a central bank, which is a semi-federal institution, which gets pressure from all sides. This state of affairs leads to hesitancy, which becomes incompetence. At the beginning of the credit crisis they had to be backed by the Fed that lent them trillions of dollars just for the ECB and other member banks to stay afloat. That was and is a dreadful state of affairs. It could be that the condition was in large part caused by the bonds rated AAA by raters and Wall Street, which were in reality BBB bonds. Those European institutions lost trillions of dollars and what is very strange is that there were no civil or criminal legal action regarding the fraud. Of course, when elitists are involved cases never reach court and when they do no one goes to jail. It is what we call a criminal culture. The ECB was the bank that couldn’t sell gold fast enough. Gold as a percentage of assets was 15%, it is now 5%. The ECB is leveraged at about 25 to 1, when 9 to 1 is normal. If assets fall in value 5% the ECB is wiped out. That could very easily happen. They currently hold about $280 billion in Greek bonds that are not worth the paper they are written on. That loss is double their capital base, which means they are insolvent, yet, they go on their merry way deceiving the world. Thus, it is not surprising that the ECB and mostly other central banks and commercial banks want to rape Greece of all its assets at 10 cents to 30 cents on the dollar. As you can see the Greek problem alone can take the euro and EU banks down in a pile of rubble. As a result of this situation the 17 euro zone members would have to recapitalize the ECB, or it could not function. The sovereign banks could contribute and the ECB could sell gold or it could print more money making its euro worth less and cause higher inflation. Even though the US and Japan are in more serious debt load problems the ECB is closer to losing control. Dealing with debt problems is enough for one nation, but having to deal with 17 or 27 nations is daunting.
It is not all that easy for the dollar. Including China foreign reserves kept in US dollars is about 60.5% down from 61.5% just three months previous. As long as the dollar is continually sold it will remain under pressure. If the euro falls by US design then you can understand why. It is because a weaker euro helps the dollar mask its problems. Everyone has to use currencies, but confidence in the euro, dollar, and yen are definitely in retrograde. The US dollar, although it is the world reserve currency, has lost and loses confidence every day because the American system is being looted by Wall Street and banking. As we write a new plan B is going to be discussed this week in regard to the extension of short-term US debt. Thus far the Republicans say they won’t accept tax increases and the President has said he is willing to sacrifice Social Security and Medicare programs the public has paid into for more than 40 years in the case of Medicare and since June of 1935 in the case of Social Security. There has been absolutely no mention of cutting military spending, which has been more than $5 trillion. Thus, perpetual war for perpetual peace will continue and our elderly will starve and go without health care to insure early death, thus relieving government of the burden of having to care for them. Those who call this a political victory for the President are sadly mistaken.
The Constitution says to force default on public obligations of the US is plainly unconstitutional. That includes pensions that should not be questioned. The debate alone is unconstitutional. What we are seeing is an attempt of government to avoid obligations. The Constitution is not optional, it is the law, and the President and the Congress knows that. What should be in process is a discussion of the long-term deficit. That is the way to solve the crisis.
In addition nothing is being done to solve the underlying problem. The banks, Wall Street, banking, insurance and select corporations have had a temporary reprieve, but little has been done to put the economy back on track. Recoveries create tax revenues and reduce debt. That solution to too simple for Washington. They are more interested in cutting paid for benefits then cutting the profits of the military industrial complex.
We all know why Social Security and Medicare were created. They provided health care and income so that the old do not have to survive in poverty. They meet the basic needs of those who cannot help themselves. These programs would be self-sustaining if government didn’t loot their contributions. Are we to all suffer as Congress refuses to come to grips with the real problem and continues to play politics? Are we to suffer because the President refuses to follow the Constitution? Are these players willing to destroy America, as we have known it? We believe that may be the case.
There is little confidence left in government and that is truly understandable.
Last week the Dow fell 1.4%, S&P 2.1%, the Russell 2000 2.8% and the Nasdaq 100 2%. Banks fell 4.2%; broke/dealers 4.1%; cyclicals 2.8%; transports 3.7%; consumers 1.4%; utilities 2.0%; high tech 3.6%; semis 5.7%; Internets 2.7% and biotechs 2.7%. Gold bullion rose $49.00, the HUI gold index leaped 5.9% and the USDX dollar index was little changed at 75.12.
The 10-year T-note was 2.91%, and the German bund fell 13 bps to 2.69%.
The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgage fell 9 bps to 4.51%, the 15’s fell 15 bps to 3.65%; the one-year ARMs fell 6 bps to 2.95% and the 30-year fixed rate jumbos fell 3 bps to 5.05%.
Fed credit rose $4.8 to a record $1.859 trillion. Year-on-year Fed credit has expanded 23.5%. Fed foreign holdings of Treasury and Agency debt rose $5.4 billion to $3.451 trillion. Custody holdings for foreign central banks have risen $100 billion ytd and $337 billion yoy, or 10.8%.
Central bank Forex assets, excluding gold, surpassed $10 trillion for the first time, now having doubled in 4.5 years. Reserves rose $1.591 trillion yoy, or 18.8% over two years they are up 44%.
M2, narrow money supply surged $88.7 billion to a record $9.253 trillion. It is up 9.1% year-to-date.
Total money market fund assets rose $9.7 billion to $2.696 trillion.
Total commercial paper outstanding rose $21.3 billion to $1.232 trillion. CP is up $63 billion year-to-date, or 42%.
Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin said Tuesday that it is offering a voluntary layoff program for about 6,500 U.S.-based employees, the latest in a string of recent moves to cut jobs at the company.
The news comes as the Pentagon continues to push for savings from contractors.
The initiative offers a severance package to all U.S.-based, salaried employees who report to Lockheed’s corporate headquarters or internal business services organization. The internal unit of about 5,000 employees handles areas such as payroll and information technology for the company.
About 2,000 of the eligible employees are based in the D.C. area, 1,300 are based in Florida offices — in Orlando and Lakeland — and more than 700 are in Denver, according to company spokeswoman Jennifer Whitlow. A Fort Worth site has about 500 eligible employees, while a Valley Forge, Pa., office has about 300.
The severance package provides two weeks of pay, plus another week of pay per year of service, up to 26 weeks. Eligible employees have until Aug. 12 to decide and would depart in the fall.
“Based on experience with these types of programs, we anticipate that around 2 percent will take advantage of the program,” Whitlow said.
The company said it would evaluate the number of volunteers and its budget before deciding whether to implement layoffs.
Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, has been one of the most aggressive in making personnel cuts. Under a voluntary executive buyout program the company launched last summer, about 600 executives departed at a cost of $178 million. The company has said it expects the program to save it about $350 million in the next five years and $105 million every year thereafter.
Lockheed announced late last month that it would lay off about 1,500 employees in its 28,000-employee aeronautics business, which is primarily based in Texas, Georgia and California. At its space systems business, the company said last month, it would reduce its 16,000-employee workforce by 1,200, particularly seeking to shrink middle management by 25 percent. Lockheed said the cuts would most severely hit Sunnyvale, Calif.; the Delaware Valley region of Pennsylvania; and Denver.
In both cases, the company said it would offer eligible employees voluntary layoffs before making involuntary cuts.
In a statement of administration policy, the White House Office of Management and Budget labeled the GOP bill as an “empty political statement.”
The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the measure on Monday, and it is likely to receive a floor vote on Tuesday. The measure would cut spending in Fiscal Year 2012 by $111 billion, cap future spending at 19.9 percent of gross domestic product and would allow for the debt ceiling to be increased if a balanced budget amendment is approved by Congress and sent to the stats.

Bernanke Feeds the Panic, Announces QEIII; Only Glass-Steagall Can Stop It

With Europe engulfed in debt-panic and the European Central Bank (ECB) becoming a huge “bad bank” for unpayable debt assets, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stepped into the breach July 13 by announcing to the House Financial Services Committee that the Federal Reserve is preparing a QEIII, with more expansion of its asset book. Stocks and the Euro momentarily soared, the dollar plunged.
Bernanke seemed to be defying what just-released minutes of June 22 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting showed, namely, that only “a few members” were in favor of even considering another round of “monetary stimulus,” or money-printing. A few hours after Bernanke’s announcement in Congress, Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher said in a speech there, “We’ve exhausted our ammunition, in my view, and expanding the Fed’s balance sheet from about $2.7 trillion to more than $3 trillion might spook the marketplace. I do not personally see the benefit of more monetary accommodation even if the economy weakens further.” One day earlier, retiring Kansas City Fed chief Thomas Hoenig, no doubt aware of what Bernanke would do, had blasted Fed money-printing in a speech: “Part of our basic problem worldwide and here in the U.S., is that the emperor has no clothes and no one’s willing to say it. You print money, print money, and print money, but you don’t create real wealth.”
All commentary focussed on the fact that Bernanke was trying to save the Euro single currency a hopeless task, and one that leads the Fed further into violating even the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Note that on June 29, the Fed extended unlimited currency swap lines of credit to the ECB and the Swiss, British, Canadian, and Japanese central banks. The ECB is being widely described as a “European bad bank” in the growing debt crisis, as it has lowered the standards for the collateral assets it is buying from banks, to below junk grade, and is buying from private equity funds, hedge funds, and investment banks. Will the Fed now be directly buying European sovereign debt, or European bank bonds, in support of the floundering ECB? Without waiting to find out, QEIII should be stopped.
An interesting report appearing July 6 on the financial analysis website “Zero Hedge”, used Federal Reserve flow-of-funds and bank reserves charts to show that all $600 billion of the so-called QEII money-printing appeared to go offshore to big Inter-Alpha and other European banks. The Fed’s purchases of Treasuries with its newly printed reserves from November 2010 to June 30, 2011 evidently were overwhelmingly from BNP Paribas, RBS, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and UBS. The “Zero Hedge” analyst concluded: “The only beneficiary of the reserves generated were US-based branches of foreign banks (which in turn turned around and funnelled the cash back to their domestic branches), a shocking finding which explains … why US banks have been unwilling and unable to lend out these reserves.”
Arguably, this violates the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, even with its 1932 “exigent and unusual circumstances” amendment, which still requires AAA-rated collateral in the form of U.S. Treasuries or equivalent, for the Fed lending to any “non-bank.”
But on more fundamental Constitutional grounds, an attempt to repeat this in a QEIII would be barred and the QEII effects could be reversed by immediate passage of legislation restoring the Glass-Steagall Act through both Houses of Congress. Under Glass-Steagall, not only were commercial banks separated from various kinds of securities-speculation and insurance firms. The Glass-Steagall principle is that only those commercial banks, thus separated, in the Federal Reserve System U.S. banks are eligible for Federal support in the form of discount window and special lending, deposit insurance, and other protective regulation. All the big European banks are famously “banking supermarkets” stuffed with investment banking arms, speculative hedge funds, insurance divisions, money-market funds, etc.
The current trans-Atlantic bad-debt bubble, imploding in Europe now, does not qualify for such lending or support; that gambling debt should be left on the shoulders of those who bet on it. Glass-Steagall passage would stop this latest panic bailout.

Global demand for U.S. stocks, bonds and other financial assets rose in May from a month earlier as China and Japan added to their holdings of government securities, the Treasury Department reported.

Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled $23.6 billion during the month, compared with net buying of $30.6 billion in April, according to statistics issued today in Washington. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners sold a net $67.5 billion compared with net buying of $66.6 billion the previous month.
The Treasury’s reporting on long-term securities is a gauge of confidence in U.S. economic policy, and today’s report suggests the U.S. continues to offer safety from the economic crisis in Europe even with the White House and Congress at odds over raising the Treasury’s borrowing authority.
“The U.S is a political risk perhaps as Congress deliberates over the debt ceiling, but no one views the U.S. as being unable financially to meet their obligations,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York, before today’s report in an e-mail.
Economists in a Bloomberg News survey projected long-term U.S. financial assets would show net buying of $40 billion in May. Five economists participated in the survey, and their estimates ranged from $30 billion to $66 billion.
The data capture international purchases of government notes and bonds, stocks, corporate debt and securities issued by U.S. agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy home mortgages.
China Biggest
China remained the biggest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries, after its holdings rose by $7.3 billion to $1.16 trillion in May, according to the Treasury’s statistics.
Japan, the second-largest holder, increased its holdings by $5.5 billion to $912.4 billion in May. Hong Kong, counted separately from China, reduced its holdings by $500 million to $121.9 billion.
Total foreign purchases of Treasury notes and bonds were $38 billion in May compared with purchases of $23.3 billion in April.

Former commodities trader Vincent P. McCrudden, accused of threatening to kill financial regulators, pleaded guilty today.

McCrudden pleaded guilty to two counts of transmission of threats to injure, before opening arguments were scheduled to begin in his trial in federal court in Central Islip, New York. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 5.
McCrudden, 50, who also ran his own hedge funds, was accused of threatening the lives of 47 current and former officials, including Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary L. Schapiro and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.
McCrudden has been held without bail since he was arrested Jan. 13 returning from Singapore. He was charged with threatening the regulators in profanity-filled e-mails and, after the CFTC sued him in December, Web postings. McCrudden had said he was being persecuted for fighting back against unfair regulatory actions that destroyed his career.
“On Dec. 10, 2010, I was notified that I was being civilly sued by the CFTC for $58 million,” McCrudden told U.S. District Judge Denis R. Hurley. “It upset me. I had started to post some things on the site that hadn’t been there before.”

Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s largest maker of computer-networking gear, is reducing its work force by about 9 percent to reduce costs and raise profits as the company tries to become more competitive.

Monday’s announcement to cut 6,500 of its roughly 73,000 worldwide employees follows up on a plan disclosed in May to eliminate thousands of jobs. Two-thirds will come through layoffs, and the rest through an early-retirement plan. The company said 15 percent of employees at or above the level of vice president are being eliminated.
Cisco has long been a high-growth company, but after rebounding from the recession, its sales started stalling about a year ago. Critics have long said that Cisco tries to compete in too many markets.
CEO John Chambers acknowledged that criticism in April and sent employees a memo vowing to take “bold steps” to narrow the company’s focus. Cisco killed off its Flip video camcorder business that month, and it reorganized its management structure a month later. Monday’s cuts represent Cisco’s latest attempt to simplify.
Cisco is also suffering from rising competition from companies like Juniper Networks Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. in the market for computer-networking equipment, including the routers and switches that direct the flow of data traffic.
Cisco said the cuts will cost it $1.3 billion in severance and termination benefits. The company, which is based in San Jose, Calif., plans to take the charge over several quarters. It will take $750 million of that, including $500 million for the early-retirement program, during the current quarter.
Cisco will inform employees who have been cut in the U.S., Canada and some other countries during the first week of August. The rest will come later to comply with local laws.
In May, Cisco said it planned to eliminate thousands of jobs as part of a larger plan to lower annual expenses by $1 billion, or about 6 percent. Cisco didn’t say then how many jobs would be eliminated, but the number worked out to 4,000 to 5,000 if the percentage of job cuts were similar to the reduction in expenses. The exact number has been the subject of many analyst and published reports since then. The numbers announced Monday are much higher than the 6 percent figure.
Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall said the cuts were in line with what he was expecting.
“Obviously, while an unfortunate event it’s a necessity for Cisco to heal and get back on a competitive stature in the industry,” he said.
Also Monday, Cisco said it agreed to sell its Juarez, Mexico-based set-top box manufacturing plant to Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese company that makes many Apple products. The plant’s 5,000 employees will join Foxconn by October. Those 5,000 are in addition to the 6,500 being cut from Cisco.
Earlier this year, Cisco cut 550 workers as part of its decision to kill Flip and reorganize.
Housing starts in the U.S. rose more than forecast in June to the fastest pace in five months, led by a surge in work on multifamily dwellings like apartments.
Work began on 629,000 houses at an annual pace, up 14.6 percent from the prior month, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The level of starts exceeded the most optimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Building permits, a sign of future construction, unexpectedly climbed 2.5 percent.
Five of the 15 states with top bond ratings from Moody’s Investors Service may be downgraded because their dependence on federal revenue makes them vulnerable to a U.S. credit cut should talks to raise the debt limit fail.
Maryland, South Carolina, New Mexico, Tennessee and Virginia are under review, New York-based Moody’s said today. The action affects $24 billion of general-obligation and related debt, it said. The states are rated Aaa, Moody’s top municipal grade.
 

Greenspan: Dumb Americans Deserve Unemployment

Kurt Nimmo
GCN Live.com
July 15, 2011



The former boss of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, said the reason Gen-Xers are unemployed and suffering from a lower standard of living is because they are lazy, stupid, and unproductive. U.S. companies would be better off hiring immigrants.
“Baby boomers are being replaced by groups of young workers who have regrettably scored rather poorly in international educational match-ups over the last two decades,” said Greenspan. “The average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers. This raises some major concerns about the productive skills of our future U.S. labor force.”



So-called Gen-Xers are not stupid and lazy. They are victims of globalism and outsourcing. Over the last two decades, jobs have been systematically stripped from the United States and exported to slave gulags in China and India. Gen Xers must compete with people who make two or three dollars a day.
NAFTA and globalist trade agreements are responsible for moving jobs out of the country, not the dismal test scores of Gen Xers.
Public education in the United States is not about creating intelligent, innovative and productive citizens. It’s about creating obedient citizens who no longer have the knowledge and skills to improve their lives and are dependent on government and large transnational corporations.
Public education prepares young people for world government. It is about destroying free will and replacing it with an acceptance of corporate totalitarianism, as Charlotte Iserbyt revealed in her book, The Dumbing Down of America.
In 1952, the Reece Committee learned that the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were working to turn schools into indoctrination centers designed to train students to accept one world government, socialism, collectivism and humanism.
Greenspan and the globalists are purposely flooding the country with immigrants. They are doing this not because immigrants are more intelligent and productive than Americans. They are doing it because desperate immigrants will work for less and will displace American workers.
Greenspan knows all of this. It is particularly reprehensible that he would blame the victims, especially considering the role he played in the globalist looting of America.
The Federal Reserve is the primary tool used domestically by the financial elite to wreck the U.S. economy and merge it into the globalist model.
Fox News plays right into the deception.
“But the lack of productivity Greenspan frets over can arguably also be set at the feet of our growing entitlement culture, which we explored in some detail several weeks ago for Entitlement Nation Week. Being a productive worker means having a commitment to honest labor,” writes Elizabeth MacDonald for Fox Business. “That has eroded as more people have relied upon the federal government for the growth of their household wealth. That, in turn, has led to a troubling change in attitude in this country.”
It has little to do with honest labor or entitlements. It has to do with bankers and multinational corporations exporting jobs to third world hell-holes lorded over by totalitarian thugs.
Fox’s job is to divert attention away from the real culprits and replace it with the false right-left narrative that drives politics in America as the globalists work behind the scenes to impoverish the nation and loot everything of value

Lyndon LaRouche: QEIII and the Fate of Mankind

Gerald Celente - US and Europe Collapse

Russian Leader Slams US As Western Civilization Nears Collapse

In a withering speech before members of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, Prime Minister Putin [photo top left] branded the United Statescurrent monetary policy as “hooliganism” and stated, “We, thankfully or not, cannot print a reserve currency. But what are they (the Americans) doing? They simply spit nails, turn on the printing press and throw money to the world, in order to resolve their urgent problems.”
The United States printing of money out of thin air is called Quantitative Easing (QE) and is an unconventional monetary policy tool used to stimulate their national economy since conventional monetary policy has become ineffective. The US Federal Reserve began their policy of Quantitative Easing by purchasing financial assets from banks and other private sector businesses with new money that it had created electronically, but which has no hard assets backing it up.
Though the US began the practice of creating money out of thin air after the Great Economic Collapse of 2008, it has not been alone as the Bank of England, The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan have, likewise, over the past nearly 3 years printed in excess of over $4 Trillion in currency that when joined with the $5 Trillion printed by the Americans have left our world awash in paper money that has near worthless value.
According to top Russian economists, the greatest danger posed to the entire global economic structure by the Western nations flooding world markets with near worthless money is the staggering weight it has put on those few currencies that our based on sound measures and backed with real worth, but whose markets are now flooded with foreign buyers seeking safety for their assets, which at the same time is pricing their products out of reach due to the appreciation of their money.
Perhaps no nation has been hurt more than the South American nation of Brazil whose economy remains one of the soundest in the entire world, but whose Finance Minister, Guido Mantega, warned this past week that the “global currency war shows no signs of ending” and are, indeed, about to get worse.
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Western peoples is that for the first time in history their entire civilization is on the brink of total collapse as the United States, Europe and Japan are all poised to see their economies crash, and there is no one in the world that can stop it.
The worst, by far, of this triad of global powers that underpin the entire Western World is the United States whose debt woes can only be described in the most apocalyptic of terms as their total debt is over $54 Trillion and their unfunded liabilities have reached the impossible to pay amount of $114 Trillion.
Not being understood by the American people about this crisis is that it centers on the $114 Trillion owed to them under what are called entitlement programmes, such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, which all are insolvent as the monies paid into them over these past 5 decades have been looted to pay for wars, corporate subsidies, tax breaks for their elite classes, and too many other extravagant programmes to mention.
Even worse for these unsuspecting Americans is that in the 1960 US Supreme Court Case titled Flemming v. Nestor (363 U.S. 603)  the Court ruled that they do not have any “earned rights” to any  Social Security benefits, or any other government entitlement programme, as their perceived benefits were a“non-contractual interest.” The Court further declared, “To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands.”
The current “ever-changing conditions” spoken of by the US Supreme Court in their 1960 decision in regards to Social Security, and other entitlement programmes, owed to the American taxpayers, who actually paid for them in the first place, allows their government to wipe them out entirely and, instead, give these Trillions-of-dollars to the “too big to fail” banks, corporations and financial elite who looted all of this wealth in the first place.
It is, also, important to note that since that fateful 1960 US Supreme Court decision the US has used the vast wealth of their Social Security system to wage unrelenting and continued war to expand their empire, but at the cost of destroying their own nation.
Though the United States is the largest of the Western nations rushing toward total economic collapse they are far from being alone as the European Union today stands on the brink of oblivion and the catastrophic disasters of nuclear meltdowns, earthquake and tsunami damage have all but eviscerated Japan from ever rising again as a major power.
To the most catastrophic outcome now being faced by the Western world is their fulfilling the “vision” of the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who in their 1848 book Manifesto of the Communist Party (most commonly known as “The Communist Manifesto”) advocated the destruction of capitalistic societies through the exact means we are now witnessing, and which include economic collapse to followed by civil unrest which would then allow the elite classes to seize power and enslave all of their citizens.
Most chilling to note is that the United States today, which was once the freest nation our world has ever known, has now fulfilled 90% of the demands made by Karl Marx, and as we can see evidenced:

The 10 Planks of Communism by Karl Marx

1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose
No one in America owns their land outright anymore as the government has the ability to tax it at an amount unaffordable to the land owner.  Through the concept of “eminent domain” the government can, also, seize any private land it so chooses.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

After the ending of World War II the US instituted this tax depriving millions of middle class people from fully realizing the benefit of what they earned. [Note: After throwing off the yoke of communism Russiainstituted a flat tax for all of its citizens and businesses.]

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance

In the US these are called estate taxes or death taxes which keep the middle classes from being able to pass on their accumulated wealth to their heirs.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels

This is nothing more than government seizures, IRS property confiscation and the 1997 Crime/Terrorist bill which calls for the imprisonment of terrorists but also for those who speak out against the government. Your LIFE is the most valuable property you have, but the government has the right to take it away because of things that you may say. Consider Senate Bill 3081, the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010,” co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman. The following is actual text from the bill that explains what a belligerent may be and the reasons they can be detained without due process: “(A) The potential threat the individual poses for an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the United States or upon United States citizens or United States civilian facilities abroad at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States… (B) The potential threat the individual poses to United States military personnel or United States military facilities at the time of capture or when coming under the custody or control of the United States…. (C) The potential intelligence value of the individual… (D) Membership in al-Qaida or in a terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaida… (E) Such other matters as the president considers appropriate. . .”

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created the Federal Reserve, and now the government owns many of the country’s largest banks via bailout money.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state

The FAA, FCC, and the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) are all US government entities that propose to regulate how citizens travel and what is said.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan

On 9 June 2011 President Obama signed into law Executive Order 13575 in which the intent is to seize greater power over “food, fiber, and energy.”

8. Equal obligation of all to work and the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture

Because of high inflation and higher taxes US society has been thrust for these past 60+ years into a dual income family at the minimum. In many instances both husband and wife have multiple jobs.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country

Follow link to Executive Order 13575 under Plank #7

10. Free education for all children in government schools and abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form – combination of education with industrial production, etc

The American public school system indoctrinates children into the agenda that the federal government wants for them. Both the national department of education and the state level departments of education adhere to an outcome based education model where excellence in not rewarded and lackluster performance is not dealt with in the proper manner so kids don’t get their feelings hurt. The whole standard of“equalization” is drilled into these children’s heads through the public school system so by the time they graduate they are “socialized” having no context of who they are supposed to be as American citizens.
The next “stage,” so to speak, for the total destruction of America following The Communist Manifesto is the igniting of mass civil unrest, and which one of the United States top statesmen, and National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter,  Zbigniew Brzezinski warned is about to happen when this past week he predicted that middle class unrest caused by economic disenfranchisement would soon hit America.
The Founding Fathers of America warned their future generations that a democracy was both extreme and dangerous for a country as it would most assuredly result in the oppression of the minority by the majority.
After the destruction of Europe due to World War I, and in witnessing the descent into madness caused by the Russian Revolution which allowed the Communists to take power, the US War Department on30 November 1928 issued to all US Soldiers a handbook reiterating this warning given to all Americans by their Founding Fathers about what could happen, and we quote exactly:

CITIZENSHIP Democracy:

A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of “direct” expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic–negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether is be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demogogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

CITIZENSHIP Republic:

Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the “standard form” of government throughout the world. A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:
(1) an executive and (2) a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create (3) a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their government acts and to recognize (4) certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Outside Independence Hall in when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked of the Great American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Today that exact question is being asked of all Americans “can they keep it?” On their answer hangs the balance of all Western civilization, let’s all hope they get it right.

© July 13, 2011 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source at WhatDoesItMean.Com.

Lyndon LaRouche: War is Globalist Favorite Tool of Choice for Poplutation Reduction

Mr. LaRouche talks about the destruction of the economy and the dictatorial direction of Obama and the globalists as they wage multiple wars in brazen defiance of Congress and the American people

The Coming Debt Crisis

Gerald Celente : we see Students led protests worldwide coming soon

David Icke - Engineered Economic Collapse Explained

David Icke, a former professional football player, reporter, television sports presenter, spokesman for the Green Party, and author of 20 books is one of the most visible, outspoken and controversial speakers and writers about the Illuminati and the New World Order control agenda,popular lecturer and New World Order researcher David Icke brilliantly reveals the alarming extent to which people of all nations have allowed themselves to be programmed by the ideas fed to them by those in power. Fearlessly, he tears down the veils of hypocrisy, built up for generations by the corrupt forces of Church, State, science and commerce - and reveals the true pathos of the human condition..David Icke. David is the author of And the Truth Shall Set You Free, The Biggest Secret, Children of the Matrix, and Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster. Recent DVDs include Freedom or Fascism: The Time to Choose and Beyond The Cutting Edge

The Official Unemployment Rate; An “Official” Lie – Paul Craig Roberts

February 9th, 2011

(TrendsResearch) – Do you believe Friday’s government report that the unemployment (U.3) rate fell last month from 9.4 percent to 9.0 percent? How could the rate decrease when January only saw a reported increase in payroll employment of 36,000 jobs when some 150,000 new jobs are needed to be created each month just to stay even with population growth?
According to Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report, a 0.4 percentage point decline in the unemployment rate means “the number of unemployed persons decreased by about 600,000.” Where did the other 564,000 January jobs come from as they cannot be found in the reported jobs data?
The jobs are phantom jobs created by faulty seasonal adjustments. As statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) puts it, “the extraordinary severity and duration of the economic duress in the United States during the last three to four years has destabilized traditional seasonal-factor adjustments and the related monthly reporting.”
In other words, the 564,000 people are, in reality, unemployed and are not employed in the non-existent seasonally-adjusted jobs that the government added to the numbers. Williams reports that the unadjusted data show that “the employment rate rose in January.”
It’s BLS magic. Unemployment rose, but the unemployment rate fell.
Washington pulled the same stunt last month. Using this government ploy, theoretically, the U.S. could have a zero unemployment rate while the entire population is out of work!
Don’t expect the financial press to tell you what this Trend Alert just told you. In response to the cooked numbers, Bloomberg quoted economists, whose job is to hype recovery, that “we’re setting ourselves up for a pretty strong improvement in payrolls.” (4 February 2011)
According to John Williams, even the measly 36,000 job gain is an illusion created by the faulty “birth-death” model, which guesses that new startups add more jobs each month than business failures subtract. This might sometimes be true, but not during an economic downturn. Without the jobs added by this faulty estimating technique, “the reported January 2011 payroll gain of 36,000 would have been a decline of 52,000!”
Indeed, the BLS “birth-death” model’s over-estimate of payroll jobs results in quiet annual revisions in the number of employed. In Friday’s employment report, largely unnoticed by the financial press, the BLS reports in its benchmark revision that there were 483,000 fewer people employed in December 2010 than previously reported.
The U.3 unemployment rate is the headline rate. It receives all the media attention, because it only measures 40 percent of the unemployed, thus making the recession look smaller than it really is. No discouraged workers who have given up looking for work are included. The government has a more complete measure of the unemployment rate known as U.6, which includes the short term discouraged (less than one year). That rate is16.1 percent. John Williams adds in the long term discouraged, which brings the true rate of unemployment to 22.2 percent.
Economists have no known way of explaining how an economy, in which millions of manufacturing and professional service jobs have been offshored, can compensate for the lost American incomes and purchasing power. The profits from offshoring flow to a narrow segment of the population consisting of corporate management, shareholders, and Wall Street. These income flows cannot replace the millions of lost incomes and careers of those whose jobs have disappeared. There is a limit on the ability of the mega-rich to buy and to consume. The consumption of a few people cannot drive an economy. This is why the concentration of income and wealth in a few hands kills an economy.
For a decade the American economy has been driven by private debt accumulation. Today policymakers in Washington are trying to drive the economy with public debt accumulation. The plan cannot succeed. The annual budget deficit of the U.S. government is being financed by the Federal Reserve by creating new money. For now, because of the impaired condition of U.S. financial institutions and the over-indebtedness of the American population, the money injected into the financial system by the Federal Reserve is not being lent. The banks need the reserves to bolster their solvency and consumers are too indebted to borrow. Thus, the money multiplier has collapsed, preventing the Federal Reserve’s money creation from resulting in rapidly increasing inflation.
More BS from the BLS Just as the unemployment rate is understated, so is the Consumer Price Index. The CPI no longer measures the prices of a fixed basket of goods, but assumes that people substitute cheaper items for those that rise more in price.
Moreover, inflation can also arise from decline in the dollar’s exchange rate vis-a-vis other currencies. With the dollar being the world reserve currency, many commodities are priced in dollars. As more dollars are being created than other currencies, food and commodity prices are rising as a result of the dollar’s falling exchange rate.
The Fed chairman says that he can avoid inflation when it appears by pulling the excess money out of the economy by selling bonds. But the Fed can sell bonds only by lowering bond prices, thus raising interest rates. What do you think happens to the depressed U.S. economy if interest rates rise?
Stocks and whatever remains of the housing market would collapse, as would the bond portfolios of whatever remains of Americans’ pension funds. The remnants of the investment incomes of ordinary people would be wiped out.
In other words, the Fed believes it can control the inflation, whose seeds it is planting, by wiping out the remnants of the wealth, and the income from it, of ordinary people.
This tells you all you need to know.