Filed under: aristocrats, bailout, bank bailout, Bank of England, bankruptcy, bernanke, Big Banks, Carbon Tax, Co2, co2 tax, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depopulation, depression, despotism, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Empire, environmental taxation, Eugenics, Fascism, Federal Reserve, GDP, global currency, global economy, global elite, global government, Global Warming, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Inflation, internationalist, main street, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, middle class, New World Order, NWO, obama deception, oligarchy, One World Government, Population Control, Propaganda, ruling class, SDRs, single currency, slavery, Stock Market, Taxpayers, third world, US Economy, Wall Street, webster tarpley, World Bank, world currency, world government
America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship
cryptogon.com
January 23, 2010
Holy shit, this one will scorch your eyeballs!
Forget my excerpts. Click through and read the whole thing. Highly recommended.
Via: Kitco:
Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.
…
It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.
If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books. (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)
If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.
…
These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.
When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.
The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.
The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.
Know Your Enemy-The Oligarchs
Filed under: commodities, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic crisis, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, predictions, Robert McEwen, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold May Reach $5,000 an Ounce By 2012
Filed under: AIG, bailout, bank bailout, bankergate, Big Banks, central bank, corruption, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, despotism, Deutsche Bank, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, end the fed, Federal Reserve, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, main street, Merrill Lynch, middle class, obama bailout, obama deception, scandal, SEC, Société Générale, Taxpayers, Tim Geithner, Wall Street
SEC Orders AIG Info Sealed Until November… 2018!
Business Insider
January 12, 2010
Good news. It looks as though we’ll be getting access to secret data on the bailout of AIG and its counterparties.
The bad news: We’re going to have to wait until November of 2018, according to Matthew Goldstein at Reuters.
- In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.” More
By then, Wall Street will have significantly recycled many people (and probably some more firms) and perhaps the American public just won’t care about how Tim Geithner helped bail out a gigantic black hole of a firm, upon which so many ostensibly rock solid firms had their foundation.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, forecast, global economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, peter schiff, predictions, Stock Market, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
Schiff: No Economic Recovery in 2010
Filed under: agriculture, blizzard, Britain, climate change, climategate, Credit Crisis, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Europe, european union, food crisis, food market, food shortage, global cooling, global economy, Global Warming, gordon brown, Great Depression, ice age, ireland, london, malthusian, malthusian catastrophe, Oil, Petrol, uk crops, United Kingdom
Food costs to soar as big freeze deepens
London Guardian
January 9, 2010
 Satellite image of the UK covered in white |
Britons have been warned to brace themselves for an increase in food prices as plunging temperatures leave farmers unable to harvest vegetables and hauliers struggle to distribute fresh produce.
Gordon Brown, who will chair a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee early this week to discuss the freeze, was today forced to reassure the country that it would not run out of gas or grit for its roads during the coldest weather in 30 years.
Police confirmed today that the weather-related death toll had risen to 26. A 90-year-old woman froze to death in her garden near Barnsley after falling in the snow. Widow Mary Priestland was discovered when her neighbour called round to make her tea. A 42-year-old Newcastle woman died after being found lying in the snow this morning. She had told her family she was going for a walk at 7pm on Friday.
Concerns have now switched to food supply. Sub-zero temperatures have made it impossible to extract some vegetables from the ground. Producers of brussels sprouts and cabbages are all reporting problems with harvesting. Cauliflowers are said to have turned to “mush” in the sustained frost, with the result that only imported ones are available – at more than £2 each.
“Food is selling fast and there is a problem with replenishing it,” said Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses. “One business I spoke to said it was like Christmas Eve, with people rushing to buy up food. This will inevitably have an impact on food prices.”
Food prices had already started to edge up after a sustained period of low inflation. Food inflation increased by 3.7% in December, up from 2.8% in November, said the British Retail Consortium.
In Ireland, 6,000 acres of potatoes remains unharvested and there are claims that up to three-quarters of the crop may be ruined. Potato growers in Northern Ireland say they are facing some of the biggest losses in recent history because of frost damage.
Meanwhile, greengrocers in some of the worst-hit areas are reporting shortages, with the price of carrots and parsnips reportedly rising by 30% in some small shops. A spokesman for the National Farmers’ Union said: “There are isolated examples of farms struggling to get milk supplies out, but so far the majority of farmers, although finding it difficult, are getting on with the job.” Milk suppliers in Somerset said they feared they may have to dump 100,000 litres of organic milk because tankers could not get through.
In a move that underscores the severity of the situation, on Monday the government will permit an emergency relaxation of European laws regulating the driving hours for hauliers involved in the distribution of animal feed. Under the temporary rules, the hauliers will be allowed to drive for 10 hours rather than the EU maximum of nine. There will also be a reduction in their mandatory daily rest requirements, from 11 to nine hours.
Today, the prime minister insisted gas supplies were not running out, despite record levels of demand. In a podcast from Downing Street, Brown said: “I can assure you: supplies are not running out. We’ve got plenty of gas in our own backyard – the North Sea – and we also have access to the large reserves in Norway and Netherlands.”
Last week, nearly 100 large businesses were forced to stop using gas in an attempt to conserve supplies.
Filed under: agriculture, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, devaluation, Dollar, dollar bubble, dollar collapse, dollar drop, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, food crisis, food inflation, food market, food shortage, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, liquidation, malthusian, malthusian catastrohe, u.s. economy, USDA
Food shortages THIS year! Want to know why the media is not covering this?
Filed under: Big Banks, central bank, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, despotism, Dictatorship, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Great Depression, housing bubble, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, job market, main street, middle class, mortgage crisis, Stock Market, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
No Jobs for The Next Ten Years?
Daily Bell
December 30, 2009
The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America’s unemployed – and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises. At best, it could take until the middle of the decade for the nation to generate enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate to a normal 5 or 6 percent and keep it there. At worst, that won’t happen until much later – perhaps not until the next decade. The deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America’s work force. The unemployed number 15.4 million. The jobless rate is 10 percent. More than 7 million jobs have vanished. People out of work at least six months number a record 5.9 million. And household income, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk in the past decade. Most economists say it could take until at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 percent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation. Even though the economy will likely keep growing, the pace is expected to be plodding. That will make employers reluctant to hire. Further contributing to high unemployment is the likelihood of more people competing for jobs, baby boomers delaying retirement and interest rates edging higher. All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999. – Huffington Post
Dominant Social Theme: It’s looking grim?
Free-Market Analysis: There are a lot of statistics cited in this article but like many articles with a mainstream tone, most of them are besides-the-point or shed little illumination about what is going on. First of all the jobless rate in America is closer to 20-30 percent, we figure, when you throw in everyone who wants to work but can’t find work, even part-time work. And second, we distrust the other unemployment figures cited in this article. Finally, we look in vain for a reason as to why all this is happening. Can we find it somewhere else in the body of the article? Here’s some more:
That’s mainly because the economy’s recovery, sluggish by historical standards, isn’t expected to regain its vigor over the next few years. As a result, companies will be in no rush to ramp up hiring. Other analysts think the economy will recover the jobs wiped out by the recession by 2013 or 2014 but that the unemployment rate will stay high. They note that the healing economy will cause more people to stream back into the labor force, vying for too-few jobs.
In addition, baby boomers whose retirement accounts have shrunk could put off retiring and stay in the work force longer. That would leave fewer positions available for the unemployed. Other contributing forces – businesses squeezing more work from employees they still have and relying more on part-time and overseas help – have intensified. And record-high federal budget deficits and the threat of inflation could drive up interest rates, which could hobble growth and restrict job creation. All those factors could combine to keep unemployment high.
“It will be the mother of all jobless recoveries,” predicts economic historian John Steel Gordon. On the other hand, it’s possible some technological innovation not yet envisioned could generate a wave of jobs. Yet at the moment, most economists aren’t betting that any such breakthroughs will rescue the labor market.
The last time the jobless rate reached double digits, in the early 1980s, it took six years to bring it down to normal levels.
Unemployment hit a post-World War II high of 10.8 percent at the end of 1982 as the country was emerging from a severe recession. The rate fell to around 5 percent in 1988. It took less than two years for the number of jobs to return to its pre-recession level. In this recovery, the economy is far more fragile. Hard-to-get credit is exerting a drag. Wounds from the banking system’s worst crisis since the Great Depression will take years to fully heal. People and companies, scarred by the crisis, are likely to restrain borrowing, spending and investing.
From our perspective this article does what all such articles do, it describes what’s going on without explaining anything. You can read the whole article, and you’ll never come up with a reason why 20 percent or more of America is unemployed. Is it because people are lazy? They don’t want jobs even though they pretend they do?
We would write the article differently. We would start by explaining that for the past 100 years America’s manufacturing might has been disintegrating even though the country has looked relatively healthy. But the combination of the income tax and central banking, introduced in the ‘teens, has robbed the country of its industrial muscle. Many big companies have moved away rather than be subject to the income tax. And employees have given up productive trade and agricultural jobs to chase after the latest Fed-stimulated bubble. The tech sector looked attractive in the 1990s, and the mortgage business was great during the 2000s. But neither business lasted because they weren’t real. They were the chaff of central bank monetary stimulation.
The income tax and central banking have hollowed out American industrial capacity. This is the reason that jobs will not return to America – and the world – for a long time. It wasn’t enough by the way that all this happened over a period of nearly 100 years now, but every time there’s a cyclical bust, the West stimulates – throws good money after bad that only prolongs the agony by confusing the market signals that the economy would otherwise present to rational investors.
Conclusion: Deprived of market signals, investors have a hard time determining what’s an efficient business and what is not. They’ve decided, with considerable reason, that too-big-too-fail banks are probably a good investment. Well, this may be so, but it does nothing for the larger economy. Putting good money after bad into these large fiat-money sinkholes only retards real innovation and sets the economy up for another bout of inflationary bleeding and boom-bust madness. What’s needed is a return to a private market gold-and-silver standard that will provide real feedback to those who want to purchase equity in winning entrepreneurial companies. See, it’s not hard to explain, but for some reason, the story just doesn’t get told, certainly not in the mainstream press.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, ecnomy, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Empire, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Naomi Wolf, national debt, New World Order, NWO, truth movement, US Economy, Wall Street
America At Empires End
Filed under: bankruptcy, California, Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, small business, US Economy
Small-business bankruptcies rise 81% in California
LA Times
December 28, 2009
The Obama administration’s new plan to give a boost to small businesses reflects continued trouble in that sector, which is facing new failures even as much of the nation’s economy is stabilizing.
As credit lines have shrunk and consumers have cut back on spending, thousands of small businesses have closed their doors over the last year. The plight of struggling firms has been aggravated by the reluctance of banks to lend money, said Brian Headd, an economist at the Small Business Administration’s office of advocacy.
“While bankruptcies are up, overall, small-business closures are up even more,” Headd said.
California has been particularly hard hit. The latest data show small-business bankruptcies up 81% in the state for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, compared with the previous year. Filings nationwide were up 44%, according to the credit analysis firm Equifax Inc.
The actual number of small businesses in trouble is probably higher, experts said, because many owners file for personal bankruptcy rather than seek
protection for the business.
Filed under: 2-party system, bailout, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, bush, Credit Crisis, DEBT, debt clock, deficit, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, GDP, George Bush, Great Depression, Greenback, health care reform, hyperinflation, Inflation, John McCain, left right paradigm, main street, middle class, national debt, obama, obama spending, obama stimulus, obamacare, stimulus, Stock Market, Taxpayers, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street, White House
U.S. Debt Hits $12 Trillion, Will Double By 2019
Outside the Beltway
November 18, 2009
Barack Obama has been president for just under 10 months but he’s added two trillion to the national debt and will double it by the end of the decade. CBS’ Mark Knoller:
- This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year’s record high.
Much of the increase in the deficit and debt is attributed to government spending outpacing revenue – both exacerbated by the recession and the government response to it – including hundreds of billions in bailouts and stimulus spending and tax cuts along with decreased tax revenues due to rising unemployment.
[…]
The National Debt has increased about $1.6 trillion on Mr. Obama’s watch, though less than $4.9 trillion run up during the presidency of George W. Bush.
But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion. It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion — exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion.
According to the Treasury Department, the debt stood at $5.727 trillion on January 19, 2001, Bill Clinton’s last day in office, and $10.627 trillion when Bush left office eight years later. That’s $612.5 billion (or $0.6125 trillion) a year, during which we fought two major wars, had the 9/11 attacks, and at least two major bailouts to deal with a global financial crisis.
We’re thus far averaging $1.92 trillion a year under Obama, or a factor of 3.146 more. And the government is projecting that we’ll continue spending at this crisis rate for the next decade, more than doubling the current record level?
That ain’t good.
Presumably, we’d have had another major bailout had Bush stayed in office for a third term (were that Constitutionally or politically possible) or had John McCain been elected. So spending and thus the debt would have escalated substantially regardless. But we likely wouldn’t be talking about adding a massive health care payment on top of the pile.
Obama: We must spend our way out of recession (and into deeper debt)
No End in Sight to Govt. Spending Spree: $12.1T Debt Ceiling Set to Be Raised
Filed under: audit the fed, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, end the fed, Federal Reserve, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Joe Scarborough, morning joe, MSNBC, private bank, Ron Paul, TIME, US Economy, Wall Street
Financial Crisis Perpetrator Bernanke Hailed As World’s Saviour By TIME
The real person of the year, Ron Paul, puts the record straight
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
December 16, 2009
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has been named TIME person of the year for 2009 and hailed as a saviour when in the real world he has overseen the worsening of the financial crisis, the looting of the American economy by foreign offshore banks and the destruction of the Dollar.
In a world where those vastly escalating war are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it makes perfect sense to award the Federal Reserve chairman with person of the year.
“His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.” writes TIME.
The magazine also bizarrely states that Bernanke launched “a groundbreaking public relations campaign to demystify the Fed”, despite the fact that the chairman has consistently lobbied Congress for protection of the Fed’s “independence” (read secrecy), while categorically refusing to answer questions regarding the Fed’s decision making.
Bernanke has overseen the handing over of trillions of dollars to foreign banks and has defied lawsuits to keep secret the destination of the money from the American people.
The timing of the announcement couldn’t be more perfect. As NBC’s Matt Laur pointed out, Bernanke can go to Capitol Hill tomorrow, hold up TIME magazine and ask to be reappointed as Fed chairman.
Of course, if TIME’s person of the year award was really judged on toil in the best interests of the American people, the clear winner would be Congressman Ron Paul, who has railed against the Fed and Bernanke with great success this year.
Paul’s tireless effort to wrestle power away from the Federal Reserve and put it back into the hands of the American people has seen a major victory with the progression of legislation slated to audit the Fed and put it’s activities under public scrutiny.
Paul has consistently exposed how the Fed has delivered the financial crisis to America and the world via excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation.
Instead TIME’s article on Bernanke refers to Ron Paul in the context of “Bleeding-heart liberals and tea-party reactionaries”.
Paul gave his opinion on the announcement regarding Bernanke on MSNBC’s Morning Joe earlier today, commenting:
“He is the most powerful man in the world, I believe a case can be made for that.”
“Because he controls the supply of money, the Dollar which is the reserve currency of the world. He can create a trillion dollars in secret without any monitoring of the Congress. So there is no transparency and I think he is more powerful than the president.” the Congressman added.
“The big question is, has he used that power for good or for evil? And of course, my side of the argument is that the system is evil, and the chairman, whether it’s Greenspan or Bernanke, they can do no good.”
“They cause our troubles, they cause inflation, they cause the bubbles, and therefore the bust, the correction is always their fault.” Paul stated.
Watch the full interview below:
Filed under: 60 minutes, austan goolsbee, bailout, bank bailout, Barack Obama, bernanke, Big Banks, bob rubin, CBS, citigroup, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deregulation, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, Federal Reserve, free market, gangsters, geithner, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, House, hyperinflation, hypocrisy, Inflation, Jamie Rubin, larry summers, mafia, main street, middle class, obama, obama bailout, obama deception, oligarchy, Paul Volcker, Propaganda, Robert Rubin, Senate, socialism, Stock Market, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, Too Big to Fail, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street, White House | Tags: Matt Taibbi
Obama’s Bullshit-Meter Off The Charts:
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street”
Zero Hedge
December 13, 2009
Obama goes back to his Wall Street-bashing rhetoric in today’s 60 Minutes on CBS, after he has already doomed this country to tens of trillions in excess debt to make sure that Wall Street not only thrives, but prospers, courtesy of Bernanke’s vertical bond curve and the daily destruction of the dollar. With statements such as “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street” which the WSJ disclosed will be uttered by Obama shortly, only the most clueless viewers will find empathy with Obama’s latest message of banker “anti-hope.”
White House economic adviser Larry Summers also voiced aggravation with Wall Street on Sunday. “Here is what I think they don’t get…It was their irresponsible risk-taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse,” Mr. Summers, who chairs the National Economic Council, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And they don’t get in some cases that they wouldn’t be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn’t taken extraordinary actions.”
“For them to be complaining about serious regulation directed at making sure this never happens again is wrong. For $300 million to be spent on lobbyists trying to gut serious efforts at financial reform is not how this country should be operating,” Mr. Summers said. “For firms that have benefited from taxpayer support to be complaining about the government burdening them is, frankly, a bit rich.”
And it is not only Obama, but Wall Street protege Larry Summer himself who continues the banker bashing:
- White House economic adviser Larry Summers also voiced aggravation with Wall Street on Sunday. “Here is what I think they don’t get…It was their irresponsible risk-taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse,” Mr. Summers, who chairs the National Economic Council, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And they don’t get in some cases that they wouldn’t be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn’t taken extraordinary actions.”
“For them to be complaining about serious regulation directed at making sure this never happens again is wrong. For $300 million to be spent on lobbyists trying to gut serious efforts at financial reform is not how this country should be operating,” Mr. Summers said. “For firms that have benefited from taxpayer support to be complaining about the government burdening them is, frankly, a bit rich.”
First you bail them out, and now you bash them? It is one thing to dash criticism upon rhetoric but at least be consistent. If people can not read between the lines of this administration’s endless hypocrisy, they deserve all they get. And if Matt Taibbi’s latest controversial piece in Rolling Stone “Obama’s Big Sellout” needed any final validation, you just provided it Mr. President. Because while your Wall Street-centric policies can be explained by your lack of financial comprehension and private-sector experience (thereby justifying your desire to be “advised” by those who are an integral part of the banker syndicate), your complete disdain for the average American’s intellectual level exemplified by your most recent, upcoming 7 pm TV appearance is what is truly insulting. Maybe you can put Mr. Geithner up there next to you on the TV screen, and he can justify his reasoning for why incremental “fat cat” bonuses are such a bad idea. Come to think of it, why not make it into a round table, and include Larry Summer and Robert Rubin: we are confident they will have no problem distancing themselves from the very bankers they talk to 10 hours a day, telling them (and thus you) how to run national policy.
You say “Some people on Wall Street still don’t get it”… The problem, Mr. President, is that more and more people on Main Street, do get it. They now realize just whose agenda you have at heart. And said Main Street expects nothing but merely more theatrics during your upcoming meeting with Wall Street “fat cats” tomorrow.
Obama’s sellout to Wall Street creates ‘permanent bailout’
Obama turns to Big Bankers for campaign cash
WSWS
October 21, 2009
Under conditions of growing unemployment and deepening social misery for working people throughout the US, President Barack Obama flew into New York City Tuesday to raise millions of dollars in campaign donations from America’s financial elite.
He was expected to clear at least $3 million, largely from a Manhattan bash with an entry fee of $30,400 per couple—the maximum contribution allowed by law.
According to the Los Angeles Times, four of the seven co-chairs of the event and about a third of the guests come from the big banks and Wall Street.
Behind all the rhetoric about “change,” this is Obama’s most important constituency. In his run for the presidency in 2008, he captured the lion’s share of donations from Wall Street, taking in $15 million from securities and investment firms, $3 million from commercial banks, and $6 million from other financial institutions.
Under conditions of growing unemployment and deepening social misery for working people throughout the US, President Barack Obama flew into New York City Tuesday to raise millions of dollars in campaign donations from America’s financial elite.
He was expected to clear at least $3 million, largely from a Manhattan bash with an entry fee of $30,400 per couple—the maximum contribution allowed by law.
According to the Los Angeles Times, four of the seven co-chairs of the event and about a third of the guests come from the big banks and Wall Street.
Behind all the rhetoric about “change,” this is Obama’s most important constituency. In his run for the presidency in 2008, he captured the lion’s share of donations from Wall Street, taking in $15 million from securities and investment firms, $3 million from commercial banks, and $6 million from other financial institutions.
Top contributors to Obama and McCain are big banks
Filed under: auto bailout, Barack Obama, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, main street, middle class, Military, Military Industrial Complex, obama, obama stimulus, Senate, spending bill, stimulus, Taxpayers, US Economy, Wall Street, wall street bailout
Senate sends $1.1 trillion spending bill to Obama
AP
December 13, 2009
The Senate on Sunday passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill with increased budgets for vast areas of the federal government, including health, education, law enforcement and veterans’ programs.
he more-than-1,000-page package, one of the last essential chores of Congress this year, passed 57-35 and now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The weekend action underlined the legislative crush faced by Congress as it tries to wind up the year. After the vote, the Senate immediately returned to the debate on health care legislation that has consumed its time and energy for weeks. Senate Democrats hope to reach a consensus in the coming days on Obama’s chief domestic priority.
The spending bill combines six of the 12 annual appropriation bills for the 2010 budget year that began Oct. 1. Obama has signed into law five others.
The final one, a $626 billion defense bill, will be used as the base bill for another catch-all package of measures that Congress must deal with in the coming days. Those include action to raise the $12.1 trillion debt ceiling and proposals to stimulate the job market.
The spending bill passed Sunday includes $447 billion for departments’ operating budgets and about $650 billion in mandatory payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Those programs under immediate control of Congress would see increases of about 10 percent.
The FBI gets $7.9 billion, a $680 million increase over 2009; the Veterans Health Administration budget goes from $41 billion to $45.1 billion; and the National Institutes of Health receives $31 billion, a $692 million increase.
All but three Democrats voted for the bill, while all but three Republicans opposed it. Democrats said the spending was critical to meet the needs of a recession-battered economy. “Every bill that is passed, every project that is funded and every job that is created helps America take another step forward on the road of economic recovery,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after the vote.
Republicans decried what they called out-of control spending and pointed to an estimated $3.9 billion in the bill for more than 5,000 local projects sought by individual lawmakers from both parties.
The Citizens Against Government Waste said those projects included construction of a county farmer’s market in Kentucky, renovation of a historic theater in New York and restoration of a mill in Rhode Island.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a longtime critic of such projects, said it was “shameful” that so many had found their way into the legislation. Most Americans, he said, were watching football and not the Senate debate, adding, “If they knew what we are about to pass ….”
The legislation also contains numerous items not directly related to spending. It provides help for auto dealers facing closure, ends a ban on funding by the District of Columbia government for abortions and allows the district to permit medical marijuana, lets Amtrak passengers carry unloaded handguns in their checked baggage and permits detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to be transferred to the United States to stand trial, but not to be released.
The bill also approves a 2 percent pay increase for federal workers.
With the Senate concentrating on health care, attention on the upcoming jobs plan shifts to the House.
The defense bill that will be the basis for the package normally enjoys wide bipartisan support, but Republicans, and some fiscally conservative Democrats, are unhappy with the prospect of another jolt of deficit-swelling spending.
Congress must soon raise the debt ceiling, now at $12.1 trillion, so the Treasury can continue to borrow, and Democratic leaders are eyeing a new figure close to $14 trillion, pushing the issue past next November’s election.
But a bipartisan group in the Senate says a higher ceiling should be tied to creation of a task force on deficit reduction, and House Democratic moderates say their votes could depend on winning a “pay-as-you-go” law requiring that new tax cuts or spending programs don’t add to the deficit.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on CNN’s “State of the Union,” favored a deficit task force. He said he didn’t “see how this process where everybody kind of lards on is going to actually ever come to an end unless we finally have the discipline to do a straight up-or-down vote across the board on revenues and spending cuts.”
Proposals to put people back to work include tax breaks for new company hires, small business tax breaks, public works spending and federal aid to states.
Congress is also likely to extend measures, included in the $787 billion stimulus act last February, that provide jobless payments and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed.
Filed under: 2008 Election, auto bailout, bailout, bank bailout, Barack Obama, Bear Stearns, bernanke, brad sherman, bush, campaign for liberty, cash for clunkers, Congress, Credit Crisis, DEBT, devaluation, Dictatorship, Dollar, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Empire, Fascism, fearmongering, George Bush, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, House, housing market, hyperinflation, Inflation, jim kramer, main street, Martial Law, Media Manipulation, middle class, Military Industrial Complex, obama, obama stimulus, Paulson, real estate, Ron Paul, Senate, spending bill, stimulus, Stock Market, subprime, subprime lending, subprime mortgage bubble, Taxpayers, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street, wall street bailout, War On Terror
Houses Passes $1.1 Trillion Spending Bill
Antiwar.com
December 10, 2009
There was a time when the federal government’s annual budget was submitted by the president and decided by the Congress in a relatively straightforward fashion. A time when it wasn’t so difficult to figure out what the government spent taxpayers’ money on.
But this is, or soon will be, 2010, and President Obama’s promises of transparency aside, the new way of doing things in the perpetual wartime economy is to pass bulky spending bills filled with anything and everything Congressmen want on an accelerated schedule, every few months.
In today’s example, a 1088 page $1.1 trillion “compromise” spending bill passed through the House of Representatives in a 221-202 vote along partisan lines. The bill covers everything from veteran’s benefits to arbitration for car dealers and, of course, a hefty raise in the foreign aid budget.
The latest massive spending bill comes less than two months after the White House signed a $680 billion “Defense Spending Bill,” which included hate crimes legislation provisions and restarted military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.
That bill itself came just a few months after a $106 billion “emergency” war spending bill, which included a number of “pet projects,” including the so-called Cash for Clunkers program that subsidized new car purchases in return for a promise to destroy what were in many cases serviceable used cars.
Which of course came not long after the $787 billion “stimulus bill” aimed at hurling enough money at assorted government programs that the economy would improve.
When President Obama took office, he promised a more transparent budget, particularly with promises to stop requesting “emergency” war spending bills to pay for what are now several year old wars.
This promise, like so many others, will likely be ignored, as the defense budgets have projected a more rapid pullout from Iraq and did not include last week’s massive escalation of the Afghan War, itself a $30 billion addition to the annual cost. Instead, America seems poised to continue the new way of doing things, piecemeal spending bills which provide ample opportunity to include the trendy projects that Congress craves and the unclear picture of the overall cost of war that keeps the voter largely in the dark about how much the nation’s assorted adventures really cost.
Look Who got the economy wrong and why are they still in charge
Filed under: bailout, bank bailout, banksters, Barack Obama, Big Banks, celente, Credit Crisis, DEBT, deception, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Fascism, Federal Reserve, free market, gangsters, geithner, gerald celente, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Greenback, henry paulson, hyperinflation, Inflation, madoff, mafia, main street, manipulated market, manipulation, middle class, oligarchy, Paulson, socialism, Stock Market, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, Too Big to Fail, u.s. economy, US Treasury, Wall Street
Goldman Sachs Mafia Arming Themselves Against Public
Goldman Sachs gang; the modern day mafia
Alice Schroeder
Bloomberg
November 30, 2009
“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.
I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image — and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
Pistol Ready
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful. Suppose an intruder sneaks past the doorman or jumps the security fence at night. By the time you pull the pistol out of your wife’s jewelry safe, find the ammunition, and load your weapon, Fifi the Pomeranian has already been taken hostage and the gun won’t do you any good. As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level early in the financial crisis. He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
To the Barricades
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention as the financial crisis unfolded in 2007, a move that was foiled by the New York Post. Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed.
This is the kind of foresight that Goldman Sachs is justly famous for. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?
Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary during the bailout and a former Goldman Sachs CEO, let it slip during testimony to Congress last summer when he explained why it was so critical to bail out Goldman Sachs, and — oh yes — the other banks. People “were unhappy with the big discrepancies in wealth, but they at least believed in the system and in some form of market-driven capitalism. But if we had a complete meltdown, it could lead to people questioning the basis of the system.”
Torn Curtain
There you have it. The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses.
This slip-up let the other bailed-out banks happily hand off public blame to Goldman, which is unpopular among its peers because it always seems to win at everyone’s expense.
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn’t mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
Cool Hand Lloyd
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
Filed under: black friday, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: National Retail Federation, ShopperTrak
US Shoppers Spent Less Over Black Friday
Reuters
November 30, 2009
American consumers shopped more for bargains at the start of the U.S. holiday season and spent significantly less than a year ago, according to early data released on Sunday.
Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes U.S. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation.
While traffic to stores and retail websites rose to 195 million people from 172 million in 2008, the early data this weekend represents a worrisome sign for retailers, who had braced for weak sales and sought ways to protect margins.
Data released by ShopperTrak on Saturday showed that sales rose a scant 0.5 percent on Black Friday, which is often the single busiest day of the holiday shopping season.
Filed under: Big Banks, bob chapman, central bank, credit collapse, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Economic Collapse, Economy, end of america, FDIC, Federal Reserve, global elite, global government, global oligarchs, Great Depression, Greenback, housing market, Inflation, internationalist, internationalists, Lindsey Williams, liquidity, manipulation, New World Order, NWO, oligarchy, One World Government, real estate, Stock Market, tarp, US Economy, US Treasury, Wall Street, world government
Bob Chapman: US Dollar Will Collapse at end of 2010
Filed under: China, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Federal Reserve, global economy, gold, gold shortage, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, India, Inflation, jim rogers, Russia, sri lanka, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: CNBC, jim rickards
Jim Rogers: Gold Price to Double in Coming Months
CommodityOnline
November 28, 2009
The rally in gold prices has driven several bullion analysts to frenzied forecasts. Some say gold prices will reach $2,000 per ounce soon. Others are predicting big boom for the yellow metal, saying gold prices will zoom to $5,000 and eventually to even $15,000 per ounce in the years to come.
What is happening in bullion market these days? Yes, agreed that weakening dollar, global economic meltdown, shrinking gold supply and increasing cost of mining gold from the earth are all making gold the most-sought after investment these days. That is also driving the yellow metal prices to record highs.
These days, the biggest gold buyers are not individual customers or families, but global central bankers that are vying with each other to accumulate gold reserves in an attempt to get out of their decades-old dependence on the US dollar as the best asset class. India jumped into the bullion fray to buy 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) early this month. Other countries like China, Russia, Brazil and Sri Lanka are frantically trying to accumulate gold reserves.
Jim Rickards Discusses $4,000 Gold on CNBC
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, depression, dollar collapse, dollar dump, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, job market, main street, middle class, recession, Stock Market, Taxpayers, unemployment, US Economy, Wall Street
Animated US Map Shows Startling Growth of Unemployment
Filed under: bailout, bailouts, campaign for liberty, Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, financial market, global economy, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, imf, Inflation, patriot movement, revolution, Ron Paul, Stock Market, Taxpayers, tea party, truth movement, US Economy, Wall Street | Tags: CBI
IMF Warns of Revolution if Another Round of Bailouts are Handed Out
Washington’s Blog
November 24, 2009
Many officials and experts have warned of violence stemming from the economic crash.
The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is now warning that there might be a revolution in some countries if governments hand out another round of bailouts to the financial sector:
- The public will not bail out the financial services sector for a second time if another global crisis blows up in four or five years time, the managing-director of the International Monetary Fund warned this morning. Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the CBI annual conference of business leaders that another huge call on public finances by the financial services sector would not be tolerated by the “man in the street” and could even threaten democracy.
“Most advanced economies will not accept any more [bailouts]…The political reaction will be very strong, putting some democracies at risk,” he told delegates.
Filed under: Credit Crisis, DEBT, Dollar, dollar collapse, Economic Collapse, economic depression, Economy, gold, Great Depression, Greenback, hyperinflation, Inflation, Stock Market, US Economy, Wall Street
Gold hits record high $1,174
Sydney Morning Herald
November 24, 2009
Gold prices soared to a record 1,174 US dollars an ounce here on Monday as a sliding US currency and worries about a possible spike to inflation increased demand for the ‘safe-haven’ metal.
Gold hit exactly 1,174 US dollars an ounce in late trading on the London Bullion Market.
noworldsystem.com 