“I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable.” — Kurt Hoffman, in his Armed & Safe blog
Out of the entire Internet, the Charles Carroll Society and The Federalist Papers are singled out by the BATFE and US Attorney for their coverage of the immoral and unconstitutional raids conducted by the BATFE against Ares Armor. Why do you think the BATFE and the Obama administration has personally attacked this blog?
In one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, the BATFE, one of the most lawless agencies we have has targeted this small community here on the Charles Carroll Society (CCS). The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), specifically the United States Attorney listed the Charles Carrol Society as the example for their reason not to provide the names of the federal agents who lied to support the novel decision (that means B.S. for the rest of us) to say that an 80% lower is a firearm. Why didn’t they target the Drudge Report? Why not Alex Jones Info War? Those blogs covered the unconstitutional seizure of customer records from Ares Armor. Because those blogs have lawyers and they have very loud voices. Why not Cam at NRA News? They wouldn’t dare. They attack the smallest blogs. Please forward this to the largest voices in the patriot blog-o-sphere and ask them to cover it. Continue reading →
..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...
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.
…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….
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. Continue reading →
… 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
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 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. Continue reading →
I discovered The Shrugging Out Podcast a few months ago. I did not quite know what to make of it, I admit, until I went through and download several of the earlier episodes and listened to them in chronological order.
The site’s author / Podcaster Peter Farron (sp?) is extremely intelligent, sane, analytical and well thought out: The podcasts are obviously well-prepared in advance and – notwithstanding the intro music – an aesthetic pleasure to listen to.
The content of the shows centers on issues relating to self-sufficiency with a philosophical unpinning in libertarianism, and often draws premises from Ayn Rand’s writings. In his shows, however, Farron does not shy away from the less ethereal: He usually address current news issues, his own process of awakening and what he is doing about it in his dynamic transformation from ‘typical’ patriotic conservative to neo-patriotic libertarian survivalist (my half-assed and inadequate label, not his).
All in all, well worth the time and well worth spreading around to those with interests in libertarianism, survivalism and prepping, Ayn rand, current events, politics and the like.
I am through about 60 of his podcasts now, and will post a permalink to the blogroll. GE.
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Activist Post, consider the following…
“Below is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. To see the original source document for each point, just click on the link. As you can see, this list covers most of the country…
1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
10. “Anti-Gay”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
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.
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:
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. Continue reading →
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
… Congratulations Cyprus savers – you were just betrayed by both your politicians, and by Europe – sorry, but you are the “creeping impairments” in the game known as European bankruptcy. And so is anywhere between 6.75% and 9.9% of your money, which you were foolish enough to keep with your banks (where at least you were compensated with a savings yield of… 0%).
More importantly, as of this morning Europe has finally grasped that there is a 6.75% to 9.9% premium to holding physical cash in your mattress rather than having it stored with your local friendly insolvent bank.
Luckily Cyprus is so “small” what just happened there will never happen anywhere else: after all in Europe nobody has ever heard of “setting an example”. Or so the thinking among Europe’s unthinking political elite goes.
And congratulations Europe: just when people almost believed you things are “fixed” you go ahead and prove to the world that you are as dis-unified (because size doesn’t matter in a true union), as confused, as stupid and as broke as ever…via …Saver “Panic”, Frozen Assets, Bank Runs, Broken ATMs | Zero Hedge.
Responding to this ZerHedge article, Ann Barnhardt posted this:
Finance: The Cypriot Confiscation is Terrifying. Posted by Ann Barnhardt – March 16, AD 2013 9:27 PM MST
Yes, it is every bit as bad as it sounds, and worse. Word is that the initial plan was for a 40% (!!!!) levy confiscation of Cypriot bank accounts. They settled for a MERE 6.75% and 9.9% dual-layered compromise.
Yeah, you all need to do what I have been doing for the last several months and live within spitting distance of being overdrawn in your bank accounts. In other words, keep the BARE MINIMUM in the bank and feed your account just enough to cover the bills. As soon as money comes in, get it the heck out of there.
Looks like the IRS may prove to be the least of my worries with regards to levying bank accounts!
This has the potential to spark bank runs in other Southern European nations MERELY BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT IT ACTUALLY HAS HAPPENED. Pray the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese are all watching talent shows or soccer and don’t notice. But if it does, if you have watched my eight-part economic presentation on YouTube, then you understand that we will blow sky-high as the big banks and their tens of trillions of dollars in repos and reverse repos and credit default swaps, many-to-most of which are written on European sovereign debt, blow.
… UPDATE: I agree with various commentators that this is almost certainly a test-run by Brussels to see what the reaction of the Cypriots is. If no one is hanging from light poles by sunset on Tuesday, they will likely move on to Greece and the other Southern European economies, satisfied that the people have been sufficiently conditioned to roll over. Tiny Cyprus, an ISLAND mind you, makes the perfect test lab.
I anticipate that the light poles will remain undecorated. There is no fight left in the men of former Western Civilization; only indifference punctuated by self-loathing. Say goodnight, Gracie.
SHTF doesn’t generally drop by at the best of times. In fact, SHTF thrives and grows exponentially under more adverse circumstances. So, suck it up, put on your boots, and power through it – SHTF doesn’t care and neither can you!
SHTF doesn’t care about inclement weather – snow, hail, tornadoes and hurricanes all just add to the party atmosphere for SHTF.
SHTF doesn’t care that you sprained your ankle, broke your leg or are otherwise less than ambulatory. If you have to bug out without a vehicle, you have to bug out, regardless of your injury status.
SHTF doesn’t care that you decided to start prepping after the trip to Disneyworld (because that trip is expensive) Continue reading →
….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
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….
…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…
… In summary, as a taxpayer, you did not borrow the funds, you did not spend the funds, and you have no moral obligation to repay the funds.
click here for Mises
Rothbard’s recommendation: “I propose, then, a seemingly drastic but actually far less destructive way of paying off the public debt at a single blow: outright debt repudiation.” Repudiation is not only a sound economic solution to our fiscal crisis, but it is also the morally correct solution. Rothbard’s more detailed proposal, which was a “combination of repudiation and privatization,” should be considered a blueprint for an effective debt-reduction plan. As Rothbard argued, such a plan “would go a long way to reducing the tax burden, establishing fiscal soundness, and desocializing the United States.” As an added bonus, default would be as effective, if not more effective, than a balanced budget amendment, in reducing the likelihood of a future re-occurrence of the problem.
But “[i]n order to go this route, however, we first have to rid ourselves of the fallacious mindset that conflates public and private, and that treats government debt as if it were a productive contract between two legitimate property owners.” The commentary by Hummel and Henderson are evidence that some are seriously addressing this issue, alas, after over a 20 year lag….
…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…. Continue reading →
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.
… 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…
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…
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. Continue reading →
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. Continue reading →
“…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
With the latest jobs report, it is now the case that “Under Obama, Food Stamp Growth [Is] 75 Times Greater Than Job Creation,” according to statistics compiled by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. “For Every Person Added to Jobs Rolls Since January 2009, 75 People Added To Food Stamp Rolls.” Here’s a chart detailing the growth:
click to jump to original article at the Weekly Standard Blog
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. Continue reading →
… 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
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? Continue reading →
August 27, 2012. Today I launch a series entitled “The Rot Runs Deep” that examines the moral and financial rot at the core of American finance, politics and culture. We have reached a unique junction of American history: the confluence of Big Lie propaganda, neofeudalism and the worship of false financial gods.
The Federal Reserve is a wealth transfer machine, skimming wealth from the productive many and transferring it to the parasitic few. The Big Lie propaganda machine of corporate media and the Central State has perfected Orwell’s nightmare vision of centralized media and a fascist centralized State which turn lies into self-serving “truth.”
Since the Federal Reserve is once again expected to “save” a crumbling, exploitative Status Quo, let’s use the Fed as an example. The propaganda machine would have us believe that the Federal Reserve, the privately owned central bank of the U.S., has “saved” the Status Quo from financial ruin on numerous occasions by “smoothing out” the business cycle (credit expands and contracts) and by “stimulating aggregate demand” by lowering interest rates and pumping money into the economy (quantitative easing). Continue reading →
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:
Sentinel Group,7th Circuit, MF Global, Corzine, Customer Segregated Funds, banksters, confiscation and usurpation of private funds, corruption and all the sad rest of it.
Overview. The United States government has five interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:
Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels in excess of those seen in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.
It is the most effective way to meet not just current crushing debt levels, but to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.
It creates a lucratively profitable $500 billion a year hidden tax for the benefit of the US government which is not understood by voters or debated in elections.
It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth; and
It is an essential component of political survival and enhanced power for incumbent politicians.In this article we will take a holistic approach to how individual short term, medium and long term pressures all come together to leave the government with effectively no choice but to create a substantial rate of inflation that will steadily destroy the value of the dollar…via FINANCIAL SENSE….
“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.
When President Obama endorsed going back to school shortly after he came into office, very few Americans understood what the full ramifications of this would be. Coupled with the fact that under Obama, the government has taken over the Student Loan industry, millions of Americans have become debt slaves to Uncle Sam.
And to deal with the 30% of student loan debtors who are delinquent in their payments, the government has moved towards stricter ways of getting its money back, and this now includes withholding Social Security payments to worthy recipients… see here
“Governments everywhere are becoming more distressed and desperate as economic realities dominate the political doublespeak. The world is at a dangerous point. Much of what we thought we knew and assumed regarding governmental behavior and economics is beginning to be reassessed. Governments of the world are out of money and out of ideas. The ponzi scam that has been perpetrated for over fifty years is collapsing under its own weight. There are not enough suckers and capital left to sustain the fraud. Let me explain further….” Continue reading →
The chart below is all you need to know about today’s report. Non-seasonally adjusted U-6 surged from 14.3% in May to 15.1% in June. Add that in with the total lack of job creation and the second wave of the “Great” recession appears to be right over the horizon.
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.
Courtesy of Michael Snyder at Activist Post, consider the following…
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.
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. Continue reading 
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.
…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.
“…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
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.
… 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.
… 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
The Grey Enigma 