German Parliament set to boost EURO

Germany's parliament approved new powers for the crisis fund of the euro zone on Thursday, but it was not clear if Ms Merkel won enough votes from her coalition government to silence the rebels. Angela Merkel was willing to finance a series of rescue packages for countries like Greece. Parliament of Germany confirmed the 523 MPs voted to support the proposal, 85 voted against and 3 abstained.

In Germany, opinion polls suggest that the widespread opposition among members of the public and even within the coalition government of Angela Merkel had threatened to vote "No". Opposition leaders said that if Merkel's coalition had to rely on their vote, it would be a signal that her conflicts and increasingly unpopular government is complete.

Passage in the lower house seems assured, thanks to the support for opposition legislators, but the vote has highlighted the tensions in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition, which has been strained by members who have baulked at the expense of shoring up the fighters euro area .

"Today we will make an important contribution to our nation, Europe and to the stability of the euro," Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the Bloc Merkel said in his opening remarks on the debate. But Frank Schaeffer, a member of the Democrats of Merkel junior partner free, argued that the rescue measures have worsened the economic situation in Greece. Merkel Christian Democrats (CDU) and their allies have been pressuring the handful of dissenters to come on line before the vote. "Despite all the arguments, the first bailout plan did no better than the situation in Greece, but worse," Schaeffler said. "The expansion of the fund will make the situation even worse."

Germany is the largest economy among the 17 countries using the euro and will bear the burden of upto 211 billion Euros, of the 440 billion Euros worth of guarantees, but critics fear it is now clear this is not enough and ask for more taxpayers money. The increased firepower of the rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Fund(EFSF) if approved, Germany would guarantee loans in the future to tune up to 211 billion euros (184 billion pounds), and € 123 billion (£ 107 billion) to date.

Opposition leaders said that if Ms. Merkel's coalition has to rely on their voices, it would be a sign that her days of unpopular government is over.

How to survive the Coming Depression?

When the economy is shaken, it instills a lot of fear in people's everyday lives. What yesterday seemed safe, now seems shaky and unstable. If you followed the news recently, I'm sure you've heard many stories about how big the national debt has been received. It is rapidly heading towards $ 14 trillion dollars. Gas prices are rising again, food prices are soaring, and there are millions of people still looking for work. When it comes to surviving the recession, people automatically think of money, food and shelter. Even if all these are very important, there are other things you need, if you really want to deal with future crisis.

For many years we have been warned against a coming economic crash in America, and since 2006 we have been advised specifically of the housing crisis, recession and depression that followed. The key to surviving the coming economic depression is just preparation. I’ll try to explain "how-to-survive-the-coming-Depression” in a moment, but first I must paint a picture of something of what is to come. My conviction is that especially in America, this crisis will be worse than the Great Depression.

While this sounds scary, there is some good news. You see, if you know what to do, you can weather this storm and can come out better on the other side. Here are some things you can do to prepare for the coming economic depression.

The first thing you should immediately do is take all your money out of cash investments, such as savings accounts, certificates of deposit, money market funds and pension plans in stocks and bonds them.
Secondly, you can do is, to prepare paying off the debt as much you can. Having cash-in-hand during an economic depression is important. In order to find ways to reduce and save more. If you are investing heavily in the stock market, take the time to look closely at your investments.
The third thing you need are flashlights. This is a great chance that you will not have the power during these times and make sure you have plenty of batteries.

There are certain investments that won’t be affected by depression. Mutual funds, retirement accounts and stock options are good investments. The problem is that a severe economic downturn, particularly depression, these types of investments were written down, and in times of terrible economy, you can almost be useless if there is high inflation. Another thing you can do is explore the world of barter. To barter means for the exchange of goods or services to another product or service. In difficult times, people still need to do things, just not necessarily have the money to pay. So you can offer your services or goods in exchange for something, what you need. It can be food, shelter, clothing, or anything else you need. This will definitely take us to the barter-trade era, but as they say – life takes a full cycle, and I guess we are going there and have crossed more than half the cycle already.

The last thing I suggest you do to survive the coming economic depression is to start your own business part time. I think we all know that no job is recession proof. If services are no longer needed, you will be shown the door out of the organization. Start anything you are good at. Spend some time on your business and put it online, market it locally, start selling online – whatever you can do, but take up something part-time. This way, if you lose your job, you will always have money coming in.

Is the Great Depression Coming Again?

About 95% of the financial crisis faced by anyone in this world can be attributed to poor money management. It seems that the U.S. underwent a financial health for years, some may even say, for decades. A financial crisis can occur in most of the drawbacks, and we were surprised by the problems this can bring. The U.S. national debt was insatiable, at least since the 1980s. Since the 1980 U.S. was deeply in debt - an increase of more than 14 times since 1980. Some bankers in some of the world's largest banks have had a basic idea - the idea that money can be created on paper – they pushed this idea too far.

The global financial crisis had a negative effect on everyone - whether private or corporate. A key challenge for everyone in the financial crisis was the housing development. Those with variable rate mortgages found that owe more than what they paid for their homes, and many were unable to come up with the additional tens of thousands of dollars each year. Nobody wants to be a part of the financial crisis of depression. The bad news about the next Great Depression is that nothing can be done to prevent it. The financial crisis has raised the dynamics of depression for months now, and is about to embark on full speed ahead. So rather than deny or wishing it away, we can also accept it as it is going to happen without our permission.

There are many reports on the precise figures and even government agencies seem contradictory on the calculated figures. It is also clear that until and unless the United States drastically raise taxes, doubles the income (GDP) each year for decades, creates currency, or find another river in significant revenue - it seems that the majority of Americans’ unfunded liabilities remain unfunded. The next global financial crisis will be 3 months to 2 years in a row, and when the crisis comes, you know it's very easy to make 50% to 200% returns on your capital. With the U.S. budget deficit expected to reach 1.48 trillion dollars, a record is possible that Barack Obama must now face. The financial difficulties of the federal budget is huge, and there is much work to do before the country is back on a stable financial base.

Markets flash global warnings

For months, it was all about Europe and the United States. Suddenly, investors have reason to worry about the rest of the world.

Last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6.4%, its worst week since October 2008, letting down almost 7% for the year. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is almost as bad last week and is down 9.6% this year.

But rather than focus exclusively on the Greek debt, European banks and the U.S. economy, many investors began to twist the hands of a new set of indicators, which point to a severe downturn of the global economy.

Copper prices and the fall of shares in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Brazil all have a group of investors on board. Others focus on junk bonds and a sudden weakness of the recession in the steel industry and mining activities and business. Some investors see the main indicators of this market for a wider market.

"Copper is down, in Brazil and China," said Michael Aronstein, president of asset management market in the field, which manages over $ 1 billion. "People are expecting distant empires to stimulate growth, "he added. "That's where the disappointment will come from." Copper is down 22% in September was particularly disturbing. The demand for the metal is often viewed as directly reflecting a wide range of economic activities. Copper goes into houses, appliances and vehicles, and faces a drop in spending by consumers, businesses and governments. It is sometimes called Dr. Copper by fans as it is perceived as a better predictor of the economy as academics is perceived with doctorate.

The recent decline is a "convincing evidence of a global slowdown in manufacturing activity," said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's Capital Markets Group.

Copper is a problem and can be treated as a sign of weakness in emerging markets, particularly China, the world's single largest consumer of copper.

Shanghai Stock Exchange fell nearly 10%, late July and was down 21% in the 'index of Hong Kong - Hang Seng. The Chinese stock market does not always reflect underlying economic activity in the country. Still, economists say China's growth is likely to slow as the second largest economy continues to downshift. Oil demand from China in since October last year, according to estimates from Platts, even if it was up 7% over the past year.

The gear reduction is in part a decision by the government to try to steer the economy away from being driven by infrastructure projects managed by the government, like its high-speed rail system.

But exports also appears to be under pressure, investors say that growth abroad slides.

"The provincial trade data from the coastal provinces of Guangdong and other places of export of China is a bad sign," according to a letter sent to investors last week by William Callanan, who runs a hedge fund content first by Fortress Investment Group. "Many cracks begin to appear" in China and other key markets in Asia. Weakness in copper and Chinese stocks may also indicate that the speculators feel a pinch, some say. In China, often day traders drive prices of copper and stores are now market players have their funding cut by lenders. Beijing has been tightening its grip on lending to try to keep inflation under wraps. Yet, all the slowdown in China is likely to hurt global growth, especially in developing countries like Brazil, which sell raw materials and other products for the rapid growth of China.

A landslide in the last week in the share of steel companies, coal mines and adds evidence of a global slowdown, because these industries are heavily dependent on growth overseas. Actions leading producers of raw materials such as Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, United States Steel, and Arch Coal fell 20% to 23% last week, and an index of steel producers fell by 19%.

Meanwhile, junk bonds have been under pressure for several weeks, a possible sign of problems for companies responsible for the debt. Prices of junk bonds are at levels that suggest that the standard will be about 8% of junk bond issuers over the next year, analysts said. And junk bonds have not had much of a recovery in recent weeks, even when the stocks have managed to rise, worrying some investors.

Kingman Penniman president of KDP Investment Advisers, Inc., the junk-bond research firm, says the junk-bond prices are oversold, and that the default values can be from 2.5% to 3% per year. Still, it is up to the expectations of less than 2%, within a few weeks ago. For some investors, the wide range of indicators suggest that the global economy has entered a new era, one fraught with danger.

"The world is now in a synchronized slowdown," said Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., the largest bondholder of the world.

Mr. El-Erian argues that the weakness of copper, China and other markets "speech to the recognition of the increasing pollution of the global economy, as the sovereign of the West and emerging crises."

US trapped in depression

"Home sales are down. Retail sales have fallen. The factory orders suffered their largest setback since March last year. So what are we doing about this? Nothing.

California tightens faster than Greece. State employees have seen a 14pc drop in profit this year due to compulsory redundancies. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has cut the cost of 200,000 employees of the state minimum wage to $ 7.25 per hour to cover its deficit of $ 19 billion.

Could Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $ 12 billion and 5 billion dollars in arrears to schools, nursing homes, daycare centers, and prisons. "It gets worse every day," said Daniel Hynes controller. "We do not pay the bills for the services you need. It's obscene."

Approximately one million Americans have abandoned the labor market entirely over the last two months. It's the only reason the overall unemployment rate did not explode, post-war. Let's be honest. The United States is still trapped in a depression of 18 full months zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP. The percentage of working-age population in the United States, in June alone, actually fell by 58.7pc. This is a true indicator of stress. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time to find a job rose to a record high of 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war period. Jeff Weniger, Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the 1980s.

"Legions of people were left with old skills and little chance of finding meaningful employment, and benefits are exhausted. For our mathematics, people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to approximately 9.2 million. " Washington's fiscal stimulus package is passed. It peaked in the first quarter, but even if the economy eked a growth rate of just 2.7pc. This compares with 5.1pc, 9.3pc, 8.1pc and 8.5pc in the four quarters of the recession of the early 1980s.

The housing market is already crumbling as government props pulled out. End of the tax credit of homebuyers' has led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers to sign contracts in May. "It is cataclysmic," said David Bloom from HSBC.

The Congressional Budget Office said the fiscal policy will swing from a net +2 pc of GDP to -2pc by the end of 2011. The states and counties may need to cut as much as $ 180bn. The investors are starting to chew over the terrible possibility that America will stop shooting, just like Asia hits the buffers. China's manufacturing index fell in January, a shortage of up to 50.4 in June, slightly above the breakeven line of 50. The momentum seems to be fade everywhere, Australia, Turkey exports or industrial production of Japan.

On Friday, Jacques Cailloux RBS has launched a "double-dip warning" of Europe. "The risk is increasing rapidly. In the absence of an effective policy intervention to address the debt crisis of the periphery in the coming months, the European economy will fall twice in 2011," he said. It is clear that this policy should be to Europe, America and Japan. If budgets are to reduce in an orderly manner for several years then the central banks will have to cushion the blow, and keep monetary policy ultra-expansive till the time it’s necessary.

If the BIS has lost its way, God help us.

Gold Prices go South as dollar strengthens

“Investors selling gold to buy dollars, betting on strengthening US currency – as it happened when Lehman Bros collapsed in 2008″ Gold prices fell on Wednesday as investors decided to take advantage of fear after a record rise in the price of the precious metal.

Analysts said investors sold gold to buy dollar on strengthening of the dollar. They noted a concern that a similar trend took place after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, a collapse that marked the beginning of the worst recession in living memory.Gold is a traditional safe haven in the dark economic conditions. It has become such a popular investment recently that gold investment companies have hired top American stars such as Beck to shill for their businesses.

Gold miners have again taken on the hills of California to seek their fortune that few find it. And in Utah, the Tea Party activists successfully pushed to get the gold to make the official currency of another in the fear of the dollar was worth the paper it is written.

“Gold was a pseudo-currency trader,” said Stuart Rosenthal Factor advisers. “It was a vote of no confidence in the U.S. dollar,” he said. Now retailers have changed their minds and are selling gold to buy dollars.

In the midst of an economic malaise, the gold bugs have enjoyed the ride. Old money for the first $ 1,000 an ounce in March 2008 and analysts have predicted that reach $ 2,000 next year. But gold has fallen to $ 80 and $ 1,742 an ounce in early trading Wednesday, down 4%. Price of silver too, which was similar to the boom, also collapsed.

With stock markets around the world decline, investors seem to be betting that the worst is yet to come. The price of oil – the product most closely linked to economic activity – has fallen recently, led to lower on concerns over slowing growth in developed economies like the U.S. and Western Europe. The price of copper, coffee and sugar all fell on Wednesday.

But falling gold prices attracted more people by surprise. “We saw a similar trend at the end of 2008, there were a lot of developments that you would have thought were pro-gold,”" said Neil Meader, research director of GFMS, a metals consulting firm. Instead, gold prices weakened. They were “overwhelmed by an avalanche to pay the debt,” he said, means that investors are so frightened that they decided to take your money and run. If that means selling their gold, which is what they did.

Meader said the main reason for gold going down, this time, was that the dollar was rising. “The dollar and gold tend to be negatively correlated. Although we are far from out of the woods in the euro zone or the U.S., gold has suffered because the U.S. dollar strengthened. ”

But gold can still come back, Meader said. He predicted that gold could be worth $ 2,000 an ounce within a year. Why the dollar has to weaken. It reached a maximum of eight months against the euro and strengthened against the pound

Gold has not fallen as hard as the stock market, said Rosenthal. “One day, the formula does not do,” he said. “But it’s hard to ignore.”

64bn wiped off FTSE 100 as global markets slump

Around £64 billion was wiped off the value of the largest companies in Britain and renewed fears of the global economy slipping around the world.

During the exciting and dramatic day of negotiations in London, the FTSE 100 fell 246 points, or 4.67%, to close 5041. This is not the worst place on a daily decline in percentage terms since March 2009 and a sharp drop in points occurred in November 2008 in the wake of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers.

Markets in Europe shared the dark day with Germany as German Dax lost 4.9% and France's CAC fell 5.2%. Wall Street was also bathed in red, with the Dow Jones down 444 points, or 3.99% in early afternoon in New York.

The course was the start of trading, triggered by the U.S. Federal Reserve, warning that there was a "significant risk" for the U.S. economy. Financial markets are still suffering from the bad economic news from around the world on Thursday, but disappointing production data from China and alarming evidence that the private sector to fall, dragged the region into recession.

Giles Watts, director of Capital City Index, said that the cellophane has been driven by "mass demonstration of a sharp slowdown in the world", making a recession more likely.

"All the negative news only resulted in a scenario where investors are wondering whether they really should be putting their money in stocks or risky defensive shelters.



A call from Christine Lagarde, director of global leaders to combine the IMF to restore confidence in the city.

Each title has suffered a decline in the FTSE 100, with mining companies such as Vedanta, Antofagasta and Kazakhmys all suffering double digit falls. Bank shares were also in retreat across Europe, amid calls for financial firms to strengthen their balance sheets with fresh capital to cope with the impending loss of the debt crisis in the euro area.

"Gloomy outlook last night by market sentiment from the Federal Reserve has seen the right of the first shots, while the disappointing figures from China's PMI has done little to lighten the mood, especially in resources," said Ben Critchley IG Index.

Louise Cooper, an analyst at BGC Partners market, said traders were very fearful of the global economic outlook. Investors are speaking of volatility in the markets becoming the “new normal. The future is so uncertain – the world could look significantly different in a month’s time. Greece could have defaulted, we could be in the middle of a banking crisis – a bank could have even gone bust.”

Ben Bernanke: Operation Twist

Ben Bernanke is usually looked up to by everyone as the man who can fix everything and anything. So, whether he twists, turns or does the salsa, hapless market traders look to him for direction. On Thursday, Bernanke triggered a global market meltdown by officially accepting what Christine Lagarde of the IMF said last week — that the world economy is entering a seriously “dangerous” phase.

Global markets are not impressed with the band aid programme of major Euro zone or US players, and are expecting more from the G20. Inboxes of all business analysts — and journalists — on Thursday resound to gloomy market private sector data from both Germany and France — the Euro zone purchasing managers index dropped to the lowest since 2009; A UK CBI industrial confidence survey dropped from positive to 9 (negative) in September from August 2011; Germany manufacturing indices are at 26-month lows; The Bloomberg consumer comfort index fell by nearly 3 points to 52.1, the lowest since July 2009, according to Newedge Research.

“Not only does Ben Bernanke signal yet again that he has no clue — or even worse no potent weapons — to combat the second round of double-dip fears in little over a year. With the Fed launching ‘Operation Twist’, Bernanke furthermore runs the risk of arriving too late at the party with a solution for the second time in 10 months. It is time to allow the economy to heal on its own,” says Mads Koefed, Macro Strategist at Saxo Bank.
With world stock markets falling between 3-7%, the mood at the epicentre of the crisis is grim, grimmer, grimmest. The alleged BRIC plan to bail out the Euro zone, a policy that India has been lukewarm to, has dominated world economic discussions these days. Robert Zoellick, president of the Wold Bank, pointed out that emerging economies, India, need to work together to reboot the world economy. The UK has been watching the Liberal Democrat conference and the media is awash in various degrees of horror and shock that both Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, and Vince Cable, business secretary, chose to ignore spin doctor mandates, ignore the “sunny uplands” and focus on the grim “Darkling Plains”. Strip all the Eng Lit poetics — they both said, bad times, worse times to come, no choices. In Europe, people are resigned — Greece and the Euro zone is boring the daylights of normal people; their own troubles are hard enough.

Coming Depression: 2012

The global recession in 2012 is "65 to 75 percent sure" and the one that could degenerate into a long depression, says Roger Nightingale, economist and strategist RDN Associates.
Peak growth rates for the world economy took place over 12 months ago and "brought him down," Nightingale says. "We probably started to decline in the region around next spring, not sure, but this is the most likely option. I would say that the recession is 65 percent, 75 percent certain."
The Economist warned that the recession would kick in, the world economy may be too weak to cause GDP for years or even decades.
"When the crisis ends, and when the recovery begins, it will be strong enough to take us in a kind of growth again? Or should we find ourselves in a prolonged depression type scenario? "He marvels.
"Seven years is a brief depression but can last much longer than that. I would be happy if it lasts for only seven years. In the case of Japan, it lasted 20 years," he said.
Nightingale added that the U.S. economy has "some big advantages," but did not know he was strong enough to rule the world out of recession.
"America is very competitive right now, and has many advantages in finance, agriculture and many other areas. There are great advantages in the situation of America, and are responsible for some growth. Be sufficiently large to maintain anything goes, and to rescue the world, is another matter, "he said.
But Nightingale said that Europe is "difficult to completely hopeless." He warned that the BRIC countries, China and India may be headed in a "somewhat similar direction”.
The strategy is also a strong concern about the German man of Europe, saying its figures of industrial output plunge in Japan's recovery from the tsunami.
"Germany is the largest recipient of Japanese tsunami, and the Japanese return flows and increased production of new markets to take on the Germans," said Nightingale.
"Watch carefully for the industrial production numbers are very significant, probably next fall with the spring of next year," he added.

They Want a "United States of Europe" But They Are Going To Need a Massive Financial Crisis In Order To Get It

The American Dream

Are we about to see a huge push for a "United States of Europe"? As the sovereign debt crisis in Europe continues to spiral out of control, suddenly this term is popping up in the and in major newspapers all over Europe. So is this by accident? Surely not, the truth is that there is an overwhelming consensus among the political and financial elite of Europe that a "United States of Europe" is what would be best for the Eurozone. However, they are likely going to need a massive financial crisis in order to reach their goal. Right now, the citizens of the countries that make up the Eurozone are overwhelmingly against deeper European integration. Without experiencing a massive amount of financial pain, they are unlikely to change their minds any time soon. So who is going to win in the end?

This would entail a loss of sovereignty not seen in those countries since many were under the jackboot of the Third Reich 70 years ago. For be in no doubt what fiscal union means: it is one economic policy, one taxation system, one social security system, one debt, one economy, one finance minister. And all of the above would be German.

Right now, the EU is a terribly undemocratic institution. Individual voters have next to no power over the control freaks that run things in Brussels. Every single day, the EU becomes a little bit more like the former USSR. The last thing that the people of Europe need to do is to give the EU more power. But that is exactly what the elite of Europe want. They want a "United States of Europe". And they may just be willing to allow a massive financial crisis to happen in order to get it.

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Economic Crisis: A Controlled Demolition

Maurizio d'Orlando

The Greek crisis, the attack on Italy's debt, the risks to the euro, inflationary proposals for the dollar, and the Yuan deliberately undercut are shaking countries and governments throughout the world. Everything seems to be calculated according to a plan: to build a universal economic government "of a tyrannical type". The analysis of a political economist Just last night, Standard & Poor's lowered the credit ratings on the Italian sovereign debt, taking it from A+ to A, increasing concern of some gloomy scenarios in the global economic crisis, a crisis – we'll just say this right away – that looks to us like a "controlled demolition", with precise aims. The contradictions inherent in the world economy and its pattern of growth have always caught the attention of Asia News. Since 2003 we have offered our readers an analysis that has gone against the current, one often very critical with respect to the dominant thought.

Apart from the concrete, elevated and catastrophic risk of a world war stemming from differences of interest, what we don't like about this project is simply everything. But what is more outrageous and disgusting is the falsehood and artificiality with which it is pursued, while what worries most is the risk to the freedom of billions of people. It is, in fact, a plan to establish a Super state, in which to cage the whole earth in a kind of Soviet Union. It is the premise for this "dangerous universal power of a tyrannical type" of which the Pope wrote in his encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate".

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Nervous Breakdown? 21 Signs That Something Big Is About To Happen In The Financial World

The Economic Collapse

Will global financial markets reach a breaking point during the month of October? Right now there are all kinds of signs that the financial world is about to experience a nervous breakdown. Massive amounts of investor money is being pulled out of the stock market and mammoth bets are being made against the S&P 500 in October. The European debt crisis continues to grow even worse and weird financial moves are being made all over the globe. Does all of this unusual activity indicate that something big is about to happen?

But right now things look a little bit more like 2008 every single day. None of the problems that caused the financial crisis of 2008 have been fixed, and the world financial system is more vulnerable today than it ever has been since the end of World War II. As I wrote about yesterday, the U.S. economy has never really recovered from the last financial crisis. If we see another major financial crash in the coming months, the consequences would be absolutely devastating. We have been softened up and we are ready for the knockout blow. Let's just hope that the financial world can keep it together. We don't need more economic pain right about now.

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Do You Now Understand Why You Need To Prepare For Emergencies? This Has Been The Worst Year For Natural Disasters In U.S. History

The Economic Collapse

There has been a natural disaster that has caused at least a billion dollars of damage inside the United States every single month so far this year. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there have been10 major disasters in the United States this year. On average, usually there are only about 3 major disasters a year. At this point, disasters are happening inside the United States so frequently that there seems to be no gap between them. We just seem to go from one major disaster to the next. Last year, FEMA declared an all-time record of 81 disasters inside the United States. This year, we are on pace for well over 100.

It seems like with each passing year things are getting crazier and crazier. Yes, we can all hope that things will return to "normal", but we would be foolish if we also did not take precautions. As I have written about before, the global economy is starting to collapse, the fabric of society is coming apart and the earth itself seems to be going crazy. We certainly do live in interesting times. The years ahead promise to be some of the most exciting in human history. But those that are unprepared could end up going through a massive amount of pain. So please prepare while there is still time. You will not always be able to run out to Wal-Mart and buy up all of the cheap stuff that you need. Anyone with half a brain can see the dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Very, very difficult times are coming, and you do not want to enter them unprepared.

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Giant Sucking Sound! The NAFTA of the Pacific Will Soon Allow Millions More American Jobs to Be Shipped Overseas

The Economic Collapse

The United States is negotiating one of the biggest free trade agreements in history and there is barely a peep about it on the news. Years ago, Ross Perot warned that if NAFTA was implemented there would be a "giant sucking sound" as millions of jobs left this country. It turns out that he was right. Starting on Tuesday, the next round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (also known as the "NAFTA of the Pacific") will begin in Chicago.

Our politicians promised us that the "global economy" would mean more jobs and more prosperity for us. Well, that was obviously a giant lie. Today, if you gathered together all of the unemployed people in the United States, they would make up the 68th largest country in the world. If we allow all of this "free trade" nonsense to continue, our unemployment nightmare is going to continue to get worse and even more of our formerly great cities will end up looking like total hellholes just like Detroit does. Sadly, virtually all of our politicians in both political parties are in favor of these "free trade" agreements. In fact, most of them are pushing these kinds of agreements as one of the "solutions" to our problems. The U.S. economy is being dismantled and deindustrialized right in front of your eyes. If you plan on speaking out, you better do it now because it is almost too late to stop what is being done. It is up to you America.

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30 Signs That the U.S. Economy Is About To Go Into the Toilet

The Economic Collapse

If you think the U.S. economy is bad now, just wait for a few months. Things are about to become absolutely nightmarish. None of the long-term economic trends that are hollowing out our economy have been addressed and more bad economic news seems to come out virtually every single day. Now there is constant talk of the "next recession" in the mainstream media. But did the last recession ever truly end? The number of good jobs continues to decline, more stores are closing, incomes continue to go down, credit card debt and student loan debt are soaring, the housing market resembles a corpse, the number of Americans living in poverty continues to rise and government debt is at unprecedented levels. We are losing blood fast, and almost all of our leaders are either too corrupt or too incompetent to be able to do anything about it.

The long-term trends that are destroying us continue to get worse. The United States is steamrolling directly toward an economic collapse. When this economy hits bottom and splatters all over the place, it is not going to be easy to fix. The America that we know today is going to be wiped out by a gigantic mountain of debt and by the consequences of decades of really bad decisions. We were handed the keys to the greatest economic machine in the history of the world and we have wrecked it. So prepare for really, really hard times ahead. The era of endless prosperity is ending. Next comes the pain.

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Economic Effects of Recent Storms Will Linger for a Long Time

Jennifer Wheary

Shickshinny is a town with just one supermarket, gas station, pharmacy and bank. Right now, it has none.
The small down-valley community on the west side of the Susquehanna River has been crippled by the great flood of 2011. Of the 38 businesses in the small borough, only two survived -- a hair salon and an insurance office. No one seems to know when the other business owners could reopen -- or if they want to. "I don't know what the outlook is," a teary-eyed Shickshinny Mayor Beverly Moore said Thursday at her flooded Canal Street home, minutes after arriving from a 10-mile trip to Nanticoke to gas up her car. "I don't know what businesses are going to stay and what ones are going to go.”....... This is just another example of the fallout and lingering economic impact of recent bad weather across the country. There is a real tragedy brewing here as families who were already on the edge financially face the prospect of rebuilding their lives.

Industry experts estimate that cleanup and rebuilding for homeowners will cost $3-$7 billion. About half of those costs will be heaped upon families who do not have flood insurance, mostly because, one industry publication says, they do not live in designated flood zones. Snyder bought his house 12 years ago, and owned it "free and clear." With the home and a big part of the rest of his block in ruins, not to mention his base of business operations out of order, he's essentially starting over from scratch. What Snyder's situation and the situations of thousands of others like him across the country offer us is a natural experiment, a test of the limits and ups and downs of both our social safety net and opportunity infrastructure. Can average Americans and our government work together to rebuild and restore not only broken lives, but hope for the future?

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Divide And Conquer: Are The Left And The Right In America About To Go To War With Each Other?

The American Dream

Every single day, America is becoming a little bit more divided. It is probably not a stretch to say that there could be more political hatred in this country today than at any time since the Civil War. In fact, there are some very disturbing signs that the very heated war of words between the two major political parties could soon spill over into very real violence in the streets. Instead of uniting and focusing on our real enemies and on our real problems, the left and the right in America seem ready to go to war with each other. The mainstream media and those that control both political parties love to play "divide and conquer", and in America today we are taught to pick one political "team" and to absolutely hate those on the other side.

How in the world are we all going to live together if we cannot get along? Instead of fighting with each other, we should be uniting and bringing awareness to such issues as the corruption of the Federal Reserve, the nightmarish police state that this country is turning into, and the disregard that our leaders have for the U.S. Constitution. America could be so much more than it is today. But instead, most of us have allowed ourselves to be trained to hate others based on what political party they belong to, what religion they belong to, what they look like or because of how much money they have. If we stay on the road that we are on, mark my words, this country is going to descend into absolute chaos. United we stand, divided we fall. It is your choice America.

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Sliding Toward Financial Crisis

Stella Dawson

Three years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world's financial system is sliding toward another major crisis. At stake is the global recovery and future shape of Europe. Calls are mounting for financial leaders of the world's biggest economies meeting this week to take bold action, not on the scale of the $1 trillion rescue package of March 2009 but something equally important in policy terms.

The challenge for the Group of 20 talks in Washington on Thursday and Friday is to prevent a sovereign debt crisis centered in Greece from turning into a full-blown banking crisis. Such a crisis could engulf other indebted European countries, lead to messy defaults and plunge the region and world back into economic and financial turmoil.

The final ingredient is the political resolve to stick to this package of programs. Eswar Prasad, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the job of the IMF this week is to nudge countries in this direction and highlight serious dangers ahead. "The alternative is political paralysis, which we are seeing in many of these countries and could lead to very substantial risks for the longer term. And that's the big concern," he said.

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Life after an EMP Attack: No Power, No Food, No Transportation, No Banking and No Internet

The American Dream

Most Americans do not know this, but a single EMP attack could potentially wipe out most of the electronics in the United States and instantly send this nation back to the 1800s. If a nuclear bomb was exploded high enough in the atmosphere over the middle part of the country, the electromagnetic pulse would fry electronic devices from coast to coast. The damage would be millions of times worse than 9/11. Just imagine a world where nobody has power, most cars will not start, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country is brought to a complete stop. A nation that does not know how to live without technology would be almost entirely stripped of it at that point. Yes, this could really happen. An EMP attack is America's "Achilles heel", and everyone around the world knows it. It is only a matter of time before someone uses an EMP weapon against us, and at this point we are pretty much completely unprepared.

Remember, this is something that could cause millions times more damage than 9/11 did. Instead of molesting old ladies at airports and chasing goat herders around the mountains of Afghanistan, perhaps we should be addressing our largest security vulnerabilities. But that would require using some common sense. Sadly, common sense seems to be in very short supply in Washington D.C. these days. We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina. The government response was a nightmare. An EMP attack would be millions of times worse and the federal government probably would not even be able to get you and your family any assistance. You would truly be on your own. So are you ready? This is yet another reason why the number of preppers in the United States is exploding. A lot of people can see how the world is changing and they understand that the federal government is not going to come through for them when the chips are down. An EMP attack could end life as we know it at any time. It is a glaring security vulnerability and the entire world knows that it is there.I hope that you are getting ready, because the government certainly is not.

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Unfinished Business: Poverty Still Common Among Seniors

David Callahan

One last point about the new poverty numbers is that they show that the elderly poverty remains a major problem in the United States. Conventional wisdom holds that seniors are doing just fine in the U.S. and that this is one area where the war on poverty was a big success. Well, not quite. Yes, elderly poverty rates are way down from forty years ago thanks to increased Social Security payments and government health programs. But these rates are still high: 9 percent of seniors live in poverty, according to the new Census data, or about 3.5 million Americans. Several million seniors more live just above the poverty line.

Make No Mistake: The United States does need to set limits on how much of its wealth it spends on its aging population. Other priorities are more important, like investing in future generations and long-term prosperity. That said, a basic goal of lawmakers in the coming budget debates should be to raise all seniors out of poverty. If we can't do that, it's hard to think of ourselves as a truly civilized society. Several budget plans floating around have proposed ways to abolish elderly poverty, including one from the Heritage Foundation (of all places). But so far this thinking isn't part of the budget debate. Clearly, fixing Social Security doesn't just mean shoring it up financially; it also means increasing minimum benefits.

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Jefferies Describes the Endgame: Europe Is Finished

Tyler Durden

The most scathing report describing in exquisite detail the coming financial apocalypse in Europe comes not from some fringe blogger or sound - bite striving politician, but from perpetual bulge bracket wannabe, Jefferies and specifically its chief market strategist David Zervos. "The bottom line is that it looks like a Lehman like event is about to be unleashed on Europe WITHOUT an effective TARP like structure fully in place. Now maybe, just maybe, they can do what the US did and build one on the fly - wiping out a few institutions and then using an expanded EFSF/Eurobond structure to prevent systemic collapse.

Importantly, France GDP is only 2 trillion and in bank balance sheets are some 400% of that number. The banks are dead men walking with massive leverage to both home country income as well as assets. The governments are about to take charge and Europe as a whole is about to embark on a sloppy financial market socialization process that has been held back for nearly 2 years by 3 bailouts. The weak links will not be able to raise enough Euros/wipe out enough private sector equity to get this done, so there will be EMU members that need to exit and use a reintroduced currency for this process.

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Dangerous TB Spreading At Alarming Rate In Europe-WHO

Kate Kelland

Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis (TB) are spreading at an alarming rate in Europe and will kill thousands unless health authorities halt the pandemic, the World Health Organization(WHO) said on Wednesday. Launching a new regional plan to find, diagnose and treat cases of the airborne infectious disease more effectively, the WHO's European director warned that complacency had allowed a resurgence of TB and failure to tackle it now would mean huge human and economic costs in the future. "TB is an old disease that never went away, and now it is evolving with a vengeance,"..... "The numbers are scary,"......... "This is a very dramatic situation." According to the WHO and Stop TB, 15 of the 27 countries with the highest burden of MDR-TB are in the WHO's European region, which includes 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia.

Treatment regimes for MDR-TB and XDR-TB can stretch into two or more years, costing up to $16,000 in drugs alone and up to $200,000 to $300,000 per patient if isolation hospital costs, medical care and other resources are taken into account. Experts say around 7 percent of patients with straightforward TB die, and that death rate rises to around 50 percent of patients with drug-resistant forms. The WHO's action plan for tackling tuberculosis emphasizes the need for doctors and patients to be more aware of the disease and its symptoms, to diagnose and treat cases promptly with the right drugs. If that doesn't happen "not only are these people quietly and painfully dying, they are, also spreading the disease," Ditiu said.

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Prepare Yourself, Natural Disasters Will Only Get Worse

Erwann Michel-Kerjan

The world has entered a new era of catastrophes. Economic losses from hurricanes, earthquakes and resulting tsunamis, floods, wildfires and other natural disasters increased from $528 billion (1981-1990) to more than $1.2 trillion over the period 2001-2010. The 9.0 earthquake and massive tsunami in Japan this past spring caused hundreds of billions of dollars of direct and indirect costs. It has affected the Japanese macroeconomic forecast and resulted in the departure of the then-prime minister. And before this, massive earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and New Zealand inflicted record human and financial losses as well. Despite being the richest country in the world, America is still highly vulnerable to natural disasters. Two principal socioeconomic factors directly influence the level of economic losses due to catastrophic events: exposed population and value at risk.

We must limit the amount of new construction in high-risk areas and make sure people and firms already in those areas have proper financial coverage to assure they can get back on their feet quickly after the next catastrophe. This will cut down on taxpayer expense. Unless we start to get serious about making the country more resilient to natural disasters, we won’t be prepared for what the 21st century has in store for us. Without quite realizing it yet, America is at war against the weather. Irene and the wildfires in Texas are just the latest battles. More is soon and sure to follow.

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Obama's Global Vandalism: The New Arc of Instability

Nick Turse

It’s a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called “the arc of instability.” It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them -- from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia -- Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly, in outright war or what passes for peace. Garrisoning the planet is just part of it. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services are also running covert Special Forces and spy operations, launching drone attacks, building bases and secret prisons, training, arming, and funding local security forces, and engaging in a host of other militarized activities right up to full-scale war.

Freedom is on the march in the broader Middle East,” the president said in his speech. “The hope of liberty now reaches from Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut and beyond. Slowly but surely, we're helping to transform the broader Middle East from an arc of instability into an arc of freedom.” An arc of freedom. You could be forgiven if you thought that this was an excerpt from President Barack Obama’s Arab Spring speech, where he said “[I]t will be the policy of the United States to… support transitions to democracy.” Those were, however, the words of his predecessor George W. Bush. The giveaway is that phrase “arc of instability,” a core rhetorical concept of the former president’s global vision and that of his neoconservative supporters.

With Americans balking at defending arc-of-instability nations, with clear indications that military interventions don’t promote stability, and with a budget crisis of epic proportions at home, it remains to be seen what pretexts the Obama administration will rely on to continue a failed policy -- one that seems certain to make the world more volatile and put American citizens at greater risk.

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5 Signs That a Horrific Global Water Crisis Is Coming

The Economic Collapse

Every single day, we are getting closer to a horrific global water crisis. This world was blessed with an awesome amount of fresh water, but because of our foolishness it is rapidly disappearing. Rivers, lakes and major underground aquifers all over the globe are drying up, and many of the fresh water sources that we still have available are so incredibly polluted that we simply cannot use them anymore. Without fresh water, we simply cannot function. Just imagine what would happen if the water got cut off in your house and you were not able to go out and buy any. Just think about it. How long would you be able to last? Well, as sources of fresh water all over the globe dry up, we are seeing drought conditions spread. We are starting to see massive "dust storms" in areas where we have never seem them before.

Right now, more than a billion people around the globe do not have access to safe drinking water. That number is going to keep increasing. Without enough fresh water, people cannot grow enough food. Global food prices are already starting to skyrocket, and the coming global water crisis certainly is not going to help matters. A massive, massive disaster is on the horizon. The era of gigantic amounts of cheap food and "unlimited" amounts of clean water is over. A horrific global water crisis is coming. You better get ready.

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Poverty in America: A Special Report

The Economic Collapse

America is getting poorer. The U.S. government has just released a bunch of new statistics about poverty in America, and once again this year the news is not good. According to a special report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty. The number of those living in poverty in America has grown by 2.6 million in just the last 12 months, and that is the largest increase that we have ever seen since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959. Not only that, the median household income has also fallen once again. In case you are keeping track, which makes three years in a row.

Unemployment is rampant and the number of good jobs continues to shrink. Today, competition for even the lowest paying jobs has become absolutely brutal. The number of low income jobs is rising while the number of high income jobs is falling. This has created a situation where the number of "the working poor" in America is absolutely skyrocketing. Millions of Americans are working as hard as they can and yet they still cannot afford to lead a middle class lifestyle. The elderly are also falling into poverty in staggering numbers. They may not be out protesting in the streets, but that does not mean that they are not deeply, deeply suffering. One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line. Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent. The Baby Boomers have only just begun to retire, and already our social programs for seniors are starting to fall apart.
Unfortunately, it appears quite unlikely that either major political party is going to offer any real solutions any time soon. So things are going to keep getting worse and worse and worse. Should we just keep doing the same things that we have been doing over and over and over and yet keep expecting different results? What we are doing right now is not working. We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline. Both major political parties have been fundamentally wrong about the economy. It is time to admit that. If we continue on this path, poverty in America is going to continue to get a lot worse. Millions of families will be torn apart and millions of lives will be destroyed. America please, wake up! Time is running out!

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Unelected, Unaccountable, Unrepentant: The Federal Reserve Is Using Your Money to Bail out European Commercial Banks Once Again

The Economic Collapse

For a moment, imagine that there is a privately-owned organization in the United States that can create U.S. dollars out of thin air whenever it wants and can loan that money to whoever it wants to. Imagine that this organization is able to act with the full power of the U.S. government behind it, but that nobody in the organization is ever elected by the American people, and that for all practical purposes the organization is not accountable to the president or to Congress. Imagine that the organization is able to make trillions of dollars of secret loans to banks, to foreign governments and even to their close friends without ever having to face a comprehensive audit. Does that sound preposterous? Well, such an organization actually exists. It is called the Federal Reserve,

So, no, the financial problems of Europe have not been solved. Just think of this latest move as a temporary band-aid. So why get upset about it? Well, what all of this shows is just how arrogant the Federal Reserve is. The Federal Reserve gets to throw around trillions of dollars without any accountability to the American people. As I have written about previously, the Federal Reserve made $16.1 trillion in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis. As long as we continue to use a debt-based currency that is controlled by a privately-owned central bank, we are going to continue to have permanent inflation and government debt that expands at an exponential pace. The "central planning" done by the Federal Reserve has created bubble after bubble after bubble. Our dollars is on the verge of dying and our financial system is about to collapse. The Federal Reserve system simply does not work. Hopefully we can start sending more politicians to Washington D.C. that will be willing to stand up to the Federal Reserve. But for now, the Federal Reserve is going to keep running around doing whatever it wants to do whether we like it or not.

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Financial Terrorists Strike, Again

David DeGraw

It’s deja vu all over again, again. How many times are we going to throw trillions of dollars at the “too big to fail” banks before someone, anyone in a position of power realizes that they have to be broken up? The Fed and the Obama Administration, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men, keep trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Hello, the global Ponzi players had quite the run but it’s O-V-E-R. The fraud has been exposed to too many people now. So please stop throwing our economic future into the abyss. The Eurozone is absolutely imploding and once again we are being thrown under the bus in attempts to prop up an insolvent banking system. This is all so absurd! Enough is enough already.

Just like in 2008 when the big hit to the system came not from traditional sources of risk but perfectly innocuous and thus ignored money markets, so the same will happen this time, as the biggest crunch will come completely out of left field. It always does…. Alas, when the moment ends, and said banks can no longer afford to lend out cash, and in fact need it, may we ask: who will provide this source of global bailout capital? Oh yes: Ben Bernanke of course, and who will be facing trillions of dollars in full loss exposure should central planning not be successful in patching up the second Great Financial Crisis? Why you, dear reader. The bottom line, as George Bush said in 2008, “This sucker’s going down.”

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Time to Panic

Marshall Auerback

Today’s unemployment data suggests that we are experiencing something far worse than a mere “bump in the road”, as our President described it last month. In fact, if last month was the time to panic, as Stephanie Kelton argued here, then today’s data should create real palpitations in the White House. This isn’t just a “bump,” but a fully-fledged New York City style pot hole. Dig a bit deeper into the data and it looks absolutely awful: The household measure of employment fell by -445,000. This measure of employment which is never revised now shows no employment growth over the last five months and very negative employment growth over the last three. But it gets worse: The work week was down one tenth. Overtime was down one tenth. The labor participation rate at 64.1% was the lowest since 1984. The collective embrace of fiscal austerity has gone beyond perverse. It's as if Josef Mengele was reborn as an economist, working on some weird new social experiment to inflict the maximum amount of damage on the maximum amount of people. It’s a sick variation on that old joke:
Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”
Doctor: “Then keep doing it.”

Twenty eight developed governments have moved to get the oil price down to save the global economic recovery. Professional investors, speculators and fellow traveler manipulators have given these governments the finger over the last week and a half by bidding the oil price up. Given this report and the terrible front end economic data coming out of Europe lately, these governments had better find a way to keep food and fuel prices from taking off once again or its Great Recession Part II right around the corner. But, hey, what's the worry? Just a bump in the road! Let's cut some more government spending (Social Security looks to be the next target) because of course the realization that we are “being responsible” about no longer “living beyond our means” will do wonders to restore confidence and get us out of the ditch in which 95% of the world finds itself. Or so our President will no doubt be telling us if and when he “celebrates” a deal on the debt ceiling. In reality, the only people who ought to be celebrating are the GOP hopefuls in the upcoming Presidential election, one of whom looks increasingly likely to turn Barack Obama into a one-term President.

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Dumpster Diving?

The Economic Collapse

Have you ever thought about getting your food out of a trash can? Don't laugh. Dumpster diving has become a hot new trend in America. In fact, dumpster divers even have a trendy new name. They call themselves "freegans", and as the economy crumbles their numbers are multiplying. Many freegans consider dumpster diving to be a great way to save money on groceries. Others do it because they want to live more simply. Freegans that are concerned about the environment view dumpster diving as a great way to "recycle" and other politically-minded freegans consider dumpster diving to be a form of political protest. But whatever you want to call it, the reality is that thousands upon thousands of Americans will break out their boots, rubber gloves and flashlights and will be jumping into dumpsters looking for food once again tonight.

During the recent economic downturn, the popularity of dumpster diving has exploded. Today, there are dumpster diving meet-up groups, dumpster diving Facebook groups, and even entire organizations such as Food Not Bombs that openly encourage their members to go dumpster diving. If your family was going hungry, would you go dumpster diving? You might be surprised at who is doing it. Dumpster diving is not just for the homeless and the unemployed anymore. A lot of people that have decent jobs have picked up on the trend. Unfortunately, even though our economy is rapidly falling apart and most of our leaders are either deeply corrupt or completely incompetent, most Americans are still way too apathetic. If you can believe it, the American people spend a whopping 53 million minutes a month on Facebook. Hopefully we can get more Americans to wake up. Hopefully we can get them to understand that they need to get active, that they need to prepare and that they need to get their priorities in order. Right now, dumpster diving is cute and fun and an interesting way to save money, but in the future there will be millions of Americans digging around in trash cans if we don't get this economy turned around. This country is rapidly changing, and not for the better.

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Obama’s Ineligibility: Muslim-Leftist Radical In The White House

Lawrence Sellin

Barack Hussein Obama is the most successful enemy penetration of the US Government in American history. During his lifetime, he was nurtured, mentored and supported by radical leftist and fundamentalist Islamic elements both of which hate the United States and seek its demise by whatever means necessary. Obama once campaigned for the pro-Sharia, Marxist Raila Odinga. Odinga and Obama were nearly inseparable throughout his six-day stay. Odinga had the backing of Kenya’s Muslim community. In exchange for their support, Odinga promised the recognition of “Islam as the only true religion,” installation of Sharia courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, Within hours after the final election results were announced, an election which Odinga lost by more than 230,000 votes, violence led by Odinga supporters began. It eventually led to more than 1,500 Kenyans deaths. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

It was Obama’s friendship with Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansur and his sponsorship of Obama as a prospective Harvard law student, however, that probably helped merge Obama’s Islamic, leftist and Black Nationalist anti-American views. It has never been clear, who paid for Obama’s Harvard education, but it is possible, if not likely, that the money came from Saudi Arabia. The question remains; who is Barack Obama and what does he represent? American politicians and senior government officials know that Obama is an illegal President, has a stolen Social Security Number and has forged his birth documents and Selective Service registration. Obama is, however, more than just a usurper and criminal. He represents the nexus of fundamentalist Islam and radical leftist ideology. He now controls the most powerful office in the world and believes that America, as the embodiment of evil in the world, must be destroyed. One only needs to observe Barack and Michelle Obama’s behavior during the recent 9/11 ceremony to know that he is a representative of anti-American interests. The Democrats are hopelessly corrupt and the Republican Presidential candidates deserve no respect as long as they remain silent while the country experiences, in real-time, the destruction of the Constitution and the greatest crisis since the Civil War. The American political establishment has obviously not learned from history and we may be doomed to repeat a similar civil conflict.

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Obama’s Ineligibility: Muslim-Leftist Radical In The White House

Lawrence Sellin

Barack Hussein Obama is the most successful enemy penetration of the US Government in American history. During his lifetime, he was nurtured, mentored and supported by radical leftist and fundamentalist Islamic elements both of which hate the United States and seek its demise by whatever means necessary. Obama once campaigned for the pro-Sharia, Marxist Raila Odinga. Odinga and Obama were nearly inseparable throughout his six-day stay. Odinga had the backing of Kenya’s Muslim community. In exchange for their support, Odinga promised the recognition of “Islam as the only true religion,” installation of Sharia courts in every jurisdiction, a ban on Christian preaching, Within hours after the final election results were announced, an election which Odinga lost by more than 230,000 votes, violence led by Odinga supporters began. It eventually led to more than 1,500 Kenyans deaths. Many were slain by machete-armed attackers. More than 500,000 were displaced by the religious strife. Villages lay in ruin. Many of the atrocities were perpetrated by Muslims against Christians.

It was Obama’s friendship with Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansur and his sponsorship of Obama as a prospective Harvard law student, however, that probably helped merge Obama’s Islamic, leftist and Black Nationalist anti-American views. It has never been clear, who paid for Obama’s Harvard education, but it is possible, if not likely, that the money came from Saudi Arabia. The question remains; who is Barack Obama and what does he represent? American politicians and senior government officials know that Obama is an illegal President, has a stolen Social Security Number and has forged his birth documents and Selective Service registration. Obama is, however, more than just a usurper and criminal. He represents the nexus of fundamentalist Islam and radical leftist ideology. He now controls the most powerful office in the world and believes that America, as the embodiment of evil in the world, must be destroyed. One only needs to observe Barack and Michelle Obama’s behavior during the recent 9/11 ceremony to know that he is a representative of anti-American interests. The Democrats are hopelessly corrupt and the Republican Presidential candidates deserve no respect as long as they remain silent while the country experiences, in real-time, the destruction of the Constitution and the greatest crisis since the Civil War. The American political establishment has obviously not learned from history and we may be doomed to repeat a similar civil conflict.

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The Disastrous Yields Of Socialism

Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow

They are the vermin that puke up political correctness, that choke off personal liberties, that strain for totalitarian governance, and that pave the way for your beheading at the hands of Islamic savages. Think that they haven’t been effective with their infernal agenda? Witness their achievements: They have enabled the election of a stateless Muslim president of dictatorial powers, they have assembled a socialistic congress that has terminated freedom of choice and hereditary rights, they have brought into being an activistic judiciary that enforces the current arbitrary laws of a police state over the constitutional laws of a former republic, and they have delivered the people unto a merciless shutzstaffel oriented bureaucracy. Kiss your fanny (and possibly your head) good-by – these cockroaches are now in complete control.

Whatever else is said about Obama one has to concede that he has set into motion the final solution to his own people, the Muslims. Now let me tell you how this poor excuse for a leader – this great new pooh-bah of the once leading nation of the western world - has set into motion the events that will lead to the final destruction of the cultural theology that he embraces. Soon after his election he busted his butt to make the rounds of the Islamic nations to let the leaders thereof know that he is one of them and that he shares their desire for a world-wide Islamic conquest. Quit moaning, you know that it is the truth! He was so obvious about it that it was sickening; so enamored was he by the presence of his Islamic peers that he bowed and scraped, and kissed their hands, rings, and behinds all in that order. Dear reader time is up for this nation, and for this world. We are well past a point of return and have been appointed to God’s wrath.

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Tent Cities and Slums: Their Organic Evolution As Times Get Worse

FerFAL

With USA hitting a 50 year poverty record, scenes that used to be common only in Latin countries may eventually become part of the American skyline. As of today there’s 46 million Americans that classify as “poor”, that’s 15% of the population. Of them tens of thousands have no home and live either in their car or tent towns. Tent cities are growing across America from California to Florida. Places like “Dignity Village” in Oregon are becoming more common each day. When the creature that is a shanty town runs out of space to grow, it starts growing vertically, one structure over another up to five floors in some cases. Given that this is all unregulated construction, collapse of buildings are a constant risk and do occur often.

They are dirty, crime infested parts of the city where criminals find shelter and the police don’t dare enter without considerable amount of backup. The labyrinth-like corridors are ideal for criminals to run into and disappear, while for cops the narrow spaces turn it into a potential risk to their lives at every turn. In urbanization terms they are practically impossible to find a solution to, requiring to first remove the buildings so as to set up a water and sewer distribution grid and find some logic organization to it.

Today, thousands are living in these conditions across the United States. If the economic crisis isn’t overcome in the next couple of years and the hosing problem tackled early, you will be seeing this sort of shanty towns and slums spreading and growing like a parasite in no time. Today, thousands are living in these conditions across the United States. If the economic crisis isn’t overcome in the next couple of years and the hosing problem tackled early, you will be seeing this sort of shanty towns and slums spreading and growing like a parasite in no time.

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Obama Wants Fairness More than Jobs

Karin McQuillan

Surely Obama has noticed that his stimulus policies have not created jobs. The assumption by his economic advisors that spending a trillion dollars automatically creates 2.5 million jobs has not worked out for him -- or us. Unemployment and poverty are at record levels and the federal government is insolvent. Thanks to Obama's belief in stimulus spending, our debt will be 100% of our GDP by 2014 -- Greek territory. There is another factor at play. Our president has made it completely clear that for him, making America a more fair country trumps mundane economic considerations. As it turns out, every time he acts for fairness, he is also rewarding his political base and holding onto power. So our president keeps hoping that by doing good, he will do himself good -- as he defines good. Those who disagree with him are not just wrong; they are selfish and unfair -- in a word, Republicans.

He is not going to limit public unions' abuse of power, their ruinous benefits that are bankrupting cities and states -- the unions provide his army of campaign workers. He is not going to rationalize and lower our tax rates to bring in more revenues and stimulate the economy, not if it benefits "the rich." Our President would rather America be Virtuous than Rich, and we are all going down with him. But oh, how pleasantly sanctimonious Democrats can feel that they are against the selfish and for the needy. America may not have an economy anymore, but hey, we have only half as many millionaires. Doesn't that make you feel better? Money isn't everything -- not to our fair-minded president.

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Are Moms Going To Have To Finish This War!!!

Dr. Laurie Roth

Why are war crimes being perpetrated by our own leaders against our troops? The same week congress voted themselves their 5th raise since 9/11; they managed to turn down an attachment to the 87 billion dollars our President wanted for Iraq. The attachment would have paid for our returning troops to fly home from Baltimore!!! Just how many types of drugs are they on in Congress? They just couldn’t find enough money to fly a poor, exhausted private, home on leave, but they made sure their new BMW was paid for with yet another raise in time of war! Disgraceful, even treasonous!! Before that we heard of our injured troops being charged for food each day they were in a hospital, some getting released with no legs left only to find a collection notice as a reward for service to their country. Congress did act to remedy that situation, but apparently that was only a token moment in between cocktail parties. The fleeting moment of conscience was quickly replaced with the important priorities……. How do I get reelected?

We need to put a stop to this madness against our troops! We must not turn a deaf ear as we continue this war. Basic care of our troops is not an option it is a must! Write to your congressman, Rumsfeld and the President. Demand action regarding our troops. Ask where the 87 billion is going when troops have to call Mommie for winter wear? Ask why they still have to hitch hike home from Baltimore. Ask why they are paying huge amounts for storage when they are on the front lines. Ask why congress keeps getting raises when we are losing the moral war!

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Is Revolution Hitting U.S. Streets Tomorrow?

Aaron Klein

Protesters training to incite violence, resist arrest, disrupt the legal system. Fight "market dictatorship"; "People of the world rise up!"; "We are legion."; "Take to the streets."; These and other battle cries were posted on the recent Twitter feed of a group calling itself Take The Square. The organization is one of the social media planners behind the "Day of Rage" protest slated to target Wall Street on Saturday. WND previously reported how the U.S. section of the protest, complete with a planned tent city in downtown Manhattan, is closely tied to the founders of ACORN and leaders of major U.S. unions, including the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU. Here's the rundown on Obama's ties to "communists, socialists and other anti-American extremists" – all in "The Manchurian President." While protest leaders claim they are non-violent, there are indications the protesters are training to incite violence, resist arrest and disrupt the legal system. The protest aims to take root nationwide. Activists are advertising on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter for a "Day of Rage" on Sept. 17 to begin with the "occupation" of Wall Street and continue with protests across the nation. Planners have their own website – USDayofRage.org – which tells protesters to "bring your own tent."

Obama himself once funded Midwest Academy. He has been closely tied to Heather Booth. Booth has stated building a ''progressive majority'' would help for ''a fair distribution of wealth and power and opportunity." Her husband Paul is a founder and the former national secretary of Students for a Democratic Society, the radical 1960s anti-war movement from which Ayers' Weather Underground splintered. In 1999, the Booths' Midwest Academy received $75,000 from the Woods Fund with Obama on its board alongside Ayers, In 2002, with Obama still serving on the Woods Fund, Midwest received another $23,500 for its Young Organizers Development Program. Midwest describes itself as "one of the nation's oldest and best-known schools for community organizations, citizen organizations and individuals committed to progressive social change." It later morphed into a national organizing institute for an emerging network of organizations known as Citizen Action.

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Obama's Unreliable Facts From Reliable Figures

Steve McCann

Barack Obama is touting another stimulus dressed up a new "jobs bill." Beyond the obvious attempt to try and box the Republicans into an untenable political quandary, Obama has hit the road to sell his solution to the economic crisis. Knowing the attraction of infrastructure spending and construction jobs, Obama is deceptively claiming his bill will create thousands of new jobs. The reality is that his proposal is yet another bailout to preferred states in order to save public sector union jobs. Rather than admit the failure of the nearly $1 Trillion stimulus passed in February 2009, Obama and his minions have and are still focusing on their claim that this program in fact created millions of jobs. As proof of that premise, they cite the purported statistic that he was responsible for creating nearly 2 million jobs. To the uninformed, which unfortunately is the vast majority of the populace, this sounds quite impressive. It comes about from a misleading analysis of the establishment data jobs reports as issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In fact since January of 2009 the nation has lost over 2.1 million jobs in the goods-producing sector, where the bulk of the true wealth of a nation is created. In the construction arena, where there were to be so many infrastructure jobs in the last stimulus, over 1 million jobs were eliminated. Yet that is where Obama is again focusing his dishonest pitch for the current proposed stimulus bill dressed up as the "American Jobs Act." The American humorist Evan Esar once wrote: "The definition of statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures." The Obama administration and the Democrats have taken that to an art form as nothing they claim can be believed.

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America's War on Liberty

Bill Bonner

We dipped our toes over the weekend, Fellow Reckoner. Re-tested the waters. We wanted to know whether, over the past ten years, the public discourse regarding 9/11 and the subsequent “War on Terror” – waged both on foreign soil and, increasingly, against the liberties of American citizens at home – had shifted. A few questions… Are people still waving flags and crying “traitor!” toward anyone with the inclination to question directives from the state’s military machine? Or has the mood become more reflective, more contemplative…more conducive to free and open discussion? After a decade at war, fighting on multiple fronts at a cost of trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, has “war fatigue” finally set in?

“I originally was supportive of George Bush’s call for a war against Saddam Hussein,” responded one reader. “Since then I have come to be a huge believer in Ron Paul and have become disillusioned with our ‘war’ mentality. Thank you for your open dialogue.”

But, frankly, we’d rather forget… 9/11 did no serious damage to the nation. As a whole, Americans were not made significantly poorer or significantly less safe. Yes, good people died on 9/11. But there have been a lot of good people murdered over the last 10 years. Every victim had his virtues. And every murderer had his reasons. What did lasting damage to the nation was not 9/11, it was remembering 9/11. Not only did overreaction to 9/11 play a substantial role in bankrupting the country…it also made Americans fearful and sheepish. They’re convinced the towel-heads are trying to kill them. They believe they can protect themselves by spending trillions of dollars they don’t have on military campaigns that don’t work. Ten years ago, only a few fanatics wanted to do Americans harm. Now, after throwing so much military weight around, half the world would happily pull the trigger on an American tourist if he had the chance.

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Is Obama Intent On Destroying America?

Dr. Laurie Roth

Clarity, evidence and knowledge apparently mean nothing to most of our media, political leaders and elite. Most already know, from entry level to the big boys we all listen to and watch, that Obama is not Constitutionally eligible to be President. Most also know by now that on April 27th, 2011, Obama presented a proven forgery of a long form birth certificate to the media and nation. Doug Vogt, a 29 year veteran, document examiner analyzed the presented document Obama showed thoroughly. He quickly signed an affidavit declaring it a total fraud and forgery and registered a 25 page complaint with the FBI.

Obama’s intent is quite clear by his words, actions, history and associations. He wants two classes of people, the international ruling class, headed by him and the worker bee surfs who obey. To create a devoted sea of surfs, he must throw his followers enough bones that they think he is their savior and messiah. He must also seduce them into the fabricated ‘cause.’ This means giving up their money and assets to the Government so they can allegedly fix the desperate problems that Obama’s regime has created in the first place.

Don’t you find it amazing how several Representatives, Vice President Biden and Obama have called the Tea Party every name in the book. You know, they want black people to hang from trees, are terrorists, racists, anti American and hostage takers. I guess these sorry freaks can ‘go straight to hell.’ That about covers it. The hope is that we all start viewing patriot groups and Tea Party folks as those wanting to create race wars and hurt our country. Evil, I tell you. The truth is exactly the opposite.

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Warning for Americans: Be Safe and Stay Alert. It’s coming.

Mac Slavo

In June of this year we published our first on the ground report from Greece provided to us by long-time SHTFplan.com contributor Manos. As Greece continues to deteriorate it is no doubt foreshadowing what’s to come for the rest of the world’s developed nations in the near future, Manos is keeping us updated and he is very concerned about the future of his country, as well as the spreading of the contagion which will soon envelop advanced economies around the globe. Greece provides us a microcosmic view of what an economic, financial, political and societal collapse looks like. In 13 Signs of a Societal Collapse, Tess Pennington details some of the events we’ll see happening during a systemic break down of nations.

This is happening right now, in an economy and political system that was supposed to be centrally managed to avoid such things. We are witnessing the collapse of the first domino, and the chain reaction’s blast wave will obliterate the societies of entire first world nations.

It’s clear that the Greek people are suffering in an untenable situation and Manos’ sentiment is that it is only going to get worse in Greece, the rest of Europe, and the United States. The steps cited by Manos as evidence of his country’s collapse mirror similar events unfolding here at home. The coordinated attacks on the world’s economies are coming to a head, and the situation is dire. The people of Greece are paying the price, but they won’t be alone. As our friend Manos said… It’s coming. Be safe and stay alert.

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