Showing posts with label economic crisis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic crisis. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

What’s Going On With Gold and Silver?

By Michael Noonan
Step back for a moment and absorb what just transpired in the ongoing Greek tragedy that refuses to go away. Greece, with no possibility of ever repaying its fictitious debts to the EU, and the EU, in all of its greed and avarice, for no wisdom is to be found within that body of elite-pushing bureaucrats, it determined that the best and ONLY solution for debt-laden Greece was to LOAN MORE “MONEY.”
Need anything more be said about what is going on in European politics?
In the real world, if you cannot repay your debt[s], your car is repossessed, your house undergoes foreclosure, you cannot get credit, your credit cards get canceled, your debt-burdened ass is hauled into court, often times, your family falls apart, etc, etc, etc. Not so for Greece. She gets offered even more debt from her creditors. Only in politics.
We covered this ground before: Greece was loaned nothing of value. Nothing. Just fictitious digitalized numbers created at the whims [actually the purposeful direction of the elite’s bankers] of the IMF/EU, [off by one letter, the “E” should have been an “F” to more accurately describe what happens to the populations of member countries]. [See 17th paragraph from article Elite NWO Checkmate.] Now the bankers want to be repaid in tangibles, like the country of Greece itself, the Greek banks, and whatever else can be siphoned from the economically broken backs of the innocent Greek people.
Where will the billions of new loaned money to Greece go? Not to the people, not to rebuilding Greece. It will be recycled back to the creditors to keep the facade of bank solvency alive. This is a joke that is not laughable.
Lend nothing, take back everything not nailed down. It has been the Rothschild formula for centuries.
Pay attention. We have said this before: the elites and their bankers take no prisoners. They could care less about people. All the elites care about is taking total control of the currencies of every country in order to bring that country to its financial knees and totally beholding to the dictates of the moneychangers.
The obvious, unstated and perhaps unnoticed point is the the Euro currency is a total fiat totally controlled by the bankers. Hello, Europe?! The sole purpose of the EU is to enslave all Europeans. Is everyone oblivious to the obvious?
All politicians are lying whores, with apologies to whores for making the connection.
Tsipras just sold out the Greek people to a deal worse than the one initially presented months ago, and more importantly, against the referendum held to vote no for the EU’s [mostly elite sell-out Merkel and Germany] austerity program.
Greek banks closed, [the elite’s way of forcing people into financially hopeless situations to get what they want]. People who stupidly still kept their money in the elite’s banking system were denied access to what they thought was theirs. Two lessons: people who keep money in any bank anywhere in the world are now considered creditors, not depositors, and you can, and will be denied access to what you “believe” to be your funds at the dictates of the bankers. Secondly, anything people keep in the form of paper, or worse,
digitalized entries on their accounts, are discovering the true “value” of paper. [None.]
Those who had gold and silver were able to use their own form of wealth to acquire whatever they needed, assuming items were available, and more is available when gold or silver is the basis for the transaction, although alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, even sex facilitate trade exchanges.
If you have no gold or silver, you will be “Greeced,” “Cyprused,” financially screwed for not taking responsibility for your own economic future. Those who already own either or both gold and silver know this, [but still complain about the paper price continuing to decline.]
Precious metals have always been a store of value and always will be. One of the main reasons for FDR’s Executive Order for US “persons” to turn in their gold was to strip people from being independent of the government. Those who had gold and silver did not need to be reliant upon the government for their economic needs. Take away their most reliable form of wealth, substitute it for fiat paper, and now people had to rely upon the government to survive. To paraphrase Chuck Colson, Nixon’s aide, “When you have them by the financial balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
That was the plan all along, starting from when the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was enforced on the country by the foreign banking elites. First, gain control of the issuance of a nation’s currency, [again, the classic Rothschild formula] then the rest falls into place: control of the government, control of business sectors, and the media. The public hears only what the elites want them to hear and [falsely] believe.
We have mentioned Agenda 21 several times and always exhorted people to take some time and research what this insidious UN-sponsored agenda is all about. In a nut shell, Agenda 21 is the UN takeover of all local governments in order to corral the masses in whichever direction the UN decides. One of those directions is to ultimately prevent people from owning their own land, water rights, etc…total enslavement.
Here is a small example. In 1998, the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks approached local county commissioners to persuade them with a proposal to cooperate in driving rural residents out of the Montana countryside into cities. Why? People in rural areas were pretty self-reliant, as a matter of necessity. These people have no need for government support and would highly resent and oppose any government interference. If the government could get people more centrally located, people can be more easily controlled.
The point, beyond the obvious deceit? This is an Agenda 21 scheme, and we are talking about 1998, in a seemingly innocuous location, sparsely populated Montana. Note that the same agenda is being plied throughout the United States. It is a bit like the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. One thing is certain, the elites are taking total control of you and your life right under your unobserving noses.
Read the brief but informative article by Joshua Krause, Agenda 21 Under A New Name,
from which the above comes.
We have also covered how Obama has sold out America and Americans, at the behest of the elites, lately through TPP, TTIP, and TISA, in our widely read article, Obama, Western World’s Worst Enemy for Freedom. This, folks, is how the elites work and why all politicians are pathetic as a puppet ruse for the NWO.
As an aside, for more about the US decline under the directed hands of the president, you may find this interesting to read, Freedom or the Slaughterhouse, American Police State
from A to Z.
The larger point to be made is for those who are myopically focused on the current price for gold and silver, all of the news-related stories about how much gold China owns, how many coins are being bought in record quantities, etc, etc, stories everyone has heard for the past three years, that focus is grossly misplaced.
First Cyprus, now Greece, and it will not stop there. The entire corrupt Western banking system is bankrupt, a fact few people are willing to accept. The entire Western banking system is corrupt. PMs people have a greater appreciation for that repeated statement, but most people simply cannot comprehend the weight of that situation.
The price for gold and silver is being artificially and purposefully suppressed by central bankers. The Western world is falling apart at the fiat financial seams, and those in control will resort to whatever means necessary to remain in control, evidenced by the unending proxy wars and Middle East disruptions started by the US. A Third World War cannot be taken out of the equation as the bankers are scrambling for their greedy lives, stealing as much wealth from people as possible.
That is where everyone’s primary concern would be well-served to know and continually be aware of what is going on, because when this banker-created financial disaster comes to it sordid end, and it cannot be avoided, owning and physically holding/controlling gold and silver will be one of the best means of surviving financially.
How and when things unfold, no one knows. All one can do is to be informed and prepared, and of the two, being prepared is more important than being informed.
For as long as the corporate federal government can keep its unwanted “dollar” moving higher, it is an apt barometer for the opposite direction of gold and silver.
NMT = Needs More Time. Gold continues its decline in a snail-like fashion, despite the obvious intended assaults to drive price lower. Those efforts continue to succeed, but it appears with decreasing effect.
Last week, we commented there was little reason why gold could not go lower, and it did. The same still applies until there is some sign of ending activity.
Friday’s close touched the lower channel line, and that puts gold in an oversold condition. We hasten to add, oversold very often becomes moreoversold, so it should not be taken as a potential trade from the long side. You will see how silver reached an oversold condition. While gold is clearly in a similar position, it does not mean it will react in a similar manner, a mistake too many make in reading charts.
Every situation is unique, regardless of any past similar formations.
Just as we cautioned to obverse how gold reacts to its just breaking an obvious support area, the same holds here. Both silver and gold can move sideways, continue lower, or rally in response to broken support. The absolute lowest probability is a rally back over support that can hold.
The trend for both metals remains down, and from the last two lines to Ode On A Grecian Urn:
“Beauty is Truth, truth beauty,—–that is all
ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”



Source: http://tapnewswire.com/2015/07/whats-going-on-with-gold-and-silver/

Monday, February 11, 2013

Watch The Financial Markets In Europe

by Michael Snyder

Is the financial system of Europe on the verge of a meltdown?  I have always maintained that the next wave of the economic crisis would begin in Europe, and right now the situation in Europe is unraveling at a frightening pace.

On Monday, European stocks had their worst day in over six months, and over the past four days we have seen the EUR/USD decline by the most that it hasin nearly seven months.  Meanwhile, scandals are erupting all over the continent.  A political scandal in Spain, a derivatives scandal in Italy and banking scandals all over the eurozone are seriously shaking confidence in the system.  If things move much further in a negative direction, we could be facing a full-blown financial crisis in Europe very rapidly.

So watch the financial markets in Europe very carefully.  Yes, most Americans tend to ignore Europe because they are convinced that the U.S. is "the center of the universe", but the truth is that Europe actually has a bigger population than we do, they have a bigger economy then we do, and they have a much larger banking system than we do.

The global financial system is more integrated today than it ever has been before, and if there is a major stock market crash in Europe it is going to deeply affect the United States and the rest of the globe as well.  So pay close attention to what is going on in Europe, because events over there could spark a chain reaction that would have very serious implications for every man, woman and child on the planet.

As I noted above, European markets started off the week very badly and things have certainly not improved since then.  The following is how Zero Hedge summarized what happened on Thursday...
EuroStoxx (Europe's Dow) closed today -1% for 2013. France, Germany, and Spain are all lower on the year now. Italy, following ENI's CEO fraud, collapsed almost 3% from the US day-session open, leaving it up less than 1% for the year. Just as we argued, credit markets have been warning that all is not well and today's afternoon free-fall begins the catch-down.
In addition, the euro has been dropping like a rock all of a sudden.  Just check out this chart which shows what happened to the euro on Thursday.  It is very rare to see the euro move that dramatically.

So what is causing all of this?

Well, we already know that the economic fundamentals in Europe are absolutely horrible. Unemployment in the eurozone is at a record high, and the unemployment rates in both Greece and Spain are over 26 percent.  Those are depression-level numbers.

But up until now there had still been a tremendous amount of confidence in the European financial system.  But now that confidence is being shaken by a whole host of scandals.


In recent days, a number of major banking scandals have begun to emerge all over Europe.  Just check out this article which summarizes many of them.

One of the worst banking scandals is in Italy.  A horrible derivatives scandal has pushed the third largest bank in Italy to the verge of collapse...

Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI), Italy's third biggest lender, said on Wednesday losses linked to three problematic derivative trades totaled 730 million euros ($988.3 million) as it sought to draw a line under a scandal over risky financial transactions.
There is that word "derivative" that I keep telling people to watch for.  Of course this is not the big "derivatives panic" that I have been talking about, but it is an example of how these toxic financial instruments can bring down even the biggest banks.  Monte dei Paschi is the oldest bank in the world, and now the only way it is able to survive is with government bailouts.

Another big scandal that is shaking up Europe right now is happening over in Spain.  It is being alleged that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and other members of his party have been receiving illegal cash payments.  The following summary of the scandal comes from a recentBloomberg article...

On Jan. 31, the Spanish newspaper El Pais published copies of what it said were ledgers from secret accounts held by Luis Barcenas, the former treasurer of the ruling People’s Party, which revealed the existence of a party slush fund. The newspaper said 7.5 million euros in corporate donations were channeled into the fund and allegedly doled out from 1997 to 2009 to senior party members, including Rajoy.
That doesn't sound good at all.

So what is the truth?

Could Rajoy actually be innocent?

Well, at this point most of the population of Spain does not believe that is the case.  Just check out the following poll numbers from the Bloomberg article quoted above...

According to the Metroscopia poll, 76 percent of Spaniards don’t believe the People’s Party’s denials of the slush-fund allegations. Even more damning, 58 percent of the party’s supporters think it’s lying. All of the Spanish businessmen with whom I discussed the latest scandal expect it to get worse before it gets better. Their assumption that there are more skeletons in the government’s closet indicates what little trust they have in their leaders.
Meanwhile, the underlying economic fundamentals in Europe just continue to get worse.  One of the biggest concerns right now is France.  Just check out this excerpt from a recent report by Phoenix Capital Research...
The house of cards that is Europe is close to collapsing as those widely held responsible for solving the Crisis (Prime Ministers, Treasurers and ECB head Mario Draghi) have all been recently implicated in corruption scandals.
Those EU leaders who have yet to be implicated in scandals are not faring much better than their more corrupt counterparts. In France, socialist Prime Minister Francois Hollande, has proven yet again that socialism doesn’t work by chasing after the wealthy and trying to grow France’s public sector… when the public sector already accounts for 56% of French employment.
France was already suffering from a lack of competitiveness. Now that wealthy businesspeople are fleeing the country (meaning investment will dry up), the economy has begun to positively implode.
As the report goes on to mention, over the past few months the economic numbers coming out of France have been absolutely frightful...
Auto sales for 2012 fell 13% from those of 2011. Sales of existing homes outside of Paris fell 20% year over year for the third quarter of 2012. New home sales fell 25%. Even the high-end real estate markets are collapsing with sales for apartments in Paris that cost over €2 million collapsing an incredible 42% in 2012.
Today, the jobless rate in France is at a 15-year high, and industrial production is headed into the toilet.  The wealthy are fleeing France in droves because of the recent tax increases, and the nation is absolutely drowning in debt.  Even the French jobs minister recently admitted that France is essentially "bankrupt" at this point...
France's government was plunged into an embarrassing row yesterday after a minister said the country was ‘totally bankrupt’.
Employment secretary Michel Sapin said cuts were needed to put the damaged economy back on track.
‘There is a state but it is a totally bankrupt state,’ he said.
So what does all of this mean?

It means that the crisis in Europe is just beginning.  Things are going to be getting a lot worse.

Perhaps that is one reason why corporate insiders are dumping so much stock right now as I noted in my article yesterday entitled "Do Wall Street Insiders Expect Something Really BIG To Happen Very Soon?"  There are a whole host of signs that both the United States and Europe are heading for recession, and a lot of financial experts are warning that stocks are way overdue for a "correction".
For example, Blackstone's Byron Wien told CNBC the other day that he expects the S&P 500 to drop by 200 points during the first half of 2013.

Seabreeze Partners portfolio manager Doug Kass recently told CNBC that what is happening right now in the financial markets very much reminds him of the stock market crash of 1987...

'I'm getting the 'summer of 1987 feeling' in the U.S. equity market,' Kass told CNBC, 'which means we're headed for a sharp fall.'
Toward the end of 2012 and at the very beginning of 2013 we saw markets both in the U.S. and in Europe move up steadily even though the underlying economic fundamentals did not justify such a move.

In many ways, that move up reminded me of the "head fakes" that we have seen prior to many of the largest "market corrections" of the past.  Often financial markets are at their most "euphoric" just before a crash hits.

So get ready.

Even if you don't have a penny in the financial markets, now is the time to prepare for what is ahead.
We all need to learn from what Europe is going through right now.  In Greece, formerly middle class citizens are now trampling one another for food.  We all need to prepare financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically so that we can weather the economic storm that is coming.

Most Americans are accustomed to living paycheck to paycheck and being constantly up to their eyeballs in debt, but that is incredibly foolish.  Even in the animal kingdom, animals work hard during the warm months to prepare for the winter months.  Even so, we should all be working very hard to prepare during prosperous times so that we will have something stored up for the lean years that are coming.

Unfortunately, if events in Europe are any indication, we may be rapidly running out of time.


Original post @ http://www.activistpost.com/2013/02/watch-financial-markets-in-europe.html

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Economic Forecaster: The US Has Gone Over The ‘Demographic Cliff’. Market Crash Will Start In Summer – That, Just Like The Last Crash, Lasts About A Year And A Half Or So, Goes Into Late 2014, Early 2015

Dent told CNBC this afternoon:
We think markets are going to go up for a while. I think Maria [Bartiromo] is right – the market wants to go up.
We’ll see one more correction into this second fiscal cliff. I think we’ll see another rally into March, April, May, or something. By the summer, we get another crash.
I think it’s going to be a choppy rally – up, down, up, down, with an upward bias. It’s the second half that we think a crash starts – that, just like the last crash, lasts about a year and a half or so, goes into late 2014, early 2015.
We get a slight new high in the Dow this year, and then we get a slight new low in the next crash. That’s been the pattern. Higher highs in each bubble, slightly lower lows in each crash.
Again, this should not be something that people go, “Oh my gosh, how could this happen?” It’s been happening since 1995. Bubble, crash, bubble, crash, bubble, crash.
Here is what Dent told CNBC regarding why he expects this crash in the second half of 2013:
How many crashes have we seen in the last ten years or so? 2000, 2002 – bubble, crash. 2007 – bubble, crash. We’re getting a bubble and crash every four or five years.
This is what we have when you go over a demographic cliff. Remember Japan – Japan went over the demographic cliff. Peak in baby boom spending, peak real estate boom.
They had a bust. Guess what? 22 years later, real estate is still down over 60 percent, still drifting down. Stocks are down nearly 80 percent, not that far off their lows. They keep bubbling up and then going down to new lows.
This is the new normal, given that baby boomers are aging and the next generation is not only not in the workforce yet, largely, but they’re not as large when they do [enter]. So, we’re never going to see real estate prices at these levels again, and we’re not going to see stocks at the level we saw in 2007 for a long time.
So, to me, this is not unusual at all.
Dent told CNBC regarding the United States, “We call this the economy in a coma.”


DOW 6K: Harry Dent says HELL YEAH!



ROSENBERG: 6 Key Economic Indicators Show That The US Isn’t In Great Shape
By the end of 2012, once it was clear that the fiscal cliff would be avoided, the consensus was that the U.S. economy wrapped up the year in “some sort of accelerating trend”, according to Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg.
But Rosenberg says there are telling signs everywhere that this isn’t actually the case.
“Mortgage applications have fallen off a cliff of their own of late… What I am asking is that calendar quirks aside why on earth would railway car loadings, coal production, auto assemblies, raw steel output and port activity be contracting on a year-over-year basis if the economy is humming along as the consensus would have you believe?”

‘Dr. Doom’ Is Now ‘Deeply Uncomfortable’
Marc Faber, “The Gloom Boom & Doom Report,” explains why he owns gold and would look at Vietnam, China and Japan for investment opportunities this year.

Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com/economic-forecaster-the-us-has-gone-over-the-demographic-cliff-market-crash-will-start-in-summer-that-just-like-the-last-crash-lasts-about-a-year-and-a-half-or-so-goes-into-late-201/#ZJ3rgjYLPspvyrYY.99 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

An Economic Doomsday is Coming

An Economic Doomsday IS Coming 
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
Deep within the temporal lobe of the brain is this tiny little limbic system structure in roughly the shape of an almond.  This little mass of nuclei has its tiny little hands in most of our emotions and survival motivations.  It is from this teensie little clump of “stuff” that the signal is sent to either fight, or — “get the heck out of Dodge.” 


The amygdala does a lot more, but as I am most certainly NOT a brain surgeon, or a shrink, I’ll stick to what I can look up on Wikipedia or Google, or some other search engine.

For the purposes of this tome, the above information will do just fine, thank you.
Here’s the thing, as they say.  If there IS such a thing as a gestalt, and that gestalt has an amygdala,then it is most certainly working overtime.   

There seems to be a growing feeling, all over the world, that humanity is starring down the barrel of a cosmic gun.  We are waiting for something to happen, something rather unpleasant.  What it isexactly, we don’t know.  But our collective amygdala is screaming at us to “beware.”

There is much speculation (most subdued, it seems to me) about the form in which the coming disaster will arrive: famine, pestilence, war, economic, or something else.  Frankly, I suspect it will entail all of the above and then some. I don’t see how a world-wide cataclysm could not.

Those whose expertise is in economics tell us that, without a doubt, the world is heading for economic doom.  The welfare states (nations),  and that includes the US, are going to collapse — and soon.  When it begins it will resemble dominoes tumbling over, one right behind the other, until we have a total collapse of the world’s economic system.

No one, repeat — NO ONE — has any idea how to stop this collapse.

In an article at Monty Pelerin’s World the writer says the following:  ” The US and other modern industrialized nations are headed for economic collapse. Political excesses created unwieldly and insolvent social welfare states in every modern democracy. The notion of providing for those who cannot or do not provide for themselves has limits. As Lady Margaret Thatcher expressed the problem:

    The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.
The writer goes on to explain:  “Those dependent on the welfare state are unaware that their benefits are not sustainable. Most believe tomorrow will be like today and the checks will keep coming from Mother Government. Political power was gained based on promising these benefits. No politician will risk his position by trying to reduce them. No democratic society has ever rolled them back via peaceful political means.”


And the the writer says THIS:  “The financial hole dug by most social welfare states is too deep to get out of. The finest turnaround manager in the world, unconstrained by politics, would be unable to remedy the problems. The mathematics of the problem are just too far gone. Radical cost-cutting and proper economic policies can no longer work. Hope and change may work in a political campaign, but slogans carry no weight against the iron laws of arithmetic.

The world is on the verge of massive sovereign defaults.”


So much for the US avoiding the so-called “fiscal cliff,” huh?   We may have avoided the cliff only to plunge head long off the lip of the economic Grand Canyon!

The writer at Monty Pelerin goes on to say:  “Welfare states have become zombie economies. These “walking dead” are shells of what they once were. A failure in one probably produces a domino effect that dooms all.”

He/she offers the following as solutions: 
“The Economic Solution
This solution requires that government spending be brought into line with revenues and held there (or below) for a lengthy period of time. That requires reneging on many social promises and possible sovereign debt defaults. A depression would occur. Homes would be foreclosed and businesses closed.

Wealth, defined in terms of physical assets, would be re-allocated. New owners and uses of assets would result. So, too, would a complete cleansing of the cancer that prevents economic growth. The economy would be traumatized, but recover rather quickly so long as government refrained from intervening. Pain and suffering are inevitable. Civil unrest is probable and so is the risk that government(s) could be overthrown.

This solution is horrible in every sense but one — it is the better of two alternatives.”


So, what then is the worst solution?  The political solution.  But according to the writer there is NO political solution.  Here’s what he/she says:  “There is no political solution, although that will not stop politicians from pretending there is. “Pretend and extend” is all they can do. Intervening with additional stimulus and more printed money buys some time, but worsens the economic problems. Problems and distortions are made bigger, requiring even more adjustment when they inevitably occur. Pursuing this strategy flirts with currency destruction which would destroy the savings and fixed incomes of the middle class.


The end result is the same as the economic solution — a complete and total collapse of the economy. The difference is that the collapse is more severe and that many may be destroyed in a hyperinflationary blow-off.”


WOW!

I found this article to be awesome and I recommend you go over to the site and read it in its entirety.  You will find it here:

(By the way — “Monty Pelerin” is a pseudonym derived from The Mont Pelerin Society.  Just thought you’d want to know).

Smart people make me feel so, well, inadequate, you know?  But then, I think about what the writer has said and, slowly, I realize he/she is just expressing what so many of us feel but have been unable to articulate.  This writer just did it — and did it extremely well.

It would appear the people of earth (with apologies to science fiction writers everywhere) have just passed the “point of no return.”  We haven’t enough fuel to return to our point of origin, and we have just discovered that we haven’t enough fuel to reach our planned destination.  In plain English: “We’re screwed!”

Could THIS be what our collective amygdala has been trying to warn us about.  It explains the global feeling of “unease” felt by so many across the globe.

It is information presented in such a way as this that compels one to look upon the “preppers” with a new sense of respect.  Could it be they have been right all along?  It is certainly beginning to look that way.

Now,  if you think I am taking this a bit too lightly, I assure you,  I AM whistling past the graveyard!  For,  you see, I share that feeling of tip-toeing along the precipice of something unknown. And I have suspected for rather a long time now that many more of my species feel the same nagging worry of impending doom. The recent end of the world non-event was evidence of a sense of something ending permeating our human society.

What do you do when there is nothing you can do?
  What do I do when it is the worst of bad nightmares for a control freak like “yours truly.”  May we be so bold as to suggest the following:  “1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. 3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber . 4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep . 5 The LORD is thy keeper : the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.”   …   Psalm 121:1-6 

There comes a time in the lives of all of us when we have zero control over events affecting us.  The unavoidable is, well, unavoidable.

A remnant will survive to carry on and embrace whatever the future may hold.  So, do humanity a favor, and take notes!  To avoid the unavoidable in the uncertain future depends totally — upon not repeating our history of mistakes.

See you on the other side?

Monday, December 31, 2012

10 Signs We Live in a False Economy

It’s time to admit that we live in a false economy. Smoke and mirrors are used to make us believe the economy is real, but it’s all an elaborate illusion.

Out of one side of the establishment’s mouth we hear excitement about “green shoots”, and out of the other side comes breathless warnings of fiscal cliffs and the urgent need for unlimited bailouts by the Fed.

We hear the people begging for jobs and the politicians promising them, but politicians can’t create jobs. We see people camped out to buy stuff on Black Friday indicating the consumer economy is seemingly thriving, only to find out everything was bought on credit.

The corporate media does their best to distract us from seeing anything real. We see the media glorify Kim Kardashian who got rich by being famous, and became famous merely by being rich. She got front page coverage on Huffington Post this week because her cat died.  Enough said.

Meanwhile the financial media makes the economy seem complicated and they ban anyone who speaks truthfully about the economy from their airwaves.

Is it any wonder why people are angry and confused about the economy?

Well, hopefully these signs that we live in a false economy will help clear up some of that confusion.

1. Fake Jobs: It’s not just that the “official” unemployment numbers are a fraud, the actual jobs are fake as well. Ask yourself how many professions actually produce something of value? 80% of jobs could disappear tomorrow and it wouldn’t affect basic human survival or happiness in the least. Yes, in our society we need money to survive – and jobs equal money – but that doesn’t mean a “job” has any actual benefit to society.  More on this in the next point…

2. Problems Create Jobs, Not Solutions: We can’t fix real problems, because it would destroy morefake jobs. We can’t end the wars and bring all of the personnel home when the jobless rate is already suffering. We can’t end the War on Drugs because where would the DEA agents, prison guards, the court system, parole officers, and the rest of their support staff work. We can’t simplify the tax code because the bookkeepers, CPAs, accounting professors, and tax attorneys would be unemployed. We cannot reduce the bureaucracy of government or streamline healthcare because paper pushers have few other notable skills. We can’t stop spying on Americans because it now employs millions of people. We can’t restrict the Wall Street casino, or hardly anyone will be left with a job. Finally, what will happen to university jobs when people either realize their product is not worth the cost or they discover they can get the same education online for nearly free? In other words, we need these manufactured problems to create phony employment.

3. Money Has No Value:  Money is the biggest illusion of all. Our money is loaned into existence with arbitrary interest rates by a private monopoly. It is an IOU. It only has value because a law says it has value, and that value fluctuates based on how much supply is in the economy which, again, is controlled by a for-profit monopoly. It’s actual value is zero since it is just a piece of paper with fancy ink on it. The only things with real value to humans are skills (labor), tools and materials, food and water, and energy. 

4. The Fed Now Buys 90% of the Nation’s Debt: Speaking of money, the Federal Reserve loans money to the US government who issues bonds to cover their spending. Those bonds are sold on the open market through auctions to investors who believe in the ability of the United States to make good on those bonds. Apparently, the US has no more investors because the Fed is now buying 90% of new Treasury bonds. This is called monetizing debt, or, essentially, monetizing money. That’s what a Ponzi scheme does. This acts to keep interest rates artificially low because they’d have to raise them to attract outside “investors”.  In layman terms, our whole monetary system is a paper tiger, a house of cards, or whatever metaphor you want to use for fake.

5. What is the Value of Anything?  The price discovery mechanism, or the process to determine the value of an asset in the marketplace, has become so convoluted that determining the genuine value of anything has become nearly impossible. Between government subsidizes for things like food, fuel, education, housing, insurance and even cars; taxes, regulations and laws; the manipulation of the value of money and interest rates; Wall Street gambling on commodities; what is the real value of something? For example, why does an ounce of marijuana (a weed that can grow anywhere) cost up to $500?  Is that the real value based on labor and materials, and supply and demand? Of course not. Its value is inflated mainly due to laws and regulations.

6. Failure is Rewarded:  You know we live in a false economy when failure is rewarded and success is penalized. Citizens everywhere are being told they need to tighten their belts, work harder so we can bailout the failed government, banks, insurance companies and even car companies. And when we work harder and achieve some success, they tax it heavily to indefinitely pay for these fraudulent institutions. Yet this infinite money creation and taxation is light years from solving the root cause of the problem. The reality is that the banks’ solutions are the problem, enriching the investor class at the expense of the middle class. Global bankers are playing with taxpayer money – and the money of many future generations – in a global casino royale that is destined to fail so they can take the people’s assets. They are all-in; but their money is fake, and our assets put at risk are real.

7. Corporate entities have the same rights as humans, but not the same punishments:  When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations have free-speech rights of people, it was one of the final nails in the coffin of the republic. Monied interests can now openly finance elections and buy the legislation they need to operate with impunity. Corporations may be comprised of humans, but they are not subjected to the same standard of humanity. It was profoundly argued in the article What if BP Were a Human Being? that judged by common standards of morality, decency, and previously agreed-upon definitions of criminality, BP would be judged a psychopathic killer … and immortal. Ditto for the rest leading the predatory corporate pack; the most obvious being defense contractors.  And since these corporations are now joined at the hip with government itself, what does that make government? By changing definitions, they are attempting to change reality. But that still doesn’t make it the truth.

8. People buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have: In a type of trickle-down debt whirlpool, the government’s rampant spending without sufficient assets to back it up is mirrored in the behavior of the American consumer. Despite inflation, rising unemployment, and a continued collapse in real estate, it hasn’t stopped credit spending. The Associated Press just reported that for the month of October:
Americans swiped their credit cards more often in October and borrowed more to attend school and buy cars. The increases drove U.S. consumer debt to an all-time high. 
The Federal Reserve said Friday that consumers increased their borrowing by $14.2 billion in October from September. Total borrowing rose to a record $2.75 trillion.
Borrowing in the category that covers autos and student loans increased by $10.8 billion. Borrowing on credit cards rose by $3.4 billion, only the second monthly increase in the past five months. (Source)
Most troubling is the type of borrowing highlighted. The worst possible borrowing would be these negative-return investments such as student loans, credit cards, and cars. It is magical thinking taken to the highest degree.

9. Entrepreneurs are punished: It has become nearly impossible to make a simple living on your own. America has become a land filled with bureaucratic red tape that actively thwarts small business creation and criminalizes independence. There is perhaps no better example of this than the attacks waged against the ultimate entrepreneurial endeavor of self-reliance: the family farm. Through collectivist models such as Agenda 21, long-running family farms are being shut down and supplanted with “protected zones.” In the most recent case, a family oyster farm was shut down based on provably false scientific data that aimed to demonstrate negative environmental and economic impacts. It was completely fake, ending an 80-year local business that generated 50,000 tourists per year and employed 30 full-time local residents. In many of these cases the federally stolen property winds up in the hands of developers who have no interest in a true local economy. It is an inherent part of any false economy to create dependence where none should exist at all. A five-minute video that can be seen here sums up the American economy of illusions and the death of the American Dream.


10. Engineered Slavery: Do you think slavery died in the 1800s?  Think again. Economic hitmen (lenders) have successfully enslaved-by-debt everything from nations, entire industries, state and local governments and nearly every person on the planet. And they bought your servitude with money they never had, they simply created it out of thin air. Even if an individual doesn’t have any bank financing or credit cards, they still pay the private Federal Reserve through inflation and income taxes. As author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, would say: the time has come for the banks to collect their “pound of flesh” from average citizens by way of higher taxes, less social services, and taking your pensions — “austerity.” For an enlightening explanation of how economic hitmen work their dark magic please watch this video.  If you’re still confused, see these 10 signs you might be a slave.  Another, more obvious, form of engineered slavery is prison labor. Laws and regulations are specifically created to add to the prison population which enriches the corporations that own them, while local communities actually become poorer and more dangerous (source).
    As George Carlin said, “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” It would be bad enough if it were contained to only one country, but we are now experiencing a global collective dreaming that fantasizes about a government figuring things out just in the nick of time. However, in the real world, the collapse has begun in earnest. Until we are committed to counter the 10 points above, we will remain in the grip of an hallucination. However, there are encouraging signs through protests worldwide, alternative currency movements, and myriad creative solutions in the most affected countries like Iceland, Greece, and Spain that people are beginning to shake off their sleep, look in the mirror and realize that the dream economy they have been sold was designed to make them seek solutions in entirely the wrong direction.

    Monday, December 24, 2012

    Economic Disintegration is Almost Here

    The disintegration of an economy and a society can take two courses. One course is like rust. It is slow and barely perceptible. The other is a sudden collapse. The first course, if left untended, eventually  turns into the second.
    The US economy is now rusting away. Arguably it has been for decades. For anyone interested in looking, the signs are there. They will soon become unavoidable for even the most disinterested of our citizens.
    Dan Amoss correctly described what is happening as a result of Washington's overbearing involvement in the economy:
    All government-directed economic activity grows at the expense of the private sector. And the election suggests that government coercion will drive even more U.S. economic activity in the future. This is a shame, because freely adjusting prices, competition, and innovation elevate living standards. Mandates, price controls, and subsidies - coercive actions - depress living standards. Quality falls. Shortages develop and persist.
    Mr. Amoss is correct but does not forcefully convey the reality of a dying economy. These effects are beginning to appear.
    Many businessmen hung on, hoping for a change in the madness that passes for economic leadership and policy. These hopes were dashed with the re-election of the ideologue driving the madness. Obama won the electoral college, but not the confidence of business. They are just beginning to cast their votes and it does not bode well for the future. Here is a partial list of the business reactions to the outcome of the election:
    Layoffs Announced Since Election:
    • 1. Abbott Labs 700
    • 2. Activision 30
    • 3. Adventist Health 48
    • 4. Airlines SAS 6000
    • 5. AMD 400
    • 6. American Cotton Growers 110
    • 7. ArcelorMittal 20
    • 8. American Independence Museum 4
    • 9. Ameridose 790
    • 10. American Airlines 4400 + 800 leaving voluntarily
    • 11. American Coal 54
    • 12. Atlantic Lottery Corporation 16
    • 13. Assc Milk Producers 130
    • 14. Aveo Oncology 45
    • 15. ATI 172
    • 16. Bankia 5000
    • 17. Bechtel Power Corp 277
    • 18. Bigpoint Games 47
    • 19. Boston Scientific 1200
    • 20. Brake Parts LLC 75
    • 21. Brattleboro Retreat 31
    • 22. Bristol Myers 500
    • 23. Career Education 900 + Closing 23 Campuses
    • 24. Cigna 1300
    • 25. Citigroup 100
    • 26. Commerzbank 6000
    • 27. Consol Energy in W.V. 145
    • 28. Covidien 595
    • 29. Crouse Hospital Syracuse NY 70
    • 30. Cummins 150
    • 31. CVPH 27
    • 32. DEP in Tallahassee FL 15
    • 33. DuPont, Co. 64
    • 34. Eagle-Tribune, Andover 21
    • 35. Emanuel Medical Cente 24
    • 36. Energizer Holdings 1500
    • 37. Ericsson 1550
    • 38. Exide Tech, Laureldale 150
    • 39. City of Findlay, OH 39
    • 40. First Energy 400
    • 41. Gameforge Berlin 20
    • 42. Gamesa Energy 92
    • 43. GenOn Energy Inc 33
    • 44. Glen Falls Hospital 29
    • 45. Groupon 80
    • 46. GT Advanced Tech 165
    • 47. Harris' Broadcast 17
    • 48. Hawker Beechcraft 400 + Facilities closing
    • 49. Hill Rom 200
    • 50. Hills Holdings 300
    • 51. HMX Group 567
    • 52. Hostess 627
    • 53. Iberia Airlines 4500
    • 54. ICM of Colwich 25
    • 55. ING 2350
    • 56. Judson University 21
    • 57. Juniper Networks 500
    • 58. Kaiser Permanente 84
    • 59. Kinetic Concepts 427
    • 60. Kratos Defense Security 125
    • 61. Lackawanna County PA 11
    • 62. Lightyear Network Solutions 12+
    • 63. Lonza 500
    • 64. Majestic Star Casino/hotel 80
    • 65. Major Wind Company 3000
    • 66. Martha Stewart Living 70
    • 67. Medtronic 1000
    • 68. Mills Manufacturing NC 68
    • 69. Momentive, Inc. 150
    • 70. Monitor Group 235
    • 71. Montco Behavioral Health/Dev 58
    • 72. NBC 500
    • 73. Nebraska Medical Center 38
    • 74. Neovia Logistics Services 52
    • 75. New Energy 40
    • 76. Ormet 200
    • 77. Panasonic 10000
    • 78. PayPal 320
    • 79. Penn Refrigeration 40
    • 80. Penske Logistics 50
    • 81. Pepsi 4000
    • 82. Philips Electronics 218
    • 83. Pierce Mfg 325
    • 84. Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne 100
    • 85. Research in Motion 200
    • 86. Rheem Manufacturing 50
    • 87. Sentry Foods 70
    • 88. Shaw's Supermarket 700
    • 89. Shawano foundry WI 90
    • 90. Smith & Nephew 770
    • 91. Smithfield Packing Co. 125
    • 92. Solel Solar Systems 140
    • 93. Southeastern Container 15
    • 94. SpaceX 100
    • 95. SRA Intl Inc 222
    • 96. St. Jude Medical 300
    • 97. Stryker 1170
    • 98. Sulake 60
    • 99. Sun Media 500
    • 100. TE Connectivity 620
    • 101. TECO Coal Corporation 90
    • 102. Texas Instruments 1700
    • 103. The Providence Journal Co 23
    • 104. TMX Group Ltd. 100
    • 105. Turbocare 220
    • 106. Turkey Point Nuclear Plant 277
    • 107. Oce North America, Inc. 135
    • 108. Turbocare OCE 220
    • 109. UBS 10000
    • 110. US Cellular 980
    • 111. UtahAmerican Energy Inc 102
    • 112. Volvo Trucks Pulaski County 300
    • 113. Wake Forest Baptist Medical 950
    • 114. Welch Allyn 275
    • 115. West Ridge Mine 102
    • 116. Westinghouse 50
    • 117. World Media Enterprises Inc 105
    • 118. WPS Health Insurance 600
    • 119. Wright Patterson AFB 115
    • 120. Wyodak Coal Mine 11
    • 121. Xerox 2500
    • 122. Yakima Reg Med Ctr Washington 10+
    Announced Business Closures Since Election:
    • 1. Bakers Footwear closing 150 stores nationwide, including 21 in California
    • 2. The SCA plant in Barton - Plans Staff Reductions
    • 3. Handy Hardware to close its 2-year-old Meridian, Miss. warehouse
    • 4. Caterpillar Inc. will close its plant in Owatonna Minn.
    • 5. Waltz Pharmacy in Waldoboro Maine
    • 6. Zac's Place in Hinsdale IL
    • 7. Lone Star Steakhouse at 70th and O streets and Ruby Tuesday at 56th Street in
    • 8. Lincoln NE
    • 9. Career Education Corp - Closing 23 Campuses - 900 Jobs Lost
    • 10. Handy Hardware to close its 2-year-old Meridian, Miss. warehouse
    • 11. Shamrock Bar at Payne City's Rose Avenue. in GA
    • 12. Monitor Company Group LP
    • 13. ThinkEquity LLC
    • 14. Homer City Funding LLC
    • 15. Caterpillar Inc. will close its plant in Owatonna Minn.
    • 16. Mount Pleasant's Albrecht Sentry Foods
    • 17. The Target store at Manassas Mall Va.
    • 18. Millennium Academy in Wake Forest NC
    • 19. Target Closing Kissimmee FL Location
    • 20. Calgary's iconic Rideau Music store ( International )
    • 21. The Andover Gift Shop in Andover MA
    • 22. Grand Union Family Markets Closing Storrs Location CT
    • 23. Movie Scene Milford Location NH
    • 24. Update: TE Connectivity Closing Greensboro Plant - 620 Layoffs Expected
    • 25. Gomer's Fried Chicken in South Kansas City
    • 26. Kmart in Homer Glen
    • 27. Fresh Market on Pine Street in Burlington
    • 28. AGC Glass North America to permanently close its Blue Ridge Plant in Kingsport Tenn.
    • 29. The Target store at Platte and Academy in Colorado Springs
    • 30. Island Colors - A Carolina Beach Clothing Store
    • 31. The Roses store on Reynold Road in Winston-Salem NC
    • 32. Meanders Kitchen losing its West Seattle location at 6032 California Ave
    • 33. Bost Harley-Davidson at 46th Avenue North and Delaware Ave. in West Nashville TN
    • 34. Townsend Booksellers in Oakland
    • 35. The Kmart store in Parkway Plaza off University Drive in Durham NC - 79 Jobs Lost
    • 36. Guarantee Shoe Store in Beaumont Texas
    • 37. Associated Milk Producers Inc. Closing manufacturing facility in Dawson Minn. - 130
    • 38. Jobs Lost
    • 39. FacadeTek Inc Closes Whitestown Facility - 72 Jobs Lost
    • 40. Comet Market in Punxsutawney Pa.
    • 41. JC Penney store in Miracle City Mall Titusville FL
    • 42. TurboCare Inc Closing Manchester CT Facility - 88
    • 43. The United Colors of Benetton store on Armitage Avenue IL
    • 44. Update: Bicycle shop Ten 27 Cycles 1027 Davis St. in Evanston IL
    • 45. Two Sears Product Rebuild Centers in The Woodlands Texas
    • 46. FesslerUSA Clothing Maker Closing in PA
    • 47. Ralph Lauren's plans to close its 14 stand-alone Rugby locations
    • 48. Nashville Sash & Door Co. Inc Tenn.
    • 49. First Portuguese church in North America in Bedford Mass Closing?
    • 50. International Fashions in Carbondale's University Mall IL
    • 51. Harper's Old Army Surplus Store in West Monroe La
    • 52. Nova Financial Holdings
    • 53. The Party Warehouse in West Springfield Mass.
    • 54. TLC Wine and Liquor at 1205 W. Main St in Kent Ohio?
    • 55. The HAPPY Place 1042 N Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA
    • 56. Air Carrier Accessory Services - Chapter 7
    • 57. SOW Inc. shelter on South Broad Street GA?
    • 58. Systemax Inc., Closing Miami County Ohio Computer Plant - 120 Jobs Lost
    • 59. Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill Cos. Closing 2 Distribution Centers - 166 Layoffs
    • 60. First Place Financial Corp
    • 61. Nash Finch Closing Cedar Rapids Iowa Food Distribution Center
    • 62. Johnnie's Foodmaster MA Closing all 10 Locations
    • 63. Rainbow Foods will be closing its Forest Lake location MN - 59 Layoffs
    • 64. Berry's Camera Shop Inc. in Downtown Lafayette
    • 65. Schreiber Foods to close their food packaging plant in Ravenna - 70 Jobs Lost
    • 66. Kmart store at 5300 Salem Ave. Trotwood Ohio
    • 67. Mr.Christie plant in Toronto ( International ) 2013 - 550 Jobs Lost
    • 68. Coffee with T cafe in Stevenson Village business MD
    • 69. Minas Basin Pulp and Power are closing a mill in Hantsport ( International ) - 135
    Actual Layoffs:
    • 1. The Colonial Country Shoppe on Park Street in Adams MA
    • 2. Vestas Wind Systems Closing R&D; Office in Louisville - 60 Jobs Lost
    • 3. Dollar Castle in downtown Ferndale MI
    • 4. Bistro One West in St Charles IL
    • 5. Sun Dog Diner in Neptune Beach FL
    • 6. Jim's Builders Hardware in Wichita, Kansas
    • 7. Madeleines Bakehouse in Fort Wayne Indiana
    • 8. Barnes & Noble plans to close its doors in Union Station Dec. 31
    • 9. The Semiahmoo Hotel in Blaine Washington
    • 10. Highland Curves CA
    • 11. The Salem Sport Shop in Salem Ohio
    • 12. Navistar International Corp. to Close truck assembly plant in Garland, Texas - 900
    • 13. Jobs Lost
    • 14. Divine Mercy Catholic Books & Gifts Denton Texas
    • 15. Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford IL
    • 16. Garelick Farms Ends Production at Bangor Maine Facility
    • 17. Fashion Tech Window Coverings in Portland?
    • 18. Custom House Tavern Chicago IL.
    • 19. Jim's Builders Hardware in Delano
    • 20. Lone Star Steakhouse at 1801 22nd St. in West Des Moines
    • 21. Sears to Close Woodlands Product Rebuild Center - 117 Jobs Lost
    • 22. Whitehead Inc Rockford Real Estate Company
    • 23. Robert's Mens Shop in Downtown New Philadelphia Ohio
    • 24. Fort Tecumseh Olde Fashun Store in Ohio
    • 25. Lakewood Beginnings Child Development Center in Lakewood Ohio
    • 26. Green Fields Seed & Feed in Grand Junction Colo.
    • 27. The Army and Navy Store in Melrose Mass.
    • 28. Vitalistic Therapeutic charter school PA
    • 29. Diamond Foods Inc Closing a plant in Fishers Indiana
    • 30. Old Town Alehouse 5233 Ballard Ave in Seattle
    • 31. Space Aliens restaurants in Minot and Grand Forks ND
    • 32. DeWaay Financial Network LLC
    • 33. Sears at Quail Springs Mall Oklahoma City OK.
    • 34. Fashion Bug in O'Fallon MO is closing in January
    • 35. Kmart Store in Oak Hill W. Va
    • 36. Update: Jett & Hall men's clothing store in Richmond KY
    • 37. D.C. school List of Possible Schools Closing to Be released Later today
    • 38. Dunkin' Donuts in Holly Hill FL
    • 39. Hostess Brands Inc Permanently Closing 3 Bakeries Following a Nationwide Strike
    • 40. Philips Electronics subsidiary Lightolier will close its local fluorescent light
    • 41. fixture manufacturing plant in Willington
    • 42. Smithfield Packing Co. will close in 2013, laying off a total of 400 employees
    • 43. SuperFresh outlets in Marlton and Westmont NJ
    • 44. The Bagel Shoppe in Katonah NY
    • 45. Ben Franklin and Homestead House Gifts in the Kimball Ridge Center in Waterloo IA
    • 46. Several West Virginia Suzuki dealerships Being Forced to Close
    • 47. Kowalski Cos Closing All 4 of its Metro Detroit Delis but to Continue Food
    • 48. Production
    • 49. Three Memphis charter schools and one in Nashville Tenn. Could Close Due to Poor
    • 50. Test Scores
    • 51. The Custer School District SD - Closing 2 Rural Schools
    • 52. The Dressing Room, on North Lincoln Avenue IL
    • 53. The Utica Office Of Ibope Ny
    Bankruptcies:
    • 1. AMF Bowling Worldwide Inc
    • 2. Aletheia Research & Management Inc
    • 3. Omtron USA
    • 4. Helmkampf Construction in Olivette
    • 5. Clear Light Publishers
    • 6. Monitor Company Group LP
    • 7. ThinkEquity LLC
    • 8. Homer City Funding LLC
    • 9. US Suzuki Distributor - Chapter 11
    • 10. Revolt Technology
    This list should frighten every thinking American. It is a huge warning regarding what lies ahead. These changes are coming to an economy that is already unable to provide jobs or sustain living standards.
    Decline is a slow process, until it becomes fast. It is not easy to see at first. It should be obvious to most that our economy is approaching a critical stage. When you have destroyed the trust and confidence of business, there will be no job creation.
    Some parting words are in order for those responsible for the decisions reflected above. Shutting down and giving up is anathema to the spirit that built this country and is now only found among our entrepreneurial class. It goes against the very fiber that drives success. It is a last resort for entrepreneurs.
    The decision to quit is lonely, involves guilt, self-doubt and remorse. It is the last act for someone that has tried everything to avoid it. Giving up and withdrawing is not an act of retribution. People do not willingly choose to go to Galt's figurative gulch. They are forced there.
    While the masses exult in the continuation of their  food stamps, cell phones and other booty, the real story of this election is yet to be told. The nation is about to find out that policies and elections have consequences more important than free stuff.
    The war against private enterprise can no longer be denied. President Obama's re-election ensures that it will continue and likely accelerate. The makers are beginning to give up. The takers don't have a clue. Soon the country is going to get a real-life lesson in economics. TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch) is about to be learned.


    Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/economic_disintegration_is_almost_here.html#ixzz2Cp6YFqGB