World Trade Suffers Record Fall

World trade fell by 12 per cent last year as the economic crisis caused the biggest drop since 1945, giving new urgency to the need to conclude trade talks, WTO chief Pascal Lamy says.

The unprecedented reduction in global commerce makes it "economically imperative to conclude" international trade negotiations, which are at a standstill, in 2010, Lamy said on Wednesday.

"World trade was reduced by 12 per cent in 2009," he told the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think tank.

It was the "sharpest decline" since the end of the World War II, he said, and worse than the 10 per cent fall that the WTO had forecast in December.

The Doha Round of trade negotiations began in 2001 with a focus on dismantling obstacles to trade for poor nations, by aiming for a deal that would cut agriculture subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods.

Deadlines to conclude the talks have been repeatedly missed.

Discussions have been dogged by disagreements, including on how much the United States and the European Union should reduce farm aid and the extent to which developing countries such as India and China should lower tariffs.
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Jobless Rate: The Real Truth

Can you trust national averages? As bad as the jobless data you hear are, you have not been told the whole truth. If you think the terrible impact of America’s Great Recession is shown by an official unemployment rate of about 10 percent, think again.
Economic inequality and the myth of Reagan trickle down logic are shown by new data from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. The report noted: “What has been missing from the public debate over the labor market crisis is an honest and detailed analysis of which American workers have been most adversely affected by the deep deterioration in labor markets.” The researchers found a correlation between household income and unemployment rate in the last quarter of 2009: Look carefully at these numbers and see how unemployment rises as income drops:
$150,000 or more, 3.2 percent
$100,000 to 149,999, 8 percent
$75,000 to $99,999, 5 percent
$60,000 to $75,000, 6.4 percent
$50,000 to $59,000, 7.8 percent
$40,000 to $49,000, 9 percent
$30,000 to $39,999, 12.2 percent
$20,000 to $29,999, 19.7 percent
$12,500 to $20,000, 19.1 percent
$12,499 or less, 30.8 percent
Ten times worse unemployment in the lowest class than in the highest class! Truly amazing and disheartening, don’t you think? And you can also infer that in some hard hit geographical areas the poorest people and people of color are being even more adversely impacted. And don’t think for a minute that things have really improved in 2010.

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China Insider Sees Revolution Brewing

BEIJING: China's top expert on social unrest has warned that hardline security policies are taking the country to the brink of ''revolutionary turmoil''.

In contrast with the powerful, assertive and united China that is being projected to the outside world, Yu Jianrong said his prediction of looming internal disaster reflected on-the-ground surveys and also the views of Chinese government ministers.

Deepening social fractures were caused by the Communist Party's obsession with preserving its monopoly on power through ''state violence'' and ''ideology'', rather than justice, Professor Yu said.

Disaster could be averted only if ''interest groups'' - which he did not identify - were capable of making a rational compromise to subordinate themselves to the constitution, he said.

Some lawyers, economists and religious and civil society leaders have expressed similar views but it is unusual for someone with Professor Yu's official standing to make such direct and detailed criticisms of core Communist Party policies.

Professor Yu is known as an outspoken insider. As the director of social issues research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Rural Affairs he advises top leaders and conducts surveys on social unrest.

He previously has warned of the rising cost of imposing ''rigid stability'' by force but has not previously been reported as speaking about such immediate dangers.
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Fannie Posts $72 Billion Loss for '09

Inquiring minds are investigating Fannie Mae's stunning $72 billion loss for 2009 as well as new short selling curbs. The two are actually related. Let's take a look.

Please consider Fannie Posts $72 Billion Loss for '09

Fannie Mae reported a staggering $72 billion net loss for 2009, underscoring the challenges that still face the nation's largest mortgage financier and offering more grim news for taxpayers who may ultimately pick up the bill.

The Washington-based company posted a $15.2 billion fourth-quarter loss and said it asked the U.S. Treasury for another $15.3 billion to stay afloat, bringing its total bailout tab past $76 billion. The quarterly results were an improvement from the year-ago period, when Fannie reported a $25.2 billion loss, but the annual loss surpassed the year-earlier loss of $58.7 billion.

While some analysts warn that efforts to modify loans are simply postponing foreclosures and delaying losses, Fannie Chief Executive Michael Williams said the company remained committed to preventing foreclosures. "Our overriding objective is keeping people in their homes whenever possible," he said in a statement.

The government took over Fannie and Freddie nearly 18 months ago as rising loan defaults burned big holes in the companies' balance sheets. The government has agreed to absorb unlimited losses for the next three years and up to $400 billion after that. So far, the companies have taken a combined $127 billion in Treasury support, making this bailout one of the most expensive from the financial crisis.
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COMEX Inventory Data Reveal an Alarming Trend

For more than 6 months I have been gathering data released daily by the COMEX concerning delivery notices and inventory levels of gold and silver. This data must be captured and recorded each day as there is no database of historical data available to the general public.
Studying data on a daily basis is not conducive to seeing the big picture so I have
just completed a study of what can be discerned by looking at the entire 6
months of data. The results are very revealing.

(snippet)
I estimate that as much as 50,000 tonnes of gold has been sold that does not
exist. That is equivalent to all the gold reserves in the world that are yet to be mined, or put another way, 25 years of gold production. That is the grand-daddy of all short positions! As physical market shortages lead inevitably to exposing this scandal there will be the grand-daddy of all short squeezes and the granddaddy of a bull market in precious metals….but only in REAL physical precious metals and quality mining equities, not paper promises for physical metals. It would be a tragedy for an investor to have correctly identified the huge investment potential to wind up with nothing. It would be like winning the lottery to find that someone sold you a counterfeit lottery ticket!

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There is No Means of Avoiding The Final Collapse

When we look at the world economy today, wherever we turn we see a wall of risk. And sadly this is an insurmountable wall with risks that are totally unprecedented in history. There has never before been a potentially catastrophic combination of so many virtually bankrupt major sovereign states (US, UK, Spain, Italy Greece, Japan and many more) and a financial system which is bankrupt but is temporarily kept alive with phoney valuations and unlimited money printing. But governments will soon realise that they are not alchemists who can turn printed paper into gold. The consequences of the global financial crisis are potentially catastrophic.

As the Austrian economist von Mises said: “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency involved.”

In our view, governments like the US and the UK and many others will not abandon further credit expansion. They are committed to printing increasing amounts of worthless paper money in order to finance the growing deficits and the rotten financial system. Therefore there is no chance of Quantitative Easing ending but instead it will accelerate in 2010 and after. The consequence of this will be a hyperinflationary depression in many countries due to many currencies becoming worthless. No economy in the world, including China, will avoid this severe economic downturn which is likely to have a major impact on the world economy for many, many years to come.
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A Million Americans Denied Unemployment Extensions

They did it! The government of your nation did it! They just turned their backs on over a million people on unemployment and denied the extensions! Congress, in the most nefarious and pernicious move seen since “post economic collapse period,” has walked away, went home for the weekend and did not extend unemployment benefits to over a million America families.

One Senator from Kentucky was allowed to block the unemployment benefits and put over a million families in complete and utter jeopardy by cutting off the only income these families have to pay their bills. Jim Bunning the junior Senator from The Blue Grass State just decided to play politics with people’s survival and crushed the unemployed by making a national debt argument on the backs of over a million families. In the most coldhearted fashion, this venal man sold his soul to ideology and crushed under his foot the desperate millions of people who can not find a job due to no fault of their own.
The dysfunction of this government is now in full force and on display for every American to see. Those of us with a job who don’t speak out and do something, deserve to one day be in our fellow American’s shoes. Our government is completely out of control and with this latest failure has become the single biggest threat to the survival of the American family. To allow one politician from some small state to block extended unemployment for over a million people and their families goes beyond anything acceptable.
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California is a Greater Risk than Greece, Warns JP Morgan Chief

Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece's current debt woes.


Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank's annual meeting that "there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.
California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20bn (£13.1bn) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.
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Trauma Of Job Loss: Heart Attacks and Suicides

The first to have a heart attack was George Kull Jr., 56, a millwright who worked for three decades at the steel mills in Lackawanna, N.Y. Three weeks after learning that his plant was closing, he suddenly collapsed at home.
Bob Smith had a heart attack.
Several workers had heart attacks after learning their steel plant in Lackawanna, N.Y., was closing. Darlene Turner, right, found her husband, Don, at home.
Less than two hours later, he was pronounced dead.

A few weeks after that, a co-worker, Bob Smith, 42, a forklift operator with four young children, started having chest pains. He learned at the doctor’s office that he was having a heart attack. Surgeons inserted three stents, saving his life.

Less than a month later, Don Turner, 55, a crane operator who had started at the mills as a teenager, was found by his wife, Darlene, slumped on a love seat, stricken by a fatal heart attack.

It is impossible to say exactly why these men, all in relatively good health, had heart attacks within weeks of one another. But interviews with friends and relatives of Mr. Kull and Mr. Turner, and with Mr. Smith, suggest that the trauma of losing their jobs might have played a role.

“He was really, really worried,” George Kull III said of his father. “With his age, he didn’t know where he would get another job, or if he would get another job.”
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The U.S. Personal Income Tax: It Goes to The Family Rothschild

The more people like me speak out about this, the more will scratch their heads and go, “No way!” or “You’re an idiot, Garner!” or, worst of all, “You’re not an American!”

I’ve heard this crap before, and it always comes from ignorant souls who just don’t understand how the political and economic systems work in the western world.

After more than 30 years of anecdotal research, connecting thousands of dots across an endless sky, a distinct pattern begins to emerge, something I’ll share a bit with you here. First, there’re other brave souls out there who also have researched this contentious topic, and have drawn similar conclusions. And we’ve all done so independently, which makes our conclusions all the more striking. I’ve said this before and it bears repeating: the evil family Rothschild, which controls what I term The First Sphere of Influence in the western world, hides in plain sight. They even flaunt their wealth and control and power over us with such arrogance and contempt that it cannot be ignored, even by like-minded people as they.

Where shall I start?

The U.S. income tax was a long sought-after tax the Rothschilds had attempted to bring on since the late 1770s, but it was strongly resisted by Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison and John Adams, among other less-known (to contemporary audiences) American Patriots. It wasn’t until 1913 that Senator Nelson Aldrich and his fascist “American Rothschilds” managed to sneak through a bill, during the winter break of the House of Representatives, that imposed a formal personal income tax on all Americans.

Our notion that our personal income taxes go to paying for our country’s infrastructure, social services, military, etc. is inaccurate, to say the least. Our personal income taxes first are collected by the US Treasury via the Internal Revenue Service, which sends the funds to the Federal Reserve, which is NOT a federal bank of any sort. The privately owned Federal Reserve, which is owned by the Rothschilds and, to a smaller extent, other banking families, then sends our tax dollars to its own Bank of England, which is located in the sovereign area of London called The City of London.

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Greek PM Warns on Bankruptcy as Crunch Looms
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Private Corporation Federal Reserve is Bailing Out: U.S Is Finished, No More Money

With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt.

Recent events in Europe, where Greece and other nations with large, unsustainable deficits like the United States are having increasing trouble selling their debt to investors, show that the U.S. is vulnerable to a sudden reversal of fortunes that would force taxpayers to pay higher interest rates on the debt, Mr. Bernanke said.

"It's not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently," he told the House Financial Services Committee. "It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability [of yearly deficits over $1 trillion], and we may find ourselves facing higher interest rates even today."

It was some of the toughest rhetoric to date about the nation's fiscal and budgetary woes from the Fed chief, who faces a second round of questioning Thursday before a Senate panel.
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Detroit: 50% Of Population Gone

Detroit --Mayor Dave Bing said Wednesday he "absolutely" intends to relocate residents from desolate neighborhoods and is bracing for inevitable legal challenges when he unveils his downsizing plan.
In his strongest statements about shrinking the city since taking office, Bing told WJR-760 AM the city is using internal and external data to decide "winners and losers." The city plans to save some neighborhoods and encourage residents to move from others, he said.
"If we don't do it, you know this whole city is going to go down. I'm hopeful people will understand that," Bing said. "If we can incentivize some of those folks that are in those desolate areas, they can get a better situation."
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"If they stay where they are I absolutely cannot give them all the services they require."
He said there's no timeline, price tag or estimate on the number of people who would have to be moved, but said federal funding would be needed. Bing said he plans to focus on the neighborhoods in which Detroit Public Schools plans to build schools with $500.5 million in bonds voters approved last year.
"You can't support every neighborhood," Bing told WJR's Frank Beckmann. "You can't support every community across this city. Those communities that are stable, we can't allow them to go down the tubes. That's not a good business decision from my vantage point."
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Junk Debt ‘Wall’ to Trigger U.S. Defaults, Bank of America Says

Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- A “wall” of junk debt maturing in the next four years will increase the risk of corporate defaults in the U.S., according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.


More than $600 billion of high-yield bonds and loans are due to be repaid between 2012 and 2014, New York-based analysts Oleg Melentyev and Mike Cho wrote in a note to clients. Almost 90 percent of loans outstanding mature in the next five years, compared with an average of 36 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to the report.


“While the wall-shaped schedule of future maturities is nothing new for the high-yield issuer universe, it is more front-loaded today,” the analysts said. “This could result in additional default pressures further down the road as issuers deal with a higher concentration of maturities than they what they have been dealing with in the past.”


The looming payments stem from companies shifting their loans to shorter maturities of three to five years, compared with five to seven years in the past, they said.


Banks stung by $1.7 trillion of writedowns and losses are more reluctant to lend to the neediest borrowers with ratings below Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and BBB- by Standard & Poor’s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Leveraged loans to U.S. companies shrank 81 percent in 2009 from their peak of $913.5 billion in 2007, the data show.

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Tax Payers Bill: Freddie Mac Posts $7.8 Billion Loss

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Spain Determines If Euro Collapses

Greece set off the crisis rattling the euro zone. Spain could determine whether the 16-nation currency stands or falls.

The euro zone's No. 4 economy, Spain has an unemployment rate of 19%, a deflating housing bubble, big debts and a gaping budget deficit. Its gross domestic product contracted 3.6% in 2009 and is expected to shrink again this year, leaving Spain in its deepest and longest recession in a half-century.

At the center of the crisis are millions of Spaniards like Olga Espejo. The 41-year-old lost her administrative job at a laboratory in Madrid, then found a temporary post replacing someone on sick leave -- until that job was abolished. Her husband and her sister have also been laid off -- all among the one in nine working Spaniards who have lost jobs in the past two years.

Each gets an unemployment check of at least €1,000 a month, or about $1,350, part of a generous social safety net that Madrid says it won't cut. But Ms. Espejo's benefit runs out in July and her husband's in May.

"What prospects do any of us have now?" Ms. Espejo asks.
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The Depression Is Alive And Well

(snippet)

The mainstream economics profession is guilty of dereliction of duty. They should be telling people that this ‘recovery’ is a scam. They should be warning investors that the markets could fall apart any day. They should be buying gold and selling US Treasuries…and explaining to the politicians that you can’t buy your way out of a depression with phony dollars squandered on wasteful projects!

Instead, the dopes are patting each other on the back…praising themselves for saving the planet from destruction.

But what really has gone on? And what’s going on now?

Glad you asked.

First, there is a real economic phenomenon going on – the depression. It’s alive and well…and doing just fine. Households are de-leveraging. Businesses are building up cash. People are losing their jobs. Savings rates are edging up.

Almost everything is happening as it should.

Depressions are times of falling prices. Markets are always discovering what things are worth. In a depression, they find that assets – stocks and real estate primarily – are not worth nearly as much as people thought.

That’s why we have our ‘crash alert’ flag still flying. Prices are vulnerable to sharp, unannounced drops until they finally get down to real depression levels. Since that hasn’t quite happened yet…we figure it’s still to come.

On the employment front, this depression has put more than 6 million people out of work. And every month, more people join the unemployment ranks. So far, so good. The US economy didn’t need so many marble countertop installers and so many mortgage refinancers. (If only something could be done to get rid of lobbyists!)

But the worst thing about a depression is that it holds jobless people prisoner for so long. Many of them will become lifers…they’ll never work again.
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Middle Class Totally Decimated

My Take:

What a time to be an oligarch! All I wanted to do was vomit when I saw this.

Folks, there is no way we can have economic prosperity in this country when the top 1% has all of the money. The middle class is basically being destroyed right in front of our very eyes. Consumption economies die when the consumers have no money to consume!

I see growing signs of desperation and anger as the wealth of this nation continues to get transferred to the elite of this nation.

People are starting to "lose" it as a result. This past week's airplane event in Austin was a disturbing development. I must admit that I really am not surprised. The government shouldn't be either.

Things are only going to get worse in the violence department as the taxpayers continue to get violated and more desperate as a result of this economic cataststrophe. The news media tried to downplay the actions in Austin.

I think Washington was both surprised and concerned about what took place in Texas.

I have to ask: Should the government really be surpised that an American flew a plane into an IRS building in a fit of rage as we all get repeatedly fleeced by the political and social elites of this country?

Let me preface all of this by saying violence is not the answer here. However, why shouldn't every American be infuriated by what has ocurred since this crisis began?
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Greenspan: Worst Financial Crisis EVER, INCLUDING the Great Depression

Greenspan just said that the current credit crunch is "by far the greatest financial crisis, globally, ever" -- including the 1930s Great Depression.
Bloomberg notes:

Greenspan said that while the economy was in worse shape in the Great Depression, the recent financial crisis was potentially more harmful than that in the 1930s because “never had short-term credit literally withdrawn.”

Greenspan also said “fiscal affairs are threatening this outlook” for recovery.
As I pointed out last May:

The following experts have said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression:

• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

• Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O'Rourke(updated here)

• Investment advisor, risk expert and "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb

• Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker

• Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

• Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin

• Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber

• Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead

• Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker

• Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto

• Billionaire investor George Sorors

• Senior British minister Ed Balls

Unfortunately, virtually everything the American government has done since the crisis started has been counterproductive. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, thisand this.
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11.3 Million Homeowners Underwater on Mortgage

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- More than 11.3 million homeowners -- nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage -- owe more on their loan than their home is now worth, according to a report released Tuesday by FirstAmerican CoreLogic.

More than 10% of people with mortgages owe 25% more than their home is worth.

The number of underwater mortgages increased by about 620,000 from the third quarter, the firm said. Another 2.3 million mortgages had less than 5% equity in their home, which could be wiped out if home prices fall further.
U.S. banks in transition
Jayan Dhru, Standard & Poor's global head of Financial Services Ratings, says U.S. banks are still in recovery mode as they manage the credit cycle while reducing leverage and risk. Reforming the banking sector will have unintended consequences on the broader economy.

In the fourth quarter, national home prices fell 1.1% compared with the third quarter, Standard & Poor's reported in a separate report on Tuesday. See full story on Case-Shiller home price index.
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New Home Sales Drop 11 percent in January, New Low
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Economic Depression Deepening with Mass Layoffs and Bank Failures

Note: Map on left are bank failures courtesy of WSJ
Tracking the Nations Bank Failures
Here

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The number of mass layoffs by U.S. employers edged up in January as manufacturers stepped up job cuts, data showed on Tuesday, but probably not enough to alter views that the economy is on the brink of creating jobs.

The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions -- defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer -- increased by 35 to 1,761. Mass layoffs had trended lower since August.
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U.S. banks posted last year their sharpest decline in lending since 1942, suggesting the industry's continued slide is impeding economic recovery..." -WSJ

Coming To America? Clashes Break Out at Greek Crisis Protests

ATHENS, Greece — Police fired tear gas and clashed with demonstrators in Athens after some 50,000 people finished a peaceful march against cutbacks intended to fix the country's debt crisis.

The violence lasted about 30 minutes, when scores of youths hurled rocks, red paint and plastic bottles near parliament. Police said at least two people were detained, while several storefronts were vandalized.

Windows were smashed at the Finance Ministry's General Accounting Office, which has been accused by the European Union of slipshod statistics-keeping that made the financial crisis worse.

The day's protests were otherwise peaceful. Labor unions organized the protest march amid a 24-hour general strike that grounded flights, shut schools and crippled public services, in a show of strength against the government.

The walkout comes as Greece is considering tougher austerity measures to ward off a financial crisis that has undermined the euro and raised fears that financial market contagion will spread to other weak economies such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.
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U.S. Economy is a Shambles, with No Improvement in Sight

It has been one year since U.S. President Barack Obama signed the $787-billion stimulus bill, the Recovery Act, to lift the U.S. out of recession, and threw an additional $50-billion lifeline to American homeowners facing foreclosure. The package was subsequently enriched and is now estimated at $862 billion, while the pledge to stem foreclosures has risen to $275 billion.

"One year later, thanks to the Recovery Act, we can stand here again and say that a second depression is no longer a possibility," Obama said in marking the anniversary last week.

Oh no? Take another look at the numbers.

After all that spending -- actual and committed (Congress passed an additional $155 billion in aid in December) -- claims of job creation and economic growth remain highly suspect. The U.S. economy has shed more than eight million jobs since the recession began, and losses continue with 20,000 fewer jobs in January alone. A White House advisory council forecast that the economy will create 95,000 jobs per month this year. For forecasters, the year is not off to a good start. Unless the job generator shifts into a higher gear, one analysis concluded, it will take more than seven years to replace the jobs lost since 2007.

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FDIC Says 702 Banks Now in Danger of Collapse
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Buffett's Partner: 'It's Over' for U.S. Economy

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner in Berkshire Hathaway, warns in a new column that the U.S. economic empire is crumbling before our eyes, thanks to federal debt and poor planning.
In an article penned for Slate.com, Munger uses the form of a parable to explain how Wall Street’s love affair with gambling has destroyed America’s Main Street.
The Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman describes the economic history of Basicland, which happens to match U.S. history.
Early in its history, debt is unknown except for home mortgages and some consumer loans, and people live within their means. Speculation is discouraged, and commodities markets are small and tightly regulated. Under this rational system, economic growth skips merrily along at a steady 3 percent, Munger explains.
Taxes are limited and pay for only “essential services” like fire protection, courts, and defense. Most taxes are collected on imports, and government spending matches that tax income. Debt via government bonds is limited.

Then things take a turn for the worse. 


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Understanding The Economic Depression

The people have been lulled into a false sense of safety under the ruse of a perceived “economic recovery.” Unfortunately, what the majority of people think does not make it so, especially when the people making the key decisions think and act to the contrary. The sovereign debt crises that have been unfolding in the past couple years and more recently in Greece, are canaries in the coal mine for the rest of Western “civilization.” The crisis threatens to spread to Spain, Portugal and Ireland; like dominoes, one country after another will collapse into a debt and currency crisis, all the way to America.

In October 2008, the mainstream media and politicians of the Western world were warning of an impending depression if actions were not taken to quickly prevent this. The problem was that this crisis had been a long-time coming, and what’s worse, is that the actions governments took did not address any of the core, systemic issues and problems with the global economy; they merely set out to save the banking industry from collapse. To do this, governments around the world implemented massive “stimulus” and “bailout” packages, plunging their countries deeper into debt to save the banks from themselves, while charging it to people of the world.

Then an uproar of stock market speculation followed, as money was pumped into the stocks, but not the real economy. This recovery has been nothing but a complete and utter illusion, and within the next two years, the illusion will likely come to a complete collapse.

The governments gave the banks a blank check, charged it to the public, and now it’s time to pay; through drastic tax increases, social spending cuts, privatization of state industries and services, dismantling of any protective tariffs and trade regulations, and raising interest rates. The effect that this will have is to rapidly accelerate, both in the speed and volume, the unemployment rate, globally. The stock market would crash to record lows, where governments would be forced to freeze them altogether.

When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status. The global economy will have gone through the greatest consolidation of industry and banking in world history leading to a system in which only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources; governments will have lost that right. The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated the ‘global South’ and in particular, Africa; they will remove our social structures and foundations so that we become entirely subservient to their dominance over the economic and political structures of our society.
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'Less Than 3 in Every 20 Americans Have Faith in Govt.'

A recent poll suggests that only 14 percent of Americans have complete faith in the United States government and the way it functions.

Results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll published Sunday further indicated that 85 percent of those surveyed believe that "the system of government is broken."
The polling center interviewed 1,023 adult Americans, including 954 registered voters, over phone between February 12 and February 15.
Compared with a similar survey in 2006, the percentage of Americans who think the government is broken has increased by eight points.
"That increase is highest among higher-income Americans and people who live in rural areas," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director.

The poll's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. 


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Subprime Losers Movie CLICK HERE

Cities Desperate For Money: $300 Fee For Calling 911

TRACY, Calif. (CBS13) ―
Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.

But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there's the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

"A $300 fee and you don't even want to be thinking about that when somebody is in need of assistance," said Tracy resident Greg Bidlack.

Residents will soon receive the form in the mail where they'll be able to make their selection. No date has been set for when the charges will go into effect.
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Collapse: 'Quickly and Without Warning'

In an article for the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs, "Complexity and Collapse: Empires on the Edge of Chaos," due out later this week, author and historian Niall Ferguson posits that the life cycles of great powers might not follow the long-accepted pattern of gradual rise and fall. Rather, he says, "it is possible that this whole conceptual framework is, in fact, flawed," and that empires fall quickly and without warning. With that in mind, Ferguson explores what it might mean for the geopolitical status quo.

If empires are complex systems that sooner or later succumb to sudden and catastrophic malfunctions, rather than cycling sedately from Arcadia to Apogee to Armageddon, what are the implications for the United States today? First, debating the stages of decline may be a waste of time—it is a precipitous and unexpected fall that should most concern policymakers and citizens. Second, most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises. All the above cases were marked by sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, as well as difficulties with financing public debt. Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly, indeed, as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2009 of more than $1.4 trillion—about 11.2 percent of gdp, the biggest deficit in 60 years—and another for 2010 that will not be much smaller. Public debt, meanwhile, is set to more than double in the coming decade, from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $14.3 trillion in 2019. Within the same timeframe, interest payments on that debt are forecast to leap from eight percent of federal revenues to 17 percent.

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No Jobs: No Fast Food Breakfast Sales

The nation's high unemployment rate has thrown millions of people out of work, scared shoppers away from stores and threatened the economic recovery. Now it's taking a bite out of breakfast.

Breakfast sales had grown at a ravenous pace during the boom years as busy workers scarfed down sausage biscuits on the way to the office, fueling a $57 billion business and accounting for as much as a quarter of sales at some fast-food chains. Chains opened earlier and expanded their morning menus to accommodate the traffic as lunch and dinner sales flatlined.
But as the jobless rate hit 26-year highs fewer people headed to work, and even those who did worried about their spending. So they poured bowls of cereal at home or simply slept in, putting breakfast on the back burner.
"Typically, if you're unemployed, you're not getting up at six and not going through the drive-thru," said Jeffrey Bernstein, an analyst at Barclays Capital. "There is a direct correlation between unemployment and breakfast sales."
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Is The Federal Reserve Bailing Out Greece?

Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minimum payments that are now coming due. Their debt level is about 120 percent of their gross domestic product and their public sector absorbs what amounts to 40 percent of GDP. Any talk of cutting costs and spending is met with violent protests from the many Greeks heavily dependent on government payments. Mounting fears of default have sent shockwaves through their creditors and all of the eurozone countries.
But there have been statements made by the European Central Bank to calm fears and give assurances that Greece will get the aid it needs. Details of agreements are not forthcoming.
Is it possible that our Federal Reserve has had some hand in bailing out Greece? The fact is, we don’t know, and current laws exempt agreements between the Fed and foreign central banks from disclosure or audit.

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Biggest Holders of US Debt Is Not China or Japan But..

As the US government spends an unprecedented amount of money to fix the nation's economy, there is an equally great need to raise the cash to pay for it. This is accomplished through borrowing, whereby Uncle Sam sells Treasury securities of varying maturity.
For investors, the government bills, notes and bonds are considered a safe financial product because they have a guaranteed rate of return, based on faith in future US tax revenues. The government has been partially funding operations via Treasury securities for decades.
This borrowing adds to the national debt, which has climbed above $11 trillion and is rising every day. Much of that debt is held by private sector, but about 40 percent is held by public entities, including parts of the government.  Here's who owns the most. 
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1. Federal Reserve and US Intragovernmental Holdings
That’s right, the biggest holder of US government debt is actually inside the United States. The Federal Reserve system of banks and other US intragovernmental holdings account for a stunning $5.127 trillion in US Treasury debt. This is the most recent number available (Sept 2009), and is at an all-time high, rising in every reporting period since 2007. About a decade ago, the total government holdings were "only" $2.5 trillion.
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The Medicare Ponzi Scheme Fraud

Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail. He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives.


Wall Street’s approach to the poor has always been to drive them deeper into the ground.


As there is no money to be made from the poor, Wall Street fleeces them by yanking away their entitlements. It has always been thus. During the Reagan administration, Wall Street decided to boost the values of its bond and stock portfolios by using Social Security revenues to lower budget deficits. Wall Street figured that lower deficits would mean lower interest rates and higher bond and stock prices.


Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as “putting Social Security on a sound basis.”


Along the way Americans were told that the surplus revenues were going into a special Social Security trust fund at the U.S. Treasury. But what is in the fund is Treasury IOUs for the spent revenues. When the “trust funds” are needed to pay Social Security benefits, the Treasury will have to sell more debt in order to redeem the IOUs.
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Republicans have extraordinary animosity toward the poor. In an effort to talk retirees out of their support systems, Republicans frequently describe Social Security as a Ponzi scheme and “unsustainable.” They ought to know. The phony trust fund, which they set up to hide the fact that Wall Street and the Pentagon are running off with Social Security revenues, is a Ponzi scheme. Social Security itself has been with us since the 1930s and has yet to wreck our lives and budget. But it only took Hank Paulson’s derivative Ponzi scheme and its bailout a few years to inflict irreparable damage on our lives and budget.
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Obama Giving Black Farmers $1.25B in Reparations
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Americans Stock Up to be Ready for "End of the World"

Tess Pennington, 33, is a mother of three children, and lives in the sprawling outskirts of Houston, Texas. But she is not taking the happy safety of her suburban existence lightly.

Like a growing army of fellow Americans, Pennington is learning how to grow her own food, has stored emergency rations in her home and is taking courses on treating sickness with medicinal herbs.

"I feel safe and more secure. I have taken personal responsibility for the safety of myself and of my family," Pennington said. "We have decided to be prepared. There all kinds of disasters that can happen, natural and man-made."

Pennington is a "prepper", a growing social movement that has been dubbed Survivalism Lite. Preppers believe that it is better to be safe than sorry and that preparing for disaster – be it a hurricane or the end of civilisation – makes sense.

Unlike the 1990s survivalists, preppers come from all backgrounds and live all over America. They are just as likely to be found in a suburb or downtown loft as a remote ranch in the mountains. Prepping networks, which have sprung up all over the country in the past few years, provide advice on how to prepare food reserves, how to grow crops in your garden, how to hunt and how to defend yourself. There are prepping books, online shops, radio shows, countless blogs, prepping courses and prepping conferences.

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Governors Association: Its Going To Get Worse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The already gloomy conditions of states' economies are set to worsen, according to preliminary survey findings from the National Governors Association released on Saturday.

"The situation is fairly poor for a lot of states around the country. In fact, most states," Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, who is chairman of the association, said at a press conference at its annual meeting.

"What we're finding out from a fiscal standpoint is that the worst is yet to come," Douglas said.

In a survey conducted last week of 45 of the 50 states, the group found that states have $18.8 billion of budget gaps yet to be closed in fiscal 2010. This comes after they have already imposed measures to eliminate budget imbalances totaling $87 billion in the fiscal year, which for most started last summer.

In the budgets they are drafting for fiscal 2011, states foresee shortfalls of $53.6 billion and for fiscal 2012 $61.6 billion.

"Economists have declared the national recession over. But for those who are still unemployed, for those who have lost their homes, it's clear that as a nation we have a long way to go," said Douglas, who added that states' revenues have plummeted for four quarters in a row.

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"Crisis of Confidence": Yes, Risks of U.S. Default Are Very Real, Charles Ortel

With America facing $1 trillion annual deficits and debt-to-GDP ratios on par with those of Europe's so-called PIGS, some are asking what was once unthinkable:Is the U.S. at risk of defaulting on its debt?

Earlier this week, Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz told Tech Ticker the U.S. "has absolutely no real problem servicing the debt at the current level"; meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently said America will "never" lose its vaunted triple-A credit rating after Moody's suggested it was a possibility if we don't get our fiscal house in order.

Take a hard look at America's balance sheet and "you have to be concerned," says Charles Ortel, managing director of Newport Value Partners.

Total gross U.S. debt is now $50 trillion or 12 times the nation's total gross income, according to Ortel, whose debt calculation excludes unfunded mandates such as Social Security and Medicaid but does include corporate debt which he says are "potentially eligible for bailouts."

Furthermore, Ortel says the Federal Reserve overestimates U.S. household net worth, because most of the "asset" side of the ledger is based on real estate valuations he says are overinflated.

"A strict, hard look at the national net worth statement will tell you that our assets are lower than you think and our debt is higher than you think," he says.

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Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

BUENA PARK, Calif. — Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.

“There are no bad jobs now. Any job is a good job,” said Jean Eisen, who became unemployed more than two years ago.

Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.

Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

Here in Southern California, Jean Eisen has been without work since she lost her job selling beauty salon equipment more than two years ago. In the several months she has endured with neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check, she has relied on local food banks for her groceries.
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CFTC Admits Hiding Info Exposing Market Manipulation

By Adrian Douglas
Saturday, February 20, 2010


Recently while reviewing the bank participation reports (BPR) released each month by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading commission I noticed that, since November 2009, in silver and in some other commodities the CFTC has stopped listing the number of banks that hold positions.


So GATA sent an inquiry to the CFTC as to why this data was now being omitted. We got the following response dated February 19:


"Commissioner Chilton asked that I look into your issue regarding the CFTC Bank Participation Report (the BPR). Specifically, you noticed that beginning with the December 2009 BPR the CFTC has not included a breakdown of the participating banks in the silver futures, although the breakdown is provided for gold. You had inquired as to why the information has changed.


"Beginning with the December 2009 BPR, the CFTC began suppressing the trader count in some markets. The change became effective with the December 2009 BPR because it was the next available report to be published following the commission’s November 2009 decision to implement the change.


"The decision to suppress the trader counts was made as part of an ongoing review of the methodology of the BPR. As part of that review, the commission determined that where the number of banks in each reporting category is particularly small, fewer than four banks, there exists the potential to extrapolate both the identity of individual banks and the bank's positions. Under section 8(a) of the Commodity Exchange Act, the commission, among other things, is generally prohibited from publishing data and information that would separately disclose the business transactions or market positions of any person/entity.


"Accordingly, in order to protect the confidentiality of market participants' positions, the commission determined to suppress the individual category breakdown when that number is less than four.


"An explanation of this determination appears in the Explanatory Notes section of the BPR as it appears on the CFTC Website, www.cftc.gov. I have cut and pasted the language below for your convenience.

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