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Archive for January 2013

OBAMACARE IS COMIN’ TO TOWN — IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family

Barack Obama, Kathleen Sebelius, Nancy Pelosi

President Barack Obama hugs HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after signing the Obamacare law on March 23, 2010. (White House photo/Pete Souza)

(CNSNews.com) – In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says. (emphasis mine)

Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare–after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.

In the new final rules published Wednesday, IRS set in law the rules for implementing the penalty Americans must pay if they fail to obey Obamacare’s mandate to buy insurance.

To help illustrate these rules, the IRS presented examples of different situations families might find themselves in.

In the examples, the IRS assumes that families of five who are uninsured would need to pay an average of $20,000 per year to purchase a Bronze plan in 2016.

Using the conditions laid out in the regulations, the IRS calculates that a family earning $120,000 per year that did not buy insurance would need to pay a “penalty” (a word the IRS still uses despite the Supreme Court ruling that it is in fact a “tax”) of $2,400 in 2016.

For those wondering how clear the IRS’s clarifications of this new “penalty” rule are, here is one of the actual examples the IRS gives:

“Example 3. Family without minimum essential coverage.

“(i) In 2016, Taxpayers H and J are married and file a joint return. H and J have three children: K, age 21, L, age 15, and M, age 10. No member of the family has minimum essential coverage for any month in 2016. H and J’s household income is $120,000. H and J’s applicable filing threshold is $24,000. The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000.

“(ii) For each month in 2016, under paragraphs (b)(2)(ii) and (b)(2)(iii) of this section, the applicable dollar amount is $2,780 (($695 x 3 adults) + (($695/2) x 2 children)). Under paragraph (b)(2)(i) of this section, the flat dollar amount is $2,085 (the lesser of $2,780 and $2,085 ($695 x 3)). Under paragraph (b)(3) of this section, the excess income amount is $2,400 (($120,000 – $24,000) x 0.025). Therefore, under paragraph (b)(1) of this section, the monthly penalty amount is $200 (the greater of $173.75 ($2,085/12) or $200 ($2,400/12)).

“(iii) The sum of the monthly penalty amounts is $2,400 ($200 x 12). The sum of the monthly national average bronze plan premiums is $20,000 ($20,000/12 x 12). Therefore, under paragraph (a) of this section, the shared responsibility payment imposed on H and J for 2016 is $2,400 (the lesser of $2,400 or $20,000).”

Posted in America's slide, Health and Healthcare, Politics
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22 Signs That Barack Obama Is Transforming America Into A Larger Version Of North Korea

North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole where the state rules supreme, the “leader” is lavishly worshipped, no dissent is tolerated, and the government micromanages everything. America is supposed to be the opposite of that, but now Barack Obama is implementing his version of “change” and he has promised to engage in the “remaking” of this nation and to transform it “brick by brick“.

by Michael/via: Archdean

If there is one country in the world that you would not want to live in, it would be North Korea. Unfortunately, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea with each passing day. North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole where the state rules supreme, the “leader” is lavishly worshipped, no dissent is tolerated, and the government micromanages everything. America is supposed to be the opposite of that, but now Barack Obama is implementing his version of “change” and he has promised to engage in the “remaking” of this nation and to transform it “brick by brick“. A tremendous “cult of personality” has been built up around Obama, and under his leadership the U.S. government has become larger and more repressive than ever before. But do we really want to “change” America so that it more closely resembles totalitarian regimes such as North Korea, communist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany? After all, all of those regimes have a nightmarish history of brutality and death. Even today, there are starving North Koreans that are eating their own children. Is that really where we want to end up as a nation?

The truth is that we desperately need to take America in the opposite direction of where Barack Obama is trying to take us. We need a much smaller federal government, a much greater emphasis on freedom and liberty, a return to true free market capitalism, and politicians that are willing to take a low profile and that are actually there to serve the American people.

But what we need and what we are getting are two very different things.

The following are 22 signs that Barack Obama is transforming America into a larger version of North Korea…

#1 Obama has appointed numerous socialists and communists to important positions in his administration. The following are just a few examples that were highlighted in a recent article by John Perazzo…

  • Obama named Van Jones, a longtime revolutionary communist who famously declared that “we [are] gonna change the whole [economic] system,” as his “green jobs czar” in 2009;
  • he appointed Carol Browner, a former “commissioner” of the Socialist International, as his “environment czar”;
  • he appointed John Holdren, who not only views capitalism as a system that is inherently destructive of the environment, but strongly favors the redistribution of wealth, both within the U.S. and across international borders, as his “science czar”;
  • he named Hilda Solis, a former officer of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (the socialist wing of the House of Representatives), as his labor secretary;
  • and he chose Anita Dunn, a woman who has cited Mao Zedong as one of her “favorite political philosophers,” to serve as White House communications director.

#2 As Paul Roderick Gregory demonstrated in an outstanding article for Forbes, Barack Obama’s economic agenda matches the November 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists almost point for point.

#3 If a totalitarian regime is going to be successful, it needs a massive government bureaucracy to run things. Today, the number of employees of the federal government is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States in 1776.

#4 In North Korea, dissent is brutally repressed. In the United States, we have continued to move rapidly in that direction under Barack Obama. In a recent article entitled “Obama’s War On Whistleblowers“, author Stephen Lendman wrote the following…

He said one thing. He did another. As president, he usurped diktat powers. He wages war on truth. He targets whistleblowers. He prioritizes surveillance powers.

They include warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking emails, Internet and cell phone use. It’s done lawlessly to gather secret evidence for prosecutions.

In his book “Necessary Secrets,” Gabriel Schoenfeld said he “presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history – even more so than Nixon.”

Rhetorically he supports civil liberties and transparency. “Such acts of courage and patriotism….should be encouraged rather than stifled,” he said.

At the same time, he betrayed the public trust. He targets free expression and dissent. He pursues police state prosecutions and intimidation.

He claims Justice Department immunity from illegal spying suits. He exceeds the worst of all previous administrations.

His national security state targets activists, political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims, Latino immigrants, lawyers who defend them, whistleblowers, and investigative journalists.

Law Professor Jack Balkin expressed alarm, saying:

“We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimation of a national surveillance state.” Obama exceeded the worst of George Bush.

#5 Under Obama, the United States has been developing “Big Brother” surveillance technologies that dictators of the past never even dreamed were possible. For example, a very highly sophisticated surveillance grid known as “Trapwire” is being installed in major cities and at “high value targets” all over the country. Sadly, the mainstream media has not covered this at all, and most Americans still do not even realize that it exists.

#6 Under Obama, unmanned aerial vehicles are not just used for war anymore. Police departments are now starting to deploy surveillance drones in the skies over their cities all over the nation. In fact, this is something that the federal government is greatly encouraging.

#7 It was the Obama administration that came up with the “See Something, Say Something” campaign. Now the federal government has even created an iPhone app that is designed to encourage all of us to take photos of “suspicious activity” and report our neighbors to the authorities.

#8 It was the Obama administration that first instituted “enhanced pat-downs” by TSA thugs at our airports. As a result, countless numbers of men, women and children have had horrific experiences that they will remember for the rest of their lives. You can read some of their horror stories right here.

#9 The U.S. military now has the authority to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. The Obama administration has no problem with this horrible abuse of power.

#10 A key Obama ally in the U.S House of Representatives, Congressman José Serrano of New York, has introduced a measure that would repeal the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution so that Barack Obama can continue to run for additional terms as president after his second term ends.

#11 The “cult of personality” that has built up around Barack Obama is getting quite ridiculous. Shortly after he won the recent election, actor Jamie Foxx referred to Barack Obama as “our Lord and Savior Barack Obama” during a television broadcast of the 2012 Soul Train Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada. Such “leader worship” would fit in very well in North Korea.

#12 Since Obama won in November, there has been an increasing number of incidences in which Obama has been referred to in religious terms. For example, a recent Newsweek article referred to Barack Obama’s second term as “The Second Coming“.

#13 A painting by artist Michael D’Antuono that is now on display at Boston’s Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery recently made headlines all over the United States. In the painting, Barack Obama is wearing a crown of thorns on his head and his arms are stretched out as if he was being crucified. In the background of the painting is the presidential seal…

#14 Relentless praise from the mainstream media played a huge role in each of Obama’s election victories. The mainstream media is supposed to be objective, but there have been reports of members of the media “swooning” in his presence, and most mainstream news broadcasts leave little doubt that Obama is the “good guy” and anyone opposed to him is the “bad guy”.

#15 The Obama organization has tirelessly gathered data on potential voters. At this point, the amount of information that the Obama campaign has compiled on the American people is absolutely frightening…

If you voted this election season, President Obama almost certainly has a file on you. His vast campaign database includes information on voters’ magazine subscriptions, car registrations, housing values and hunting licenses, along with scores estimating how likely they were to cast ballots for his reelection.

#16 The Communist Party USA is cheering on Barack Obama’s efforts to disarm the American people. According to one of their official publications, “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”

#17 Under Obama, the federal government is intruding in our personal lives like never before. The following example is from a recent RT article…

Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.

The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.

A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

#18 Just as in North Korea, our lives are being increasingly micromanaged by a government that is packed with control freaks. At this point they even are telling us what kind of light bulbs we are allowed to buy.

#19 Federal agencies have become increasingly brutal under Obama. For example, if you milk your cow and sell some of that milk to your neighbor next door, you could end up having your home raided by federal agents.

#20 Obama has gone to great lengths to demonize his opposition. Since he has been president, numerous government papers, studies and reports have been released that identify groups of people that are opposed to Obama as “potential terrorists”. Some of the groups targeted as “potential terrorists” include those that “revere individual liberty”, “conspiracy theorists”, “returning veterans”, anti-abortion activists, those that visit “extremist websites”, those that are “fiercely nationalistic”, those that “believe in the right to bear arms”, anyone that is opposed to illegal immigration, anyone that is anti-UN, and anyone that is “suspicious of centralized federal authority”. For much more on this, please seethis article.

#21 Obama’s abuse of power is not just limited to the United States. The truth is that he has increasingly been acting like some type of imperial ruler that gets to tell everyone else in the world what they are supposed to do. For example, according to a recent WND article Obama has actually promised to give eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians even though Israel has already said that they will agree to no such thing…

Now that he has secured his second term, President Barack Obama has already secretly pledged to the Palestinians he will press Israel into a new round of so-called land-for-peace negotiations, a top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND.

The negotiator said top members of the Obama administration told the Palestinians the U.S. president will renew talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the so-called 1967 borders – meaning in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and, notably, eastern Jerusalem.

#22 Many Obama supporters are becoming enamored with the idea that we should either start ignoring the Constitution or that we should get rid of it entirely. For example, Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidmanrecently appeared on CBS and said the following to the American people…

“I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not.”

Hey, if we got rid of the pesky Constitution, we could have a dictatorship just like North Korea does!

Barack Obama could be our king, our lord and our savior for decades!

Of course I am being sarcastic, but this is the kind of dangerous thinking that leads to tyranny.

Let us learn the hard lessons that history has tried to teach us. We don’t want to go down the same path that North Korea, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and communist China have traveled.

There is an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary that shows what life is like inside North Korea. You can view it on YouTube right here. We don’t want our children and our grandchildren to someday live in a nation like that.

Freedom and liberty are precious things. They are very hard to win, and they are very easy to lose.

Let us not be the generation that loses everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build.

SOURCE: http://investmentwatchblog.com/22-signs-that-barack-obama-is-transforming-america-into-a-larger-version-of-north-korea/#Glx2Jgr2eEszp6JT.99

Posted in America's slide, Constituion, Media, Politics
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Hope Has Changed — It Died

Hope is dying in the US. We are twelve years into this new century and Americans are losing their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Hard reality has crushed the optimistic spirit that once drove the country.

Via: Archdean

The performance of financial markets affects everyone. For savers and investors, these markets represent the means to an improved life, at least as they define it. Savings and wealth provide options and opportunities, the quintessential aspect of being an American. These options and opportunities differentiated an American from someone who was born and destined to die in a hut or remain locked in a societal class from which there was no hope of escape.

Bonds and stocks were the primary means for savings and investments for generations of Americans. When these do not perform up to expectations, lives are changed. Plans and dreams are dashed. College educations, retirements and similar major events are deferred or never happen.

We are twelve years into this new century and Americans are losing their hopes, dreams and aspirations. Hard reality has crushed the optimistic spirit that once drove the country. The first decade rivaled the 1930s in terms of stock market performance. Twice, stock market wealth was halved in this ten-year period. Twelve years in, the S&P 500 has returned a total of 14%. That puny return has not come close to covering the decline in purchasing power of the dollar during the same period. Worse, a generation or two, has lost probably 33% of their wealth-producing years.

College graduates come out of school under-educated and buried in debt. Most cannot find a job commensurate with their education or aspirations. Taxes rise and will accelerate in the future as the federal debt and social promises become more binding. Young people find it difficult to imagine getting out from underneath their student loans or buying a home.

Outcomes in the housing and stock markets have affected millions. Equity in homes has dropped dramatically. Some have lost their homes as a result. Savings and wealth that were reasonably expected based on historical precedents did not materialize.

These outcomes are explained away in terms of markets “underperforming.” To speak of housing and stocks as if they are independent entities that suddenly somehow turn bad is to miss what is really happening. Markets” are nothing more than millions of us making individual decisions intended to improve our lives. Markets do not under or overperform. It is people, the millions of buyers and sellers, that drive markets. When markets “underperform” it is because people have “underperformed” or more properly, bought less common stock or fewer homes.

People are acquisitative by nature, wanting more rather than less. When they “underperform” in terms of purchasing decisions it is because they had to. Unlike the federal government, people cannot print money or spend beyond their means, at least for extended periods of time. Eventually they hit budget constraints. That is what is being reflected in stock prices and home values. They are reflecting the lower standard of living of the country.

The feel-good spending of the prior two decades caught up with the American consumer. He was never as rich as he believed. Now, as a result of having to service this debt binge, he is poorer than he should be. That is why markets are underperforming. That and the fact that fewer people have jobs.

A recent article, “You Haven’t Made Any Money In The Stock Market This Century,” struck a nerve with some readers. Reader Chugar submitted comments that expressed the general sentiment of many (my emboldening added):

I am still in the stock market and hate it daily.

The feeling of it being a wise investment left long ago. I watch the flash crashes, read about HFT, the endless blabber on business shows about “buying opportunities” have grown old.

Since all these talking heads have a vested interest in keeping the game going, if we aren’t buying their products they make no commission or their advertisers are not kept happy. It isn’t hard to figure out.

With that said we are trapped, for my working career I was told, buy and hold, dump money into the 401k/457/ROTH or Traditional IRA. Not to mention an underfunded pension, which may run out of money before I can even draw.

I lost track of firms and brokerage firms over the years who not only had ethical problems but legal problems. So much for confidence in what appears to be a grand scam run by well-dressed crooks.

My local credit is advertising a 3 year CD for 0.7%… Thanks ZIRP and Mr. Bernanke

I was just reminded I never really own my home with a year end property tax bill.

Taxation,user fees, access fees on and on are coming our way to finance a government that will never get enough, whether its local, state or federal.

Its criminal what is taking place in this country.

The frustration and anger is apparent in these comments. It should be. When one thinks about what has happened, it is difficult not to become angry. The stock market is not the problem. It is merely a scorecard that reflects what is happening to the country. Here are but a few of the factors:

  • Freedom as a concept is praised, while government actions designed to reduce it for ordinary citizens continue.
  • Working longer and harder produces less wealth than was possible for your parents.
  • Living standards will be less for your children and grandchildren than they were for you.
  • Leisure (going on the dole) is now a choice unaccompanied by either shame or hardship.
  • Politicians have made dependency a tool to gain votes and power.
  • As freedom decreases, government becomes increasingly more violent in order to achieve the behavior it demands.
  • Laws are enforced selectively in favor of the political class and their cronies. No bigger rape of justice has ever been committed than the unwillingness to prosecute the banksters, regulators and legislators responsible for the looting of taxpayers.
  • Government lies with impunity with respect to the true condition of the country. This behavior is obvious with respect to economic statistics but also spills over into all other areas, like personnel decisions.
  • Cover-ups like “Fast and Furious” and Benghazi are ignored by a corrupt and compliant media. Lesser problems (Watergate) were cause for removing a president in simpler more honest times.
  • Government’s insatiable spending has decimated the private sector economy. Capital and talent increasingly flee to other countries to avoid economic persecution.
  • Eventually this spending will cause much of the economy and all of the government to collapse. Massive debt defaults, impoverishment and social unrest lie ahead.
  • The phrase “government ethics” is little more than a comedian’s tool for generating laughter.
  • The Mafia has far better ethics. It treats its customers better than government. The key word is “customer” which they must attract. Government does not have customers; it has “slaves.” That is how government views private enterprice.
  • Compare the payouts on illegal gambling to those of government sanctioned lotteries for a simple comparison between the two methods of organized crime. You do much better dealing with the Mafia.

The country’s financial condition is deplorable and cannot continue much longer. So, too is virtually everything else the government has touched whether it be education, Amtrak, the post office, Social Security, Medicare, ad nauseum. Nothing government has done has not been a Ponzi scheme dependent upon additional theft from taxpayers to keep going.

The system is now broken. There is no one to blame for this other than government. Despite this obvious conclusion, government is still seen to be a savior by a large proportion of the country.

SOURCE: Originally posted at Monty Pelerin’s World,

Posted in America's slide, Politics, Publius Economy
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WHO RUNS THE WORLD?

The global elite have really hoarded an incredible amount of wealth in these troubled times. The following is from an article on the Huffington Post website…

Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday.

The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts – excluding non-financial assets such as real estate, gold, yachts and racehorses – puts the sum at between $21 and $32 trillion.

The research was carried out for pressure group Tax Justice Network, which campaigns against tax havens, by James Henry, former chief economist at consultants McKinsey & Co.

He used data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations and central banks.

But as I mentioned previously, the global elite just don’t have a lot of money. They also basically own just about every major bank and every major corporation on the entire planet.

According to an outstanding NewScientist article, a study of more than 40,000 transnational corporations conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich discovered that a very small core group of huge banks and giant predator corporations dominate the entire global economic system…

An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

The researchers found that this core group consists of just 147 very tightly knit companies…

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

The following are the top 25 banks and corporations at the heart of this “super-entity”. You will recognize many of the names on the list…

1. Barclays plc
2. Capital Group Companies Inc
3. FMR Corporation
4. AXA
5. State Street Corporation
6. JP Morgan Chase & Co
7. Legal & General Group plc
8. Vanguard Group Inc
9. UBS AG
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc
11. Wellington Management Co LLP
12. Deutsche Bank AG
13. Franklin Resources Inc
14. Credit Suisse Group
15. Walton Enterprises LLC
16. Bank of New York Mellon Corp
17. Natixis
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc
19. T Rowe Price Group Inc
20. Legg Mason Inc
21. Morgan Stanley
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc
23. Northern Trust Corporation
24. Société Générale
25. Bank of America Corporation

The ultra-wealthy elite often hide behind layers and layers of ownership, but the truth is that thanks to interlocking corporate relationships, the elite basically control almost every Fortune 500 corporation.

The amount of power and control that this gives them is hard to describe.

Unfortunately, this same group of people have been running things for a very long time. For example, New York City Mayor John F. Hylan said the following during a speech all the way back in 1922…

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. To depart from mere generalizations, let me say that at the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes.

They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.

These international bankers and Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.

These international bankers created the central banks of the world (including the Federal Reserve), and they use those central banks to get the governments of the world ensnared in endless cycles of debt from which there is no escape. Government debt is a way to “legitimately” take money from all of us, transfer it to the government, and then transfer it into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy.

Today, Barack Obama and almost all members of Congress absolutely refuse to criticize the Fed, but in the past there have been some brave members of Congress that have been willing to take a stand. For example, the following quote is from a speech that Congressman Louis T. McFadden delivered to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 10, 1932…

Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board has cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

Sadly, most Americans still believe that the Federal Reserve is a “federal agency”, but that is simply not correct. The following comes from factcheck.org…

The stockholders in the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks are the privately owned banks that fall under the Federal Reserve System. These include all national banks (chartered by the federal government) and those state-chartered banks that wish to join and meet certain requirements. About 38 percent of the nation’s more than 8,000 banks are members of the system, and thus own the Fed banks.

According to researchers that have looked into the ownership of the big Wall Street banks that dominate the Fed, the same names keep coming up over and over: the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Lazards, the Schiffs and the royal families of Europe.

But ultra-wealthy international bankers have not just done this kind of thing in the United States. Their goal was to create a global financial system that they would dominate and control. Just check out what Georgetown University history professor Carroll Quigley once wrote…

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.

Sadly, most Americans have never even heard of the Bank for International Settlements, but it is at the very heart of the global financial system. The following is from Wikipedia…

As an organization of central banks, the BIS seeks to make monetary policy more predictable and transparent among its 58 member central banks. While monetary policy is determined by each sovereign nation, it is subject to central and private banking scrutiny and potentially to speculation that affects foreign exchange rates and especially the fate of export economies. Failures to keep monetary policy in line with reality and make monetary reforms in time, preferably as a simultaneous policy among all 58 member banks and also involving the International Monetary Fund, have historically led to losses in the billions as banks try to maintain a policy using open market methods that have proven to be based on unrealistic assumptions.

The ultra-wealthy have also played a major role in establishing other important international institutions such as the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. In fact, the land for the United Nations headquarters in New York City was purchased and donated by John D. Rockefeller.

The international bankers are “internationalists” and they are very proud of that fact.

The elite also dominate the education system in the United States. Over the years, the Rockefeller Foundation and other elitist organizations have poured massive amounts of money into Ivy League schools. Today, Ivy League schools are considered to be the standard against which all other colleges and universities in America are measured, and the last four U.S. presidents were educated at Ivy League schools.

The elite also exert a tremendous amount of influence through various secret societies (Skull and Bones, the Freemasons, etc.), through some very powerful think tanks and social clubs (the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the Bohemian Grove, Chatham House, etc.), and through a vast network of charities and non-governmental organizations (the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, etc.).

But for a moment, I want to focus on the power the elite have over the media. In a previous article, I detailed how just six monolithic corporate giants control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. These giant corporations own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites.

Considering the fact that the average American watches 153 hours of television a month, the influence of these six giant corporations should not be underestimated. The following are just some of the media companies that these corporate giants own…

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

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CBS Corporation

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NBC Universal

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And of course the elite own most of our politicians as well. The following is a quote from journalist Lewis Lapham…

“The shaping of the will of Congress and the choosing of the American president has become a privilege reserved to the country’s equestrian classes, a.k.a. the 20% of the population that holds 93% of the wealth, the happy few who run the corporations and the banks, own and operate the news and entertainment media, compose the laws and govern the universities, control the philanthropic foundations, the policy institutes, the casinos, and the sports arenas.”

Have you ever wondered why things never seem to change in Washington D.C. no matter who we vote for?

Well, it is because both parties are owned by the establishment.

It would be nice to think that the American people are in control of who runs things in the U.S., but that is not how it works in the real world.

In the real world, the politician that raises more money wins more than 80 percent of the time in national races.

Our politicians are not stupid – they are going to be very good to the people that can give them the giant piles of money that they need for their campaigns. And the people that can do that are the ultra-wealthy and the giant corporations that the ultra-wealthy control.

Are you starting to get the picture?

There is a reason why the ultra-wealthy are referred to as “the establishment”. They have set up a system that greatly benefits them and that allows them to pull the strings.

So who runs the world?

They do. In fact, they even admit as much.

David Rockefeller wrote the following in his 2003 book entitled “Memoirs”…

“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/super-rich-offshore-havens_n_1692608.html

 

Posted in Education, Publius Economy
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Yellow Bellied Panetta Throws Female Soldiers Under The Tank As He Hits The Exit Door Running

Schlafly: Panetta’s cowardly decision

Via: Hugh S.

Schlafly: Panetta's cowardly decision

By: Phyllis Schlafly 1/29/2013 08:21 AM

In a newsworthy act of political cowardice, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ran through the Pentagon’s exit door as he announced he is striking down the 1994 Combat Exclusion Law. His timing means his successor, presumably Chuck Hagel, will inherit the task of defending the order to assign women to front-line military combat.

Of course, Panetta doesn’t want to be grilled about his order. It’s lacking in common sense and it is toadying to the feminist officers who yearn to be 3- and 4-star generals based on the feminist dogma of gender interchangeability and on their desire to force men into situations to be commanded by feminists.

Panetta’s order may be illegal or even unconstitutional because the authority to make such a radical change was specifically granted to Congress, according to former Defense Department Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz. A constitutional expert, Schmitz held the position of the Defense Department’s top investigator from 2002 to 2005 after 27 years of service in the U.S. Navy, including 5 years of active duty.

Schmitz said the order will surely lead to a “degradation of good order and discipline.” Here are some of the questions Panetta can now avoid being asked.

Will the new policy of women in combat assignments be based on gender norming? That means giving women and men the same tests but scoring them differently; i.e., grading women “A” for the same performance that would give a man a “C,” but clearing both as passing the test on the pretense that equal effort equals equal results.

Please explain how your new women-in-combat policy will be impacted by your policy of “diversity metrics,” which is a fancy name for quotas. In order to create the illusion that your new feminist policy is a success, will men be required to pretend that women are qualified and entitled to career promotions?

Do you really believe that the assignment of women to combat infantry will improve combat readiness? What is your plan for non-deployability rates of women due to pregnancy and complications of sexual misconduct ranging from assault to fraternization?

In order to make the weight-lifting requirement for combat assignments gender neutral, how many pounds will be taken off the test? The gender differences in weight-lifting ability and upper-body strength are well documented.

Will men be expected to conceal female physical deficiencies in order to make the new policy “work”? Will men’s careers be harmed if they report the truth about women’s inability to do the “heavy lifting”?

Military women are already complaining about increased sexual assaults, and of course those problems will skyrocket. Only men will be deemed at fault because it is feminist ideology that men are innately batterers and women are victims.

The military is already plagued with reports of large sex scandals in our current coed army. At the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, 32 instructors allegedly took advantage of their power over 59 recruits, and at least two instructors allegedly had sexual encounters with 10 different recruits.

Do you recognize that the demand for the change in combat exclusion comes only from female officers who want higher rank and pay but not from enlisted women who will bear the burden of the really tough and dangerous work? Where are your surveys of enlisted women’s opinions?

Will assignment to combat jobs be voluntary for women but involuntary for men? Will the military ask women “do you want to go to combat?” but just assign men wherever bloody, fatal fighting is needed?

Will promotions for field commanders depend on their attainment of “diversity metrics” that can be achieved only by creating a “critical mass” of women in infantry battalions? Explain the test of Marines in last year’s tryouts for the Infantry Officer Course where only two women volunteered, one washed out the first day and the other after one week?

How do you answer the fact that women do not have an equal opportunity to survive in combat situations, and did you consider the fact that women in the military get injured at least twice the rate of men? Please explain why the National Football League does not seek diversity or gender equality with female players.

Canada dealt with the problem of creating new standards for the gender integration of combat forces by renaming the process. Canada didn’t create “lower” or even “equal” standards, they just adopted “appropriate” standards. Will the U.S. play word games like that?

Retired Army Major General Robert H. Scales explained in the Washington Post that we know from experience with war that the intimate, deliberate, brutal killing of our country’s enemies is best done by small units or teams of men. Four solid buddy pairings of men led by a sergeant compose a nine-man battle-ready combat squad.

These squads are bound together by the “band of brothers” effect. It is a phrase borrowed from Shakespeare’s Henry V. Centuries of battlefield experience that have taught us that this brotherhood is what causes a young man to risk and even sacrifice his life willingly so his buddies can survive, and that cohesion is a male-only relationship that would be irreparably compromised by including women in the squad.

Combat doesn’t mean merely firing a gun; of course women can do that. Combat doesn’t mean merely getting wounded and dying; of course women can do that. Combat means aggressively seeking out and killing the enemy.

A lot of people have a very sanitized view of what battlefield fighting is all about. They seem to think it means a quick gunfight and then returning to the base with separate shower and toilet facilities and a ready mess hall.

Let’s hear from men who have actually fought in close-combat situations. Ryan Smith, a Marine infantry squad leader in our 2003 invasion of Iraq, described the reality of spending 48 hours in scorching Middle Eastern heat with 25 Marines stuffed in the back of a vehicle designed for 15 dressed in full gear, sitting on each other, without exiting the vehicles for any toilet needs.

I’ll spare you his description of the unsanitary conditions. They went a month without a shower and finally all stood naked to be sprayed off with pressure washers. What kind of men would put women through this?

Panetta won’t have to deal with any of these questions. He left them for his successor and more particularly for the field commanders whose careers will depend on compliance.

SOURCE: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/29/schlaflypanetta-cowardly-decision/

Posted in America's slide, Constituion, Military Issues, Politics
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Everything is “Fine”, Really! Don’t Worry. . . Superbowl is coming

Zimbabwe has just $217 in the bank after paying civil servants last week, Agence France Presse reports.  (AOL news)While the amount is a stunningly low balance for an entire nation, it was somewhat expected.

The African nation has been struggling to recover from hyperinflation that stretches back a decade. In the past few years, flagging diamond exports as well as salary hikes have compounded the nation’s financial woes, according to the Globe and Mail.

The country finds itself in particularly dire straits now as it appears to be short on funding for its upcoming national elections. Zimbabwe is aiming to double exports of diamonds this year but that likely won’t be enough to bail itself out.

“We will be approaching the international community [for financial assistance],” Finance Minister Tendai Biti told the AFP.

Even if the elections are ultimately funded, many fear violence will stand in the way of meaningful change, The Guardian reports.

The idea of a country going broke, of course, isn’t so novel as France, Spain and Greece remain perilously close to bankruptcy due to the Eurozone crisis. Iceland declared bankruptcy in 2008 due to the 2007 credit crisis, while Argentina did so in 2002 after the collapse of its national currency.

Honduras ‘no longer functioning’ after plunging over fiscal cliff
By Alberto Arce,

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Street surveillance cameras in one of the world’s most dangerous cities were turned off last week because Honduras’ government hasn’t paid millions of dollars it owes. The operator that runs them is now threatening to suspend police radio service as well.

Teachers have been demonstrating almost every day because they haven’t been paid in six months, while doctors complain about the shortage of essential medicines, gauze, needles and latex gloves.

This Central American country has been on the brink of bankruptcy for months, as lawmakers put off passing a budget necessary to pay for basic government services. Honduras is also grappling with $5 billion in foreign debt, a figure equivalent to last year’s entire government budget.

 

The world is careening toward an unprecedented wave of defaults the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression.

America, Japan and Great Britain all have very high debt to GDP ratios.  America and Britain approach 100% debt to GDP ratios.   Japan has a more than 200% debt to GDP ratio.   Ireland, Iceland, Greece, Hungary, Lebanon, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Romania and Italy have either already defaulted or look set to default ‘any day now’.  (That would include, “restructuring” their loans, i.e. changing or extending the due date or some other feature of the bond ‘contract’.)  Most countries in the past have defaulted at much lower rates of debt to GDP levels.

Stephen Loeb, Ph.D.

Posted in America's slide, Publius Economy
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New Details On Iranian Nuke Site Explosion

White House denies explosion happened. Trying to cover possible covert action as cause?

by: Reza Kahlili
ahmadinejad32

Sixteen North Koreans, including 14 technicians and two top military officers, are among those trapped after a Jan. 21 explosion destroyed much of Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, a source reveals.

The source who provided the initial information on the explosion at one of Iran’s most important nuclear sites has now provided details about the degree of the destruction.

The report, published exclusively by WND Jan. 24, is being covered internationally by major media, with independent intelligence sources confirming the explosion for the Times of London and the German Die Welt.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday: “We have no information to confirm the allegations in the report and we do not believe the report is credible.”

The short White House response, the source said, is an indication that the U.S. wants to steer away from the subject as any covert operation against the regime’s nuclear installations will have consequences, including retaliation.

Get the inside story in Reza Kahlili’s “A Time To Betray” and learn how the Islamic regime “bought the bomb” in “Atomic Iran.”

The Islamic regime’s media, in a coordinated effort, reflected a similarly short response Sunday night in its denial and remained silent Monday.

A senior researcher and director of the Centre for Arab & Iranian Studies in London, Ali Reza Nourizadeh, who has many contacts in Iran, confirmed that the explosion had trapped many inside.

According WND’s source, a member of the security forces protecting Fordow, 36 North Korean technicians and military officers arrived in Tehran Jan. 15 and 17 and subsequently visited two Iranian nuclear sites under heavy security. One site, still unknown to the West with its vast installation of centrifuges, will be revealed soon by WND. At the other, the Fordow site, the North Koreans were to witness the start-up of six cascades of 174 new-generation, speedier centrifuges.

Hamidreza Zakeri, a former member of the regime’s Intelligence Ministry, said 17 technicians and two military supervisors are stationed at the secret site, and 14 technicians and two military officers were at Fordow.

The source said a log on closed-circuit cameras installed by the regime to monitor the site’s three centrifuge chambers and two highly enriched uranium reserves gave this account:

  • On Jan 21, 14 members of the North Korean team and two military officers now stationed at Fordow along with Iranian scientists started the process of feeding uranium gas into the newly set-up cascades at 9:15 a.m. Tehran time
  • At 10:43 a.m., due to a drop in power pressure, system warning signs went off, but everything went back to normal after two minutes.
  • At 11:36 a.m., five explosions occurred concurrently in the centrifuge chambers, two explosions in the uranium reserve enclosures and a subsequent explosion in the main hallway close to the exit.
  • At the time of the explosions, a very bright red and purple light distorted the image and an extremely loud noise could be heard. Before the explosions knocked out the cameras, interior walls could be seen coming down within the centrifuge chambers. All the explosions seemed to have been initiated from the ceilings.
  • All cameras on the lowest floor (about 300 feet deep under a mountain) and the floor above it (about 250 feet deep) were knocked out, and only two cameras above the installation where security personnel are stationed were working.
  • Security forces immediately informed their superiors, who ordered them to remain in the monitoring room and avoid further communication with the outside world until counterintelligence forces arrived. Twenty-one personnel were gathered in a conference room to await further instruction.
  • Security forces were then told to close down all surrounding roads.
  • Approximately two hours after the explosions, counterintelligence agents arrived and, after interviewing personnel and reviewing tapes, initially concluded that explosives may have been placed in ceiling lamps with some kind of trigger mechanism controlled by a power voltage frequency.
  • The last images show eight personnel in anti-radiation clothing trying desperately to secure one of the rooms.

The regime believes the technology used with the explosives is unknown to their forces, the source said.

Iranian authorities fear that opening the site from the outside in a rescue mission could possibly release radiation and uranium gas or cause further explosions, which could contaminate thousands of people living nearby, the source said.

As of Monday, the regime had not come up with any concrete rescue plan, though more than 200 people remain trapped, including the North Koreans, he said. He added that an agreement reached last September between North Korea and Iran called for further collaboration on Iran’s nuclear bomb project and the arming of missiles with nuclear warheads.

Another source in the Intelligence Ministry said that in a meeting Monday among top officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was decided that the international community would be kept in the dark about the disaster because any validation would undermine current negotiating with the 5+1 world powers.

An admission would also undermine the regime from within should Iranians react to its illicit nuclear activity and the international sanctions it caused, which are being felt deeply.

The source added that the regime is contemplating showing old images of the interior of the site to buy time until it can accurately estimate the extent of damage and possible loss of lives. Ahmadinejad will hold a parliamentary meeting behind closed doors on the issue  Thursday.

Despite severe international pressure and sanctions, Iran had refused to halt the 20-percent uranium enrichment process at Fordow. It takes only weeks to further enrich the stock at the 20-percent level to weaponization grade for a nuclear bomb.

Posted in Media, Middle East, Military Issues, Politics, Radical Islam
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Many Conservatives Don’t Trust Washington On Border Security

 

Senator John McCain said a new immigration plan that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, tighter borders, and a guest worker program is crucial if Republicans are to have any chance at winning back the Hispanic vote they lost badly in the 2012 election.

The problem that establishment politicians of both Parties face in getting conservative support for any immigration reform bill is that, judging by our online poll, conservatives do not trust Washington to actually deliver on the border security elements of any new immigration plan. 80% of those responding to our poll said, “I do not trust Washington to actually deliver on the border security part of such a plan.” 15% said McCain was right, this is about winning Hispanic votes, not enforcing the law.

We asked: “Do you agree with Sen. McCain that immigration reform should be about attracting Hispanic votes, not enforcing the law?”

You answered:

80% said “I do not trust Washington to actually deliver on the border security part of such a plan.”

15% said “McCain is right, this is about attracting Hispanic votes, not enforcing the law.”

5% were undecided

SOURCE: http://www.conservativehq.com/print/11882

Posted in Immigration and Border, Politics, Uncategorized
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THE DISAPPEARING GOLD

By Jeff Thomas
January 28, 2013

During the Cold War, Germany moved much of its gold to New York in case the USSR invaded Germany. It was assumed at that time that the US would be a safer storage location, and of course, they could always ask to have it returned if they wished.

But German citizens have become increasingly worried about the security of the 1,536 tonnes of German gold reputedly held at the Federal Reserve in New York. This has resulted in the Bundesbank pursuing repatriation of the gold, beginning with a request to view it in the basement of the Federal Reserve Building, where it is claimed to reside.

Of course, the German government had received periodic assurances from the Fed that the gold is there; however, the issue began to get a bit sticky recently, when the Fed refused a request for inspection.

The world then raised a collective eyebrow, and, whilst not panicking over this development just yet, closer attention has come to bear, not only on the Fed, but on any institution that is entrusted with the storage of gold for other parties.

Concern spread to Austria, where a question arose in Parliament as to where Austria’s gold is stored. The answer provided was that 80% of it (224.4 tonnes) is in the UK. (It was claimed that the reason for this is that, if a crisis of some kind were to occur, it could be more easily traded from London than from Vienna.)

Seems reasonable enough, except that the return of the gold to Austria, if it were requested, may be a bit difficult, as the gold seems to have been leased out by the UK.

To many, a second eyebrow might go up at this point. Lease out the wealth of another nation? Isn’t this a bit… irresponsible?

The New Gold Shuffle

Not to worry, it’s done all the time. In fact, the practice has been endorsed by none other than Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Fed. The gold is leased to a bullion bank, which typically pays one percent interest to the Fed, with a promise to return it on a specified date. The bullion bank then sells the gold on the open market and uses the proceeds to buy Treasury bonds, which will net a three to four percent return.

The nicest thing about such an arrangement is that the lessor continues to claim it on his balance sheet as a line item: “gold and gold receivables.” After all, an asset that we have leased out is still an asset, even if it has now been sold by the lessee.

In effect, this means that, if you bought a gold bar today, it is possible that it is a bar that was shipped from the Bundesbank to the Federal Reserve decades ago and is presently listed by the Fed on its balance sheet as “gold and gold receivables.”

Both you and the Fed are claiming to possess the same gold bar. The fly in the ointment, of course, is that only one bar can be the actual bar. The other is a receivable and therefore is an asset on paper only. This, of course, means that there is less gold in the world than has been claimed. How much less? That’s anyone’s guess.

The New Risks

But even if it became generally known that the Fed (and others) are holding paper, rather than physical gold, couldn’t we carry on as before? What could go wrong? Here are some immediate possibilities:

  • If there were a dramatic rise in the price of gold and the lessor were to call in the return of the gold by the bullion bank, the bullion bank could easily lose far more than the small two to three percent margin it had been enjoying.
  • If there were a crash in the bond market and hyperinflation set in, the bonds that the bullion bank had purchased could become worthless.
  • If the nations who shipped their gold to London and New York for safekeeping were to request their return, the storage banks could only deliver if they were to purchase gold at the current rate. If that rate were significantly above the rate at which the gold had been leased to the bullion banks, the storage banks would sustain a significant, possibly unsustainable, loss.

That’s quite a bit of risk.

In the present market, there are any number of possible triggers that could cause the people of Germany, Austria, or a host of other nations to demand that their gold be returned home. Indeed, pressure is on the increase. The governments who have shipped out their gold for “safekeeping” would have a lot of explaining to do to their constituents, if the storage banks are not forthcoming.

So, is it time for the odiferous effluvium to hit the fan? Not quite yet. Before that occurs, there will still be some dancing around by the Fed and others.

The Fed has already stated, in so many words, “We’re sorry, but we can’t let you have all your gold at one time, but we’d be prepared to send it to you over a period of years.”

For many observers, the present situation should be well beyond the point of the raised eyebrow. It should be glaringly apparent that the amount of gold presently claimed to be in storage in the world’s banks is, to a greater or lesser extent, overstated.

Continuing the Charade

The Bundesbank should, of course, now say, “I’m afraid that’s not good enough. It’s our gold. We’ve advised you how much of it we want back now, and we must insist that you produce it immediately.”

If they were to take this perfectly logical step and the Fed refused, there could be a run on the banks, and, very possibly, within as short a period as twenty-four hours, a worldwide bank holiday might be declared with regard to gold.

However, this is not what will transpire. Neither logic nor sound banking practices are the object here. The object is to maintain the charade that exists within the banking community. The Bundesbank is just as fearful of a run as the Fed and will be only too willing to accept the Fed’s terms.

What must be borne in mind is the root cause of the request. It was not the Bundesbank itself that originally wanted the transfer to take place; it was the German people who, quite rightly, have become distrustful of the fact that their gold has been in New York for so long and want to see it repatriated. It is not the banks who wish to correct the situation. Not one bank wishes to expose the inappropriate practices of any other bank. Their loyalty is to each other and not to their depositors.

So, is that it? Have we heard the last of this issue? I think not. The cat is out of the bag at this point, and the depositors’ distrust and uncertainty will not be quelled by the counter-offer. Tension will continue to mount amongst depositors, and, at some point, the situation will reach an impasse.

All those who presently have gold in a banking institution would be prudent to keep an eye on the present situation. We might consider taking delivery of any gold we have in a bank, wherever it may be. Regardless of what form it is in, from ETFs to allocated gold, we would do well to assess the degree to which we feel our gold is at risk. In doing so, we may determine that a gold account is more at risk in, say, a New York or London bank than a Swiss bank. (Not all banks will be equal in terms of risk.)

If we do resolve to divest ourselves of bank-related precious metal holdings, it would be prudent to take action soon. (Clearly, those who attempt to remove their wealth the day after a run has occurred tend to do less well than those who attempt to remove their wealth the day before the run.)

We might also consider whether a possible run may become systemic, causing a bank holiday on all the bank’s activities, thus freezing any currency that we may have on deposit. We may conclude that it is prudent to only retain in our bank enough money to allow cheques to clear – an amount sufficient to cover a few months’ expenses.

In the near future, we may well find that a significant amount of gold that is claimed to exist in the world will “disappear.” Whilst we cannot control this eventuality, we may be able to save the gold that is being held in our names from disappearing.

http://www.internationalman.com/global-perspectives/the-disappearing-gold

Posted in Education, Publius Economy
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SUICIDE BY ECONOMIC CRISIS

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO and DOREEN CARVAJAL

Published: April 14, 2012

 TREVISO, Italy — On New Year’s Eve, Antonio Tamiozzo, 53, hanged himself in the warehouse of his construction business near Vicenza, after several debtors did not pay what they owed him.  .

Three weeks earlier, Giovanni Schiavon, 59, a contractor, shot himself in the head at the headquarters of his debt-ridden construction company on the outskirts of Padua. As he faced the bleak prospect of ordering Christmas layoffs at his family firm of two generations, he wrote a last message: “Sorry, I cannot take it anymore.”

The economic downturn that has shaken Europe for the last three years has also swept away the foundations of once-sturdy lives, leading to an alarming spike in suicide rates. Especially in the most fragile nations like Greece, Ireland and Italy, small-business owners and entrepreneurs are increasingly taking their own lives in a phenomenon some European newspapers have started calling “suicide by economic crisis.”

Many, like Mr. Tamiozzo and Mr. Schiavon, have died in obscurity. Others, like the desperate 77-year-old retiree who shot himself outside the Greek Parliament on April 4, have turned their personal despair into dramatic public expressions of anger at the leaders who have failed to soften the blows of the crisis.

A complete picture of the phenomenon across Europe is elusive, as some countries lag in reporting statistics and coroners are loath to classify deaths as suicides, to protect surviving family members. But it is clear that countries on the front line of the economic crisis are suffering the worst, and that suicides among men have increased the most.

In Greece, the suicide rate among men increased more than 24 percent from 2007 to 2009, government statistics show. In Ireland during the same period, suicides among men rose more than 16 percent. In Italy, suicides motivated by economic difficulties have increased 52 percent, to 187 in 2010 — the most recent year for which statistics were available — from 123 in 2005.

Researchers say the trend has intensified this year as government austerity measures took hold and compounded the hardships for many. While suicides often have many complex causes, researchers have found that severe economic stress corresponds to higher suicide rates.

“Financial crisis puts the lives of ordinary people at risk, but much more dangerous is when there are radical cuts to social protection,” said David Stuckler, a sociologist at the University of Cambridge, who led a study published in The Lancet that found a sharp rise in suicides across Europe, particularly in seriously affected countries like Greece and Ireland from 2007 to 2009, years that coincided with the downturn.

“Austerity can turn a crisis into an epidemic,” Mr. Stuckler added.

Veneto, a region that was the engine of Italy’s economic growth in the 1990s, has been especially hard hit. In this part of the country, which includes the cities of Treviso, Vicenza and Padua, more than 30 small-business people have committed suicide in the last three years for reasons tied to their work as the area has been whipsawed by global trends including a drop in industrial orders, competition from China and tight bank credit.

Though the phenomenon has been particularly acute in the region, it has recently spread to Bologna, Catania and Rome.

In Rome this month, Mario Frasacco, 59, whose company made aluminum fixtures, killed himself, much to the shock of Rome’s small-business association, where he had been a board member. Other members were surprised when he suddenly canceled a business trip with them to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, scheduled for May.

“Now, unfortunately, we sadly understand the probable reason why,” Erino Colombi, the association’s president, said in a statement. The association has organized a candlelight vigil on Wednesday to honor the victims of the economic crisis in Rome.

In Ireland, the phenomenon has been linked to what some therapists call Celtic Tiger depression, the period after 2008 characterized by an influx of middle-aged male patients who complained about sleeplessness and a lack of appetite in the aftermath of that nation’s destructive boom-and-bust real estate market.

To search for answers, researchers for the National Suicide Research Foundation in Cork interviewed surviving relatives of 190 people who committed suicide in County Cork during the turbulent period from 2008 to March 2011.

The victims were predominantly men, with an average age of 36. Almost 40 percent were unemployed, and 32 percent worked in construction as plumbers, electricians and plasterers, said Ella Arensman, the foundation’s director of research. Generally, she added, they suffered from a constellation of problems: financial struggles, unemployment, broken relationships and loneliness.

Across Europe, men are the most vulnerable, particularly unmarried men who have weak family and government support, according to Mr. Stuckler, the sociologist. Alcohol abuse is a frequent contributing factor, he said, adding, “It’s really important to have friends and family you can trust in hard times.”

Indeed, during one dark night in his life, George Mordaunt, 44, said he nearly became a statistic. For three years, until 2007, he helped to build up his family’s 30-year-old automobile business in Clonmel, in southern Ireland, adding three new dealerships. Then, in 2008, the crisis struck. Now all that remains is the original family dealership.

Mr. Mordaunt said he considered suicide after a tough-talking banker threatened to seize his home if he did not repay his loans: “Save the sob story. We want our money. If that means taking your family home, we’ll do it,” he recalled being told.

That night, he said, he wandered into his sleeping son’s room, dwelling on the fate of another man he knew who had committed suicide and imagining his own funeral with his children marching behind a hearse.

“How many other people lie awake at night with the same fears?” he asked. “How many people are on the verge of losing everything? Everyone in Ireland must become active in our rescue.

“We don’t communicate and don’t share because we are laced with unreal pride. My view is you become active and stand up to the banks.”

Mr. Mordaunt ultimately founded a counseling service, Insight, offering advice to people seeking to renegotiate bank debt.

Such circumstances are sometimes reversed in Italy, where in some cases it is the government that has not paid its debts to struggling businessmen. National legislation aimed at curbing public spending has caused state and local administrations to rack up billions of dollars in outstanding bills with creditors, putting a squeeze on many small businesses.

“That is the madness of this crisis, that people kill themselves because they haven’t been paid by public institutions,” said Massimo Nardin, a spokesman for the Padua Chamber of Commerce.

On average, government agencies pay their bills within 180 days, but in the public health sector that can stretch to two or three years, one of the worst records in Europe, says Marco Beltrandi, a lawmaker from the Radical Party. He estimated the outstanding credit as between $118.3 billion and $131.5 billion.

“Late payments were always the norm,” Mr. Beltrandi said, “but now it’s gotten out of hand. That’s why the problem has exploded.”

Private creditors are holding back, too. “The problem is the system, no one is paying any more — private, public, it’s all blocked,” said Salvatore Federico, general secretary of the Veneto branch of the Filca Cisl construction workers’ union. “The situation in general is stalled, and my sense is that no one knows how to get out of it.”

 

Posted in Publius Economy, Taxes and Tax Policy
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The Problems Of Women In Combat – From A Female Combat Vet

“The best woman is still no match for the best man, and most of the men she’d be fireman-carrying off the battlefield will be at least 100 lbs heavier than her with their gear on.”

by: Jude Eden

It’s not all about qualification. I’m speaking as a female Marine Iraq war vet who did serve in the combat zone doing entry checkpoint duty in Fallujah, and we worked with the grunts daily for that time. All the branches still have different standards for females and males. Why? Because most women wouldn’t even qualify to be in the military if they didn’t have separate standards. Men and women are different, but those pushing women into combat don’t want to admit that truth. They huff and puff about how women can do whatever men can do, but it just ain’t so. We’re built differently, and it doesn’t matter that one particular woman could best one particular man. The best woman is still no match for the best man, and most of the men she’d be fireman-carrying off the battlefield will be at least 100 lbs heavier than her with their gear on.

Women are often great shooters but can’t run in 50-80 lbs of gear as long, hard, or fast as men. Military training is hard enough on men’s bodies; it’s harder on women’s. And until women stop menstruating, there will always be an uphill battle for staying level and strong at all times. No one wants to talk about the fact that in the days before a woman’s cycle, she loses half her strength, to say nothing of the emotional ups and downs that affect judgment. And how would you like fighting through PMS symptoms while clearing a town or going through a firefight? Then there are the logistics of making all the accommodations for women in the field, from stopping the convoy to pee or because her cycle started to stripping down to get hosed off after having to go into combat with full MOP gear when there’s a biological threat.

This is to say nothing of unit cohesion, which is imperative and paramount, especially in the combat fields. When preparing for battle, the last thing on your mind should be sex; but you put men and women in close quarters together, and human nature is what it is (this is also why the repeal of DADT is so damaging). It doesn’t matter what the rules are. The Navy proved that when they started allowing women on ship. What happened? They were having sex and getting pregnant, ruining unit cohesion (not to mention derailing the operations because they’d have to change course to get them off ship.)

When I deployed, we’d hardly been in the country a few weeks before one of our females had to be sent home because she’d gotten pregnant (nice waste of training, not to mention taxpayer money that paid for it). That’s your military readiness? Our enemies are laughing – “Thanks for giving us another vulnerability, USA!”

Then there are relationships. Whether it’s a consensual relationship, unwanted advances, or sexual assault, they all destroy unit cohesion. No one is talking about the physical and emotional stuff that goes along with men and women together. A good relationship can foment jealousy and the perception of favoritism. A relationship goes sour, and suddenly one loses faith in the very person who may need to drag one off the field of battle. A sexual assault happens, and a woman not only loses faith in her fellows, but may fear them. A vindictive man paints a woman as easy, and she loses the respect of her peers. A vindictive woman wants to destroy a man’s career with a false accusation (yes, folks, this happens too); and it’s poison to the unit. All this happens before the fighting even begins.

Yet another little-discussed issue is that some female military members are leaving their kids behind to advance their careers by deploying. I know of one divorced Marine who left her two sons, one of them autistic, with their grandparents while she deployed. She was wounded on base (not on the front lines) and is a purple heart recipient. What if she’d been killed, leaving behind her special needs child? Glory was more important than motherhood. Another case in my own unit was a married female who became angry when they wouldn’t let both her and her husband deploy at the same time. Career advancement was the greater concern.

I understand the will to fight. I joined the Marines in the hopes of deploying because I believe that fighting jihadists is right. And I care about the women and children in Islamic countries where they are denied their rights, subjugated, mutilated, and murdered with impunity; and where children are molested and raped with impunity (not to mention defending our own freedom against these hate-filled terrorists who want to destroy freedom-loving countries like America.) Joining the Marines was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m glad I got to deploy. It not only allowed me to witness the war, but to witness the problems with women in combat.

Women have many wonderful strengths, and there is certainly a lot of work for women to do in the military. But all the problems that come with men and women working together are compounded in the war zone, destroying the cohesion necessary to fight bloody, hellish war. We are at war; and if we want to win, we have to separate the wheat from the chaff. And the top priority should be military readiness and WINNING wars, not political correctness and artificially imposed “equality” on the military.

SOURCE: http://www.westernjournalism.com/the-problems-of-women-in-combat-from-a-female-combat-vet/

Posted in Military Issues, Politics
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Gun Owners Refuse To Register Under New York Law

After Democrats in New York rammed a sweeping assault on the right to keep and bear arms through the legislature that failed to exempt police officers from the draconian restrictions, gun owners and even some lawmakers are planning what has been dubbed potentially the largest act of civil disobedience in state history.

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According to news reports, gun rights activists are urging everyone to defy far-left Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new registration mandate while daring authorities to “come and take it.”

Analysts say the legislation, passed in a frenzy last week in the wake of the Newtown shooting, represents the most brazen infringement on the right to keep and bear arms anywhere in the nation. Among other points, the so-called SAFE Act seeks to limit magazines to just seven bullets, require virtually all of the estimated one million semi-automatic rifles in the state to be registered with authorities, mandate reporting of patients who express indications that they may have thoughts about hurting themselves or others by doctors, and more.

Aside from being unconstitutional, experts on gun violence also point out that the draconian schemes are a bad idea: Studies have repeatedly shown that more guns lead to less crime, and the phenomenon is obvious across America — just compare Chicago or D.C. to Alaska or Wyoming. The mandated reporting requirements for doctors, meanwhile, have come under fire from across the political spectrum. Whether it will even be possible to enforce the bill, however, remains to be seen.
Preparations are already being made for mass resistance. “I’ve heard from hundreds of people that they’re prepared to defy the law, and that number will be magnified by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, when the registration deadline comes,’’ said President Brian Olesen with American Shooters Supply, among the biggest gun dealers in the state, in an interview with the New York Post.

Even government officials admit that forcing New Yorkers to register their guns will be a tough sell, and they are apparently aware that massive non-compliance will be the order of the day. “Many of these assault-rifle owners aren’t going to register; we realize that,’’ a source in the Cuomo administration told the Post, adding that officials expect “widespread violations” of the new statute.

Threats of imprisoning gun owners for up to a year and confiscating their weapons are already being issued by governor’s office, headed by a rabid anti-Second Amendment extremist who suggested before the bill passed that “confiscation” of all semi-automatic rifles was being considered. If tens or even hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens refuse to comply, however, analysts say New York would either have to start raising taxes and building a lot more prisons, or give up on the scheme that experts say will do nothing to reduce violence and that lawmakers say is aimed at eventual confiscation.

Activists involved in the state-wide boycott against the unconstitutional statute who spoke to the Post almost taunted authorities, saying gun owners would essentially dare authorities to “come and take it away.” According to the paper, leaders of some of the state’s hundreds of gun clubs, dealers, and non-profit organizations, citing the New York Constitution’s guarantee that gun rights “cannot be infringed,” are currently involved in organizing the resistance. Among the primary concerns is that, with registration, authorities would know where to go for confiscation, an idea already proposed openly by Governor Cuomo himself.

“They’re saying, ‘F— the governor! F— Cuomo! We’re not going to register our guns,’ and I think they’re serious. People are not going to do it. People are going to resist,” explained State Rifle and Pistol Association President Tom King, who also serves on the National Rifle Association board of directors. “They’re taking one of our guaranteed civil rights, and they’re taking it away.”

The NRA itself, while saying that it did not participate in organizing resistance to the law, admitted that it was not surprised by the open defiance among gun owners. “I will say this: Historic experience here and in Canada shows that when you try to force gun owners into a registration and licensing system, there’s usually mass opposition and mass noncompliance,” NRA President David Keene told the Post. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for the governor to get mass compliance with this new law.”

Throughout the short discussion on the bill, GOP legislators warned about the prospect of resistance — potentially resulting in violence. Indeed, even some lawmakers have already promised to defy the new unconstitutional statute. Republican state Assemblyman Steve Katz, for example, told his colleagues during the debate that the legislation’s attempt to re-define semi-automatic rifles as banned “assault weapons” creates “a new class of criminals overnight.” However, he also mentioned that he had no intention of complying with the arbitrary seven-bullet maximum demanded under the legislation.

“I leave my wife and three young daughters home alone for days at a time to represent my constituents here,” Katz said on the floor of the Assembly. “Afterwhat happened to the young mother in Loganville, Georgia who defended her two young children against an intruder, this bill will turn me into a criminal because you can bet that before I leave to do the people’s work, there will be more than seven bullets in the magazine of my wife’s firearm.”

He concluded his plea for respecting gun rights with some quotes about the reason for the Second Amendment and New York state’s even more overt prohibition on infringements. The first one he read came from George Washington: “A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”

As in the rest of the United States, law enforcement has also been speaking out about infringements on the right to keep and bear arms — especially after the SAFE Act was rammed through so hastily that, according to analysts, “oops,” police officers are now in violation of the law too. New York sheriffs have become outspoken about the rights of citizens, as well, expressing serious concerns about violations of unalienable rights contained in the new state statute.

“This law has some issues pertaining to the Second Amendment,” explained Putnam County Sheriff Donald Smith, one of many to express reservations about the new rules. “I’m deeply concerned in haste to pass the law, they may have missed the point on some of the mental health issues and are dealing with some ammunition and gun issues and law-enforcement issues.”

Steuben County Sheriff David Cole, meanwhile, released a statement backed by the local police union criticizing the highly controversial statute as well. “These laws will now make it so thousands and thousands of law-abiding citizens, who go to work, pay their taxes, and [are] concerned about their children’s future, will now be considered criminals if they choose to stand up for the Second Amendment rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution,” Sheriff Cole noted, echoing widespread concerns being heard throughout the state.

Ironically, even some anti-gun extremists who openly support lawlessly infringing on unalienable rights have criticized the legislation. The ultra-far-left Center for American Progress, funded by billionaire statist George Soros, for example, complained about the provisions purporting to obligate doctors to report their patients to authorities if they express violent or suicidal thoughts — all in violation of the traditional doctor-patient confidentiality relationship.

Doctors belittled the provision, too, noting that it could discourage people who otherwise would seek help from talking to healthcare providers out of fear that the police could show up at their door and confiscate their weapons. “The people who arguably most need to be in treatment and most need to feel free to talk about these disturbing impulses, may be the ones we make least likely to do so,” Dr. Paul Appelbaum at Columbia University told the Associated Press. Critics say the provision will turn New York into a “psychiatric police state.”

Meanwhile, at the national level, some Democrat lawmakers and President Obama are seeking draconian new gun bans and a wide array of other infringements on the right to keep and bear arms. State governments and sheriffs nationwide, however, are speaking out, working to nullify any assault on gun rights, and if needed, arrest federal officials trying to enforce unconstitutional rules. With the amount of resistance already expressing itself in New York, analysts say attempting similar schemes at the federal level would be literally insane. Still, that does not mean it will not be attempted.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at  anewman@thenewamerican.com

SOURCE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14322-gun-owners-refuse-to-register-under-new-york-law

Posted in America's slide, Constituion, Guns and 2nd Amendment, Politics
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Malicious Software Threatens US Power Plants

DateTuesday, January 22, 2013 at 1:52PM

Contributed by John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com.

America’s energy industry has a new threat – computer malware, an ominous portent for the U.S. power grid. Apparently, in October 2012 a computer malware virus invaded a turbine control system at a U.S. power plant, when a technician “unknowingly” inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks according to a Voice of America report.

The ever vigilant Department of Homeland Security, while reporting the incident, did not identify the plant or the perpetrator, but did inform the U.S. taxpayers that the malware was apparently generated by “criminal software,” which has been previously used to perpetrate financial crimes, including as identity theft, adding that the software was introduced into the facility’s operating software by an employee of a third-party contractor that conducts business with the unnamed utility.

The DHS Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) reported the incident, which occurred in October 2012, along with a second “event” involving a more sophisticated malware software virus. In addition to not identifying the plants involved, a DHS spokesman declined to say where they are located.

The problem may well prove to be the tip of the iceberg, depending on who is behind the attacks, as many U.S. power plants essential infrastructure control systems run Windows XP and the much more elderly Windows 2000, the latter an operating system designed more than a decade ago, which has been notorious for its “bugs” and numerous hastily issued software “patches.” The more elderly Microsoft software programs include “auto run” features which operate by default, making them a prime hacker target because malware can be loaded as soon as a USB is plugged into the system unless operators change the system’s settings.

And, despite the billions of dollars poured into the Department of Homeland Security since 9-11, the malware was discovered according to the “ICS-CERT Monthly Monitor October/November/December 2012” “when an employee asked company IT staff to inspect his USB drive after experiencing intermittent issues with the drive’s operation. The employee routinely used this USB drive for backing up systems configurations within the control environment. When the IT employee inserted the drive into a computer with up-to-date antivirus software, the antivirus software produced three positive hits. Initial analysis caused particular concern when one sample was linked to known sophisticated malware. Following analysis and at the request of the customer, an onsite team was deployed to their facility where the infection occurred.”

For better or worse, malware targeting power plants seems to be a growth area of the 21st century malcontents, whether private or governmental. Since the 2010 emergence of the Stuxnet malware computer virus, used to infiltrate Iran’s civilian nuclear program, apparently designed to target Iranian uranium centrifuges separating out uranium isotopes, malware Internet computer viruses targeting energy facilities have slowly emerged into the world media. Evidence has mounted that the United States and Israel were primarily responsible for Stuxnet. Adding to global anxieties, programming experts believe that hackers may now be copying the covert anarchic technology to develop their own viruses.

How serious a problem might hacking attacks against U.S. power plants become?

According to ICS-CERT, the agency responded to 198 cyber incidents reported by energy companies, public water districts and other infrastructure facilities in the fiscal year ending 30 Sept. 2012 and attacks against the energy sector represented 41 percent of the total number of incidents in fiscal 2012. Something to think about the next time your lights flicker

Posted in Energy, Publius Economy
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