Monday, November 30, 2009

Federal Reserve - Enemy of America

federal_reserve_comic.jpg

No other topic is more important and explains better the demise of America, than the saga of the Federal Reserve. To any objective citizen the conclusion is self evident. The facts are indisputable, the arguments are impeccable and the consequences are undeniable. So why will the public avoid facing the ultimate crisis of national survival?

If you are one of the very few who has never been presented with the evidence, the task to educate yourself has just become easy. Thomas D. Schauf, CPA

has the devoted much time and energy to this subject. In "The Federal Reserve History"

he gives the background on the private company that most Americans erroneously, still think is part of the central government. For the crowd that refuses to read or consider such accounts as valid and true, they need to review the original provisions in the Federal Reserve Act, of December 23, 1913.

The essence of this fraud has been summarized in the classic - Billions for the Bankers, Debt for the People by Sheldon Emery.

But even after all this evidence, the public still refuses to face the trepidation - that they are living within a controlled economic system that is ruled by elites, while the masses pay all the bills.

The breadth of how confused the public has become and the extent of the disinformation about the cure for this treachery against the nation, is seen in the final inference by William Greider in his book, Secrets of the Temple.

"He offered to the unsuspecting public a scathing expose of the Federal Reserve System. His history was excellent, but his conclusion was treacherous. After having proven that the Fed was conceived as a weapon of the banking elite against the common man and having shown throughout his book that this is exactly the function it has always served, his conclusion was, not to abolish the Fed or even to make serious changes to it."

If people crave comfort in denial and solace in the company of weak willed citizens, America is surely doomed. There can be no intelligent debate about the merits of the Federal Reserve. It is a pure FRAUD. Fractional reserve banking is criminal. Public indebtedness, as a requirement for currency creation is the supreme Treason.

In the 70's this author was part of a group that sought a federal charter to organize a commercial bank. The ultimate benefit of becoming part of the Fed, was that the bank would attain an equity interest in the Federal Reserve. In monetary terms its value was insignificant when compared to the Chase empire. But the principle was revealing and disturbing. By what generosity of approval, does an individual merit entry into the exclusive club of the money manipulators? The project was withdrawn on moral grounds.

The last vestige of the Republic was lost when the Federal Reserve was enacted. If you don't understand why the battle over Alexander Hamilton's plan for the first central bank, was so important, you will never be able to comprehend that this struggle goes to the very nature of our country. Andrew Jackson is an America hero because he opposed a fiat currency of an all powerful central government. But the depths of deceit even extends into the corridors of that government, for public tribute must be paid to the private owners of the Fed. How could any honest American defend this system?

At the core of the enforcement process that protects the entire Federal Reserve swindle are the legal tender laws. From the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland site:

"Legal tender laws require that residents of a country accept payment in that country’s currency even if the contract stipulates payment be made in another country’s currency, gold, bales of hay, or whatever."

Again this author had the experience of a court ruling in his favor on a contract for Specific Performance. Specific performance legislation means that courts must require delivery of exactly what was promised in a contract. However, when it comes to adjudicate conflicts and disparities with legal-tender laws, the Federal courts require adherence that federal reserve notes must be accepted as payment for all debts and transactions, public and private. Without the compulsion of court protection the Federal Reserve would fall like a house of cards.

So why does the America public continue to wear the chains of serfdom so willingly? The answer is obvious. The citizens of this great land don't deserve to be called Americans! They have become hollow tools of the insidious propaganda that tells them that your own property is really not yours. They have accepted their status as slaves to a money racket that destroys their lives and relegates them to a hopeless future. But their greatest sin is that they embrace the mythology in this satanic religion of an unconstitutional money monopoly.

In the name of a contrived "war on terror" the populace is flocking to relinquish their natural rights. But even in times of peril, are we suppose to ignore the biggest domestic Ponzi scheme? This one dwarfs the Social Security scam in both scope and depth. When new debt is necessary to issue additional currency, any increase in the money supply adds to a liability that can never be retired. Do you dare take the Money Quiz?

By comparing the purchasing power of money in the United States (or colonies) from 1665 to any other year including the present, you will be provided with the empirical evidence that so many wish to scorn. Here are the results - the real value of $100.00 in 1913 reflected in Federal Reserve Notes, for the year 2001. Now compare how many U.S. Dollars it took in 1913 to have the same worth as $100.00, of real constitutional money, in 1776:

1. $1779.93 in the year 2001 has the same "purchase power" as $100 in the year 1913.

2. $113.33 in the year 1913 has the same "purchase power" as $100 in the year 1776.

Case closed . . .

It is easy to appreciate why the greed for money and the lust for power devised this corrupt deception on the American public. What is difficult to understand is why the people are so timid to demand the replacement of a monetary system that keeps them in perpetual bondage?

Thomas Jefferson was concise in his early warning to the American nation, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

So tell me, is the Federal Reserve a friend or foe of America?

SARTRE

Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades

MARTINSVILLE, Ohio — With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.

The counties are as big as the Bronx and Philadelphia and as small as Owsley County in Kentucky, a patch of Appalachian distress where half of the 4,600 residents receive food stamps.

In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid.

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust. There are about 50 small counties and a dozen sizable ones where the rolls have doubled in the last two years. In another 205 counties, they have risen by at least two-thirds. These places with soaring rolls include populous Riverside County, Calif., most of greater Phoenix and Las Vegas, a ring of affluent Atlanta suburbs, and a 150-mile stretch of southwest Florida from Bradenton to the Everglades.

Although the program is growing at a record rate, the federal official who oversees it would like it to grow even faster.

“I think the response of the program has been tremendous,” said Kevin Concannon, an under secretary of agriculture, “but we’re mindful that there are another 15, 16 million who could benefit.”

Nationwide, food stamps reach about two-thirds of those eligible, with rates ranging from an estimated 50 percent in California to 98 percent in Missouri. Mr. Concannon urged lagging states to do more to enroll the needy, citing a recent government report that found a sharp rise in Americans with inconsistent access to adequate food.

“This is the most urgent time for our feeding programs in our lifetime, with the exception of the Depression,” he said. “It’s time for us to face up to the fact that in this country of plenty, there are hungry people.”

The program’s growing reach can be seen in a corner of southwestern Ohio where red state politics reign and blue-collar workers have often called food stamps a sign of laziness. But unemployment has soared, and food stamp use in a six-county area outside Cincinnati has risen more than 50 percent.

With most of his co-workers laid off, Greg Dawson, a third-generation electrician in rural Martinsville, considers himself lucky to still have a job. He works the night shift for a contracting firm, installing freezer lights in a chain of grocery stores. But when his overtime income vanished and his expenses went up, Mr. Dawson started skimping on meals to feed his wife and five children.

He tried to fill up on cereal and eggs. He ate a lot of Spam. Then he went to work with a grumbling stomach to shine lights on food he could not afford. When an outreach worker appeared at his son’s Head Start program, Mr. Dawson gave in.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Mr. Dawson, 29, a taciturn man with a wispy goatee who is so uneasy about the monthly benefit of $300 that he has not told his parents. “I always thought it was people trying to milk the system. But we just felt like we really needed the help right now.”

The outreach worker is a telltale sign. Like many states, Ohio has campaigned hard to raise the share of eligible people collecting benefits, which are financed entirely by the federal government and brought the state about $2.2 billion last year.

By contrast, in the federal cash welfare program, states until recently bore the entire cost of caseload growth, and nationally the rolls have stayed virtually flat. Unemployment insurance, despite rapid growth, reaches about only half the jobless (and replaces about half their income), making food stamps the only aid many people can get — the safety net’s safety net.

Support for the food stamp program reached a nadir in the mid-1990s when critics, likening the benefit to cash welfare, won significant restrictions and sought even more. But after use plunged for several years, President Bill Clinton began promoting the program, in part as a way to help the working poor. President George W. Bush expanded that effort, a strategy Mr. Obama has embraced.

The revival was crowned last year with an upbeat change of name. What most people still call food stamps is technically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

By the time the recession began, in December 2007, “the whole message around this program had changed,” said Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington group that has supported food stamp expansions. “The general pitch was, ‘This program is here to help you.’ ”

Now nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid — 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites. Benefits average about $130 a month for each person in the household, but vary with shelter and child care costs.

In the promotion of the program, critics see a sleight of hand.

“Some people like to camouflage this by calling it a nutrition program, but it’s really not different from cash welfare,” said Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, whose views have a following among conservatives on Capitol Hill. “Food stamps is quasi money.”

Arguing that aid discourages work and marriage, Mr. Rector said food stamps should contain work requirements as strict as those placed on cash assistance. “The food stamp program is a fossil that repeats all the errors of the war on poverty,” he said.

Suburbs Are Hit Hard

Across the country, the food stamp rolls can be read like a scan of a sick economy. The counties of northwest Ohio, where car parts are made, take sick when Detroit falls ill. Food stamp use is up by about 60 percent in Erie County (vibration controls), 77 percent in Wood County (floor mats) and 84 percent in hard-hit Van Wert (shifting components and cooling fans).

Just west, in Indiana, Elkhart County makes the majority of the nation’s recreational vehicles. Sales have fallen more than half during the recession, and nearly 30 percent of the county’s children are receiving food stamps.

The pox in southwest Florida is the housing bust, with foreclosure rates in Fort Myers often leading the nation in the last two years. Across six contiguous counties from Manatee to Monroe, the food stamp rolls have more than doubled.

In sheer numbers, growth has come about equally from places where food stamp use was common and places where it was rare. Since 2007, the 600 counties with the highest percentage of people on the rolls added 1.3 million new recipients. So did the 600 counties where use was lowest.

The richest counties are often where aid is growing fastest, although from a small base. In 2007, Forsyth County, outside Atlanta, had the highest household income in the South. (One author dubbed it “Whitopia.”) Food stamp use there has more than doubled.

This is the first recession in which a majority of the poor in metropolitan areas live in the suburbs, giving food stamps new prominence there. Use has grown by half or more in dozens of suburban counties from Boston to Seattle, including such bulwarks of modern conservatism as California’s Orange County, where the rolls are up more than 50 percent.

While food stamp use is still the exception in places like Orange County (where 4 percent of the population get food aid), the program reaches deep in places of chronic poverty. It feeds half the people in stretches of white Appalachia, in a Yupik-speaking region of Alaska and on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Across the 10 core counties of the Mississippi Delta, 45 percent of black residents receive aid. In a city as big as St. Louis, the share is 60 percent.

Use among children is especially high. A third of the children in Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee receive food aid. In the Bronx, the rate is 46 percent. In East Carroll Parish, La., three-quarters of the children receive food stamps.

A recent study by Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, startled some policy makers in finding that half of Americans receive food stamps, at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. Among black children, the figure was 90 percent.

Need Overcomes Scorn

Across the small towns and rolling farmland outside Cincinnati, old disdain for the program has collided with new needs. Warren County, the second-richest in Ohio, is so averse to government aid that it turned down a federal stimulus grant. But the market for its high-end suburban homes has sagged, people who build them are idle and food stamp use has doubled.

Next door, in Clinton County, the blow has been worse. DHL, the international package carrier, has closed most of its giant airfield, costing the county its biggest employer and about 7,500 jobs. The county unemployment rate nearly tripled, to more than 14 percent.

“We’re seeing people getting food stamps who never thought they’d get them,” said Tina Osso, the director of the Shared Harvest Food Bank in Fairfield, which runs an outreach program in five area counties.

While Mr. Dawson, the electrician, has kept his job, the drive to distant work sites has doubled his gas bill, food prices rose sharply last year and his health insurance premiums have soared. His monthly expenses have risen by about $400, and the elimination of overtime has cost him $200 a month. Food stamps help fill the gap.

Like many new beneficiaries here, Mr. Dawson argues that people often abuse the program and is quick to say he is different. While some people “choose not to get married, just so they can apply for benefits,” he is a married, churchgoing man who works and owns his home. While “some people put piles of steaks in their carts,” he will not use the government’s money for luxuries like coffee or soda. “To me, that’s just morally wrong,” he said.

He has noticed crowds of midnight shoppers once a month when benefits get renewed. While policy analysts, spotting similar crowds nationwide, have called them a sign of increased hunger, he sees idleness. “Generally, if you’re up at that hour and not working, what are you into?” he said.

Still, the program has filled the Dawsons’ home with fresh fruit, vegetables, bread and meat, and something they had not fully expected — an enormous sense of relief. “I know if I run out of milk, I could run down to the gas station,” said Mr. Dawson’s wife, Sheila.

As others here tell it, that is a benefit not to be overlooked.

Sarah and Tyrone Mangold started the year on track to make $70,000 — she was selling health insurance, and he was working on a heating and air conditioning crew. She got laid off in the spring, and he a few months later. Together they had one unemployment check and a blended family of three children, including one with a neurological disorder aggravated by poor nutrition.

They ate at his mother’s house twice a week. They pawned jewelry. She scoured the food pantry. He scrounged for side jobs. Their frustration peaked one night over a can of pinto beans. Each blamed the other when that was all they had to eat.

“We were being really snippy, having anxiety attacks,” Ms. Mangold said. “People get irritable when they’re hungry.”

Food stamps now fortify the family income by $623 a month, and Mr. Mangold, who is still patching together odd jobs, no longer objects.

“I always thought people on public assistance were lazy,” he said, “but it helps me know I can feed my kids.”

Shifting Views

So far, few elected officials have objected to the program’s growth. Almost 90 percent of beneficiaries nationwide live below the poverty line (about $22,000 a year for a family of four). But a minor tempest hit Ohio’s Warren County after a woman drove to the food stamp office in a Mercedes-Benz and word spread that she owned a $300,000 home loan-free. Since Ohio ignores the value of houses and cars, she qualified.

“I’m a hard-core conservative Republican guy — I found that appalling,” said Dave Young, a member of the county board of commissioners, which briefly threatened to withdraw from the federal program.

“As soon as people figure out they can vote representatives in to give them benefits, that’s the end of democracy,” Mr. Young said. “More and more people will be taking, and fewer will be producing.”

At the same time, the recession left Sandi Bernstein more sympathetic to the needy. After years of success in the insurance business, Ms. Bernstein, 66, had just settled into what she had expected to be a comfortable retirement when the financial crisis last year sent her brokerage accounts plummeting. Feeling newly vulnerable herself, she volunteered with an outreach program run by AARP and the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks.

Having assumed that poor people clamored for aid, she was surprised to find that some needed convincing to apply.“I come here and I see people who are knowledgeable, normal, well-spoken, well-dressed,” she said. “These are people I could be having lunch with.”

That could describe Franny and Shawn Wardlow, whose house in nearby Oregonia conjures middle-American stability rather than the struggle to meet basic needs. Their three daughters have heads of neat blond hair, pink bedroom curtains and a turtle bought in better times on vacation in Daytona Beach, Fla. One wrote a fourth-grade story about her parents that concluded “They lived happily ever after.”

Ms. Wardlow, who worked at a nursing home, lost her job first. Soon after, Mr. Wardlow was laid off from the construction job he had held for nearly nine years. As Ms. Wardlow tells the story of the subsequent fall — cutoff threats from the power company, the dinners of egg noodles, the soap from the Salvation Army — she dwells on one unlikely symbol of the security she lost.

Pot roast.

“I was raised on eating pot roast,” she said. “Just a nice decent meal.”

Mr. Wardlow, 32, is a strapping man with a friendly air. He talked his way into a job at an envelope factory although his boss said he was overqualified. But it pays less than what he made muscling a jackhammer, and with Ms. Wardlow still jobless, they are two months behind on the rent. A monthly food stamp benefit of $429 fills the shelves and puts an occasional roast on the Sunday table.

It reminds Ms. Wardlow of what she has lost, and what she hopes to regain.

“I would consider us middle class at one time,” she said. “I like to have a nice decent meal for dinner.”

Matthew Ericson and Janet Roberts contributed reporting.

9/11: PENTAGON AIRCRAFT HIJACK IMPOSSIBLE

FLIGHT DECK DOOR CLOSED FOR ENTIRE FLIGHT

(PilotsFor911Truth.org) - Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled "FLT DECK DOOR", cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 departed Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles at 8:20 am Eastern Time. According to reports and data, a hijacking took place between 08:50:54 and 08:54:11[1] in which the hijackers allegedly crashed the aircraft into the Pentagon at 09:37:45. Reported by CNN, according to Ted Olson, wife Barbara Olson had called him from the reported flight stating, "...all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers..."[2]. However, according to Flight Data provided by the NTSB, the Flight Deck Door was never opened in flight. How were the hijackers able to gain access to the cockpit, remove the pilots, and navigate the aircraft to the Pentagon if the Flight Deck Door remained closed?[3]

Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has analyzed Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack, the events in Shanksville, PA and the World Trade Center attack. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials along with Mainstream Media refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/core.html for full member list.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/join to join.

[1] Hijacker Timeline - http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=17

[2] Common Strategy Prior to 9/11/2001 - http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html

[3] Right click and save target as here to download csv file with "FLT DECK DOOR" parameter.

Peter Schiff on college tuition

Click this link ....... http://eclipptv.com/viewVid...

Keiser on 'Tsunami alert': Dubai debt crisis awakes storm?

Click this link ...... http://eclipptv.com/viewVid...

Tarpley - Obama And His Afghan Adventures

Click this link ....... http://eclipptv.com/viewVid...

UAE Central Bank Will Protect Banking System

In an emergency announcement, the United Arab Emirates' central bank is saying it "stands behind" local and foreign banks operating in the country, offering them access to money following the recent announcement out of Dubai that they will be delaying payments on some Dubai World debt.

According to the Associated Press, the UAE's official WAM news agency said Sunday the central bank issued a notice to Emirati banks and foreign banks with branches in the country saying it would make available "a special additional liquidity facility linked to their current accounts at the central bank."

The Fed Doesn't Want Banks to Increase Lending

Tim Duy - Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Department of Economics at the University of Oregon and the Director of the Oregon Economic Forum - noticed an amazing sentence in the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Fed Open Market Committee:

As has already been widely noted, the minutes of the most recent FOMC meeting reiterated the Fed’s eagerness to reverse, not extend, policy:

Overall, many participants viewed the risks to their inflation outlooks over the next few quarters as being roughly balanced. Some saw the risks as tilted to the downside in the near term, reflecting the quite elevated level of economic slack and the possibility that inflation expectations could begin to decline in response to the low level of actual inflation. But others felt that risks were tilted to the upside over a longer horizon, because of the possibility that inflation expectations could rise as a result of the public’s concerns about extraordinary monetary policy stimulus and large federal budget deficits. Moreover, these participants noted that banks might seek to reduce appreciably their excess reserves as the economy improves by purchasing securities or by easing credit standards and expanding their lending substantially. Such a development, if not offset by Federal Reserve actions, could give additional impetus to spending and, potentially, to actual and expected inflation. To keep inflation expectations anchored, all participants agreed that it was important for policy to be responsive to changes in the economic outlook and for the Federal Reserve to continue to clearly communicate its ability and intent to begin withdrawing monetary policy accommodation at the appropriate time and pace.

Read that carefully and realize this: An apparently not insignificant portion of the FOMC believes that there is a terrible risk that banks loosen their credit standards and increase lending at a time when, even if the economy posts expected gain, unemployment remains at unacceptably high levels. Silly me, I thought increased lending was the whole point of the exercise to lower interest and expand the balance sheet. That whole credit channel thing. If not to expand lending during a credit crunch, then what else are they expecting?



I am in shock that this sentence made it into the minutes. One can only conclude that a significant portion of policymakers are simply clueless. Or, more disconcerting, they have lost all faith in the ability of financial institutions to channel capital into activities with any hope of financial returns. Has the Fed now embraced the view that they manage the economy through little else then fueling and extinguishing bubbles?

Yves Smith has the definitive last word on the issue:
These statement is an indication of intellectual bankruptcy at the Fed, that they have learned nothing from the crisis. But that isn’t surprising. CEOs usually need to be fired after they have presided over a disaster. They are incapable of seeing and remedying their errors. Why should senior bureaucrats be any different?

韓國‧向日天皇鞠躬‧韓議員要奧巴馬道歉

(韓國‧首爾)韓國國會議員週日(11月29日)針對美國總統奧巴馬早前訪問日本時,向日本天皇行90度鞠躬,要求他向包括韓國在內的東亞人民道歉。

韓聯社報導,民主黨籍國會議員金泳鎮在紐約發表聲明說:“日本天皇是發動太平洋戰爭,讓東亞各國飽受痛苦的象徵,而秉承自由和人權理想的美國總統竟然做出了那種行動,等於是在東亞人民的傷口撒鹽。”

因此,他敦促奧巴馬向東亞各國人民道歉,以樹立正確的歷史認識。

他還說:“奧巴馬忘卻了自己身為諾貝爾和平獎得主,以及美國總統的身份,表現出傷害東北亞人民感情的行為,真令人感到遺憾。”

關於奧巴馬的深鞠躬,美國媒體也強烈批評,指其身為美國總統不該隨便“行大禮”。

迪拜‧逾千人獲救‧沙地水災103人死

(阿拉伯‧迪拜)沙地阿拉伯週日(11月29日)證實,該國水災死亡人數已增加至103人,但有1400人獲救。

紅海城市吉達上週三起連場暴雨,多條橋樑倒塌,並引發多場交通意外,造成多人死亡,民防部派飛機到災區搜索失蹤者。

不過,當局強調,在80公里外的回教聖城朝聖的世界各地信徒,並沒有因水災而發生不幸事故。

中國‧溫家寶:世界正經歷大變革‧中歐須增強關係應對

(中國‧南京)中國總理溫家寶週日(11月29日)強調,世界正經歷大發展、大變革、大調整,中歐關係要增強戰略性、全面性和穩定性。

溫家寶在南京會見歐盟委員會主席巴羅佐時說,增強戰略性就是擴大雙方在重大問題共識,推動建立公正、合理的國際政治、經濟新秩序;增強全面性就是加強在各領域的務實合作,更好地實現互利共贏;增強穩定性就是照顧彼此核心利益和重大關切,確保雙方關係沿著正確軌道健康、持續向前發展。

他也表示,中國高度重視對歐關係,歡迎歐洲一體化不斷取得進展,一個強大、聯合、繁榮的歐洲對世界有利。

巴羅佐表示,里斯本條約生效後,歐盟機構進行改革,內外協調能力加強,歐洲一體化進程加快,這有利於歐中關係的發展。

人民幣穩定利惠世界金融

溫家寶較早時表示,希望世界主要儲備貨幣能夠保持穩定。

他也說,中國將繼續按照主動性、可控性和漸進性原則,增強人民幣匯率彈性,保持人民幣匯率在合理、均衡水平上的基本穩定。

他說,中國保持人民幣匯率穩定,對世界金融穩定和經濟發展作出了重要貢獻。

伊朗‧要增建10鈾濃縮設施‧歐美譴責自尋孤立

(伊朗‧德黑蘭)伊朗週日(11月29日)突然宣佈,計劃在境內再興建10處鈾濃縮設施,引起美國等西方國家強烈反彈,譴責伊朗自尋孤立。

國際原子能機構(IAEA)剛在上週五(11月27日)通過決議,譴責伊朗秘密從事核能發展,伊朗索性不再遮掩,公開宣佈當局已要求伊朗原子能組織在5處已選定的地點,立即開始興建新鈾濃縮廠,同時在未來2個月內,尋找合適地點興建另外5座。

伊朗通訊社引述總統內賈德稱,伊朗每年必須生產250至300噸核燃料,同時還需要50萬台離心機,才能滿足國內的發電需要。

不滿聯國5常決議

對此,伊朗原子能組織副主席薩列希說:“這項決定主要是針對聯合國5個常任理事國和德國在IAEA上的決議,作出堅決的回應。”

跟德黑蘭關係良好的中國和俄羅斯,都在上週五的IAEA會議上,連同英、法及德國譴責這座設在山區的設施。

薩列希說:“們將新建10個鈾濃縮設施。我們只是履行我們的權力,正如我們履行我們的國際義務一樣。”

“從現在開始,我們的鈾濃縮設施將不會露天而建,而是建在山區內,新設施也不會集中在同一個地區……我們也考慮到應對一切攻擊的安全措施。”

國際擔心爆發軍事衝突

伊朗計劃再建10座新的鈾濃縮設施,勢必令伊朗與西方強權已經非常對立的關係,更加緊張,聯合國有可能採取更進一步制裁,但最讓國際擔心的是,這將增加地區軍事衝突的可能性。

白宮發言人吉布斯說,如果報導屬實,這將是伊朗再一次嚴重違反聯合國安理會多次決議案的事件,也是伊朗選擇孤立自己的另一明證。

他表示,國際社會已清楚表明,伊朗有權利,但權利是伴隨義務而來。國際社會對核子計劃的關切日益升高,伊朗面對問題所剩的時間已經不多。

英國外交部長米利班德也說:“我們一再表明,我們承認伊朗進行民用核計劃的權利,但他們必須讓國際社會對他們的意圖有信心。伊朗拒絕跟我們接觸,反而選擇挑釁及掩飾。”

泰國‧若遙控指揮攻擊泰政府‧阿聯酋擬驅逐塔辛

(泰國‧曼谷)據報導,阿聯酋已經通知泰國,如果流亡的前首相塔辛利用阿聯酋作為攻擊泰國政府的政治基地,阿聯酋將會要求塔辛離開。

泰國《曼谷日報》今日(週一,11月30日)報導引述副外交部長帕尼特稱:“阿聯酋已經通知外交部,如果塔辛利用阿聯酋來指揮其支持者進行抗議活動或攻擊樞密院,他將即刻被要求離開。”

據稱,阿聯酋方面還表示,塔辛只能以商人和普通公民的身份留在阿聯酋。

泰國前首相塔辛2006年在政變中下台,2008年10月前往阿聯酋以躲避泰國法院判定他濫權的2年監禁。

不久前,泰國數名政治人物拜訪了身處迪拜的塔辛,他借此機會釋放了一個與阿比希政府和解的信號:如果自己能免遭牢獄之災,那麼他可以讓紅衫軍停止集會示威。

法國‧1.7億建直立探海船‧人類未來可上天下海自由行

(法國‧巴黎)人類未來可以上天下海自由行!

法國建築師魯熱里以國際太空站為靈感,設計出一座“國際海洋研究站”,外型有如一艘矗立海中的巨大帆船,可供海洋學家深入海中,研究海洋生態。

這艘乍看之下好似杜拜帆船酒店的研究船,命名為“海洋飛船號”(SeaOrbiter),高度達51公尺,將是全球第一艘直立式船隻。

船身深入海中,各層均有不同規劃,可以供學者時間待在海中從事研究,也能讓醫師研究人類長時間處於海中的行為及生理狀況。

盼造出6研究船

64歲的魯熱里以國際太空站為藍本,設計出這艘海洋探測船。船上高於海平面的部份有瞭望台,海中部份有實驗室,也比照太空站規畫防撞系統。

海洋飛船號建設經費需3500萬歐元(約馬幣1.7億令吉),魯熱里表示已籌到一半,且有信心完成剩餘的經費募集。

他表示海洋飛船計劃勢在必行,“一年前,機率大約是50%,現在會說,90%肯定它能誕生”。

他希望能造出6艘研究船,並相信這艘船對於研究海洋與全球暖化間的關係亦有幫助。法國總統薩爾科齊今年夏季亦在一場演說中也提及此計劃。

中國‧重慶貪官自殺惹揣測‧網民質疑內情‧2獄警被查

(中國‧重慶)重慶“反腐掃黑風暴”中落馬的市高等法院原審判委員烏小青,上週六在看守所吊頸死亡。有報導指烏小青是因畏罪自殺,但有網民懷疑有涉案高官為求自保,製造“自殺”假象,避免在打黑行動中被深究。

重慶當局已對兩名值班獄警隔離審查。

烏小青因涉嫌收受賄賂和巨額財產來源不明,今年6月被檢察機關以涉嫌受賄罪立案偵查,被捕後羈押在看守所。

據悉,“烏小青案”11月1日已進入起訴程序,有消息稱,輿論關注的前重慶司法局長文強“涉黑案”也即將開審,烏小青此時在看守所突然死亡引來諸多猜測。

據報導,烏小青留下遺書後,趁同監舍的人在午睡,避開閉路電視,用棉毛褲腰繩,在內監門處上吊自殺。

有中國媒體報導指他畏罪自殺,但不少網民質疑,烏小青死後,供詞被斬斷,案件將無法再深究,能保住不少在位高官。

在重慶市委書記薄熙來掀起的掃黑風暴中,司法界成重災區。除文強等高官落馬外,部份律師因涉及黑社會性質案件也被查,包括被指為烏小青婦的美女律師胡燕瑜。

泰國‧華誕檢閱演說無限期展延‧泰王再掀病危猜測

(泰國‧曼谷)泰國皇宮週一宣佈,為慶祝泰王普密蓬生日的檢閱儀式和演說,將“無限期延後”,再度引發泰王病危的猜測。

12月5日是泰王普密蓬82歲生日,國王生日向來是泰國普天同慶的日子。依照往例,泰王會在生日前一天發表生日感言。

不過,泰國王室發言人表示,原定於12月2日和4日,為慶祝泰王生日的檢閱儀式和演講活動將推遲舉行,但沒有說明具體原因,也沒有說明推遲至何時舉行。

王儲8日代父見使節

此外,原訂在首都曼谷舉行的慶祝遊行活動,也將同時喊停,但王儲哇集拉隆功將在12月8日代替父親接見各國使節,接受各國向泰王祝壽。

普密蓬是世界上在位時間最長的國王。

9月19日,普密蓬因發燒、疲勞和食慾不振而入院。由於泰王是泰國舉國上下最重視的精神支柱,也是穩定泰國勢最重要的力量,因此泰王身體不適的消息傳出之後,一度造成泰國股市大跌。

10月23日是他住院後首次在公開場合出現;11月2日,泰王在醫院參與了一項水燈節的傳統慶祝活動,這是他住院1個多月以來,第二次公開露面。

中國‧要人民幣升值又施貿易保護‧溫家寶:限制中國發展

(中國‧南京)中國國務院總理溫家寶今日(週一,11月30日)表示,一些國家一方面要求人民幣升值,另一方面又對中國實行貿易保護主義,是限制中國發展。

溫家寶當天在南京與歐盟輪值主席國瑞典首相賴因費爾特、歐盟委員會主席巴羅佐,舉行第12次中歐領導人會晤後共同會見記者,他此言顯然是對,包括歐盟在內的外國不斷施壓中國加快人民幣匯率改革作出的回應

一些國家要求不公平

溫家寶說,現在一些國家一方面要求人民幣升值,另一方面又對中國實行名目繁多的貿易保護主義。這是有失公允的,實際上是限制中國的發展。

他表示,在國際金融危機中,保持人民匯率的基本穩定有利於中國經濟的發展,也有利於世界經濟復蘇。

他指出,中國將按照主動性、可控性和漸進性的原則,不斷完善人民幣匯率形成機制,保持人民幣在合理、均衡水準上的基本穩定。

強調保持匯率穩定

此前一天,溫家寶也在與歐元集團主席、盧森堡首相兼國庫部長容克舉行的會晤中強調,中國保持人民幣匯率穩定,對世界金融穩定和經濟發展作出了重要貢獻。

第12屆中歐領導人會晤週一在南京金陵會議中心鐘山廳舉行,這次是半年以來,中歐舉行第二次峰會。溫家寶和賴因費爾特、巴羅佐共同主持會晤。會晤後,中歐領導人還出席了包括對抗氣候暖化技術在內的5項合作文件的簽字儀式。

溫家寶吁中歐排除疑慮干擾

溫家寶也呼吁,中歐排除疑慮和干擾,確保中歐關係沿著正確的軌道持續向前發展。

他表示,世界正在經歷大發展大變革大調整,中歐攜手同行,可以使人類前進的步伐更加堅實有力。

他說,形勢發展要求中歐關係增強戰略性、全面性和穩定性,就是要擴大雙方在關乎人類發展進步的重大問題上的共識,深化政治、經濟、文化等各領域的交流合作,排除疑慮和干擾,確保中歐關係沿著正確的軌道持續向前發展。

溫家寶還說,願與歐方領導人進行坦誠深入的對話,展示中歐攜手應對挑戰、實現共同發展的信心和力量。

他並稱,這對於中歐雙方都具有重要意義,也將對世界產生積極影響。

中國‧“唱歌跳舞退敵?”‧招女兵如選美

(中國‧北京)中國首次公開徵集女兵,應徵者除要符合年齡、體格、學歷等要求,還要接受語言、才藝等面試,恍如選美,引起爭議。

在剛過去的中國建國60週年閱兵典禮上,三軍女兵方隊的英姿颯爽,引發新一輪女子參軍熱。


參加徵兵的女生在現場載歌載舞,展示才藝,被外界質疑徵兵如選美。(圖:中新社)


國防部最近在全國各地首次公開徵集女兵,吸引大批年輕女性報名參加。

但今年徵集保家護國的女軍人,卻恍如選美般,應徵女兵的美女們不但要有形象氣質、才藝專長,評審者更有電影學院、藝術學院等人員,不少應徵者在面試時也即席表演起歌舞等技藝。

評委之一解放軍藝術學院音樂評論家段盛斌則表示,考查女兵的才藝,是要看她們怯不怯場,從中觀察她們的心理和情感質素。

當局以這種方式挑選女兵,讓網民覺得事件已經“變味了”,“招這些人是醉翁之意不在酒!”

有網民質疑,“衝鋒陷陣時,這些才藝表演給誰看?”“唱歌跳舞可擊敗敵人?”。

新加坡‧娶新娘遇姐妹團怪招‧兄弟團紙內褲外穿搖臀迎親

(新加坡)迎娶空姐新娘,遇姐妹團出怪招,8“兄弟團”,當街露底褲搖臀。

這起趣聞發生在週日(11月29日)早上7時30分左右,地點是在武吉巴督52街第523座組屋。

週日早上7時20分,一輛新娘車隊抵達該座組屋4樓一個單位迎親,結果兄弟團遭到姐妹團的大考驗,竟被要求到草地上示

穿紙內褲向新娘示愛

8人兄弟團成員,被姐妹團指示要穿著紙底褲到組屋草場上,向新娘子示愛。

兄弟團多翻交涉求不果,最後只能乖乖就範。

剛好去組屋探望親戚的林先生說,他也目睹到兄弟團示愛的一幕。當時他看到20多歲的8名大漢走到組屋樓下的草地上。

“兄弟團都穿著白色襯衫和黑色長褲,長褲外都套了紙內褲,上面寫著英文字母,一行8人剛好湊成‘愛SERENE´的字眼。”

兄弟團神情看來十分尷尬,經過了一番調整才達成行動一致。他們背對著組屋,一起彎腰高舉臀部,並左右搖擺臀部,行為十分滑稽。

腳趾伸入冰水取鑰匙

8大漢“表演”不到一分鐘,就回到組屋樓上去了。

新娘子的父親張先生(46歲,自雇人士)告訴記者,底褲示愛是女兒的姐妹團想出來整兄弟團的招數。

他說,週日早上姐妹團把兄弟團露底褲的片段拍下來,在晚上的婚宴上播放,讓賓客都成一團。

除此之外,兄弟團還得把腳趾伸入一桶冰水內,取出新娘房間的鑰匙,並品嘗“酸甜苦辣”4種味道的食物等,過關斬將才能迎娶他的女兒。

Politics of the Plate: Selling the Farm

For a sixth-generation farming family, the time has finally come to let go.
Plus: See a slideshow of the Borland farm throughout its history.
building the farm

Last Friday, for the first time in 144 years, no one at the Borland family farm got out of bed in the pre-dawn hours—rain, shine, searing heat, or blinding blizzard—to milk the cows. A day earlier, all of Ken Borland’s cattle and machinery had been auctioned off. After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family.

It was not a decision they wanted to make. A fit, vigorous 62-year-old, Borland could have kept working. His son, who is 35 and has two sons of his own, was once interested in taking over. But the dismal prices that dairy farmers are receiving for their milk forced the Borlands to sell. “We’ve gone through hard times and low milk prices before,” said Borland’s wife, Carol, a retired United Methodist minister. “This time there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. There’s no sense working that hard when you’re 62 just to go into debt.”

For several months I’d been reading headlines and following the statistics behind the current nationwide dairy crisis. The math is stark. Prices paid to farmers per hundredweight (about 12 gallons) have fallen from nearly $20 a year ago to less than $11 in June. Earlier this month, the Federal government raised the support price by $1.25, but that is only a drop in the proverbial bucket. It costs a farmer about $18 to produce a hundredweight of milk. In Vermont, where I live, that translates to a loss of $100 per cow per month. So far this year, 33 farms have ceased operation in this one tiny state.

Meanwhile, the price you and I pay for milk in the grocery store has stayed about the same. Someone is clearly pocketing the difference. Perhaps that explains why profits at Dean Foods—the nation’s largest processor and shipper of dairy products, with more than 50 regional brands—have skyrocketed. The company announced earnings of $75.3 million in the first quarter of 2009, more than twice the amount it made during the same quarter last year ($30.8 million). (Dean countered that “current supply and demand is contributing to the low price environment.”)

But rote statistics have a way of masking reality. So last week, I drove up to the village of West Glover for a firsthand look at the human side of the dairy crisis by attending the Borland auction. “You will be witnessing what is going to be the fate of all heritage farms,” Carol Borland told me.

It was a breathtakingly clear morning in one of the most stunning settings imaginable. The Northeast Kingdom is an undulating patchwork of fields, woodlots, streams, lakes, barns, and white clapboard houses, set against the jagged, blue-gray backdrop of distant mountaintops. I didn’t need a sign to direct me to the Borland place: For more than a mile before I crested a hill and saw the barns and silos, the gravel road leading to the farm was lined with dusty, mud-splattered pickup trucks. A crowd of close to 900 had gathered, in part because a country auction is always a major social event, a festive excuse for bone-weary farmers to take a day off, bring the kids, catch up with the gossip, and grumble about the weather, costs, and prices. That made it easy to overlook the sad, serious nature of the business at hand: selling off every last item there (and with any luck, providing the Borlands with a retirement nest egg). Among other things to go on the auction block was a massive amount of equipment, much of which had been shared with neighbors in loose, mutually beneficial arrangements stretching back generations. The demise of one family farm can affect similar small operators for miles in all directions. The auctioneer had to sell a half-dozen tractors, a dump truck, a couple of pickup trucks, manure spreaders, hay balers, wagons, seeders, mowers, milking machines, and assorted antique farm implements. There was feed that Borland had harvested but would no longer have any use for, 50 tons of shelled corn, 800 bales of hay. And, last in the photocopied catalogue, 140 prime Holsteins, a herd known for its excellence, having earned Borland 16 quality awards over the previous two decades. Unlike the cows that pass their lives in complete confinement on the factory farms that are replacing farms like his, Borland’s cows went out on those hilly pastures every day, strengthening their bodies and feeding on grass. Borland worried that with most other farmers as financially strapped as he was, or worse, the cows might not sell. “I didn’t spend my whole life breeding up a good herd to see them beefed” (meaning slaughtered for hamburger meat), he said.

Items were sold at a nerve-rattling pace as the auctioneer chanted his frenzied, mesmerizing, “I’ve got five. Give me ten, ten, ten. Five, gimme ten, ten, ten. A ten dollar bill. Five gimme ten, ten ten.” Three “ringmen” worked the crowd, waving their canes to cajole bids, and whooping when the price rose. A John Deere tractor started at $25,000 and was dizzily bid up to $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, and finally $60,000, in a matter of three minutes. Lesser machines sometimes sold in half that time. All morning long, there was no let-up.

Just after the Deere was sold, I asked Borland’s son Nathan how he thought things were going. “Online, that tractor would be listed for $75,000, if you can find one half that good, which you can’t,” he said. “But I guess you can’t complain, given how hard it is for everybody.”

After attending college and working out of state for a few years, Nathan came home and joined his father on the farm. But he left to become a paramedic. “I like the work, but it got so bad financially that I felt guilty taking a paycheck,” he said. “My sons, they’re young. It’d be nice if they wanted to farm one day, but there’s not a living to be made in dairy farming.”

Carol, who was beside us, added, “The reality of farming is that as a parent, even if you’d like to and they want to, you can’t encourage a child to go into something where he won’t be able to earn a decent living.”

Once the last piece of machinery was gone, the throng moved to folding chairs set up around a fenced ring inside the barn. Borland, who had been taciturn and shy most of the day, stood before the crowd to deliver a short speech. After thanking everybody for coming and expressing his gratitude for the efforts of the auction crew, he said, “I just want to say that these are a good bunch of cows. This auction wasn’t their fault. They’ve always done their part. They have produced well.”

Then he told a sad joke. “There was this farmer’s son who left the farm and found work as a longshoreman in the city. The first ship that came in carried a cargo of anvils. To impress his new workmates, the boy picked up two anvils, one under each arm. But the gangplank snapped under the weight. He fell into the water and sank. He came up one time and shouted for help. No one moved. He went down and came up a second time. Still no help. The third time he came up he hollered, ‘If you guys don’t help me soon, I’m going to have to let go of one of these anvils.”

There was nervous laughter. Borland went on, “That’s what farming’s been these last six months, trying to stay afloat with anvils. This is the day that I let go of mine.”

The herd sold well. As an emotional bonus, 20 went to local farmers and would still be grazing on nearby pastures. Borland and Carol were pleased with the overall proceeds of the auction, and doubly pleased because they had been fortunate enough to find a buyer for the property and buildings who would take good care of the land that had supported their family through the generations. The Borlands severed off a piece of land where they will build a house. In the spring, they still plan to tap some maples. The sap will be boiled in the sugarhouse that Borland’s great-grandfather built in 1898.

Before the auction, Borland had told his son that he planned to sleep until noon the day afterwards. Fat chance. He was up at 3:30 in the morning, as always. A few cows that had been sold had yet to be picked up, and cows, even ones that now belong to another man, need to be milked. He finished that chore and drove the full milk cans over to a neighbor who was still in the business and had a cooling tank. Borland offered him a lift back to a hayfield he wanted to cut that day. As they rode along in the cab of the truck with the early morning sun streaming over the mountains, the neighbor said, “Ken, do you know how many farmers around here would give anything to be in your shoes? We have to keep struggling. You had a way out.”

Potential For Fed To Hyperinflate

always the question about what the Fed will do, more pressure on small and medium banks, municipal bond meltdown, bailouts cant go on indefinitely, looking at the banks, and recalling the French Revolution, the truth of fractional banking

The following information may be the most important we have ever published. One of our Intel sources, highly placed in banking circles, tells us that on 1/1/10 all banks that have received TARP funds have been informed by the Federal Reserve that they must further restrict any commercial lending. Loans have to be 75% collateralized, 50% of which has to be in cash, which is a compensating balance.

The Fed has to do one of two things: They either have to pull $1.5 trillion out of the system by June, which would collapse the economy, or face hyperinflation. This is why the Fed has instructed banks to inform them when and how much of the TARP funds they can return. At best they can expect $300 to $400 billion plus the $200 billion the Fed already has in hand.

We believe the Fed will opt for letting the system run into hyperinflation. All signs tell us they cannot risk allowing the undertow of deflation to take over the economy. The system cannot stand such a withdrawal of funds. They also must depend on assistance from Congress in supplying a second stimulus plan. That would probably be $400 to $800 billion. A lack of such funding would send the economy and the stock market into a tailspin. Even with such funding the economy cannot expect any growth to speak of and at best a sideways movement for perhaps a year.

We have been told that the FDIC not only is $8.2 billion in the hole, but they have secretly borrowed an additional $80 billion from the Treasury. We have also been told that the FDIC is lying about the banks in trouble. The number in eminent danger are not 552, but a massive 2,035. The cost of bailing these banks out would be $800 billion to $1 trillion. That means 2,500 could be closed in 2010. Now get this, the FDIC is going to be collapsed before the end of 2010, which means no more deposit insurance. This follows the 9/18/09 end of government guarantees on money market funds. Both will force deposits into US government bonds and agency bonds in an attempt to save the system.

This will strip small and medium-sized banks and force them into shutting down or being absorbed. This means you have to get your money out of banks, especially CDs. We repeat get your cash values out of life insurance policies and annuities. They are invested 80% in stocks and 20% in bonds. Keep only enough money in banks for three months of operating expenses, six months for businesses.

Major and semi-major banks are being told to obtain secure storage for new currency-dollars. They expect official devaluation by the end of the year.

We do not know what the exchange rate will be, but as we have stated previously we expect three old dollars to be traded for one new dollar. The alternative is gold and silver coins and shares. For those with substantial sums that do not want to be in gold and silver related assets completely you can use Canadian and Swiss Treasuries. If you need brokers for these investments we can supply them.

The Fed also expects a meltdown in the bond market, especially in municipals. Public services will be cut drastically leading to increased crime and social problems, not to mention the psychological trauma that our country will experience. Already 50% of homes in hard hit urban areas are under water, nationwide more than 25%. That means you have to be out of bonds as well, especially municipals.

As you can see, the Illuminist program is going to come quicker than we anticipated. That in part is because they have had to expedite their program, due to exposure in the IF, other publications and especially via talk ratio and the Internet. There is no doubt we have the elitists on the run.

We are reaching the masses. On TalkStreamLive.com we were on the Rumor Mill this past week and out of 50 talk radio programs we were 5th behind, Rush, Hannity, Dr. Laura and we were tied with Beck. On the Sovereign Economist on Wednesday night we were 5th behind Beck and Savage and ahead of Hannity. Both these programs are not well known and the Sovereign Economist is only about a month old. It shows you what you can do if you work hard enough at it.

The latest favorable events we are told are the seeds of recovery. The green-shoots of spring are to be harvested before winter sets in. We are skeptical of the strength and duration of such a recovery.

The underlying problems are still not being addressed. The US government and the Fed cannot bail out banking, Wall Street, insurance and government indefinitely via monetization. Impaired corporations, no matter what their size, have to be allowed to fail. Stimulus cannot be used indefinitely. Both have to be reigned in, because the longer this charade continues the worse the final outcome is going to be. As we predicted six year’s ago, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and FHA are the wards of American taxpayers, as is AIG. All their financial conditions worsen every day. They have again been insuring subprime mortgages by the thousands and when they begin to reset next year, we will be back to 60% failure rates. Even government admits already they’ll see 20% failure rates. This, so that housing inventory can be cut from 11-1/2-months inventory to 7-months, again in order to bail out the lenders at the expense of taxpayers. Government and the Fed have no exit plans for these sinking ships, particularly Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie and FHA, never mind their meddling in the economy guaranteeing everything is sight. Benito Mussolini would be very proud of what they have done.

Then we have those on Wall Street, banking and corporate America who believe they are doing God’s work by looting the American public making outrageous profits by in part using taxpayer funds, and allotting themselves disgraceful bonuses as unemployment hovers at 22.2%. Haven’t these people heard of the French Revolution? Their arrogance has no bounds. The credit crisis hasn’t ended; the Fed has extended it by throwing money at problems. We have a mortgage market that is worse than it was a year ago, only kept from sinking by a tax credit 3% down. As a result now we have more than $1 trillion of new mortgage failures on the way.

Our monetary base has more than doubled. Interest rates will probably stay where they are for 18 months or more and we even have a dollar carry trade. The 2009 fiscal budget deficit was $1.5 trillion and 2010 will be worse. Government is not cutting expenses. They are increasing expenses.

In addition making matters worse corruption is flourishing via the incestuous revolving door between Wall Street, the Treasury, in a multiplicity of other appointments and with the Fed. Is it any wonder 75% of Americans want the Fed audited and investigated. That said, the present set of circumstances cannot be allowed to go on indefinitely. We cannot keep insurance, Wall Street and banking on life support forever. Not when we finance two occupations and an ongoing war, never mind our unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Social Security, etc. most all of these problems are being financed by debt to be paid by our great, great grandchildren. We just created $12.7 trillion for bailouts and the Inspector General tells us we are presently on the hook for $23.7 trillion. What happens if all the recipients need another $20 trillion?

The situation is still dire and the solution is temporary and unworkable and Washington and New York are well aware of this. The game will play out over the next few years. In the meantime the dollar will move lower and inflation, gold and silver higher.

Economics is not complex; it is very simple. Professors and economists would like to have you believe it is complicated when in fact they make it opaque, so you cannot understand it. The same is true with banking. In normal times through the century’s bankers using the fractional banking system usually lent 8 times their assets, or deposits. It was only until recently that the privately owned Federal Reserve told banks within the system to lend 40 times assets or more in order to accommodate the system.

All this is to cover to confuse and hide the truth of fractional banking. Bankers’ indebt borrowers with money they made up out of thin air. Debt is enslavement by the bankers upon the people by buying almost everyone off. In the final analysis banking is a fraud unless money is interest free. The Fed, and all the other banks are a fraud.

The game as we know it today began in 1694 when the Rothschild’s formed the privately owned Bank of England and the production of bank notes began and circulated along with sterling silver coins. The end result has been that the bankers own the world. The system today is based on confidence and trust, something that has been worn thin. A reflection of the loss of trust and confidence is that 75% to 80% of Americans want HR1207 and S604 passed by Congress, so that the Fed can be audited and investigated. The public no longer trusts the Fed and the banks. As a result the con game may well be coming to an end. Fifty years ago we and a handful of other conservative warriors set out to inform the public of the giant scam that the Fed really was. It has been a long hard road. Gary Allen and Alan Stang are gone and of the originals all that are left are G. Edward Griffin, Stan Monteith, Anthony Hilder and us. During our lifetimes we now probably will see the end of the Fed. Because the people have finally been awakened. It was a long hard battle that may soon come to fruition.

The final step will be the termination of the Federal Reserve and its monopoly on financial theft. Unfortunately it will mean the demise of the only financial system we have known for 315 years. We do not know as yet what the new system will be like, but the con game is over and most of the world’s inhabitants are broke. The debt that is owed simply cannot be repaid. Japan, the US, the UK and Europe will be the first to go followed by most of the rest of the world.

You ask who will be the big winners? Gold and silver of course. Just as we have been telling you they would for 9-1/2 years, since gold was $252.00 and silver $3.80. Look at the gains for those who listened. And, we still have a long, long way to go to preserve our wealth. Over all those years the gold suppression cartel fought to hold down gold prices by selling gold, using derivatives and futures and in collaboration with good producers such as Barrick Gold and others. Hopefully HR3996 (HR-1207) will now pass unchanged and we can take a look at what the Fed and the Treasury were doing and who aided them.

What we are witnessing in the US and world economy is the result of the greed of central banks to make as much money as possible before they have to collapse the system to bring about World Government.

Manufacturing activity in the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's district improved in November.

The Roots of Global Governance - The New World Order

Click this link ........ http://eclipptv.com/viewVid...

Gerald Celente - "Time for an American Renaissance" 1/2

Click this link ...... http://eclipptv.com/viewVid...

Ed Begley, Jr. Loses Control Over ClimateGate

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watc...

U.A.E. Removes Sunday London Times From Newsstands

The Sunday London Times newspaper was removed by authorities from shelves in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday amid intensive reporting of Dubai's debt problems, an executive at the paper said.

The National Media Council ordered the paper blocked by distributors without providing a reason, an executive at the paper in Dubai told Zawya Dow Jones.

Here's the article that got the paper banned.

Spiraling to Bankruptcy

incometaxcartoon423lIf the Government confiscated everything, the social programs would still be $50 trillion short and the Government would still be bankrupt. Furthermore, no company or individual would be left with anything.

The economy is in bad shape. Some say it is worse than any time since the Great Depression. I believe it is actually worse than the Great Depression because of the level of debt. At the time of the Depression, neither governments nor individuals were deeply in debt. We were a nation of savers. Now we are a nation of spenders, living beyond our means. Individuals and governments at all levels are over their heads in debt, some literally drowning.

The debt problem is intractable. This conclusion is not economic but mathematical. It literally is mathematically impossible to get out from under the level of existing debt. To demonstrate, only the Federal Government will be dealt with. Such a focus greatly understates the actual problem, because it ignores personal debt and lower-level government debt. States and municipalities have grown well beyond sustainable levels and are running large deficits. Some defaults have already occurred. Individual bankruptcy filings are soaring as are foreclosures.
Government Violence Tolstoy 001

Promises Beyond Reality: The Federal Government admits to over $12 Trillion dollars in debt. In reality, its obligations are multiples of that figure. The unfunded promises from Social Security and Medicare total around $100 trillion. That is, to properly fund the forecasted future deficits in Social Security and Medicare, $100 trillion would have to be put in the fund today. This liability is growing at the rate of about $5 trillion per year! The Government has promised benefits that they cannot honor. These programs are Ponzi schemes that make Bernie Madoff look like Mother Teresa. As evidence, the total net worth of the country (the country’s total assets less liabilities) is slightly above $50 trillion. If the Government confiscated everything, the programs would still be $50 trillion short and the Government would still be bankrupt. Furthermore, no company or individual would be left with anything.

Send in an Additional $1,525,000 With Your Tax Return : To further put the problem into perspective, the Federal Government owes about $112 TRILLION in actual debt and social promises. Assuming a total population of 315 million people, the portion of Federal Government debt that is owed by every man, woman and child in this country is about $381,000! Or, a family of four owes $1,525,000 of which they are unaware. This amount is in addition to whatever mortgages, credit card debt, car loans or other loans a family might have.

Would You Give This Man a Mortgage? The magnitude of the numbers is so large that they are incomprehensible to the average person. Another way to understand the absurdity of the Federal Government’s condition is to reduce it to family terms. The Federal Government collects about $2.5 Trillion in total revenues a year. That is from all sources of taxes and fees. Think of that as an individual’s annual gross salary. The debt owed by the Government can be looked at as a great big mortgage. Thus, we have a family that has a mortgage 44.8 times greater than gross salary. That would be the equivalent of a man earning $50,000 gross salary having a mortgage of $2,240,000! An interest-only mortgage at 6% would require the family to pay annual interest of $134,000 per year. A conventional mortgage would be much higher. The example becomes even more ludicrous when one recognizes that taxes, food, clothing, savings, etc. all have to be subtracted from gross pay to determine what is left for debt service.

gopWhen we shift back to the Federal Government, the family analogy becomes even more absurd. The Federal Government has nothing left from their “gross pay.” Their “living expenses” actually exceeded their gross pay by $1.2 trillion last fiscal year. That is, they spent almost 50% more than they made. Comparable behavior is budgeted for the next ten years.

Debt Death Spiral: The Federal Government is in what is known as a Debt Death Spiral. They are unable to pay the actual and implied interest on their debt. Hence, the unpaid balance is added back to the amount owed, making the problem worse next year. This debt spiral is growing exponentially. There is no way to escape a certain mathematical end — BANKRUPTCY.

Do not count on collecting Social Security if you are less than 55 years old. Do not count on Medicare in anything approaching its present form. On top of utterly bankrupt programs they want to impose Obamacare. The Cato Institute estimates the cost of what has been proposed at over $6 trillion for a ten year period. They do not adjust for the fact that no major new government program is lucky to come within 5 times its initial estimate.

Economic Hitman John Perkins: US predatory capitalism creates poverty, terrorism, and pollution

NY Times Bestselling author of Economic Hitman, John Perkins, explains in excerpts from his new book, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hitman Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded—and What We Need to Do to Remake Them, that the US lives under a corporatocracy, with US policy captured to serve corporate profits rather than the public good.

This captured regulatory function of government is evident in US taxpayer transfers of TRILLIONS of our dollars to corporate elites in the last year alone. Goldman Sachs has deep connections throughout the US Treasury Department. Chair of the House Oversight Panel for the so-called bailout, Harvard’s Elizabeth Warren, calls our economic policy rewarding reckless gambling by giving taxpayers’ trillions back to the gamblers without asking where the money was going. The US Senate reported banks are the new Enron in creating profits for themselves through trading that produces only higher prices for Americans. The economic statistics we do get are manipulated to make our economy appear more productive than it really is. Among the top few global forecasters, Gerald Celente, calls our corporate/government collusion as mafia-style theft that rapes taxpayers and is evident to anyone with eyes to see.
This stunning transfer of wealth is unprecedented in recorded history.
Perkins explains that US agricultural subsidies of close to $20 billion every year allows US agribusiness to overproduce from US guaranteed price floors. Excess produce is then dumped in developing countries at below their market prices. The effect is to put local farmers out of business. For example, Perkins quotes the Organic Consumers Organization:
Since NAFTA came into effect on January 1, 1994, U.S. corn exports to Mexico have almost doubled to some 6 million metric tons in 2002. NAFTA eliminated quotas limiting corn imports . . . but allowed U.S. subsidy programs to remain in place—promoting dumping of corn into Mexico by U.S. agribusiness at below the cost of production. . . . The price paid to farmers in Mexico for corn fell by over 70 percent. . .
Perkins also explains a consequence of poverty is what our press reports as “terrorism.” Driving local producers out of work can also be a function of large corporate pollution, as he describes with Somali “pirates”:
Finally, NPR’s Morning Edition on May 6 aired a report from Gwen Thompkins; she interviewed a pirate who went by the name Abshir Abdullahi Abdi. “We understand what we’re doing is wrong,” Abdi explained. “But hunger is more important than any other thing.” Thompkins commented, “Fishing villages in the area have been devastated by illegal trawlers and waste dumping from industrialized nations. Coral reefs are reportedly dead. Lobster and tuna have vanished. Malnutrition is high.”
The answer to US economic catastrophe can be replicated around the globe, if we choose to do so. Governments can pay off national debt by transforming their monetary systems from bank-created debt to government created money (what most people assume is done, but are disinformed). In the US, the benefits are over a trillion dollars every year. The government can become the employer of last resort to hire for infrastructure improvement. This would eliminate poverty in almost all cases, and it’s cheaper to house and care for those who refuse work than leaving them on the streets according to every cost benefit analysis.
This policy has had historical support from many of America's brightest minds.
While waiting for federal monetary reform, states can end their own debt problems through state-owned banks.
Below is a 6-part interview of John Perkins by Alex Jones, where John walks the audience through his experience as an economic hitman and his perspective of what must be done today.
As always, please share this article with all who can benefit. If you appreciate my work, please subscribe by clicking under the article title (it’s free). Please use my archive of articles to help build a brighter future.
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WHAT REALLY KILLED RANJAN DAS ( 42 ), FORMER CEO OF SAP INDIA ? [C1]


Ranjan Das Passed Away on Wednesday, 21-October-2009


SAP India CEO Ranjan Das Dies After Gym Workout


Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Indian subcontinent
died after a massive cardiac arrest in Mumbai on Wednesday.
One of the youngest CEOs, he was 42


Carried : Wednesday, 11-November-2009
What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India

A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India . He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road . Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.

It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India . However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner ( in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away ), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.


Was it the stress?


A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.


The Real Reason


However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out':

Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep ( and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled ).


The Evidence


Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of 'Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep'. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.


Some Excerpts:


· Short sleep duration ( <5>

· Young people ( 25-49 years of age ) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.


· Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.


· Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!


· Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Paper published in 2004.


· Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.


Ideal Sleep


For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM ( Rapid Eye Movement ) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.


The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.


For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess ( lack of non-REM sleep ), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down ( I've been there, done that ).


Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.


If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test below.

Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don't like to drive ( maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that line ).


In conclusion:


Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising ( marathoning! ), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.
If you are not getting enough sleep ( 7 hours ), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.

I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep.

Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance.