Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
EXCELLENT EXCELLENT posting!
In a nutshell...
...I think the whole plan of Obamacare is to drive up the costs of healthcare so it is unaffordable for 99.99% of the population (also thanks to the QE Forever from the Fed). Since healthcare will become so so costly and out of the reach relative to the average person's income the next step will be "denial of services" to the masses. The implementation of "austerity" and denial of medical procedure to those over 50 years of age. Truly a nasty situation they are creating.
God help us I wish I was wrong (?) but that is how I am seeing it with a purely objective and economic point of view.
This is a very unpleasant fact that few want to acknowledge.
Latest from Jim Willie...
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jim-willie/immutable-golden-laws
The law can be stated: The bond monetization known as Quantitative Easing (QE) powers the upward move in the cost structure for the global economy. The result is a shrinking profit margins imposed on the entire economies, felt in job cuts and reduced budgets for expansion, even maintenance.
The expanded bond monetization has been declared as permanent, if the words of USFed Chairman Bernanke are properly interpreted. A sequence of bond purchase commitments, including both USTBonds and Mortgage Bonds, to meet urgent calls to address the quagmire, is a clear signal to those with an active brain stem. It is permanent. In fact, the QE3 has some rather obvious motive to cover the multi-$trillion mortgage bond fraud, thus permitting a possible housing market recovery. Not gonna happen. The foreign bond creditors have vanished, with only a scattering of Japanese and Chinese investors serving as the bulk of foreign demand. In order to prevent the short-term USTBill yields from shooting up to 5% suddenly, in order to prevent the long-term USTBond yields from shooting up to 10% suddenly, the USFed has made a series of commitments to buy the USGovt debt. Nobody seems to want it, nobody seems to afford it (savings vanishing act), nobody seems to find it as holding value anymore. Besides, deep criminal banker fraud is becoming recognized in story after story. Without the vast QE, despite all its deception and chicanery like Operation Twist, and without the vast apparatus of interest rate derivatives to maintain the 0% artificial rate, the USTBond structure would collapse. If these words seems absurd, then the reader is probably ignorant, uneducated, or wearing red white & blue jockey shorts.
Do You Live In A Death Spiral State?
Don’t buy a house in a state where private sector workers are outnumbered by folks dependent on government.
Thinking about buying a house? Or a municipal bond? Be careful where you put your capital. Don’t put it in a state at high risk of a fiscal tailspin.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/baldwin/2012/11/25/do-you-live-in-a-death-spiral-state/
Eleven states make our list of danger spots for investors. They can look forward to a rising tax burden, deteriorating state finances and an exodus of employers. The list includes California, New York, Illinois and Ohio, along with some smaller states like New Mexico and Hawaii.
If your career takes you to Los Angeles or Chicago, don’t buy a house. Rent.
If you have money in municipal bonds, clean up the portfolio. Sell holdings from the sick states and reinvest where you’re less likely to get clipped. Nebraska and Virginia are unlikely to give their bondholders a Greek haircut. California and New York are comparatively risky.
Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.
Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.
But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.
Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.
Ranked on the taker/maker ratio, our 11 death spiral states range from New Mexico, with 1.53 takers for every maker, down to Ohio, with a 1-to-1 ratio.
The taker count is the number of state and local government workers plus the number of people on Medicaid plus 1 for each $100,000 of unfunded pension liabilities. Sources: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and a study of state worker pensions done in 2009 by two academics, Joshua Rauh and Rovert Novy-Marx. Professor Rauh estimates that the shortage in pension funding is on average a third higher today.
The second element in the death spiral list is a scorecard of state credit-worthiness done by Conning & Co., a money manager known for its measures of risk in insurance company portfolios. Conning’s analysis focuses more on dollars than body counts. Its formula downgrades states for large debts, an uncompetitive business climate, weak home prices and bad trends in employment.
Conning rates North Dakota the safest state to lend money to, Connecticut the most hazardous. A state qualifies for the Forbes death spiral list if its taker/maker ratio exceeds 1.0 and it resides in the bottom half of Conning’s ranking. It’s easy to see how California got on our list. It has pampered a large army of civil servants while using every imaginable trick to chase private-sector jobs away, the latest being a quixotic scheme to reduce the globe’s atmospheric carbon. A City Journal essay by Victor Davis Hanson notes that the state spends $10 billion a year on entitlements for illegal aliens.
Illinois is especially known for its dishonesty, whether among officeholders (future license plate motto: Land of Corruption) or in the habit of under-accounting for promises to government employees. The Rauh study counted $66 billion in the till to cover pension obligations of $233 billion.
To lend money to California, Illinois or the other nine states perched on the precipice requires a leap of faith. So does buying a house in those locales. Don’t count on a property tax limit to protect your home’s value. If other taxes are high enough, there won’t be any buyers.
http://blogs.barrons.com/stockstowatchtoday/2012/11/26/two-percent-of-sp-500-firms-are-doing-88-of-the-earnings-work/?mod=yahoobarrons
November 26, 2012, 2:45 P.M. ET
Two Percent of S&P 500 Firms are Doing 88% of the Earnings Work
By Sam MamudiHow’s this for income inequality: A study from Morgan Stanley shows that 10 companies are contributing 88% of the year-on-year earnings growth on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index this year; six of the 10 are financial services firms.
A big earnings generator for the S&P.
Matt Yglesias makes the point that the concentration is even greater than the headline suggests, with just four companies — Apple Inc. ( AAPL), Bank of America Corp. ( BAC), American International Group Inc. ( AIG) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ( GS) — contributing more than half of all the S&P 500's earnings growth so far this year. (He also observes that it’s ‘curious’ to see six companies from the same sector doing so well.)
That’s reflected in the stock prices, with the four companies up 45%, 77%, 42% and 33% this year, respectively. And five of the remaining six — Wells Fargo & Co. ( WFC), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. ( JPM), Citigroup Inc. ( C), General Electric Co. ( GE) and Western Digital Corp. ( WDC) — have seen double-digit gains in 2012. The one straggler? IBM ( IBM), whose stock is up a market-lagging 4.5% in 2012.
Top Economic Advisers Forecast World War
Washington’s Blog
November 18, 2012
Kyle Bass, Larry Edelson, Jim Rogers and Marc Faber Predict Widespread War
http://www.infowars.com/top-economic-advisers-forecast-world-war/
You make excellent points.
Thanks for that very thoughtful, logical and coherent posting!
You took the words right out of my mouth. :>)
<<"Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation....">>
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-17/kyle-bass-falacies-such-mmt-are-leading-sheep-slaughter-and-we-believe-war-inevitabl
<<"The result of forcing individuals giving up control, i.e. sacrificing individual right and freedom, is not civilization, but the very antithesis of civilization itself!">>
Amen to that!
Kyle Bass: Fallacies Such As MMT Are "Leading The Sheep To Slaughter" And "We Believe War Is Inevitable"
Dire warnings from famous hedge fund manager regarding the insane worldwide economic policy...
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-17/kyle-bass-falacies-such-mmt-are-leading-sheep-slaughter-and-we-believe-war-inevitabl
Great post!
Denny's to charge 5% 'Obamacare surcharge' and cut employee hours to deal with cost of legislation
By James Nye 15 November 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2233221/Dennys-charge-5-Obamacare-surcharge-cut-employee-hours-deal-cost-legislation.html#ixzz2CInU12t2
President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.
Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours.
With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is 'the only alternative. I've got to pass on the cost to the customer.'
A Florida restaurant owner who runs 40 franchises of the Denny's restaurant chain has threatened to add a five percent surcharge to customers bills in an effort to combat Obamacare
The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, 'that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.'
Claiming that he is not anti-insurance Metz has said that he understands the problems this will cause for his employees.
J
ohn Metz also owns Hurricane Grill & Wings which has 48 franchises around the country and falls under the umbrella of his firm RREMC Restaurants
'I think it's a terrible thing. It's ridiculous that the maximum hours we can give people is 28 hours a week instead of 40,' said Metz to the Huffington Post.
'It's going to force my employees to go out and get a second job.'
Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.
The program mandates that only employees working more than 30 hours a week are covered under their employers health insurance plan, chains like Olive Garden and Red Lobster are already considering reduced worker hours.
'Obviously, I'd love to cover all our employees under that insurance,' said Metz.
'But to pay $5,000 per employee would cost us $175,000 per restaurant and unfortunately, most of our restaurants don't make $175,000 a year. I can't afford it.' Obamacare supporters and protesters gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court to find out the ruling on the Affordable Health Act June 28, 2012 - the Court upheld the controversial legislation
Several other restaurants including Papa John's, Apple Metro and Jimmy John's have announced plans to skirt Obamacare by reducing employees hours to make them part-time.
Indeed, Metz is adding the surcharge because he believes that eventually firms will be fined for not covering staff who complete over 30-hours in a week,
Earlier this week Papa John's CEO John Schnatter told shareholders in a conference call this week that Obamacare would cost the company 11 to 14 cents per pizza, a cost that would be passed on to customers.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2233221/Dennys-charge-5-Obamacare-surcharge-cut-employee-hours-deal-cost-legislation.html#ixzz2CInU12t2
<<"Obamacare mandates havn't been implemented yet, and you are already praising its effect on the ground? How does your world work anyway? Not only causality is broken, logic is broken, but temporal continuity broken too?">>
I couldn't agree more.
Zab's cavalier attitude on the healthcare mess is delusional and a bit shallow and selfish to me.
It reminds me a bit of the cheerleader's/naysayers and pooh-pooher's who defended the irrational logic of the US real estate bubble right up to it's collapse in 2006 (that I was warning them about I might ad). Where is the foresight?
I don't doubt that Zab's healthcare is great right now. I don't know Zab's age (?) but if he is still living in 4 years (?) will he still be happy with the healthcare he is receiving?
Will he become a victim of "The Complete Lives System" where he cannot qualify for medical procedures and care because of his age(he probably will deny that this even exists in the Obamacare package right now)???
Zab's refutation of simple economics on the healthcare mess is disturbing. But Zab is not alone...there appears a whole flock of sheep waiting to be shorn on this issue and the-powers-that- be couldn't be any happier!
Guest Post: Welcome To The Nuthouse: How Private Financial Fiat Creates A Public Farce
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-13/guest-post-welcome-nuthouse-how-private-financial-fiat-creates-public-farce
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/13/2012 - 11:45 Bank of America
Farce #1: “Market value” and “free markets” have become a joke.
Farce #2: Private, self-assigned, fake value is being traded for public money at 100 cents on the dollar.
Farce #3: Printed money is backed by nothing.
Farce #4: We have a “free” enterprise system dominated by monopolies that force people to buy inferior goods and services at exorbitant rates.
Farce #5: High-level financial crimes, no matter how egregious or widespread, are not being prosecuted.
Farce #6: Risk is gone. Now there is only liability borne by citizens.
Farce #7: Productivity has been supplanted by parasitism.
Nothing about Obamacare will improve the costs or quality or servicing of healthcare in the USA. That is the problem with it.
If anything (?) the costs of healthcare will continue to skyrocket and the rationing of services and denial of procedures will become commonplace. That is the great tragedy that the masses will soon realize. They've been duped again. Their standard-of-living will fall miserably.
I would rectify the the healthcare problem using basic Austrian economic principles of "supply and demand". But unfortunately the whole beautiful concept of supply and demand in our "corrupt and manipulated bailout economy" is as rare as hen's teeth or unicorns.
Obamacare to Bankrupt Businesses and Families
Melissa Melton | Less jobs, higher prices, and fewer doctors are just the beginning for America’s “affordable” health care reform.
51 Comments
http://www.infowars.com/obamacare-how-the-affordable-care-act-is-already-costing-us/
Faber: Expect Re-Election to Send S&P Down 50%
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/faber-expected-re-election-to-send-s-p-down-50-FQKRInPiRcKweo9Wj2ru6g.html
Nation's Oldest Nuclear Power Plant, New Jersey's Oyster Creek, Declares Alert Following Water Surge
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/29/2012 22:59 -0400
Japan Nuclear Power
As a reminder, the biggest catastrophe that resulted from last year's Tohoku earthquake in Japan was not the earthquake itself, nor the infrastructure destruction from the susbequent tsunami, but the impact of the soaring water wall on the nuclear power plants in the coastline, namely Fukushima, and its aftermath, by now known all too well to all. So tonight too, all along the east coast, the biggest threat is not the wind, nor the rain, but the impact of the storm surge on the tens of nuclear power plants located in the vicinity of the rapidly rising tide. Such as Oyster Creek in New Jersey which just went on alert due to the surging water level.
From AP:
The nation's oldest nuclear power plant is on alert after waters from a colossal storm reached high levels.
Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, N.J., was already offline for regular maintenance before Sandy, a superstorm downgraded Monday night from a hurricane, slammed the East Coast.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says an "unusual event" was declared around 7 p.m. when water reached a high level. The situation was upgraded less than two hours later to an "alert," the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system.
Federal officials say all nuclear plants are still in safe condition. They say water levels near Oyster Creek, which is along the Atlantic Ocean, will likely recede within a few hours.
Oyster Creek went online in 1969 and provides 9 percent of New Jersey's electricity.
And elsewhere, we just saw the following also very disturbing headline from US Emergency Services:
PA | HYNDMAN |**EVACUATION**| - | VOLUNTARY EVAC DUE TO NUCLEAR WARNING IN BEDFORD COUNTY. UEA325 | UEA451 |
We will keep track of any related news and report as soon as we see it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-29/nations-oldest-nuclear-power-plant-new-jerseys-oyster-creek-declares-alert-following
9:20 AM Nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says there are 26 nuclear plants in the path of Hurricane Sandy, and the spent fuel pools in the plants don’t have backup pumps. The Oyster Creek nuclear plant - one of the oldest in the U.S. and of the same design as Fukushima Unit 1 - is located near New Jersey’s shoreline in an area forecast to take a direct hit from the hurricane.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/10/new-jersey-pennsylvania-and-connecticut-nuclear-plants-in-path-of-storm/
Interesting post from SI...
Have you ever laid in bed awake at night with a knot in your stomach because you didn't know how your family was possibly going to make it through the next month financially? Have you ever felt the desperation of not being able to provide the basic necessities for your family even though you tried as hard as you could? All over America tonight, there are millions of desperate families that are being ripped apart by this economy. There aren't nearly enough jobs, and millions of Americans that actually do have jobs aren't making enough to even provide the basics for their families. When you have tried everything that you can think of and nothing works, it can be absolutely soul crushing. Today, one of my regular readers explained that he was not going to be online for a while because his power had been turned off. He has been out of work for quite a while, and eventually the money runs out. Have you ever been there? If you have ever experienced that moment, you know that it stays with you for the rest of your life. If you are single that is bad enough, but when you have to look into the eyes of your children and explain to them why there won't be any dinner tonight or why they have to move into a homeless shelter it can feel like someone has driven a stake into your heart. In this article you will find a lot of very shocking economic statistics. But please remember that behind each statistic are the tragic stories of millions of desperately hurting American families.Over the past decade, things have steadily gotten worse for American families no matter what our politicians have tried. Poverty and government dependence continue to rise. The cost of living continues to go up and incomes continue to go down. It is truly frightening to think about what this country is going to look like if current trends continue.
The following are 37 facts that show how cruel this economy has been to millions of desperate American families...
1. One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.
2. A different recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.
3. In the United States today, there are close to 10 million households that do not have a single bank account. That number has increased by about a million since 2009.
4. Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.
5. The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.
6. Median household income has fallen for four years in a row. Overall, it has declined by more than $4000 over the past four years.
7. 62 percent of middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.
8. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 85 percent of middle class Americans say that it is more difficult to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.
9. In the United States today, 77 percent of all Americans are living to paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time.
10. In the United States today, more than 41 percent of all working age Americans are not working.
11. Since January 2009, the "labor force" in the United States has increased by 827,000, but "those not in the labor force" has increased by 8,208,000. This is how they have gotten the unemployment numbers to "come down".
12. Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
13. Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.
14. Right now, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.
15. At this point, less than 25 percent of all jobs in the United States are "good jobs", and that number continues to shrink.
16. There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
17. According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.
18. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.
19. In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
20. Health insurance premiums rose faster than the overall rate of inflation in 2011 and that is happening once again in 2012. In fact, it has been happening for a very long time.
21. According to one recent survey, approximately 10 percent of all employers in the United States plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now.
22. Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
23. Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
24. Total consumer debt in the United States has risen by 1700 percent since 1971.
25. Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.
26. According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.
27. Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living at home with their parents.
28. The percentage of Americans that find that they are able to retire when they reach retirement age continues to decline. According to one new survey, 70 percent of middle class Americans plan to work during retirement and 30 percent plan to work until they are at least 80 years old.
29. The U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businesses during the recent recession.
30. In 2010, the number of jobs created at new businesses in the United States was less than half of what it was back in the year 2000.
31. Back in 2007, 19.2 percent of all American families had a net worth of zero or less than zero. By 2010, that figure had soared to 32.5 percent.
32. Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.
33. In the United States today, somewhere around 100 million Americans are considered to be either "poor" or "near poor".
34. In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 46.7 million Americans are on food stamps.
35. Approximately one-fourth of all children in the United States are enrolled in the food stamp program.
36. Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government. And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.
37. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government. Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.
What makes all of this even more frightening is that many homeless shelters and food banks around the nation are so overloaded at this point that they are already over capacity. Just consider this example...
When Janice Coe, a homeless advocate in Loudoun County, learned through her prayer group that a young woman was sleeping in the New Carrollton Metro station with a toddler and a 2-month-old, she sprang into action.
Coe contacted the young woman and arranged for her to take the train to Virginia, where she put the little family up in a Comfort Suites hotel. Then Coe began calling shelters to see who could take them.
Despite several phone calls, she came up empty. Coe was shocked to learn that many of the local shelters that cater to families were full, including Good Shepherd Alliance, where Coe was once director of social services.
"I don't know why nobody will take this girl in," Coe said. "The baby still had a hospital bracelet on her wrist."
Keep in mind that Loudoun Country is smack dab in the middle of one of the wealthiest areas of Virginia.
So if things are that bad in the wealthy areas, exactly how bad are things getting in many of the poorer areas?
Unfortunately, things continue to get worse for this economy. DuPont has just announced plans to eliminate 1,500 jobs. There are more major layoff announcements almost every single day. So how bad will things get when our crumbling economic system finally collapses? When kind of chaos will be unleashed all over the nation when millions upon millions of Americans finally lose all hope?
In the introduction to this article, I mentioned that one of my regular readers has had his lights turned off. The following is how he described his situation...
No gas, no water, no electricity at my house. Couldn't pay the bills. I'm broke. Desperately searching for any means of income, or at least enough cash to get the juice (electricity) restored.
Typing this missive in a dark house using the battery on my laptop. Feels like I'm camping out at home. Hope to get this situation fixed tomorrow. somehow. Needless to say, I *.. hate this.
I was ready for this, but it is still a major league inconvenience. For those of you who DO have power, etc. - and are not ready. oh brother. You need to get ready. Seriously, you do. Because what I'm going through is just an inconvenience. It may someday be a normal occurrence. Ugh. (expletives deleted)
Hopefully a way can be found to get his situation turned around, but the truth is that there are tens of millions of other similar stories out there in America today.
It's funny how waging war on the economy, the successful, job producers and businesses leads to wide spread poverty and misery. It happened in Ancient Rome, Argentina, USSR, Nazi Germany, Zimbabwe, etc. Pretty much anywhere any version of liberalism has been attempted, and any means of wealth re-distribution have been implemented, we get DISASTROUS results. Witness modern day Europe and all their bankrupt Keynesian welfare states. The really odd thing? Liberals are incapable of witnessing history and learning. Numbers and facts might as well be the fifth dimension. When was this nation most prosperous? When we didn't have 75,000 PAGES of tax codes and over 100,000 PAGES of regulations that cost us $1.7 TRILLION annually (regulations alone). So what's GARY'S and most liberals' solutions? Punish the successful MORE, greedily take MORE of people's property even though this leads to greater poverty, greater suffering, businesses closing, cutting back staff, etc. No, according to them, we need 125,000 PAGES of regulation. It's bizarre how the greedy liberals think monopolies are evil re-incarnated yet fail to grasp the single biggest monopoly IS the gov't. Now the gov't just takes over huge swathes of our economy in true fascist manner by definition, and we all suffer while the left cheers. Detroit is a hell hole, spiraling into decay,and the same is true for all urban liberal utopias be it Memphis, Chicago, LA, etc. Solution? Do it on a NATIONAL scale. Pavlov's dog showed more intelligence than the left.
Today I read that President Obama now says this election is about "trust."
I enthusiastically voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I actually believed that he would bring positive change to this country. While it is true that Obama has thrown a few scraps to those of us who consider ourselves progressives, most of what we have gotten over the last 4 years is George W Bush's third term.
The simple fact is that I do not trust Barack Obama any more. The "hope and change" mantra from 2008 was a complete lie. Obama has spent the last 4 years ignoring the plight of average Americans while he cozies up to Wall Street banking criminals, plays golf and takes expensive vacations. Therefore I cannot and will not vote to re-elect Barack Obama.
I believe that 4 more years of Barack Obama would prove to be an economic disaster for millions more Americans. I do not believe for a moment that things will get any better under Mitt Romney, but it is hard for me to see how things in this country could possibly get worse under a President Romney compared to what we are enduring under Barack Obama.
Thanks again for your great articles. Even though I live in Australia I can see the rot setting in here. Idiotic government, entitlement mentality from the general populace and an economy that is wholly centered around mining and China. This is all about to come to a screaming halt when China stops buying our resources because we don't have a manufacturing base anymore. I remember as a kid we made our own washing machines, lawn mowers, kitchen appliances, you name it. It's all gone now to overseas "free trade" countries who pay their workers slave wages. How do you compete with that? Free trade? NWO degradation I call it. Anyway, I'm stacking silver as fast as I can. Not be be wealthy but to help my family and others who will eventually need it. I live on a large acreage property not far from a major city. We have stables and other facilities and I said to my wife the other day that I can see homeless friends (and probably strangers) living in our stables and sheds when this whole thing comes crashing down. I am trying to tell coworkers, Facebook friends, and anyone who will listen about the coming Armageddon but mostly to no avail. Some have listened and started to prepare but generally you get laughed at. Anyway, I suppose the situation is the same all over but I keep flicking your articles to my email list and hope people take notice. Thankfully my wife and kids are totally awake now. Keep up the good work, God Bless and keep your head down when this thing explodes because we are in uncharted waters economically, socially and morally. Cheers
The Last Domino
Posted on October 11, 2012
I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
- John Lennon (watch the video of Lennon actually saying it here)
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2012/10/11/2131/
From Currency Debasement To Social Collapse: 4 Case Studies
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/02/2012 11:16 -0400
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-02/currency-debasement-social-collapse-4-case-studies
Central Banks CPI Crude Dylan Grice Germany Hyperinflation SocGen United Kingdom
At its most fundamental level, SocGen's Dylan Grice notes that economic activity is no more than an exchange between strangers. It depends, therefore, on a degree of trust between strangers. Since money is the agent of exchange, it is the agent of trust. Debasing money therefore debases trust. Grice emphasizes that history is replete with Great Disorders in which social cohesion has been undermined by currency debasements. The multi-decade credit inflation can now be seen to have had similarly corrosive effects. Yet central banks continue down the same route. The writing is on the wall. Further debasement of money will cause further debasement of society. Dylan, like us, fears a Great Disorder.
Selected extracts from Dylan Grice
If the authorities raise taxes explicitly and openly, voters know exactly why they have less spending power. They also know how much less spending power they have. But if the authorities instead raise money by simply printing it, they raise the revenue by stealth. No one knows upon whom the burden falls. People notice only that they can't afford the things they used to be able to afford, or they can't afford the things which everyone else can afford. They know that something is wrong, but they just don't know what, why, or who is to blame. So inevitably they look for someone to blame.
So it is with monetary debasement, as Keynes understood deeply (so deeply, in fact, that it?s ironic so many of today's crude Keynesians support QE so enthusiastically). In 1921 he said:
“By a continuing process of inflation, Governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some …. Those to whom the system brings windfalls …. become “profiteers” who are the object of the hatred … the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery .. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
History is replete with Great Disorders in which currency debasement has coincided with social infighting and scapegoating. This debasement of currency also coincided with a debasement of society. Factions grew more suspicious of one another. Communities fragmented. And one part of the community bore the brunt of the fears.
Third Century Roman inflation (and implicit currency debasement) sparked a rapid turnover of emperors as the scapegoating over the systemic debasement saw Romans turned on Christians with a great violence which lasted throughout the period of the currency debasement but peaked with Diocletian's edict of 303 AD. The edict decreed, among other things, that Christian meeting places be destroyed, Christians holding office be stripped of that office, Christian freedmen be made slaves once more and all scriptures be destroyed. Diocletian's earlier edict, of 301 AD, sought to regulate prices and set out punishments for 'profiteers' whose prices deviated from those set out in the edict.
A similar dynamic seems evident during Europe's medieval inflations, only now, the confused and vain effort to make sense of the enveloping turmoil saw the blame focus on suspected witches. The following chart shows the UK price index over the period with the incidence of witchcraft trials. Note the peak in trials coinciding with the peak of the price revolution.
Were the same dynamics at work during the French Revolution of 1789? The narrative of Madame Guillotine and her bloody role is well known. However, the execution of royalty by the Paris Commune didn't begin until 1792, and the Reign of Terror in which Robespierre's Orwellian sounding 'Committee of Public Safety' slaughtered 17,000 nobles and counterrevolutionaries didn't start until well into 1793. In the words of guillotined revolutionary Georges Danton, this is when the French revolution 'ate itself'. But the coincidence of these events to the monetary debasement is striking. The political violence was justified in part by blaming nobles and counter-revolutionaries for galloping inflation in food prices.
However, the most tragic of all the inflations in my opinion, and certainly the starkest example of a society turning on itself was the German hyperinflation.
Like other Axis countries on the wrong side of the War and now in the grip of hyperinflation, Germany turned viciously on its Jews.
It blamed them for the surrounding evil as Romans had blamed Christians, medieval Europeans had suspected witches, and French revolutionaries had blamed the nobility during previous inflations.
So I keep wondering to myself, do our money-printing central banks and their cheerleaders understand the full consequences of the monetary debasement they continue to engineer? Inflation of the CPI might be a consequence both seen and measurable. A broad inflation of asset prices might be a consequence seen, though not measurable. But what about the consequences that are unseen but unmeasurable - and are all the more destructive for it? I feel queasy about the enthusiasm with which our wise economists play games with something about which we have such a poor understanding.
And now the social debasement is clear for all to see. The 99% blame the 1%; the 1% blame the 47%; the private sector blames the public sector, the public sector returns the sentiment - the young blame the old, everyone blame the rich - yet few question the ideas behind government or central banks...
All I see is more of the same - more money debasement, more unintended consequences and more social disorder.
Source: SocGen
Bernanke, You (Lying) Ignorant Slut
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=212224
This afternoon Bernanke strode to the lectern and delivered a speech including this ditty:
But today I want to focus on a role that is particularly identified with the Federal Reserve--the making of monetary policy. The goals of monetary policy--maximum employment and price stability--are given to us by the Congress.
Notice those bolded words -- price stability.
These goals mean, basically, that we would like to see as many Americans as possible who want jobs to have jobs, and that we aim to keep the rate of increase in consumer prices low and stable.
There is the lie; you just witnessed Ben Bernanke take words from a Statute -- an actual law -- and lie through his teeth about what they say.
This is the actual language in The Federal Reserve Act:
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
STABLE means unchanging. It does not mean "the rate of increase in consumer prices (is) low and stable" -- it means the target rate of change in consumer prices iszero.
This is the "Grand Lie" told by Bernanke, by Greenspan and by those who came before them. It is an active and intentional act of law-breaking by every single member of the FOMC and has been serially since 1913!
Congress could change the law. It could specify that inflation should be "low and stable." But Congress said no such thing. Congress mandated stable prices, not "slowly-increasing" prices.
And let's not kid ourselves as to the actual impact of such a policy. The so-called "2%" inflation rate that is allegedly "low and stable" sounds like it's a pretty harmless thing. After all, how can 2% hurt you?
Well, over 100 years, what does 2% inflation turn a $100 item into? If you said $100 + ($2 (2% of $100) * 100), or $300, you're wrong. Because an inflation rate is an exponential function that item will cost $710.26 100 years down the road.
In point of fact, however, the actual inflation rate has been approximately 3%, not 2%. That doesn't sound like such a bad "miss", does it?
Well that same $100 item under a 3% inflation rate costs $1,865.89 100 years hence.
Do you still think this theft of saved funds is "no big deal" when in fact all you're left with of that $100 100 years hence in terms of purchasing power is about $5.36?
I believe that the original Coinage Act's provisions (passed in 1792), which proscribed death for intentional debasement of the currency, is the correct sanction for such treachery.
But despite the fact that there is currently no penalty clause of any sort in The Federal Reserve Act does not change the essential character of what Ben Bernanke and the FOMC are doing.
They are intentionally violating the law.
Now let's talk about the other essential claim that Bernanke made today:
In normal circumstances, the Federal Reserve implements monetary policy through its influence on short-term interest rates, which in turn affect other interest rates and asset prices.1 Generally, if economic weakness is the primary concern, the Fed acts to reduce interest rates, which supports the economy by inducing businesses to invest more in new capital goods and by leading households to spend more on houses, autos, and other goods and services. Likewise, if the economy is overheating, the Fed can raise interest rates to help cool total demand and constrain inflationary pressures.
How does lowering interest rates "lead households to spend more on houses, autos and other goods and services"?
Lowering interest rates doesn't make your wages go up, so you can't spend more from your earned income.
No, it leads you to spend more by borrowing more money.
But borrowing to consume is in general foolish.
To begin with the more money you have chasing goods and services the more they cost! This is economics 101, and applies to everything. Take a look at college costs over the last 30 years if you don't believe me and explain how Calculus has changed in that 30 years, and why it should cost five times (in inflation-adjusted dollars) as much to learn it today in college as it did in 1982. There is only one reason this happened -- too many dollars chasing too few goods and services.
As a result borrowing to consume is self-defeating as you wind up driving the price higher, which then leaves you in a position where you have to borrow even more!
That would be bad enough if it was the only thing that screws you when you engage in this behavior.
But it's not.
In fact, there are two other problems which are at least as serious and combined are much more-so.
The first is that when you buy a good or service today instead of tomorrow you inherently overpay for it compared to tomorrow's price. This is due to the fact that human ingenuity continually improves productivity. Consider the lowly handheld calculator. If you want one today they're $3 at WalMart. How much did they cost 30 or 40 years ago?
This is admittedly an extreme example, but far-less extreme examples abound. A DVD player was $500 just a few years ago. A couple of years later they were $100. Now they can be had if you shop carefully for under $50. Your desire to have it "right now" meant you paid more and got less. This is perfectly fine provided you can afford to pay for the item with your current economic surplus (savings or current wages) but if you borrowed to own it then you overpaid twice -- once because you drove up the price by chasing the goods and then again because you failed to take advantage of waiting for productivity improvements to lower the cost -- and thus price.
Most people do understand this cost and accept it in the name of vanity, keeping up with the Joneses or whatever. But it is the other cost -- that is, interest -- that is truly insidious.
See, when a loan is made even if the law is followed (and it is not) and actual capital is lent out that was previously acquired (and it is not) the interest that you are going to have to pay in the future does not exist in the economy.
Get this straight folks -- it doesn't exist.
Now you can look at this situation in isolation -- as "just you" -- and shrug.
And you might get away with that.
For a while.
But 2008 showed us what happens when too many people shrug for too long. When too many people borrow to spend now rather than spend what they can afford with current production and save some percentage of their income back to form capital eventually you hit the wall because the interest that was never created to pay the debts doesn't exist, and eventually someone raises their hand and says "this is a Ponzi scheme -- credit must expand exponentially for everyone to be able to pay, which means it won't -- and can't -- go on forever. I quit -- give me my money NOW!"
The music stops and there are not enough chairs.
What government and The Fed have done since is not a solution. It was and is a scam. It is an attempt to sell you on the premise that the bad debts that were taken on and left people without chairs can continue to exist and be serviced by the government running huge budget deficits.
This is a lie and it is trivially provable that it is a lie.
If the economy has 10,000 units of production and 10,000 units of credit and currency in it, and the government emits another 1,000 units of credit and currency nothing has changed other than the fact that each unit of production now requires more credit or currency to buy than it did before!
This is exactly identical mathematically to the government increasing taxes by the precise same amount without telling you it has done so!
In fact, the government can and has lied to you and told you it has and is cutting taxes while in fact it has raised them!
But what happens when you raise taxes in this fashion? The cost of employing people goes up and the number of employed people goes down.
And what has happened?
Exactly that.
Now how do you increase government funding and thus maintain the deficit spending if you can't put people back to work?
You can't.
The premise that Bernanke, Bush and Obama all operated on is that by spending in deficit they could con you into restarting the exponential borrowing charade. Four years on we now know this strategy has failed; there are simply not enough qualified and willing borrowers in the economy to take on yet another exponential load of debt ($54 trillion, approximately, this time around) to run another "cycle" of this Ponzi scheme.
But if we keep this charade up for too long, since we have now centered the gross increase in borrowings in the Federal Government, and hit that wall, the government collapses.
That is what we now face, and the only question is how far we are away from disintegration of our society, government, economy and mass unemployment.
Bernanke said much else in his speech today, but these are the only two items that matter. The rest was nothing more than arm-waving, and I'm quite sure he hopes you didn't catch his dissembling right up front -- if anyone did, it certainly wasn't evident in the questions that were asked.
Wake up America.
You Know You Are A Conspiracy Theorist If...
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/24/2012 17:06 -0400
Best Buy China Federal Reserve Goldman Sachs goldman sachs Middle East
Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
You are capable of critical thinking.
You distrust mainstream media.
You like nature.
You think it’s a good idea to spend the Friday after Thanksgiving with your family rather than camping outside Best Buy to get a cheap plasma television made in China.
You think it’s a little strange that WTC building 7 came down at free fall speed on 9/11 yet it was never hit by a plane.
You think that drones in America might not be for Al Qaeda.
You would like to be able to get on a plane without having to engage in a mandatory radiation bath and digital strip search.
You have read a book in the past year.
You think you have the right to protest.
You think the War on Terror is a scam.
You think the War on Drugs is a scam.
You think the anger directed at America from the Middle East could possibly be related to our foreign policy rather than hating how amazingly free we are.
You think the Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same on the important issues affecting our country.
You think believing in The Constitution does not constitute a terrorist act.
You have heard of the Bill of Rights and can even name what some of them are.
You question whether the government loves you.
You think the right to bear arms is not for hunting, rather so citizens can fight back should the government become a bunch of tyrannical thugs.
You don’t own a television, and if you do, all you watch is RT, especially the Keiser Report and Capital Account.
You don’t think the NDAA is the name of Kesha’s latest single.
You think rich, powerful and connected people should be subject to the rule of law and go to jail if they commit crimes. Even if they are bankers and work at JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs.
You think corporations aren’t people.
You think Warren Buffet is a phony and a crony capitalist.
You don’t care that Warren Buffet likes cherry coke, hamburgers and ice cream. He’s still a bad guy.
You know that gold was made illegal by FDR in 1933 and confiscated from the American people. You know that gold bullion remained illegal for Americans to own until 1975.
You think politicians that push for war should be sent to fight on the front lines. If they are unable, their children should go.
You want your food to be labeled GMO so that you can make your own decisions on what you are consuming.
You grow your own food.
You buy raw milk.
You think food and energy should be included in inflation calculations.
You are aware that the Department of Homeland Security has purchased 1.2 billion rounds of ammo in the past year.
You question whether said ammo purchases are in anticipation of a Normandy beach style landing by Al Qaeda.
You think allowing a small group of unelected people (The Federal Reserve) to print unlimited amounts of money and distribute it as they please might not be a good idea.
If you answered yes to more than five of the 32 questions above, you might be a conspiracy theorist.
You also may be on the government’s terror watch list.
Be very alarmed and report it to the authorities immediately should you discover your neighbors engaged in such uncivilized thought.
Signs of A Ruined Economy: More Ammo Buys, Declining Dollar & Fake Gold
Infowars.com
September 20, 2012
http://www.infowars.com/signs-of-a-ruined-economy-more-ammo-buys-declining-dollar-fake-gold/
Housing prices: Agents make houses sell for a lot less. On purpose.
Housing prices are manipulated by shady real estate agents who practice 'flopping.' Instead of making homes look good to raise housing prices, tey make them look bad so banks will sell them for a loss.
By Schuyler Velasco, Correspondent / September 17, 2012
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0917/Housing-prices-Agents-make-houses-sell-for-a-lot-less.-On-purpose
One of the more curious new trends in real estate is called "reverse house staging." Instead of bringing in a professional to make a home look better, some real estate agents make it look worse. They fake water damage, put faux-finish "cracks" on the walls, tear up the lawn, and remove furniture.
Their objective? To convince the lending bank to agree to sell the home at a loss. Then broker and buyer resell the home at a much higher price.
"We call them 'flops,' because they're the opposite of flips," says Tim Coyle, senior director of financial services for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a risk-information service based in Irvine, Calif. "They'll sell the house to a straw buyer, generally a friend or connection of the real estate agent who will buy the house for, say, $150,000. But they will already have a borrower set up who has agreed to buy the house for $300,000."
RELATED: Ten best cities to buy short sale homes
This is illegal, of course. It's also one of the new pitfalls in a housing market colored by fraud. Officially, mortgage fraud is down from the heyday of the housing boom. But it may just be that the statistics are not keeping up with the new schemes. Home buyers, lenders, and borrowers have to adjust to the new threats.
"The game has changed, and we're seeing things that people have never done before," says Mr. Coyle.
Collusion is one of the areas where fraud is clearly on the rise. Industry insiders perpetrate an estimated 80 percent of all real estate fraud, and they have the background knowledge and networks to find the necessary allies to pull off a scam. The reverse-staging phenomenon is one example of collusion. Another is a short sale to a wife or other relative with a different last name, who lets the seller live in the home. Before 2009, less than 5 percent of real estate transactions were fraudulent collusions, according to LexisNexis, which released its annual mortgage fraud report in late July. In 2010, the figure nearly doubled, then slipped to a still-high 6.8 percent last year.
Homeowners are seeing new pitfalls, too. Although the days of dangerous subprime mortgages, when banks pushed risky loans on unqualified buyers, are gone, the aftermath is proving to have other pitfalls. If anything, banks have become too risk averse – and too ready to foreclose, consumer advocates say.
"The important issue to focus on now is mortgage servicing," says Geoff Walsh, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, a Boston-based advocacy group. Many of the problematic loans that originated at the height of the housing market are "being foreclosed unnecessarily by mortgage servicers for investors who bought them."
Mortgage servicing departments within major lenders like Bank of America and Wells Fargo "make money by collecting a lot of fees, and get more by doing foreclosures quickly," he says. "There's a lack of rational decisions on a loan-to-loan basis."
Wells Fargo says it tries to keep borrowers in their homes. "We help 7 out of 10 customers who choose to work with us to avoid foreclosure," Jim Hines, a Wells Fargo spokesman, writes via e-mail. The bank has granted two loan modifications for every foreclosure sale between 2009 and 2012, he says, and forgave $5 billion in principal debt in the past three years.
Another pitfall confronting homeowners: title claims. One Florida woman bought a beach condo at a foreclosure auction, only to be sued by two other banks laying claim to the property, says James Kowalski, a consumer litigator in Jacksonville, Fla. Florida is a judicial foreclosure state, which means foreclosed homes are supposed to come with clean titles. Nonjudicial foreclosure states may see even more of these problems, he says.
There is some reason for hope. Home loans are much more secure these days. State laws push loan modifications and court mediation before a home fore-closure. Homeowners are far more educated than they were a decade ago.
Also, lenders now have "escalation departments," where borrowers can file formal complaints, requiring banks to resolve cases quickly. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the US Treasury's Home Affordable Modification Program also provide third-party escalation services.
Mr. Walsh recommends documenting everything mortgage-related, including information on income and household budget. "Keep detailed phone notes of all contacts with a servicer, including names of staff," he says. "Keep copies of everything you send to a servicer, and demand written answers and confirmations of statements."
Related stories 10 best cities to buy short sale homes Top 10 cities where house prices are rising How to sell a house? Five reasons to auction it.
Follow Us
You can find Schuyler Velasco on Twitter, Facebook, .You can find CSM Business Desk on Facebook, Twitter.
The Magnitude of the Mess We're In
September 16, 2012, 7:03 p.m. ET
The next Treasury secretary will confront problems so daunting that even Alexander Hamilton would have trouble preserving the full faith and credit of the United States.
Comments (615)
By George P. Shultz, Michael J. Boskin, John F. Cogan, Allan H. Meltzer and John B. Taylor
Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don't want, but need, to hear.
Where are we now?
Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household.
The amount of debt is one thing. The burden of interest payments is another. The Treasury now has a preponderance of its debt issued in very short-term durations, to take advantage of low short-term interest rates. It must frequently refinance this debt which, when added to the current deficit, means Treasury must raise $4 trillion this year alone. So the debt burden will explode when interest rates go up.
The government has to get the money to finance its spending by taxing or borrowing. While it might be tempting to conclude that we can just tax upper-income people, did you know that the U.S. income tax system is already very progressive? The top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes and 50% pay none.
Did you know that, during the last fiscal year, around three-quarters of the deficit was financed by the Federal Reserve? Foreign governments accounted for most of the rest, as American citizens' and institutions' purchases and sales netted to about zero. The Fed now owns one in six dollars of the national debt, the largest percentage of GDP in history, larger than even at the end of World War II.
The Fed has effectively replaced the entire interbank money market and large segments of other markets with itself. It determines the interest rate by declaring what it will pay on reserve balances at the Fed without regard for the supply and demand of money. By replacing large decentralized markets with centralized control by a few government officials, the Fed is distorting incentives and interfering with price discovery with unintended economic consequences.
Did you know that the Federal Reserve is now giving money to banks, effectively circumventing the appropriations process? To pay for quantitative easing—the purchase of government debt, mortgage-backed securities, etc.—the Fed credits banks with electronic deposits that are reserve balances at the Federal Reserve. These reserve balances have exploded to $1.5 trillion from $8 billion in September 2008.
The Fed now pays 0.25% interest on reserves it holds. So the Fed is paying the banks almost $4 billion a year. If interest rates rise to 2%, and the Federal Reserve raises the rate it pays on reserves correspondingly, the payment rises to $30 billion a year. Would Congress appropriate that kind of money to give—not lend—to banks?
The Fed's policy of keeping interest rates so low for so long means that the real rate (after accounting for inflation) is negative, thereby cutting significantly the real income of those who have saved for retirement over their lifetime.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also being financed by the Federal Reserve rather than by appropriations, severing the checks and balances needed for good government. And the Fed's Operation Twist, buying long-term and selling short-term debt, is substituting for the Treasury's traditional debt management.
This large expansion of reserves creates two-sided risks. If it is not unwound, the reserves could pour into the economy, causing inflation. In that event, the Fed will have effectively turned the government debt and mortgage-backed securities it purchased into money that will have an explosive impact. If reserves are unwound too quickly, banks may find it hard to adjust and pull back on loans. Unwinding would be hard to manage now, but will become ever harder the more the balance sheet rises.
The issue is not merely how much we spend, but how wisely, how effectively. Did you know that the federal government had 46 separate job-training programs? Yet a 47th for green jobs was added, and the success rate was so poor that the Department of Labor inspector general said it should be shut down. We need to get much better results from current programs, serving a more carefully targeted set of people with more effective programs that increase their opportunities.
Did you know that funding for federal regulatory agencies and their employment levels are at all-time highs? In 2010, the number of Federal Register pages devoted to proposed new rules broke its previous all-time record for the second consecutive year. It's up by 25% compared to 2008. These regulations alone will impose large costs and create heightened uncertainty for business and especially small business.
This is all bad enough, but where we are headed is even worse.
President Obama's budget will raise the federal debt-to-GDP ratio to 80.4% in two years, about double its level at the end of 2008, and a larger percentage point increase than Greece from the end of 2008 to the beginning of this year.
Under the president's budget, for example, the debt expands rapidly to $18.8 trillion from $10.8 trillion in 10 years. The interest costs alone will reach $743 billion a year, more than we are currently spending on Social Security, Medicare or national defense, even under the benign assumption of no inflationary increase or adverse bond-market reaction. For every one percentage point increase in interest rates above this projection, interest costs rise by more than $100 billion, more than current spending on veterans' health and the National Institutes of Health combined.
Worse, the unfunded long-run liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid add tens of trillions of dollars to the debt, mostly due to rising real benefits per beneficiary. Before long, all the government will be able to do is finance the debt and pay pension and medical benefits. This spending will crowd out all other necessary government functions.
What does this spending and debt mean in the long run if it is not controlled? One result will be ever-higher income and payroll taxes on all taxpayers that will reach over 80% at the top and 70% for many middle-income working couples.
Did you know that the federal government used the bankruptcy of two auto companies to transfer money that belonged to debt holders such as pension funds and paid it to friendly labor unions? This greatly increased uncertainty about creditor rights under bankruptcy law.
The Fed is adding to the uncertainty of current policy. Quantitative easing as a policy tool is very hard to manage. Traders speculate whether and when the Fed will intervene next. The Fed can intervene without limit in any credit market—not only mortgage-backed securities but also securities backed by automobile loans or student loans. This raises questions about why an independent agency of government should have this power.
When businesses and households confront large-scale uncertainty, they tend to wait for more clarity to emerge before making major commitments to spend, invest and hire. Right now, they confront a mountain of regulatory uncertainty and a fiscal cliff that, if unattended, means a sharp increase in taxes and a sharp decline in spending bound to have adverse effect on the economy. Are you surprised that so much cash is waiting on the sidelines?
What's at stake?
We cannot count on problems elsewhere in the world to make Treasury securities a safe haven forever. We risk eventually losing the privilege and great benefit of lower interest rates from the dollar's role as the global reserve currency. In short, we risk passing an economic, fiscal and financial point of no return.
Suppose you were offered the job of Treasury secretary a few months from now. Would you accept? You would confront problems that are so daunting even Alexander Hamilton would have trouble preserving the full faith and credit of the United States. Our first Treasury secretary famously argued that one of a nation's greatest assets is its ability to issue debt, especially in a crisis. We needed to honor our Revolutionary War debt, he said, because the debt "foreign and domestic, was the price of liberty."
History has reconfirmed Hamilton's wisdom. As historian John Steele Gordon has written, our nation's ability to issue debt helped preserve the Union in the 1860s and defeat totalitarian governments in the 1940s. Today, government officials are issuing debt to finance pet projects and payoffs to interest groups, not some vital, let alone existential, national purpose.
The problems are close to being unmanageable now. If we stay on the current path, they will wind up being completely unmanageable, culminating in an unwelcome explosion and crisis.
The fixes are blindingly obvious. Economic theory, empirical studies and historical experience teach that the solutions are the lowest possible tax rates on the broadest base, sufficient to fund the necessary functions of government on balance over the business cycle; sound monetary policy; trade liberalization; spending control and entitlement reform; and regulatory, litigation and education reform. The need is clear. Why wait for disaster? The future is now.
The authors are senior fellows at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. They have served in various federal government policy positions in the Treasury Department, the Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers.
A version of this article appeared September 17, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Magnitude of the Mess We're In.
Marc Faber: "The Fed will destroy the world." Video and commentary via ZH:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/marc-faber-fed-will-destroy-world
"Ron Paul Is Right: The Fed, And The Lunatics That Run It, Are The Heart Of The Problem"http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000109364&play=1
Former Reagan OMB Director David Stockman on CNBC this morning, "Ron Paul is only one who is right about the Fed, and the Fed is the heart of the problem. They have destroyed the capital markets and the money markets; interest rates mean nothing; everything is trading off the Fed and Wall Street isn't even home - as it's now a bunch of computers trading word-clouds emitted by this central banker ..." See video link above.
In America and over 70? Out of luck, you are a unit and get comfort care instead life care.
http://armstrongeconomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/phone_call_from_neurosurgeon_32bps.mp3
Agenda 21: The Plan to Destroy The Middle Class Is Part Of The “New World Order”
What is Agenda 21? How is it being implemented?
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2012/09/01/03/m-coffman-t-deweese-k-schoen/agenda-21-what-is-it-how-its-being-implemented
GUEST EXPERT 09/01/2012
RealPlayer WinAmp Windows Media MP3
James J Puplava CFP with Michael Coffman PhD, Tom DeWeese, and Karen Schoen
Jim is joined by scientist and ecologist Dr. Michael Coffman, Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center, and Karen Schoen of the Save America Foundation. They discuss the background of Agenda 21, how it is being implemented and how it will remove individual property rights and turn people into economic slaves to the state. Dr. Coffman states that "Agenda 21 represents a major fundamental change in the role of government in social and land-use policy. Under its concept of sustainability, the primary purpose of government will no longer be to serve the people."
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/guest-expert/2012/09/01/03/m-coffman-t-deweese-k-schoen/agenda-21-what-is-it-how-its-being-implemented
The Rot Runs Deep 1: The Federal Reserve Is a Parasitic Wealth Transfer Machine
The Federal Reserve is a wealth transfer machine, skimming wealth from the productive many and transferring it to the parasitic few...
In effect, the Fed is the "enforcer" of neofeudalism in America: the feudal Lords of Finance control the for-sale political system and skim tribute from the 99.5% toiling in the fields below their castles...
the Fed "loans" money to the Feudal Lords at 0% interest. the Lords then loan this free money out to peasants, students and other debt-serfs at high rates of interest. The interest "earned," courtesy of the parasitic Fed, is theirs to keep. If they can't find enough debt-serfs who can pay more interest, they can always deposit the free money back at the Fed and earn interest from the Fed itself.
the Fed "loans" free money (0% interest) to the Financial Lords, who then buy low-risk long-term U.S. Treasury bonds paying 3%. When the Lords spot a better skimming opportunity, they sell the bonds to the Fed, who buys the bonds from the Lords as part of its "Operation Twist."
the losers are the peasants who have been locked into 401K plans that divert their earnings into the stock market, where the Lords' HFT can skim billions from the 401K plans...
What do we call a power center that enables and enforces neofeudal exploitation and predation? We call it evil...Those within it are serving evil. Those who defend it are serving evil. Those who worship its power are serving evil. Those who mask its true nature are also serving evil.
In a society and culture that has lost its moral compass, a culture of greed, self-serving lies and corrupt vested interests, the word "evil" has lost its power. It has been reduced to a cartoonish label, a cynic's smarmy joke.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug12/Fed-wealth-transfer-machine8-12.html
Time for a Shock Doctrine Crisis Courtesy of Russ Winter of Winter Watch at Wall Street Examiner
"Only a crisis, real or perceived produces real change." -- Milton Friedman
The global elite plutocrats may seek a "crisis" to push the presidential election toward the challenger. There are numerous ways to set up a crisis. As the IMF's banking crisis frequency chart shows below, historically crises tend to erupt between late August and September anyway. The global economy is currently staged for catastrophic financial crises without even a push. All it takes is the slightest deviation away from governments' heavy handed intervention in the markets. It could stem from another U.S. credit downgrade or the collapse of yet another lingering Lehmen Bros.-like zombie. I rate a Grexit (Greece's exit from euro) high on the list of possibilities.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-19/time-shock-doctrine-crisis
WEEKEND EDITION JULY 20-22, 2012
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/20/the-meaning-of-libor-gate/
The Rate-Fixing Scandal in Full Perspective
The Meaning of Libor-gate
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The price of Treasury bonds is supported by the Federal Reserve’s large purchases. The Federal Reserve’s purchases are often misread as demand arising from a “flight to quality” due to concern about the EU sovereign debt problem and possible failure of the euro.
Another rationale used to explain the demand for Treasuries despite their negative yield is the “flight to safety.” A 2% yield on a Treasury bond is less of a negative interest rate than the yield of a few basis points on a bank CD, and the US government, unlike banks, can use its central bank to print the money to pay off its debts.
It is possible that some investors purchase Treasuries for these reasons. However, the “safety” and “flight to quality” explanations could not exist if interest rates were rising or were expected to rise. The Federal Reserve prevents the rise in interest rates and decline in bond prices, which normally result from continually issuing new debt in enormous quantities at negative interest rates, by announcing that it has a low interest rate policy and will purchase bonds to keep bond prices high. Without this Fed policy, there could be no flight to safety or quality.
It is the prospect of ever lower interest rates that causes investors to purchase bonds that do not pay a real rate of interest. Bond purchasers make up for the negative interest rate by the rise in price in the bonds caused by the next round of low interest rates. As the Federal Reserve and the banks drive down the interest rate, the issued bonds rise in value, and their purchasers enjoy capital gains.
As the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are themselves fixing interest rates at historic lows in order to mask the insolvency of their respective banking systems, they naturally do not object that the banks themselves contribute to the success of this policy by fixing the LIbor rate and by selling massive amounts of interest rate swaps, a way of shorting interest rates and driving them down or preventing them from rising.
The lower is Libor, the higher is the price or evaluations of floating-rate debt instruments, such as CDOs, and thus the stronger the banks’ balance sheets appear.
Does this mean that the US and UK financial systems can only be kept afloat by fraud that harms purchasers of interest rate swaps, which include municipalities advised by sellers of interest rate swaps, and those with saving accounts?
The answer is yes, but the Libor scandal is only a small part of the interest rate rigging scandal. The Federal Reserve itself has been rigging interest rates. How else could debt issued in profusion be bearing negative interest rates?
As villainous as they might be, Barclays bank chief executive Bob Diamond, Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, and Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs are not the main villains. The main villains are former Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs chairman Robert Rubin, who pushed Congress for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the sponsors of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. Glass-Steagall was put in place in 1933 in order to prevent the kind of financial excesses that produced the current ongoing financial crisis.
President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, presented the removal of all constraints on financial chicanery as “financial modernization.” Taking restraints off of banks was part of the hubristic response to “the end of history.” Capitalism had won the struggle with socialism and communism. Vindicated capitalism no longer needed its concessions to social welfare and regulation that capitalism used in order to compete with socialism.
The constraints on capitalism could now be thrown off, because markets were self-regulating as Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, among many, declared. It was financial deregulation–the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the removal of limits on debt leverage, the absence of regulation of OTC derivatives, the removal of limits on speculative positions in future markets–that caused the ongoing financial crisis. No doubt but that JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others were after maximum profits by hook or crook, but their opportunity came from the neoconservative triumphalism of “democratic capitalism’s” historical victory over alternative socio-politico-economic systems.
The ongoing crisis cannot be addressed without restoring the laws and regulations that were repealed and discarded. But putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again is an enormous task full of its own perils.
The financial concentration that deregulation fostered has left us with broken financial institutions that are too big to fail. To understand the fullness of the problem, consider the law suits that are expected to be filed against the banks that fixed the Libor rate by those who were harmed by the fraud. Some are saying that as the fraud was known by the central banks and not reported, that the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England should be indicted for their participation in the fraud.
What follows is not an apology for fraud. It merely describes consequences of holding those responsible accountable.
Imagine the Federal reserve called before Congress or the Department of Justice to answer why it did not report on the fraud perpetrated by private banks, fraud that was supporting the Federal Reserve’s own rigging of interest rates (and the same in the UK.)
The Federal reserve will reply: “So, you want us to let interest rates go up? Are you prepared to come up with the money to bail out the FDIC-insured depositors of JPMorganChase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, etc.? Are you prepared for US Treasury prices to collapse, wiping out bond funds and the remaining wealth in the US and driving up interest rates, making the interest rate on new federal debt necessary to finance the huge budget deficits impossible to pay, and finishing off what is left of the real estate market? Are you prepared to take responsibility, you who deregulated the financial system, for this economic armageddon?
Obviously, the politicians will say NO, continue with the fraud. The harm to people from collapse far exceeds the harm in lost interest from fixing the low interest rates in order to forestall collapse. The Federal Reserve will say that we are doing our best to create profits for the banks that will permit us eventually to unwind the fraud and return to normal. Congress will see no better alternative to this.
But the question remains: How long can the regime of negative interest rates continue while debt explodes upward? Currently, everyone in the US who counts and most who don’t have an interest in holding off armageddon. No one wants to tip over the boat. If the banks are sued for damages and lack the money to pay, the Federal Reserve can create the money for the banks to pay.
If the collapse of the system does not result from scandals, it will come from outside. The dollar is the world reserve currency. This means that the dollar’s exchange value is boosted, despite the dismal economic outlook in the US, by the fact that, as the currency for settling international accounts, there is international demand for the dollar. Country A settles its trade deficit with country B in dollars; country B settles its account with country C in dollars; and so on throughout the countries of the world.
For whatever the reason–perhaps to curtail their accumulation of suspect dollars or to bring Washington’s power to an end–the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are agreeing to settle their trade between themselves in their own currencies, thus abandoning the use of the dollar.
According to reports, China and Japan have reached agreement to settle their trade between themselves in their own currencies.
The moves away from the dollar as the currency of international transactions means that the dollar’s exchange value will fall as the demand for dollars falls. Whereas the Federal Reserve can create dollars with which to purchase the Treasury’s debt, thus preventing a fall in bond prices, the Federal Reserve cannot prop up the dollar’s exchange value by creating more dollars with which to purchase dollars. Dollars would have to be taken off the foreign exchange market by purchasing them with other currencies, but in order to have these currencies the US would have to be running a trade surplus, not a long-term trade deficit.
In the short-run, the Federal Reserve could arrange currency swap agreements in which foreign central banks swap their currencies for dollars in order to supply the Federal Reserve with currencies with which to soak up dollars. However, only a limited number of swaps could be negotiated before foreign central banks understood that the dollar’s fall in value was not a temporary event that could be propped up with currency swaps.
As the value of the dollar will fall as countries move away from its use as reserve currency, the values of dollar-denominated assets also will fall. The Federal Reserve, even with full cooperation from the banking system employing every fraud technique known, cannot prevent interest rates from rising on debt instruments denominated in a currency whose value is falling.
Think about it this way. A person, fund, or institution owns bonds or any debt instruments carrying a negative rate of interest, but continues to hold the instruments because interest rates, despite the increase in debt, are creeping down, raising bond prices and producing capital gains in the bonds. What happens when the exchange value of the currency in which the debt instruments are denominated falls? Can the price of the bond stay high even though the value of the currency in which the bond is denominated falls?
The drop in the exchange value of the currency hits the bond price in a second way. The price of imports rise, and this pushes up prices. The inflation measures will show higher inflation. How long will people hold debt instruments paying negative interest rates as inflation rises? Perhaps there are historical cases in which bond prices continue to rise indefinitely (or even hold firm) as inflation rises, but I have never heard of them.
As the Federal Reserve can create money, theoretically the Federal Reserve’s prop-up schemes could continue until the Federal Reserve owns all dollar-denominated financial assets. To cover the holes in its own balance sheet, the Federal Reserve could just print more money.
Some suspect that the Federal Reserve, in order to forestall a declining dollar and thus declining prices of dollar-denominated financial instruments, is behind the sales of naked shorts every time demand for physical bullion drives up the price of gold and silver. The short sales–paper sales–cancel the impact on price of the increased demand for bullion.
Some also believe that they see the Federal Reserve’s hand in the stock market. One day stocks fall 200 points. The next day stocks rise 200 points. This up and down pattern has been ongoing for a long time. One possible explanation is that as wary investors sell their equity holdings, the Federal Reserve, or the “plunge protection team,” steps in and buys.
Just as the “terrorist threat” was used to destroy the laws that protect US civil liberty, the financial crisis has resulted in the Federal Reserve moving far outside its charter and normal operating behavior.
To sum up, what has happened is that irresponsible and thoughtless–in fact, ideological–deregulation of the financial sector has caused a financial crisis that can only be managed by fraud. Civil damages might be paid, but to halt the fraud itself would mean the collapse of the financial system. Those in charge of the system would prefer the collapse to come from outside, such as from a collapse in the value of the dollar that could be blamed on foreigners, because an outside cause gives them something to blame other than themselves.
Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, Wirtschaft am Abgrund (Economies In Collapse) has just been published.
Stock Operator’s Page–Massive Put Activity
Posted on August 5, 2012 by Stuart Wilde
http://www.stuartwilde.com/2012/08/10888/
There was a massive jump in put options late last week on Wall Street. Some stocks increased their daily volume by 800% and others saw their daily put volume up 500%.
It is claimed that the last time this happened was in the four days before 911. At that time airlines and insurance companies were heavily shorted. In theory 911 was a random event but stock exchange activity in puts that make money when a stock goes down was extraordinarily high.
Some people knew.
I suppose an attack could come at the Olympics but I feel a false flag attack in London is too obvious. Maybe I’m naive, but there is so much already written about a possible false flag attack blaming Iran that if it happened no one will believe it.
Then again perhaps it doesn’t matter to the authorities if no one believes it. Not many believe the official 911 story either, but it doesn’t make any difference, and the perpetrators have never been brought to justice. It’s all so interesting. Pray for peace even if it doesn’t work. Stuart Wilde (www.stuartwilde.com)
Here is a list of the main shorts last week.
Data provided by SchaeffersResearch.com
Ticker
symbol
Put Volume
Average Put Volume
Daily Volume Ratio
DD 12,179 1,450 8.4
HLF 11,726 1,819 6.4
VZ 25,132 3,909 6.4
HOG 7,076 1,192 5.9
XOP 27,471 4,878 5.6
DE 10,258 2,200 4.7
JNPR 4,995 1,310 3.8
FSLR 8,883 2,383 3.7
GDX 29,379 7,902 3.7
GM 7,088 1,920 3.7
NOK 26,227 7,706 3.4
MA 6,343 2,072 3.1
F 21,175 7,672 2.8
ZNGA 5,001 1,935 2.6
FXI 29,145 11,438 2.5
ABX 4,611 1,878 2.5
WFC 16,778 6,949 2.4
SBUX 10,965 4,657 2.4
EFA 12,407 5,370 2.3
GG 2,947 1,291 2.3
<<"Incidentally, the last time I checked, the US is a Constitutional Republic, not a "Democracy.">>
That is a KEY point to understand.
A desperate, broke, hungry, and robbed general populace can turn a democracy into a pretty grim and ugly place in short order when they are "played" on the grand chessboard by their puppetmasters.
I feel there is An Agenda at hand that "they" are striving for...
...pretty much all outlined in this now classic and prophetic book ...
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ldsfreedomnetwork.com%2Fnone-dare-call-it-conspiracy.pdf
Government-Sponsored Poverty
Jeffrey Tucker
Growing up in the Cold War, we tended to look at Russia as a nightmare slave society that was utterly and completely foreign to anything Americans knew or could possibly know, absent some kind of invasion.
If I were to summarize the American propaganda message of the time it would be this: We are free, they are not, and that’s why we are rich and they are poor. And, man, did they look poor to our eyes. I could never understand it: How the heck does a once-great people put up with a government that is so obviously and apparently driving the whole population down, year after year?
Well, welcome to 2012 America. Have a look at the extremely scary Federal Reserve report, the Survey of Consumer Finance. If you have the stomach for it, read it yourself. The bean counters have put together the most broad and deep look at the finances of the median family. It turns out that the median American family is financially falling off a cliff, despite (or because of!) the trillions spent trying to prevent this from happening.
The short summary:
Two decades of seeming prosperity have been entirely wiped out since 2008, putting the net worth of the households at the same level it was in the early 1990s.
The housing crash is the main cause of the wreckage, but the actual income of the median family has fallen by 7.7% since 2007. The report compiles data from 2010 and would probably be worse in this respect if it included data from today.
Nearly all measurable increases in what the government calls economic growth actually come from consumers depleting what resources they have and not saving much, if any, income at all.
Meanwhile, 75% of households report that they are still holding an unchanged level of debt. Those households paying less in debt finance are doing so because they are deferring student loan payments and refinancing houses at subsidized rates.
It’s actually difficult to come up with a metaphor to fully capture the grim reality here. We could fall back on the farmer that is eating the seed corn held for next year’s planting. Or perhaps we could imagine a household that is feeding the fireplace with shingles from the roof. In short, this is not a sustainable pattern of family finance, and it is currently driving American wealth straight down.
To the extent we are not entirely aware of this, there can only be two reasons. First, the proliferation of debt finance is providing a temporary illusion. Second, the technological revolution came just in time to vastly increase the efficiency of just about everything industry and households do, thereby enabling more blood to be extracted from the economic turnip than anyone ever thought possible.
Take away those two factors and the true impoverishment of the American family would be undeniably obvious and produce a political reality that would be more revolutionary than anything we’ve seen in any existing lifetime.
We are surviving, and even somewhat thriving, despite the fact that we are getting ever poorer. This is an interesting economic paradox. The tools that we work with today — cloud computing, instantaneous communication, the time cost of operations reduced from years to minutes — have saved us from something that might have made the Great Depression seem miniscule by comparison.
Technology is so wonderful that it can actually serve as a kind of mask for underlying decline. Imagine a fisherman at a lake that has a systematically declining population of fish. He had been using a cane pole to fish, but one day, someone invents a digital fish finder and gives him a boat. This vastly expands his daily catch. It feels like prosperity, and it’s true that his time is much better spent, but the underlying reality is still there. Eventually, the fish population will die out.
Another feature of the world since 2008 is that government and the central bank has pulled every conceivable lever to prevent what has happened from happening. It has not only failed to accomplish that end. It has actually forestalled the necessary liquidation that would have created a clear path forward for the rebuilding of prosperity. All of the interventions have stopped the readjustment process, squandered trillions of dollars and cultivated a regulatory thicket that chokes the life out of all but the hardiest — or most politically connected — of capitalistic enterprises.
Imagine an alternative scenario: The bust of 2008 was permitted to happen. Bad banks and financial institutions were allowed to go bankrupt. No sector was saved. Housing prices plummeted. Fannie and Freddie took their lumps. Government slashed spending. The entire economy was deleveraged.
The effects would have been shocking, but temporary. Workers would have shifted from failed sectors to newly profitable ones. Consumers would have pulled back and had every incentive to save as never before. The poor could have afforded homes. Actually, homes would have become marketable as never before. The new savings would have funded investment, and the rebuilding of prosperity would have been massively aided by the great technological revolution.
Alas, this is not the reality we face. Instead, we are experiencing right now something very similar to what has always vexed, not just the Soviet Union, but every society burdened by a catastrophically large and intrusive government. We are getting poorer. And we are putting up with it. For now.
Regards,
Jeffrey Tucker,
for The Daily Reckoning
We are living in a time of universal deceit and deception with wealth destruction for the many.