Home    Charts	Very long page! Global Economy -2 (More recent links) Other relevant topics: Managing change | Communitarianism |  Regionalism Relevant articles:  The emerging New World Order The Joseph Principle and Crisis Economics Reinventing the World | George Orwell's 1984	The Revolutionary Roots of the UN
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson "The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." Professor Carroll Quigley (Bill Clinton's mentor at Georgetown University), Tragedy and Hope (1966) p. 324.

Around the World on $69 Million in Welfare Funds: Here is one reason we face a collapsing economy!

Vatican urges economic reforms, condemns collective greed: "The Vatican called on Monday for sweeping reforms of the world economy and the creation of a ethical, global authority to regulate financial markets.... An 18-page document from the Vatican's Justice and Peace department said the financial downturn had revealed behaviours like 'selfishness, collective greed and hoarding...adding that world economics needed an 'ethic of solidarity" among rich and poor nations.

      "...the Vatican called on those who wanted to change economic structures to 'not be afraid to propose new ideas, even if they might destabilise pre-existing balances of power that prevail over the weakest.'... The Vatican called for the establishment of 'a supranational authority' with worldwide scope and 'universal jurisdiction' to guide economic policies and decisions. Such an authority should start with the United Nations..." See The U.N. Plan For Global Control

Obama now accused of destroying U.S. economy...on purpose! "...these radicals aim to remake the American financial system with massive government control. 'Red Army'...[exposes] the radical socialist network that seized political power in Washington over decades, shaped Obama's presidential agenda and threatens the very future of the U.S." See Trusting God as Freedom Fades

IMF Advisor: Could See Eurozone 'Meltdown' in 2 Or 3 Weeks: "If they can not address [the financial crisis] in a credible way I believe within perhaps 2 to 3 weeks we will have a meltdown in sovereign debt which will produce a meltdown across the European banking system. We are not just talking about a relatively small Belgian bank, we are talking about the largest banks in the world... it will spread everywhere because the global financial system is so interconnected."

EU calls for global tax: "Flanked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel...European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said...'we will press for a global financial transaction tax.'...The idea has run into stiff resistance from Canada, the United States, Australia, China and others....The European Union is proposing a 0.1 percent tax in the EU on trading bonds and shares from 2014..." This issue has been discussed and dismissed repeatedly for many years. Such a tax might help the UN deal with its expenses but would certainly not help the global economy.

Coke CEO Says It’s Easier to do Business with Communist China Than With U.S.: "Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent thinks U.S. corporations are at a disadvantage compared to those based elsewhere thanks to America’s labyrinthine tax code, he told the Financial Times in an interview published earlier this week....In the West, he said, 'we’re forgetting what really worked 20 years ago."

Video:  Greece riots: 100,000 fight against harsh cuts in Athens financial crisis protests: "At least three people have been killed during protest in Greece, as rioters set fire to a bank building. Thousands are on the streets of Athens in opposition to harsh spending cuts which are part of a new austerity package aimed at saving Greece from bankruptcy."

Tycoon Says North Dakota Oil Field Will Yield 24 Billion Barrels, Among World’s Biggest: "Bakken. The name has become shorthand for the entire 8 million acre Williston Basin area of North Dakota and Montana. The United States Geological Service (USGS) made headlines in 2008 when it determined that the formation likely held 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas equivalents. Already a kingsize hoard. That's nothing, says Hamm. He’s convinced that the recoverable bounty is more like 24 billion barrels."

The Collapse of Nations...By The hand of corrupt bankers: "...the US Treasury thus far has spent and borrowed about $100 billion from the federal pension accounts. Unless there is a vote on the cash debt extension prior to August 2nd, government will probably have borrowed some $250 billion to $300 billion. ...how will the funds be generated to fulfill the Treasury’s obligation to the pension fund? What happens if on August 2nd if legislation is not passed?" See Strength from God

Obama Administration Spends $17.4 Million to Explore Market for Carbon Credits: "Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it has awarded $17.4 million for pilot projects that will begin exploring how to establish a market for greenhouse gas (GHG) credits, a key component of a cap and trade system, to help reduce carbon and other emissions that apparently contribute to global warming....[Al Gore's] Greenhouse gas offsets, often called carbon credits, are a key component of a cap and trade system...."

Russia to Lower U.S. Debt Holdings: "Russia will likely continue lowering its U.S. debt holdings as Washington struggles to contain a budget deficit and bolster a tepid economic recovery, a top aide to President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday....Russia's financial reserves—which stood at $528 billion as of June 10—are the world's third largest, after China and Japan's." See Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America

Obama's Co-Chair Concurs: We Face Most Predictable Economic Crisis in History In About 2 Years: "Simpson added that the tipping point 'will come when the rating agencies find out we have no plan' to seriously address federal spending and the national debt....

     "'This debt and these deficits that we are incurring on an annual basis are like a cancer and they are truly going to destroy this country from within unless we have the common sense to do something about it,' said Bowles....“It may be two years, you know, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. But if our bankers over there in Asia begin to believe that we're not going to be solid on our debt, that we're not going to be able to meet our obligations, just stop and think for a minute what happens if they just stop buying our debt.'" See the opposition: The Grasp of Socialist International (SI)

China ratings house says US defaulting: report: "A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.... The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the borrowing limit beyond $14.29 trillion -- but Republicans are refusing to support such a move until a deficit cutting deal is reached."

The Mexican Paradox: "Last week, gun battles between warring drug cartels in the central Mexican state of Michoacán lasted three days...and took an as-yet undetermined toll in lives.... Last year, Mexico tied Iraq, and was second only to Pakistan, in journalist fatalities....The decapitation of 27 Guatemalan farm hands by the Zetas gang two weeks ago. The 146 corpses discovered in April in mass graves in the state of Durango. The hanging in March of five victims....

     "Yet a funny thing happened on the way to Mexico becoming another failed state. ...In 2010, a year when there were more than 15,000 drug-related killings (up by nearly 60% from the year before), the economy grew by 5.5%—the fastest rate in a decade. The Mexican peso appreciated against the dollar. Inflation was essentially flat....Twenty-two million tourists visited the country."

May 2011

50 Things Every American Should Know About The Collapse Of The Economy: #14 All over America, hospitals that care for the poor...are so broke that they are being forced to shut down.... Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year."

Obama will call for billions in aid to Arab nations: "The aid package, which would unfold over two to three years, would include an estimated $1billion in debt cancellation, $1 billion in loan guarantees and several billion more in financing from multilateral institutions such as the World Bank..." What about America's own dept-ridden economy?

April 2011

20 Facts About Child Hunger and Poverty That Will Break Your Heart: "According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010. In the UK and in France that figure is well under 10 percent. According to the U.S. Census, the number of children living in poverty has gone up by about 2 million in just the past 2 years." See The Road to Serfdom by Hayek - opposite of Keynes' socialist philosophy)

Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling: "...the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil....The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a 'preliminary commitment' letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount....

     "If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits.... Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won't allow at home."

Reid, senators talk currency value with Chinese leaders: "The relationship between the United States and China is important for our two nations, but it is also important for the world,' Reid [said].... 'How the United States and China work together on commerce, currency and clean energy will help determine the future health of the global economy.'" See The Grasp of Socialist International (SI)

AFP: George Soros Convenes ‘Bretton Woods II’: "Internationalist billionaire George Soros is holding his international conference April 8 to April 11 at Bretton Woods, N.H., the noted birthplace of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, where he plans to 'rearrange the entire financial order'....This 'Bretton Woods II' comes along just as the Trilateral Commission will be meeting at the same time in Washington, D.C.

     "With an apparent goal of creating nothing less than a new global economy, Soros is spending $50 million in New Hampshire to bring together up to 200 academic, business and government policy leaders under his Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). ...the attendees are to include ex-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank executive and Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz.... Soros chose this site because he expects his proposed reforms to be as radical as those promoted by British economist John Maynard Keynes....

     " Now Soros comes along as the new Keynes to save the day by proposing another miracle solution to our problems, couched in lofty doublespeak such as 'reform,' 'cooperation' and 'equal participation.' Soros is proposing the end of sovereignty as we know it." See The Road to Serfdom (Chapter 11: The End of Truth) by Hayek - opposite of Keynes' socialist philosophy)

Pentagon Art: $600,000 Gurgling Toad Sculpture: "A $600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles 'sounds of nature' and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back could soon be greeting Defense Department employees who plan to start working at the $700 million Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. this fall." See Transforming Art and Empowering Symbols

Hidden Bailout of Unions and Big Corporations in ObamaCare : "...a little-known provision in the national health care law has allowed the federal government to pay nearly $2 billion to unions, state public employee systems, and big corporations to subsidize health coverage costs for early retirees. At the current rate of payment, the $5 billion appropriated for the program could be exhausted well before it is set to expire."

Two George Soros Events Aim to Remake the Financial Order and the Media -- So Where's the Reporting? "Soros wants to begin changing the global economy in one event. In the other, his flunkies want to 'Change the world. Change the media.'...The announced speakers include a lot of prominent lefties, globalists and economists... more than two-thirds of the overall total have ties to Soros....Soros will also be speaking in Bretton Woods about 'The Emerging Economic and Political Order.'

     "Just down the road in Boston, a Soros-funded media conference is trying to manipulate that emerging order as well. Close to 350 left-wingers from a variety of organizations are gathering there for the National Conference for Media Reform...” See The Grasp of Socialist International (SI)

March 2011

February 2011

Thomas Sowell: Reckless Spending: "Nothing more clearly illustrates the utter irresponsibility of Barack Obama than his advocacy of 'high-speed rail.' The man is not stupid. He knows how to use words that will sound wonderful to people who do not bother to stop and think....High-speed rail may be feasible in parts of Europe or Japan, where the population density is much higher than in the United States. But, without enough people packed into a given space, there will never be enough riders to repay the high cost of building and maintaining a high-speed rail system. [Might our leaders be expecting large migrations from different parts of the world -- including China? See the first part of this upcoming, unfinished article: America's Perilous Partnership with China]

Is Egypt Hopeless? "With a third of the population employed by the state, Egypt may be past the tipping point that allows a modern economy to grow. ...In Egypt, the percentage of the working population employed by the state is 35%. In Turkey, it's 13%. ...The economic literature is vast on the smothering effects of large, inefficient public sectors. If Egypt is now exhibit A for these studies in torpid economies, then exhibits B, C, D and E would be Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia and Algeria, the other nations that erupted the past several weeks. In Jordan nearly 50% of the employed population works for the state. This is an economy?

     "...past some tipping point of a population employed by the state, an economy starts to choke. Egypt is far past that point....The U.S. is hardly the place Egypt should look for an answer. Public-sector costs have driven New York, California and New Jersey to the edge of the fiscal cliff....

     "Amid the current crisis, Mr. Mubarak decreed a 15% wage and pension increase for public workers. Decades of U.S. governors and mayors did the same thing, poisoning local markets." See Smiling at Socialism

Chinese company officials meet with leaders of Idaho, energy firms: "The Chinese-government owned company, called Sinomach for short, is itself a sign of the growing economic and industrial strength China now projects worldwide.... Zhang Chun, director general of the company told state officials the United States represents a big market for Sinomach ... The visit underscores the changing face of energy development in Idaho, as well as the interest Chinese companies have in both business and investment here."

January 2011

China on Our Minds: "China’s economic might has grown, however, it has refused to open its markets to Western goods, has kept its currency artificially low (to make Chinese exports even stronger) and has shamelessly appropriated Western patents and other forms of intellectual property for its own domestic use while paying little or no compensation. Even while it has sought to join Western-oriented organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the Group of 20 leading nations, it has refused to play by the same rules."

Let 'em go bankrupt: (Thomas Sowell) "...the amount of money it would take to keep the poor from starving in the streets is chump change compared to how much it would take to keep on feeding unions, subsidized businesses and other special interests....Letting armies of government employees retire in their 50s, to live for decades on pensions larger than they were making when they were working, costs a lot more than keeping the poor from starving in the streets."

Cheap electricity gone with the wind: "The Obama administration is changing the way wind energy projects in the American Midwest are financed by 'spreading the costs' to consumers and businesses in other states, possibly doubling or perhaps tripling energy bills in the region in the coming years." See False or Politicized Science

December 2010

The reality of the Fed's great power : "'We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes,' said Bernanke....Does anyone recognize the extraordinary nature of such a comment? One man, without any congressional oversight, can in moments raise interest rates that could collapse markets around the world....

     "Is it any wonder the business community is hesitant to invest capital or create new jobs when this level of collusion exists between the Fed and Congress? 'Give me control over the nation's currency and I can care not who makes its laws,' said Baron M.A. Rothschild. He knew that a central bank that can create money would be the most powerful force on earth.

      '"Whoever controls the money in any country is master of all it's legislation and commerce,' warned President James Garfield." See Unity in an Anti-Christian World?

Dems spending costs Americans retirement dreams: "...this is not just political rhetoric, but is the new fiscal reality, as the U.S.'s retirement system, the combination of private pensions and Social Security, has plunged from the sixth best in the world a year ago to the 10th best this year." See Our Refuge in Christ

November 2010

The U.N.'s global tax scheme: "At the Group of 20 meeting in South Korea, a coalition of 183 organizations from 42 countries called for a tax on financial transactions to raise funds to offset the impact of the global economic crisis. The so-called Robin Hood Tax would underwrite a number of programs with the purported aim of 'reducing the unacceptably high rate of job loss, and achieve key development, health, education and climate change objectives in developing countries.' How this miracle would be achieved is unclear. Taking money from productive enterprise and sinking it into bloated government programs is an unlikely recipe for success. Global warming is the favorite excuse cited to justify an international tax regime." See From Freedom to Servitude

Hide-and-seek game with billions in debt: "A complaint has been filed with the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice claiming that the top credit-rating services in the United States, which control an estimated 90 percent of the industry, are complicit in hiding billions of dollars of China's debt."

Bomb-proof tunnel with air conditioning: Obama's security go to extraordinary measures for his tour of the Gandhi museum: "President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle arrived in India's commercial hub of Mumbai on Saturday.... At the heart of the White House caravan is ‘The Beast’, a gigantic...Cadillac.... Mr Obama’s entourage will travel in a fleet of 45 U.S.-built armoured limousines, half of which will be decoys [imitations of the Cadillac?].... The kilometre-long tunnel...is large enough for Mr Obama's cavalcade to pass through."

Obama to bypass Congress with carbon taxes? "President Obama indicated that carbon taxes may be imposed on U.S. citizens through a move designed to bypass Congress altogether....'The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction,' Obama said. 'And I think one of the things that's very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don't hurt the economy.' (Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant! It's essential to plant growth and food production.) See Climate Gate

October 2010

Reliving Failure by Thomas Sowell: "Some people point to the history of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when unemployment peaked at 25 percent, as proof that the government cannot simply stand by and do nothing....

     "If we are going to look back at history, we need to make sure the history we look at is accurate. First of all, unemployment never hit 25 percent until after— repeat, AFTER— the federal government intervened in the economy.... But it hit double digits within 6 months after government intervention— and unemployment stayed in double digits for the entire remainder of the decade, as the government went in for one intervention after another."

Politics versus Gold (Thomas Sowell): "Gold has long been a source of frustration for politicians who want to extend their power over the economy.... But, even with the gold standard gone, the ability of private individuals to buy gold reduces the ability of the government to steal the value of their money by printing more money....

     "Sneaking a provision on gold purchases and sales into massive legislation that is supposedly about medical care is just one of the many cynical tricks used to circumvent the public's right to know how they are being governed." See Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America

September 2010

Largest Tax Hikes in History: "In just 120 days, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011: Higher taxes on marriage and family.... The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care tax credit will be cut.

    "The return of the Death Tax....Higher tax rates on savers and investors. ....There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare."

Financial Expert Warns of Economic Collapse: "'They subverted our capitalist system economy in order to achieve a regime change in America.... American families bear the brunt of the destruction of capitalism and the installation of socialism in their country with job losses, home foreclosures, and retirement portfolio wipe-outs,' Diamond charges....'A recovery is possible, Diamond said. But the Congress and the President have to restore the regulations that 'protect the invested capital that is needed to create jobs, and to protect the value of our homes and assets.'”

Tony Blair on the Panic: "Mr. Blair writes... 'Regulations failed. Politicians failed. Monetary policy failed. Debt became way too cheap. But that wasn't a conspiracy of the banks; it was a consequence of the apparently benign confluence of loose money policy and low inflation.'... Ultimately the recovery will be led not by governments but by industry, business, and the creativity, ingenuity and enterprise of people....

     "One can question whether Mr. Blair's record in office always reflected this sort of clarity. His 'New Labour' politics steadily increased the size of government.... But since leaving government, Mr. Blair has offered a more compelling diagnosis."

      It made sense. Success was no longer dependant on compliance. But his new purpose brought new problems. See Tony Blair Foundation

 Is Bloomberg Supporting Ground Zero Mosque for Business Reasons? "New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has become a beloved press figure as a result of his unshaking support for the Ground Zero mosque.... On October 2, 2009, The Dubai Chronicle reported Chairman and President of Bloomberg LP...[Grauer] met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.... Grauer gave a presentation of Bloomberg future expansion plans... in the United Emirates, North Africa, and India....

    "Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic [Sharia] finance."

August 2010

International Monetary Fund (IMF): [Prepared by the Strategy, Policy and Review Department, Approved by Reza Moghadam, April 13, 2010]: "The purpose of this paper is to gauge members’ perceptions of the seriousness of imperfections in the current system and of the costs and benefits of various solutions, and hence the scope for action. It is understood that some of the ideas discussed are unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future absent a dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation."

US funds restoration of global Islamic sites: "This year, the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents. Under a program established by Congress in 2001, the department will fund at least five projects in as many countries at a cost of more than $271,000."

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs: "This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more."

July 2010

A lot of hot air on carbon offsets: "Paying money for environmental projects to offset your carbon emissions may sound like a good idea. But...many carbon offsets have merely become a multi-million dollar fraud with little regulation and even less Green benefits. One of the most prominent examples involves the Vatican, which was recently declared to be the first 'carbon neutral sovereign state' because it was paying for a forest to be planted in Hungary to offset its emissions. But not a single tree has yet been planted, and the company involved merely used the publicity to sell more offsets."

Raising the Retirement Age to Address Social Security: "House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer... would not rule out raising the retirement age to try to solve the $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities the federal government faces in Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and federal pensions." See God provides for His people

Why are we discussing racism? "...we should be talking about racism if this is what is driving black unemployment. But is it? I don't think so. Nor do most blacks....

    "...when blacks were asked in this same survey about the main problems facing black families, the response was overwhelmingly...: jobs. So, Americans of all colors today generally feel responsible for their own lives, and the main concern of most is the sick state of our economy."

Rule By Elites Has Been Tried — And Failed [Thomas Sowell]: after a few decades of experience with central planning in some countries, or a few generations in others, even communists and socialists began to repudiate this approach. As they replaced central planning with more reliance on markets, their countries' economic growth rate almost invariably increased, often dramatically. In the largest and most recent examples — China and India — people by the millions have risen above these countries' official poverty rates, after they freed their economies from many of their suffocating government controls.....The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole."

Signs of the Times [Thomas Sowell]: "Barack Obama has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers' money just by using the magic words 'stimulus' and 'jobs.' It doesn't matter politically that the stimulus is not actually stimulating and that the unemployment rate remains up near double-digit levels, despite all the spending.... And of course nothing negative will ever matter to those who are part of the Obama cult, including many in the media....

     "...the velocity of circulation of money in the American economy has plummeted to its lowest level in half a century. Money that people don't spend does not cause inflation. It also does not stimulate the economy.....With the Obama administration being on an anti-business kick... with Congress coming up with more and more red tape, more mandates and more heavy-handed interventions in businesses, would you risk $26 billion that you might not even be able to get back, much less make any money on the deal?...

     " Banks have cut back on lending, despite all the billions of dollars that were dumped into them in the name of 'stimulus.'...When you hire somebody in this environment, you know what you have agreed to pay them and what additional costs there may be for their health insurance or other benefits.

     ". ..the American economy has repeatedly recovered faster when left alone than when politicians decided that they have to 'do something.'"

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932: "'The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession,' said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. 'All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing.' 'Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year.....

     "Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high...."Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted.... The Fed is already eyeing the printing press again. 'It's appropriate to think about what we would do under a deflationary scenario.'" said Dennis Lockhart." See His strength in my weakness

 

Tent city in president's Hawaii backyard--Homeless settlements springing up all across America: "Obama administration mortgage-modification program was doomed to fail from the start, much like Obama's new homelessness initiative is certain to fail. ...[The] only real solutions lie with jobs and the creation of strong families in which children can be educated with skills that make more likely their own future employment...'"

Fannie Mae hijacking your carbon credits? "With the Obama administration pushing for cap-and-trade legislation... Obama adviser Franklin Raines has positioned the government-sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae to make millions by selling carbon credits from American homes.... The patents give Fannie Mae the methods for identifying and measuring energy savings in homes that can be packaged and sold....

      "Fannie Mae will identify and measure energy savings in residential households....The patents discuss 'replacing older appliances with more energy efficient appliances...and renovating the entire home.'...  Nowhere in the patents is there any discussion of compensating homeowners for making the energy improvements or for sharing with homeowners any of the revenue Fannie Mae might derive from packaging their energy savings." See Green Lies

White House welcomes Shariah finance specialist: "The Obama administration has announced its appointment of 13 White House fellows – and the first person featured on its short list is a Muslim attorney who specializes in Shariah-compliant transactions....Samar Ali... is an associate with the law firm Hogan Lovells – a firm that claims to have advised on more than 200 Islamic finance transactions with an aggregate deal value in excess of $40 billion. According to Ali's biography posted on the White House website, 'She is responsible for counseling clients on mergers & acquisitions, cross-border transactions, Shari'a compliant transactions... and international business matters....

      "Hogan Lovells lists Ali's experience 'advising a Middle Eastern university in the potential establishment of a Foreign Aid Conventional and Shari'ah Compliant Student Loan Program.... [Ali]is a founding member of the first U.S. Delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum. ...where key leaders declared Shariah finance to be 'dawa' (missionary) activity to promote Islam and Shariah.'....

       "...many Islamic financial institutions also require industry participants to adhere to tenets of Shariah law.... If Western banks endorse Shariah, they will 'end up becoming what Lenin called useful idiots or worse to the Islamists.'" See Glossary of Islamic Terms

Alinskys in Action: "'The banking crisis is the way to build a big economic justice movement in this country,' Goehl said during a panel discussion this week at the left-wing 'America's Future Now' conference in Washington, D.C.... People are questioning capitalism (a derogatory marxist word designed to replace the old, more encouraging "free enterprise").... Goehl said his comrades need to get involved in 'mass political education...." See Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Thirty-Two States are Now Officially Bankrupt: "...we now know that the majority of American states are currently insolvent, and that the US Treasury has been conducting a shadow bailout of at least 32 US states."

Obama and Economics: Intellectually Clueless: "...A kid tossed a candy wrapper on the station lot. Somebody yelled, 'Hey, pick that up.' The kid, with a straight face, defended himself. He said, 'I just created a job.' Someone would be hired, he explained, to pick up the trash, and this would be good for the economy.... Of the $787 billion stimulus package, President Obama said it would 'save or create' 3.5 million new jobs. Has it?"

Jobs report a nightmare for Obama progressivism: "Private-sector job creation almost stopped in May. The 41,000 jobs created were dwarfed by the 411,000 temporary and low-wage government jobs needed to administer the census."

U.S. debt soars to 90% of GDP: "U.S. debt has hit 90 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP, the level at which economic growth traditionally begins to slow ....'What is frightening is that U.S. debt is rapidly beginning to approach the same percent of GDP that has plagued European Union countries like Greece, with the same likely results – fiscal bankruptcy that requires continued borrowing...'" See From Freedom to Servitude

Yikes! China paying U.S. unemployment checks: "The states are so broke they're borrowing from the federal government to make burgeoning unemployment insurance benefits – prompting the federal government to borrow the funds from communist China." See God's Warnings for our Times

Think America 'protected' against EU crisis? "Alarm bells are going off over the developing economic crisis in the European Union and the growing concern it will hit the United States despite assurances from the White House that the economy is rebounding and there's little danger of a rebound across the Atlantic.... 'Don't believe a word of it. The liquidity crisis (a shortage of cash) is headed across the pond for America.... Look at the numbers...'" The Joseph Principle and Crisis Economics

May 2010

The Greek Crisis and the Reactionary Left: "The first question is whether or not the EU (i.e. Germany) will successfully be able to bail out the Greeks.... 1. The Greek people and their massive sense of entitlement. Even the threat of an austerity program has caused deadly riots and crippling strikes (including the internal revenue department going on strike).

    " 2. The German people and their sense of fairness. The retirement age in Greece (as subsidized by the government) is 54. The retirement age in Germany is 67. You can imagine that bailing out the Greeks, so that they can preserve their retirement plan is not something that sits well with the German people....

    "... if the bond market learns that the EU does not have the political will to bail out tiny Greece, then it follows that the EU will not have the political will to bail out the larger countries

    "...The other thing to keep in mind is that the last time that large European countries defaulted and couldn’t pay for their social programs, Hitler rose to power and we had WWII.... It may turn out that the greatest tragedy of the 21st Century is that people failed to learn the lessons of the 20th." See Don't let freedom slip away

Bombshell! Actual jobless rate tops 21%: "Unemployment was declared to be 9.9 percent in April, but the real unemployment rate – measured to include those who want work but have given up looking and those part-time employees who prefer full-time work – hit 17.1 percent.... Nearly half the unemployed, 46 percent, have now been out of work for 27 weeks or longer. 'When we take into account those who are considered long-term discouraged workers who have given up looking for work after a year or longer, the April unemployment number shoots to more than 21 percent.'" See From Freedom to Servitude

March 2010

Financial Regulation: The Next Governnment Takeover: "Democrats are pressing ahead with legislation to create a vast new bureaucracy that would have virtually unlimited powers to slap sweeping controls and costs on the U.S. financial industry that critics say will stymie economic innovation and growth.... The emerging financial regulation plan is part and parcel of a growing web of other legislative proposals by President Obama that, when added to health care reform and energy regulation, would result in the largest regulatory takeover of the private sector in U.S. history." See Reinventing the World

February 2010

Obama Budget Games: "The independent oil and gas industry, mostly 'mom and pop' shops employing many thousands of people across the country, cannot absorb the exorbitant new taxes proposed in the Obama budget and survive.... 'There’s either a fundamental lack of understanding of this industry on the part of this administration or they’re deliberately trying to wreck it for some political and ideological reasons,' Boustany said." See George Orwell's 1984

Climate makes money move in mysterious ways [U.K.]: "...in its obsession with climate change, different branches of the UK Government have in recent years been pouring hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money into a bewildering array of 'climate-related' projects, often throwing a veil of mystery over how much is being paid, to whom and why."

The Currency of Social Justice: "Many Americans believe that the Cloward-Piven strategy is not only what purposefully bankrupted New York, but also what the Obama administration is employing to erode capitalism in America. So what economic system is being erected in its place?

    "...we can see 'social justice' transforming America through 'green jobs' and our currency crisis.... Job growth would be nice if it were controlled by the private sector, but government employment and regulation will dominate a 'green energy' industry.... In the coming months, we'll have... a labor market ominously beholden to the government for its survival. Common sense says that if the government's income relies on taxes from the private sector, then when those jobs are gone, so is the government's revenue to pay off its massive debts. This concept is now tritely referred to as 'unsustainable.'...

      "For the restructuring of our economy to bring about social justice and economic equality, a non-negotiable currency unhindered by zero-bound interest rates must be put in place. The resulting expense from this artificial boom will be increased taxes to support green subsidies. In addition, the current fuel industry will be decimated by cap-and-trade legislation designed to skyrocket the cost of traditional energy methods. Our economy is not undergoing a recovery; it's undergoing restructuring to remove the element of free-market capitalism." See From Freedom to Servitude: The Power and Perversions of Law

January 2010

Disturbing video: Signs of waste? $1 million used to tout stimulus funds at work in Ohio

1 million Americans give up on job searches -- Long-term unemployment and labor-force dropouts hit record highs January 18, 2010: "Nearly 1 million unemployed American workers, frustrated with a lack of available jobs, are dropping out of the labor force.... 'Long-term unemployment and discouraged job seekers are the untold stories of the deepening unemployment crisis the Obama administration has been unable to solve,' Corsi wrote." See From Freedom to Servitude - Part 3:Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America

Forecast: Debt to dwarf GDP: "The high debt would become an ever-increasing incentive to get rid of the elderly, the disabled, the mentally retarded, etc. (What Hitler called 'useless eaters.') ....The report concludes federal deficit spending is so out of control that unless Obama and Democrat leaders on the Hill make changes now, debt in 2080 will be six times what the nation produces." See God's promises to His people

Interesting video: The Decline: The Geography of a Recession (No talk. Just changing images)

Bankruptcy of U.S. now certain: "Within the next 12 months, the U.S. Treasury will have to refinance $2 trillion in short-term debt. And that's not counting any additional deficit spending, which is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. Put the two numbers together. Then ask yourself, how in the world can the Treasury borrow $3.5 trillion in only one year? That's an amount equal to nearly 30 percent of our entire GDP. And we're the world's biggest economy. Where will the money come from?" See the next three links:

Is the Medicine Worse Than the Illness: "The world ran out of trust in 2008 -- but there is no shortage of money because the Fed is printing like mad. It's the wrong approach, with potentially dire consequences." See God's Warnings for our Times

China warns Federal Reserve over 'printing money': "China has warned a top member of the US Federal Reserve that it is increasingly disturbed by the Fed's direct purchase of US Treasury bonds."

Hyperinflation: QUOTE: "The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money that is not supported by a corresponding growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run."

Now Obama wants your IRA: "It's really very simple. Just give us the money. In return, we will give you our best promise to pay. (That would be Treasury IOUs. You know – the same ones they've already 'invested' your Social Security payments in while they've spent them as general revenue, and which now have to be repaid by ordinary taxpayers...)...Your IRA Treasury 'investment' would be paid back slowly, over time, to provide a constant income. It's just like an insurance company annuity, except Congress writes the contract, and they can change it at any time."

Stinging stats: U.S. sees no net job growth: "With millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs lost in the U.S. to China while millions more white-collar jobs are shipped to India, the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury are left to creating bubbles by reducing interest rates to zero or near zero to stimulate the semblance of economic growth.... 'Middle-income families made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 – and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009.'...

     "Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost approximately 4 million manufacturing jobs, nearly 25 percent of the total manufacturing workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.... Corsi noted that even Mexico is losing manufacturing jobs to China, with some 500,000 manufacturing jobs transferred from Mexico to China."

Unemployment benefits dry up by 2011: "Despite Obama administration hype that the U.S. economy is in 'recovery,' U.S. Department of Labor studies show the continued high level of unemployment will cause 40 state programs to go broke within two years, requiring $90 billion in federal loans.... Currently, 25 states that have run out of unemployment money have been forced to borrow $24 billion from the federal government to cover the gaps."

Feds Probe Cadmium in Kids' Jewelry From China: "Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young.... Children don't have to swallow an item to be exposed — they can get persistent, low-level doses by regularly sucking or biting jewelry with a high cadmium content.

     To gauge cadmium's prevalence in children's jewelry, the AP organized lab testing of 103 items bought in New York, Ohio, Texas and California....The results: 12 percent of the pieces of jewelry contained at least 10 percent cadmium. Some of the most troubling test results were for bracelet charms sold at Walmart, at the jewelry chain Claire's and at a dollar store....

      "Using cadmium alloys has been a relatively common practice among manufacturers in the eastern cities of Yiwu and Qingdao and the southern province of Sichuan, Xu said.... 'Usually, though, they are more careful with export products.'"

      What does that imply? That profits are more important than the health of Chinese children?

December 2009

Shocker! Detroit unemployment approaching 50%: "Despite an official rate of 27 percent, the city's actual unemployment rate is closer to 50 percent.... 'The abandoned corpses, in white body bags with number tags tied to each toe, lie one above the other on steel racks inside a giant freezer in Detroit's central mortuary....

    "...the murder rate is soaring, the school system is in receivership, and the city treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide even the most basic city services, such as garbage collection. 'Thousands of houses are abandoned, roofs ripped off, windows smashed...'

     "'....cities like Detroit inevitably vote Democratic largely because the cities have become dependent upon federal social-welfare programs to survive.'... The data also show that Hispanics are now joining African-Americans to disproportionately suffer poverty in the U.S. cities throughout the nation where immigrants, both legal and illegal, have settled to live." It reminds me of the tragic end of the Roman Empire!

China warns Obama deficit spending must stop: "One day after the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao snubbed President Obama at the United Nation's Copenhagen Climate Summit, the Chinese warned the United States that China's ability to continue buying U.S. Treasury debt was limited. ...China does not approve of the large and continuing deficits the U.S. is projecting into the future."

November 2009

Money for phantom jobs: "...President Obama's stimulus plan raises new doubts about how many real jobs are being created by his $787 billion big-spending package. ...58,386 out of the more than 640,000 jobs that were purportedly 'saved or created' were from projects where apparently no funds had been spent. ...[T]ens of millions of dollars were purportedly spent in congressional districts that do not exist. ... A nonexistent district in the state of Tennessee got nearly $41 million.... All told, at this point, 440 nonexistent congressional districts got over $6 billion in so-called stimulus money from the administration.... Meantime, without much credible documentation, administration officials were throwing out wildly invented estimates to show the dubious program was working. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the stimulus spending was 'responsible for over one million jobs so far.' Senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett expanded that number, saying the spending has 'saved millions of jobs around the country.'" See Rules for Radicals

New York Times: U.S. Racing Toward Debt ‘Shock’: "U.S. debt is rising so fast that the federal government is careening toward a 'payment shock' in the not-too-distant future.... The national debt now stands at over $12 trillion...  The additional $500 billion a year in interest payments would surpass the combined budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security, plus the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...."

"Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines...
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength...." Habakkuk 3:17-18

House Attacks Fed, Treasury: "Political frustration over the rescue of Wall Street and high unemployment erupted in the House Thursday, with one committee threatening to impose tighter scrutiny on the Federal Reserve and another trading verbal insults with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The House Financial Services Committee voted, 43-26, to approve a measure sponsored by Texas Republican Ron Paul, vociferously opposed by the Fed, that would direct the congressional Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed...." See Crisis Economics

Consumer destruction: "As if hyperactive Washington politicians haven't already grabbed enough power by taking over banks and car companies and trying to control everybody's health care, now they are getting closer to centralized bureaucratic control of the entire consumer credit market. Pending legislation to create a superpowerful Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) would take an ax to financial freedom and significantly increase consumer costs. That's not what most people would call 'protection.'"

Stimulus creates jobs in China: "Of the $1 billion in clean-energy stimulus money spent since the beginning of September, $850 million has gone to foreign wind companies.... Indeed, the 11 U.S. wind farms that received stimulus money from the Treasury have imported 695 of the 982 wind turbines to be installed, creating 4,500 jobs overseas. That's far more overseas work than the stimulus money has created in the United States." See  Crisis Economics

Stimulus creates jobs in China : Of the $1 billion in clean-energy stimulus money spent since the beginning of September, $850 million has gone to foreign wind companies. It doesn't take a bunch of experts at a hastily planned "jobs summit" to discover this isn't the way to bolster employment in America. Indeed, the 11 U.S. wind farms that received stimulus money from the Treasury have imported 695 of the 982 wind turbines to be installed, creating 4,500 jobs overseas. That's far more overseas work than the stimulus money has created in the United States.

October 2009

Climate and Coinage: Hot Air and Hot Money: "Understanding the monetary forces pushing climate change is essential, for in a few weeks time... world leaders will be gathering at Copenhagen to hash out a new global climate change treaty. What makes this summit especially important is that the timing matches the economic crisis, and global warming lobbyists – along with major banking and investment firms – anticipate a solution that will save the planet’s climate while reshaping the global economic landscape.

    "How so? Carbon taxes at the national and international level, and the creation of a massive new marketing structure based on carbon trading. Global governance is part of this package, as this 'carbon economy' is to be coupled to a CO2 currency that will transcend national politics." See Washington's Farewell Address, 1796 and the next link:

Where are the banks putting their money? "Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's one time dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago." See The emerging New World Order

The demise of the dollar: "Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia." Trusting God, not man

China buys the world: "Chinese businesses, their coffers overflowing with state money, have been doing progressively bigger and bolder deals."

The demise of the dollar: "Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia...."

Detroit: Too broke to bury their dead: "Money to bury Detroit's poor has dried up, forcing struggling families to abandon their loved ones in the morgue freezer." Sad warning for our times

Obama Makes U.S. Taxpayers Bail Out Foreigners: "...one might think that the President and the Congress would focus their attention on the recovery of the American economy. Instead... an inordinate amount of benefits bestowed by the federal government in the past year have in fact flowed to foreign entities, from banks to car companies to entire countries."

September 2009

Fed didn't bark at subprime loan abuses: "Three times a year, a coalition of Chicago community groups met with the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators to warn about the growing prevalence of abusive mortgage lending. They began to present research in 1999 showing that large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.... The groups pleaded for regulators to act.... But... the pleas failed to move the Fed, the sole federal regulator with authority over the businesses."

Lehman Brothers Revisited: "Capitalism has been extinguished on Wall Street, and our financial institutions now exist as public utilities. The presidents of our biggest banks are now the highest paid civil servants in the world! Since market forces are no longer allowed to allocate capital and control risk, these decisions are now made by government regulators and are then passed through to their subordinates on Wall Street. This perverse organizational structure constitutes a new form of American fascism.... In reward for its gross culpability in creating the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been rewarded with extensive new powers. Given the damage it was able to inflict in the past, I can only imagine the havoc that will be wrought by the new 'Super Fed.'...

     "If the current policies continue, the America we know - for which our forebears risked so much - will cease to exist. The constitution originally established by our Founding Fathers has been under attack almost since inception. Up until now, the greatest damage occurred during Roosevelt's New Deal. However, the current assault on our birthright could be a knockout blow. The last vestige of republican government now hangs in the balance." See Changing America

August 2009

The Fed's Political Problem: "Others have accused the Fed of usurping congressional authority by engaging in back-door appropriations of taxpayer funds.... Ron Paul (R-Tex.) .... has, incredibly, persuaded almost two-thirds of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor a bill that would jeopardize the Fed's independence. The bill is titled, innocently enough, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act."  See The Transformation of America

August 2009

Obama’s Spending Plans Will Nearly Double the National Debt: "...the White House conceded that the national debt will increase by $9 trillion over the next ten years, nearly doubling a national debt that now stands at $11.67 trillion." See Held Accountable

July 2009

Lawmakers Express Outrage at ‘Potential' $23.7-Trillion Liability Bank Bailout Law Could Impose on Taxpayers: "A bipartisan group of lawmakers were mystified Tuesday at how what began as the $700-billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) could potentially reach a liability of $23.7 trillion for U.S. taxpayers -- compared to the U.S. gross domestic product of $14 trillion." See Reinventing the World

Awash in a flood of dept: "How high's the water, mama? Two feet and rising.... Mr. Obama and his economic team predicted that if Congress failed to pass their 'stimulus package,' the unemployment rate... would rise above 8 percent this year.... The Department of Labor reports that unemployment topped 10 percent in 16 states last month and that Michigan surpassed 15 percent.... Three feet high and risin'...

June 2009

 [Video] Alan Grayson Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve? The shocking answer is apparently "No," though there is reason to believe that some do know -- and have chosen to keep it a secret.

Obama Financial Proposal Contains Sub-Prime Loan Shocker: "...hidden on page 67: 'Rigorous application of the Community Reinvestment Act should be a core function of the CFPA.' ... Along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the very epicenter of the financial meltdown last year, the CRA is one of the vehicles used to ... threaten banks into lowering their lending standards to provide home loans to those who simply cannot afford them. According to his proposal, Obama's new financial regulatory reform promotes more of the same disastrous policy." Deceit, Delusion and the Destruction of America

Cash to become extinct as chips take off: "Australian Central chief executive Peter Evers believes cash will be replaced for most transactions in five-to-seven years..... 'So you can't go and buy a bottle of water from the deli with cash; you've got to go and buy it with your chip,' he said.... Savings & Loans chief executive Greg Connor said the concept of the wallet would go....."Whereas now we have a wallet and purse, it will be a chip in your phone or your watch or something like that as your access. ...credit cards were on the way out as well." See Managing the Masses through Global Standards

Sharia Banking Conquers Europe: "All over Europe Islamic banks are establishing branches, Western banks are offering Sharia-compliant financial services, and European governments are trying to outcompete each other in welcoming them. Proponents of banking along the lines of Sharia (Islamic law) claim that the Islamic banking system is 'more ethical' than the West’s capitalist system. This is not true. Unfortunately, however, in our age of crashing financial markets, many Westerners – not just the traditional anti-capitalist European left – seem very eager to buy that argument." See Glossary of Islamic Terms

Is this the end of America? "As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. ... We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship. ....the [tax-funded] Fed will have to be prepared to absorb all the excess money it has poured into the U.S. economy. It will be a technical and political challenge unlike any central bank has ever undertaken." See Obama's Presidency

This Major World Currency Is About to Plummet: "'I had no place to stay and I wanted the police to take care of me,' said the 79-year-old Japanese woman. She had just slashed two people with a knife so the police would take her to jail. A 'gray' crime wave is sweeping Japan.... Japan has the second-lowest birth rate in the industrialized world. ....Right now, 20% of Japan's population is over 65 years old.....Here's another byproduct in the society that ages and shrinks at the same time: It'll bankrupt the Japanese government.... Japan's economy is a shambles. For years, the Japanese have relied on exports to support their economy... but exports have dried up."

China "worried" about US Treasury holdings: "China's premier expressed concern Friday about its massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt... Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.... Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund its $787 billion stimulus package."

Obama Sticker Shock: "President Obama's 2010 budget looks more astounding by the day. ...the proposals would increase the federal deficit by $2.3 trillion more over 10 years than the White House had claimed." See The Joseph Principle and Crisis Economics

Fed's secrecy policy 3 years old tomorrow: "As America's economy continues in freefall, tomorrow marks an auspicious three-year anniversary – the day the Federal Reserve announced, with little fanfare, its decision to stop reporting to the public the M3 money supply, the broadest measure of three standards of measurement."

The Global Leadership Meltdown: "Vladimir Putin... finds himself locked in a struggle with his self-appointed replacement, Dmitry Medvedev, who may be getting tired of being a puppet. The financial crisis has hit Russia quite hard.... Venezuela is, if anything, in deeper trouble than Russia.... Chavez’s response is that Venezuela needs more socialism....  Socialism and communism destroyed the Soviet Union and are now destroying Venezuela. In America, Obama’s policies are taking us back to the 'misery index' days of the Carter administration. It’s time to take a fresh look at the free market, which always works when given a fair chance." See the quote below:

Quote (one of America's founding principles): "We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money." Davy Crockett (1786-1836) frontiersman, soldier and politician.

Germany resists US call for stimulus spending hike: "German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck resisted on Monday a US call on governments worldwide to pump more taxpayer money into their faltering economies. "We're not planning on any additional measures," Steinbrueck told journalists as he arrived for a meeting with his eurozone counterparts. "We should concentrate on measures that have already been decided." See Crisis Economics

Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow: "...our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.....Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt.... And it would raise taxes to historically high levels.... And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs....

        "...it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional 'resources' needed 'TBD' (to be determined).... The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions....

      "Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs... will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers. ...it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government."

       The next two article give us glimpses of that "radicalism":

Never waste a good crisis: "Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. 'Never waste a good crisis...,' she said."

NATO may ask China for support in Afghanistan: "NATO may ask China to provide support for the war effort in Afghanistan, including possibly opening a supply link for alliance forces, a senior U.S. official said Monday. The subject is still under consideration and no decision has been reached on whether to approach Beijing.... He spoke ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Thursday in Brussels, which will include Hillary Rodham Clinton in her first European trip as U.S. secretary of state." China seems to be increasingly vital to the global agenda. See the first link here

Rahm: Obama Will Agree to 9,000 Earmarks: "President Barack Obama is set to sign a $410 billion spending bill with some 9,000 earmarks — a practice he repeatedly criticized on the campaign trail last year." See Smiling at Socialism

 

Obama Repeats Bush's Worst Market Mistakes: "The most disastrous Bush policy that Mr. Obama is perpetuating is mark-to-market or 'fair value'accounting for banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. The idea seems harmless: Financial institutions should adjust their balance sheets and their capital accounts when the market value of the financial assets they hold goes up or down. That works when you have very liquid securities, such as Treasurys, or the common stock of IBM or GE. But when the credit crisis hit in 2007, there was no market for subprime securities and other suspect assets. Yet regulators and auditors kept pressing banks and other financial firms to knock down the book value of this paper, even in cases where these obligations were being fully serviced in the payment of principal and interest. Thus, under mark-to-market, even non-suspect assets are being artificially knocked down in value for regulatory capital (the amount of capital required by regulators for industries like banks and life insurance). ....Banks and life insurance companies that have positive cash flows now find themselves in a death spiral. Of the more than $700 billion that financial institutions have written off, almost all of it has been book write-downs, not actual cash losses. See ARTICLE

ACORN and Obama - together again: "Fresh [from the stimulus] bill signing in Denver, President Obama immediately launched into his next New Raw Deal expansion: a massive mortgage entitlement program forcing lenders to refinance at an initial cost of $50 billion to $100 billion. That's in addition to the bipartisan-supported $50 billion in the 'stimulus' bill to bail out homeowners....

     "In tandem with the White House Bad Borrowers Bailout, Obama's old friends at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are launching a new campaign.... They are the shock troops on the streets.... Trumpets ACORN: 'On Feb. 19, ACORN members will launch a new tactic in fighting foreclosures: civil disobedience. Participants in the ACORN Home Savers campaign nationwide will simply refuse to move out of foreclosed homes....

     "ACORN's foot soldiers, funded with your tax dollars, will scream, pound their fists, chain themselves to buildings, padlock the doors and engage in illegal behavior until they get what they want. It's a recipe for anarchy...." See Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Wise Economics. Thomas Jefferson: “It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

The Peron Pattern: "The stimulus plan has something for every important Democratic special interest group - labor, the teachers unions, big-city bosses.... More citizens will be dependent upon government largesse....

      "Liberalism fuses statism with class-based populism.... It is obsessed with using activist government in the service of social engineering.... The disastrous path on which America is currently embarked was tried in another country - in the Western Hemisphere: Juan Peron's Argentina. During the 1940s until a 1955 coup ousted him from power, Peron presided over a fascist state..... Socialism and a sky-rocketing national debt can permanently impoverish even the wealthiest nations. America is not immune from the laws of economics." See next link:

Just How Much Is $1 Trillion Dollars? "'...this plan will cost taxpayers the equivalent of a million dollars a day for the next 3,000 years to fund a long wish list of items that won’t create jobs.' ... 'If you stacked a pile of $1 dollar bills a trillion high beginning from the dawn of civilization, which is about 6000 years, and spent $1 per second till now, you would still have almost 80% left!'... 'A total cost of $1.1 trillion for the bill ($792 billion for the legislation plus at least $300 billion in debt service to pay for it) amounts to a per-family cost of at least $9,418 in new spending/debt."

Huckabee: Stimulus is 'anti-religious': "The former Republican presidential candidate pointed to a provision in both the House and Senate versions banning higher education funds in the bill from being used on a 'school or department of divinity.' 'You would think the ACLU drafted this bill,' Huckabee said. 'For all of the talk about bipartisanship, this Congress is blatantly liberal.'”  See Obama's Faith-Based Partnerships BAN TRUTH & Freedom 

Nationalization by autumn, bank on it: [Reuter] "The plan to rescue the banks... as enunciated by Treasury Secretary Geithner, is no plan, only an apparent set of contradictory principles: an ideological one not to nationalize and a political one not to subsidize too obviously."

 

Was this economic crisis planned? "Barack Obama's ... chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, told business leaders assembled by the Wall Street Journal in November that the economic crisis facing the country is 'an opportunity to do things you could not do before.' That has to be one of the most chilling statements I have ever heard uttered by an American political official....He followed up... with this: 'You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.'

     "...in 1928, Edward Bernays wrote in his work, 'Propaganda,' the following: 'The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power in our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' ....Could we have been manipulated into this financial crisis for economic gain and political power for the few?...

     "By the end of last month, Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had engineered loans, pledges and guarantees of more than $7.4 trillion to the financial elite that was responsible for creating the economic crisis in which we find ourselves today:

March 11: $200 billion in loans to financial institutions

March 16: $29 billion in loans to J.P. Morgan Chase

July 30: $300 billion housing bill

Sept. 7: $200 billion for the U.S. Treasury to assume Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's debt

Sept. 16: $85 billion to AIG and $70 billion injected into the financial system

Sept. 19: $50 billion pledged to support Money Market funds

Sept. 29: $150 billion ... to U.S. banks and $330 billion... to foreign banks

Oct. 3: $700 billion in Paulson's bailout package

Oct. 7: $1.3 trillion in purchase debt from companies

Oct. 8: $38 billion in additional loans to AIG

Oct. 14: $1.4 trillion in FDIC guarantees of interbank loans

Nov. 24: $20 billion loaned to Citigroup with the Treasury Department assuming responsibility...

Nov. 25: $600 billion in loans for mortgage-backed assets and $200 billion in loans..." See Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

Obama warned over ‘welfare spendathon’: "In Wisconsin, the state that forged a pioneering path in welfare reforms in the 1990s, residents were astonished by a newspaper investigation that disclosed that a $340m program offering taxpayer-financed child care to low-income working parents was riddled with fraud and expensive loopholes. In one case, a family of four sisters who had 17 children between them put all of them together... and over the past three years claimed $540,000 in perfectly legal state childcare subsidies. Examples like that fuel American suspicion that so-called 'big government' invariably turns out to be inefficient, expensive and easily exploitable. And there has been no bigger government action in the US than the stimulus package presented by Obama."

January 2009

Economic Stimulus Bill Mandates Electronic Health Records for Every Citizen without Opt-out or Patient Consent Provisions: "...the economic stimulus bill mandates electronic health records for every citizen without providing for opt-out or patient consent provisions. 'Without those protections, Americans' electronic health records could be shared -- without their consent -- with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health-records network.'. ...The federal medical privacy rule promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996... already permits the disclosure of personal health information without patient consent." See An International Information System

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