Drug Laws, Obamacare, & Prescription Drug Abuse: What You’re Not Being Told, by Alice Salles

STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC

US health care law is creating an incentive for physicians to prescribe drugs, particulary opiates, that are often abused. From Alice Salles at theantimedia.org:

(ANTIMEDIA) A report released recently by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows one in every 20 Americans misused prescription painkillers last year. This discovery is particularly relevant because the drug war, combined with changes to U.S. health care law, may have helped exacerbate the so-called opioid epidemic.

In 2015, an estimated 119 million Americans older than 12 used prescription psychotherapeutic drugs — a term used in the SAMHSA report to refer to “pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives,” though pain relievers were the most commonly used.

Researchers used that estimate, along with the data gathered from 68,000 surveys to produce the report. According to the report, “[a]ll estimates (e.g., percentages and numbers) presented in the report are derived from NSDUH [National Survey…

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Mapping An ISIS Advance: Syria On The Brink | ZeroHedge

Recently, calls for US ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria have gotten louder after ISIS captured a UNESCO World Heritage site in Syria, overran Ramadi in Iraq, and took credit for a suicide bombing in a Saudi mosque.

The US is now reportedly looking at its options including sending so-called “spotters” to Iraq who will help to make US airstrikes more effective and meanwhile, uber hawks like Senator John McCain (who has himself had a bit of trouble shaking rumors that he was once photographed with the same ISIS forces he now wants to annihilate) saying that as many as 10,000 US troops are necessary to turn the tide. From Bloomberg…

Go here to Zero Hedge for the post, but don’t miss what may be the best comment on the article where ‘Paveway IV’ opines:

…Put 10,000 U.S. troops on the ground, which Syrians will absolutely fucking 100% hate. McCain forgets that even people on the rebel FSA side hate the U.S. now. This must be the new Pentagon requirement for troop deployment: wait until the people on the ground absolutely despise the U.S., are completely unwilling to cooperate and ignore U.S. pleas to return to territory the U.S. wasted U.S. soldier’s lives to conquer.

Locals always know how U.S. intervention ends: the locals are disarmed by the U.S. and defenseless, the U.S. has destroyed their homes and infrastructure, and whoever the U.S. was ‘fighting’ is just going to wait until the Americans leave and then come back and butcher anyone left. The U.S. may ‘hire’ a couple local thugs or petty criminals to act as police, but they will only extort money from the locals and will 100% flee at the sight of any kind of enemy.

The ONLY people in Syria that like the U.S. are the people that get radios, rifle scopes and arms from the U.S.: the rest of the failing FSA, al Nusra and ISIS. I guess we did send the Kurds a few token arms, but that was kind of a wash – the steerable parachutes with the German grenades all managed to fly directly into the ISIS compound er, by mistake I guess. Damn!

Dear McCain: Even a geriatric psychopath like you should be able to understand the futility of stirring up an Arab Spring ethnic cleansing campaign in Syria, killing three-quarters of a million CIVILIANS and funding a fake ‘rebellion’ whose soldiers almost wihtout exception have joined the al Nusra or ISIS head-choppers (and taken their U.S. equipment and TOW-2A’s with them). U.S. soldiers will die by the weapons and TOWs YOU sent to the fake FSA, remember? There will be several hundred more that come back with out arms and legs because YOU sent TONS AND TONS of RDX and ammonium nitrate to the rebels (who are now al Nusra or ISIS) through Turkey. All those expolsives will be used for car bombs and IEDs against American troops.

You launched a coup attempt against Assad and it failed miserably because you could only find psychopaths to serve as rebels. Don’t try to remedy the situation now by sending in our sons and daughters to clean up YOUR FUCKING MESS, you treasonous old bastard. If the Syrians want to ressurect Hitler from the dead and elect him president, then it’s NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS. The Syrians hate our fucking guts – we have destroyed their country for Israel and Qatar and have made around ten million of them homeless and destitute. All of this for oil and gas pipelines for two of the most evil and corrupt nations on earth: Israel and Qatar.

If there is a God in heaven, then there is a wood-chipper SOMEWHERE on earth with your name on it. With any luck, you guys in Washington D.C. still have the one that you used to shred the U.S. constitution. I’m not advocating anyone using violence against you in the least – I’m simply imploring YOU to do the right thing for God and country – just this once.

Do it now, John – the feed cog is calling… It’s calling out to you: “John… oh, John… come closer… I’ll make the pain of your treason go away… You’ll be free at last… Come on John, I know you can hear me… step inside and the wood-chipper will forgive your genocide… it won’t judge you – it’s not your fault… your citizens can’t understand you in the special way a wood-chipper can… step into the feed cogs and let me embrace you, John”

Ditto Paveway IV, ditto.

Red Cross: How We Spent Sandy Money Is a ‘Trade Secret’ | ProPublica

The charity is fighting our public records request for information on how it raised and spent money after the superstorm.

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.

As we’ve reported, the Red Cross releases few details about how it spends money after big disasters. That makes it difficult to figure out whether donor dollars are well spent.

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

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.

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…

Planting the Seeds for a Cashless Society…

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

A System Doomed To Fail | Zero Hedge

In the broadest sense, there are three types of systems in the world.

The first are simple systems which are characterized by only a few variables or agents, and which can be described by perhaps a handful of equations (or even one).

The second are systems which are characterized by disorganized complexity. These may consist of huge numbers of agents or variables, and their interactions cannot be described by simple equations; yet the overall system is well-described statistically through averages and can be described as being stochastic. Such systems are typically characterized by a stable equilibrium, provided there are no external shocks to the system. They are incapable of generating internal shocks or surprises. For example, you might consider the distribution of air molecules in a room. You may not be able to predict the motion of any particular air molecule, but you can be reasonable certain that the global population won’t do anything unexpected (like all move into one side of the room leaving a vacuum on the other side).

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.

More Bad News from Government-Run Education: The Corrosive Centralization of Common Core

International Liberty

I’ve posted hundreds of charts over the past several years, including on favorite topics such as tax code corruption and counterproductive government spending.

But arguably the most powerful and compelling chart I’ve ever shared is on the topic of education. Prepared by my Cato colleague, Andrew Coulson, it shows that massive increases in spending and bureaucracy (which accompanied increasing federal involvement and intervention) have had zero impact on educational performance.

Keep that chart in the back of your mind as we consider what George Will has to say about President Obama’s scheme – known as Common Core – to expand federal involvement and intervention.

We have several excerpts, beginning with this passage outlining some of his concerns.

Common Core…is the thin end of an enormous wedge. It is designed to advance in primary and secondary education the general progressive agenda of centralization and uniformity. …proponents of the Common Core want its…

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Your Future: “We Are Now at a Point Where the Crisis Will Happen Almost Overnight” *Micro Doc*

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.”

Moneyless Man: Author Lives Without Money For Three Years

interview with Mark Boyle ‘The Moneyless Man’. Mark is an author and has lived without money for 3 years. They talk about the predictably collapsing money system which is literally killing people and the planet, being based on debt, short term greed and fear.  They also talk about the urgency and emergency that people find a way to live without money and find a more sustainable way of living and being on the planet, before the negative consequences of decisions and actions made now become too overwhelming to reverse in the near future.

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

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

H/T Liberty Blitzkrieg

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….

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

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

You are here.

Why We Fight (A Film By Eugene Jarecki)

hat tip: The Invisible Opportunity: Hidden Truths Revealed blog

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.

Guess what they’re NOT cutting in the Fiscal Cliff | Simon Black

… I’ve spent days analyzing the bill… and frankly, it’s a joke. You can read the 200+ pages yourself if you like, but here are the important points–

As we’ve discussed before, US government spending falls into three categories.

1. Discretionary spending is what we normally think of as ‘government.’ It funds everything from the military to Homeland Security to the national parks.

2. Mandatory spending covers all the major entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Then there’s (3.) interest on the debt, which is so large they had to make it a special category.

The latter two categories are spent automatically, just like your mortgage payment that gets sucked out of the bank account before you have a chance to spend it. The only thing Congress has a say over is Discretionary Spending. Hence the name.

But here’s the problem– the US fiscal situation is so untenable that the government fails to collect enough tax revenue to cover mandatory spending and debt interest. In Fiscal Year 2011, for example, the US government spent $176 billion MORE on debt interest and mandatory spending than they generated in tax revenue.

In Fiscal Year 2012, which just ended 6 weeks ago, that shortfall increased to $251 billion. This means that they could cut the ENTIRE discretionary budget and still be in the hole by $251 billion.

This is why the Fiscal Cliff is irrelevant. The automatic cuts that are going to take place don’t even begin to address the actual problem; they’re cutting $110 billion from the discretionary budget… yet only $16.9 billion from the mandatory budget.

Given that the entire problem is with mandatory spending, slashing the discretionary budget is pointless. It’s as if the US economy is a speeding train heading towards a ravine at 200 mph, and the conductors are arguing about whether they should slow down to 150 or 175.

Oh, and there’s just one more problem…  go here

Five Reasons Why the Government Is Destroying the Dollar | Financial Sense

Overview. The United States government has five interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth; and
5. 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….

The U.S. Retail Collapse Accelerates | Jeff Nielsen, BBCanada

…We see two things in the chart above on average American wages. First we see how (in real dollars) wages for the average U.S. worker have been falling steadily for more than 40 years. Those wages have now fallen by more than 50%, all the way down to the same levels as during the Great Depression. And we see how the U.S. government’s lies about inflation have almost entirely concealed this relentless collapse in wages. How convenient.

Meanwhile, we see the percentage of Americans who are actually working also plummeting downward, to a 30-year low. The collapse in wages has been accompanied by a collapse in employment levels. Combined, it translates into a collapse in consumer purchasing power of well in excess of 50%.

The great Economic Myth (naturally perpetuated by the U.S. government) is that “the world can’t live without” the American Consumer. The truth is that the rest of the world has been gradually learning how to live without the American consumer for the past 40 years, as the American consumer is literally less than half what he used to be. The real-and-obvious question instead is how will the U.S.’s consumer economy be able to survive the Death of the U.S. Consumer?… via Economy: The U.S. Retail Collapse Accelerates ETF DAILY NEWS.

Red Alert Issued By Think Tank Predicts World System Shakedown | Modern Survival Blog

An independent global think tank, LEAP/E2020, recently reported the opinion that “this second half of 2012 will really mark a major inflection point of the global systemic crisis;” “The shock of the autumn 2008 will seem like a small summer storm compared to what will affect the planet in several months.”

In fact LEAP/E2020 has never seen the chronological convergence of such a series of explosive and so fundamental factors (economy, finances, geopolitical…) since the start of its work on the global systemic crisis. Logically, in our modest attempt to regularly publish a “crisis weather forecast”, we must therefore give our readers a “Red Alert” because the upcoming events which are readying themselves to shake the world system next September/ October belong to this category.

Navigating through a Room full of Elephants – Nate Hagens at ASPO 2012 Conference

Starting with some piecing insights into the state of the economy, “peak oil”, energy costs, social trends and money, Mr.Hagens concludes with some thought provoking observational predictions for where we are headed.  Worth the 49 minutes.  GE.

Karl Denninger Interview: Financial Crisis 2012

Dis-Investment | Ol’ Remus and the Woodpile Report

The proprietor of the well-respected Survival Blog, James Rawles, is not one for overstatement. So it was doubled-down unsettling when he wrote the most chilling advice we’ve seen recently, a spare and direct statement which appeared in his Economics and Investing section:

As of today, Wednesday, June 13, 2012, I strongly urge all SurvivalBlog readers to immediately draw down their checking accounts and liquidate their CDs, passbook savings accounts and most of the their stocks to buy tangibles.

In Greece’s On Going Financial Collapse Bartering Emerges In Greek Towns | Emergency Outdoors Blog

As Greece finally succumbs to it’s financial collapse many Greek towns are turning to a bartering system that is similar to what emerges after a SHTF or post-apocalyptic world.

Everyday Greeks are now dropping the Euro at a lightning fast , even before this Sunday’s election, and adopting a bartering system to buy and sell books, eggs, clothes, kids toys and every day essentials that are necessary…

Can you manage your (rapidly devaluing bullshit paper-currency that we, in our culture, mistakenly term) money? | CSMonitor.com

Can you manage your money? A personal finance quiz.

Are you financially literate enough to manage your own money? Teenagers say less than half of their families have had a discussion about money management, according to a 2011 Junior Achievement/Allstate Foundation survey. Another poll by Yahoo Finance found that 37 percent of adults have no retirement savings, and 38 percent plan to live off Social Security after retirement. When it comes to making good decisions about money, are you a beginner, a financial whiz, or somewhere in-between? Take the quiz to find out.

via Can you manage your money? A personal finance quiz. – Loan rates – CSMonitor.com.

The Criminal Banking Cartel’s End Game: A 100% Digital Monetary System | ZeroHedge

There is no doubt that the elite have always sought to carefully manufacture news and to control the beliefs of the masses through their interests in funding education and in owning media distribution channels for centuries. There is a wealth of history that chronicles the elite’s desires to control and sway public opinion by manufacturing news versusthe honorable journalism pursuit of reporting news in a fair and accurate manner. For example, in 1917, Congressman Oscar Callaway stated, as documented in the Congressional Record:

“The End Game: 2012 And 2013 Will Usher In The End” – The Scariest Presentation Ever? | ZeroHedge

You are here

If Raoul Pal was some doomsday spouting windbag, writing in all caps, arbitrarily pasting together disparate charts to create 200 page slideshows, it would be easy to ignore him. He isn’t. The founder of Global Macro Investor “previously co-managed the GLG Global Macro Fund in London for GLG Partners, one of the largest hedge fund groups in the world. Raoul came to GLG from Goldman Sachs where he co-managed the hedge fund sales business in Equities and Equity Derivatives in Europe… Raoul Pal retired from managing client money in 2004 at the age of 36 and now lives on the Valencian coast of Spain, from where he writes.” It is his writing we are concerned about, and specifically his latest presentation, which is, for lack of a better word, the most disturbing and scary forecast of the future of the world we have ever seen….

And we see a lot of those.

Consider this:

How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced | Activist Post

…The dollar was a median step towards a newer and more corrupt ideal. Its time is nearly over. This is open, it is admitted, and it is being activated as you read this. The speed at which this disaster occurs is really dependent on the speed at which our government along with our central bank decides to expedite doubt. Doubt in a currency is a furious omen…

via Activist Post: How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced.

Money As Debt | ZeroHedge

… Cash is created out of thin air by the central bank of the country which is often privately owned. The central bank can just have it printed for the cost of printing, by the government or privately. The central bank then uses this cash it creates out of thin air to buy interest-bearing public debt in the form of government bonds.Government debt is perpetual and thus interest paid on it is perpetual. Therefore a good definition of cash might be: evidence of public debt on which taxpayers will be paying interest forever…

via

Money As Debt | ZeroHedge.

* MUST READ * The Trouble with Money | Chris Martenson

Even more troubling, what do we say to our youth when they ask what role they should play in this story — a story with a plot line they didn’t get to write?

So far, the narrative we’re asking them to step into sounds a lot like this:

“Study hard, go to college, maybe graduate school. And when you get out, not only will you be indebted to your education loans and your mortgage, but you’ll be asked to help pay back trillions and trillions of debt to cover the decisions of those who came before you. All while operating within a crumbling, substandard infrastructure. Oh, and by the way, the government and corporate sector appear to have no real interest in your long-term future; you’re on your own there.” 

Yeah, I happen to think apathy is a perfectly sane response to that story….

A MUST READ from Blogs at Chris Martenson.

On the Price of Gold – a 2 minute video

…

See here:  On the Price of Gold | Zero hedge

8 Personal Finance Lessons from Benjamin Franklin | Art of Manliness

via The Art of Manliness, by Brett & Kate McKay on February 15, 2012

Benjamin Franklin rose from 17-year-old runaway to successful printer, newspaperman, author, inventor, diplomat, and statesman. His great success came from living the virtues of frugality and industry, and his life offers us many personal finance lessons that apply to modern men just as much as they did to those living in colonial America. So without further ado, let’s dive right into uncovering some of Ben’s timeless wisdom.

1. Understand the True Value of Things

Why We Should Fear Bathtubs More Than Terrorists | Reason Magazine

…The federal government has spent over $80 billion on aviation security in the past 10 years. Yet “your chance of dying in a bathtub is about one in a million, and from terrorism is about one in 3.5 million,” says Ohio State political scientist John Mueller.

Mueller and his co-author Mark G. Stewart argue in their new book, “Terror, Security, and Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits, and Costs of Homeland Security ,” that cost-benefit analysis needs to be applied to security expenditures. The authors calculate for current spending levels to be cost-effective, the U.S. government would “have to prevent four Time Square-type attacks every single day.”  So why are we spending so much for so little added safety?..

via Why We Should Fear Bathtubs More Than Terrorists-Authors John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart on Security Spending – Hit & Run : Reason Magazine.

The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive | Of Two Minds

via charles hugh smith-The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive, November 5, 2011.

We are being throttled by the Big Lie: we’re told that if the predatory financial system implodes, we’ll all be ruined. The opposite is true: the only way to save our economy is to let the corrupt, pathological and flawed financial system implode….

 

Is the US Monetary System on the Verge of Collapse?

Is the US Monetary System on the Verge of Collapse? – David Galland, Casey Research – September 20, 2011 8:57pm GMT

Tune into CNBC or click onto any of the dozens of mainstream financial news sites, and you’ll find an endless array of opinions on the latest wiggle in equity, bond and commodities markets. As often as not, you’ll find those opinions nestled side by side with authoritative analysis on the outlook for the economy, complete with the author’s carefully studied judgment on the best way forward…