SBA Economic Disaster Loans Available in Pennsylvania

The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today that federal economic injury disaster loans are available to small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private non-profit organizations of all sizes located in the counties of Crawford, Erie and Warren in Pennsylvania as a result of freezing temperatures that occurred on March 27 through April 3, 2012.

"When the Secretary of Agriculture issues a disaster declaration to help farmers recover from damages and losses to crops, the Small Business Administration issues a declaration to eligible entities affected by the same disaster," said Frank Skaggs, director of SBA's Field Operations Center East in Atlanta.

Under this declaration, the SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program is available to eligible farm-related and nonfarm-related entities that suffered financial losses as a direct result of this disaster. With the exception of aquacultural enterprises, agricultural producers, farmers and ranchers are not eligible to apply to SBA. Read more.......

How to Barter

When you are caught in a disaster, either natural or economical, supplies can be in short demand. Bartering is a great skill to have to be able to trade your unique goods and services in order to help you and your family during an emergency.

Imagine that the economy collapsed. You’d be able to barter for food and other supplies instead of using currency.

Or better yet, money is really tight in a lot of homes right now! Imagine being able to barter with your neighbors to trade goods and services for items that your family needs right now!

How to Barter

If you’ve never bartered, here are some steps to get you started:

Figure out what you want. In an emergency situation, assess your needs. What things do you need and what things do you want?

Figure out what you can give. Think about what things you would sell if you had a garage sale tomorrow? Is any of it valuable? What skills or hobbies do you have that you can teach someone? What chores do you enjoy doing? Read more.......

Obamacare is now the Obama Tax

It’s official. President George Bush’s Supreme Court appointee Chief Justice John Roberts has sided with the liberal-leaning members of the court and upheld the key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

While the government can’t force Americans to buy any particular good or service, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision essentially says that your failure to purchase health care will require a tax penalty, thus leaving you with no other option if you want to avoid being taxed.

As bad as this is, a long-time White House Insider doesn’t necessarily see this is a complete loss for individual responsibility and liberty, but rather, a motivator that will catalyze opposition to Obama’s reelection hopes:

And the initial reports I’m getting are telling me there was a lot more clever going on inside that decision than the initial reaction will indicate. It’s the Obama Tax now. And states were given an out. The entire law is a big ass convoluted mess and the ruling has reinforced that fact. Obama will have to defend something he doesn’t understand, and Romney can now sit back and just repeat over and over again “repeal-repeal-repeal”.

You can call bullsh-t on me here and I’ll understand if you do but I’m telling you right up this ruling today is GOOD NEWS. Politically, as a motivator, it’s great news. Watch contributions toward Republicans jump up even more than they already were. Watch the Obama White House have to face very hard questions over the Obamacare tax issue. Watch states rise up to challenge the administration using the weapon the Supreme Court placed in their hands to do so. Watch the Tea Party come back stronger and more powerful than ever. Read more.....

Watching the Clock: Will a Total Economic Collapse Occur in September-October?

People like to ask about dates. “When do you think the collapse will happen?” they ask. What are your thoughts on the Mayan calendar? How ’bout December 21st, 2012?

Most of us informed and awake folks aren’t interested in trying to predict specific dates. That’s an art best left to Nostradamus. That said, highly respected truth tellers James Turk and John Williams have both tied dates to predictions. In an interview with James Turk he told me that he thinks we will see $400 silver and $8,000 gold some time between 2013-2015. And John Williams firmly believes the die has been cast for hyperinflation in the United States, likely beginning in 2014.

Over the past 48 hours we’ve stumbled across three separate pieces of information, all predicting essentially the exact same thing regarding a fall 2012 economic collapse. Serendipity or coincidence, it’s information I want to pass on. As always, discussion is welcomed below.

The first warning is from a St. Louis based police officer who called into the Alex Jones radio show on Sunday, June 24th. The second warning comes our way via the Silver Doctors. And the third came today from unflappable Director of UBS Floor Operations Art Cashin. All three warnings are presented here for your benefit and consideration: Read more.....

The Internet Hasn't Finished Changing Your Life. Five More Changes Are Coming Soon

Cloud computing has already changed a lot of things in your life and we're only at the beginning.

It's already changed the way we share photos (remember mailing pictures?), how we navigate in our cars (remember street maps?) how we work (remember 9 to 5 in the office?) and so on.

We talked to two VCs to hear about what's coming next from the cloud, Michael Eisenberg, of Benchmark Capital's Tel Aviv's office, best known for backing Seeking Alpha and Shopping.com; and Accel Partners' Ryan Sweeney best known for Groupon and Atlassian.

They named the next five industries that will be transformed by the cloud.

1. Food/grocery. Web sites can offer a better way for people to buy local food from food producers instead of grocery stores, reducing cost while increasing nutrition. The food industry is ready to be transformed just like the travel industry was with AirBnB, Roomarama, Zipcar.

"With the food industry there are too many hands in the middle between farmer and consumer. More models are starting to emerge," says Eisenberg who points to a site called Farmego as one example. This site matches consumers with food producers who sell direct to the public. Read more......

Some Republicans Have A Stupid Idea Of Patriotism

Recently I publicly debated a regressive Republican who said Arizona and every other state should use whatever means necessary to keep out illegal immigrants. He also wants English to be spoken in every classroom in the nation, and the pledge of allegiance recited every morning. “We have to preserve and protect America,” he said. “That’s the meaning of patriotism.”

To my debating partner and other regressives, patriotism is about securing the nation from outsiders eager to overrun us. That’s why they also want to restore every dollar of the $500 billion in defense cuts scheduled to start in January.

Yet many of these same regressives have no interest in preserving or protecting our system of government. To the contrary, they show every sign of wanting to be rid of it.

In fact, regressives in Congress have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America. Read more.....

Says It Ain’t So Joe: “IT’S A DEPRESSION” *Video Biden vs. Obama*

We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, got the economy moving again…

President Barack Obama
August 15, 2011
Decorah, Iowa

While the President, his czars and inner circle experts promise Americans that we are well on our way to recovery, Vice President Joe Biden isn’t so sure.

“The unemployed are really in trouble,” Biden said in a campaign stop in Dubuque.

“My grandpop used to say — from Scranton — he said, Joey, the guy in Dunmore, the next town over, when the guy in Dunmore is out of work it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother in law is out of work it’s a recession. When you’re out of work it’s a depression. It’s a depression for millions and millions of Americans.”

But, but, but….

What about the trillions of dollars we added to the national debt that was supposed to create millions of jobs, kick start the economy, and get consumers spending again?

As we and others have maintained for several years, this country is now smack dab in the middle of a Depression. We’ll know in hindsight how bad it really is, but we can be assured that, as trend forecaster Gerald Celente once noted, “it will be like nothing we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.” Read more......

Military Rolls Tanks Onto St. Louis Streets…But Why?

I have to say that this event, which is being labeled a “training exercise”, makes very little sense to me. U.S. Army troops all the way from Maryland running open exercises in armored personnel carriers on the busy streets of St. Louis? I know Maryland is a small state, but is there really not enough room at Ft. Detrick to accommodate a tank column and some troops? Are there not entire fake neighborhood and town complexes built with taxpayer dollars on military bases across the country meant to facilitate a realistic urban environment for troops to train in? And why travel hundreds of miles to Missouri? At the very least, this is a massive waste of funds.

On the other hand, such an action on the part of the Department of Defense makes perfect sense if the goal is to acclimate citizens to the idea of seeing tanks and armed military acting in a policing capacity. Just check out the two random idiots the local news affiliate picked to interview in St. Louis on the subject. Both state that they think the exercise is a “great idea”, because having the military on the streets would help to “reduce crime”: Read more.....

Disintegration: What It Looks Like When a Nation Collapses

Whether the system is going to collapse is not the question.

Most informed individuals understand that out of control spending fueled by trillions of dollars in debt, unprecedented monetary expansion and ever increasing dependence on a government social safety net overburdened by millions of people in need of essential services can not be sustained forever.

For many Americans and our counterparts in Europe, the collapse is now.

To suggest that we are somehow on the road to recovery is nothing but conjecture.

We have no doubt that everyone is tired of bad news, but we are compelled to review the facts: Europe is currently experiencing severe bank runs, budgets in virtually every western country on the planet are out of control, the banking system is running excessive leverage and risk, the costs of servicing the ever-increasing amounts of government debt are rising rapidly, and the economies of Europe, Asia and the United States are slowing down or are in full contraction. There’s no sugar coating it and we have to stop listening to politicians and central planners who continue to downplay, obfuscate and flat out lie about the current economic reality. Stop listening to them.

Source: Sprott Asset Management via Zero Hedge

We are, by all accounts, sliding rapidly into the abyss of an untenable economic, financial, political and social disaster.

The only question now is, “how is it going to look when it happens?”

A glimpse into our future can be found in the veritable canary-in-the-coalmine in Europe – Greece. Read more.....

11 Countries in the Midst of a Nutrition Crisis

A saddening number of countries around the world are dealing with major nutritional crises. Some are in the throes of devastating droughts that are causing starvation. Others have large gaps between those who have far too much food and those struggling just to survive. Still others are amid serious health crises caused by obesity, overeating, and copious amounts of calorie-rich but nutrient-deficient foods. Each of these crises presents its own challenges and there is no easy solution that will ensure that all people, regardless of location, wealth, or status will have access to the high-quality food they need not only to survive but to thrive. Here, we’ve collected some of the nations that are currently dealing with a variety of major nutritional crises, some more severe than others, but all putting the lives of millions of people at risk every day.

1. Democratic Republic of the Congo:

The DRC is perhaps one of the most unstable countries in Africa, ravaged by violence, disease, poverty, and seemingly unending political unrest. As a result, the DRC is the most severely malnourished country in the world. (India has more malnourished people as a whole, but the DRC has a higher percentage of the population facing malnutrition.) Just how bad is it? Currently, 73% of the population is undernourished, including 1.9 million children. Much of the crisis is due to a ruined infrastructure and agricultural lines that have been cut off or taken hostage by armed groups. In some regions of the nation, acute malnutrition rates, those that require immediate intervention, are as high as 15%, putting many Congolese at risk of death from starvation and lifelong health issues caused by nutritional deficiencies. Read more......

7 Negotiating Tips for First-Time Home Buyers

You can admit it: buying a home is a scary task. You’re about to make the biggest financial commitment of your life and you want to make sure you don’t get taken for every penny you have. Just the thought of it can make you want to keep renting forever, but take a breath and take these tips to heart. With just a little advice on getting the home price you want, you can walk into negotiations full of confidence and hopefully walk out with the keys to your dream home.

1. Listen to your realtor:

If this is your first home-buying rodeo, you really need to get a realtor. As long as you’re confident that your real estate agent has your best interest at heart, listen to their advice on what price to start at and how to proceed in your negotiations. They’ve done this before and have a better idea of how a seller will react. The ultimate decision is up to you, but take their advice into consideration as you figure out what you want to do.

2. Look at other prices nearby:

Your realtor can help you determine the appropriate value of the home you want to buy by looking at prices of similar homes in the neighborhood or you can find some on your own online. Knowing the prices nearby, and whether there are reasons those could be lower or higher than the one you’re looking at, can give you a good idea of a fair asking price or starting offer since prices vary by location. Read more......

14 Uplifting Facts About the Job Market for New Grads

Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t fool new grads into thinking they’ll have an easy time landing a job after graduation. There is too much bad news bombarding them daily about the job market and the economy. Still, somebody’s getting hired this year, and it could be you; that alone is reason to hope. But if that’s not enough, here are 14 bright spots about the job market to brighten your day and lift your spirits.

1. Hiring this year is expected to climb 10.2%:

Although a previous estimate pegged 2012 hiring at 9.5%, the number is now slotted at nearly a full percentage point higher, according to a National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) survey. In a very positive sign of economic recovery, college career fairs are buzzing with activity. The number of companies attending fairs is regularly being reported as much as 30% higher than two years ago.

2. More businesses plan to hire this year:

In addition to the volume of hiring forecast for 2012, more employers across fields said in a recent CareerBuilder.com survey that they planned to hire. Whereas 46% planned to take on additional employees in 2011, 54% said they plan to hire college grads this year. Read more.....

Mostly Miserable

IN the past decade or so Balkan pollsters have asked people in the region every single question imaginable. When they drew their conclusions they seem almost surprised by what they found, despite the fact that people consistently tell them exactly the same things. That is, that in general, and with the exception of Kosovars and Albanians who are generally younger and hence more optimistic, most people in the Balkans feel pretty miserable.

They are concerned about jobs, health care, the education of their children and pensions. These material worries preoccupy them much more than ethnic grudges or the desire to reconquer territory they believe their nation has lost to a neighbour.

Most people have good reason to feel depressed about the economy. As Laza Kekic from the Economist Intelligence Unit, The Economist’s sister organisation, told a recent conference in Sofia, Balkan economies have always been poorer than their western and northern counterparts. They have only prospered when these economies do well and they have suffered when they have suffered. The current crisis is no exception.

This week an analysis from the EIU notes that the Balkan transition economies, which means Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia, “suffered the most from the global recession of 2008-09. Real GDP in the Balkans contracted by 5.2% in 2009 and the recession lasted into 2010, with average GDP falling by 0.4%”. This was partly because Romania, the largest of the Balkan economies, dragged the average figure down. Read more.....

America and Israel Tough love

A new book lowers the boom on some of Israel’s firmest friends

Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance With Israel is Coming to an End.

IT HAS become increasingly common for prominent liberal Jewish Americans to voice anguished disquiet over Israel’s behaviour. The most visible signs of this trend are books, such as Peter Beinart’s “The Crisis of Zionism”, which came out three months ago, and the growing support for the (admittedly patchy) achievements of J Street, an advocacy group that lobbies for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. In his eighth book, “Knowing Too Much”, Norman Finkelstein, an American academic who became a critic of Israel long before it was fashionable, traces the underlying dynamics of the disquiet.

Mr Finkelstein’s central claim is that American Jews’ feelings about Israel were always guided more by self-interest and personal values than by Jewish solidarity. They cared little about the country before the war of 1967, fearing accusations of “dual loyalty”. Israeli concerns, to them, were not American concerns. They rallied round after the war, Mr Finkelstein argues, chiefly because that was when Israel’s fight against the Arabs became geopolitically tied to America’s fight against the Communists. Read more........

Heading for Economic Collapse

The late Bob Chapman predicted it years ago. So does Paul Craig Roberts. It could “destroy Western civilization,” he believes.

Untenable political and financial decisions put US and European economies on a collision course with disaster. Bailouts and market manipulation delay the inevitable.

A tipping point approaches. Only its timeframe is unknown.

Money power runs world economies. Wall Street and giant European banks run Western societies.

“Financial deregulation converted the financial system (into) a gambling casino….,” says Roberts. Zero interest rates destroy household savings. Media scoundrels suppress ugly truths.

Western governments letting banking crooks scam the system for profits “is a system that is headed for catastrophic failure.”

Bad news keeps getting worse. Public acknowledgement arrives late. Moody’s June 21 downgrade of 15 major banks conceded what’s been known for years.

Giant Western banks are zombies. They’re insolvent. Taxpayer funded bailouts alone keep them operating. Moody’s warned last winter than downgrades were coming. So-called stress tests suppress more than they revealed. Read more.....

Tensions rise as justices kick healthcare ruling to next week

The Supreme Court did not rule on President Obama's healthcare law Thursday, raising tensions before a decision next week.

The ruling was possible Thursday but not expected. The court traditionally holds its biggest decisions until the last day of the term, and the healthcare case is among the most highly anticipated decisions in decades, overshadowing the current term.

The next possible day for a decision is Monday, but justices will add more days to the schedule later next week.

Television camera crews set up outside the court Thursday just in case a decision on the healthcare law was released. There is also great interest in an expected court decision on Arizona's controversial immigration law. The Arizona decision also was not released Thursday.

Interest in the court's docket was also reflected at the SCOTUSblog, which said it had 22,000 visitors on Thursday morning. Read more......

EU Crisis: This Week Could Change the Global Economy

LONDON—This looks like “the week that was” for Europe, as it prepares for a European Council summit in Brussels this Thursday and Friday. As of Monday evening, a 10-page draft document will begin circulating among EU leaders, outlining a new, post-crisis framework for the euro. One hopes the document is good enough to keep the markets in line.

We have been through other passages of drama since the European economic and debt crises erupted three years ago. This one is different. Either Brussels unveils a framework for a new, more unified European Union, or the markets will start savaging Spain, Italy, and Greece and an EU breakup will, for the first time, be a near-term reality.

There are grounds for optimism and pessimism both, but more for the former than the latter. Two big decisions loom before the summit. First, leaders must determine they are willing to provide short-term relief to Europe’s ailing peripheral economies in recognition of the negative effect too much austerity has had on them. Growth policies, in other words, are urgent, along with flexibility by way of the structural reforms and austerity measures already in place.

Second, Brussels needs to recognize the moment for what it is. When it launched the euro a decade ago, Europe understood that it was taking an historic step forward in making itself one. It is now time for another such step, just as large in magnitude. Now Europe needs to go forward by way of a fiscal union, a common banking authority, and closer political ties, among other things. These all cut very close to Europe’s core issue, which is the extent of national sovereignty vs. the extent to which populations are Europeans first and Belgian, Spanish, or Portuguese second. Read more......

Great Recession Hurt Some States More Than Others

The Great Recession drove economic insecurity to record levels in nearly every state in the country, but left residents of the Southeast and West in the most perilous financial position, a new report shows.

The study, released Thursday by Yale University political science professor Jacob Hacker and The Rockefeller Foundation, found that, from 2008 to 2010, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida and Georgia had the highest levels of insecurity. In Mississippi, for example, about one in four residents suffered large economic losses in 2009 and 2010. In Florida, it was about one in five residents, and the housing bust has helped raise the rate of insecurity by 41 percent since 1986. California, also hit hard by the housing crisis, was sixth in the rankings of overall insecurity, with nearly 23 percent of the Golden State’s residents suffering large losses in 2010.

States in the northeast fared better overall, and residents of New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Washington, and Minnesota had the lowest rates of large economic losses from 2008 to 2010.

That’s not to say that people in those states have been spared economic hardship. “Even states that have relatively low levels of insecurity, such as New Hampshire, nonetheless have very, very high levels of income losses,” Hacker said.

And states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, while they still stack up well in relative terms, also saw fairly large spikes in insecurity from 2008 to 2010. Minnesota, in fact, experienced a 28 percent spike in average levels of insecurity in the years 2008 through 2010 compared with 1997 to 2007, the highest of any state. Delaware, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Idaho, Colorado, Tennessee, Missouri and Nevada also saw increases of more than 20 percent. The New England states, by contrast, had the lowest percentage increases in insecurity. Read more.....

5 Things to Watch When Cutting Public Pensions

The message from voters about public pension plans is clear: They're ready to cut the retirement benefits of police, firefighters, teachers and other state and municipal workers.

The latest indicators include the failed recall of Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin – which started with his efforts to cut pensions – and referendums in San Jose and San Diego, where voters overwhelmingly backed pension reform measures. A recent study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that 35 states have reduced pension benefits since the 2008 financial crisis, mostly for future employees. Eighteen states have reduced or eliminated cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) – and some states have even applied these changes retroactively to current retirees.

This week, the Pew Center on the States reported that states are continuing to lose ground in their efforts to cover long-term retiree obligations. In fiscal year 2010, the gap between states' assets and their obligations for retirement benefits was $1.38 trillion, up nearly 9 percent from fiscal 2009. Of that figure, $757 billion was for pensions, and $627 billion was for retiree health care.

Pensions are, no doubt, consuming a larger share of some state and local budgets. The bill has come due for years when plan sponsors did not make their full plan contributions; in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, many papered that over by relying on strong stock market returns. Many plans also took major hits in the 2008 crash, and returns have since been hurt by low interest rates. Read more.....

Who Is Rich These Days? The Income Gap Myth

A while back, The Fiscal Times sparked a controversy by publishing an article arguing that a family with an income of $250,000 per year is not really rich. When taxes, housing costs, college costs for children and so on are accounted for, even those with an income five times the median family income are just barely getting by, it said.

Subsequently, The New York Times published an article sympathizing with the plight of those making only $250,000. They are certainly not poor, but neither are they rich in any meaningful sense of the term, it said.

In December, the Times reported that many rich people have seen a sharp drop in their income during the recession. Since then, there has been a steady stream of reports that financial institutions based in New York City have significantly reduced bonuses for their top executives – a major portion of their yearly compensation. New York City government officials have even expressed concern about the economic impact.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that one Andrew Schiff, who makes $350,000 a year working for his brother’s investment firm, lamented that he can’t afford to upgrade his family’s Brooklyn duplex and may have to give up his summer rental in Kent, Connecticut.

And this week, The Fiscal Times reported that a WSL/Strategic Retail study recently found that a middle class family needs at least $150,000 of income just to cover the basics. Read more.....

How This Family Beat the Recession -- and You Can Too

The recession and its aftermath have been particularly brutal to typical American families.

According to a recent Federal Reserve report, median household net worth fell an astonishing 39% between 2007 and 2010, and real (after inflation) incomes dropped, too. It's a devastating combination that has lead to large swaths of people running out of the maneuvering room needed just to keep their heads above water.

In dollars-and-cents terms, the Fed report calculates that the average family is worth about $77,000. To put that in perspective, that's roughly the same place we were back in 1992.

But How Did My Family Do?

The Fed's numbers were so astonishing that they inspired me to look at my family's financial records from Quicken to see how we fared during those dark days from 2007 to 2010.It turns out that, like so many others, our income failed to keep up with inflation. Yet we managed to buck the other trend and actually saw a slight increase in our net worth over that time. Better yet, we managed to do that while having our third child and buying the minivan needed to cart our expanding family around.

Don't' get me wrong -- it wasn't easy, and we're incredibly fortunate to have continued to make forward progress during those troubling times. But looking back at where we are versus where we could have been given the overall economy, it was certainly worthwhile. Read more......

Europe’s train-wreck and the inevitable collapse of the global economy

ECONOMY – Yes, it is officially time to start freaking out about the global economy. The European financial system is falling apart and it is going to go down hard. If Europe was going to be saved, it would have happened by now. The big money insiders have already pulled their funds from vulnerable positions and they are ready to ride the coming chaos out. Over the next few months, the slow motion train-wrecks currently unfolding in Europe will continue to play out and things will likely really start really heating up in the fall, once summer vacations are over.

Most Americans greatly underestimate how much Europe can affect the global economy. Europe actually has a larger population than the United States does. Europe also has a significantly larger economy and a much larger banking system. The world is more interconnected today than ever before, and a collapse of the financial system in Europe will cause a massive global recession. Once the global economy slides into another major recession, it is going to take years to recover. The pain is going to be immense. Yes, that is going to include the United States. Sadly, we never recovered from the last recession, and it is frightening to think about how much farther this next recession is going to knock us down. Read more.....

Retirement: Are We Really Ready For It?

Many years ago, on one of my first dates with my now-husband, he purchased discount movie tickets for us using his AARP card (which you can get at 50). Now as much as I hate getting ripped off by movie ticket prices, what I learned that day was that I hated being called a senior citizen even more. I made him return my ticket and pay full price.

Fast forward to today and I'm flashing my own AARP card around with wild abandon. It isn't because I think age entitlements are based on any real logic (I don't). I've just grown more budget-conscious as the sand runs through the hourglass of my working life -- it has resulted in an attitude of greater frugality. If someone wants to sell me something for a few bucks less, my palms are open.

While I'm not really close to an expiration date on my working life, I find that my sights are focused on it with greater intensity. We all know that the day will come when we no longer set an alarm clock. What few of us can imagine is what we do after we wake up at leisure that day. And for the most part, that day is shaped by how and what we do now to financially plan for it.

Me? I'm saving like the squirrel who knows the apocalyptic winter is coming. Like many of my peers, I literally spent like there was no tomorrow during the glory years and then when I lost my job in the recession, it came as the proverbial bucket of ice water dumped on my head. No need to dump a second bucket; I got the message. Read more......

Tensions rise as justices kick healthcare ruling to next week

The Supreme Court did not rule on President Obama's healthcare law Thursday, raising tensions before a decision next week.

The ruling was possible Thursday but not expected. The court traditionally holds its biggest decisions until the last day of the term, and the healthcare case is among the most highly anticipated decisions in decades, overshadowing the current term.

The next possible day for a decision is Monday, but justices will add more days to the schedule later next week.

Television camera crews set up outside the court Thursday just in case a decision on the healthcare law was released. There is also great interest in an expected court decision on Arizona's controversial immigration law. The Arizona decision also was not released Thursday.

Interest in the court's docket was also reflected at the SCOTUSblog, which said it had 22,000 visitors on Thursday morning.

The court's public information office implemented new protocols starting Thursday in order to accommodate the vast interest surrounding the healthcare decision. Read more....

State and local cutbacks add to US joblessness and suffering

News reports this week highlight the devastating cuts in state and local spending in the United States over the past three years. More than 650,000 government jobs have been eliminated since 2009, adding to the jobless rolls and deepening the economic slump in cities and towns around the country.

According to USA Today, state and local spending is down 0.8 percent this year, which is a 2.7 percent drop when adjusted for inflation. The newspaper reports that the austerity being imposed by state and local governments is the most stringent since the early 1980s.

By law, nearly all US states must balance their budgets each year, and the deadline for adoption of such budgets, usually July 1, was once the occasion for political controversy, all-night negotiation sessions, public fist-shaking and even threats of default.

In the recent period, however, Republican and Democratic legislators and governors have had relatively little difficulty in agreeing on cutbacks, and most budgets have been passed on time or even early, as in the case of New York state several months ago.

State officials of both parties, exemplified by New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo, have opposed tax increases on the wealthy. Instead they have secured the cooperation of union leaders to impose drastic concessions on public employees, while cutting basic services and hitting especially hard at education spending. Read more......

The Beast: Tracking You and Your Family Just Got a Whole Lot Easier

It’s been hailed as the ultimate in personal identification and human tracking technology, and now it’s going mainstream. The VeriMed system, formerly known as the Verichip, is a passive RFID microchip measuring about the size of a grain of rice and is implantable under your skin, making it possible for health care providers and other parties to instantly access your medical history and other personally identifying information.

The chip itself doesn’t store a whole lot of information other than a personal identification number, much like a social security number. When scanned it connects directly to the Healthlink global network via the internet allowing doctors immediate retrieval of everything they need to know about you.

The systems are not only limited to human medical data storage, however, and have been used for years as location tracking for cattle and pets by Verichip’s former parent company Applied Digital Solutions.

Recently the UK prison system proposed that these machine-readable chips be implanted into prisoners to keep tabs on their whereabouts and help prevent escape: Read more......

Middle-class catastrophe

The Fed releases brutal details on how the crash sucker-punched America. So why won't it do anything?

For economy watchers, the title of the report released Monday by the Federal Reserve, “Changes in U.S. Family Finances From 2007 to 2010: Evidence From the Survey of Consumer Finances,” must inspire a feeling akin to what drivers on the highway experience when they see the twirling lights of police cars on the side of the road near the scene of a major accident. You know you shouldn’t stare, and you know what you see might make you sick, but you nevertheless end up rubbernecking anyway. It’s human nature — we can’t stop ourselves from goggling at disaster.

And so it is with the Survey, which the New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum calls ”one of the broadest and deepest sources of information about the financial health of American families” that we have. One look at the title tells you all you need to know: Here, in all their gory detail, will be found the brutal details on what happened to Americans in the immediate aftermath of the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Read more.......

Highly muddled arguments

It's impossible to argue economics with conservatives who have no idea what Ronald Reagan really did -- tax, spend

’ve stumbled across of couple of recent conservative arguments that are so confusing that they’re downright confuzzled, which is just south of ridunkulous.

Let’s start with this editorial on the fiscal cliff (which I’ll have the honor of debating later tonight on the Kudlow Show) from the WSJ (who’d a thunk it, but both of these pieces are from the Journal). The piece argues…actually, I’m not sure what it’s arguing.

They don’t think taxes should go up due to the fiscal cliff—they think they should go down. But they do think the spending cuts should occur, though when it comes to the defense cuts, they’re a little squishy.

But the punchline is, when it comes to the fiscal cliff, the right policy set is…wait for it!…cut taxes and cut spending!

OK, I get it—their only tool is a hammer, so everything’s a nail. But if your answer to every problem that comes up, regardless of the timing, the underlying economic conditions, the politics or anything else is always the same, should anyone take you seriously? Read more....

20 Reasons Why America’s Next Bank Holiday Will Be a Nightmare

The world is on now on the brink of a global credit crisis that could be far worse than the tumultuous events of 2008. The ongoing sovereign debt crisis in the southern reaches of the Eurozone indicate that bank runs in the region will continue, and that more bank closure “holidays” will be declared. Under a bank holiday, virtually all deposits could be frozen and irredeemable for days, weeks, or even months. The key question is: Will this crisis spread to the rest of Europe and then even to the United States? I urge SurvivalBlog readers–particularly those in Europe–to be proactive, to stay “ahead of the power curve.” While the Generally Dumb Public (GDP) wakes up some morning to hear news of a bank holiday, you will have long hence prepared yourself.

Digits Lost in the Ether–Redeemable Mañana?

Most people don’t realize that printed U.S. currency and minted coins amount to less than $800 billion, worldwide. That is just a small portion of the aggregate Money Zero Maturity (MZM) money supply that now exceeds $7 Trillion. So what is in your bank account is just electronic money, and there is absolutely no way that even a fraction of depositors could get physical cash to redeem the digits in their accounts. If there is a bank holiday declared, there will undoubtedly be severe restrictions on cash withdrawals when banks re-open. Given the precedent of the limits on withdrawals of a few institutions during the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, I predict that withdrawal restrictions could go on for many months. Read more.....

Gov Criminalizes Self Reliance: Woman’s Survival Garden Seized and Destroyed by Authorities

A woman from Tulsa, Oklahoma is suing the city’s code enforcement teams after they illegally cut down her entire survival garden. Denise Morrison, who started the garden after becoming unemployed, had over 100 medicinal and edible plants in her front and back yard.

She told local Tulsa reporters that she started her garden, after becoming unemployed, as a way to feed herself and treat a variety of medical issues. Instead of relying on government handouts, this woman took matters into her own hands and decided to become self sufficient. She filled her yard with things like, fruit trees, berries, nut trees, and a wide variety of edible and medicinal herbs. She used these herbs to treat her diabetes, high-blood pressure and arthritis.

Is the Self-Reliant Lifestyle Now a Crime in America?

All her hard work ended when the local code enforcement team showed up to her house and forcibly removed her entire survival garden. before after code enforcment teamMorrison says that she tried to explain how everything in her yard followed the local code enforcement rules. You see, she had problems with these people in the past and this time she was determined to do things by the book. Read more........

In small-town USA, business as usual for Mexican cartels

Less than a mile off a county road in Ivanhoe near the Black River, federal drug agents and local authorities found exactly what their informant had promised.

"We saw what looked like, as far as you could see, marijuana plants," said Drug Enforcement Administration agent Michael Franklin.

There were about 2,400 in all, surrounded by a makeshift camp where the growers had illegally squatted on private property, setting up a generator and pump to tap the river for irrigation. The camp, which had been recently inhabited, contained a tarp shelter, canned fuel, drinking water, toiletries and old clothing, some of it camouflage.

Authorities staked out the "grow" for two days waiting for the marijuana farmers to return. They didn't. It was just as well, Franklin said.

"The people we were really focusing on were not the guys tending the field. The guys bankrolling the field were the target," he said.

Those guys, according to the DEA's source, were members of La Familia Michoacana, a Mexican drug cartel that the Justice Department says focuses primarily on moving heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine into the southeastern and southwestern United States. Read more.....

The 10 Worst Job Markets U.S. Grads Have Faced

You can do everything right from kindergarten. You can study, make good grades, get scholarships, get into a good college, and secure a great internship. Even with all that, there’s one crucial factor that’s completely beyond your control: what the job market will be like when you get your degree. Thousands of unemployed high achievers around the country are pulling their hair out and saying, “If only I’d been born at a different time.” Because misery loves company, we’ve identified nine other years where college grads had the misfortune of leaving campus at the worst possible time. (If you need a pick-me-up after reading this, check out the 10 best job markets U.S. grads have faced.)

1. 1933:

College graduates made up only about 4% of the population of the United States in the 1930s, as the economy was driven by unskilled labor that did not require degrees. Nevertheless, the students emerging into the work force then were faced with the highest unemployment rates in the country’s history. The crisis peaked in 1933 with fully one quarter of Americans out of work. (At the time, the calculation included workers age 14 and up.) That nearly makes 9% unemployment seem like a walk in the park, doesn’t it? Read more....

Obama administration makes election-year change in deportation policy

The Obama administration announced Friday it will stop deporting illegal immigrants who come to the country at a young age.

The politically charged decision comes as Obama faces a tough reelection fight against Republican Mitt Romney, and Hispanic voters in swing states will play a crucial role in the contest.

The change in policy could allow as many as 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States illegally not only to remain in the country without fear of being deported, but to work legally, according to a senior administration official speaking to reporters Friday.

In a Rose Garden statement, President Obama said the measure would “lift the shadow of deportation” from immigrants, some of who have made “extraordinary contributions” by “serving in our military and protecting our freedom.”

“That we would treat them as expendable makes no sense,” Obama said. Read more.....

‘Face the Nation’ should ask Romney to release 10 years of tax returns

What is Mitt Romney hiding in his last decade of tax returns? Is he hiding tax avoidance because he paid a low and embarrassing rate? Is he hiding abuse of offshore shelters, such as accounts in Swiss banks and the Cayman Islands, which we know he has used at times? Is he hiding investments that voters might consider unsavory?

I do not know the answers to these questions. But I would speculate that the answer to one or more of them is yes.

George Romney was a statesman and man of integrity who released many years of returns when he ran for president. Why does Mitt Romney make a mockery of the legacy of George Romney by refusing to disclose as his father did? Read more.......

The Ultimate Preppers – They Were Preppers, But Didn’t Know It

It always frustrates me when I turn on the television, read a newspaper or any other source of main stream media that is running a story on preppers. Invariably, with any television series or special, it is promoted with pictures of people with gas masks and AK 47’s talking about how they intend to kill zombies when the golden horde arrives upon their doorsteps when the SHTF. The most popular of these shows is the “Doomsday Preppers” series that is running on the National Geographic channel. I will admit, I watch every episode because there are always things I can learn when seeing what others have done to prepare for whatever they are preparing for and find the show to be very entertaining. In my opinion however, these extreme preppers are not a good representative of the vast majority of preppers.

Depending upon what any person is prepping for, be it an EMP attack with the long term loss of the power grid, a tornado/hurricane/flood, collapse of the financial system, nuclear war or any number of potential calamities that may come your way, there are always some basics that are universal across the board. These being food, water, defense of life and home and sustainability into an unknown future that will last as long as it does. Outside of these staples of prepping, I have seen some of the extreme preppers having gas masks for the family, underground bunkers designed to ignite propane through hand rails to fry intruders in hallways leading to safe rooms and even homemade explosive devices. I can see why they do it and by having some of these things, they are probably more prepared than most. Having gas masks may be more common place in the prepping community and important for survival, but my point is that these are things that preppers typically take care of after the basics are complete. Read more.......

Obama to Legalize Illegal Immigration by Decree; Will Add 800,000 Voters In November

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression in which millions of Americans have lost jobs we can expect even more competition in the employment marketplace.

According to AP sources, President Obama will speak today about a new administration policy that will grant immunity from deportation for some 800,000 immigrants who have entered the country illegally.

The Obama administration will stop deporting and begin granting work permits to younger illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and have since led law-abiding lives. The election-year initiative addresses a top priority of an influential Latino electorate that has been vocal in its opposition to administration deportation policies.

The policy change, described to The Associated Press by two senior administration officials, will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation. Read more.....

The Three Stages of Crisis – Looking Through the Other Side of Disaster

In every crisis there are three distinct stages that occur to form the complete crisis scenario. Once a crisis occurs, all three stages will be experienced at some level. In preparing for a crisis, you need to be aware of the stages and prepare for each one. A failure to acknowledge any of the stages will cause hardship for those caught up in it. Our ability to foresee danger and take precautionary measures sets us apart from other animals and gives us a distinct advantage when it comes to survivability. We have the ability to create tools and store supplies to see us through the worst of a given situation.

The first stage of any disaster is the pre-crisis interval when a potential crisis becomes suspect. Some will investigate the potential danger further to deduce its’ ramifications on their lives while others will ignore the potential threat in favor of maintaining the status quo so they will not have to face the reality. Many people have a problem facing a reality that suddenly changes and pushes them out of their comfort zone. To acknowledge a threat is to question the sustainability of that comfort zone and the beliefs that the person holds. Those that acknowledge potential threats widen their comfort zones to encompass the threat and they incorporate that into their beliefs so they can accept a changing reality and adapt to it.

Once a person accepts a potential threat as real, they determine how best to protect themselves from it and form a defensive plan to deal with it. The defensive measures are dictated by the type of threat and the resources available to the individual. The defensive measures taken act to enhance the persons’ comfort zone and provides mental clarity when reality suddenly changes. This is why some people handle disasters better than others. Their comfort zone already encompasses the new reality and they are able to comprehend what is happening. Those that prepare during a pre-crisis interval are prepared for radical changes in reality. Read more......

Domestic Deployment: U.S. Army Chief Says Military Will Be Used To Provide “Rapid Response Options” and Address “Challenges in the United States Itsel

As the Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement fuse into a single militarized policing apparatus for the whole of America through the use of massive surveillance warehouses, eye-in-the-sky drones and hybrid task forces, the U.S. military will continue to expand it’s role in domestic affairs, including in the event of natural disasters and terror related crises. So says Army Chief of Staff Raymond Odierno, who recently penned an article in Foreign Affairs, a propaganda mouthpiece published by the Council of Foreign Relations, an organization well known for having its hand in the economic, financial, social, military and political policies of every developed nation on Earth.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) proposes that the U.S. Army be used to plan, command, and carry out (with the help of civilian law enforcement) domestic police missions…

…the CFR would see the Army used to address “challenges in the United States itself” in order to keep the homeland safe from domestic disasters, including terrorist attacks. Read more......

Family Net Worth Drops to Level of Early ’90s, Fed Says

The recent economic crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said.

A hypothetical family richer than half the nation’s families and poorer than the other half had a net worth of $77,300 in 2010, compared with $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of housing prices directly accounted for three-quarters of the loss.

Families’ income also continued to decline, a trend that predated the crisis but accelerated over the same period. Median family income fell to $45,800 in 2010 from $49,600 in 2007. All figures were adjusted for inflation.

The new data comes from the Fed’s much-anticipated release on Monday of its Survey of Consumer Finances, a report issued every three years that is one of the broadest and deepest sources of information about the financial health of American families. Read more.......

Washington vs. the middle class

You don't need a Ph.D. in economics to know that pulling that much out of a weak economy is a terrible idea. By one of the broadest measures, unemployment is still near 15%. The battered housing market, one of the keys to middle-class wealth in this country, is still trying to bottom. We're looking at an economic disaster on the scale of the 1937 double dip, and the middle class will bear the brunt of it.

Even Romney knows we're headed for fiscal suicide. He said as much in an interview with Time magazine when asked if he would countenance budget cuts of this size in his first year in office. He said he wouldn't, because "if you take a trillion dollars, for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I'm not going to do that, of course."

Of course not, Mitt.

The Congressional Budget Office agrees, noting that stepping off the fiscal cliff would slash 2 million jobs and tip the economy back into recession. We've never seen the likes of this sort of austerity. A 3.3% tightening in 1969 resulted in the 1970 recession. A tightening of 2% between 1987 and 1989 resulted in the 1990 stagnation. And a 2.4% tightening from 2005 to 2007 preceded the Great Recession. Read more.....

“I’m Supporting The Party That I Belong To”: Rand Paul Speaks About Romney Endorsement

In an interview that will likely not convince many within the liberty movement, Rand Paul has attempted to explain his official endorsement of Mitt Romney last week by suggesting that he can only affect change by working from within the system.

Key points and quotes to come out of the interview, conducted by Peter Schiff, are as follows:

While he anticipated the backlash, Rand believes that supporting the party will enable him to get more done, and that many critics have been too quick to forget the good things he has managed to do so far from within the Senate.

“Supporting the nominee has been part of my ability to try to have influence… If Republicans see that you are not going to support the nominee, the doors close.”

The Senator believes that endorsing Romney will help earn his trust and make him more likely to listen to his policies. He agreed that it is better to have Romney as a friend than as an enemy. Read more.......

Watson Duke dancing with economic disaster

I was horrified to read of Watson Duke’s call for the re-introduction of the property tax system as a way of the Government affording what will translate to a massive increase in public sector wages. It is clear that Duke has either not given any thought whatsoever to the consequences of such a call, or, he has absolutely no regard or care for the impact of both a property tax re-introduction, and such a massive increase in public sector wages without any productivity increase.

As a trade unionist, one would expect Duke to ensure he gets the best packages for those he represents. Unlike the trade union leaders still locked blissfully in the long distant past like (Ancel) Roget and (David) Abdulah, who think that instability, exhorbitant pay increases and labour strife are what an economy needs.

However, at the same time, one would expect that our country and our people have matured to an extent where the trade unionist can sit and be very straight with those he represents. The Public Service, dollar for dollar and measure for measure, is among the lowest producing institution in our country. Poor service exists in every corner and station in the Public Service. Our nation’s competitiveness is also impacted by a Public Service that is, for the most part, inefficient, burdened by incompetence and unwilling to modernise. In fact, it is the middle levels of the Public Service and the young professionals holding contract posts that are actually keeping the Public Service working. I would therefore want to recommend to Duke that he adopts a more modern approach where if one demands a wage increase, one justifies it with productive output. Read more.......

10 Things the ADA Requires from Websites

In 1990 the United States Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act in order to ensure “access to employment, state and local government programs and services, access to places of public accommodations, transportation, non-profit service providers and telecommunications” for those with disabilities. Under this law, websites for local and state government must also be ADA-compliant, as they fall under the heading of “public services.” Here are ten of the things that an ADA-compliant website must feature.

1. Text Equivalents For All Images – With one line of HTML code, assistive technologies for the vision-impaired can provide information about images on the page. This information should include a meaningful description of the image that includes the information that a sighted person would have access to by viewing the image.
2. Documents Should Have a Text-Based Alternative – Though PDF files are the most popular choice for downloadable documents, all state and local government websites must also include an alternative text-based format, such as HTML or RTF, which are more compatible with assistive technologies. Read more......
   

101 reasons – Obama in 2012 will not be re-elected

Will Obama be re-elected in 2012?

Poor President Barack Obama. A man with good intentions, but did not have the ability to bring the change. I am not anti-Obama. I respect a lot of his efforts. However, he cannot win the next Presidential election. The primary reason Obama will lose in 2012 is, well I will leave that to the end. It is reasons 102. However, it is the most important point, read on and your will see why Obama 2012 prospects dim with each passing day. If you like my reasons please spread the word about this post.

For the record, my official prediction is Obama will lose the 2012 election. He will be a one-term President. These are the reasons why.

Obama 2012 – 101 reasons why he will lose.

1. Unemployment after 4 years of Keynesian economics is still over 7%. If Americans are out of work so will be the President.
2. US debt is over 14 trillion dollars and counting. He tripled the debt. We had a party and our children will have to pay.
3. We are still fighting an undeclared war in the Middle East with American men and women on the ground taking casualties with no end in sight. This really upsets me. It is not Obama’s fault but America should only fight declared wars, because undeclared wars are a never ending battle. Read more......
   

Big homes are a mistake

Too much house – biggest personal finance mistake

Do not spend more than you earn. Everyone knows this. The one exception is your home. Not an investment home, but the personal house you will live in. You of course need a mortgage. But the biggest mistake people make is their eyes get too big when purchasing a house. A big home is a financial mistake and in my mind a sign that you have an ego problem.

You need to be in a financial positive to maintain a positive cash flow over a lifetime. This is real security. Learn the economic lessons others are paying for with their life savings when their house is foreclosed on.

I believe in the cash flow theory of security. In fact, I use to have a bumper stick in my room as a teen, that said ‘happiness is a positive cash flow’. I am writing this not out of arrogance or I know better, but because I personally see people’s lives destroyed by big homes. A rich man is one whose income exceeds his expenses, whatever that level of income is. Read more.....

Going Deep: “It’s Entirely Possible That Nowhere in North America is a Safe Redoubt”

Some friends have been actively talking about their Exit Plans – about getting out of this country before the curtain goes down. While there is still time. They believe the situation to be hopeless. That despite the upwelling of liberty-mindedness among some, the vast majority of Americans are not liberty-minded. That Americans – tens of millions of them – are stupid, unreachable, mean, irrational, authoritarian-minded Babbits and poltroons. People who always speak in “we” – and lust to control others.

Reluctantly, I have to concede the point.

I have had exhaustive (and exhausting) conversations with countless people – some of them probably a lot smarter than I in terms of raw IQ – who just can’t connect the dots.

Or – much worse – don’t care to.

The problem is as much psychological as it is intellectual. There may just be a defective sub-species of human being, homo servilus, who – much like a bee in a hive – is programmed to crave the collective and therefore accepts its corollary – coercion – as the natural and right order of things. Read more.......

Wealth, reimagined

As resistance has grown to America’s widening gulf between the “1 percent” and the rest of the population, something new has exploded in America’s communities; “community wealth building” is an explicit strategy to democratize the ownership of wealth from the ground up. With traditional regulatory and tax-and-spend approaches faltering at every level, the notion that we should create new democratic economic institutions to build wealth, community by community, is quietly gaining traction. We now have the potential for larger and longer-term transformation throughout the nation.

Power for the People

The central idea is simple: people join together through some form of public, community or employee-owned business to meet local needs and thereby regain a measure of local economic democracy and control. Partly self-help, partly community mobilization, and partly sketches for future system-wide expansion, community wealth-building efforts can be found in virtually every region of the country. The range of efforts is vast. Community wealth-building institutions include community development corporations, community development financial institutions, social enterprises, community land trusts, employee-owned enterprises, and cooperatives. All pool capital in ways that create new jobs and anchor jobs in communities. Read more......