A Veteran Policeman’s Observations on The Golden Horde | SB

James:  A lot has been written warning us of what will happen when the City Dwellers find their homes are untenable and vacate [en masse as The Golden Horde] for “the country”, but I haven’t seen anything on what the make-up of these hordes will be. The generic term “city dwellers” encompasses a lot of territory. Who will they be,what kind of shape will they be in, how will they be armed…all of these need to be examined.One category needs to be examined, I feel, more closely than others. Since I have seen posts on your site lately dealing with the nitty-gritty, unpleasant aspects of prepping, I think this is a needed look into what’s out there. I’ve been a cop over 20 years, my last uniform assignment before moving to Investigator being a two year stretch of Anti-Crime patrols in the Section 8 Housing projects of my city. This put me into contact with some of the “Worst of the Worst” that will be fleeing the cities in time of trouble. Gang-bangers, common street thugs, dope dealers and users, all have a place in the hierarchy of the streets. And they will certainly be part of what preppers will be facing in times of troubles. Here’s some of what I have learned:

The bottom rung is occupied by the drug addicts and users. They exist, not live as we understand the word. They have no assets, no goals, no drive. But they do have an almost animal instinct to continue living. They will be armed with anything they can steal or lay hands on. Most will have a knife of razor box cutter, and some sort of cheap pistol, or they will not live to get out of the city. Since they have no resources or assets, they will be on the edge of starvation and desperation almost within a day of an event. With no fixed residence or place to defend, they will be hitting the road and coming towards us. They will become violent without any provocation and there will be no negotiating or bargaining with them. They don’t want to hear your story or excuses. All they want is what you have. And have no doubts: They will do anything to get what they want. And this does include catering to their most base instincts of rape, murder and mutilation. Letting someone like this even close to you and what you have is flirting with death.

No inflation here folks, just move along | H/T ZeroHedge

click to go to “Why You Feel Poorer” at ZeroHedge

Negative Nominal Interest Rates: Highway to a Cashless, Statist Hell | Barnhardt

Fasten your seat belt, read it all:

..One of the big reasons why I had to move into the “Van Down by the River” was because I simply COULD NOT FUNCTION using cash.  When I was foreclosed upon because I could not provide the bank with a tax return (because I have declared a tax strike), I began investigating possible rental scenarios in preparing to move. Kids, you CANNOT rent an apartment “above the table”, pay the utilities on said apartment, insure a vehicle and scores of other necessary expenses in the former U.S. using cash today. Between IRS liens and mortgage foreclosures, my credit score is destroyed, which also disqualifies above-board rental. If you think that cash controls and the move to outlaw the use of cash is crazy talk, just stop and think about all of the myriad ways that IT IS ALREADY IMPOSSIBLE to pay with cash.  We’re already 75% of the way there...

via Barnhardt | Judica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta..

America Has Ceased to Exist | Doug Casey @ Reason

–

and if you care to sign up and see the ‘Meltdown’ video from Casey Research, it’s here

In Praise of: Red Ice Radio

So I have been listening to some of these shows lately and find them thought provoking, balanced, fair and well outside the mainstream pap shoveled at us.  Sort of like Coast-to-Coast radio but without the delusionas and voices coming out of the toasters and such. Go here and check it out:  http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/nonsubscriber.php  I will add a permalink to the blogroll.  GE.

Guess which empire came to an end today? | SovereignMan

…Like so many great empires that came before, Spain was beset by unsustainable spending, constant warfare, debilitating debt, and an inflated money supply.

By the mid 1500s, the Spanish government was spending 2/3 of its total tax revenue just to pay interest. Spain defaulted on its debt six times in the next century.

It finally came to an end on today’s date in 1643, exactly 371 years ago….

go here-> Guess which empire came to an end today?.

Beware The Social Tipping Point | Doug Casey [via ZeroHedge]

We have often suggested that, if we wish to know what is coming politically, socially, and economically in jurisdictions such as the EU and US, we might have a look at countries like Argentina and Venezuela, as they are in a similar state of near-collapse (for the very same reasons as the EU and US) but are a bit further along in the historical pattern.

Such a bellwether was seen in Argentina recently. Although the event in question is a very minor one, it is an illustration of the social tipping point—the manner in which a government loses control over its people.

Briefly, the events were as follows: Two men on a motorbike cruised a posh neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, seeking opportunities for purse-snatching. The pillion rider dismounted and snatched a purse from a woman. Bystanders saw the act, ran down the thief before he could re-mount the motorbike, and knocked him to the ground. Other onlookers (very possibly fed up with street crime caused by economic hardships) joined in. In a fury, they beat the thief senseless.

A policewoman managed to calm the group and handcuff the thief. Twenty minutes later, police assistance and an ambulance arrived.

Furious neighbours complained bitterly that the police had protected the thief but are generally doing little to protect law-abiding citizens.

NATO “Fact” Sheet Lies About Promises Not To Expand NATO Eastwards

Venezuela issues ID cards to curtail food hoarding | AP

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Battling food shortages, the government is rolling out a new ID system that is either a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle or the most dramatic step yet toward rationing in Venezuela, depending on who is describing it.

President Nicolas Maduro’s administration says the cards to track families’ purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at subsidized prices and then illegally resell them for several times the amount. Critics say it’s another sign the oil-rich Venezuelan economy is headed toward Cuba-style dysfunction.

Registration begins at more than 100 government-run supermarkets across the country Tuesday, and working-class shoppers who sometimes endure hours-long lines at government-run stores to buy groceries at steeply reduced prices are welcoming the plan.

Physical Possession of IRA Precious Metals. No Taxes, No Penalties, No Depositories. | Perpetual Assets

……..        The IRA LLC   I must lead with a caveat here that I am biased to this concept. I am a ‘for profit’ consultant and facilitator of the IRA LLC. This platform has its pros and cons as any other. The upfront cost can range from $1,500 to $3,000 to have an attorney or professional facilitator set one of these up, and the proper setup is crucial. Involved are numerous legal documents, affidavits, and compliance requirements that must be met. Once setup the flexibility is great and the ongoing fee structure is very low, typically $115 to $200 per year. Within the structure the LLC acts as an investment company that is managed by the individual, whom is also the beneficiary of the IRA. As long as there are no prohibited transactions the investor can invest in literally anything except collectibles and life insurance contracts. Many include: investment real estate, bug out property, private placements, oil & gas leases, loans, currencies, Bitcoin, other LLCs, etc. The LLC also adds another layer of protection from potential Govt pillaging of retirement accounts as referenced above.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of the IRA LLC to the Precious Metals investor is that the individual (manager of the LLC) can take physical possession of Gold and Silver Eagle Coins with IRA funds and it is not a taxable distribution. The metal does not have to be held at a depository. For folks that have considered cashing out their IRAs or 401ks thus paying taxes and penalties, this can be a much cheaper alternative to physically holding precious metals. There are no additional IRS reporting requirements, merely an annual dollar asset valuation reported to the custodian…

What a surprise– it turns out they lied about the deficit last year | Sovereign Man

clickie!!

… Despite the Obama administration touting a budget deficit of “only” $680 billion in 2013, the GAO’s more accurate accounting shows a total government cost of $3.8 trillion on total revenue of $2.8 trillion.

In other words– the administration wasn’t exactly honest with the American people– the deficit was more like $1 trillion, not $680 billion.

But it gets worse.

The GAO added up ALL the US government’s assets in 2013. Aircraft carriers. The highway system. Land. Cash and financial assets. The total is $2.97 trillion.  The liabilities, on the other hand, total $19.88 trillion. This includes the official public debt, plus all sorts of IOUs and loan guarantees.

This means the net EQUITY of the US government is -$16.9 trillion [poster note: yes negative folks. GE.]

Moreover, the US government’s cash position is a mere $206 billion… roughly 1.1% of its public debt. This isn’t enough to cover net interest payments for the next year.

Unlike a savvy investor who borrows cheap money to purchase productive assets, the US government borrows money to pay interest.

via Sovereign Man and H/T to ZeroHedge where we saw it first

The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight | Moyers

Everyone knows about the military-industrial complex, which, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned had the potential to “endanger our liberties or democratic process” but have you heard of the “Deep State?”

Mike Lofgren, a former GOP congressional staff member with the powerful House and Senate Budget Committees, joins Bill to talk about what he calls the Deep State, a hybrid of corporate America and the national security state, which is “out of control” and “unconstrained.” In it, Lofgren says, elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. “It is … the red thread that runs through the history of the last three decades. It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,” Lofgren tells Bill.

Lofgren says the Deep State’s heart lies in Washington, DC, but its tentacles reach out to Wall Street, which Lofgren describes as “the ultimate backstop to the whole operation,” Silicon Valley and over 400,000 contractors, private citizens who have top-secret security clearances. Like any other bureaucracy, it’s groupthink that drives the Deep State.

In conjunction with this week’s show, Mike Lofgren has written an exclusive essay, “Anatomy of the Deep State.”

Producer: Gina Kim. Segment Producer: Lena Shemel. Editor: Rob Kuhns. Intro Editor: Sikay Tang.

The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation | Paul Craig Roberts & Dave Kranzler

The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.

Happy Birthday to the Federal Income Tax | Peter Schiff

Celebrating 100 years of your being duped by the central banksters and their crony government.

Why Things Will Get Worse – Much Worse | ZeroHedge

Originally posted at Monty Pelerin’s World blog,

It is easy to be upset about what is happening all around. The economy is being destroyed, deliberately, by insane economic policies. Incentives to work are being eliminated by punishing work. At the same time rewards are increasing for not working. Not surprisingly we get less of what we penalize (work) and more of what we subsidize (non-work).

As an economist I get sick over what I see happening to what was once a great engine of productivity, capital creation and improvements in standards of living.

After two centuries of progress that amazed the world, the conditions necessary for growth and productivity are steadily being removed. Their presence allowed the miracle of America. Their absence guarantees the decline. Carried to extreme, the US could become a second or third-world nation within a few decades. Virtually all changes in the last five to ten years point in this direction and these changes are accelerating.

As pained as the economic retrogression is, the loss of freedom is even more disturbing. It was free markets and free men that made America the dominant economic power and the beacon of freedom. Without freedom, no economic policy can succeed. Yet, just as economic policies seem designed to destroy rather than create, so too does the role of government as steadily destroys freedom with its expanded oppression and power. The absence of freedom is tyranny. The absence of freedom is also poverty.

Economic decline is difficult to convey, although data are useful.

The decline of liberty, however, is not easily quantifiable and even more difficult to communicate. An email from Simon Black, expresses his concern regarding Leviathan government and its increasing oppression. It provides as good a qualitative measure of what is occurring to freedom in this country:

 By now it should be clear to anyone paying attention that most of Western civilization is on a dangerous slide into tyranny.

They’re confiscating funds directly from people’s bank accounts. They’re seizing reporters’ personal records and phone logs. They’re digitally spying on everyone’s emails.

They’ve authorized military detention and drone assassination of their own citizens.

They’re using tax offices to harass political opposition groups.

They tell us what we are allowed to eat and drink, what foods we are allowed to put in our own body.

Think about it. These are Soviet tactics, plain and simple.

What’s more, they don’t even care. They think we’re all idiots who are too stupid to even notice what they’re doing.

In fact, just a few days ago, Barack Obama staunchly defended his policies, saying “you can complain about Big Brother. . . but when you actually look at the details, then I think we’ve struck the right balance.” This is textbook sociopathic behavior: destructive, antisocial conduct and a complete lack of conscience.

Unfortunately this is just the beginning.

Imagine what it will look like in a few more years: trillions of dollars of more debt… more printed currency. More police state tactics. More invasions of privacy. More ridiculous regulations.

Feds Identify 300,000 Americans as Terrorists | Activist Post

Do you hate paying taxes? Are you fighting foreclosure? Do you feel like no one should be allowed to commit violence against you and don’t always blindly follow the commands of the authorities? Do you film encounters with police or believe gold makes better currency than Federal Reserve Notes? Well you might be part of a domestic terrorism movement and not even know it.

On Friday, the Los Angeles Times posted an article attempting to define a domestic terrorist movement consisting of as many as 300,000 Americans. Some are even labeled as non-violent “paper terrorists”.

Is there a more Orwellian term than “non-violent terrorist”?  If you can think of one please share it in the comments below.  They refer to this so-called terror group as “sovereigns, zealots who refuse to recognize government authority in virtually any form.”

When attempting to further define and identify individuals in this movement, some very broad and dangerous stereotypes appear.  “Sovereigns believe U.S. currency has no value but recognize precious metals as valid currency,” wrote the LA Times, much like the US Constitution does.

“A central tenet of the sovereigns movement is that its adherents believe they owe no income taxes,” also much like the Constitution forbids.  What’s more, federal and state law enforcement are being trained that anyone who disobeys their commands falls into this terrorist movement and may pose a violent threat to them.

“Sovereign citizens are more likely not to obey their commands and more likely to commit violence during a traffic stop,” said Detective Rob Finch who’s made a cottage industry of anti-sovereigns police training.  “They refuse to recognize your authority, and that creates a dangerous situation,” Finch emphasized.

The LA Times piece points to a handful of colorful examples of people who defended themselves against police aggression, or who were plain crazy, as to why the movement should be considered violent. But they don’t stop there.  The FBI has even invented a new form of terrorism committed by nonviolent sovereigns called “paper terrorism“.

Even nonviolent sovereigns can cause headaches through what Finch calls “paper terrorism.” Some squat in foreclosed homes and file phony deeds claiming ownership, “paying” with photos of silver dollars.

Who knew fighting foreclosure was a form of terrorism? Paying taxes and mortgages with hand-written notes and photos is just funny, not really a threat to anyone.

However, self-described “sovereign citizen” James Turner faces “a potential maximum prison term of 164 years, a maximum potential fine of $2,350,000, and mandatory restitution” to the state for the nonviolent act of paper terrorism.

A blog for law officers, PoliceOne.com, also tries to help cops identify sovereign citizens, saying they’ll “...likely to be argumentative with police authorities…may attempt to videotape your encounter…may refuse to give you their name or documents…”

To his credit, the article’s author states that the “…Sovereign Citizen movement is not an organized civil or criminal enterprise. It’s a fractured series of loosely affiliated individuals who adhere to anti-government ideologies.”

It should be noted that the Feds and local law enforcement all received these characteristics and tactics from one original source: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC has been on a publicly-funded partisan crusade to demonize so-called right-wing or patriotic extremists.

In 2010, SPLC put together a short documentary about “sovereign citizens” and the threat they supposedly pose. To help identify potential sovereigns, they warn about certain bumper stickers and challenges to authority in a professionally produced propaganda video.  Significantly, the video below has three times as many down-votes on YouTube as up-votes.  Watch it below:

Unbanking vs. Underbanking: How to Break Up with the Financial System | The Organic Prepper

Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it is with a tracking service like a financial institution.  Sometimes you can make a clean break and other times you have to remain “just friends”.

The US government actually has a name for people who have no bank accounts – they call these folks “the unbanked”.  The FDIC defines the unbanked as “those without an account at a bank or other financial institution and are considered to be outside the mainstream for one reason or another.”  Another term is “the underbanked” – “people or businesses that have poor access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. The underbanked can be characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as check cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.”

Time To Plan For The Worst Rather Than Hope For The Best | Alt-Market

Preparation for disaster, whether natural or man-made, should be as vital as any ideal found in the various practices of religion and spiritualism. Preparedness should be treated with reverence, discipline and duty. The drive for preparation should be seated in the very heart of humanity. As individuals and as a society, we should hold preparedness dear, for it is an expression of the desire for survival and the key to maintaining our inherent freedoms. Without self-sufficiency, we set ourselves up for endless failure and enslavement.

Wikileaks Was Just a Preview: We’re Headed for an Even Bigger Showdown Over Secrets | Matt Taibbi

…Still, it seems like an insane amount of pressure to apply, given the other types of crimes (of, say, the HSBC variety) where stiff sentences haven’t even been threatened, much less imposed…..

But in all of these cases, the government pursued maximum punishments and generally took zero-tolerance approaches to plea negotiations. These prosecutions reflected an obvious institutional terror of letting the public see the sausage-factory locked behind the closed doors not only of the state, but of banks and universities and other such institutional pillars of society. As Gibney pointed out in his movie, this is a Wizard of Oz moment, where we are being warned not to look behind the curtain….

via Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

Nova | Ol’ Remus & The Woodpile Report

When you step back and look at the big picture, it really makes one wonder—how big of a piano needs to be dropped on people’s heads before they notice what’s happening?   Simon Black at sovereignman.com

Stars shine for billions of years, fusing one element into another, hydrogen into helium, carbon, neon, oxygen, silicon, until one day fusion into iron begins. There, quietly, at the heart of the star, it’s doom is sealed. Fusion into iron generates no net heat, in fact, it’s a heat sink. There comes those last few seconds when equilibrium is lost, the star can’t support its own weight, the outer shells collapse inward at nearly the speed of light and the star is torn apart in a spectacular cataclysm. When gravity wins, it wins all at once. So it shall be with us.

There are those among us who want what they don’t need and need what they don’t want. Tolerance for this has metamorphosized into entitlement, which for the beneficiary mimics success, and so the core of career consumers has grown large enough to make its own weather and exert its own gravity. Debt on this scale would eventually overwhelm any economy, no matter how robust. Enough is never enough, even if it were a wide-open spigot plumbed to any conceivable source of supply. Fantasies about debt can keep it going for a while, but in the real world no debt has ever gone unpaid, if not by the borrower then by the lender. In the end, historic debt has historic consequences.

The hard road ahead will likely be comparable in its scope and impacts to the harrowing times brought by America’s first three rounds of anacyclosis. To live through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or the Great Depression was not an easy thing; those of my readers who are curious about what might be ahead could probably do worse than to read a good history of one or more of those.   John Greer at resilience.org

Monthly Inflation 1872-2013: BLS vs. ShadowStats | TMO

Why 20-Somethings Aren’t Doomed to Be Poor but 30-Somethings Might Be | The Atlantic

As we’re all too aware by now, it’s been a raw decade for young Americans. The job market still has a giant, recession-shaped crater in it. A college degree is more expensive yet more essential than ever. Wages are stagnant.

All of this adds up to a single sad possibility, according to the New York Times’ Annie Lowrey: Today’s twenty- and thirty-somethings may never end up as rich and financially secure as their parents. Lowrey’s story points to a recent study by the Urban institute, which suggests that Americans under forty, financially wracked by student debt and the housing bust, have saved up much less wealth than the generations before them. Because wealth compounds over time, there’s a strong chance they won’t ever catch up.

An Orwellian America | Zero Hedge

….ORWELL’S 1984 IS HAPPENING.  We are one crisis away from a police state. All the powers are in place. Someone will flip the switch. Whether a Cyber Attack, escalating Currency War tensions or a ‘terrorist’ attack by indebted college youth, it is only a matter of time and circumstance.

click the pic to read the entire dsytopic tonic on this topic at ZeroHedge

via An Orwellian America | Zero Hedge.

US Daily Index: The Billion Prices Project at MIT

US Daily Index.  These indexes are designed to provide real-time information on major inflation trends, not to forecast official inflation announcements. We are constantly adding new categories of goods, but we do not cover 100% of CPI goods and services. The price of services, in particular, are not easy to find online and therefore are not included in our statistics….

US Unemployment Rates Adjusted For a Constant Labor Participation Rate | Jesse’s Cafe’ Americain

via Jesse’s Café Américain

Dow is down 11% since 2000 adjusting for inflation… the stock market and the impact of inflation. | MyBudget 360

…Inflation doesn’t matter.  Food stamps are a sign of prosperity.  Down is up.  Orwell would be proud of our financial press….

Click to go to original article at My Budget 360

The Dow has now reached a new peak. The media is prancing up and down like a giddy school girl as if this had a significant impact on the bottom line for most Americans. Don’t let the details out that many companies have increased their bottom line by squeezing wages and cutting worker benefits. Yet the mainstream press can’t even get one thing straight with inflation. The Dow is actually down 11 percent from where it was in 2000 adjusting for inflation. After all, a dollar is only worth as much as it can purchase in the economy. The US dollar has been hit over this period as well. Real household wages are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s. So the Dow “peak” is really more symbolic and many Americans realize this. Let us take a look at where the stock market stands today through the lens of inflation.

Inflation erodes stock gains.   The Dow really isn’t the best indicator of overall stock performance since it only follows a small number of companies. These are handpicked companies and the track record isn’t perfect. After all, they even had AIG and Citigroup until a few years ago. A better measure would be the S&P 500. The S&P 500 adjusting for inflation is down in real terms about 26 percent from the peak reached in 2000… via My Budget360…

Beppe Grillo about money – stand up show 1998 – English / Deutsch subtitles

H/T Liberty Blitzkrieg

Mandatory Reading for 3/5/13 – The Woodpile Report

Go here, right now, and read it all. That’s an order.

MUST READ: 10 Reasons Why You Have to Quit Your Job This Year | Altucher Confidential

…You can’t make money without selling something real. You can’t make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can’t have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.

And now it’s too late. Now the course of history has finally written it’s next chapter. There’s no more bullshit. I’m going to tell you why you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof… via Altucher Confidential.

Inflation Since The American Revolution | Zero Hedge

As is clear by this chart, inflation was virtually unheard of until the Creature from Jekyll Island the Federal Reserve took over. However, more importantly, things didn’t really start to get bad until the 1970?s right after Nixon took the nation off the gold standard in 1971. Since that time, America has seen a period of non-existent real wage growth and a huge gap grow between the rich and the poor ever since. Nothing like livin’ the debt slave dream!

via Guest Post: Inflation Since The American Revolution | Zero Hedge.

If anybody attacks Iran it will be full-fledged World War III | Gerald Celente

via USA Watchdog Dec 31, 2012

Fascist America and Forming a New Conservative Party | USA WethePeople

…Our nation has entered into the last stages of fascism. Both parties have supported this path since Hoover and FDR of the 1930s, both parties are guilty. The only way to avoid a repeat of Germany 1933-45 is to go all out to defeat fascism here in America by any means necessary.

That means renouncing the programs that transfer power to the federal government such as social security, Medicare, education, transportation, and banking regulations, everything that allows centralized planning needs to be opposed. This means conservatives have to stop giving capitalism lip service and embrace the free enterprise system.

We need to understand government produces nothing; they can only create poverty, death, and destruction….

“Significant Resistance”: A Call to Action | Market Ticker

President Obama has said that his push to effectively delete the Second Amendment will face “significant resistance.” It is time to show him and those in Congress how much resistance there is for any sort of additional gun bans and/or registration requirements in a peaceful and lawful manner.  Print copies of this and dispatch them to your Congresspeople, The White House, and staple them to telephone poles and other locations across the country.

Doug Casey on the Morality of Money | The Market Oracle

… Louis: People say money makes the world go around, and they are right. Or as I tell my students, there are two basic ways to motivate and coordinate human behavior on a large scale: coercion and persuasion. Government is the human institution based on coercion. The market is the one based on persuasion. Individuals can sometimes persuade others to do things for love, charity, or other reasons, but to coordinate voluntary cooperation society-wide, you need the price system of a profit-driven market economy.

Doug Casey: And that’s why it doesn’t matter how smart or well-intended politicians may be. Political solutions are always detrimental to society over the long run, because they are based on coercion. If governments lacked the power to compel obedience, they would cease to be governments. No matter how liberal, there’s always a point at which it comes down to force – especially if anyone tries to opt out and live by their own rules.

Even if people try that in the most peaceful and harmonious way with regard to their neighbors, the state cannot allow separatists to secede. The moment the state grants that right, every different religious, political, social, or even artistic group might move to form its own enclave, and the state disintegrates. That’s wonderful – for everybody but the parasites who rely on the state (which is why secession movements always become violent).

I’m actually mystified at why most people not only just tolerate the state but seem to love it. They’re enthusiastic about it. Sometimes that makes me pessimistic about the future…

via Doug Casey on the Morality of Money :: The Market Oracle

What Does It Mean To “Prepare For The Economic Collapse” | Alt-Market

click here to go to Alt-Market

Note: This article was written by Daisy Luther and originally published at The Organic Prepper.

Last week I wrote an article in response to the media’s vilification of preppers in the aftermath of the horrible tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. The article was quoted in an article on Yahoo.com, to my great astonishment, and that is when I saw how little most people understand about prepping. You can see in most of the 4492 comments the article received that many folks just don’t “get it”.

My inbox was filled with a barrage of hate mail and a number of people felt compelled to leave angry and rather ignorant comments on my website. I got messages from people that called me “batshit crazy”, messages from gun control advocates, messages from people who directly blamed me and all other preppers for the massacre, and even one particularly hate-filled email from a person who said “I hope that your kids are killed at the next school shooting.”All of this leads me to reconfirm my belief that people sincerely do not understand why we do what we do, and that ignorance leads to fear.

People fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer. — Andrew Smith…

Doug Casey: The US Is Now The United (Police) State Of America | ZeroHedge

click here to jump to Zero Hedge

…the US Constitution was essentially a coup; the delegates to what we now call the Constitutional Convention were not empowered to replace the existing government – only to improve upon the Articles of Confederation between the then-independent states.  The framers of the Constitution drafted it with the notion of a national government already in place, but calmed fears of loss of state sovereignty by calling the new government the “United States of America” – a verbal sleight of hand that worked for over half a century.  Then the southern states decided to exercise what these words imply, their right to leave the union… and as the government becomes more powerful, it’s completely predictable that everything – including the justice system – will become ever more politicized… As great as a US citizen’s risk is in the marketplace these days, the greatest single risk to their wealth and health is the government... via ZeroHedge

A front row seat for the ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiation show…

You are here.

The Growth of Homeland Security’s Domestic Intelligence Enterprise | Public Intelligence

The Department of Homeland Security’s production of domestic intelligence has increased substantially over the last few years according to a brochure of “intelligence products” published last month by Cryptome. The 2012 DHS Intelligence Enterprise Product Line Brochure is “a standardized catalogue of intelligence reports and products that represent the full breadth” of the agency’s analytical capabilities. It provides descriptions of each type of product created by the DHS Intelligence Enterprise as well as the classification level and instructions on how DHS “customers” can obtain the products.

Insolvency | Ol’ remus and the Woodpile Report

A business enterprise is solvent when its operations are supported by its after-tax cash flow. Should cash flow be temporarily insufficient, borrowing against accounts receivable is the classic remedy. With serial borrowing however, operations-plus-debt-service eventually becomes unsupportable by cash flow, real or anticipated. Creditors withdraw when they see this, it’s insolvency or near enough. The business closes, its assets are liquidated and the proceeds distributed among its creditors. This is what’s happening to the US, aside from the liquidation part. Debt repudiation by inflation—watering down the currency—holds such comeuppance at bay, at least for a while.

Your birth certificate is your debt certificate | You Tube posts

GE Note: I have heard this meme (birth certificates as proxy certificate for collateralized chattel) for many years and, frankly, do not follow it closely.  It is worth considering, worth investigating further… please comment back if know or believe one way or the other. GE.

and here…

Uploaded on Oct 17, 2010

Here’s where the treason and subversion begins. At our innocent birth. We are ALL born into slavery. I don’t care if you’re Bill Gates, or the corner bum. If you were registered at birth and were given a birth certificate- you are human chattel to whatever state you were born, and to the UNited States, Inc.

Chris Duane: Be A Blessing To Your Fellow Man, Not A Burden | Silver For The People

“…Just like we are presented with the illusion of choice every four years, we’re also given various movements that appear to be supporting real change but in reality are supporting the status quo. Therefore, real successionism [sic] starts with the individual… ” via Silver For The People

Gerald Celente 2013 Prediction – WW3, Currency Wars, Unemployment, Depression

Project censored top 10: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories underreported by the mainstream media | Boulder Weekly

Project censored: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories under-reported by the mainstream media, By Yael Chanoff – Thursday, October 11,2012

People who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election. But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s overreaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

Must Listen: Ann Banhardt on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report | Blog Talk Radio

Ann Banhardt on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, Sept 24, 2012.

Wobbly audio quality in parts of first half, but worth the perseverance.

I love Ann, I do, but she tends to the dramatic in her presentation. The facts she lays out are, however, stark and I fear on the money.  Go here for Ann’s site and her youtube channel

Disposable Personal Income 2000-2012 (w/ and w/o inflation)

Some Of The Really Bad Things That Could Happen If You Do Not Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse

… none of our “experts” really know what they are doing, and they are definitely not looking out for our best interests. The blind are leading the blind and we all need to finally admit that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Unfortunately, most Americans will repeat the mantra of “if that was true I would have heard about it on the news” until it is way too late. Most people are waiting for the “authorities” to tell them what to do instead of thinking for themselves… via SHTFPlan.

and here too:

… Once people understand that the economy has been collapsing and will continue to collapse, then the next step for most of them is that they want to get prepared for the storm that is coming.  So where should someone get started?  Well, the truth is that no two people are facing the exact same set of circumstances, so preparation is going to look different for each individual.  But there are certain core principles that we can all benefit from… via Economic Collapse Blog

25 Questions about What the Hell has Happened to America | Townhall

When did…

1) ….Educated people become so unfamiliar with small business that they began to believe that a company will practically build itself as long as the government provides roads, street signs, and police?

2) …Freedom change from something we should all be seeking to something we’re supposed to be terrified to face without the government holding our hands?

3) …We stop asking, “Can we afford this?” along with “Is this a good idea?” when it comes to government programs?

Guest Post: Shhhh… It’s Even Worse Than The Great Depression | ZeroHedge

Velocity of money is the frequency with which a unit of money is spent on new goods and services. It is a far better indicator of economic activity than GDP, consumer prices, the stock market, or sales of men’s underwear which Greenspan was fond of ogling. In a healthy economy, the same dollar is collected as payment and subsequently spent many times over. In a depression, the velocity of money goes catatonic. Velocity of money is calculated by simply dividing GDP by a given money supply. This VoM chart using monetary base should end any discussion of what ”this” is and whether or not anybody should be using the word “recovery” with a straight face:

via ZeroHedge.

People Now Pay In More To Social Security Than They Take In Payouts | Libertarian News

“For the early generations, it was an incredibly good deal,” said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy Social Security commissioner who is now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “The government gave you free money and getting free money is popular.”

If you retired in 1960, you could expect to get back seven times more in benefits than you paid in Social Security taxes, and more if you were a low-income worker, as long you made it to age 78 for men and 81 for women.

As recently as 1985, workers at every income level could retire and expect to get more in benefits than they paid in Social Security taxes, though they didn’t do quite as well as their parents and grandparents.

Not anymore.

via People Now Pay In More To Social Security Than They Take In Payouts | Libertarian News.

The CBO Just Rendered Its Verdict On The Cost Of Obamacare, And It Isn’t Pretty | Forbes

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just rendered its latest opinion on the cost of Obamacare following the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold most of the law back in June.  The numbers aren’t pretty. Despite breathless media reports of additional “savings,” the government’s bean counters actually exposed several flaws in the law that will, in the long term, lead to higher costs and reduced access to insurance coverage.