$16,588,751,035,306.37
US debt as of February 20 2013
* * *  Seventeen Trillion * * *
(US officially recognized debt was 6½ Trillion 6,460,712,491,314.69 at the start of the US attack on Iraq, March 20, 2003)
Illuminati imprisoning - staged US and West and World financial collapse. $100,000 gold certificate bill is seen at a United States Treasury Department display at the World's Fair of Money in Boston. Obama and the Democrats and Republicans Democracy death US Military and CIA Richard Cheney George Herbert Walker Bush. Stop War - Illuminati prison. US Veterans against war. Image: AP/Steven Senne The US National Debt has increased an average of $2.27 billion per day since 2005 until 2008!
Now, due to the bailout of the rich bankers and world elite, the US National Debt is increasing substantially faster!
The US trade deficit is on track to set a record for an eighth consecutive year, running at an annual rate of $780 billion.
During fiscal year 2010/2011 the U.S. Treasury is on-track to pay upwards of $500 billion just in interest payments to finance the already-existing debt.
Annual interest payments for individuals, households, businesses, and all levels of US government are likely to reach $3 trillion — out of a $14 trillion annual GDP, an annual GDP that this year will likely decline.
The debt limit was raised for the third time in less than a year with the passage of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 13, 2009 (ARRA; H.R. 1).
Signed into law on February 17, 2009 (P.L. 111-5), the debt limit was increased to $12,104 billion
An end-of-session vote in December 2009 increased the debt ceiling by $290 billion set at $12.394 trillion.
12 February 2010 Obama signed a law increasing the debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion.
April 15, 2011 US stated debt exceeded present US law until August 1, 2011 when a stop-gap measure of four hundred billion was passed by Congress biding new 'Super-Congress' legislation.
The current Debt Limit was increased from $14.694 trillion to $15.194 trillion effective September 22, 2011.
Through a series of maneuvers, the Debt Limit was increased to 16.394 trillion on January 27, 2012
January 31, 2013 the U.S. Senate agreed with the House to extend the debt limit, allowing the government to borrow about $450bn, effective until the middle of May 2013, to pay interest on U.S. Government debt and meet obligations such as Social Security and government salaries.
The Debt Subject to Limit is the maximum amount of money the Government is allowed to borrow without receiving additional authority from Congress.   The current statutory limit is $16.394 trillion + the stop-gap measure passed by the U.S. Senate January 31, 2013
The estimated population of the United States 2006 is around 300,000,000 people.   David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December 17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements of the US government noted that "the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007."
The US government cannot pass an audit.
The GAO report states accrued liabilities of the federal government "totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007", likely to increase to $70 trillion by the end of 2009.
USA TODAY May 28, 2009, used federal data to compute all government liabilities, from Treasury bonds to Medicare to military pensions.
Bottom line: The government took on $6.8 trillion in new obligations in 2008, pushing the total owed to a record $63.8 trillion.
No funds have been set aside against the liability.
The estimated net worth of all Americans including all business is about $47 trillion, reducing as property and company value reduces.
US Public Debt
$16,588,751,035,306.37
as of February 20 2013
Now, due to the bailout of the rich bankers and world elite, the National Debt is increasing substantially faster!
The trade deficit is on track to set a record for an eighth consecutive year, running at an annual rate of $780 billion.
Bureau of Public Debt
Debt Clock
The estimated population of the United States is 320,000,000 people
Each resident and citizen — man, woman, child and newborn's — share of the national debt at 16.394 trillion:  $51,125
US public debt history
Interest paid per year
July 1st 1914
        $2,912,499,269.16
      
July 1st 1919
      $27,390,970,113.12
   
June 28th 1946    $269,422,099,173.26   
September 29 1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32$240,863,231,535.71
September 30 1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66 $292,361,073,070.74
February 23 1996 $5,000,000,000,000.00$343,955,076,695.15
March 14 2002 $6,000,000,000,000.00$332,536,958,599.42
February 18 2004 $7,000,000,000,000.00         $321,566,323,971.29
October 18 2005 $8,000,000,000,000.00 $352,350,252,507.90
March 16 2006:
Senate approves 52-48
Nine trillion debt limit
 $9,000,000,000,000.00 $405,872,109,315.83
October 1 2007:
Senate approves 53-42
9.815 trillion debt limit		 $9,815,000,000,000.00. $429,977,998,108.20
July 30 2008:
Bush signs Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
H.R. 3221 raises national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion		 $10,600,000,000,000.00.
The US Debt Limit was increased from $10.615 trillion to $11.315 trillion effective October 3, 2008.		 $11,315,000,000,000.00.$451,154,049,950.63
The debt limit was raised for the third time in less than a year with the passage of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 13, 2009 (ARRA; H.R. 1)
Signed into law on February 17, 2009 (P.L. 111-5), the debt limit was increased to $12,104 billion
$12,104,000,000,000.00.
An end-of-session vote in December 2009 increased the debt ceiling by $290 billion set at $12.394 trillion.
$12.394,000,000,000.00.
$383,071,060,815.42
12 February 2010 Obama signed a law increasing the debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion.
August 1, 2011 when a stop-gap measure of four hundred billion was passed by Congress biding new 'Super-Congress' legislation.
The current Debt Limit was increased from $14.694 trillion to $15.194 trillion effective September 22, 2011.
$16,588,751,035,306.37
February 20 2013
$201,928,781,952.77
(October 2009
- March 2010)
In ten years, U.S. Public debt has increased from 4 trillion to 16 trillion dollars and rising
40% of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage
Income inequality has grown over the last 30 years or more driven by three dynamics:
Rising inequality of labor income — wages and compensation
Rising inequality of capital income
An increasing share of income going to capital income rather than labor income.
 Examining market-based incomes one finds that the top 1 percent of households have a very large share of all of the gains in income — 59.9 percent of the gains from 1979–2007.
The top 0.1 percent compared to the rest of the top 1 percent of households seized an even more disproportionate share: 36 percent.
In comparison, only 8.6 percent of income gains have gone to the bottom 90 percent of households”
U.S. productivity compared to US minimum wage - 40% forty percent of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage. Income inequality between rich one percent 1% and ninety percent 90% of US of households. An increasing share of income going to capital income rather than labor income. The top 1 percent of households have a very large share of all of the gains in income — 59.9 percent of the gains from 1979–2007, while the top 0.1 percent compared to the rest of the top 1 percent of households seized an even more disproportionate share: 36 percent. Only 8.6% nine percent of income gains have gone to the bottom 90% ninety percent of households” Graph: epi.org/
The average American’s living standard would be much, much higher today if wages had not decoupled from productivity gains — with the gains all going to the 1 percent instead of being shared by workers.
If wages had kept pace we wouldn’t feel the terrible squeeze that everyone in the middle class is feeling.
This breakoff of wages from productivity growth is partly the result of trade agreements that pit Americans against exploited workers in non-democracies.
This weakened the bargaining power of unions, moved factories and industries out of the country, devastated entire regions of our country — and gave the giant multinational corporations, Wall Street and the billionaires the leverage they needed.
State of the Union — Present
The average American’s living standard would be much, much higher today if wages had not decoupled from productivity gains — with the gains all going to the 1 percent instead of being shared by workers
39 percent of 18 to 29 year olds have no health insurance
24 percent have moved back home with parents to save money
22 percent of 18-to-34-year-olds have postponed having children
NDAA Trojan unleased
      CIA conducting 'signature strikes' killing entire groups of innocent people     
       US Dention centers — Freedom gone      
      Slave prisoners working for Illuminati      
      Louisiana more people in prison than anywhere else in the world     
$707,568,901,000,000 Illuminati grand strategy
$707 Trillion derivative record. Bank of International Settlements report. Latest total figure of all notional Over The Counter unregulated outstanding derivatives Image: zerohedge.com>
June 1998 — June 2011
$707 Trillion derivative record
Bank of International Settlements report
Latest total figure of all notional Over The Counter unregulated outstanding derivatives
Who gets to pop the balloon and see it go whizzing through the air, fast, faster, faster, then shoot to ground
Some high for somebody
Kewe
$707,568,901,000,000
— click here
With bond markets shut and investors unwilling to buy asset-backed securities, the repo market — for some banks the sole remaining source of private funding — has become the most recent tap to run dry, with some investment banks pulling credit lines worth tens of billions of euros in recent weeks...
'Credit taps run dry for European bank' — International Finance Review
So, the extreme volatility we've seen recently in the stock markets has more to do with deteriorating conditions in the credit markets than it does with the more generalized slowdown in economic activity.
It means the system is under great stress and beginning to slow down.
It means investors have lost faith in the ability of policymakers to fix the system.
It means there's a panic underway and people are moving into cash.
— click here
US Labor force participation rate 1984 to 2011 Photo: dailybail.com
Labor force participation rate 1984 — 2011
Job participation in US has reached 27 year low
dailybail.com
— click here
Chart of US monetary base 2007 to 2011. US Federal Researve injected $500 billion into US economic system between January and March 2011. Fed FREAKING OUT about financial system — a freak out on par with 2008. Image Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis
US Federal Researve injected $500 billion into US economic system between January and March 2011
M2 has never grown this fast in a seven week period for at least the past 50 years.
No matter how you look at it, this is a major event.
M2 has never grown this fast in a seven week period for at least the past 50 years. x As money flees a banking system loaded with derivative debt. Photo: alexanderhiggins.com
Max Keiser Wall St. banks plunder economy
Spread this video around
mp4 download — right click here
As money flees a banking system loaded with derivative debt
— click here
Not something everyone
in this instance even the governments do not know
During recessions the US Bureau of Labor Statistics model doesn’t work.
The model is based on good times when new jobs always exceed lost jobs.
On the 'death' side, if a company goes out of business due to recession and does not report its payroll, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics assumes the employees are still in place.
On the 'birth' side, 30,000 jobs are added to the monthly numbers as an estimate of new start-ups.
Job creation illusions
click here
China
China's leading credit rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rating Company last summer stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favour of the West.
And last week:
Analysis shows that the crisis confronting the U.S. cannot be ultimately resolved through currency depreciation.
On the contrary, it is likely that an overall crisis might be triggered by the U.S. government’s policy to continuously depreciate the U.S. dollar against the will of creditors.
Creation of electronic nonsense
If we exclude the factor of virtual [a more polite term for false] economy, the U.S. actual GDP is about 5 trillion U.S. dollars.
Total domestic consumption is 10.0 trillion U.S. dollars and government expenditure was 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2009, now in 2011 is anticipated with debt load to be somewhere above the moon, between U.S. 10 and 30 trillion creation of electronic nonsense.
Geithner HU China. China's leading credit rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rating Company last summer stripped America, Britain, Germany and France of their AAA ratings, accusing Anglo-Saxon competitors of ideological bias in favour of the West. And last week: Analysis shows that the crisis confronting the U.S. cannot be ultimately resolved through currency depreciation. On the contrary, it is likely that an overall crisis might be triggered by the U.S. government’s policy to continuously depreciate the U.S. dollar against the will of creditors. If we exclude the factor of virtual [a more polite term for false] economy, the U.S. actual GDP is about 5 trillion U.S. dollars. Total domestic consumption is 10.0 trillion U.S. dollars and government expenditure was 4.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2009, now in 2011 is anticipated with debt load to be somewhere above the moon, between 10 to 30 trillion in reality. Photo dailybail.com
Financial collapse and the Illuminati Gods
But when the banks use their putrid mortgage-backed sludge in the repo markets — concealing their true condition from investors — they get high-fives from bondholders and regulators alike!
...The whole thing a scam from the get go!   'Creative accounting' — think Enron — is the insolvency of the system!
HFT — complex derivatives — securitization — repo transactions — all preserved in their previous state!
US Capital Hill awash in Wall Street's filthy lucre
click here
Financial collapse and the Illuminati Gods
Stabilization and recovery is not part of the plan.
Only extension of the economy — until the right spot is reached to pull the plug on the entire system.
The key to that is the bond market, which is ten times larger than the stock market.
Illuminati health and porno games
That is where eventually the biggest losses will be taken
click here
Obama and the Illuminati Gods
And think of all the volatility that all these events will bring to world financial markets, and the fabulous wealth accumulated by anyone having insider information on when these events will be orchestrated to occur!
However, as for the those of you who have not been anointed by the New World Order, only those who own gold and silver [that means part buried in your garden, part under the floorboards] will survive!   [Better]
[And those who have stored food
And those who listen to that higher Being of YourSelf — Kewe]
Illusion of Economic Recovery: Electronic Money
click here
New World Order Statistic
The gifts of billions of dollars of taxpayers' money provided the banks with an abundance of low cost capital that has boosted the banks' profits, while the taxpayers who provided the capital are increasingly unemployed and homeless.
JPMorgan Chase announced that it has earned $3.6 billion in the third quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, New York City's homeless shelters have reached the all time high of 39,000, 16,000 of whom are children.
London Evening Standard reports about Goldman Sachs'
“5,500 London staff can look forward to record average payouts of around 500,000 pounds ($800,000) each.
Senior executives will get bonuses of several million pounds each with the highest paid as much as 10 million pounds ($16 million).“
The Financial Times is offering a new magazine — ”How To Spend It.”
The Rich Have Stolen The Economy
click here
The US is bankrupt!
This period — up to a future where the veil can no longer cloak — is going to see heightening dissembling within our present structures!
Dissemble — to hide under a false semblance or seeming; to feign (something) not to be what it really is; to put an untrue appearance upon; to disguise; to mask.
And from now — and for the next few years — we are going to see major dismembering of everything we have viewed and expected as a progression of our Earth lives!
Whatever they are telling you, the time to prepare is fast coming to an end!
Prepare means food procurement and private storage and other survival mechanisms!
This applies to people in all Western countries, and all other nation-states also!
Kewe
 JP Morgan and the US Gold Bullion Fed dollar Empire
I have a lot of captured data illustrating just about every price takedown since JPMorgan took over the Bear Stearns short silver position.
Thought it may be helpful to your investigation if I gave you the heads up for a manipulative event signaled for Friday, 5th February 2010.
The non-farm payrolls number will be announced at 8.30 ET.
There will be one of two scenarios occurring, and both will result in silver (and gold) being taken down with a wave of short selling designed to take out obvious support levels and trip stops below.
While I will no doubt be able to profit from this upcoming trade, it is an example of just how easy it is to manipulate a market if a concentrated position is allowed by a very small group of traders....
Both scenarios will spell an attempt by the two main short holders to illegally drive the market down and reap very large profits.   Locals such as myself will be 'invited' on board, which will further add downward pressure....
Notice all those 'We want your gold ads!'
It is known that leverage is now as high as 100 to 1 for Gold — that is 100 units on paper for 1 actual unit of gold.
Once it becomes clearly understood... that there is no actual physical gold for the paper....
Everyone is involved... all governments know....
Kewe
A short and long-term view down the rabbit hole with insider whistleblowers — Mp3 audio interview right click here
  • 34 cents
    individual income taxes
  • 5 cents corporate taxes
    3.5 cents
    estate, gift, customs & misc.
    0.5 cents excise taxes
  • 57 cents
    borrowing
US 'Official' debt
As of February 20 2013    16,588,751,035,306.37
November 16, 2009    12,031,299,186,290.07
March 16, 2009    11,033,157,578,669.78
Don't take a forecaster to predict what's coming!
treasurydirect.gov debt to the penny — click here
SuperCon   Obama Steps In As Crime Boss
Fraud is initiated in boardrooms and CEO offices by making "really bad loans, because they pay better"
Grow them like a Ponzi scheme multiplied through leverage — it's hugely profitable early on, then inevitably creates "disaster down the road"
One scheme was subprime Alt-A and even prime "liars' loans" — meaning no checks are made on income, jobs, ability to repay, and the more they're inflated the more profitable they are
The amount was enormous — for one company alone they generated as many losses as the entire Savings & Loan scandal
Toxic products willfully created to scam borrowers for big profits
Rating agencies went along by appraising junk as AAA instead of doing it honestly
Barack Obama: Crime Boss
Stephen Lendman
April 18, 2009
Obama Capone Since taking office, Obama, wittingly or otherwise, has headed the largest criminal enterprise in history - the mass looting of national wealth to enrich his Wall Street benefactors. He assembled a rogue economic team of Clinton Robert Rubin retreads - to fix the current crisis they engineered. Image: thepeoplesvoice.org
Since taking office, Obama, wittingly or otherwise, has headed the largest criminal enterprise in history — the mass looting of national wealth to enrich his Wall Street benefactors.
He assembled a rogue economic team of Clinton/Robert Rubin retreads — to fix the current crisis they engineered.
In a March 13 article, (author and former Republican strategist) Kevin Phillips called them:
"recycled senior (Clinton administration) Democrats (responsible for the) tech mania, deregulation binge and (1997 — 2000) stock market bubble and crash.
Obama) extend(ed) the (disastrous) mismanagement and pro-Wall Street bias of the 2008 Bush regime bailout."
He called Geithner and Bernanke "hapless," the result of their ruinous misjudgments (and, along with Alan Greenspan, complicit) with finance-sector malfeasance."
He said Summers will be "remembered for helping to block federal regulation of financial derivatives and orchestrat(ing) the 1999" Glass-Steagall repeal, among his other "achievements."
He went down the list of key economic officials and trashed them all as the very types to be avoided, not appointed.
He noted that Bernanke was chairman of George Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and added:
"Imagine if FDR had retained Herbert Hoover's chief economic advisor and loyal Republican Fed Chairman in 1933....
To think that the pussycat Fed (would become) a saber-toothed tiger is a deception."
Worse still, ruinous economic policies "could prove fatal" if White House policies favor "Wall Street but not the national economy or American people" — the very direction they've now taken.
In a follow-up April 7 article, Phillips highlighted:
"The Disaster Stage of US Financialization....a much grander-scale disaster than anything that happened in 1929 — 1933.
Worse, it dwarfs the abuses of debt, finance and financialization that brought down previous leading world economic powers like Britain and Holland."
Today's crisis represents:
"the bursting of the huge 25-year, almost $50 trillion debt bubble that helped underwrite the hijacking of the US economy by a rabid financial sector...."
It's realigning global power with America losing its economic leadership won in WW II.
"The ignominy deserved by Wall Street after 1929-1933 is peanuts compared with the opprobrium the US financial sector and its political and regulatory allies deserve this time." Financialized America radically transformed the country, now "doubly staggering because of the crushing burden of its collapse."
Yet major media pundits and reporters barely noticed and now claim relief is just a few quarters away — ignoring a metastasizing cancer, a national disaster, while policy makers heap fuel on a raging blaze now consuming us, yet too little public rage confronts them.
A Former Insider Speaks Out
Economics Professor William Black is a former senior bank regulator and Savings and Loan prosecutor, currently teaching economics and law at the University of Missouri.
In an April 13 Barrons interview, he referred to "failed bankers (advising) failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets" they all had a hand in creating and proliferating.
His conclusion: "How can it result in anything but failure."
He called the scale of financial fraud "immense," and said "Unless the current administration changes course pretty drastically, the scandal will destroy Barack Obama's presidency," besides what it's doing to the country, global economies, and many millions of people here and abroad.
He scathed Summers and Geithner, both "important architects of (today's) problems," and the latter as a failed and dishonest regulator, yet "numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine when he's really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks."
No need to mention which ones.
The law mandates corrective action, the kind FDR took in the 1930s.
He, Bernanke and Summers flout the law, "in naked violation, in order to pursue the kind of favoritism that the law was designed to prevent."
They've turned taxpayers into "suckers" who'll pay dearly for decades, maybe generations.   [Not unless they are very, very, very, stupid — Kewe]
His refusal to put insolvent banks into receivership, resorting to deceptive language like "legacy assets," and pursuing the worst of Chicago School economics "is positively Orwellian....If cheaters prosper, (they'll) dominate.
It's like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good.
Well, bad behavior" does the same thing "without good enforcement."
His bailout plans are disastrous.
They prop up zombie banks by:
"mispricing toxic assets....The last thing we need is a further drain on our resources....by promoting this toxic asset market (and notions of) too-big-to-fail."
Multi-trillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded enterprises
With most, perhaps all, the big banks insolvent (a polite term for bankrupt), what's going on is "a multi-trillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded (enterprises), which amounts to felony securities fraud on a massive scale."
Ultimately, these firms will be forced into receivership, their "managements and boards stripped of office, title, and compensation."
What's needed is a 1930s-style Pecora investigation to get to the bottom of their fraud, deceit, and cover-up, along with government complicity to hide it.
More on that below.
Black cited billions to AIG as the single worst abuse so far — to bail out their counterparties like Switzerland's UBS at the same time we were prosecuting it for tax fraud. As bad was following Goldman Sachs' advice to direct a $13 billion counterparty windfall to itself.
The whole process reeks of corruption.
It must be stopped, and a new direction instituted under a reformist economic team — one that will admit the nature and depth of the problem, cut the tie to Wall Street, and take corrective action the law mandates.
That's "precisely what isn't happening."
Washington is "wedded to the bad idea of bigness" and power of Wall Street.
In today's America, financialization is predominant.
It's a cancer eating away at the fabric of the nation and many millions affected, the result of the grandest of grand thefts.
A good start would be to break up the financial giants into more effectively managed and less powerful units — maybe the way Standard Oil was dismantled through a simple share spinoff.
In addition, "a new seriousness must be put into regulation," and a new resolve to enforce it.
Today, the whole system encourages fraud, one based on results at any cost, so "fudging the numbers" becomes de rigueur and global bigness the holy grail.
It sends the wrong message — play or pay with your job and future on Wall Street.
"The basis for all regulation and white-collar crime is to take the competitive advantage away from the cheats, so the good guys can prevail.
We need to get back to that."
It's been decades since we've been there and high time we took it seriously.
Job one is a thorough housecleaning and new direction, much like what's described below.
On April 3, Black appeared on Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and explained what's briefly enumerated below.
From his experience as a regulator and prosecutor, he said:
In an April 6 article, Black calls ongoing "stress tests a complete sham.... to fool people.... make us chumps" and essentially say 'If we lie and they believe us, all will be well'" when, in fact, it's not.
Greatest ever criminal fraud by bankers and complicit government officials
It's part of the giant cover-up and greatest ever criminal fraud — by bankers and complicit government officials.
On April 13, Nouriel Roubini shared Black's view.
He cited the stress test "spin machine" leaking stories to the press that all 19 banks in question will pass.
None will fail.
If more "exceptional assistance" is needed, Washington will provide it.
However, Q 1 macro data tells another story as growth, unemployment, and falling home prices alone "are worse than those in FDIC's baseline scenario for 2009 AND even worse than those for the more adverse stressed scenario for 2009.
Make believe
Thus, the stress test results are meaningless" as worsening data are outdistancing "the worst case scenario."
In other words, test results "are not worth the paper (they'll be) written on" as their assumptions are fraudulently based.
They're "fudge tests....blatantly rigged" to put a brave face on a very bleak economic picture.
They're in addition to other changes, including the recent Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) ruling.
It's responsible for developing "generally accepted accounting principles" known as GAAP.
On April 3, it changed so-called "mark-to-market" standards to "mark-to-make believe" ones.
It also voted to allow banks to book smaller impaired asset losses to paint a brighter profits picture.
It let Wells Fargo, for example, claim a Q 1 profit when it's drowning in losses, ones it can hide and not take.
Also likely coming is restoration of the "uptick rule" that prohibited short-selling in a down market.
Established in 1938 to prevent disorderly selling, it allows shorts only when shares trade up.
In June 2007, it was removed.
Re-introductory proposals are now being considered to artificially boost prices.
Roubini calls it "a form of legalized manipulation of the stock market by regulators....to prevent short-sellers (from doing) their job, i.e. make stock prices reflect fundamentals and prevent bubbles."
Overall, alarm bells should be warning about reckless monetary and fiscal policies, but perverse market reaction was relief.
That's wildly premature according to some like Roubini.
Others see a protracted downturn, a prolonged winter, and if conditions deteriorate enough perhaps a nuclear one, unlike anything before seen, and why not:
From Bubble to Depression
On April 6, Professor Vernon Smith (a 2002 economics Nobel laureate) and research associate Steven Gjerstad headlined a Wall Street Journal op-ed: "From Bubble to Depression?"
They asked:
What creates bubbles?
Why does a large one, like the dot.com bubble, do no damage to the financial system while another (housing) caused collapse?
They believe "events of the past 10 years have an eerie similarity to the period leading up to the Great Depression," including rising mortgage debt and speculation, then asked:
Had banking system difficulties "been caused by losses on brokers loans for margin purchases in 1929, the results should have been felt in the banks immediately after the stock market crash."
But they weren't apparent until fall 1930, a year later.
Further, if money supply contraction caused bank failures, why haven't massive infusions today prevented the crisis?
They conclude that conventional wisdom needs reassessing and believe "excessive consumer debt — especially mortgage debt — was transmitted into the financial sector" causing the Great Depression.
Their hypothesis:
"Is that a financial crisis (originating) in consumer debt, concentrated at the low end of the wealth and income distribution (affecting so many households), can be transmitted quickly and forcefully into the financial system....
We're witnessing the second great consumer debt crash, the end of a massive consumption binge," but want more study to prove it.
However, much more than that is needed — real reform, a complete reversal from current policy of the kind addressed below.
Also, Smith and Gjerstad omitted a crucial fact — how misdirected today's massive infusions have been.
Instead of helping beleaguered households, they've gone mostly to bankers for purposes other than economic recovery; namely, recapitalizations, for acquisitions, and big bonuses at the same time they fire thousands of lower level staff.
The 1930s Pecora Commission
On March 4, 1932 (one year to the day before FDR took office), a majority-Republican Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee established it to investigate the causes of the 1929 crash.
It was little more than a fig leaf until Democrats took over, appointed Ferdinand Pecora as special counsel, and made a real effort for banking and regulatory reform.
Straightaway, Pecora looked into Wall Street's seamy underside by placing powerful bankers in the dock, holding them accountable for their actions, and doing through hearings what would have been impossible in open court given their ability to "buy" justice.
He confronted Wall Street's biggest names:
Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange;
Noted investment bankers, including Thomas Lamont, Otto Kahn, Charles E. Mitchell, Albert Wiggin, and JP Morgan, Jr., scion of the man who dominated the Street for decades as its boss and de facto Fed chairman before the central bank was established
Market speculators like Arthur Cutten.
No income taxes paid
He got Morgan to admit that he and his 20 partners paid no income taxes in 1931 and 1932.
Neither did its Philadelphia operation, Drexel and Co., in the same years and way underpaid them in previous ones.
It made headlines, was stunning, and galvanized critics to demand reform.
Pecora went further.
He questioned Morgan and others on various matters, including sweetheart deals for political figures and insider ones for Wall Street cronies, similar shenanigans to today but not on the same scale, and under a president then who cared once Roosevelt took office.
He directed "pitiless publicity" on Street corruption, what they easily got away with under Republicans.
Pecora was a former New York district attorney, an Eliot Spitzer-type with a reputation for toughness and fearlessness, but one serving at the behest of the President.
He established straightaway that some of Wall Street's most powerful lied to their shareholders, manipulated stocks to their advantage, and profited hugely through malfeasance.
Roosevelt encouraged him in his March 4, 1933 inaugural address saying:
"There must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments
There must be an end to speculation with other people's money
There must be provision for an adequate but sound currency....
The rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure and abdicated.
Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men...."
"They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.
They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization.
We must now restore that temple to the ancient truths.
(Doing it requires) apply(ing) social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
Imagine Obama saying this
Imagine Obama saying this, followed by strong policies for enforcement under Roosevelt-style officials.
Men like Pecora who asked tough questions and demanded answers, including on the House of Morgan's operations, something unimaginable today under any leadership.
Morgan's counsel, John W. Davis, called Pecora's questions outrageous, but Morgan had to answer in detail enough to shake the "secret government's" foundations.
Pecora's staff examined company records that revealed financial manipulations among the Street's powerful to reap enormous profits — enough for Morgan to gain control of most US industry, buy politicians and diplomats, and effectively control the most powerful banks in the country.
Small group of highly placed financiers holds more real power
Years later in his book, Wall Street Under Fire, Pecora wrote:
"Undoubtedly, this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United States."
Morgan called it performing a "service" and exercising no more control than through "argument and persuasion."
His managing partner, Thomas Lamont, told the committee that the firm only offered advice that clients could accept or reject.
Pecora learned otherwise as he peeled away the layers of company power and influence.
Friends of the bank lists in two tiers
He discovered "preferred clients" and friends of the bank lists in two tiers — special allies, operatives, and cronies and a "fishing list" from which new ones were recruited.
In total, it showed Morgan was more powerful than Washington — that the firm effectively controlled a network of companies that made US financial policy for over three decades plus leading politicians and much of the federal bench.
Pecora discovered what's as true today — that a select group of giant banks run things.
They set policy, rig the game to their advantage, buy politicians the way Morgan did, and pretty much run the country and the world.
Again Pecora from his book:
Morgan's power was "a stark fact.
It was a great stream that was fed by many sources
By its deposits
By its loans
By its promotions
By its directorships
By its pre-eminent position as investment bankers
By its control of holding companies which, in turn, controlled scores of subsidiaries
By its silken bonds of gratitude in which it skillfully enmeshed the chosen ranks of the 'preferred lists.'
It reached into every corner of the nation and penetrated in public, as well as business affairs.
The problems raised by such an institution go far beyond banking regulation in the narrow sense.
It might be a formidable rival to the government itself."
Pecora proceeded from Morgan to others, powerful bankers in their own right like Kuhn, Loeb's Otto Kahn.
Roosevelt championed the hearings and from them came legislative reforms, the kinds so desperately needed now but nowhere in sight by an administration totally subservient to money and power and thoroughly corrupted by them — after a scant three months in office.
Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) Calls for Sweeping Changes
Its head, Elizabeth Warren, called on the Treasury to get tough on TARP recipients, including:
Given the extent and long-term nature of today's crisis, it's shocking that bad policy practically assures the worst outcome.
Maybe a government/Wall Street cabal prefers it to capitalize on the wreckage at fire sale prices, at home and globally, as part of a long-term process of sucking wealth to the top while ignoring its fallout, both human and economic.
Those calculations don't enter their sophisticated models, only bottom line ones they can bank on.
Other Bank Bailout Critics
Willem Buiter was a former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (1997 — 2000).
He's now has a Maverecon blog and is a Financial Times (FT) regular.
He's also a fierce critic of bank bailouts, a policy he says wastes good time and money and is destined to fail.
"The good bank solution and slaughter of the unsecured creditors should have been pursued actively as soon as it became clear that most (US international banks were) insolvent."
Soon enough it will be apparent anyway, before year end.
"At that point, (their) de facto insolvency will be so self-evident that even the joint and several obfuscation of banks and Treasury will be unable to deny the obvious."
And they'll be no fiscal resources to the rescue.
"The likelihood of Congress voting even a nickel in additional financial support for the banks is zero."
Bailing out bankers at expense of economy
Joseph Stiglitz was even blunter in an April 17, 2009, Bloomberg interview headlined: "Stiglitz Says White House Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue."
He accused the administration of bailing out bankers at the expense of the economy.
"All the ingredients they have so far are weak, and there are several missing" ones. The people who created this monster are "either in the pocket of the banks or they're incompetent."
"We don't have enough money, they don't want to go back to Congress, they don't want to do it in an open way, and they" won't act responsibly and place the banks in receivership where they belong and let shareholders, not taxpayers take the pain.
This policy guarantees failure.
It's "an absolute mess."
It's a strategy to re-inflate a bubble that will do nothing to speed recovery.
"It's a recipe for Japanese-style malaise."
Government clearly cooking the books
Financial expert and investor safety advocate Martin Weiss is most critical of all.
He calls bank stress tests "FLIM-FLAM" in accusing Washington of hiding the true condition of the nation's 19 largest banks.
Key economic indicators like GDP contraction and unemployment are far worse than stress test parameters.
"Our own government is clearly cooking the books — using (false) criteria to deceive you; hoping you'll trust banks that are clearly hanging by a thread."
Economy sinking, not stabilizing, let alone recovering
On May 4, they'll announce the results — jerry-rigged to present an illusion of solvency, but clearly a deceptive lie.
The economy is sinking, not stabilizing, let alone recovering.
The administration is bailing out bankers while wrecking the economy and millions of households.
Why isn't Washington addressing the tough questions, he asks.
Answers have them terrified
Because the answers have them "terrified," so they play for time while:
Home foreclosures are exploding
Factories are sitting idle
Consumption keeps falling
Yet they hope conditions will improve.
No one asks:
What if that day is today
What if one day we discover America is no longer America.
What if we realize that day is today.
Another Day, Another Scheme — the latest one lets ordinary people participate in Geithner's Public-Private Partnership Program (PPIP) that sounds suspiciously like "liars' loan" fraud, except this time "investments" in worthless junk are involved that will separate fools from their money.
The New York Times headlined the plan by comparing it to WW I Liberty Bonds that helped the country win the war.
Now it's "to come to the aid of their banks — with the added inducement of possibly making some money...."
The idea is for "large investment companies to create the financial-crisis equivalent of war bonds: bailout funds" to sucker the unwary to "invest" and, simultaneously, quiet opposition to the handouts.
According to money management firm BlackRock director Steven Baffico:
"It's giving the guy on Main Street an equal seat at the table next to the big guys." Pimco's Bill Gross called it a "win-win-win policy."
Absolutely for him so he loves it.
Plans are still being discussed.
They won't likely be announced for several months, but already the scheme is apparent.
It's to offload toxic junk on the public, let unwary investors take losses, relieve troubled banks of more of them, and arrange for investment fund issuers (like Pimco and BlackRock) to reap healthy fees if enough suckers can be enlisted to go along.
As troublesome is FDIC's role in the scam — through its transformation from insuring depositors to a much greater one guaranteeing over $1 trillion in junk assets, way over its charter $30 billion limit by twisting the rules to arrange it.
Its charter allows extraordinary steps to be taken when an "emergency determination by secretary of the Treasury" is made to mitigate "systemic risk." However, its Section 14 Borrowing Authority states:
"The Corporation is authorized to borrow from the Treasury.... for insurance purposes (not speculation, bailouts, or other schemes, an amount) not exceeding in the aggregate $30,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time....
Any such loan shall be used by the Corporation solely in carrying out its functions with respect to such insurance (of bank deposits, then up to $5000, now temporarily at $250,000)...."
"Before issuing an obligation or making a guarantee, the Corporation shall estimate the cost of such obligations (as well as market value)....
The Corporation may not issue or incur any obligation, if, after (so doing) the aggregate amount of obligations of the Deposit Insurance Fund (exceeds) the total of the amounts authorized ($30 billion under) section 14(a)."
PPIP violates FDIC rules.
If it's opened to the public, greater fraud will result with ordinary people hit hardest as usual, the best reason to avoid this and alert others to be as prudent.
Do it at inflated prices and stick taxpayers with the risk
It's another dubious scheme to separate the unwary from their money and redirect it to the top — to the same fraudsters responsible for the crisis and their investment company partners going along with the scam.
The Treasury extended the deadline for PPIP participants (to April 24) and loosened some of its guidelines — suggesting that investor support has been less than expected.
However, on April 2, the Financial Times (FT) headlined: "Bailed-out banks eye toxic asset buys."
Giants like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs "are considering buying (each other's) toxic assets," and why not when it's a win-win way to offload each other's junk, do it at inflated prices, and stick taxpayers with the risk.
New York University's Stern School of Business Professor Lawrence White put it this way:
"I'm worried about the following scenario: You and I have troubled assets, I buy assets from you, you buy them them from me, and at the end of the day it (looks) suspiciously like you bought assets from yourself" with Treasury funds.
PPIP prohibits banks from buying their own assets but lets them do it from other firms, either directly or through investment funds set up for that purpose, and according to Treasury: "It's an open program designed to get markets going."
On April 3, Reuters reported that "US regulators may be open to letting TARP recipients participate in the new program," and already Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley suggested they'll do it.
Others expressed interest in what some observers call a giant money laundering scheme compounding the colossal flimflam that in the end most likely won't work — except to extract multi-trillions from the public to banksters with Washington acting complicitly as transfer agent.
Meanwhile economic fundamentals are deteriorating at depression-level speed and depth while Obama remains in denial.
On April 2 at the G 20, he cited "a very productive summit that will be, I believe, a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery" when, in fact, it produced nothing beyond the usual hype — plus this time the quadrupling of the IMF's budget to inflict debt bondage on its willing partakers.
We're clearly in early stage unchartered waters of what Michel Chossudovsky calls "The Great Depression of the 21st Century" heading America for "fiscal collapse" because of policies amounting to "the most drastic curtailment in public spending in American history" — directing most of it for militarism and foreign wars, Wall Street bailouts, and half a trillion for public debt service.
In an April 12 commentary, longtime, well-respected Chicago financial journalist Terry Savage headlined "Social Security Myth" in reporting on some of the fallout.
Someone has to pay for "fixes" and militarism, that someone is us, and target one is Social Security. According to Savage:
"Most likely, Social Security will become a "needs-based" payout to low income, elderly recipients — not a return of the 'investments' you made with all those FICA deductions from your pay check every month over your working career."
In other words, Washington intends to renege on the 74-year old promise FDR announced to the nation on August 14, 1935:
"Today a hope of many years' standing is in large part fulfilled....
This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens (now over 56 million, including Supplement Security Income recipients) who will reap direct benefits....
This law represents a cornerstone in a structure....by no means complete.
(It) will take care of human needs and at the same time provide the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.
(The passage of this bill marks) a historic (achievement) for all time."
It's now in jeopardy, so here's what Savage advises.
Prepare.
"Save more money, (and) start from an honest assessment" of what's coming.
What FDR gave will be taken away.
"And that's The Savage Truth."
A disturbing and outrageous one as well as all the other ways we've been betrayed.
[Better to prepare with items such as food and other valuable commodities your home and family will need — worthless money is just that, worthless — Kewe]
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
He lives in Chicago and can be reached at:      http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
thepeoplesvoice.org — click here
©2009 by thepeoplesvoice.org
Too big to fail?   We'll see
“...The capital we thought was there is gone.   A lot of it was actually translated over the years into Hamptons villas, Gulfstream jets, and other playthings that will now go up on Ebay or some equivalent as we turn into Yard Sale Nation in a general liquidation of remaining assets.... Everything is for sale and nobody has any money.”
— James H. Kunstler, 9/15/08
Richard Rhames
Friday, September 17, 2008
A bail-out to nowhere
The tremors come faster now. Candidate McCain mimics Herbert Hoover asserting that the economic “fundamentals” are sound, even as Wall Street asset Hank Paulson announces the latest lofting of US Treasury life preservers.
The fiscal flotation devices will allow Hank’s cohorts a “soft landing” in more comfortable climes than await the majority here in America the Deflating.
Even the corporate media, reflexively dedicated to promoting “consumer confidence” and keeping the gullible in their seats long enough for the swag-toting executive larcenists to make for the exits, murmur about a new 1929.
As if stock market mattered to ordinary people
With the usual misdirection, the press reports plummeting Wall Street stock prices as if they mattered to ordinary people.
In fact, as economist Dean Baker has repeatedly pointed out
“[T]he stock market is not a good barometer of the economy’s health.
“It can be driven up as a result of a redistribution from wages to profits, or simply as a result of irrational exuberance.
“Neither is good for the economy as a whole, although anything that pushes up stock prices is obviously good news for the small minority of people who own substantial amounts of stock.”
Real wages stagnant for 34 years
Meanwhile, Baker’s colleague at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Mark Weisbrot informed Miami Herald (9/1/08) readers that real — inflation adjusted — wages have been virtually stagnant for 34 years.
Since 1973, as the stock market climbed, “productivity — the amount that workers produce per hour — increased quite substantially...”
But, while this “ ‘useable productivity’ — the increased production that we can expect to be reflected in rising wages —” rose 48 percent from 1973 to 2007, paychecks didn’t.
Only well-connected at top benefited
The “economy” grew but only the well-connected at the top benefited.
Wall Street exulted in the new profits extracted from the under-compensated toil of the same working people who were now repeatedly urged to cheer the increasing fortunes of their masters.
As the downscale waged workers fell behind, they were offered EZ credit, first through deregulated credit card loan sharkery, and then, as the real estate bubble was ruthlessly inflated, through the infamous “home equity extraction” gambit and/or serial “house flipping.”
Deferred wages converted into crap-shoot schemes
Their “defined benefit” pension plans — deferred wages — were converted into crap-shoot “defined contribution” schemes and Enronized.
Most people’s “wealth” is represented by their house and maybe their car.
People were encouraged to feel (and act) richer as the housing bubble and its heady irrational exuberance seemed to boost house values by $8 trillion nationwide.
But now the music has stopped, the chickens flutter home to roost, and the piper shrieks for payment.
As massive asset deflation continues, housing prices return to their long-term historic levels, and on average Baker notes, that vanishing $8 trillion in illusory “housing bubble wealth” translates into a $110,000 hit per homeowner.
These hapless folks, “will see much of the equity in their home disappear.”
Using house as an ATM machine
Since so many Americans essentially re-mortgaged themselves in bubble time — using their house as an ATM machine through an equity withdrawal — and continued to consume at a level their stagnant or declining wages no longer allowed, this implacable (and unfinished) deflationary swoon spells real pain.
Yet the media / political focus is on the Wall Street Weak and Dr. Hank’s hundred billion dollar injections.
Pundits and “analysts” worry aloud about the fate of a rumored “free market economy” — a construct that exists only in the misty realm of unicorns, Easter bunnies, tooth fairies, “honest Republicans”, and “good corporate citizens.”
Government securing outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people
Sadly and unsurprisingly the story is an old an familiar one: Government socializing costs and risk while securing the outlandish private profits of society’s greediest people.
There’s nothing new here.
The more interesting question is whether we are at a point in our rather lamentable and bloody history when the usual tricks may no longer work.
In a country that no longer manufactures much except weapons of war, or cultural weapons of mass distraction, kept afloat mainly by massive infusions of foreign capital, with a domestic/domesticated population famously dependent on “credit” and buried in personal debt, are we approaching the End of Something?
Great Depression U.S. still had —
As James H. Kunstler has reminded us lately, in that last great greed-induced deflationary spiral, called the Great Depression, the US had not yet squandered its vast oil and gas reserves, its productive industrial base, demeaned and vanquished its proud and self-conscious working class, depopulated its agricultural landscape, emptied and beggared its great cities.
And outside of a few genocidal romps against the American Indian and the “pockmarked Khadiak ladrone” Filipinos, the population had not perhaps yet acquired the taste for blood, booty, and blitzkrieg that now so exemplifies The American Way.
“The Great Depression of the thirties never came to an end,” wrote John Kenneth Galbraith (American Capitalism, 1952).
“It merely disappeared in the great [W.W.II] mobilization of the forties.”
And — by the 1950s —in an effort to prevent another Depression, “the permanent war economy was born.”
For decades, a not-yet bankrupt America found the money for easy living, suburban sprawling, and endless war: Guns and butter.
But now the butter may have to be put aside.
Our foreign creditors grow weary of enabling our haughty bloodlust.
European Union with its prosperous cities
The European Union, with its prosperous cities, assertive worker culture, and strengthening currency has surpassed the US in economic size and power — not to mention standard-of-living.
Presidential candidates flatter a distracted public that the US is “the hope of the world — the shining city on the hill.”
But like much of their hucksterism, it’s a comforting lie.
That hour (if ever it existed) has passed.
Something less congenial this way comes.
Click here to read and view Liberty News TV
The problems cannot be resolved by shifting the debts of the banks onto the taxpayer.
That's an illusion.
By adding another $1 or $2 trillion dollars to the National Debt, Paulson is just ensuring that interest rates will go up, real estate will crash, unemployment will soar, and foreign central banks will abandon the dollar.
In truth, there is no fix for a deleveraging market anymore than there is a fix for gravity.
The belief that massive debts and insolvency can be erased by increasing liquidity just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.
That's why Henry Paulson is the worst possible person to be orchestrating the so called rescue project.
Paulson comes from a business culture which rewards deception, personal acquisitiveness, and extreme risk-taking.
...No one has any idea of the magnitude of the deleveraging ahead or the size of the debts that will have to be written down.
That's because 30 years of deregulation has allowed a parallel financial system to arise in which over $500 trillion dollars in derivatives are traded without any government supervision or accounting.
Mike Whitney
The entire system is deleveraging with the ferocity of a Force-5 gale touching down in the Gulf
and yet Henry Paulson has decided that the prudent thing to do
is build levees around the system with paper dollars
The Paulson strategy is to create another ocean of red ink while refusing
to face the underlying problem head-on
The malfunctioning of the markets and the freeze-over in the banking system
are the outcome of a massive credit unwind instigated by trillions of dollars of
low interest credit from the Federal Reserve which was magnified many times over
via complex derivatives contracts and extreme leveraging by speculative investment bankers.
This has generated the biggest equity bubble in history
click here for complete article
$6.84 trillion total U.S. bank deposits of fiat U.S. reserve bank currency
$2.60 trillion of that is uninsured
$53 billion FDIC insurance to cover insured deposits
$273.7 billion fiat U.S. reserve bank currency cash on hand at U.S. banks
September 18, 2008
Eulogy for the Ownership Society
Saving the Elite
The present system doesn't work; it's as simple as that.
It makes no sense to provide trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to shore up a system that is essentially dysfunctional.
The taxpayer is being asked to rescue a failed industry that has been used for private gain so that speculators will not have to suffer the losses.
Fannie and Freddie have written hundreds of billions of dollars worth of mortgages that have not yet defaulted, but will certainly default within the next two years.
By creating a backstop for Fannie and Freddie — the two war-horses of the mortgage industry, that currently underwrite nearly 80 per cent of all new mortgages in the US — the Fed is linking US sovereign debt with mortgages and derivatives that are already known to be fraudulent.
The housing boom never had anything to do with Bush's Utopian-sounding "ownership society".
It was always just a swindle to enrich the banking establishment and divert middle class wealth to ruling class elites.
Barron's
...a considerable portion of Fannie's losses come from speculative forays into higher-yielding but riskier mortgage products like subprime, Alt-A (a category between subprime and prime in credit quality) and dicey mortgages requiring monthly payments of interest only or less.
MIKE WHITNEY — Swan Song for Fanny Mae, Eulogy for the Ownership Society
Stock Market Crash of 1929 Collapse of the U.S. Economy The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid. This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace. Photo: www.globalresearch.ca
Image: www.globalresearch.ca
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are calling for “change.”
Well, if I were standing on a beach with a 100-foot tsunami roaring in my direction, I would call for change too.
Once economic growth stops, as has now happened, and all the bubbles to restart it have blown up, as has also happened, the end really is nigh.
Especially if the host — the U.S. — is bankrupt.
What is coming at us today isn’t just another downturn.
The Monetary Base has turned down. That is the monetary base is being eroded faster than it can be replaced as debt destruction continues to accelerate. The Fed is ‘injecting’ liquidity through REPO agreements. The Fed is NOT ‘printing’ money. Either way, debt destruction is exceeding liquidity injections. As I wrote in my first post: “In the land of economics, debt and money are ‘fungible’. That simply means they are interchangeable and for all intents and purposes the same. Debt is money and money is debt. The sudden rapid destruction of debt (every write down you hear coming out of the financial sector) has the effect of destroying money. If debt is destroyed fast enough, and it will be, then you get a rather sudden contraction in money supply. This is known as DEFLATION… and it ALWAYS happens when a debt bubble bursts. ALWAYS.” Words and image: http://benbittrolff.blogspot.com/
Image: http://benbittrolff.blogspot.com/
benbittrolff.blogspot.com
The Monetary Base has turned down
That is the monetary base is being eroded faster than it can be replaced as debt destruction continues to accelerate.
The Fed is ‘injecting’ liquidity through REPO agreements.
The Fed is NOT ‘printing’ money.
Either way, debt destruction is exceeding liquidity injections.
As I  benbittrolff.blogspot.com   wrote in my first post:
“In the land of economics, debt and money are ‘fungible’.
That simply means they are interchangeable and for all intents and purposes the same.
Debt is money and money is debt.
The sudden rapid destruction of debt (every write down you hear coming out of the financial sector) has the effect of destroying money.
If debt is destroyed fast enough, and it will be, then you get a rather sudden contraction in money supply.
This is known as DEFLATION... and it ALWAYS happens when a debt bubble bursts.
ALWAYS.”
 9 percent of American homeowners with mortgage
either behind on payments or in foreclosure
June 2008
A foreclosure sign stands outside an existing home on the market in Denver. A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy. In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'. If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden. Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001. Comment on Suzie-Q: Both children could easily be Bristol’s My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart The scrutiny is justified One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s Comment on Suzie-Q: Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks! NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy. Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits? Photo: AP/David Zalubowski

A foreclosure sign stands outside an existing home on the market in Denver.
A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.
US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.
In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.
If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.
Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Both children could easily be Bristol’s
My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart
The scrutiny is justified
One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!
NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.
Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?
Photo: AP/David Zalubowski
"So it would be rational for the banks to take Carlyle's assets and exchange them for top-quality, liquid US government bonds, rather than leave loans in place to a business, Carlyle, whose assets remain highly illiquid gone."   [Modification by TheWE.name]
BBC
 9 percent of American homeowners with mortgage
either behind on payments or in foreclosure
June 2008
A foreclosed home is seen for sale in Sacramento, Calif. A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy. In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'. If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden. Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001. Comment on Suzie-Q: Both children could easily be Bristol’s My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart The scrutiny is justified One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s Comment on Suzie-Q: Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks! NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy. Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits? Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli

A foreclosed home is seen for sale in Sacramento, Calif.
A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.
US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.
In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.
If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.
Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Both children could easily be Bristol’s
My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart
The scrutiny is justified
One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!
NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.
Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?
Photo: AP/Rich Pedroncelli
Construction workers work on the rooftop of a new home under construction. In rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the US government is taking an unprecedented step into the financial sector hoping to steady an ailing housing market and ease a global credit crunch. A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy. In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'. If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden. Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001. Comment on Suzie-Q: Both children could easily be Bristol’s My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart The scrutiny is justified One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s Comment on Suzie-Q: Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks! NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy. Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits? Photo: AFP/Paul J. Richards     

Construction workers work on the rooftop of a new home under construction.
A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.
US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.
In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.
If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.
Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Both children could easily be Bristol’s
My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart
The scrutiny is justified
One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!
NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.
Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?
Photo: AFP/Paul J. Richards
 US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent
in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed
A job seeker searches for employment opportunities in Arlington Heights, Illinois. A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy. In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'. If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden. Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001. Comment on Suzie-Q: Both children could easily be Bristol’s My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart The scrutiny is justified One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s Comment on Suzie-Q: Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks! NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy. Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits? Photo: AFP/Getty Images/Tim Boyle

A job seeker searches for employment opportunities in Arlington Heights, Illinois.
A record 9 percent of American homeowners with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, as damage from the housing crisis continues to mount, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday, Sept. 5, 2008.
US unemployment jumped to a five-year high of 6.1 percent in August as 84,000 jobs were slashed, according to a report Friday that sparked fresh fears about recession in the world's biggest economy.
In his much-ballyhooed acceptance speech, Barack Obama declared that he would 'finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11'.
If Obama wishes to be true to his promise, he could begin with his own running mate, Senator Joe Biden.
Biden was one of several top Washington officials who met with Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on and around September 11, 2001.
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Both children could easily be Bristol’s
My brother and I are 11 months apart and my 2 oldest children are 11 1/2 months apart
The scrutiny is justified
One would have to be a total idiot with all the information you have along with the photos of Sarah to believe that Trig is Sarah’s
Comment on Suzie-Q:
Fraud. Insurance fraud. This is the real story, folks!
NOT the supposed “current” Bristol Palin pregnancy.
Did Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska create a fake pregnancy of her own to obtain lifetime medical benefits for the disabled son of her unwed daughter, who otherwise was not covered for those benefits?
Photo: AFP/Getty Images/Tim Boyle
$516 trillion
To grasp how significant this five-fold bubble increase is, let's put that $516 trillion in the context of some other domestic and international monetary data:
* U.S. annual gross domestic product is about $15 trillion
* U.S. money supply is also about $15 trillion
* Current proposed U.S. federal budget is $3 trillion
* U.S. government's maximum legal debt is $9 trillion
* U.S. mutual fund companies manage about $12 trillion
* World's GDPs for all nations is approximately $50 trillion
* Unfunded Social Security and Medicare benefits $50 trillion to $65 trillion
* Total value of the world's real estate is estimated at about $75 trillion
* Total value of world's stock and bond markets is more than $100 trillion
* BIS valuation of world's derivatives back in 2002 was about $100 trillion
* BIS 2007 valuation of the world's derivatives is now a whopping $516 trillion
Recently Pimco's bond fund king Bill Gross said "What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August."
In short, not only Warren Buffett, but Bond King Bill Gross, our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the rest of America's leaders can't "figure out" the world's $516 trillion derivatives.
PAUL B. FARRELL
Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen
"An imminent response is not likely!"
It's not true of course.
Those black ops boys and girls — you know the one's funded by your taxpaying dollars....
The unaccounted billions passed through the US budget by authorization of your Congress person.
The US black budget that starts it all — that pays for the growth of the cells.
The billions perhaps trillions missing — events coming from the cells....
Even drug money traded out of Columbia and Afghanistan....
They have more than enough to attack America.
Have they done it before?
Is red the color of blood?
How it went wrong
US Senate approves nine point 8 trillion debt limit Congress raises limit again as U.S. debt exceeds $10 trillion/ For the fifth time since 2001, Congress is raising the debt limit, increasing it by $850 billion to $9.815 trillion. The Senate approved the plan on a 53-42 vote Thursday night. The House of Representatives has already signed off on the plan, without a direct vote. That’s $9,815,000,000,000.00. The US Debt Limit was increased from $10.615 trillion to $11.315 trillion effective October 3, 2008. According to the folks who follow this stuff closely, the national debt has been rising by an average of $1.36 billion per day since September of last year. And each citizen now has a share of nearly $30,000.
Daniel Castillo — German Economy in the 1920s
There were several characteristics which Germany possessed after the First World War which made them vulnerable to being manipulated by someone like Adolf Hitler
As in most nations, the economic factors of the time play a significant role in determining how a society will behave....
1923 German Waitline Lines would build up filled with people who wanted to buy the few items left in stores Photo: www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/1920s/CastilloAuthors.htm
Lines would build up filled with people who wanted to buy the few items left in stores
The rich are playing and you are paying
Rich elite setting up derivatives on India Stock Exchange
Cannot get enough of the poison that is causing the rise in food commodity prices and oil prices
The reason your food bill
is going up
The reason your house mortgage is going up
The reason the price of your home is going down
The reason your gas — petrol — oil has gone up
The reason all bills are going up
The reason the price of everything you touch is going up!
It's the rich elite playing the derivative market
The rich are playing and you are paying
 
The international elite cartel running the US government will not make the rich pay for their play
The international elite cartel running Europe will not make the rich pay for their play
The international elite cartel who control everything
They are the one's doing the playing
Watch out India!
That middle class you think is being created
Just like in the US!
Just like in the UK!
Going!   Going!   Going!   Gone!
They are expecting China, Japan and YOU to pay for this!
I feel like it's pre-second-world-war all over again!
Germany!
You get that feeling!
Kewe
Status Report on the Collapse of the U.S. Economy
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, July 16, 2008
With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000 — we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.
Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.
Crushed by overall debt burden
What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion by 2010.
Financial system bankrupt
The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid.
This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace.
In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market.
Destroying producing economy
Thus the collapse of the financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.
It’s a “perfect storm,” the result of a 200-year-old financial system where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980 our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to cheap labor markets.
Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the nation’s GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth of debt.
Jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed
While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and food price inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations.
The only places a more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Francisco.
Creating more debt to shore up failing financial institutions
All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial institutions.   No new wealth is being created.
It’s band-aids on band-aids.
The problem politically is that control of the U.S. long ago was turned over to the bankers and the financiers of the Western world.
It was called financial “deregulation,” accelerated under President Ronald Reagan, and has run amok since then.
From a longer historical view, it’s the same phenomenon that first created and then ruined the British Empire , and it’s what created and is now ruining the American Empire today.
Side-effect of control by bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists
A side-effect of control by the bankers and financiers is that they are also Zionists, so we have the added multi-trillion dollar burden of trying to conquer the Middle East on behalf of the international oil interests and the state of Israel.
The situation has deteriorated sharply since the 1970s as U.S. affairs have been managed on behalf of the financial interests by what you might call the “Three Amigos” — Henry Kissinger, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan.
Kissinger, while Nixon’s secretary of state, made the U.S. dependent on the Middle East for oil, lavished billions on Israel ’s war machine, and created the petrodollar to support our trade and fiscal deficits.
Volcker, while chairman of the Federal Reserve, crashed the U.S. producing economy in the recession of 1979-1983, leading to the rise of the “service economy.”
Chicago Board of Trade
Corn options pit
Greenspan presided over bubble economy created through massive official fraud
Greenspan, during his own Federal Reserve chairmanship, presided over the bubble economy which was created through massive official fraud in home mortgage lending and is now sinking like the Titanic.
The politicians have enabled these financial crimes.
Above all it’s been the Bush family
Above all it’s been the Bush family which has served as a political Trojan Horse for the financiers for three generations, with affairs having become much worse since George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991.
The enablers have included a majority of the members of the U.S. Congress.
(See the conclusion of Patrick Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War for an account of how the U.S. since the Bush I presidency has replicated the catastrophic errors of failed British imperialism.)
The American people are not entirely innocent.
Financier-owned media
We have been so lulled to sleep by the financier-owned media that we have allowed these disasters to take place and are now reaping the consequences.
We have been the fodder for their wars and the signers of their loans.
We have tried to carve out our own piece of the pie which is now crumbling.
Charging Bull sculpture
Bowling Green park
near Wall Street
What is taking place is not just the collapse of the U.S., but more than likely the final crash of Western civilization, since we are the last of the world empires to go down the drain.
World War I saw the end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires.
World War II saw the disappearance of the French, British, Japanese, and Italian empires, along with Nazi Germany.
The Soviet empire collapsed in 1991.
The American is next.
The danger is that we may lash out and start a nuclear World War III out of frustration and to appease the elitists of the world who see war and famine as their pathway to world control.
Such a war would also mean a military takeover domestically to manage the pathetically weak nation that we are becoming.
Bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy themselves because they are internationalists
The bankers and financiers do not care if nations and empires destroy themselves and each other, because they are internationalists.
In fact, the more war and mass starvation there is the better off they feel.
All they need is a base from which to operate.
London has been their main base of operations since the Bank of England was founded in 1694, though they have a strong presence in other nations.  
Elitism in the form of Freemasonry
They have been especially influential in northwest Europe, where elitism in the form of Freemasonry endeavored since the time of the French Revolution to destroy the authority of the Catholic Church.
In fact, World War I was a project of the Freemasons in dismembering Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both largely Catholic.
This destruction allowed the masters of usury to flourish within the atheistic and materialistic culture that Freemasonry fostered across Europe.  
World War I also resulted in the virus of Communism, largely egged on by the internationalists and Freemasons, though it had such a tragic impact on Russia and Central Europe before spreading to China and East Asia.
It is theoretically possible that the US as a nation could still save itself through an internal revolution, while playing a much reduced role in the world.
After all, England , France , and Italy still exist as shadows of their past greatness.
Try to survive
But, realistically, all ordinary people can do today is try to survive, perhaps by working with friends and neighbors in planting food and living within the underground economy.
At least people might not then have to starve to death, because hard as it is to believe that “it could happen here,” widespread famine in the U.S. seems a real possibility over the next several years.
Nations take such risks when they allow capitalist agribusiness to destroy local agriculture.
On a national level, it is likely that as a response to the economic crisis some attempt will be made by desperate politicians to try to replicate the New Deal, but to do this effectively would require political control by a nationalistic reform party.
Even then, additional reform measures such as control of credit as a public utility, a basic income guarantee, and a national dividend would be needed for real economic security to replace the current madness that could soon make the U.S. a relic of history.
www.RichardCCook.com
© Copyright 2005-2008 GlobalResearch.ca
This is not the Depression of the 30's, folks
This is much more serious!
Deflation in times of great crisis does not apply to gold
But then you cannot eat gold
You can eat stored food
Something you will not be able to buy, even with gold, makes gold somewhat pointless
Until things start to get better
Then it will be good to have stored gold
Kewe
Bankruptcy points to total collapse of capitalism. Photo: AP
U.S. Debt   Iraq-Afghanistan Wars   2006 — 2007
Carnage on Wall Street as loans go bad
Over time I was increasingly shocked by the speed and ease with which many intelligent and seemingly competent members of the Council on Foreign Relations appeared to eagerly justify policies and actions that supported growing corruption
BIS warns of Great Depression
US Income Gap Widening Significantly
What are credit derivatives?
U.S. Debt   Iraq-Afghanistan Wars   2003 — 2005
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
The trade deficit is being financed by turning over the ownership of US assets and future income streams to foreigners, making Americans forever poorer from the loss of accumulated wealth
Everyone else is a loser
The US is bankrupt!
       US Dention centers       
       Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America      
       State of the Union      
       Barack Obama —       
       US military —        
       Massacres and atrocities detailed —        
       Seed destruction —       
       Terminator seeds —        
       Globalization —        
       Rich corporations destroying the environment         
        US Economic Decline — U.S. debt and the Rise of China        
       Cowardly attacks by air killing men women and children in their homes, often never seeing those they kill as the drones or aircraft fly back to the cowardly bases       
       If they kill only the husband, see how they care for the family they have destroyed       
       Afghanistan — Western Terror States: Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Italy       
       Photos of Afghanistan people being killed and injured by NATO     
       Depleted Uranium — its use in Afghanistan, Iraq, Balkans      
       Photos of Iraq children being born deformed          
      U.S. War Crimes — Falluja photos      
      US used chemical and thermobaric weapons in Fallujah     
      Some U.S. soldiers speak — Iraq Invasion       
        Siberia, Alaska        
        Dramatic permafrost melt — click here       
        State of the Union        
       The Negative Return Economy — a discourse on America’s black budget      
       Fascinating and lucrative    
       Black Budget?   What Black Budget?    
      As Jews we march with the Palestinians and raise their flag!     
     His Majesty King Abdullah — The American Magazine     November 1947     
     Norman Finkelstein, Professor Marc Saperstein and Middle East Journal     
      As Jews we march with the Palestinians and raise their flag!     

     His Majesty King Abdullah — The American Magazine     November 1947     

     Norman Finkelstein, Professor Marc Saperstein and Middle East Journal     
       Maximum pain aim of US weapon      
       Microwave as heat and sound      
       Heat as weapon      
      Bulge story continues into 2005      
       — NASA scientist shows Bush wired in debate      
      Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities — Iraq      
      Iraq — US missiles from the sky      
      U.S. Soldiers against the war     
      Dr. Martin Luther King — War and Militarism —  Photos and images   Iraq   Vietnam 1967      
      World Terrorist Organization      
      Blair — WMD claims      
      Iraq death squads — Badr, White Toyota Land Cruisers      
      Glock pistols, Interior Ministry memo      
      Salvador Option      
      Fallujah photos — War — lunacy, bewilderment, panic, fear invading body, death      
      US once great nation transformed into a neo fascist nightmare      
        U.S. to Israel:                     
        — An apocalypse of Evil being created                     
        — 500 'bunker buster' bombs                     
       U.S. Supreme Court appoints a president  —  death and decimation       
       Third World War — Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Death       
        Dimona Reactor threat        
        Iran tests missile — Israel postures        
The Iraq War — complete listing of articles, includes images
       Cowardly attacks by air killing men women and children in their homes, often never seeing those they kill as the drones or aircraft fly back to the cowardly bases       
       If they kill only the husband, see how they care for the family they have destroyed       
       Afghanistan — Western Terror States: Canada, US, UK, France, Germany, Italy       
       Photos of Afghanistan people being killed and injured by NATO     
US soldiers committing suicide Afghanistan Iraq — Most Recent
Psychologist Pete Linnerooth was one of three who were part of a mental health crew in charge of the US 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in the Baghdad area of Iraq.   Pete Linnerooth committed suicide by turning a gun upon himself in January of 2013
Veterans kill themselves at a rate of one every 80 minutes.   More than 6,500 veteran suicides are logged every year — more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq combined since those wars began.
Mary Coghill Kirkland said she asked her son, 21-year-old Army Spc. Derrick Kirkland, what was wrong as soon as he came back from his first deployment to Iraq in 2008.   He had a ready answer: "Mom, I'm a murderer."
A military base on the brink
As police agents watched he shot himself in the head
Murders, fights, robberies, domestic violence, drunk driving, drug overdoses
US soldiers committing suicide Afghanistan Iraq II
U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
Private Gary Boswell, 20, from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, was found hanging in a playground in July
She is Jeanne "Linda" Michel, a Navy medic.   She came home last month to her husband and three kids ages 11, 5, and 4, delighted to be back in her suburban home of Clifton Park in upstate New York.   Two weeks after she got home, she shot and killed herself.
Peterson refused to participate in the torture after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage
     United States Numb to Iraq Troop Deaths       
     All papers relating to the interrogations have been destroyed     
      We stripped them and were supposed to mock them and degrade their manhood     
US soldiers committing suicide Iraq Vietnam
       Can you tell us when Jeffrey Lucey went to Iraq?  
And then there was Christmas Eve that we really became, aware of the problem when he was drunk and he told his younger sister that he was a murderer      
They told the stories of times that they had personally raped      
       Cut off the ears      
       Cut off heads      
       Taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power
       He said we would never understand       
       John Kerry's 1971 Speech Against the Vietnam War Before the United States Senate      
       US war veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide than ordinary civilians       
More atrocities — Lest we forget — Ahmed and Asma, story of two children dying
All with U.S. Money:
More on the building of the wall.        US and Israel's use of chemical agents 
All with U.S. Money:
Israel agents stole identity of New Zealand cerebral palsy victim.
(IsraelNN.com   July 15, 2004)   The Foreign Ministry will take steps towards restoring relations with New Zealand.   New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark today announced she was implementing diplomatic sanctions after two Israelis were sentenced on charges of attempting to obtain illegal passports.   Despite Israeli refusal to respond to the accusations, the two are labeled in the New Zealand media as Mossad agents acting on behalf of the Israeli intelligence community.

Foreign Ministry officials stated they will do everything possible to renew diplomatic ties, expressing sorrow over the “unfortunate incident”.
Darfur pictures and arial views of destruction — 2003 — 2005
                 October 2004 photos
Follow the torture trail...
                 September 2004 photos
Should the dam break, as attempts are being made in Saudi Arabia
                  Photos July 2004
       The real Ronald Reagan       
       — Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, South Africa        
                  Photos June 2004
       The real Ronald Reagan       
       — Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, South Africa        
        When you talk with God        
         were you also spending your time, money and energy, killing people?         
       Are they now alive or dead?       
American military: Abu Gharib (Ghraib) prison photos, humiliation and torture
— London Daily Mirror article: non-sexually explicit pictures
                  Photos April 2004
The celebration of Jerusalem day, the US missiles that rained onto children in Gaza,
and, a gathering of top articles over the past nine months
                  Photos March 2004
'Suicide bombings,' the angel said, 'and beheadings.'
'And the others that have all the power — they fly missiles in the sky.
They don't even look at the people they kill.'
                  Photos February 2004
  US missiles — US money — and Palestine
                  Photos January 2004
Ethnic cleansing in the Beduin desert
                  Photos December 2003
Shirin Ebadi Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003
                  Photos November 2003
Atrocities — graphic images...
                  Photos October 2003
Aljazeerah.info
                  Photos September 2003

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