But even beyond the realization that some American are beginning to have that the retirement money they sent to Washington for a lifetime is not there, that the money has been spent, that they have been lied to, even beyond that shocking reality, no one has yet adequately calculated the negative impact Social Security has had on the behavior of the American people. Perhaps unquantifiable is the impact this deceit has had on Americans' motivation to save for themselves. In the absence of the politicians’ sweet assurances, what present consumption might have been deferred and what mountains of capital might Americans have created in providing for the future for themselves? Unanswerable is what magic such massive capital investment might have created in terms of long-term wealth, prosperity, and opportunity for Americans and for humankind. Such rewards are unknown, but what one can be sure of is that those who have not provided for their future, for old age, for sickness and death, for economic displacements, natural catastrophes, and cultural change are liable, even eager to become serfs of an all-powerful state. As Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor said, “In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us: 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.' ”
"Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression."
"One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it."
Last week one of the world's leading climate experts announced new research that could change our understanding of global warming and suggests we can stop worrying about climate change. Strangely, this wonderful development has been ignored by the media. Here are the details. More...
"... without any visible strategy for victory, Barack is recommending the same course LBJ took after the death of JFK. Johnson bombed North Vietnam in 1964, landed Marines in 1965 and built U.S. forces from 16,000 advisers on Nov. 22, 1963, to 525,000 troops in January of 1969.
Gradual escalation, which is exactly what Barack is recommending."
On May 13, 2008, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke spoke of many things, as he often does, of economic growth, of housing losses, of liquidity, of financial strains, and so on. And in doing so, he obscured his main fear. He fears our fears. He fears fear itself. He fears our loss of confidence in the currency and the monetary system and in the entire system itself. If he doesn’t, he should or soon will. Such a loss of confidence is inevitable. More...
"At some point, it [the fed] will run out of Treasury debt to sell to the general public in order to offset the increase of its purchase of questionable assets held by the financial system. At that point, the great inflation will begin....
...This has always been true. The public has never thought this through. It is beyond the voters’ comprehension. Congress, which has authorized the legislation that has led to this system ever since passing the Federal Reserve Act in late December, 1913, has also not thought about the implications of this system of guaranteed legal solvency for the banking system. But the insolvency of the dollar is the ultimate implication of the legal structure of today’s fractionally reserved banking cartel." More...
REP. STEVE KING, R-IOWA, CONTINUES TO ADD DUPLICITY TO DECEIT! HIS BULLYING ACT IS BECOMING TIRESOME!
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, pictured here next to his doppelganger Scut Farkus, keeps up his dazzling pace of deceit.
King... noted recent press reports about the current Iraqi government selling 550 metric tons of leftover yellowcake uranium to Canada. The linkage presumably was to show that Bush had been vindicated about the yellowcake and that Wilson was a liar.
Regarding the yellowcake uranium that Iraq has just sold to Canada – a factlet that’s been bouncing around the right-wing media as supposed vindication of President Bush – Iraq’s possession of that ore dated back almost three decades, as was well-documented by the CIA’s post-invasion WMD report issued in September 2004.
Now, with these latest smears from Rep. King, it has become clear that Republican leaders of this generation are heirs to Joe McCarthy’s tradition of using the government’s power to destroy American citizens who get in the way.
"The permanent party in the palaces of power, and the halls of waste, is out of control."
"It is though the household staff is in mutiny. They are peeping toms, illegally spying ever more brazenly on their masters; they waste the households wealth and savings. They know no boundaries, but run roughshod hither and yon, alarming the neighbors. The downstairs servants are stealing the silverware and the upstairs help doesn’t report it because they share in the plunder. It’s time for the people to turn them all out."
Charles Goyette speech at the Ron Paul Revolution March, July 12, 2008. Transcript HERE
...over the span of a few weeks Sen. McCain has gone from predicting a decades long presence of American troops in Iraq and attacking any discussion of timetables for withdrawal to endorsing Maliki's push for a 16 month timetable and tying himself in knots trying to explain why what Maliki's endorsing is any different from Obama's.
When confronted with Maliki's own words saying that he supports what Obama supports, McCain now falls back on that last redoubt of philanderers, asking the American people, "Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?"
"Whether we like it or not, it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen."
Henry Hazlitt wrote this book following his stint at the New York Times as an editorialist. His hope was to reduce the whole teaching of economics to a few principles and explain them in ways that people would never forget. It worked. He relied on some stories by Bastiat and his own impeccable capacity for logical thinking and crystal-clear prose.
He was writing under the influence of Mises himself, of course, but he brought his own special gifts to the project. As just one example, this is the book that made the idea of the "broken window fallacy" so famous.
What thrills us in particular about this new edition is that it is beautiful, it is hardcover, and it is newly typeset for modern readers. It has a full index. It includes a wonderful foreword by Walter Block. It's the right size, shape, and feel – perfect for making this book central to all educational efforts of the future.
This is the book to send to reporters, politicians, pastors, political activists, teachers, or anyone else who needs to know.
Professor Block explains that it was this book that turned him on to economics as a science. He believes that it is probably the most important economics book ever written in the sense that it offers the greatest hope to educating everyone about the meaning of the science.
Written for the non-academic, it has served as the major antidote to fallacies in the popular press, and has appeared in dozens of languages and printings. It's still the quickest way to learn how to think like an economist. And this is why it has been used in the best classrooms more than sixty years.
Many writers have since attempted to beat this book as an introduction, but have never succeeded. Hazlitt's book remains the best. Even if you own this book already, or have several past editions, you will want to have this book as your own as a wonderful testament to its place in the world of ideas.
In putting this edition together, we chose to work from Hazlitt's own first edition because it contains the core of what is crucial here without later updates that only date the book. As with Mises and Human Action, the author's first instincts were the best ones.
In 1982, Ron Paul served on the U.S. Gold Commission to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system. In fact, the Commission was his idea. It was carrying forth a promise made in the Republican platform.
Ron couldn't pick the members, so from the beginning, the deck was stacked. The majority was dominated by monetarists, who saw gold as too scarce and paper as just fine. Ron Paul's team was ready, however, with this marvelous minority report.
Rarely has a dissent on a government commission done so much good!
The result wasThe Case for Gold, and it was the greatest result of the commission. It covers the history of gold in the United States, explains that its breakdown was caused by governments, and explains the merit of having sound money: prices reflect market realities, government stays in check, and the people retain their freedom.
The scholarship and rigor impressed even the critics of the minority. Ron and Lewis Lehrman worked with a team of economists that included Murray Rothbard, so it is hardly suprising that such a book would result.
It still holds up as an excellent blueprint for moving beyond paper money and into the age of sound money. In particular, Ron favors complete monetary freedom to use any commodity as money, to make contracts in any money, and an end to the monopolization and printing power of the Federal Reserve.
There is a strong piece of history in this book. Not since the 19th century has a political figure made such a sweeping and devastating case for radical monetary reform. This congressman ran circles around even the experts at the Fed. A dazzling performance indeed, and an inspiring and learned book. More...
The Mises Institute has united this book with its natural complement: a detailed reform proposal for a 100 percent gold dollar. "The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar" was written a decade before the last vestiges of the gold standard were abolished. His unique plan for making the dollar sound again still holds up. Some people have said: Rothbard tells us what is wrong with money but not what to do about it. Well, by adding this essay, the problem and the answer are united in a comprehensive whole.
After presenting the basics of money and banking theory, he traces the decline of the dollar from the 18th century to the present, and provides lucid critiques of central banking, New Deal monetary policy, Nixonian fiat money, and fixed exchange rates. He also provides a blueprint for a return to a 100 percent reserve gold standard.
The book made huge theoretical advances. He was the first to prove that the government, and only the government, can destroy money on a mass scale, and he showed exactly how they go about this dirty deed. But just as importantly, it is beautifully written. He tells a thrilling story because he loves the subject so much.
The passion that Murray feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject, and tell others. Students tell professors. Some, like the great Ron Paul of Texas, have even run for political office after having read it.
Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it. He shows how exchange rates and interest rates would work in a true free market. When it comes to describing the end of the gold standard, he is not content to describe the big trends. He names names and ferrets out all the interest groups involved.
Since Rothbard's death, scholars have worked to assess his legacy, and many of them agree that this little book is one of his most important. Though it has sometimes been inauspiciously packaged and is surprisingly short, its argument took huge strides toward explaining that it is impossible to understand public affairs in our time without understanding money and its destruction.
This volume's contents include:
Preface by Jörg Guido Hülsmann
I. Introduction by Murray Rothbard
II. Money in a Free Society
1. The Value of Exchange
2. Barter
3. Indirect Exchange
4. Benefits of Money
5. The Monetary Unit
6. The Shape of Money
7. Private Coinage
8. The Proper Supply of Money
9. The Problem of Hoarding
10. Stabilize the Price Level?
11. Coexisting Moneys
12. Money-Warehouses
13. Summary
III. Government Meddling With Money
1. The Revenue of Government
2. The Economic Effects of Inflation
3. Compulsory Monopoly of the Mint
4. Debasement
5. Gresham's Law and Coinage
6. Summary: Government and Coinage
7. Permitting Banks to Refuse Payment
8. Central Banking: Removing the Checks on Inflation
9. Central Banking: Directing the Inflation
10. Going Off the Gold Standard
11. Fiat Money and the Gold Problem
12. Fiat Money and Gresham's Law
13. Government and Money
IV. The Monetary Breakdown of the West
1. Phase I: The Classical Gold Standard, 1815-1914
2. Phase II: World War I and After
3. Phase III: The Gold Exchange Standard (Britain and the United States) 1926-1931
4. Phase IV: Fluctuating Fiat Currencies, 1931-1945...
5. Phase V: Bretton Woods and the New Gold Exchange Standard (the United States) 1945 1968
6. Phase VI: The Unraveling of Bretton Woods, 1968-1971
7. Phase VII: The End of Bretton Woods: Fluctuating Fiat Currencies, August-December, 1971
8. Phase VIII: The Smithsonian Agreement, December 1971-February 1973
9. Phase IX: Fluctuating Fiat Currencies, March 1973-?
The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar
Preface by Murray Rothbard
1. The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar
2. Money and Freedom
3. The Dollar: Independent Name or Unit of Weight?
The most powerful case against the American central bank ever written. This work begins with a mini-treatment of money and banking theory, and then plunges right in with the real history of the Federal Reserve System. Rothbard covers the struggle between competing elites and how they converged with the Fed.
Rothbard calls for the abolition of the central bank and a restoration of the gold standard. His popular treatment incorporates the best and most up-to-date scholarship on the Fed's origins and effects.
The contents of this volume include:
Introduction: Money and Politics
The Genesis of Money
What is the Optimum Quantity of Money?
Monetary Inflation and Counterfeiting
Legalized Counterfeiting
Loan Banking
Deposit Banking
Problems for the Fractional-Reserve Banker: The Criminal Law
Problems for the Fractional-Reserve Banker: Insolvency
Booms and Busts
Types of Warehouse Receipts
Enter the Central Bank
Easing the Limits on Bank Credit Expansion
The Central Bank Buys Assets
Origins of the Federal Reserve: The Advent of the National Banking System
Origins of the Federal Reserve: Wall Steet Discontent
Putting Cartelization Across: The Progressive Line
Putting a Central Bank Across: Manipulating a Movement, 1897-1902
"F.A. Hayek was not only a leading champion of liberty in the 20th century. As this massive book reveals, he was also a great economist whose elaboration on monetary theory and the business cycle made him the leading foe of Keynesian theory and policy in the English-speaking world. Here are collected his most important works on these topics: re-typeset, indexed for the first time, and beautifully bound in a 536-page hardbound book..." More...
It's funny; while Bush was hosting his faux-press conference, live-footage was appearing on other media of fully-armed LA policemen being dispatched to the various Indymac locations. Their task was to remind the gathering of elderly "blue-hair" women and middle-aged white guys in Tommy Bahama T-shirts that any public display of outrage would be swiftly met with Rodney King-style justice. Hmmm. So now withdrawing one's savings from the bank is not only riskier; it's tantamount to committing a felony. My, how America has changed.
Just imagine the frustration of spending $5 a gallon for gas to drive to the local Indymac branch to get whatever is left of your savings only to get roughed-up by the local constabulary. Nice touch, eh?
Going to the bank? Don't forget the protective head-gear!
"And we have reaped the reward of all the other empires that went before: A sinking currency, relative decline, universal enmity, a series of what Rudyard Kipling called "the savage wars of peace." Yet, opportunity has come anew for America to shed its imperial burden and become again the republic of our fathers."
FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist.
And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. More...
Re-setting of adjustable rate mortgages triggers the collapse
What IS going on is approximately 600 billion dollars’ worth of subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) will go through rate-resetting between now and the end of 2008. About 15% of these ARMs are predicted to default, representing $75 billion of mortgages that banks will have as non-performing loans on their books, which will be reflected in their quarterly earnings reports. The stock price of these banks will then tumble and depositors will run to withdraw their funds from checking and savings accounts. Since most banks have no more than 10% of their depositors' funds in cash (the rest has been loaned out), even a small run on the bank could leave a bank with no cash. More...
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to be downsized and de-leveraged, relieved of special privileges and loan guarantees, and broken into small pieces agile enough to sink or swim on their own, without taxpayer support." More...
In Good Money, George Selgin tells the fascinating story of the important yet almost unknown episode in the history of money—British manufacturers’ challenge to the Crown’s monopoly on coinage.
In the 1780s, when the Industrial Revolution was gathering momentum, the Royal Mint failed to produce enough small-denomination coinage for factory owners to pay their workers. As the currency shortage threatened to derail industrial progress, manufacturers began to mint custom-made coins, called “tradesman’s tokens.” Rapidly gaining wide acceptance, these tokens served as the nation’s most popular currency for wages and retail sales until 1821, when the Crown outlawed all moneys except its own.
Good Money not only examines the crucial role of private coinage in fueling Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution, but it also challenges beliefs upon which all modern government-currency monopolies rest. It thereby sheds light on contemporary private-sector alternatives to government-issued money, such as digital monies, cash cards, electronic funds transfer, and (outside of the United States) spontaneous “dollarization.”
THE AUTHORITIES KNOW BEST: Quotes from the Great Depression
September 1929:
"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue."
— Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury
October 14, 1929: "Secretary Lamont and officials of the Commerce Department today denied rumors that a severe depression in business and industrial activity was impending, which had been based on a mistaken interpretation of a review of industrial and credit conditions issued earlier in the day by the Federal Reserve Board."
— New York Times
December 5, 1929: "The Government's business is in sound condition."
— Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury
December 28, 1929: "Maintenance of a general high level of business in the United States during December was reviewed today by Robert P. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, as an indication that American industry had reached a point where a break in New York stock prices does not necessarily mean a national depression."
— Associated Press
January 13, 1930: "Reports to the Department of Commerce indicate that business is in a satisfactory condition, Secretary Lamont said today."
- News item
January 21, 1930: "Definite signs that business and industry have turned the corner from the temporary period of emergency that followed deflation of the speculative market were seen today by President Hoover. The President said the reports to the Cabinet showed the tide of employment had changed in the right direction."
- News dispatch from Washington
March 8, 1930: "President Hoover predicted today that the worst effect of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days."
- Washington Dispatch
May 1, 1930: "While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States - that is, prosperity."
- President Hoover
June 29, 1930: "The worst is over without a doubt." - James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor. August 29, 1930 "American labor may now look to the future with confidence."
- James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor
September 12, 1930: "We have hit bottom and are on the upswing."
- James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor
October 16, 1930: "Looking to the future I see in the further acceleration of science continuous jobs for our workers. Science will cure unemployment."
- Charles M. Schwab
October 20, 1930: "President Hoover today designated Robert W. Lamont, Secretary of Commerce, as chairman of the President's special committee on unemployment."
- Washington dispatch
October 21, 1930: "President Hoover has summoned Colonel Arthur Woods to help place 2,500,000 persons back to work this winter."
- Washington Dispatch
November 1930: "I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year."
- Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., General Motors Co.
June 9, 1931: "The depression has ended."
- Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary of Commerce
"My DC-insider friend "Mick Danger" sees deeper implications.
Scroll down to near bottom of page The SEC is investigating hedge funds to see if they circulate rumors, knowing they are false, and trade on them, manipulating the market. Now, did the brave writers at the WSJ miss something?
Someone -- with an interest -- brought Schumer information on IndyMac. Who? When? Why? What are the chances that Schumer was looking into irregularities into IndyMac because some hedgie with a big short position turned him onto it?
Well, they ain't zero.
What are the chances Schumer was "investigating" IndyMac because the Senate Banking Committee assigned that case to him? Zero." More... (scroll down to near bottom of page)
JUST FOLLOW THE MONEY... ...as usual in Washington. Here's Tim Carney:
Follow the divergent treatment recently of four different financial companies suffering from the mortgage crisis, and you begin to detect a pattern: The well-connected — with big lobbying budgets and generous campaign contributions — get special favors from Washington, while the others get special abuse. Government-backed mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are collapsing, and so Congress and the Bush administration are rushing to save them, insisting to the investing public that everything is OK.
Lehman Brothers is upset about negative rumors hurting its stock prices, and so Uncle Sam is investigating who is badmouthing the firm. But IndyMac, a commercial bank and mortgage lender, was pushed over the edge this week by a U.S. senator, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
The difference: Fannie, Freddie and Lehman are all famously well-connected to Washington, with high-priced lobbyists and burgeoning political action committees; IndyMac, meanwhile, had no PAC at all and only a tiny lobbying budget.
"Now that Barack Obama has pulled the rug out from under John McCain's "victory or death" campaign theme, with the invaluable assistance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he's preparing the way for a surge of his own: an Afghan surge, to be precise. Averring that we need to put more troops in Afghanistan, whose U.S.-supported "president" functions as little more than the mayor of Kabul, Obama is posingearnestly next to as many uniforms as he can, hoping to establish his credentials as a plausible wartime president." More...
War, n: A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president’s popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns. – Chaz Bufe
House Democrats who flipped their votes to support retroactive immunity for telecom companies in last week’s FISA bill took thousands of dollars more from phone companies than Democrats who consistently voted against legislation with an immunity provision, according to an analysis by MAPLight.org.
"Undercover Maryland state troopers infiltrated three groups advocating peace and protesting the death penalty — attending meetings and sending reports on their activities to U.S. intelligence and military agencies, according to documents released Thursday." More...
"It feels like the summer of 1931. The world's two biggest financial institutions have had a heart attack. The global currency system is breaking down. The policy doctrines that got us into this mess are bankrupt. No world leader seems able to discern the problem, let alone forge a solution." More...
"By the way, under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – which, unlike the Israelis, the Iranians are signatories to – Tehran is perfectly entitled to develop nuclear power for peaceful uses. Given the long lines for gas in Iran, that is no doubt what they're doing. Like us, they realize that the world's oil supply is limited, and – also like us – they want to achieve illusory "energy independence," whatever that may mean. This, however, is one illusion we're not willing to share with just anyone, and certainly not with the Iranians." More...
"I've never forgotten the words of a Salvadoran friend during their guerrilla war. 'We can't afford to kill the guerrillas,' he said. 'There are only 7,000 of them, and your government is paying my government a million dollars a day to fight them.' " More...
"I titled this article 'In the U.S. Senate the Guilty Interrogate the Innocent.' A more complete title would be 'In the U.S. Senate, Senators Serving the OPEC Cartel Interrogate American Energy Producers Whom They Prevent from Breaking that Cartel.' " More...
"The real world is the market economy. It is making a trillion decisions every hour. The decisions are dramatic, decisive, and life changing. They deal with real stuff, not vapid promises. We see this in a crisis more than ever: the takeovers, production shifts, whole industries rising and falling, patterns of imports and exports reversing themselves, jobs changing, with tens of billions of dollars changing hands minute by minute." More...
"George Bush will likely leave office with this particular tyrannical power infrequently exercised but nonetheless vigorously asserted, defended, and close to established. This is yet another step in the creeping extremism of the last seven years -- like torture and warrantless eavesdropping, this power (allowing the President to imprison U.S. citizens in military brigs with no charges) is one that was until quite recently inconceivable, but is now a defining part of how our Government operates." More...
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have also strategically given more contributions to lawmakers currently sitting on committees that primarily regulate their industry. Fifteen of the 25 lawmakers who have received the most from the two companies combined since the 1990 election sit on either the House Financial Services Committee; the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee; or the Senate Finance Committee..." More
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter discusses the likelihood of a U.S. attack on Iran and the smokescreen of diplomatic progress, how Iran’s recent promise of retaliation has raised the stakes by ensuring limited U.S. strikes would be inadequate, how facts and reason are irrelevant since the neocons in command believe they can generate their own realities... Listen
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 92.65 points, or 0.8%, at 10962.54, its first close below the psychologically important 11000 level since July of 2006. It was held back by a sharp decline in American International Group, which fell 8.5%, and Bank of America, which declined by 8.1%. Citigroup dropped 4.3%. Exxon Mobil and Chevron each fell nearly 4%, victimized by the drop in crude. --More...
Transcript of a speech by Charles Goyette at the Ron Paul Revolution March, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., July 12, 2008
"We gather together as the vanguard of a movement to reclaim our Liberty, Peace, and Prosperity. And we come here to Washington to be seen in a place the world watches." Click Here
Crude-oil prices plunged below $139 a barrel, helping soften losses in the stock market and lift the dollar off record lows against the euro. But anxiety about the health of banks and the economic outlook keep indexes in negative territory.
After lingering around the $145 a barrel mark earlier in the day, crude plunged by over $6 a barrel to trade beneath $139 in New York. Concern that a weaker economy will push down demand for fuels helped start a cascade of selling that gathered steam as trading stops kicked in.
OPEC gave a downbeat outlook for world oil demand ...
The Labor Department reported that soaring costs for gasoline and food pushed inflation at the wholesale level up by a bigger-than-expected 1.8 percent in June, leaving inflation rising over the past year at the fastest pace in more than a quarter-century. Over the past 12 months... More
"We are not talking about market failure.... If you have a housetop you can shout that from, please do so, because the press and the government are going to make every effort to blame private borrowers and lenders for this calamity. But the origin of both these outfits is with federal legislation. They are not market entities. They have long been guaranteed by you and me.
Government-sponsored enterprises are not subject to market discipline like regular private-sector companies. Their securities are listed as government securities, so their risk premiums were not dictated by the free market. They could leverage themselves at 50-, 75-, 100-1, pyramiding debt on a tiny foundation of equity. The financial markets have long believed that the GSEs would be bailed out no matter what. And so this put them in a completely different position from a company like Enron, which the markets watched closely. What's causing the current panic is that the markets have wised up and started evaluating these institutions by market standards. Freddie and Fannie have collapsing market prices, and their bonds are carrying ever-higher risk premiums.
Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread scepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an “amber light” to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times." --TimesOnline
BILL: "WHY NOT GIVE YOUR CONGRESS CRITTERS A CALL AND REGISTER YOUR THOUGHTS WITH THEM."
BOB: "BECAUSE IT WOULD BE LIKE TELLING A ROMAN SENATOR TO STAND UP TO THE EMPEROR!"
Sometimes you should act with faith even if you feel overwhelmed.
Will Stay in Iraq Until He Can Tell Them Apart, Mac Says
"My friends, the Iraqis have divided themselves into these two groups for one reason and one reason only," Sen. McCain told an audience in a retirement village in Scottsdale, Arizona. "They are trying to confuse me."
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.
"The Iranians just don’t get it. What they’re supposed to do in response to the superheated rhetoric coming out of Washington – and the full-scale dress rehearsals for a bombing raid on their country coming out of Israel – is cower, downplay their own military prowess, and hope for the best. But – no. Instead, Tehran is puffing up its chest, issuing hair-raising threats of its own – and even Photoshopping its military arsenal to make it look more fearsome." --Raimondo more...
"Iraq denied on Friday reports claiming the Israeli Air Force has been practicing for a possible attack against Iran in its airspace...
The report, which was also carried by Iranian news outlets, claimed that recently massive IAF overnight presence was detected in several American held airbases..." more...
TAKE AT CLOSE LOOK AT WHAT HE'S BEEN ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH SO FAR!
The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries warned Thursday that oil prices would see an "unlimited" increase in the case of a military conflict involving Iran, because the group's members would be unable to make up the lost production.
END THE NATION-STATE: AND THE VIOLENCE THAT ATTENDS IT
Nevertheless, is it possible that now, in the early part of the 21st century, the idea of secession may soon catch political fire and inspire millions of people to push for political decentralization and dismemberment of the world’s existing nation-states? More...
“We are not a debate society or a protest movement. … our goal is to have a friend in the White House,” executive director Howard Kohr said in a strict tone. It wasn’t hard to imagine things going poorly: Obama gets booed on national television. He feels insulted. Conservative Jewish donors and voters turn off to Obama. He becomes president without their support. AIPAC has no friend in the Oval Office. More...
SECRET WORLD BANK REPORT CONFIRMS BIOFUEL AS CAUSE OF WORLD FOOD CRISIS
According to the London Guardian newspaper which has been given a copy of the suppressed report, the World Bank study was completed in April, well before the June Rome Food Summit, but was deliberately suppressed as "embarrassing to the position of the Bush Administration." A secret study by the World Bank, which reportedly has not been made public on pressure from the Bush Administration, concludes that bio-fuel cultivation in especially the USA and EU are directly responsible for the current explosion in grain and food prices worldwide. The US Government at the recent Rome UN Food Summit claimed that "only 3% of food prices" were due to bio-fuels. The World Bank secret report says that at least 75% of the recent price rises are due to land being removed from agriculture—mainly maize in North America and rapeseed and corn in the EU—in order to grow crops to be burned for vehicle fuel.
"THE HIGHLY SKILLED U.S. WORK FORCE IS BEING GRADUALLY TRANSFORMED INTO THE DOMESTIC SERVICE WORKFORCE CHARACTERISTIC OF THIRD WORLD ECONOMIES"
When manufacturing jobs began leaving the US...
...no-think economists gave their assurances that this was a good thing. Grimy jobs that required little education would be replaced with new high tech service jobs requiring university degrees. The American work force would be elevated. The US would do the innovating, design, engineering, financing and marketing, and poor countries such as China would manufacture the goods that Americans invented. High-tech services were touted as the new source of value-added that would keep the American economy preeminent in the world.
In 1930 melanoma was rare, with a lifetime risk of just one in 1,500 people. Since then, it has grown exponentially, with a lifetime risk in the United States of 1 in 250 in 1980, 1 in 120 in 1987, 1 in 75 by 2000 and 1 in 32 today...
The facts are readily before us. McCain's cherished SPF-30 rating is meaningless when it comes to melanoma....
And McCain's baseball cap won't do either. According to the National Cancer Institute baseball caps are insufficient sun protectors because they "do not fully protect the face, neck, and ears."
As the most well-known melanoma victim of our times, McCain's decision to shun the best sunsmart policies (noted below) sets a very bad example. But John McCain apparently doesn't know, doesn't care, or just doesn't want to draw attention to his disease by donning a showy 4-inch wide brimmed hat for his ongoing public appearances.
We will all be paying for this imperialist misadventure for years to come.
"The slumping US economy, and the crashing US dollar, which is heading towards Peso status as a trash currency, are clearly the direct result of Bush/Cheney policies, aided and abetted by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who have bought the story line that war is good."
IT'S THE PERMANENT PARTY, MADE UP OF R's AND D's! BARACK VOTES FOR BUSH/CHENEY SURVEILLANCE CRIME COVER-UP!
HERE'S THE LAW... WANNA MAKE SUMPIN' OF IT? NO? WE DIDN'T THINK SO!
"A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally -- (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; . . . An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both."
For the Government to invade our communications with no probable cause showing to a court is exactly what the Founders prohibited as clearly as the English language permitted. But today, the Democratic-led Congress -- with the support of both John McCain and Barack Obama -- will cover-up those crimes.
WHAT DO WE GET FOR OUR $625 BILLION DEFENSE SPENDING? 700 BASES IN 130 COUNTRIES... AND NEW ENEMIES EVERYDAY, EVERYWHERE!
A Refresher on America's Military Empire from Chalmers Johnson, 2004
As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize -- or do not want to recognize -- that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire -- an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.
There Are More Obese People In China Than The Entire U.S. Population!
(Bloomberg) -- Waistlines in China are expanding faster than almost anywhere else, with nearly a quarter of residents in the Earth's most populous nation now overweight, according to a study.
The number of obese and overweight people in China, now at 325 million, could double in 20 years, spurring more diabetes and heart disease in what was once one of the world's leanest populations, said Barry Popkin, the study author and a nutrition professor....
The prevalence of hypertension has exploded and every day, China and India are producing more than half of the new cases of diabetes diagnosed daily,'' said Popkin.
"Is the United States heading into a deadly confrontation with Iran? Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, the unsuccessful maverick Republican presidential candidate, warned millions of radio listeners this is now inevitable. He cited House Congressional Resolution 362, lobbied hard by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as a 'Virtual Iran War Resolution'." More...
WHERE DID THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES GET THE POWER TO "ORDER" PRIVATE CITIZENS TO DO ANYTHING?
So much of this comes from the constant fetishizing of the President as the Supreme Leader, "our" Commander-in-Chief, rather than -- as the Constitution explicitly states -- "commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States." In the U.S., private actors don't have government "commanders" who can "order" or "direct" them to do anything.
A TRUTH COMMISSION? WHY? AMERICANS DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TRUTH!
“There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,” Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated abuses in Iraq, declares in a powerful new report on American torture from Physicians for Human Rights. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
... After two Afghan inmates were beaten to death by American soldiers, the American military investigator found that one of the men’s legs had been “pulpified.”
... These abuses happened partly because, for several years after 9/11, many of our national institutions didn’t do their jobs. The Democratic Party rolled over rather than serving as loyal opposition. We in the press were often lap dogs rather than watchdogs, and we let the public down. KRISTOF/NY TIMES
"The Bush administration is even considering using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian targets. "
"Intensifying activity is evident at U.S. bases in Europe and the Gulf, aimed at preparing a massive air blitz that may include repeated attacks on 3,100 targets in Iran. Other sources say Iranian Revolutionary Guard installations will be barraged by cruise missiles. In Washington, Congress, under intense pressure from the Israel lobby, is about to adopt a resolution calling for a naval blockade of Iran, an overt act of war."MORE
"And How to Start Replacing It With Solid Gold." "A credit crisis has been spreading through the economic system. It began with the collapse of the housing bubble, which was the result of years of Federal-Reserve-sponsored credit expansion. This credit expansion poured hundreds of billions of dollars into the purchase of homes largely by sub-prime borrowers who never had a realistic capability of repaying their mortgage debts in the first place. And, not surprisingly, large numbers of them in fact stopped making the payments required by their mortgages." More...
Do Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms? Or is this power vested solely in government? Recent years have seen a sea change in scholarship on the Second Amendment. Beginning in the 1960s, a view emerged that individuals had a “right” to bear arms only in militia service—a limited, "collective" right. But in the late 1980s Dr. Stephen Halbrook and a handful of other scholars began producing an altogether persuasive analysis that changed thinking on the matter, so that today, even in canonical textbooks, bearing arms is acknowledged as an individual right. More...
The War on Terror is much more than a colossal waste. It is the most potent threat Americans face to their liberties and security. With one spectacular blow al-Qaeda managed to exploit the fantasies of a “New American Century” cabal inside the Bush administration and sucker the American people and its leaders into a response that serves its interests. The overstated, but publicly honored, “War on Terror” and the catastrophic invasion of Iraq associated with it rescued the jihadi movement from oblivion by convincing most of the Muslim world that jihadi propaganda about the “infidel Christians and Jews” was actually correct.
New foreclosures almost quadrupled in Los Angeles and doubled in Miami in the second quarter, with as much as $5 billion worth of loans going bad in L.A. alone, the online real estate data company PropertyShark.com reported. More...
Writes Guido Hulsmann: "The former St Louis Fed president, William Poole, now consultant for California-based Merk Investments, made an interesting statement on the Fed policy tradition. In an interview with Germany's # 1 daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Poole stated:
"'In historical perspective inflation is a means to diminish the stress felt by debtors. The policy of the US central bank is construed to create inflation to alleviate that stress. Its monetary policy was, is, and will be "lax" until the economic situation, and the situation of financial firms, will be improved. All in all this will entail an inflationary tendency, even if the latter will entail a bundle of new problems in another three or four more years.'
"Poole here confirms the Austrian interpretation of what central banking is all about: special-interest policy in the short run, with harmful aggregate consequences in the medium and long run. Significantly, Poole made this statement only after he had left the Fed (he quit in March)."
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.67 billion per day since September 28, 2007! Concerned? Then tell Congress and the White House!"
The government owes it's creditors $9,476,433,797,191.22.
Which is to say you owe their creditors$9,476,433,797,191.22.
"In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson asked how, "one generation of men has a right to bind another." He concluded by saying, "No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence."
But contracting debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence is precisely what Americans are doing. In fact, they are contracting debts that increase over the course of their own lifetimes."
"The July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence, one of the defining documents of our nation’s existence, is better thought of as a Declaration of Secession, since the Revolutionary War that it started was a war of secession from the government of England. America was born with an act of secession which, until 1865, was considered to be one our most cherished freedoms." More
"Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, author of the book Chain of Commandand many important articles about the Bush administration’s Iran policy, discusses his new one for The New Yorker magazine..."
What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
Zimbabwe: Expecting a 100 Million Percent Inflation Rate by September!
Where a pint of milk can cost 3 billion dollars! Where millionaires and billionaires struggle to feed their families! Where Robert Mugagbe has just been sworn in for a sixth term! Well, why changes horses...
“As soon as I get it, I have to rush out and spend as much of it as I can,” he says....
In an effort to curb spending, the Government has imposed limits on how much money can be withdrawn from the bank in a day, resulting in long, snaking queues outside every bank in town.
“Just a few weeks ago, 90 per cent of the people in this country had never heard the word billion,” another friend told me. “Now we are wondering what comes after trillion?”
NO REPORTER MAKES $5 MILLION A YEAR... BUT LOTS OF JOURNALISTS DO!
"Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers. The popular media are courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are courtiers. Our pundits and experts are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games. We are being had." More...
Korean War Document “Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions From Air Force Prisoners of War” Provides Inspiration for U.S. Interrogators!
WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners. The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the CIA.
"Which country is the rogue nation? Iraq? Iran? Or the United States?" Syndicated columnist Charley Reese asks this question in a recently published article.
Reese notes that it is the US that routinely commits "acts of aggression around the globe." The US government has no qualms about dropping bombs on civilians whether they be in Serbia, the Middle East, or Africa. It is all in a good cause – our cause.
A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.
Washington Post story: "On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all."
"On Wednesday, May 9th, 2001, over twenty military, intelligence, government, corporate and scientific witnesses came forward at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to establish the reality of UFOs or extraterrestrial vehicles, extraterrestrial life forms, and resulting advanced energy and propulsion technologies. The weight of this first-hand testimony, along with supporting government documentation and other evidence, will establish without any doubt the reality of these phenomena." Check it out.
