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http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2012/05/etfs-the-next-accident-waiting-to-happen/
ETFs – The Next Accident Waiting to Happen?
Agreed. And the following comment on that post shows the commenter REALLY gets it:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28120416
Modern day commodity trading strategy: Borrow from Fed at 0% ... leverage the hell out of everything ... when that fails, develop an exotic hairbrained derivative strategy to bet the farm ... then when you lose everything, steal your customer's funds ... go before Congress and say things were chaotic and you have no idea where the money is ... then thumb your nose at the entire world and say "fuck all ya's"
"Death is the the final penalty of socialism"
For you, not for them.
To them, YOU are a human resource, an economic unit, and nothing more.
When you begin to consume more resources than you produce for the State (and for those who
control the State), the State not only has no more use for you, but now reserves the right to kill you,
yes -- kill you. Did you miss that part in Shaw's video, the Obamacare chart, or the quote above?
Makes it easy to understand why two of their primary goals are to destroy organized religion
and the family unit, doesn't it? Because those are the two primary institutions that stand between
the individual and the State in exercising death as the final penalty of socialism.
Also explains the need for gun control doesn't it?
And for those who still can't get their heads around why the rich (especially the banksters)
support socialism and communism, remember what John D. Rockefeller said...
"Competition is a sin."
The ism's have always been fronts for the bankers and the monopoly capitalists who
control and fund them.
And all the "ism's" at their highest levels are Satanic Death Cults.
Don't believe in death cults?
Still don't believe that "death" is the final penalty of socialism as Shaw wrote?
How much proof do you need?
The various death-cult "ism's" of the the 20th Century murdered over 160 million people alone,
be it Stalin's Bolshevism, Mao's Communism, Mussolini's Fascism, or Hitler's National Socialism,
the end result was always the same -- massive death.
Funny how those who have turned the US Education system into a Skinnerian exercise
of dog training generations of compliant, politically correct sheep, never shared that quote
from Shaw with you.
And that brings up another key point...
THEY never practice what they preach.
Their laws, their control grids, and their austerity is always for you, but never for them - they're exempt...
(more on link...)
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28119242
Fukushima on Steroids: “Japan is in the Process of Contaminating the Entire Pacific Ocean”
By Dr. Mark Sircus
theintelhub.com
April 30, 2012
I wish everything I am reporting on were not true, or at least were less true than it appears. It does seem that Japan is in the process of contaminating the entire Pacific Ocean via continued uncontrolled releases of radioactivity at Fukushima.
After low-balling initial estimates of radiation releases, the Japanese authorities now acknowledge that substantial amounts of radioactive material leaked from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors.[1]
The nuclear disaster in Japan has released radioactive isotopes that have poisoned the country’s soil, food, and water.
The fallout is being rapidly taken up by living things and passed up the food chain with airborne radioactive isotopes reaching around the world but especially in the northern hemisphere where most of the radioactive particles will settle.
Most Americans have no idea what is happening. But within days of the accident at Fukushima radioactive contaminants were detected at monitoring stations in the Pacific Coast states.
Nearly 1% of the “hot” sulfur released from the plant is estimated to have traversed the Pacific to reach southern California beaches.[2]
I don’t think anyone was really ever that happy about nuclear power and nuclear weapons but a lot of money and power were concentrated in the nuclear industry.
Many of these people are riding around in limos today very happy with their luxurious lifestyle as the planet quickly becomes more contaminated.
Private companies are abandoning ship from the nuclear industry because the nuclear news is bad no matter how you look at it. And worse, others still in are headed for bad financial doom.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, the operators of 20 U.S. nuclear reactors—including some with licenses that expire soon—do not have sufficient funding for prompt dismantling.
If these reactors can’t keep working, their owners “intend to let them sit like industrial relics for 20 to 60 years or even longer while interest accrues in the reactors’ retirement accounts.”
Within the next 15 years as many as 100 industry-standard 900 MW nuclear reactors, concentrated in the “old nuclear” countries will have to be decommissioned, dismantled and made safe, which is impossible when it comes to nuclear plants and their dirty waste products.
Human stupidity and arrogance has really boomeranged on us in the arena of nuclear power.
It is extremely difficult and painful to entertain the thought that the future of the northern hemisphere—and perhaps even the habitability of the entire planet—is being brought into question. I am not a lone wolf saying this anymore for the story has touched the edge of the mainstream.
The story of the nuclear waste pools was just published in the Huffington Post. I imagine many do read that publication and what they read there should shake people up pretty good.
Pools are 100 feet above the ground and are completely
open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were
demolished by explosions. The pools could possibly topple or collapse
from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake.
Huffington Post
“The urgency of the situation is underscored by the ongoing seismic activity where 13 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0-5.7 have occurred off the northeast coast of Japan between April 14 and 17.
This has been the norm since the first quake and tsunami hit the Dai-Ichi site on March 11 of last year. Larger quakes are expected closer to the power plant,” continues the Huffington Post.
If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event some are suggesting.
Amazingly this is not the only nuclear situation going on. There is a new scare:
http://blog.imva.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/clip_image0031.jpg
Two blasts at a chemical plant in western Japan killed one worker and injured at least 22 others on the 22nd of April. The explosions and fire occurred at a factory operated by comprehensive chemical manufacturer Mitsui Chemicals in Yamaguchi Prefecture, an official at Yamaguchi prefectural police said.
The complex is still on fire, and supposedly 3379 units of radioactive waste(200L in each unit) and uranium for nuclear fuel are preserved in the site.
One of the two missing workers was found dead, nine workers injured, and three residents in the area were also injured (cuts from broken glass). The prefectural government does say the depleted uranium is stored at the complex, but there has been no release of toxic materials from the fire, according to the prefectural government.
Some, on the other hand, are saying that a cloud of depleted uranium is heading towards Hawaii and west coast of the USA. How they would know that I do not know.
Well we have had that before, when the government used depleted uranium in its middle-eastern wars, and no one said anything about it so why would we expect it to be anything different now?
Biological Tipping Points
Are we going to wait until the emergency departments are overwhelmed with patients suffering from radiation sickness before we begin to get alarmed? In reality we really have no idea what is actually going to happen since such events have never happened before—not like this.
Every toxic exposure increases people’s vulnerability to radiation. Toxic accumulation, whether from heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides, food additives or preservatives, etc., will each take their toll, weakening our resistance to, or ability to clear radioactive particles from, our bodies.
The human herd has already been vastly weakened by vaccines containing nasty preservatives and other chemicals.
Our dentists have clobbered us with mercury fillings inches from our brains. The air is foul, the water is treated with poisons like fluoride, and many report that the air is full of chemtrails.
The list is endless but especially telling is the tonnage of mercury put into the atmosphere each and every day by the coal-fired electrical plants of the world.
Britain’s most senior accident and emergency doctor told the The Telegraph that weeks of intense pressures had left casualty departments “overwhelmed” with patients.
He said desperately sick people had been left for hours waiting on trolleys, with even those requiring intensive care enduring long delays.
Dozens of National Health Service units have in Britain have cancelled surgery and clinics for outpatients. At least 10 major centers issued “black alerts”—the highest emergency warning—meaning they were at breaking point.
For a large number of reasons it will not be long before modern medicine will be overwhelmed. Allopathic doctors will come up short not knowing what to do since pharmaceuticals just add more toxicity to the mix.
At Chernobyl no spent-fuel
pools were destroyed.
We all are just beginning to grasp that the danger. Technically it boils down to the fact that it’s the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent-fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins that are posing the greatest danger.
I have people writing to me telling me that the problem is astronomically vaster than Chernobyl in both complexity and quantity of substances released and that the total amounts of radiation being reported are way too low.
Here I am freaking out that we are at risk for something in the order of the 85 times the radiation of Chernobyl and I hear it could be much worse than that because of the plutonium factor.
I wrote Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome and the second edition of Iodine to address the radioactive dangers we face. We have not only ignored the heavy metal and chemical situation but also radiation exposure—all this adding up to a hugely perilous predicament.
[1] Citizens find radiation far from Fukushima. Science. 2011 Jun 17;332(6036):1368.
[2] Priyadarshi A, Dominguez G, Thiemens MH. Evidence of neutron leakage at the Fukushima nuclear plant from measurements of radioactive 35S in California. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Aug 30;108(35):14422-5.
This article appeared on blog.IMVA.com
http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/30/fukushima-on-steroids-japan-is-in-the-process-of-contaminating-the-entire-pacific-ocean/
Fukushima on Steroids: “Japan is in the Process of Contaminating the Entire Pacific Ocean”
By Dr. Mark Sircus
theintelhub.com
April 30, 2012
I wish everything I am reporting on were not true, or at least were less true than it appears. It does seem that Japan is in the process of contaminating the entire Pacific Ocean via continued uncontrolled releases of radioactivity at Fukushima.
After low-balling initial estimates of radiation releases, the Japanese authorities now acknowledge that substantial amounts of radioactive material leaked from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors.[1]
The nuclear disaster in Japan has released radioactive isotopes that have poisoned the country’s soil, food, and water.
The fallout is being rapidly taken up by living things and passed up the food chain with airborne radioactive isotopes reaching around the world but especially in the northern hemisphere where most of the radioactive particles will settle.
Most Americans have no idea what is happening. But within days of the accident at Fukushima radioactive contaminants were detected at monitoring stations in the Pacific Coast states.
Nearly 1% of the “hot” sulfur released from the plant is estimated to have traversed the Pacific to reach southern California beaches.[2]
I don’t think anyone was really ever that happy about nuclear power and nuclear weapons but a lot of money and power were concentrated in the nuclear industry.
Many of these people are riding around in limos today very happy with their luxurious lifestyle as the planet quickly becomes more contaminated.
Private companies are abandoning ship from the nuclear industry because the nuclear news is bad no matter how you look at it. And worse, others still in are headed for bad financial doom.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, the operators of 20 U.S. nuclear reactors—including some with licenses that expire soon—do not have sufficient funding for prompt dismantling.
If these reactors can’t keep working, their owners “intend to let them sit like industrial relics for 20 to 60 years or even longer while interest accrues in the reactors’ retirement accounts.”
Within the next 15 years as many as 100 industry-standard 900 MW nuclear reactors, concentrated in the “old nuclear” countries will have to be decommissioned, dismantled and made safe, which is impossible when it comes to nuclear plants and their dirty waste products.
Human stupidity and arrogance has really boomeranged on us in the arena of nuclear power.
It is extremely difficult and painful to entertain the thought that the future of the northern hemisphere—and perhaps even the habitability of the entire planet—is being brought into question. I am not a lone wolf saying this anymore for the story has touched the edge of the mainstream.
The story of the nuclear waste pools was just published in the Huffington Post. I imagine many do read that publication and what they read there should shake people up pretty good.
Pools are 100 feet above the ground and are completely
open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were
demolished by explosions. The pools could possibly topple or collapse
from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake.
Huffington Post
“The urgency of the situation is underscored by the ongoing seismic activity where 13 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0-5.7 have occurred off the northeast coast of Japan between April 14 and 17.
This has been the norm since the first quake and tsunami hit the Dai-Ichi site on March 11 of last year. Larger quakes are expected closer to the power plant,” continues the Huffington Post.
If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain, this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire that could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere; certainly it would be a massive civilization-breaking event some are suggesting.
Amazingly this is not the only nuclear situation going on. There is a new scare:
http://blog.imva.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/clip_image0031.jpg
Two blasts at a chemical plant in western Japan killed one worker and injured at least 22 others on the 22nd of April. The explosions and fire occurred at a factory operated by comprehensive chemical manufacturer Mitsui Chemicals in Yamaguchi Prefecture, an official at Yamaguchi prefectural police said.
The complex is still on fire, and supposedly 3379 units of radioactive waste(200L in each unit) and uranium for nuclear fuel are preserved in the site.
One of the two missing workers was found dead, nine workers injured, and three residents in the area were also injured (cuts from broken glass). The prefectural government does say the depleted uranium is stored at the complex, but there has been no release of toxic materials from the fire, according to the prefectural government.
Some, on the other hand, are saying that a cloud of depleted uranium is heading towards Hawaii and west coast of the USA. How they would know that I do not know.
Well we have had that before, when the government used depleted uranium in its middle-eastern wars, and no one said anything about it so why would we expect it to be anything different now?
Biological Tipping Points
Are we going to wait until the emergency departments are overwhelmed with patients suffering from radiation sickness before we begin to get alarmed? In reality we really have no idea what is actually going to happen since such events have never happened before—not like this.
Every toxic exposure increases people’s vulnerability to radiation. Toxic accumulation, whether from heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides, food additives or preservatives, etc., will each take their toll, weakening our resistance to, or ability to clear radioactive particles from, our bodies.
The human herd has already been vastly weakened by vaccines containing nasty preservatives and other chemicals.
Our dentists have clobbered us with mercury fillings inches from our brains. The air is foul, the water is treated with poisons like fluoride, and many report that the air is full of chemtrails.
The list is endless but especially telling is the tonnage of mercury put into the atmosphere each and every day by the coal-fired electrical plants of the world.
Britain’s most senior accident and emergency doctor told the The Telegraph that weeks of intense pressures had left casualty departments “overwhelmed” with patients.
He said desperately sick people had been left for hours waiting on trolleys, with even those requiring intensive care enduring long delays.
Dozens of National Health Service units have in Britain have cancelled surgery and clinics for outpatients. At least 10 major centers issued “black alerts”—the highest emergency warning—meaning they were at breaking point.
For a large number of reasons it will not be long before modern medicine will be overwhelmed. Allopathic doctors will come up short not knowing what to do since pharmaceuticals just add more toxicity to the mix.
At Chernobyl no spent-fuel
pools were destroyed.
We all are just beginning to grasp that the danger. Technically it boils down to the fact that it’s the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent-fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins that are posing the greatest danger.
I have people writing to me telling me that the problem is astronomically vaster than Chernobyl in both complexity and quantity of substances released and that the total amounts of radiation being reported are way too low.
Here I am freaking out that we are at risk for something in the order of the 85 times the radiation of Chernobyl and I hear it could be much worse than that because of the plutonium factor.
I wrote Nuclear Toxicity Syndrome and the second edition of Iodine to address the radioactive dangers we face. We have not only ignored the heavy metal and chemical situation but also radiation exposure—all this adding up to a hugely perilous predicament.
[1] Citizens find radiation far from Fukushima. Science. 2011 Jun 17;332(6036):1368.
[2] Priyadarshi A, Dominguez G, Thiemens MH. Evidence of neutron leakage at the Fukushima nuclear plant from measurements of radioactive 35S in California. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Aug 30;108(35):14422-5.
This article appeared on blog.IMVA.com
http://theintelhub.com/2012/04/30/fukushima-on-steroids-japan-is-in-the-process-of-contaminating-the-entire-pacific-ocean/
Jim Sinclair has something to say
Q&A
BY DANIEL P. COLLINS
MAY 1, 2012http://www.futuresmag.com/2012/05/01/jim-sinclair-has-something-to-say
Jim Sinclair has something to say
Q&A
BY DANIEL P. COLLINS
MAY 1, 2012http://www.futuresmag.com/2012/05/01/jim-sinclair-has-something-to-say
must read..New York Fed speech
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28113572
An incredible speech by Robert Wenzel delivered to the NY Fed over lunch. An invited guest tells the Fed to close its doors.
Must read for anyone with an even minimal interest in macroeconomics:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/04/my-speech-delivered-at-new-york-federal.html
At the invitation of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, I spoke and had lunch in the bank's Liberty Room. Below are my prepared remarks.
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Intellectual discourse is, of course, extraordinarily valuable in reaching truth. In this sense, I welcome the opportunity to discuss my views on the economy and monetary policy and how they may differ with those of you here at the Fed.
That said, I suspect my views are so different from those of you here today that my comments will be a complete failure in convincing you to do what I believe should be done, which is to close down the entire Federal Reserve System
My views, I suspect, differ from beginning to end. From the proper methodology to be used in the science of economics, to the manner in which the macro-economy functions, to the role of the Federal Reserve, and to the accomplishments of the Federal Reserve, I stand here confused as to how you see the world so differently than I do.
I simply do not understand most of the thinking that goes on here at the Fed and I do not understand how this thinking can go on when in my view it smacks up against reality.
Please allow me to begin with methodology, I hold the view developed by such great economic thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard that there are no constants in the science of economics similar to those in the physical sciences.
In the science of physics, we know that water freezes at 32 degrees. We can predict with immense accuracy exactly how far a rocket ship will travel filled with 500 gallons of fuel. There is preciseness because there are constants, which do not change and upon which equations can be constructed..
There are no such constants in the field of economics since the science of economics deals with human action, which can change at any time. If potato prices remain the same for 10 weeks, it does not mean they will be the same the following day. I defy anyone in this room to provide me with a constant in the field of economics that has the same unchanging constancy that exists in the fields of physics or chemistry.
And yet, in paper after paper here at the Federal Reserve, I see equations built as though constants do exist. It is as if one were to assume a constant relationship existed between interest rates here and in Russia and throughout the world, and create equations based on this belief and then attempt to trade based on these equations. That was tried and the result was the blow up of the fund Long Term Capital Management, a blow up that resulted in high level meetings in this very building.
It is as if traders assumed a given default rate was constant for subprime mortgage paper and traded on that belief. Only to see it blow up in their faces, as it did, again, with intense meetings being held in this very building.
Yet, the equations, assuming constants, continue to be published in papers throughout the Fed system. I scratch my head.
I also find curious the general belief in the Keynesian model of the economy that somehow results in the belief that demand drives the economy, rather than production. I look out at the world and see iPhones, iPads, microwave ovens, flat screen televisions, which suggest to me that it is production that boosts an economy. Without production of these things and millions of other items, where would we be? Yet, the Keynesians in this room will reply, “But you need demand to buy these products.” And I will reply, “Do you not believe in supply and demand? Do you not believe that products once made will adjust to a market clearing price?”
Further , I will argue that the price of the factors of production will adjust to prices at the consumer level and that thus the markets at all levels will clear. Again do you believe in supply and demand or not?
I scratch my head that somehow most of you on some academic level believe in the theory of supply and demand and how market setting prices result, but yet you deny them in your macro thinking about the economy.
You will argue with me that prices are sticky on the downside, especially labor prices and therefore that you must pump money to get the economy going. And, I will look on in amazement as your fellow Keynesian brethren in the government create an environment of sticky non-downward bending wages.
The economist Robert Murphy reports that President Herbert Hoover continually pressured businessmen to not lower wages.[1]
He quoted Hoover in a speech delivered to a group of businessmen:
In this country there has been a concerted and determined effort on the part of government and business... to prevent any reduction in wages.
He then reports that FDR actually outdid Hoover by seeking to “raise wages rates rather than merely put a floor under them.”
I ask you, with presidents actively conducting policies that attempt to defy supply and demand and prop up wages, are you really surprised that wages were sticky downward during the Great Depression?
In present day America, the government focus has changed a bit. In the new focus, the government attempts much more to prop up the unemployed by extended payments for not working. Is it really a surprise that unemployment is so high when you pay people not to work.? The 2010 Nobel Prize was awarded to economists for their studies which showed that, and I quote from the Noble press release announcing the award:
One conclusion is that more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times.[2]
Don’t you think it would make more sense to stop these policies which are a direct factor in causing unemployment, than to add to the mess and devalue the currency by printing more money?
I scratch my head that somehow your conclusions about unemployment are so different than mine and that you call for the printing of money to boost “demand”. A call, I add, that since the founding of the Federal Reserve has resulted in an increase of the money supply by 12,230%.
I also must scratch my head at the view that the Federal Reserve should maintain a stable price level. What is wrong with having falling prices across the economy, like we now have in the computer sector, the flat screen television sector and the cell phone sector? Why, I ask, do you want stable prices? And, oh by the way, how’s that stable price thing going for you here at the Fed?
Since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241% [3]. that’s not me misspeaking, I will repeat, since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241%.
So you then might tell me that stable prices are only a secondary goal of the Federal Reserve and that your real goal is to prevent serious declines in the economy but, since the start of the Fed, there have been 18 recessions including the Great Depression and the most recent Great Recession. These downturns have resulted in stock market crashes, tens of millions of unemployed and untold business bankruptcies.
I scratch my head and wonder how you think the Fed is any type of success when all this has occurred.
I am especially confused, since Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT), developed by Mises, Hayek and Rothbard, has warned about all these things. According to ABCT, it is central bank money printing that causes the business cycle and, again you here at the Fed have certainly done that by increasing the money supply. Can you imagine the distortions in the economy caused by the Fed by this massive money printing?
According to ABCT, if you print money those sectors where the money goes will boom, stop printing and those sectors will crash. Fed printing tends to find its way to Wall Street and other capital goods sectors first, thus it is no surprise to Austrian school economists that the crashes are most dramatic in these sectors, such as the stock market and real estate sectors. The economist Murray Rothbard in his book America’s Great Depression [4] went into painstaking detail outlining how the changes in money supply growth resulted in the Great Depression.
On a more personal level, as the recent crisis was developing here, I warned throughout the summer of 2008 of the impending crisis. On July 11, 2008 at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, I wrote[5]:
SUPER ALERT: Dramatic Slowdown In Money Supply Growth
After growing at near double digit rates for months, money growth has slowed dramatically. Annualized money growth over the last 3 months is only 5.2%. Over the last two months, there has been zero growth in the M2NSA money measure.
This is something that must be watched carefully. If such a dramatic slowdown continues, a severe recession is inevitable.
We have never seen such a dramatic change in money supply growth from a double digit climb to 5% growth. Does Bernanke have any clue as to what the hell he is doing?
On July 20, 2008, I wrote [6]:
I have previously noted that over the last two months money supply has been collapsing. M2NSA has gone from double digit growth to nearly zero growth .
A review of the credit situation appears worse. According to recent Fed data, for the 13 weeks ended June 25, bank credit (securities and loans) contracted at an annual rate of 7.9%.
There has been a minor blip up since June 25 in both credit growth and M2NSA, but the growth rates remain extremely slow.
If a dramatic turnaround in these numbers doesn't happen within the next few weeks, we are going to have to warn of a possible Great Depression style downturn.
Yet, just weeks before these warnings from me, Chairman Bernanke, while the money supply growth was crashing, had a decidedly much more optimistic outlook, In a speech on June 9, 2008, At the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s 53rd Annual Economic Conference [7], he said:
I would like to provide a brief update on the outlook for the economy and policy, beginning with the prospects for growth. Despite the unwelcome rise in the unemployment rate that was reported last week, the recent incoming data, taken as a whole, have affected the outlook for economic activity and employment only modestly. Indeed, although activity during the current quarter is likely to be weak, the risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so. Over the remainder of 2008, the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus, a gradual ebbing of the drag from residential construction, further progress in the repair of financial and credit markets, and still-solid demand from abroad should provide some offset to the headwinds that still face the economy.
I believe the Great Recession that followed is still fresh enough in our minds so it is not necessary to recount in detail as to whose forecast, mine or the chairman’s, was more accurate.
I am also confused by many other policy making steps here at the Federal Reserve. There have been more changes in monetary policy direction during the Bernanke era then at any other time in the modern era of the Fed. Not under Arthur Burns, not under G. William Miller, not under Paul Volcker, not under Alan Greenspan have there been so many dramatically shifting Fed monetary policy moves. Under Chairman Bernanke there have been significant changes in direction of the money supply growth FIVE different times. Thus, for me, I am not at all surprised at the current stop and go economy. The current erratic monetary policy makes it exceedingly difficult for businessmen to make any long term plans. Indeed, in my own Daily Alert on the economy [8] I find it extremely difficult to give long term advice, when in short periods I have seen three month annualized M2 money growth go from near 20% to near zero, and then in another period see it go from 25% to 6% . [9]
I am also confused by many of the monetary programs instituted by Chairman Bernanke. For example, Operation Twist.
This is not the first time an Operation Twist was tried. an Operation Twist was tried in 1961, at the start of the Kennedy Administration [10] A paper [11] was written by three Federal Reserve economists in 2004 that, in part, examined the 1960's Operation Twist
Their conclusion (My bold):
A second well-known historical episode involving the attempted manipulation of the term structure was so-called Operation Twist. Launched in early 1961 by the incoming Kennedy Administration, Operation Twist was intended to raise short-term rates (thereby promoting capital inflows and supporting the dollar) while lowering, or at least not raising, long-term rates. (Modigliani and Sutch 1966).... The two main actions of Operation Twist were the use of Federal Reserve open market operations and Treasury debt management operations..Operation Twist is widely viewed today as having been a failure, largely due to classic work by Modigliani and Sutch....
However, Modigliani and Sutch also noted that Operation Twist was a relatively small operation, and, indeed, that over a slightly longer period the maturity of outstanding government debt rose significantly, rather than falling...Thus, Operation Twist does not seem to provide strong evidence in either direction as to the possible effects of changes in the composition of the central bank’s balance sheet....
We believe that our findings go some way to refuting the strong hypothesis that nonstandard policy actions, including quantitative easing and targeted asset purchases, cannot be successful in a modern industrial economy. However, the effects of such policies remain quantitatively quite uncertain.
One of the authors of this 2004 paper was Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. Thus, I have to ask, what the hell is Chairman Bernanke doing implementing such a program, since it is his paper that states it was a failure according to Modigliani, and his paper implies that a larger test would be required to determine true performance.
I ask, is the Chairman using the United States economy as a lab with Americans as the lab rats to test his intellectual curiosity about such things as Operation Twist?
Further, I am very confused by the response of Chairman Bernanke to questioning by Congressman Ron Paul. To a seemingly near off the cuff question by Congressman Paul on Federal Reserve money provided to the Watergate burglars, Chairman Bernanke contacted the Inspector General’s Office of the Federal Reserve and requested an investigation [12]. Yet, the congressman has regularly asked about the gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve [13] and whether the gold at Fort Knox backing up the certificates will be audited. Yet there have been no requests by the Chairman to the Treasury for an audit of the gold.This I find very odd. The Chairman calls for a major investigation of what can only be an historical point of interest but fails to seek out any confirmation on a point that would be of vital interest to many present day Americans.
In this very building, deep in the underground vaults, sits billions of dollars of gold, held by the Federal Reserve for foreign governments. The Federal Reserve gives regular tours of these vaults, even to school children. [14] Yet, America’s gold is off limits to seemingly everyone and has never been properly audited. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? If nothing else, does anyone at the Fed know the quality and fineness of the gold at Fort Knox?
In conclusion, it is my belief that from start to finish the Fed is a failure. I believe faulty methodology is used, I believe that the justification for the Fed, to bring price and economic stability, has never been a success. I repeat, prices since the start of the Fed have climbed by 2,241% and there have been over the same period 18 recessions. No one seems to care at the Fed about the gold supposedly backing up the gold certificates on the Fed balance sheet. The emperor has no clothes. Austrian Business cycle theorists are regularly ignored by the Fed, yet they have the best records with regard to spotting overall downturns, and further they specifically recognized the developing housing bubble. Let it not be forgotten that in 2004, two economists here at the New York Fed wrote a paper [15] denying there was a housing bubble. I responded to the paper [16] and wrote:
The faulty analysis by [these] Federal Reserve economists... may go down in financial history as the greatest forecasting error since Irving Fisher declared in 1929, just prior to the stock market crash, that stocks prices looked to be at a permanently high plateau.
Data released just yesterday, now show housing prices have crashed to 2002 levels. [17]
I will now give you more warnings about the economy.
The noose is tightening on your organization, vast amounts of money printing are now required to keep your manipulated economy afloat. It will ultimately result in huge price inflation, or, if you stop printing, another massive economic crash will occur. There is no other way out.
Again, thank you for inviting me. You have prepared food, so I will not be rude, I will stay and eat.
Let’s have one good meal here. Let’s make it a feast. Then I ask you, I plead with you, I beg you all, walk out of here with me, never to come back. It’s the moral and ethical thing to do. Nothing good goes on in this place. Let’s lock the doors and leave the building to the spiders, moths and four-legged rats.
Footnotes
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Depression-Guides/dp/1596980966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335313972&sr=8-1
[2] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2010/press.html
[3] ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
[4] http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Depression-Murray-Rothbard/dp/146793481X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335314537&sr=8-1
[5] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/super-alert-dramatic-slowdown-in-money.html
[6] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/alert-collapsing-credit.html
[7] http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20080609a.htm
[8] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/04/announcing-epj-quarterly-economic.html
[9] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/super-alert-dramatic-slowdown-in-money.html
[10] http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-13.html
[11] http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2004/200448/200448pap.pdf
[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/federal-reserve-watergate-iraqi-weapons_n_1400645.html
[13] http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/
[14] http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/visiting.html
[15] http://fednewyork.org/research/epr/04v10n3/0412mcca.pdf
[16] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/02/checkmate-new-york-fed-as-totally.html
[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/business/economy/survey-shows-us-home-prices-still-weak.html
Special thanks to the following, who helped me research and collect data for this paper: Stephen Davis, Bob English, Jon Lyons, Ash Navabi, Joseph Nelson, Nick Nero, Antony Zegers
====================================================================================
and here's the background story on how Wenzel got invited..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENA7jtCt0Vw
Ombibulous Apr 26, 2012 10:21 AM
For those wondering how RW got invited to speak at the NY Fed, watch Bob English's RT interview. 12:30 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENA7jtCt0Vw
Here's the back story to the Richard Peach invite:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/02/checkmate-new-york-fed-as-totally.html
Well done, RW!
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito!
must read..New York Fed speech
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28113572
An incredible speech by Robert Wenzel delivered to the NY Fed over lunch. An invited guest tells the Fed to close its doors.
Must read for anyone with an even minimal interest in macroeconomics:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/04/my-speech-delivered-at-new-york-federal.html
At the invitation of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, I spoke and had lunch in the bank's Liberty Room. Below are my prepared remarks.
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here at the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Intellectual discourse is, of course, extraordinarily valuable in reaching truth. In this sense, I welcome the opportunity to discuss my views on the economy and monetary policy and how they may differ with those of you here at the Fed.
That said, I suspect my views are so different from those of you here today that my comments will be a complete failure in convincing you to do what I believe should be done, which is to close down the entire Federal Reserve System
My views, I suspect, differ from beginning to end. From the proper methodology to be used in the science of economics, to the manner in which the macro-economy functions, to the role of the Federal Reserve, and to the accomplishments of the Federal Reserve, I stand here confused as to how you see the world so differently than I do.
I simply do not understand most of the thinking that goes on here at the Fed and I do not understand how this thinking can go on when in my view it smacks up against reality.
Please allow me to begin with methodology, I hold the view developed by such great economic thinkers as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard that there are no constants in the science of economics similar to those in the physical sciences.
In the science of physics, we know that water freezes at 32 degrees. We can predict with immense accuracy exactly how far a rocket ship will travel filled with 500 gallons of fuel. There is preciseness because there are constants, which do not change and upon which equations can be constructed..
There are no such constants in the field of economics since the science of economics deals with human action, which can change at any time. If potato prices remain the same for 10 weeks, it does not mean they will be the same the following day. I defy anyone in this room to provide me with a constant in the field of economics that has the same unchanging constancy that exists in the fields of physics or chemistry.
And yet, in paper after paper here at the Federal Reserve, I see equations built as though constants do exist. It is as if one were to assume a constant relationship existed between interest rates here and in Russia and throughout the world, and create equations based on this belief and then attempt to trade based on these equations. That was tried and the result was the blow up of the fund Long Term Capital Management, a blow up that resulted in high level meetings in this very building.
It is as if traders assumed a given default rate was constant for subprime mortgage paper and traded on that belief. Only to see it blow up in their faces, as it did, again, with intense meetings being held in this very building.
Yet, the equations, assuming constants, continue to be published in papers throughout the Fed system. I scratch my head.
I also find curious the general belief in the Keynesian model of the economy that somehow results in the belief that demand drives the economy, rather than production. I look out at the world and see iPhones, iPads, microwave ovens, flat screen televisions, which suggest to me that it is production that boosts an economy. Without production of these things and millions of other items, where would we be? Yet, the Keynesians in this room will reply, “But you need demand to buy these products.” And I will reply, “Do you not believe in supply and demand? Do you not believe that products once made will adjust to a market clearing price?”
Further , I will argue that the price of the factors of production will adjust to prices at the consumer level and that thus the markets at all levels will clear. Again do you believe in supply and demand or not?
I scratch my head that somehow most of you on some academic level believe in the theory of supply and demand and how market setting prices result, but yet you deny them in your macro thinking about the economy.
You will argue with me that prices are sticky on the downside, especially labor prices and therefore that you must pump money to get the economy going. And, I will look on in amazement as your fellow Keynesian brethren in the government create an environment of sticky non-downward bending wages.
The economist Robert Murphy reports that President Herbert Hoover continually pressured businessmen to not lower wages.[1]
He quoted Hoover in a speech delivered to a group of businessmen:
In this country there has been a concerted and determined effort on the part of government and business... to prevent any reduction in wages.
He then reports that FDR actually outdid Hoover by seeking to “raise wages rates rather than merely put a floor under them.”
I ask you, with presidents actively conducting policies that attempt to defy supply and demand and prop up wages, are you really surprised that wages were sticky downward during the Great Depression?
In present day America, the government focus has changed a bit. In the new focus, the government attempts much more to prop up the unemployed by extended payments for not working. Is it really a surprise that unemployment is so high when you pay people not to work.? The 2010 Nobel Prize was awarded to economists for their studies which showed that, and I quote from the Noble press release announcing the award:
One conclusion is that more generous unemployment benefits give rise to higher unemployment and longer search times.[2]
Don’t you think it would make more sense to stop these policies which are a direct factor in causing unemployment, than to add to the mess and devalue the currency by printing more money?
I scratch my head that somehow your conclusions about unemployment are so different than mine and that you call for the printing of money to boost “demand”. A call, I add, that since the founding of the Federal Reserve has resulted in an increase of the money supply by 12,230%.
I also must scratch my head at the view that the Federal Reserve should maintain a stable price level. What is wrong with having falling prices across the economy, like we now have in the computer sector, the flat screen television sector and the cell phone sector? Why, I ask, do you want stable prices? And, oh by the way, how’s that stable price thing going for you here at the Fed?
Since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241% [3]. that’s not me misspeaking, I will repeat, since the start of the Fed, prices have increased at the consumer level by 2,241%.
So you then might tell me that stable prices are only a secondary goal of the Federal Reserve and that your real goal is to prevent serious declines in the economy but, since the start of the Fed, there have been 18 recessions including the Great Depression and the most recent Great Recession. These downturns have resulted in stock market crashes, tens of millions of unemployed and untold business bankruptcies.
I scratch my head and wonder how you think the Fed is any type of success when all this has occurred.
I am especially confused, since Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT), developed by Mises, Hayek and Rothbard, has warned about all these things. According to ABCT, it is central bank money printing that causes the business cycle and, again you here at the Fed have certainly done that by increasing the money supply. Can you imagine the distortions in the economy caused by the Fed by this massive money printing?
According to ABCT, if you print money those sectors where the money goes will boom, stop printing and those sectors will crash. Fed printing tends to find its way to Wall Street and other capital goods sectors first, thus it is no surprise to Austrian school economists that the crashes are most dramatic in these sectors, such as the stock market and real estate sectors. The economist Murray Rothbard in his book America’s Great Depression [4] went into painstaking detail outlining how the changes in money supply growth resulted in the Great Depression.
On a more personal level, as the recent crisis was developing here, I warned throughout the summer of 2008 of the impending crisis. On July 11, 2008 at EconomicPolicyJournal.com, I wrote[5]:
SUPER ALERT: Dramatic Slowdown In Money Supply Growth
After growing at near double digit rates for months, money growth has slowed dramatically. Annualized money growth over the last 3 months is only 5.2%. Over the last two months, there has been zero growth in the M2NSA money measure.
This is something that must be watched carefully. If such a dramatic slowdown continues, a severe recession is inevitable.
We have never seen such a dramatic change in money supply growth from a double digit climb to 5% growth. Does Bernanke have any clue as to what the hell he is doing?
On July 20, 2008, I wrote [6]:
I have previously noted that over the last two months money supply has been collapsing. M2NSA has gone from double digit growth to nearly zero growth .
A review of the credit situation appears worse. According to recent Fed data, for the 13 weeks ended June 25, bank credit (securities and loans) contracted at an annual rate of 7.9%.
There has been a minor blip up since June 25 in both credit growth and M2NSA, but the growth rates remain extremely slow.
If a dramatic turnaround in these numbers doesn't happen within the next few weeks, we are going to have to warn of a possible Great Depression style downturn.
Yet, just weeks before these warnings from me, Chairman Bernanke, while the money supply growth was crashing, had a decidedly much more optimistic outlook, In a speech on June 9, 2008, At the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s 53rd Annual Economic Conference [7], he said:
I would like to provide a brief update on the outlook for the economy and policy, beginning with the prospects for growth. Despite the unwelcome rise in the unemployment rate that was reported last week, the recent incoming data, taken as a whole, have affected the outlook for economic activity and employment only modestly. Indeed, although activity during the current quarter is likely to be weak, the risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so. Over the remainder of 2008, the effects of monetary and fiscal stimulus, a gradual ebbing of the drag from residential construction, further progress in the repair of financial and credit markets, and still-solid demand from abroad should provide some offset to the headwinds that still face the economy.
I believe the Great Recession that followed is still fresh enough in our minds so it is not necessary to recount in detail as to whose forecast, mine or the chairman’s, was more accurate.
I am also confused by many other policy making steps here at the Federal Reserve. There have been more changes in monetary policy direction during the Bernanke era then at any other time in the modern era of the Fed. Not under Arthur Burns, not under G. William Miller, not under Paul Volcker, not under Alan Greenspan have there been so many dramatically shifting Fed monetary policy moves. Under Chairman Bernanke there have been significant changes in direction of the money supply growth FIVE different times. Thus, for me, I am not at all surprised at the current stop and go economy. The current erratic monetary policy makes it exceedingly difficult for businessmen to make any long term plans. Indeed, in my own Daily Alert on the economy [8] I find it extremely difficult to give long term advice, when in short periods I have seen three month annualized M2 money growth go from near 20% to near zero, and then in another period see it go from 25% to 6% . [9]
I am also confused by many of the monetary programs instituted by Chairman Bernanke. For example, Operation Twist.
This is not the first time an Operation Twist was tried. an Operation Twist was tried in 1961, at the start of the Kennedy Administration [10] A paper [11] was written by three Federal Reserve economists in 2004 that, in part, examined the 1960's Operation Twist
Their conclusion (My bold):
A second well-known historical episode involving the attempted manipulation of the term structure was so-called Operation Twist. Launched in early 1961 by the incoming Kennedy Administration, Operation Twist was intended to raise short-term rates (thereby promoting capital inflows and supporting the dollar) while lowering, or at least not raising, long-term rates. (Modigliani and Sutch 1966).... The two main actions of Operation Twist were the use of Federal Reserve open market operations and Treasury debt management operations..Operation Twist is widely viewed today as having been a failure, largely due to classic work by Modigliani and Sutch....
However, Modigliani and Sutch also noted that Operation Twist was a relatively small operation, and, indeed, that over a slightly longer period the maturity of outstanding government debt rose significantly, rather than falling...Thus, Operation Twist does not seem to provide strong evidence in either direction as to the possible effects of changes in the composition of the central bank’s balance sheet....
We believe that our findings go some way to refuting the strong hypothesis that nonstandard policy actions, including quantitative easing and targeted asset purchases, cannot be successful in a modern industrial economy. However, the effects of such policies remain quantitatively quite uncertain.
One of the authors of this 2004 paper was Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. Thus, I have to ask, what the hell is Chairman Bernanke doing implementing such a program, since it is his paper that states it was a failure according to Modigliani, and his paper implies that a larger test would be required to determine true performance.
I ask, is the Chairman using the United States economy as a lab with Americans as the lab rats to test his intellectual curiosity about such things as Operation Twist?
Further, I am very confused by the response of Chairman Bernanke to questioning by Congressman Ron Paul. To a seemingly near off the cuff question by Congressman Paul on Federal Reserve money provided to the Watergate burglars, Chairman Bernanke contacted the Inspector General’s Office of the Federal Reserve and requested an investigation [12]. Yet, the congressman has regularly asked about the gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve [13] and whether the gold at Fort Knox backing up the certificates will be audited. Yet there have been no requests by the Chairman to the Treasury for an audit of the gold.This I find very odd. The Chairman calls for a major investigation of what can only be an historical point of interest but fails to seek out any confirmation on a point that would be of vital interest to many present day Americans.
In this very building, deep in the underground vaults, sits billions of dollars of gold, held by the Federal Reserve for foreign governments. The Federal Reserve gives regular tours of these vaults, even to school children. [14] Yet, America’s gold is off limits to seemingly everyone and has never been properly audited. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? If nothing else, does anyone at the Fed know the quality and fineness of the gold at Fort Knox?
In conclusion, it is my belief that from start to finish the Fed is a failure. I believe faulty methodology is used, I believe that the justification for the Fed, to bring price and economic stability, has never been a success. I repeat, prices since the start of the Fed have climbed by 2,241% and there have been over the same period 18 recessions. No one seems to care at the Fed about the gold supposedly backing up the gold certificates on the Fed balance sheet. The emperor has no clothes. Austrian Business cycle theorists are regularly ignored by the Fed, yet they have the best records with regard to spotting overall downturns, and further they specifically recognized the developing housing bubble. Let it not be forgotten that in 2004, two economists here at the New York Fed wrote a paper [15] denying there was a housing bubble. I responded to the paper [16] and wrote:
The faulty analysis by [these] Federal Reserve economists... may go down in financial history as the greatest forecasting error since Irving Fisher declared in 1929, just prior to the stock market crash, that stocks prices looked to be at a permanently high plateau.
Data released just yesterday, now show housing prices have crashed to 2002 levels. [17]
I will now give you more warnings about the economy.
The noose is tightening on your organization, vast amounts of money printing are now required to keep your manipulated economy afloat. It will ultimately result in huge price inflation, or, if you stop printing, another massive economic crash will occur. There is no other way out.
Again, thank you for inviting me. You have prepared food, so I will not be rude, I will stay and eat.
Let’s have one good meal here. Let’s make it a feast. Then I ask you, I plead with you, I beg you all, walk out of here with me, never to come back. It’s the moral and ethical thing to do. Nothing good goes on in this place. Let’s lock the doors and leave the building to the spiders, moths and four-legged rats.
Footnotes
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Depression-Guides/dp/1596980966/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335313972&sr=8-1
[2] http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2010/press.html
[3] ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
[4] http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Depression-Murray-Rothbard/dp/146793481X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335314537&sr=8-1
[5] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/super-alert-dramatic-slowdown-in-money.html
[6] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/alert-collapsing-credit.html
[7] http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20080609a.htm
[8] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/04/announcing-epj-quarterly-economic.html
[9] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/07/super-alert-dramatic-slowdown-in-money.html
[10] http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-13.html
[11] http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2004/200448/200448pap.pdf
[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/federal-reserve-watergate-iraqi-weapons_n_1400645.html
[13] http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/Current/
[14] http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/visiting.html
[15] http://fednewyork.org/research/epr/04v10n3/0412mcca.pdf
[16] http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/02/checkmate-new-york-fed-as-totally.html
[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/business/economy/survey-shows-us-home-prices-still-weak.html
Special thanks to the following, who helped me research and collect data for this paper: Stephen Davis, Bob English, Jon Lyons, Ash Navabi, Joseph Nelson, Nick Nero, Antony Zegers
====================================================================================
and here's the background story on how Wenzel got invited..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENA7jtCt0Vw
Ombibulous Apr 26, 2012 10:21 AM
For those wondering how RW got invited to speak at the NY Fed, watch Bob English's RT interview. 12:30 mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENA7jtCt0Vw
Here's the back story to the Richard Peach invite:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/02/checkmate-new-york-fed-as-totally.html
Well done, RW!
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito!
Funny but why is it that anytime someone zero's in on ridiculous economic policy (like many of the good points made in the video) someone wants to "make it political"??
I live in Cook (Crook) County, Illinois just outside of the city of Chicago so that video really resonates. Illinois is just an incredible mess.
Where you live (??) certainly shapes your views of the economy.
Yeah it would be Hilarious if it wasn't so darn true!
At least some thinking people ARE NOT DRINKING THE KOOL-AID!!!
Great video and it's going completely viral!
"If I wanted America to fail"
jim sinclair selling his farm and house..what does this mean??
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28107264
http://investormind.blogspot.com/2012/03/jim-sinclairs-commentary-march-28-2012.html
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://cdnplus.jsmineset.com/1/brochure.pdf
http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/04/24/in-the-news-today-1172/
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary - March 28, 2012
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 2012
Add this to the peace time Marshall law by presidential edict and you will understand the auction of my Sunnyview Farm promoted in the top left corner here on JSMineset.
On multiple occasions I have broadcast my message to you by my action of buying gold. All these changes are not for fun or wall paper. They are tools that are presently or going to be used in the future.
I have told you for years that if you did not have privacy do not try and create it as Big Brother watches everything, especially bank wires via the Swift system. Privacy is DEAD everywhere in the Western world.
Somebody in the family must protect the family, and make way for the extended family. Many times I have broadcast a message by example. Recall I stood ready to buy back every gold coin you bought at $400. Did you do anything? Recall the wager on the price of gold at $1650. Did you do anything?
You will recall the auction of my Sunnyfield Farm in 2015-2017. Will you have done anything?
Probably not.
Going viral
"If I wanted America to fail"
Going viral
"If I wanted America to fail"
Tokyo Soil Samples Would Be Considered Nuclear Waste In The US
http://www.fairewinds.org/content/tokyo-soil-samples-would-be-considered-nuclear-waste-us
About this video
While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan. At the US NRC Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, DC March 13 to March 15, the NRC's Chairman, Dr. Gregory Jaczko emphasized his concern that the NRC and the nuclear industry presently do not consider the costs of mass evacuations and radioactive contamination in their cost benefit analysis used to license nuclear power plants. Furthermore, Fairewinds believes that evacuation costs near a US nuclear plant could easily exceed one trillion dollars and contaminated land would be uninhabitable for generations.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
[BEGIN: RIC Conference Footage]
NRC Chairman Jaczko: The events at Fukushima reinforce that any nuclear accident with public health and safety or environmental consequences of that magnitude, is inherently unacceptable. But we focussed on the radiological consequences of this event. I believe we cannot ignore the large social and economic consequences such an event poses to any country with a nuclear facility that deals with such a crisis.
In Japan, more than 90,000 people remain displaced from their homes and land, with some having no prospect for a return to their previous lifestyle in the foreseeable future. While not easy to characterize, these are significant hardships on these people and they are inherently unacceptable. So as we look to the future and we look in a proactive way, we ultimately will have to address the issue of how do we deal with nuclear events that lead to significant land contamination. And displacement, perhaps permanently, of people from their homes and their livelihoods and their communities.
[END: RIC Conference Footage]
Arnie Gundersen: What you have just heard was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, saying that the NRC does not take in to account mass evacuations and people not getting back on their land for centuries when it does a cost benefit analysis as to whether or not a nuclear plant should be licensed.
I am Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds and today I am at the Regulatory Information Conference put on by the NRC in Washington D.C.
So today, I am in Washington D.C. Couple of weeks ago though, I was in Tokyo and when I was in Tokyo, I took some samples. Now, I did not look for the highest radiation spot. I just went around with five plastic bags and when I found an area, I just scooped up some dirt and put it in a bag. One of those samples was from a crack in the sidewalk. Another one of those samples was from a children's playground that had been previously decontaminated. Another sample had come from some moss on the side of the road. Another sample came from the roof of an office building that I was at. And the last sample was right across the street from the main judicial center in downtown Tokyo. I brought those samples back, declared them through Customs, and sent them to the lab. And the lab determined that ALL of them would be qualified as radioactive waste here in the United States and would have to be shipped to Texas to be disposed of.
Now think about the ramifications for the nation's capital, whether it is Tokyo or the United States. How would you like it if you went to pick your flowers and were kneeling in radioactive waste? That is what is happening in Tokyo now. And I think that is the point that Chairman Jaczko was trying to make. When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does it's cost benefit analyses now, it does not take into account the cost to society if you have to evacuate for generations or if you have to move 100,000 people, perhaps forever.
There is a hundred miles between us and a dozen nuclear power plants here in Washington D.C. Fukushima was almost 200 miles away from Tokyo, and yet Tokyo soil in some places, the ones I just happened to find, would qualify as radioactive waste here in the United States.
How would we feel if our nation's capital were contaminated to that degree? So I agree with Chairman Jaczko, new nukes and old nukes that are being re-licensed should include as a cost in their analysis what we have learned to be happening in Tokyo and in Japan.
Thank you very much and I will keep you informed.
MUST READ. The next step toward total control over everything you were, once upon a time, free to do:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28098204
<"Your car" won't be after 2015
By Eric Peters. April 19, 2012
After a certain point, it’s not paranoia.
The latest brick in the wall is the predictably named “Moving Ahead For Progress in the 21st Century Act,” also known as Senate Bill 1813. (See here for the full text of the bill itself; the relevant section is 31406.) This legislation – already passed by the Senate and likely to be passed by the House – will impose a legal requirement that all new cars made beginning with the 2015 models be fitted with so-called Event Data Recorders (EDRs). These are the “black boxes” you may have read about that store data about how you drive – including whether you wear a seat belt and how fast you drive – ostensibly for purposes of post-accident investigation.
These EDRs are not new. GM and other automakers have been installing them in new cars for years – in GM’s case, since the late 1990s. What’s new is the proposed federal mandate, which would make it illegal to not have one – or (in all likelihood) to remove or disable one in a car required to have the device
The question arises: why?
Several possibilities come to mind:
First, the EDRs could – and almost certainly will be – tied into your vehicle’s GPS. (Most new and late model cars, conveniently, already have this, too.) Then data about your driving can be transmitted – as well as recorded. To whom? Your insurance company, of course. Progressive Insurance already has such a system in place – voluntary, for the moment. (See here for more on that.)
When EDRs are mandated, you will no longer have a choice.
We’ll be told it’s all for the sake of (groan) “safety” – just like the old 55 MPH highway speed limit and every radar trap in the country. Of course, it’s really for the sake of revenue – the government’s and the insurance company’s. Your rates will be “adjusted” in real time, for every incident of “speeding” or not buckling up. It’ll be so much moreefficient than using cops to issue tickets. After all, so many fishes escape! With an EDR in every car, no one will escape. Your “adjusted” premium will be waiting for you when you get home.
You’ve got mail!
And naturally, they – the government, insurance companies – will be able to track your every move, noting (and recording) where you’ve been and when. This will create a surveillance net beyond anything that ever existed previously. Some will not sweat this: After all, if you’ve got nothing to hide, why worry? Except for the fact that, courtesy of almost everything we do being either “illegal” or at least “suspicious” we all have a great deal to hide. The naivety of the Don’t Worry, it’s No Big Deal crowd is breathtaking. Did the average Soviet citizen also “not have anything to hide,” and hence why worry?
But the last possibility is probably the creepiest possibility: EDRs tied into your car’s GPS will give them – the government and its corporate fuck buddies – literal physical control over (hack) “your” vehicle. This is not conspiracy theorizing. It is technological fact. Current GM vehicles equipped with the same technology about to be mandated for every vehicle can be disabled remotely. Just turned off. All the OnStar operator has to do is send the appropriate command over the GPS to your car’s computer, which controls the engine. It is one of the features touted by OnStar – of course, as a “safety” feature.
In the future, it will be used to limit your driving – for the sake of “energy conservation” or perhaps, “the environment.” It will be the perfect, er, vehicle, for implementing U.N. Agenda 21 – the plan to herd all of us formerly free-range tax cattle into urban feedlots. So much easier to control us this way. No more bailing out to the country or living off the grid – unless you get there (and to your work) by walking.
The pieces are all coming together.
First, computer-controlled cars. Next, widespread adoption of GPS in cars. Then, EDRs tied into them.
Viola. “Your” car is suddenly under the control of others. Just as “your” other (cough, hack) property – “your” home, for example – is under the control of others. It does not matter that you paid for it. Or even that you have the legal fiction of ownership. You do not control “your” property – hence it is really the property of others. You are merely allowed to use said property – under certain conditions, by the leave of the true owners – the government and its cronies in the corporatocracy.
And once SB 1813 is passed and signed into law, there will no longer be an opt-out. In fact, sure as the rooster crows in the morning, you can bet the next step will a law requiring older cars not originally fitted with the technology be fitted with it – or else decommissioned. (I wrote about that previously; see here.) It is inconceivable that they – the government and its insurance company cronies – will allow anyone to drive a vehicle not subject to this monitoring and control. They will insist it’s not “safe” – and of course, “unfair” that owners of older cars not equipped with EDRs are able to “get away” with “speeding” and not wearing their seat belts.
Our cars were once a tangible expression of the freedom ideal. They are fast becoming mobile cages. And the really devilish thing is they’re making us pay the costs of our own imprisonment, too.
Throw it in the Woods?>
http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/04/19/your-car-wont-be-beginning-in-2015/
Fukushima Reactor 4; Life Extinction Event If It Collapses
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/fukushima-reactor-4-life-extinction.html
Fukushima Reactor 4; Life Extinction Event If It Collapses
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/fukushima-reactor-4-life-extinction.html
"Everybody is going to be almost forced to be a speculator to try to stay in the same place..."
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28096257
DougCasey: I think volatility is going to go way up in the future as the titanic forces of inflation and deflation fight with each other. This is a very poor time to make big bets in almost any conventional market because it's impossible to tell how things will finally settle, where the next major war will be and so forth. Stock markets around the world are not cheap now and bond markets are fantastically overpriced. Currencies are no more than floating abstractions. Commodities have been in a long bull market, so they're no longer a low-risk bet. Real estate—the most obvious thing for bankrupt governments to tax—is dangerous. In the developed world—especially in the U.S.—it floats on a sea of debt, which has driven it to artificially high levels. It's coming down as we speak, but it's nowhere near a bottom.
So there are very few places where people can still attempt to preserve capital. Everybody is going to be almost forced to be a speculator to try to stay in the same place. Speculating means capitalizing on politically caused distortions in the marketplace. That's the proper definition of the word.
>>>
Yup, I don't know what the f to do.
Everybody is going to be almost forced to be a speculator to try to stay in the same place
I don't want to be a speculator....TO STAY IN THE SAME PLACE
The tab for U.N.’s Rio summit: Trillions per year in taxes, transfers and price hikes
By George Russell
Published April 20, 2012
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/?test=latestnews
The upcoming United Nations environmental conference on sustainable development will consider a breathtaking array of carbon taxes, transfers of trillions of dollars from wealthy countries to poor ones, and new spending programs to guarantee that populations around the world are protected from the effects of the very programs the world organization wants to implement, according to stunning U.N. documents examined by Fox News.
The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled to be held in Brazil from June 20-23, and which Obama Administration officials have supported, is to make dramatic and enormously expensive changes in the way that the world does nearly everything—or, as one of the documents puts it, "a fundamental shift in the way we think and act."
Among the proposals on how the “challenges can and must be addressed,” according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
--More than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer ones, in the name of fostering “green infrastructure, ” “climate adaptation” and other “green economy” measures.
--New carbon taxes for industrialized countries that could cost about $250 billion a year, or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned, but not specified.
--Further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would “contribute to a more level playing field between established, 'brown' technologies and newer, greener ones."
-- Major global social spending programs, including a "social protection floor" and "social safety nets" for the world's most vulnerable social groups for reasons of “equity.”
--Even more social benefits for those displaced by the green economy revolution—including those put out of work in undesirable fossil fuel industries. The benefits, called “investments,” would include “access to nutritious food, health services, education, training and retraining, and unemployment benefits."
--A guarantee that if those sweeping benefits weren’t enough, more would be granted. As one of the U.N. documents puts it: “Any adverse effects of changes in prices of goods and services vital to the welfare of vulnerable groups must be compensated for and new livelihood opportunities provided."
Click here for the Executive Summary Report.
That huge catalogue of taxes and spending is described optimistically as “targeted investments in human and social capital on top of investments in natural capital and green physical capital,” and is accompanied by the claim that it will all, in the long run, more than pay for itself.
But the whopping green “investment” list barely scratches the surface of the mammoth exercise in global social engineering that is envisaged in the U.N. documents, prepared by the Geneva-based U nited Nations Environmental Management Group (UNEMG), a consortium of 36 U.N. agencies, development banks and environmental bureaucracies, in advance of the Rio session.
An earlier version of the report was presented at a closed door session of the U.N.'s top bureaucrats during a Long Island retreat last October, where Rio was discussed as a "unique opportunity" to drive an expanding U.N. agenda for years ahead.
Click here for more on this story from Fox News.
Under the ungainly title of Working Towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy, A United Nations System-Wide Perspective, the final version of the 204-page report is intended to “contribute” to preparations for the Rio + 20 summit, where one of the two themes is “the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. ” (The other theme is “the institutional framework for sustainable development” –sometimes known as global environmental governance.)
But in fact, it also lays out new roles for private enterprise, national governments, and a bevy of socialist-style worker, trade and citizens’ organizations in creating a sweeping international social reorganization, all closely monitored by regulators and governments to maintain environmental “sustainability” and “human equity.”
“Transforming the global economy will require action locally (e.g., through land use planning), at the national level (e.g., through energy-use regulations) and at the international level (e.g., through technology diffusion),” the document says. It involves “profound changes in economic systems, in resource efficiency, in the composition of global demand, in production and consumption patterns and a major transformation in public policy-making.” It will also require “a serious rethinking of lifestyles in developed countries.”
As the report puts it, even though “the bulk of green investments will come from the private sector," the "role of the public sector... is indispensable for influencing the flow of private financing." It adds that the green economy model “recognizes the value of markets, but is not tied to markets as the sole or best solution to all problems.”
Among other countries, the report particularly lauds China as “a good example of combining investments and public policy incentives to encourage major advances in the development of cleaner technologies.”
Along those lines, it says, national governments need to reorganize themselves to " collectively design fiscal and tax policies as well as policies on how to use the newly generated revenue" from their levies. There, "U.N. entities can help governments and others to find the most appropriate ways of phasing out harmful subsidies while combining that with the introduction of new incentive schemes to encourage positive steps forward."
U.N. organizations can also “encourage the ratification of relevant international agreements, assist the Parties to implement and comply with related obligations...and build capacity, including that of legislators at national and sub-national levels to prepare and ensure compliance with regulations and standards."
The report declares that “scaled-up and accelerated international cooperation" is required, with new coordination at "the international, sub-regional, and regional levels." Stronger regulation is needed, and “to avoid the proliferation of national regulations and standards, the use of relevant international standards is essential” -- an area where the U.N. can be very helpful, the report indicates.
The U.N. is also ready to supply new kinds of statistics to bolster and measure the changes that the organization foresees—including indicators that do away with old notions of economic growth and progress and replace them with new statistics. One example: “the U.N. System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), which will become an internationally agreed statistical framework in 2012."
These changes, the authors reassure readers, will only be done in line with the “domestic development agendas” of the countries involved.
“A green economy is not a one-size-fits-all path towards sustainable development,” an executive summary of the report declares. Instead it is a “dynamic policy toolbox” for local decision-makers, who can decide to use it optionally.
But even so, the tools are intended for only one final aim. And they have the full endorsement of U.N. Secretary General Ban, who declares in a forward to the document that “only such integrated approach will lay lasting foundations for peace and sustainable development," and calls the upcoming Rio conclave a "generational opportunity" to act.
Click here for the full report.
George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter @ GeorgeRussell
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/?test=latestnews#ixzz1seJRd36i
The tab for U.N.’s Rio summit: Trillions per year in taxes, transfers and price hikes
By George Russell
Published April 20, 2012
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/?test=latestnews
The upcoming United Nations environmental conference on sustainable development will consider a breathtaking array of carbon taxes, transfers of trillions of dollars from wealthy countries to poor ones, and new spending programs to guarantee that populations around the world are protected from the effects of the very programs the world organization wants to implement, according to stunning U.N. documents examined by Fox News.
The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, scheduled to be held in Brazil from June 20-23, and which Obama Administration officials have supported, is to make dramatic and enormously expensive changes in the way that the world does nearly everything—or, as one of the documents puts it, "a fundamental shift in the way we think and act."
Among the proposals on how the “challenges can and must be addressed,” according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon:
--More than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer ones, in the name of fostering “green infrastructure, ” “climate adaptation” and other “green economy” measures.
--New carbon taxes for industrialized countries that could cost about $250 billion a year, or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned, but not specified.
--Further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would “contribute to a more level playing field between established, 'brown' technologies and newer, greener ones."
-- Major global social spending programs, including a "social protection floor" and "social safety nets" for the world's most vulnerable social groups for reasons of “equity.”
--Even more social benefits for those displaced by the green economy revolution—including those put out of work in undesirable fossil fuel industries. The benefits, called “investments,” would include “access to nutritious food, health services, education, training and retraining, and unemployment benefits."
--A guarantee that if those sweeping benefits weren’t enough, more would be granted. As one of the U.N. documents puts it: “Any adverse effects of changes in prices of goods and services vital to the welfare of vulnerable groups must be compensated for and new livelihood opportunities provided."
Click here for the Executive Summary Report.
That huge catalogue of taxes and spending is described optimistically as “targeted investments in human and social capital on top of investments in natural capital and green physical capital,” and is accompanied by the claim that it will all, in the long run, more than pay for itself.
But the whopping green “investment” list barely scratches the surface of the mammoth exercise in global social engineering that is envisaged in the U.N. documents, prepared by the Geneva-based U nited Nations Environmental Management Group (UNEMG), a consortium of 36 U.N. agencies, development banks and environmental bureaucracies, in advance of the Rio session.
An earlier version of the report was presented at a closed door session of the U.N.'s top bureaucrats during a Long Island retreat last October, where Rio was discussed as a "unique opportunity" to drive an expanding U.N. agenda for years ahead.
Click here for more on this story from Fox News.
Under the ungainly title of Working Towards a Balanced and Inclusive Green Economy, A United Nations System-Wide Perspective, the final version of the 204-page report is intended to “contribute” to preparations for the Rio + 20 summit, where one of the two themes is “the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. ” (The other theme is “the institutional framework for sustainable development” –sometimes known as global environmental governance.)
But in fact, it also lays out new roles for private enterprise, national governments, and a bevy of socialist-style worker, trade and citizens’ organizations in creating a sweeping international social reorganization, all closely monitored by regulators and governments to maintain environmental “sustainability” and “human equity.”
“Transforming the global economy will require action locally (e.g., through land use planning), at the national level (e.g., through energy-use regulations) and at the international level (e.g., through technology diffusion),” the document says. It involves “profound changes in economic systems, in resource efficiency, in the composition of global demand, in production and consumption patterns and a major transformation in public policy-making.” It will also require “a serious rethinking of lifestyles in developed countries.”
As the report puts it, even though “the bulk of green investments will come from the private sector," the "role of the public sector... is indispensable for influencing the flow of private financing." It adds that the green economy model “recognizes the value of markets, but is not tied to markets as the sole or best solution to all problems.”
Among other countries, the report particularly lauds China as “a good example of combining investments and public policy incentives to encourage major advances in the development of cleaner technologies.”
Along those lines, it says, national governments need to reorganize themselves to " collectively design fiscal and tax policies as well as policies on how to use the newly generated revenue" from their levies. There, "U.N. entities can help governments and others to find the most appropriate ways of phasing out harmful subsidies while combining that with the introduction of new incentive schemes to encourage positive steps forward."
U.N. organizations can also “encourage the ratification of relevant international agreements, assist the Parties to implement and comply with related obligations...and build capacity, including that of legislators at national and sub-national levels to prepare and ensure compliance with regulations and standards."
The report declares that “scaled-up and accelerated international cooperation" is required, with new coordination at "the international, sub-regional, and regional levels." Stronger regulation is needed, and “to avoid the proliferation of national regulations and standards, the use of relevant international standards is essential” -- an area where the U.N. can be very helpful, the report indicates.
The U.N. is also ready to supply new kinds of statistics to bolster and measure the changes that the organization foresees—including indicators that do away with old notions of economic growth and progress and replace them with new statistics. One example: “the U.N. System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), which will become an internationally agreed statistical framework in 2012."
These changes, the authors reassure readers, will only be done in line with the “domestic development agendas” of the countries involved.
“A green economy is not a one-size-fits-all path towards sustainable development,” an executive summary of the report declares. Instead it is a “dynamic policy toolbox” for local decision-makers, who can decide to use it optionally.
But even so, the tools are intended for only one final aim. And they have the full endorsement of U.N. Secretary General Ban, who declares in a forward to the document that “only such integrated approach will lay lasting foundations for peace and sustainable development," and calls the upcoming Rio conclave a "generational opportunity" to act.
Click here for the full report.
George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter @ GeorgeRussell
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/tab-for-uns-rio-summit-trillions-per-year-in-taxes-transfers-and-price-hikes/?test=latestnews#ixzz1seJRd36i
MAYDAY MAYDAY!
Looks like all the strange and vacant "ghost" Chinese cities built the last decade may have a use after all (??)...
Russia Stunned After Japanese Plan to Evacuate 40 Million RevealedBy The European Union Times
18 April 12
A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Foreign Ministry on the planned re-opening of talks with Japan over the disputed Kuril Islands during the next fortnight states that Russian diplomats were “stunned” after being told by their Japanese counterparts that upwards of 40 million of their peoples were in “extreme danger” of life threatening radiation poisoning and could very well likely be faced with forced evacuations away from their countries eastern most located cities… including the world’s largest one, Tokyo.
The Kuril Islands are located in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region and stretch approximately 1,300 km (810 miles) northeast from Hokkaido-, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater Kuril Ridge and Lesser Kuril Ridge, all of which were captured by Soviet Forces in the closing days of World War II from the Japanese.
The “extreme danger” facing tens of millions of the Japanese peoples is the result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster that was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the To-hoku earthquake and tsunamion 11 March 2011.
According to this report, Japanese diplomats have signaled to their Russian counterparts that the returning of the Kuril Islands to Japan is “critical” as they have no other place to resettle so many people that would, in essence, become the largest migration of human beings since the 1930’s when Soviet leader Stalin forced tens of millions to resettle Russia’s far eastern regions.
Important to note, this report continues, are that Japanese diplomats told their Russian counterparts that they were, also, “seriously considering” an offer by China to relocate tens of millions of their citizens to the Chinese mainland to inhabit what are called the “ghost cities,” built for reasons still unknown and described, in part, by London’s Daily Mail News Service in their 18 December 2010 article titled: “ The Ghost Towns Of China: Amazing Satellite Images Show Cities Meant To Be Home To Millions Lying Deserted” that says:
“These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction. Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices. Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land.”
Foreign Ministry experts in this report note that should Japan accept China’s offer, the combined power of these two Asian peoples would make them the largest super-power in human history with an economy larger than that of the United States and European Union combined and able to field a combined military force of over 200 million.
To how dire the situation is in Japan was recently articulated by Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumurawho warned that the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant may ultimately turn into an event capable of extinguishing all life on Earth.
According to the Prison Planet News Service:
“Matsumura posted [this] startling entry on his blog following a statement made by Japan’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Mitsuhei Murata, on the situation at Fukushima.
Speaking at a public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on 22 March 2012, Murata warned that “if the crippled building of reactor unit 4 – with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground – collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4,” writes Matsumura.
In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421.”
Disturbingly, the desperate situation facing Japan is, also, facing the United States as Russian military observers overflying the US this week as part of the Open Skies Treaty are reporting “unprecedented” amounts of radiation in the Western regions of that country, a finding that was further confirmed by scientists with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute who have confirmed that a wave of highly radioactive waste is headed directly for the US west coast.
Important to note is that this new wave of Fukushima radiation headed towards the US is in addition to earlier radiation events that American scientists are now blaming for radioactive particles from Japan being detected in California kelp.
Though the news of this ongoing global catastrophe is still being heavily censored in the US, the same cannot be said about Japan, and as recently reported by the leading Japanese newspaper The Mainichi Daily News that reports:
“One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse. This is something that experts from both within and outside Japan have pointed out since the massive quake struck. TEPCO, meanwhile, says that the situation is under control. However, not only independent experts, but also sources within the government say that it’s a grave concern.
The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building’s third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.
A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.”
Even though this crisis in Japan has been described as “ a nuclear war without a war” and the US Military is being reported is now stocking up on massive amounts of anti-radiation pills in preparation for nuclear fallout, there remains no evidence at all the ordinary peoples are being warned about this danger in any way whatsoever.
http://www.eutimes.net/2012/04/russia-stunned-after-japanese-plan-to-evacuate-40-million-revealed/
Episode-877- CB Radio as a Practical Prep with Clay Vitis [ 1:04:42 ]
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/cb-practical-prep-with-clay-vitis/comment-page-1#comment-166705
The Galaxy 979 is my Personal Choice for an Upper End SSB CB Radio
Clay Vitis is a long haul truck driver who uses CB both in his daily work and as a fellow prepper. Clay is also a licensed HAM however he spends most of his time on the CB bands. He joins us today to discuss the ins and outs of CB radio communications for every day prepping.
Note to all HAMs, today’s show is NOT why CB is better than HAM or vice verse, it is about CB as a technology for preppers. We have a HAM radio episode planned with Expert Council Member Tim Glance scheduled in the future.
It is my belief that HAM and CB both have their places and HAM is far more specialized, making it practical for the specialist and not quite so practical for the guy that doesn’t turn a radio very often other than for specific events or while traveling.
Join Clay and I Today as we Discuss…
Cheap CB Options
How much do you need to spend on the equipment
What brands or models offer a good value
Base station, mobile or handheld
The capabilities of lower end equipment
Upper end cb options
What constitutes a “good” cb
Where are the best places to find upper end equipment
Why upper end cb’s perhaps are not always the best “value”
Upper and lower sideband and their practicality
Antennas for CB Radios
Antenna options for mobile and base station use
The idea of “homebrewing” an antenna
Creating stealth antennas
Optional equipment
Tuning meters
Amplifiers (including legal/ethical issues )
Fun with CB’s
A cool game you can play with fellow breakers
Learning the technology, community and geography at the same time
Realize there is more to CB that the “one nine”
Practicality of CB from a survival/prepper standpoint
Ready to run “out of the box”
Inexpensive
Reliable
Can be taken to specialized levels but not specialized
Lots of users (especially during a disaster)
Plug and play installation with portability
Great for general travel info
JEFF GUNDLACH'S EPIC PRESENTATION: 'To QE3 Or Not To QE3, That Is The Question'
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-gundlach-presentation-to-qe3-or-not-to-qe3-2012-4#-1#ixzz1sN0Tg7Kb
thanks...here's the link I'm watching it now.
http://libertydocumentaries.com/federal-reserve/special-40-mins-on-federal-reserve-g-edward-griffin-interview-with-glenn-beck/
Hmmm..I really wanted to watch that but I get this...
"Service Unavailable
Server currently undergoing maintenance. Webmaster: please contact support"
Hopefully (??) it will be back up soon!
IMHO they certainly were playing very very "dirty pool" to get the criminally corrupt Federal Reserve system set up and it's collection arm the IRS.
Will keep trying...
Special 40 mins on Federal Reserve : G. Edward Griffin interview with Glenn Beck
http://libertydocumentaries.com/federal-reserve/special-40-mins-on-federal-reserve-g-edward-griffin-interview-with-glenn-beck/
IRS tax day ...April 15.
I listened to an interesting radio interview over the weekend that went very deep down into the rabbit hole of the sinking of the Titanic on April 15 1912.
The sinking conveniently disposed of many of the heavy hitter bankers opposed to the creation of the Federal Reserve. J.P. Morgan (a supporter of the creation of the Federal Reserve) was scheduled to be a passenger but luckily did not board the ship.
The Federal Reserve was created the very next year with most of it's powerful opposition conveniently disposed of in the sinking of the Titanic.
Of course now April 15th is the commemorative day that the levies are collected by the IRS to support the Federal Reserve cabal.
Just like the events of 9/11/2001 there are many anomolies concerning the unthinkable sinking of the Titanic that just make no sense...
...unless???
Why The Market Is Slowly Dying
Zero Hedge
April 15, 2012
http://www.infowars.com/why-the-market-is-slowly-dying/
Update to prior post on Fukushima.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28080319
To: isopatch who wrote (89943) 4/13/2012 1:30:21 PM
From: isopatch of 89947
Update to prior post on Fukushima. To be blunt, we're on the razors edge AFA risk of a vastly larger release of radioactivity than took place in March of last year. Heavily damaged spent fuel pools are being hit by significant earthquakes close to the plant itself:
<M6 quake hits Fukushima at 6:10a ET — M4.5 in same location 5 minutes later>
Scroll down to view maps and see for yourself:
http://enenews.com/breaking-m6-quake-hits-fukushima-at-610a-et-m4-5-in-same-location-5-minutes-later
AND...
<Japan TV: Temperature in spent fuel pool at No. 4 “much higher than the normal level” — “May be boiling”>
http://enenews.com/japan-tv-temperature-in-spent-fuel-pool-at-no-4-much-higher-than-the-normal-level-may-be-boiling-video
Remember this pool contains considerable amounts of MOX fuel which is particularly dangerous because of its high plutonium content.
Don't wait for MSM to sound the alarm, folks. The news blackout of the past year continues. If you don't already have at least a year's supply of (non perishible) food stored? Then, get it done. NOW!
Iso
Dire situation developing for the world....A real world "Hunger Games" coming soon to our planet?
from an thread on Silicon Investor...
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28073617
http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html
<[*Ed: This page was updated on 4/5/12 to reflect corrected calculations]
Japan’s former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4—with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground—collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).
I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 rods.
I received an astounding response from Mr. Alvarez [updated 4/5/12]:
In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.
The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.
Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 — roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).
It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.
Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.
There was a Nuclear Security Summit Conference in Seoul on March 26 and 27, and Ambassador Murata and I made a concerted effort to find someone to inform the participants from 54 nations of the potential global catastrophe of reactor unit 4. We asked several participants to share the idea of an Independent Assessment team comprised of a broad group of international experts to deal with this urgent issue.
I would like to introduce Ambassador Murata’s letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to convey this urgent message and also his letter to Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for Japanese readers. He emphasized in the statement that we should bring human wisdom to tackle this unprecedented challenge.
It seems to us that the Nuclear Security Summit was focused on the North Korea nuclear issue and on the issue of common security from a terrorist attack. Our appeal on the need for the independent assessment at Reactor 4 was regarded as less urgent. We predicted this outcome in light of the nature of the Summit. I suppose most participants fully understood the potential disaster which will affect their countries. Nevertheless, they decided not to raise the delicate issue, perhaps in order to not ruffle their diplomatic relationship with Japan.
I was moved by Ambassador Murata’s courage in pressing this issue in Japan. I know how difficult it is for a former career diplomat to do this, especially in my country. Current and former government officials might be similarly restricted in the scope of their actions, as Ambassador Murata is, but it is their responsibility to take a stand for the benefit of our descendants for centuries to come—to pass on a world safer than our ancestors passed us.
If Japanese government leaders do not recognize the risk their nation faces, how could the rest of us be persuaded of the looming disaster? And if the rest of us do not acknowledge the catastrophe we collectively face, who will be the one to act?
Tokyo, March 25, 2012
Dear Secretary-General,
Honorable Ban Ki-moon,
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for your considerate letter dated 2 March, 2012. Your moral support for a United Nations Ethics Summit will remain a constant source of encouragement for my activities.
Please allow me to pay a tribute to your great contribution to strengthen nuclear safety and security. The current Nuclear Summit in Seoul is no doubt greatly benefiting from the high-level meeting you convened last September.
I was asked to make a statement at the public hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 23. I raised the crucial problem. of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima containing1535 fuel rods. It could be fatally damaged by continuing aftershocks. Moreover, 50 meters away from it exists a common cooling pool for 6 reactors containing 6375 fuel rods!
It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.
Please allow me to inform you of an initiative being taken by a former UN official who is endeavoring to have the Nuclear Security Summit take up the crucial problem. of N0.4 reactor of Fukushima. He is pursuing the establishment of an independent assessment team. I think his efforts are very significant, because it is indispensable to draw the attention of world leaders to this vital issue.
I am cooperating with him, writing to some of my Korean acquaintances that this issue deserves the personal attention of President Lee Myung-bak. I have written today to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. I asked him to consider taking the initiative of mobilizing human wisdom on the widest scope to cope with the Fukushima reactor No.4 problem, fully taking into account the above-mentioned “independent assessment team”.
The world has been made so fragile and vulnerable. The role of the United Nations is increasingly vital. I wish you the best of luck in your noble mission. Please accept, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Mitsuhei Murata
Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal
Executive Director, the Japan Society for Global System and Ethics>
Even assuming the highly unlikely possibility that all other highly alarming developments ongoing at the other Fukashima reactors suddenly disappeared? The collapse spent fuel pool 4, alone, would release of absolutely mind boggling quantities of lethal radiation into the atmosphere and ocean to spread eastward adding to what we've already received by orders of magnitude.
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28062634
You make some valid points.
19 Signs Of Very Serious Economic Trouble On The Horizon
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/19-signs-of-very-serious-economic-trouble-on-the-horizon
Argentina’s Totalitarian Economy
April 5, 2012 | Author Pater Tenebrarum
(charts and illustrations on link...)
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=16196
No-One is Safe – A Fascistic 'Zwangswirtschaft' is Implemented
The government of Christina Kirchner is well-known for its interventionism, protectionism and disregard of property rights and freedom of expression. Anyone doing business in Argentina today or contemplating an investment in its stock market must realize that their property and assets could end up confiscated at anytime. Moreover, the high dividend yields of Argentine stocks are clearly no longer safe.
Even the many businesses that remain nominally the property of their owners are often subjected to some form of fascistic 'Zwangswirtschaft' in Argentina, with the bureaucratic interventions ranging from mild to extremely aggressive. This is to say, while business owners may still 'own' their businesses on paper, the government bureaus decide who may do what and when. Among the restrictions imposed by government are decrees that all export earnings must be repatriated, that numerous companies from oil producers to banks may not pay dividends but have to reinvest their profits in Argentina instead, and that farmers may only sell a certain percentage of their output abroad. On top of these decrees there are numerous additional restriction on foreign trade, in the form of often ludicrous taxes on exports (for example, crude oil exports are subject to a 100% tax for every barrel that is sold above a price of $45/bbl.; agricultural exports are also subjected to high export taxes).
The well known Argentine oil company YPF Respol has knuckled under and stopped paying dividends for two years after the government suddenly revoked several of its licenses, seemingly out of the blue. However, this kow-towing by YPF Repsol was not enough: the government has apparently decided that it must nationalize the company (read: steal it from its shareholders), for the 'common good'.
This was at first denied, only to be reconfirmed a few weeks later, while the extortionist pressure on the company was increased by means of provincial governments threatening more license revocations.
„YPF, which is controlled by Spain's Repsol, is under intense pressure from the administration of President Cristina Fernandez to boost output to reduce surging fuel imports that are eroding the country's trade surplus.
Pagina 12 newspaper, which is seen as reflecting government thinking, said Cristina Fernandez had made up her mind on the need for state control and that internal debate was now focused on how to go about it.
It gave the possible options as expropriation or state intervention including the purchase of company shares. [you have one guess as to which it will be! ed.]
To reduce the risk of legal challenges, any such move would be preceded by the passing of a law declaring oil and natural gas production as matters of public interest, the newspaper said.“
(emphasis added)
This is the typical modus operandi of this government. If its seizures and decrees are deemed to be legally dubious, it simply makes up new laws to fend off potential legal challenges. Naturally this is the exact opposite of the rule of law. It is in effect a lawless dictatorship.
“There's no going backward on this” it quoted unnamed government sources as saying. “Repsol has an extractive model for YPF that doesn't work for us. Company rationale doesn't contemplate the reinvestment of profits and putting capital into exploration and production based on what the country needs”.
YPF stock has been battered by weeks of speculation about a possible re-nationalization and a series of sanctions by national and provincial authorities, such as the withdrawal of operating licenses.
YPF officials have defended the company's investment record and criticized provinces for revoking its concessions. The company argues investment in Argentina rose 50% in 2011, with most of the cash channelled into upstream including exploration projects like those that led to the huge Vaca Muerta shale find, which could potentially double Argentina's energy output.
Meantime and following with the strategy of having oil provinces suspend concessions, Chubut governor Martin Buzzi announced that his administration is considering terminating oil concession in four wells, including Manantiales Behr, one of the most important in the country.
Buzzi stated the measure was based on accurate information regarding YPF failure to comply its contract. “Investments in Manantiales Behr decreased 70% in comparison to 2011 and wells they planned to drill during 2012 are 59% lower than the previous year,” he said
Chubut Government is also considering the possibility of revoking YPF concessions in Los Monos, Río Mayo and Restringa Alí areas, “where investment is practically zero” according to governor Buzzi.
This in short describes a fascistic 'Zwangswirtschaft' (this could be loosely translated as 'controlled economy', but the term doesn't quite have the ring of the German original, which Mises used to describe the economy of Nazi Germany. The German word 'Zwang' means 'coercion'. So perhaps one could call it a 'totalitarian economy').
Note that it is the provincial government that thinks it is in charge of how much YPF should invest and in what – it is not up to the company or its shareholders to make that determination. The threat of revoking even more concessions is simply blackmail and as we now know, is merely the first step in what is likely to become the complete theft of the company by the State. The only hope YPF Repsol shareholders have at this point is that Spain will intervene on their behalf, as Spain's Repsol is a large shareholder in YPF.
Shares in YPF Repsol have been in freefall due to the Argentine government threatening to steal the company - click chart for better resolution.
Similarly to YPF Repsol, other companies like Argentina Telecom have also bowed to the government's pressure and decided to withhold dividend payments. This is tantamount to an expropriation of shareholders, since they can no longer freely decide how the company's resources and income are to be disposed of. The government didn't need to issue a decree or make up a new law in this case: it was enough that it threatened to do so.
The Dispute over the Falklands and Rising Authoritarianism
Argentina's government has now also put the thumbscrews to other oil companies. Recently it decided that it somehow still has a say over the Falkland Islands, which belong to the UK. Their geographical proximity to Argentina should not detract from this fact – as it were, the population of the islands does not wish to be annexed by Argentina, quite understandably. Argentina's government naturally has no intention whatsoever to defer to the wishes of the Falkland's population and to accept that it has no claim to the islands. It seemingly still regrets that the junta was unsuccessful in it attempt to annex the islands by force 30 years ago. Luckily Argentina is militarily so weak nowadays that a repeat of the invasion is definitely off the table. Its claim to the islands is supported by many other governments in the region, all of which reflexively reject remnants of colonialism. However, who cares what other governments think? It is the people of the Falklands who should be the ones who have the decisive voice on the issue – and they want to remain British, so that's that.
As the BBC reports:
„It is true that Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and other Latin American countries have openly supported Argentina's claim to the islands.
There is an instinctive disapproval in the continent of the remnants of colonialism, and a feeling that a European power has no real business operating from territory in the South Atlantic. Argentina interprets this support as a growing sign that Britain is feeling the heat. The British government disagrees.
Foreign Secretary William Hague told me in London: "People in Argentina would be very much mistaken if they thought Britain was retreating from the scene, or is not interested in the region, or is weakening in any way in our commitment to the people of the Falkland Islands."
Argentina's hope is that Britain will become so embarrassed by the disapproval of other countries that it will eventually agree to negotiate with Argentina over the sovereignty of the islands.
If Cristina Fernandez was an ordinary president, that might be a possibility. But she is not. Under her rule, Argentina is starting to worry many of the countries whose support she most needs.
Her government seems to be slipping away from its traditional pro-Western position, and growing closer to Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and even Iran. Countries in the region as different as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru find this increasingly worrying.
Brazil has also been annoyed by President Fernandez's proposals for a non-nuclear South Atlantic, as part of its campaign against the British presence in the Falklands. The problem is, Brazil is building seven nuclear-powered submarines of its own.
There are plenty of other irritants. Last year, when Argentina's trade surplus dropped by 11%, the government introduced a complicated system of import restrictions. On Friday, 40 countries – including the US, the European Union nations and Japan – attacked Argentina angrily at the World Trade Organisation.“
(emphasis added)
In short, Argentina is close to becoming a typical 'pariah state', aligned mainly with other nations of deservedly dubious reputation. Mind, we do not think that every country should be required to knuckle under to every demand made of it by the West. However, these pariah states are all ruled by authoritarian and repressive governments – and Argentina's government is no longer much different from them. Consider a further snippet from the BBC report quoted above:
„Supporters of President Fernandez's policy, like Mr Escude, defend these things by saying that former great powers like the US and Britain no longer matter as much as they once did, and that countries like Brazil are taking over.
Yet Brazil is anxious to keep its good relationships with the US and Britain, and does not want to have to side with Argentina against them – over the Falkland Islands or anything else.
Leading Argentine constitutional lawyer Daniel Sabsay is one of several thousand signatories to an open letter which calls for Argentina to consider the rights and opinions of the Falkland Islanders.
He believes the government's sudden interest in the Falklands is a deliberate distraction from Argentina's increasing problems at home. "This conflict is a mask, something that is useful to hide other problems we have."
Argentina's problems are certainly worsening. After 10 years of growth, the official inflation rate is 7%, but private economists currently put it at 22%. Wage demands are mounting, and low and middle-income families are starting to struggle.
Five years ago, in 2007, when President Fernandez's late husband Nestor Kirchner was president, Argentina broke off discussions with Britain about the development of the Falkland Islands' resources, on grounds no progress was being made on the question of sovereignty. But there was little sign of any other interest in the islands. It was only in June last year, in an interview with the editor of the English-language Buenos Aires Herald, that the defence minister, Arturo Puricelli, launched the government's attack on the issue.
The Herald, edited by Carolina Barros, is a small newspaper with a famous history. During the so-called Dirty War, carried out by the country's military in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was the only newspaper which had the courage to raise the issue of the people who were disappearing – 20,000 or more of them.
Ms Barros maintains that the Fernandez government is nowadays trying to control the media – only parts of which are anyway independent of government influence. Not long ago, she says, every newspaper received a letter from the official statistics agency, which the opposition maintains is heavily influenced by the government, warning that they should not quote figures from independent economists – for instance the inflation estimate of 22%. "We are becoming like Venezuela, where you aren't allowed to print the genuine exchange rate for the dollar," Ms Barros said.
President Fernandez runs a strange kind of government. She never gives interviews or press conferences; instead, she regularly broadcasts her views direct to the country on television. Her critics believe she is becoming more and more isolated. The similarities with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, they say, are growing.
"The trouble is, she is isolating Argentina too," says Ms Barros. "We will soon be almost on our own in the world."
(emphasis added)
Regarding the Falklands, we would point to what the writers of the open letter highlighted above say: once again, the opinion of the inhabitants of the islands on the matter should be what ultimately counts.
We have previously written about the government's increasingly aggressive attempts to silence independent economists. At first it threatened them with a $100,000 fine for every time they dared to publicize independent data on the decline in the Argentine peso's purchasing power. Then it threatened to sue them for treason, implying that one would likely end up imprisoned for daring to question the government's lies about the inflation rate. The funny thing about this is that everybody knows that the official data are a sham – people certainly don't need private economists telling them that. Still, the government can not abide to see the true situation in print. More on the inflation question follows further below.
With regards to the Falklands, a spat has recently erupted as Argentina now tries to penalize companies doing business there, especially oil companies.
The Financial Review writes:
„Britain has accused Argentina of illegally intimidating Falkland Islands residents after its foreign minister vowed legal action against oil companies operating around the territory. Argentinian minister Hector Timerman warned "we will take the required legal, administrative, civil and criminal actions against oil companies currently involved in drilling", speaking in a Buenos Aires press conference Thursday.
Britain's Foreign Office responded by calling the threats "illegal, unbecoming and wholly counter-productive". "These latest attempts to damage the economic livelihoods of the Falkland Islands people regrettably reflect a pattern of behaviour by the Argentine government," said the statement. "From harassing Falklands shipping to threatening the Islanders' air links with Chile, Argentina's efforts to intimidate the Falklands are illegal, unbecoming and wholly counter-productive.”
The ministry stressed that oil exploration around the disputed islands was a legitimate commercial venture, and that islanders were entitled to exploit any natural resources. Britain vowed to work closely with any company potentially affected by Argentina's move. The announcement escalated rising tensions over the South Atlantic islands claimed by Argentina since 1833, but held by Britain.
Timerman noted that in the past Buenos Aires had already "notified these firms that they were acting illegally". "We will also send warnings to companies which might be interested in these activities, serving them notice of the possible administrative, civil and criminal sanctions they might face," he added.
Timerman said the companies involved include Desire Petroleum, Falkland Oil and Gas, Rockhopper Exploration, Borders and Southern Petroleum and Argos. Rockhopper, Desire Petroleum and Falkland Oil and Gas are three small British firms that began prospecting for oil off the Falklands in early 2010. Rockhopper, the only company to strike oil so far, refused to comment. Timerman said the sanctions would also apply to all companies that provide "logistical support" or "financial services" for these activities.“
(emphasis added)
As the Telegraph reports in a related article, this 'logistical support' apparently extends even to the writing of research reports on oil exploration near the Falklands:
„Argentina warned in March that it could sue oil companies exploring around the disputed islands, and those companies offering explorers "logistical help" or "financial services". It has since written to banks who have advised or published research about the explorers, threatening legal action.“
(emphasis added)
Argentina seems to be laboring under some bizarre illusion that it has jurisdiction over the Falklands. As one oil executive remarks, any letters he might receive from Argentina's government are likely to end up in the wastepaper bin right away:
“Asked how he would respond if it were threatened, Mr Hudd laughed and said: "If FIH received a letter from the Argentine government it would be ignored. I wouldn't deign to waste a stamp on it. The whole thing is so bizarre and ridiculous that it defies rational comment."
Mr Hudd, a regular visitor to the Falklands, said islanders were "bemused" by the threats. Asked if he thought that there was a real threat to the operations of oil companies working around the islands, he said: "It remains to be seen but I'm very sceptical. The risk of not finding oil far outweighs the risk of political action by Argentina."
(emphasis added)
In the meantime Argentina has actually begun to initiate legal proceedings against oil companies operating in the Falklands. The companies concerned can of course afford to laugh this nonsense off, but Argentina is trying to put pressure on them by e.g. informing stock exchanges where their shares are listed about the 'risks' that these companies supposedly must now disclose to their shareholders on account of these lawsuits. In short, it is trying to make life hard for them in every way it can.
Oil companies operating in Argentina proper have it more difficult. The latest company subjected to the government's threats and blackmail is Brazil's Petrobras. Once again a provincial government in Argentina has taken the lead.
As the FT reports:
„No oil company it seems is safe in Argentina these days.
On Wednesday, Brazil’s Petrobras became the latest oil major to be stripped of its operating licence by the Neuquen province in western Argentina.
While Argentina is still not quite in the same league as Venezuela, where expropriations have become a familiar risk for businesses, this latest development should give pause to even the country’s most gung-ho investors.
As was the case with Spanish-controlled YPF – which has lost 12 licenses in five provinces since March 14 – Neuquen’s justification was that the three oil companies failed to invest enough in the fields to boost productions.
From Télam, Argentina’s official news agency:
The provincial Government of Neuquén expired on Tuesday the concession of the hydrocarbon areas Veta Escondida, Covunco Norte y Fortín de Piedras. The expired areas shall be in charge of the provincial State-run company Gas y Petróleo del Neuquén S.A …
With this new resolution, the reverted areas in the province due to the lack of investment are six, of which three were exploited by the oil company YPF.
The move clearly caught Petrobras off the hop. Shares in the company, down nearly 30 per cent over the past year, fell another 2.4 per cent on the news on Wednesday.
As Maria das Graças Foster, the company’s new president, told O Globo:
I was taken by surprise. I did not expect it. We have very positive relations with Argentina and we were assessing future opportunities for our presence in that country.
It wasn’t only so long ago that YPF also thought it had a chummy relationship with the Argentine government. Indeed, the bad boy in the oil sector has always been Royal Dutch/Shell, which has never recovered favour after trying to put up diesel prices in 2005 and incurring the wrath of then president Néstor Kirchner who called a Shell boycott.
Unlike Spain’s Repsol, which derived a fifth of its operating income from its stake in YPF, Petrobras’s exposure to Argentina is less significant. While the Argentine business is its biggest overseas, net income from the division, at 704m pesos ($160m), accounts for only about 4 per cent of the R33.3bn ($18.22b) in net income made by Petrobras in 2011.
Still, the fact that Cristina Fernández has in the space of a few short months turned on – first YPF (the country’s biggest oil producer) and now Petrobras – underscores the pressure that the Argentine economy is facing.“
(emphasis added)
So why is Argentina's economy 'facing pressures' and why is its oil and gas production in steep decline since 1999? As it were, oil production has fallen by a third since then. Are the evil private companies deliberately 'not investing enough' as is regularly charged in the course of these license revocations? As it turns out, in reality government price controls are at fault. As a lawyer specializing in arbitration in Latin America relates:
Argentina is in an energy crisis because it has been routinely artificially depressing domestic oil and gas prices over the past decade. The suppression of the domestic price of oil and gas and the closure of all possibility to export gas to Chile has caused most Argentine energy producers to dramatically reduce local investment. Decreased investment means decreased production in the medium and long term and now, the provinces are also paying a price as royalty income is also down. Understandably, the provinces are unable to blame the central government. Instead, they are blaming the investors and hoping that if they clear away investors that have failed to invest in certain fields, new investors will emerge.
It remains to be seen, however, whether new investors (in particular, Chinese investors) will be willing to invest in Kirchner’s Argentina.
And here lies Argentina’s problem. Taking away oil fields from YPF and Petrobras won’t solve the country’s energy problem unless they can attract new investors. And who would want to put money into a venture if they know that the asset – and with it the money they have invested into it – could be taken from them any day.
As the arbitration lawyer put it:
I think foreign investors should be very cautious in their dealings with the provinces at this time and expect that every underperforming asset can and will be taken away from them in the short term.
Sadly, Argentina’s heavy-handed intervention could be a death-knell for the very investment in the sector that everyone acknowledges is necessary.
(emphasis added)
This is what routinely happens when price controls are imposed: demand explodes, while concurrently supply contracts as it no longer pays to produce the controlled items. Since exports of oil are subject to a 100% export tax, there is no longer any possibility for oil producers to earn satisfactory returns. Oil exploration and the development of oil fields are capital-intensive, risky businesses with a very long time horizon. When the legal environment is as unpredictable and government's rule as capricious and mercurial as in Argentina, such risky long range investment projects naturally tend to be put on ice – and this is all the more true when producers are forced to operate under a system of price controls.
Argentina's Merval stock index: in spite of being propped up by enormous rates of money supply inflation, the index has been in a downtrend over the past year – click chart for better resolution.
The Central Bank's Bizarre Views on Inflation
As Merco Press reports, the 'unofficial' consumer price inflation rate in Argentina has clocked in at nearly 23% over the past twelve months:
“February inflation in Argentina according to an average of private agencies which is released monthly by members of the Congressional opposition was 1.65%, climbing to 22.75% in the last twelve months. The official Indec inflation is scheduled to be released next March 13. [update: the official number has in the meantime been released and was 9.7% - less than half the actual inflation rate, ed.]
Argentine opposition lawmakers every month release an average of private consultants’ consumer prices index estimates, since the Domestic Trade Secretariat has threatened those organizations with fines of up to 150.000 dollars if they make public their reports.
Since the Argentine Stats office Indec five years ago, under former president Nestor Kirchner, had its professional staff removed and replaced by political cronies, the gap between the two indexes has soared: while the official Indec 12-month percentage is below two digits, the so called Congressional index has always been in the twenties.
Lawmaker Ricardo Gil Lavedra said that “inflation exists even when the government tries to erase reality and the legal system”, in reference to the ban on making public private consultants estimates.
Another lawmaker, Paula Maria Bertol underlined that the Indec numbers do not reflect reality “and we will continue making public the index from public consultants because it is a question of freedom of expression and the people’s interest and right to know”. She added that inflation continues to erode the competitive (export) dollar of the first years of the Kirchner couple and this is clearly reflected in the outflow of capital. It also means less investment and less jobs for the Argentines”.
(emphasis added)
So why does Argentina have such a high 'price inflation' rate which the government is at pains to lie about? It turns out that the Yale-educated central bank president Mercedes Marco del Pont has very curious views about the causes of rising prices:
“Printing money does not lead to inflation, argues Argentine central bank president.
The president of Argentina’s Central Bank (BCRA), Mercedes Marcó del Pont, stressed the importance of the recently approved bank’s charter reform and denied that printing currency leads to the creation of an inflationary state “since inflation is rooted in other causes”.
(emphasis added)
Say what?
First of all, printing money is what inflation actually is. Admittedly printing money does not always lead to rising prices for final goods. The effects of inflation are manifold, and while all of them are bad, rising CPI is not an inescapable outcome in all cases. Both the demand for money and the rise in economic productivity can sometimes work against rising final goods prices in spite of inflationary policy. It is clear however that prices will be higher than they would otherwise be, even if they fail to rise. Moreover, there will be always some prices in the economy that will rise when the money supply is increased, even if measures like CPI remain tame. As Ludwig von Mises remarked, a 'price revolution' occurs, as relative prices inevitably begin to shift.
Alas, in Argentina consumer goods prices clearly are rising, and they are doing so at a worryingly fast clip. To insist that the vast inflation of money and credit is not the root cause of this phenomenon is simply ludicrous. Obviously, absent an increase in the supply of money, prices in general simply cannot rise. Every price increase in certain items will necessarily be balanced by a price decline in others. It is simply not possible for all prices to rise absent an inflation of the money supply.
So this is what a Yale education gets you? The belief that there is no connection between the money supply and prices? It boggles the mind.
Here is what else Mrs. Marco del Pont had to say:
“The banker added that “it is totally false to say that printing more money generates inflation, price increases are generated by other phenomena like supply and external sector’s behaviour”.
In that sense, the BCRA president explained that “the priority right now is the investment credit, because it is one of the issues in which Argentina is still with insufficient coverage. We look for credits of longer-term investment plans at reasonable rates with the return of these investment projects.”
“We discard that financing the public sector is inflationary because according to that statement the increase in prices are caused by an excess of demand, something we do not see in Argentina. In our country the means of payment are adjusted to the growth of demand and tensions with prices must be looked on the supply side and the external sector”.
Marcó del Pont remarked that criticism of the way the state is funding itself “have a clear ideological condiment, it is that or either the public sector has to make adjustments or go abroad to get credits and/or loans”. She added that the debate is very similar to that referred to “the use of BCRA reserves to pay for sovereign debt”.
Under the new charter of the bank the primary and main task of the BCRA will not be only to preserve the value of the currency but must also include inflation, jobs, economic development with social fairness, financial stability and the need to coordinate with government policies.
“We’re recovering the sovereign capacity to formulate and implement economic policy”, said Marcó del Pont who anticipated some pictures will be coming down from the bank’s hall of fame “beginning with Milton Friedman.”
We are not uncritical admirers of Milton Friedman either, but the fact that his picture will be 'removed from the hall of fame' speaks for itself. Friedman after all did famously and quite correctly assert that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. The rest of her babbling sounds like what a Soviet commissar might say. It is essentially incomprehensible and meaningless gobbledygook.
Admittedly she sounded a bit more coherent in a 2011 speech , which was also designed to divert attention from the central bank's inflationary policies. On that occasion she pointed to the composition of the CPI with its high food price weighting and the fact that the rise in international food prices could not be blamed on Argentina's CB.
These arguments actually have some merit, but it sounds like just another convenient excuse, very similar to Ben Bernanke blaming rising commodity prices on anything and everyone but the central bank's policies and himself.
Her claim that she sees her main task in 'preserving the value of the currency' is plainly ridiculous in the face of consumer prices rising at an over 20% clip over the past several years (based on the calculations of private economists). If there were no acute inflation problem, the government would hardly find it necessary to hide the effects of the inflationary policy by publishing a doctored price index.
Argentina's central bank president Mercedes Marco del Pont: 'money printing does not cause inflation' (that's actually true, in a sense: money printing is inflation)
Chicago School Economist Milton Friedman: his picture will no longer grace the 'hall of fame' of Argentina's central bank. Although in favor of the central planning of money, Friedman was a renowned critic of inflationary policy.
Charts by: StockCharts.com
Buy a House!
By Addison Wiggin & Samantha Buker
A little more than a year ago, a very successful professional investor declared, “If you don’t own a home, buy one. If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home.”
Since that declaration, house prices have continued drifting lower in most parts of the country. The Case-Shiller index of national home prices is down about 4% year over year. Even so, we’re betting this professional investor was merely early...not wrong. US housing isn’t just cheap; it is the cheapest it has been in more than 40 years. And when one considers the possibility that inflation may rear its head soon, housing looks even cheaper still.
If you think we’re crazy, you’re not alone. The housing market is a complete bust right now. The following chart shows the median home price in terms of per capita disposable income. Based on this calculation, home prices are lower than they have been in 40 years!
And it isn’t just that home prices have fallen a long way. For most home buyers, the price of the home is only one part of the true cost of a home. Mortgage rates matter as much, or more, than the purchase price itself. In other words, buying a house is not just a bet on real estate; it is also a bet against interest rates. For the typical buyer of a home who takes out a 30-year mortgage, an increase in interest rates is just like an increase in the price of a home.
Today, because home prices and interest rates are both at extremely low levels, the cost of buying a home with a 30-year mortgage is at an all-time low. To illustrate this stunning fact, the chart below shows the average monthly mortgage payment on the median-priced home, expressed as a percentage of per capita disposable income.
If you can get a mortgage, you are basically taking a reverse bet on the bond market. You could be a long-term borrower at fixed rates, instead of a long-term lender. Right now, you can borrow for 30 years at around 3.3%. After the mortgage tax deduction, for some people the net effective interest rate is nearer to 2%! That’s going to prove an awesome deal if we see inflation again.
But here’s the factor that clinches the case for investing in residential real estate: the long-term supply and demand for housing. Let’s start with supply.
Consider how long it will take to bring new supply to the market. As investors, we want new supply to come slowly.
The number of housing starts is currently lower than at any time in at least the past 50 years. Moreover, new construction is only about half the long-term average. Again, good news for investors in housing, since this means that new supply is growing very slowly.
Meanwhile, housing demand — based simply on demographic trends — should rise inexorably for years to come. Take the growth in households — driven by population growth — and apply a home ownership rate. Demographically, the US is still a growing country. By 2030, there will be 370 million Americans. Even using the long- term average home ownership rate means we’ll need 1.1-1.2 million new single-family homes per year.
In other words, busted markets don’t last forever. The cure for low prices, as the old saw goes, is low prices. Furthermore, a bet on the housing market is not merely a bet on real estate; it is also a bet that inflation will rise.
The US economy may be idling in neutral for the moment, but inflation is revving its engines. How should you prepare?
“Buy gold” is the time-honored answer, and we don’t quarrel with it. But an alternative answer, especially this time around, might be: “Buy a house.”
That’s the advice offered by a growing — but still small — number of very successful investors. John Paulson is one of them. He is the guy who said about a year ago, “If you don’t own a home, buy one. If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home.”
He was early...and his hedge fund performed very poorly last year, mostly because he was too early betting big on a rebound in the US economy. Double wrong! But we still think Paulson’s call on housing may be close to the mark.
Despite his dismal performance in 2011, Paulson is the guy who turned one of the greatest trades of all time. Betting against the housing market, he netted a cool billion dollars for himself in 2007. One fund he managed rose 590% that year. Today, he is one of the richest men in America...still.
His advice today is very different than it was in 2007. “Buy a house,” he says.
And he has put money where his mouth is...He already owns posh digs in Manhattan on 86th Street, plus a Southampton house he nabbed in 2008. In 2010, he snapped up an 8-acre ranch in Aspen for a cool $24.5 million, before buying a Fifth Avenue condo at a 23% discount to the asking price. (This 26th-floor pied-à-terre will be his “guest house.”)
Let’s flash back in time for a second...
Another successful investor gave similar advice in 1971 — the dawn of one of America’s biggest housing bull markets. The investor was Adam Smith (George Goodman) on The Dick Cavett Show. Here is a snippet from that conversation:
Smith: The best investment you can make is a house. That one is easy.
Cavett: A house? We were talking about the stock market. Investments...
Smith: You asked me the best investment. There are always individual stocks that will go up more, but you don’t want to give tips on a television show. For most people, the best investment is a house.
Cavett: I already own a house. Now what?
Smith: Buy another one.
How good was that advice?
Houses, as an investment, trounced stocks during the inflationary 1970s. The chart below tells the tale.
In the 1970s, US stocks returned about 5% annually — failing to keep pace with inflation. Still, it was an up-and-down ride. In 1974, the stock market fell 49%. But here are the average selling prices for existing homes in the 1970s, as inflation heated up:
1972 — $30,000
1973 — $32,900
1974 — $35,800
1975 — $39,000
1976 — $42,200
1977 — $47,900
1978 — $55,500
1979 — $64,200
That was a pretty impressive run-up in home prices. Today, I think we could be on the threshold of another once-in-a-generation buying opportunity in the housing market.
The homebuilding stocks seem to agree. Many of them have doubled during the last five months from their very depressed levels. Although the ISE Homebuilders Index is still down about 80% from its 2006 peak, it has been gaining steady ground relative to the rest of the stock market.
The chart below shows the rolling three-year price performance of the S&P 500 index, minus the rolling three-year price performance of the ISE Index. As you can see, the ISE has been lagging far behind the S&P 500 for most of the last five years. But during the last few months, this index has been closing the gap...and looks like it is about to begin a period of outperformance relative to the rest of the stock market.
So we like select homebuilding stocks, but we don’t love them. Unlike the housing market itself, homebuilding stocks have priced in quite a bit of good news already. Not surprisingly, therefore, the insiders at these companies have been doing a lot more selling of their own shares than buying. (Pulte is one conspicuous exception.)
We also like housing-related stocks. As Chris Mayer, our colleague over at Capital & Crisis, observes, “Companies such as Lowe’s (LOW) and Home Depot (HD) would benefit from a recovering housing market...as would the makers of flooring, Mohawk Industries (MHK), the makers of kitchen cabinets, Fortune Brands Home & Security (FBHS) and a whole bunch of stuff in between...In a robust housing market, good fortune would also smile on A.O. Smith (AOS), which makes water heaters for homes.”
But again, we don’t love these stocks. Not at their relatively rich valuations. Even so, we’ll be combing through this sector very carefully for promising investment ideas. [If you’d like to follow along with us, here’s how to do so.] In the meantime, for those with the means and the inclination, the best buy in the housing sector is an actual house!
This picture is unequivocal. US home prices are very, very cheap today. “Cheap” does not preclude “even cheaper,” of course. Home prices could certainly continue sliding. But even if that were to occur, mortgage rates might begin rising, which would cause the effective price of a home to increase.
Obviously, buying residential real estate at both a housing market low and an inflationary low would be the optimal entry point — in fact, it would be a screaming buy. And that’s exactly what today’s circumstances seem to be offering.
Perhaps that’s why a large number of very successful professional investors are licking their chops over opportunities in the US residential real estate market.
This out-of-favor asset class has attracted the attention of David Ackman, a hedge fund manager with a fondness for contrarian investments. He calls them SFHRPs, an acronym for “Single Family Home Rental Property.”
“The best investments we have made are the ones no one else would touch,” Ackman explains.
As housing prices have continued drifting even lower, Paulson and Ackman have picked up a little bit of company. The US housing market is becoming a central focus of several “deep value” investors. Over the past weeks, I’ve bumped into three very successful professional investors who were much more eager to talk about their real estate investments than about their stock market investments.
One gentleman in particular, who has made billions of dollars for his investors by buying deep value stocks, was much more eager to talk about his recent real estate investments than his recent stock market investments. He was talking glowingly — if not giddily — about the opportunities in real estate he was coming across.
“I’m not finding much to buy in the stock market at the moment,” he explained. “But real estate is a different story. I wish I had the capital to act on more of the ideas that are coming across my desk.”
We asked this investor if he was concerned about the risk of real estate prices falling even further.
“Nah,” he said as he waved the question aside, “I assume the housing market will remain soft for a while. But the kinds of deals we’re finding should work out well, even if the housing market keeps sliding for a bit. Besides, there’s one lesson I’ve learned repeatedly as a value investor in the stock market: You can have good news or cheap prices. You can’t have both.”
The US housing market has absolutely no good news...but plenty of cheap prices.
Regards,
Addison Wiggin & Samantha Buker,
for The Daily Reckoning
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MODERN DAY GREEK PROPHET?
http://kotybear.blogspot.com/2012/04/modern-day-greek-prophet.html
"The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years with no help from the state. And since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting (although if a fellow Greek were to grab a Kalashnikov, I would be right behind him), I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance. I believe that young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945"
The above words were written by one Dimitris Christoulas, 77, who took his own life on Wednesday morning. It is sad to say the least but I believe it is also foreboding. This nightmare of distress and dispair is playing out amongst the retired and elderly all over the planet. It's happening right here in America, the land of plenty.
Where is the breaking point? When will people have had enough and take up arms in protest? I have not a clue. But unlike most, living in denial, I do believe it will happen in many places around the globe and here in America as well. The moneychangers have cannibalized the financial system on a global scale. All the while using other peoples hard earned money to bail themselves out and pay themselves lavish bonuses. This whilst good people look for super in a garbage can.
This economic crisis is not over by a long shot. The mess the bankers have made of things are much worse and much bigger than most can even begin to comprehend. If you think the economy is recovering and happy days are here again, well, I wish you luck with that. If you have been scared back into the market because you couldn't get any return on your savings good luck with that too.