Exposing The Truth

Iceland’s New Bank Disaster

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

The problem of bank loans gone bad, especially those with government-guarantees such as U.S. student loans and Fannie Mae mortgages, has thrown into question just what should be a “fair value” for these debt obligations. Should “fair value” reflect what debtors can pay – that is, pay without going bankrupt?

Or is it fair for banks and even vulture funds to get whatever they can squeeze out of debtors?

The answer will depend largely on the degree to which governments back the claims of creditors. The legal definition of how much can be squeezed out is becoming a political issue pulling national governments, the IMF, ECB and other financial agencies into a conflict pitting banks, vulture funds and debt-strapped populations against each other.

This polarizing issue has now broken out especially in Iceland. The country is now suffering a second round of economic and financial distress stemming from the collapse of its banking system in October 2008. That crisis caused a huge loss of savings not only for domestic citizens but also for international creditors such as Deutsche Bank, Barclay’s and their institutional clients.

Stuck with bad loans and bonds from bankrupt issuers, foreign investors in the old banks sold their bonds and other claims for pennies on the dollar to buyers whose web sites described themselves as “specializing in distressed assets,” commonly known as vulture funds. (Persistent rumors suggest that some of these are working with the previous owners of the failed Icelandic banks, operating out of offshore banking and tax havens and currently under investigation by a Special Prosecutor.)

Foreclosure Time is not sufficient, because much property has fallen into negative equity – about a quarter of U.S. real estate. And for Ireland, market value of real estate covers only about 30% of the face value of mortgages. So Bailout Time becomes necessary. The banks turn over their bad loans to the government in exchange for government debt. The Federal Reserve has arranged over $2 trillion of such bank-friendly swaps. Banks receive government bonds or central bank deposits in exchange for their bad debts, accepted at face value rather than at “mark-to-market” prices.At the time when those bonds were sold in the market, Iceland’s government owned 100% of all three new banks. Representing the national interest, it intended for the banks to pass on to the debtors the write-downs at which they discounted the assets they bought from the old banks. This was supposed to be what “fair value” meant: the low market valuation at that time. It was supposed to take account of the reasonable ability of households and businesses to pay back loans that had become unpayable as the currency had collapsed and import prices had risen accordingly.
The IMF entered the picture in November 2008, advising the government to reconstruct the banking system in a way that “includes measures to ensure fair valuation of assets [and] maximize asset recovery.” The government created three “good” new banks from the ruins of its failed banks, transferring loans from the old to the new banks at a discount of up to 70 percent to reflect their fair value, based on independent third party valuation.

The vultures became owners of two out of three new Icelandic banks. On IMF advice the government negotiated an agreement so loose as to give them a hunting license on Icelandic households and businesses. The new banks acted much as U.S. collection agencies do when they buy bad credit-card debts, bank loans or unpaid bills from retailers at 30% of face value and then hound the debtors to squeeze out as much as they can, by hook or by crook.

These scavengers of the financial system are the bane of many states. But there is now a danger of their rising to the top of the international legal pyramid, to a point where they are in a position to oppress entire national economies.

Iceland’s case has a special twist. By law Icelandic mortgages and many other consumer loans are linked to the country’s soaring consumer price index. Owners of these loans not only can demand 100% of face value, but also can add on the increase in debt principal from the indexing. Thousands of households face poverty and loss of property because of loans that, in some cases, have more than doubled as a result of the currency crash and subsequent price inflation. But the IMF and Iceland’s Government and Supreme Court have affirmed the price-indexation of loan principal and usurious interest rates, lest the restructured banking system come to grief.

This is not what was expected. In 2009 the incoming “leftist” government negotiated an agreement with creditors to relate loan payments to the discounted transfer value. On IMF advice, the government handed over controlling interest in the new banks to creditors of the old banks. The aim was to minimize the cost of refinancing the banking system – but not to destroy the economy. Loans that were transferred from the old banks to the new after the 2008 crash at a discount of up to 70% to reflect their depreciated market value. This discount was to be passed on to borrowers (households and small businesses) faced with ballooning principal and payments due to CPI indexing of loans.

But the economy’s survival is not of paramount interest to the aggressive hedge funds that have replaced the established banks that originally lent to the Icelandic banks. Instead of passing on the debt write-downs to households and other debtors, the new banks are revaluing these loan principals upward. Their demands are keeping the economy in a straight jacket. Instead of debt restructuring taking place as originally hoped for, the scene is being set for a new banking crisis.

Something has to give. But so far it is Iceland’s economy, not the vulture funds. With the IMF insisting that the government abstain from intervention, the government’s approval rating has plunged to just 10% of Icelanders for floundering so badly while the new owners call the shots.

The New Banks have written off claims on major corporate debtors, whose continued operations have ensured their role as cash cows for the banks’ new vulture owners. But household debts acquired at 30 to 50 percent of face value have been re-valued at up to 100 percent. The value of owners’ share equity has soared. The Government has not intervened, accepting the banks’ assertion that they lack the resources to grant meaningful debt relief to households. So unpayably high debts are kept on the books, at transfer prices that afford a windfall to financial predators, dooming debtors to a decade or more of negative equity.

With the preparatory work done, the time has come for the Vultures to cash in through re-sale of New Bank equity shares by yearend. The New Banks have kept their corporate cash cows afloat while window-dressing owners’ equity with unrealistic valuations of consumer debts that cannot be paid, except at the cost of bankrupting the economy.

There is a feeling that Iceland’s government has been disabled from acting as an honest broker, as bank lobbyists have worked with Althing insiders – now backed by the IMF – to provide a windfall for creditors.

The problem becoming a global one. Many European countries and the United States face collapsed banks and derailed banking systems. How are the IMF and ECB to respond? Will they prescribe the Icelandic-type model of collaboration between Government and hedge funds? Or should the government be given power to resist drive by vulture funds to profiteer on an international scale, backed by international sanctions against their prey?

The policy danger now facing Europe

An economic crisis is the financial equivalent of military conquest. It is an opportunity for financial elites to make their property grab as Foreclosure Time arrives. It also becomes a political grab to make real the financial claims that had become uncollectible and hence largely fictitious “mark-to-model” accounting. Populist rhetoric is crafted to mobilize the widespread financial distress and general discontent as an opportunity to turn losers against each other rather than at the creditors.

This is the point at which all the years of financial propaganda pay off. Neoliberals have persuaded the public to believe that banks are needed to “oil the wheels of commerce” – that is, provide the credit bloodstream that brings nourishment to the economy’s moving parts. Only under such crisis conditions can banks collect what has become a fictitious buildup of debt claims. The overgrowth of mortgage debt, corporate debt, student loans, credit-card debt and other debts are fictitious because under normal circumstances there is no way for them to be paid.
At least in the United States and Britain, the central bank can print as much domestic currency as is necessary to pay interest and keep these government bonds liquid. Public agencies then take on the position of creditor vis-à-vis debtors that can’t pay.

These public agencies then have a choice. They may seek to collect the full amount (or at least, as much as they can get), as in the case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the United States. Or, the government may sell the bad debts to vulture funds, for a fraction of their face value.

After the September 2008 crash, Iceland’s government took over the old, collapsed, banks and created new ones in their place. Original bondholders of the old banks off-loaded the Icelandic bank bonds in the market for pennies on the dollar. The buyers were vulture funds. These bondholders became the owners of the old banks, as all shareholders were wiped out. In October, the government’s monetary authority appointed new boards to control the banks. Three new banks were set up, and all the deposits, mortgages and other bank loans were transferred to these new, healthier banks – at a steep discount. These new banks received 80 percent of the assets, the old banks 20 percent.

Then, owners of the old banks were given control over two of the new banks (87% and 95% respectively). The owners of these new banks were called vultures not only because of the steep discount at which the financial assets and claims of the old banks were transferred, but mainly because they already had bought control of the old banks at pennies on the dollar.

The result is that instead of the government keeping the banks and simply wiping them out in bankruptcy, the government kept aside and let vulture investors reap a giant windfall – that now threatens to plunge Iceland’s economy into chronic financial austerity. In retrospect, none of this was necessary. The question is, what can the government do to clean up the mess that it has created by so gullibly taking bad IMF advice?

In the United States, banks receiving TARP bailout money were supposed to negotiate with mortgage debtors to write down the debts to market prices and/or the ability to pay. This was not done. Likewise in Iceland, the vulture funds that bought the bad “old bank” loans were supposed to pass on the debt write-downs to the debtors. This was not done either. In fact, the loan principals continued to be revalued upward in keeping with Iceland’s unique indexing designed to save banks from taking a loss – that is, to make sure that the economy as a whole suffers, even suffering a fatal austerity attack, so that bankers will be “made whole.” This means making a windfall fortune for the vultures who buy bad loans on the cheap.

Is this the future of Europe as well? If so, the present financial crisis will become the great windfall for vulture banks, and for banks in general. Whereas the past few centuries have seen financial crashes wipe out the savings and creditor claims (bonds, bank loans, etc.) that are the counterpart to bad debts, today we are seeing the bad debts kept on the books, but the banks and bondholders that provided the bad loans being made whole at taxpayer expense.

This is not how economic democracy was expected to work during the 19th-century drive for Parliamentary reform. And by the early 20th century, social democratic and labor parties were supposed to take the lead in moving banking and credit along with other basic infrastructure into the public domain. But today, from Greece to Iceland, governments are acting as enforcers or even as collection agents on behalf of the financial sector – as the Occupy Wall Street movement expresses it, the top “1%,” not the bottom 99%.

Iceland stands as a dress rehearsal for this power grab. The IMF and Iceland’s government held a conference in Reykjavik on October 27 to celebrate the ostensible success in their reconstruction of Iceland’s economy and banking system.

In the United States, the crisis that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel celebrated as “too good to let go to waste” will be capped by scaling back Social Security and Medicare as soon as the autumn Doomsday Clock runs down and the Congressional Super-Committee of 12 (with President Obama holding the 13th vote in case of a tie) gets to agree to make the working population pay Wall Street for its bad loans. The Greek austerity plan thus serves as a dress rehearsal for the U.S. – with the Democratic Party playing the role as counterparts to Greece’s Socialist Party that is sponsoring austerity, and expelling labor union leaders from its ranks if they object to the grand double-cross.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/icelands-new-bank-disaster.html

Filed Under: Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Economy, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politicians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Self-Sustainability, Taxes, The Hidden Empire

How to Survive the Second Depression

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

I don’t think that there is any denial from the working class that we are still in the throes of a recession. And many also believe that if we are not in an actual depression now, we will be soon. The rising cost of food and health care, the elimination of the single-family home from the American Dream, the lack of jobs for the unemployed, and the wholesale underemployment of many with jobs . . . well even an economics dunce like me can see the writing of the wall.

Luckily, I am prepared. And even though some of my peers get tired of my continued emphasis on preparing for an uncertain future, the reality is that the door on the old way of life is closing and families of all types need to be ready. But my intent here is not to preach.

Instead, I have a special treat. My longtime friend George Ure has given me permission to repost his muse on the Perfect Modern Depression Family that was previously shared only with his $40 per year subscribers at Peoplenomics.

A Perfect Modern Depression Family

Don’t know as I’ve ever given you a sketch of where I’d be if I could design a perfect family situation for weathering a Great Depression, but it might be a family set up something like this:

• Dad works as a lineman for a utility company. He’s going to have a fairly steady job because people will want their lights on, but with people getting lights turned on and off, as they pay their bills, or not, he’d have lots to do pulling meters and so forth. Since climate change means more violent weather, lots of potential for pick-up hours, too. And at double time in some cases. Or, maybe dad is an x-ray tech, or runs an ultrasound or MRI machine in medicine. Lights and meds will still be around.

• Mom works as a grocery checker, or works as a meat cutter in the local store. Many still have meat cutters and they make good money, get good vacations and, yep, have an inside line on food stocks even when things start to run short.

• Johnny, their boy, has a paper route. He’s going to have a hot business on his hands because as people drop Internet connectivity, the small local newspaper could make a big come back, especially because people will be looking for local deals on everything. He wants to be a doctor when he grows up and since he’s on the honor role, he has a good chance of making it.

• Suzy, the daughter, has been really active in 4-H – so much so that she’s been getting hints from the teacher that she might get a full-ride scholarship to a state Ag school. She seems set for a good career and she’s thinking about becoming a veterinarian.

• The family house was purchased 19 years ago and has been refinanced recently, not to pull out equity, but to reduce the monthly payment to the smallest possible amount since the family knows tough times are coming. Resetting at 20 years, even though they had only 10 years to go, helps. I might not do it, but I don’t have to pay for kids, except for the ongoing school taxes.

• The family has slowly acquired about 100 ounces of silver and 10 ounces of gold.

• Did I mention Suzy has been doing a backyard garden and that Mom has been canning the past couple of years? Nothing fancy; some dill pickles, a few fruits and beans and tomatoes from the garden. These past few weeks, she’s been blanching and freezing other varieties.

• Dad’s gone off the deep end, putting a solar cooking rig in the back yard – sun-driven BBQ and oven while Mom’s order of a year’s worth of grains in nitrogen-packed containers came in a few weeks back.

• Uncle Bob is a dentist, and everything in the mouth is done and paid for with cash. The family’s 3 cars are all in good repair and in the area of 50,000 miles each, including the subcompact the kids share. Fresh tires on them all, too, since overseas sources may dry up in the Depression.

• The family all have library cards and have rediscovered reading. As a result, family dinners are lively and thought provoking conversation gatherings which build the family bond. Neighborhood kids come over, too, since the food is so good and it’s not like their homes at all.

The Worst Family Profile

If you think the first family has it made, you got it right! Contrast how an adverse time is going to work out for this family:

• Dad works for a financial services company selling annuities. He’s on the verge of losing his job because people aren’t buying that kind of financial product anymore.

• Mom was selling real estate, but since she just got into that in the fall of 2008, she hasn’t made hardly any money at it, and though she keeps hoping to get a few sales, like most agents, she’s only able to make $23,000 per year because of the downturn.

• Billy, their son, is totally immersed in video games and Goth. He’s on expensive ADHD medication and has a 2-second attention span on a good day. He’s eating almost exclusively a high-fructose corn syrup laced diet which has made him fat and his attitude is horrible. His grades are failing and he’s talk about dropping out in his junior year of high school. He spends a lot of time on the cell phone running up his phone tab alone north of $100 per month.

• Christy, the daughter, has turned into a drug-smoking slut, popular with gang-types, and lately with mom and dad at work, several items around the home have turned up missing, including Billy’s last cell phone which cost $350 to replace because he threw fits about needing a stylish phone.

• The family home is one payment from foreclosure most of the time. Dad hasn’t been able to bring down credit card debt, and with all seven cards the total is more than $60,000.

• They refinanced the house at the peak in 2008 and pulled out money for a new SUV, but that was wrecked the month after they bought it and the insurance didn’t pay off well, so they drive a four-year-old SUV with high miles. It’s going to need tires soon, but there’s no money for them, since they put custom 24″ wheels on it for appearances and those tires are $350 each now.

• At the end of each month, they are about $300 cash negative, but the bank cards have “helped”. The parents are praying for better jobs and sending resumes everywhere.

• Dad got called into the office next Thursday to meet with HR. He’s one step from fiscal disaster.

• The family doesn’t eat together, no one reads, and meals are expensive as a result with a high ‘fast food’ cost. Neighborhood kids come over to smoke dope, make a run at Christy, and see if Billy’s checked out so they can swipe some of his game cartridges.

Given a choice, I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out which family is going to survive a further 50% reduction of income. One is actually a family team, while the other is a haphazard collection of social ills residing under a common roof that may be ‘called’ any time.

. . . George Ure, August 2011

Now I am sure that many families fall somewhere in between the “perfect” family and the “worst” family. The point, though, is to figure out where you are in this continuum and to begin taking the steps to move closer to a perfect family dynamic.

So what are some of the decision and choices?

One that sure comes to mind has to do with housing. Depending on your financial condition, age, and employment status, where you live may indeed become one of the most significant changes you can make to ensure your security in the second depression. Should you live in a single-family home, or a multi-generation shared residence? Should you move to a “cheap” state where property taxes are low and the cost of living is reasonable? How about moving to the country where you can grow your own food and raise chickens? Or, what about being geographically independent by living in a large motor home (dirt cheap right now) and roaming from one Wal-Mart parking lot to another?

Okay, I admit the latter option is a bit extreme but still, if all of your money is presently going toward housing, you need to rethink your situation and come up with alternatives, even if it means finding housemates or becoming creative in some other manner.

With the goal of becoming the Perfect Modern Family, I heartily endorse learning as much as you can about personal survival skills. Learn to cook, learn to sew, learn to build a fire and learn to fix stuff.

The other thing? Learn to become self-entertaining, and by that I mean learn to be happy with books, walks in the woods or the park, and the company of others who share like-minded and spirited conversations about things that matter.

Gut feelings are a funny thing – sometimes right and sometimes wrong – but as you age, you begin to trust those instincts more and more. There is no doubt in my mind that the old ways of doing things are long gone, and if you are “old as dirt” as I am, you just know that old ways will never return.

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/how-to-survive-second-depression.html

Filed Under: America, An Alternative World, Banks, Campaigning, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Earth, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Family, Food, Health, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Politics, Population, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Science, Self-Sustainability, Spirituality, Truth

22 SIGNS THAT THE THIN VENEER OF CIVILIZATION THAT WE ALL TAKE FOR GRANTED IS STARTING TO DISAPPEAR

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

In order for a society to function, there has to be a certain level of trust. Each day when we leave our homes, we take for granted that most people are not going to attack us for no reason, that there will only be isolated incidents of theft in our community and that rioting and violence are not going to erupt in the streets. Whether we realize it or not, we depend on the fact that the vast majority of the people around us are going to act in a civilized manner.

Unfortunately, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear. When I was growing up, I was taught that challenging times reveal our true character. There are many that believe that the declining economy is causing a lot of the chaos that we are now witnessing, but perhaps what is going on is that these challenging economic times are simply revealing the character that has been there all along.

For decades, a “false prosperity” that was fueled by unprecedented amounts of debt has masked a lot of the internal rot that has taken hold in America. But now that our prosperity is crumbling, our lack of values is becoming startlingly clear.

Greed, corruption and extreme self-centeredness have deeply infected our society. We see this on Wall Street and in Congress, and we see this among those that are trying to survive on the mean streets of our largest cities.

Our nation is breaking down on every level. If by some miracle we were able to fix our economy, that would mask our problems for a while, but it would not solve them.

Unfortunately, as I write about nearly every day, there are a whole host of indications that our economy is about to get even worse. When it does, millions of Americans will become even more desperate, and as we are now seeing all over this country, desperate people do desperate things.

The following are 22 signs that the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is starting to disappear….

#1 In Detroit, 100 bus drivers recently refused to drive their routes out of fear for their own personal safety. An article posted on the website of the CBS affiliate in Detroit is quoting the head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, as saying that the drivers are “scared for their lives”….

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

#2 In Wilmington, Delaware recently, a man offered to help someone carry a television down the street, but quickly realized that it was his own television which had just been stolen out of his house….

A Wilmington resident who stopped home for lunch about noon today saw a man carrying a flat screen TV down the street and asked the man if he needed help.

He then recognized the television as his own, looked up and saw the door to his home ajar, said Master Sgt. Adam Ringle.

#3 Shocking video has surfaced of a young thug walking up to a defenseless elderly man in a Chicago subway station and knocking him out cold. In the video, the friends of the young man are cheering him on and laughing at how easy it was to knock the old man out cold.

#4 Beating up old people for no reason seems to be catching on all over the country. Just check out the following report from a recent article posted on philly.com….

AN 84-YEAR-OLD ex-university official savagely attacked by four young punks during a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park earlier this week theorizes that the beating he endured was a cruel game of “get the old geezer.”

Jim Shea, a former vice president of university relations for Temple, from 1968 to 1983, walks up to five miles on Forbidden Drive, in Fairmount Park, three times a week, but that type of stamina wasn’t enough to stave off the lowlifes who not only beat him bloody, but dealt a blow to one of the things he holds most dear - his pride.

#5 All over the United States, police are wailing on Occupy Wall Street protesters with clubs and liberally using pepper spray on them. Whatever you may think of the Occupy Wall Street protests, the reality is that this is not a sign that things are becoming “more stable” in America. You can see video of one very disturbing confrontation right here.

#6 Clashes between police and protesters in Oakland, California recently became so violent that at one point the streets of Oakland resembled a war zone.

#7 Unfortunately, as the American people become increasingly frustrated with out system many of them are actually starting to consider violence as a solution. According to one recent survey, 31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda”.

#8 In New York recently, a confrontation between two female customers and a frustrated cashier ended with the cashier beating the living daylights out of them with a metal rod. The following is howa local CBS affiliate in New York described this incident….

It appeared to have started when two female customers argued and yelled obscenities at the cashier when he questioned a $50 bill they gave him.

One of the female customers then slapped the cashier. A woman is then seen jumping over the counter while the other woman goes behind the register.

That’s when the cashier can be seen on the video disappearing into the back of the fast-food restaurant. He comes back with a metal rod and begins hitting the women.

You can see video of this violent confrontation right here.

#9 These days, many Americans are so “on edge” that just about anything will make them snap. For example, a 60-year-old woman in New Mexico recently repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend because she thought that he was cheating during a game of Monopoly.

#10 If you thought that the above example was crazy, just check out what one man down in Georgia did recently. He actually firebombed a Taco Bell because they did not put enough meat in his Chalupa.

#11 In Cleveland last week, a 49-year-old man was sent to the hospital after a poll monitor working for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections tried to bite his nose off.

#12 Not only do TSA agents make us feel like dehumanized cattle as we go through airport security, some of them are evening making fun of us at the same time. For example, one TSA agent recently scribbled “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” on a TSA inspection notice after discovering a sex toy in the luggage of one female traveler.

#13 Identity theft is rising to very alarming levels all over the United States. For example, a recent article in the Palm Beach Post described what has been going on down in Florida this year….

In the first half of this year, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 20,000 complaints from Floridians whose identities had been stolen — nearly as many as in all of 2010. More than half of those reporting their Social Security numbers or other personal information had been ripped off and used to commit fraud or theft were in South Florida, with heavy concentrations in parts of Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.

“That kind of increase is really shocking,” said Vance Luce, deputy special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service in South Florida, which investigates identity theft and financial crimes. “The fact that it’s on the upturn doesn’t surprise me at all, but that’s pretty alarming.”

#14 In the Seattle area, an elderly couple in their eighties was recently brutally attacked by a 31-year-old man armed with a crossbow and a hatchet. The following description of this brutal crime comes from King 5 News….

Prosecutors say 31-year-old John Chase was walking down the highway when he saw Ralph Aldrich, 88, in his back yard. Detectives say Chase shot and killed Aldrich with a crossbow and then went inside the home and repeatedly hit 83-year-old June Aldrich with a hatchet.

#15 As America falls apart, more of us than ever are taking medication for depression. At this point,more than 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 is taking prescription antidepressants.

#16 In some areas of the country, people have been literally tearing apart their own cities in an attempt to find things to sell. I recently discussed this phenomenon on The American Dream Blog….

In Fresno, California the damage caused by thieves stealing copper wire from city street lights is costing the city about $50,000 a month. So far, about 2,500 street lights have been stripped of their wiring.

#17 As people become more desperate, we are starting to see some truly bizarre crimes in many parts of the nation. In northern Alabama, one team of crooks has been using a forklift to pull entire ATM machines out of the ground.

#18 Most Americans don’t realize this, but all over the U.S. livestock is being stolen from ranchers in unprecedented numbers. The following is from a recent Associated Press article….

While the brazenness may be unusual, the theft isn’t. High beef prices have made cattle attractive as a quick score for people struggling in the sluggish economy, and other livestock are being taken too. Six thousand lambs were stolen from a feedlot in Texas, and nearly 1,000 hogs have been stolen in recent weeks from farms in Iowa and Minnesota. The thefts add up to millions of dollars in losses for U.S. ranches.

Authorities say today’s thieves are sophisticated compared to the horseback bandits of the rugged Old West. They pull up livestock trailers in the middle of the night and know how to coax the animals inside. Investigators suspect it’s then a quick trip across state lines to sell the animals at auction barns.

#19 At this point, thieves are becoming so bold that they will steal literally anything that they are able to cart away. For example, in the San Francisco area a while back thieves actually stole a copper bellthat weighs 2.7 tons.

#20 According to the FBI, the number of gang members in the United States has increased by a staggering 40 percent since 2009. Right now, there are 1.4 million gang members terrorizing citizens on the streets of America.

#21 Down in Miami, thieves have become so bold that they have actually been breaking into parked police cruisers and stealing guns and ammo out of them. Many of those guns undoubtedly are ending up in the hands of gangs members.

#22 Be careful who you befriend online. They might just hold you captive and use you as part of a Satanic sex ritual. The following description of an incident that recently happened in Milwaukee comes from thesmokinggun.com….

Two young Milwaukee women were arrested this week after an 18-year-old Arizona man-who traveled to Wisconsin by bus after meeting one of the suspects online-told cops that he was held captive in the duo’s apartment for two days and slashed and stabbed more than 300 times as part of an apparent satanic sex ritual.

Anger and frustration are growing to unprecedented levels in this country, and all of this anger and frustration is manifesting in thousands of different ways.

As I have written about previously, the rioting, the crime and the violence that we are seeing now is only just the beginning of what is coming.

Unless a miracle happens, our country is going to keep heading down the road toward societal collapse. For even more examples that show that our country is starting to come apart at the seams, please see the following articles that I have authored previously….

-”18 Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating”

-”12 More Signs That Society Is Collapsing”

It won’t happen all at once, but unless our nation changes direction dramatically, we will see things get progressively worse and worse.

Instead of teaching our children to love and care for one another, we have taught them to be incredibly self-involved. Today, way too many Americans deeply love themselves, deeply love money and are deeply addicted to entertainment. Each new generation seems to be even more prideful, even more arrogant and even more violent. As a nation, we are losing our empathy for others, our compassion for the needy and our respect for the elderly. Our family units are breaking down and thousands of our communities are being transformed into hellholes.

What in the world is happening to America?

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1363/063/22_Signs_That_The_Thin_Veneer_Of_Civilization_That_We_All_Take_For_Granted_Is_Starting_To_Disappear.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Filed Under: America, Banks, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Earth, Economy, Education, Employment, Environment, Family, Food, Health, Income Inequality, Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Police, Politicians, Politics, Pollution, Population, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Revolution, Rights, Science, Truth, War

60 MINUTES: ARE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TRADING STOCKS ON INSIDE INFORMATION?

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

Washington, D.C. is a town that runs on inside information - but should our elected officials be able to use that information to pad their own pockets? As Steve Kroft reports, members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate.

For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it’s time for the law to change.

The following is a script of “Insiders” which aired on Nov. 13, 2011:

The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.

Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don’t always apply to them.

Questioning Pelosi: Steve Kroft heads to D.C.

When Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, and other lawmakers wouldn’t answer Steve Kroft’s questions, he headed to Washington to get some answers about their stock trades.

Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington - if they ever leave Washington - with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived, and as you are about to see, the biggest challenge is often avoiding temptation.

Peter Schweizer: This is a venture opportunity. This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.

Peter Schweizer is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University. A year ago he began working on a book about soft corruption in Washington with a team of eight student researchers, who reviewed financial disclosure records. It became a jumping off point for our own story, and we have independently verified the material we’ve used.

Schweizer says he wanted to know why some congressmen and senators managed to accumulate significant wealth beyond their salaries, and proved particularly adept at buying and selling stocks.

Schweizer: There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy. So it’s not illegal, but I think it’s highly unethical, I think it’s highly offensive, and wrong.

Steve Kroft: What do you mean honest graft?

Schweizer: For example insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.

Kroft: So congressman get a pass on insider trading?

Schweizer: They do. The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is- is considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that’s market moving information. And if you can trade stock on- off of that information and do so legally, that’s a great profit making opportunity. And that sort of behavior goes on.

Kroft: Why does Congress get a pass on this?

Schweizer: It’s really the way the rules have been defined. And the people who make the rules are the political class in Washington. And they’ve conveniently written them in such a way that they don’t apply to themselves.

The buying and selling of stock by corporate insiders who have access to non-public information that could affect the stock price can be a criminal offense, just ask hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam who recently got 11 years in prison for doing it. But, congressional lawmakers have no corporate responsibilities and have long been considered exempt from insider trading laws, even though they have daily access to non-public information and plenty of opportunities to trade on it.

Schweizer: We know that during the health care debate people were trading health care stocks. We know that during the financial crisis of 2008 they were getting out of the market before the rest of America really knew what was going on.

In mid September 2008 with the Dow Jones Industrial average still above ten thousand, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were holding closed door briefings with congressional leaders, and privately warning them that a global financial meltdown could occur within a few days. One of those attending was Alabama Representative Spencer Bachus, then the ranking Republican member on the House Financial Services Committee and now its chairman.

Schweizer: These meetings were so sensitive- that they would actually confiscate cell phones and Blackberries going into those meetings. What we know is that those meetings were held one day and literally the next day Congressman Bachus would engage in buying stock options based on apocalyptic briefings he had the day before from the Fed chairman and treasury secretary. I mean, talk about a stock tip.

While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts.

Congressman Bachus declined to talk to us, so we went to his office and ran into his Press Secretary Tim Johnson.

Kroft: Look we’re not alleging that Congressman Bachus has violated any laws. All…the only thing we’re interested in talking to him is about his trades.

Tim Johnson: Ok…Ok that’s a fair enough request.

What we got was a statement from Congressman Bachus’ office that he never trades on non-public information, or financial services stock. However, his financial disclosure forms seem to indicate otherwise. Bachus made money trading General Electric stock during the crisis, and a third of GE’s business is in financial services.

During the healthcare debate of 2009, members of Congress were trading health care stocks, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, who led the opposition against the so-called public option, government funded insurance that would compete with private companies. Just days before the provision was finally killed off, Boehner bought health insurance stocks, all of which went up. Now speaker of the House, Congressman Boehner also declined to be interviewed, so we tracked him down at his weekly press conference.

Kroft: You made a number of trades going back to the health care debate. You bought some insurance stock. Did you make those trades based on non-public information?

John Boehner: I have not made any decisions on day-to-day trading activities in my account. And haven’t for years. I don’t- I do not do it, haven’t done it and wouldn’t do it.

Later Boehner’s spokesman told us that the health care trades were made by the speaker’s financial adviser, who he only consults with about once a year.

[Peter Schweizer: We need to find out whether they're part of a blind trust or not.]

Peter Schweizer thinks the timing is suspicious, and believes congressional leaders should have their stock funds in blind trusts.

Schweizer: Whether it’s uh- $15,000 or $150,000, the principle in my mind is that it’s simply wrong and it shouldn’t take place.

But there is a long history of self-dealing in Washington. And it doesn’t always involve stock trades.

Congressmen and senators also seem to have a special knack for land and real estate deals. When Illinois Congressman Dennis Hastert became speaker of the House in 1999, he was worth a few hundred thousand dollars. He left the job eight years later a multi-millionaire.

Jan Strasma: The road that Hastert wants to build will go through these farm fields right here.

In 2005, Speaker Hastert got a $207 million federal earmark to build the Prairie Parkway through these cornfields near his home. What Jan Strasma and his neighbors didn’t know was that Hastert had also bought some land adjacent to where the highway is supposed to go.

Strasma: And five months after this earmark went through he sold that land and made a bundle of money.

Kroft: How much?

Strasma: Two million dollars.

Kroft: What do you think of it?

Strasma: It stinks.

We stopped by the former speaker’s farm, to ask him about the land deal, but he was off in Washington where he now works as a lobbyist. His office told us that property values in the area began to appreciate even before the earmark and that the Hastert land was several miles from the nearest exit.

But the same good fortune befell former New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, who helped steer nearly $70 million dollars in government funds towards redeveloping this defunct Air Force base, which he and his brother both had a commercial interest in. Gregg has said that he violated no congressional rules.

It’s but one more example of good things happening to powerful members of Congress. Another is the access to initial public stock offerings, the opportunity to buy a new stock at insider prices just as it goes on the market. They can be incredibly lucrative and hard to get.

Schweizer: If you were a senator, Steve, and I gave you $10,000 cash, one or both of us is probably gonna go to jail. But if I’m a corporate executive and you’re a senator, and I give you IPO shares in stock and over the course of one day that stock nets you $100,000, that’s completely legal.

And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies, began making its way through the House. Undisturbed by a potential conflict of interest the Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the floor of the House.

Congresswoman Pelosi also declined our request for an interview, but agreed to call on us if we attended a news conference.

Kroft: Madam Leader, I wanted to ask you why you and your husband back in March of 2008 accepted and participated in a very large IPO deal from Visa at a time there was major legislation affecting the credit card companies making its way through the- through the House.

Nancy Pelosi: But-

Kroft: And did you consider that to be a conflict of interest?

Pelosi: The- y- I- I don’t know what your point is of your question. Is there some point that you want to make with that?

Kroft: Well, I- I- I guess what I’m asking is do you think it’s all right for a speaker to accept a very preferential, favorable stock deal?

Pelosi: Well, we didn’t.

Kroft: You participated in the IPO. And at the time you were speaker of the House. You don’t think it was a conflict of interest or had the appearance-

Pelosi: No, it was not-

Kroft: -of a conflict of interest?

Pelosi: -it doesn’t- it only has appearance if you decide that you’re going to have- elaborate on a false premise. But it- it- it’s not true and that’s that.

Kroft: I don’t understand what part’s not true.

Pelosi: Yes sir. That- that I would act upon an investment.

Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was initiated in the Senate.

Pelosi: I will hold my record in terms of fighting the credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of Congress up against anyone.

Corporate executives, members of the executive branch and all federal judges are subject to strict conflict of interest rules. But not the people who write the laws.

Schweizer: If you are a member of Congress and you sit on the defense committee, you are free to trade defense stock as much as you want to if you’re on the Senate banking committee you can trade bank stock as much as you want and that regularly goes on- in- in all these committees.

Brian Baird: There should only be one thing in your mind when you’re drafting legislation, ‘Is this good for the United States of America?’ That’s it. If you’re starting to say to yourself ‘how’s this going to affect my investments,’ you’ve got- you’ve got a mixed agenda and a mixed purpose for being there.

Brian Baird is a former congressman from Washington state who served six terms in the house before retiring last year. He spent half of those 12 years trying to get his colleagues to prohibit insider trading in Congress and establish some rules governing conflicts of interest.

Baird: One line in a bill in Congress can be worth millions and millions of dollars. There was one night, we had a late, late night caucus and you could kind of tell how a vote was going to go the next day. I literally walked home and I thought, ‘Man, if you- if you went online and made- some significant trades, you could make a lot of money on this.’ You- you could just see it. You could see the potential here.

So in 2004, Baird and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced the Stock Act which would make it illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks on non-public information and require them to report their stock trades every 90 days instead of once a year.

Kroft: How far did you get with this?

Baird: We didn’t get anywhere. Just flat died. Went nowhere.

Kroft: How many cosponsors did you get?

Baird: I think we got six.

Kroft: Six doesn’t sound like a very big amount.

Baird: It’s not, Steve. You- you could have- ‘National Cherry Pie Week’ and get 100 cosponsors.

When Baird finally managed to get a congressional hearing on the Stock Act, almost no one showed up. It’s reintroduced every session, but is buried so deep in the Capitol we had trouble finding congressmen who had even heard of it.

Kroft: Have you ever heard of the Stock Act?

Steve Palazzo: The what?

Kroft: The Stock Act. Do you know anything about it?

Congressman: No.

Kroft: Congressman. Congressman. Congressman.

Congressman Quayle: I haven’t heard about that one yet.

Kroft: Have you ever heard of something called the Stock Act?

Congressman Watt: No

Male voice: I’ve heard about, but not. I can’t say it’s an issue I’ve spent a lot of time on.

Male voice: I would have no problem with that.

Kroft: Okay.

Male voice: But then again I am a big fan of, you know, instant disclosure on almost everything.

Kroft: They’re looking for co-sponsors.

Male voice: And yet, I’ve never heard of it.

Baird: When you have a bill like this that makes so much sense and you can’t get the co-sponsorships, you can’t get the leadership to move it, it gets tremendously frustrating. Set aside that it’s the right thing to do, it’s good politics. People want their Congress to function well. It still baffles me.

But what baffles Baird even more is that the situation has gotten worse. In the past few years a whole new totally unregulated, $100 million dollar industry has grown up in Washington called political intelligence. It employs former congressmen and former staffers to scour the halls of the Capitol gathering valuable non-public information then selling it to hedge funds and traders on Wall Street who can trade on it.

Baird: Now if you’re a political intel guy. And you get that information. Long before it’s public. Long before somebody wakes up the next morning and reads or watches the television or whatever, you’ve got it. And you can make real- real-time trades before anybody else.

Baird says its taken what would be a criminal enterprise anyplace else in the country and turned it into a profitable business model.

Baird: The town is all about people saying- what do you know that I don’t know.

This is the currency of Washington, D.C.

And it’s that kind of informational currency that translates into real currency. Maybe it’s over drinks maybe somebody picks up a phone. And says you know just to let you know it’s in the bill.

Trades happen. Can’t trace ‘em. If you can trace ‘em, it’s not illegal. It’s a pretty great system.

You feel like an idiot to not take advantage of it.

Source: https://www.theblaze.com/stories/60-minutes-are-members-of-congress-trading-stocks-on-inside-information/

Filed Under: America, Banks, Censorship, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Economy, Law, Lobbying, Money, Politicians, Politics, Prison, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Truth, Wealthy Elite

Fracking: Gas Industry Pours $747 Million Into Lobbying And Congress

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

As the oil and gas industry has turned increasingly to hydraulic fracturing to extract reserves, fears about groundwater contamination from the toxic chemicals used in “fracking” have intensified. And that’s prompted a $747 million spending spree by major industry players in an effort to allay those fears and influence key energy committee members in Congress, according to a new report released by Common Cause.

The report, “Deep Drilling, Deep Pockets,” suggests that the industry is pumping cash into the pockets of lawmakers in much the same way it pumps chemicals into tight shale formations to extract oil and gas. Only what it’s extracting from Congress is loopholes in environmental controls, such as legislation in 2005 that exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Common Cause calculates that gas industry leaders have spent $20 million on the campaigns of current members of Congress and another $726 million on lobbying efforts related to fracking over the past ten years. The campaign contributions have increased substantially in recent years, the report found.

Current members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have been recipients of much of this largesse, with Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the former committee chairman, topping the list with $514,945 in contributions. Only three Colorado lawmakers show up in the top one hundred recipients — Doug Lamborn clocks in at 63rd with a measly $96,600, followed by Michael Bennet (69th, $87,595) and Cory Gardner (79th, $77,500).

But with gas-friendly Governor John Hickenlooper insisting that contamination of groundwater from fracking is “almost inconceivable” and Colorado lagging behind other states in requiring disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking, look for more vigorous lobbying on the issue at a state level as the use of the controversial extraction method continues to expand.

The Common Cause report is only one volley in a counter-campaign by opponents. While the American Petroluem Institute has launched a new ad blitz suggesting that unfettered oil and gas exploration will generate a million new American jobs, the consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch is preparing to release a study next week that seeks to debunk those claims.

“Minor employment gains in the wake of shale gas development need to be weighed against the resulting costs to public health, public infrastructure and the environment,” the group claims in a statement touting its study.

More weighing, less pumping? With the Environmental Protection Agency expected to release new findings about potential dangers from fracking next year, the debate is just going to get louder.

Source: https://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/11/fracking_gas_industry_lobbying_747_million.php

Filed Under: America, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Earth, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, Fracking, Gas, Health, Lobbying, Media, Money, Politics, Pollution, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Science, Water

It Does Not Require Many Words To Speak The Truth.

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

At last I was granted permission to come to Washington and bring my friend Yellow Bull and our interpreter with me. I am glad I came. I have shaken hands with a good many friends, but there are some things I want to know which, no one seems able to explain.

I cannot understand how the Government sends a man out to fight us, as it did General Miles, and then breaks his word. Such a government has something wrong about it.

I cannot understand why so many chiefs are allowed to talk so many different ways, and promise so many different things. I have seen the Great Father Chief [President Hayes]; the Next Great Chief [Secretary of the Interior]; the Commissioner Chief; the Law Chief; and many other law chiefs [Congressmen] and they all say they are my friends, and that I shall have justice, but while all their mouths talk right, I do not understand why nothing is done for my people.

I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done.

Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country now overrun by white men. They do not protect my father’s grave. They do not pay for my horses and cattle. Good words do not give me back my children. Good words will not make good the promise of your war chief, General Miles. Good words will not give my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing.

It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises. There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk. Too many misinterpretations have been made; too many misunderstandings have come up between the white men and the Indians. If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble.

Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect all rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat?

If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented nor will he grow and prosper.

I have asked some of the Great White Chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please.

They cannot tell me.

Chief Joseph (Hinmaton Yalatkit)

I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more. I will tell you in my way how the Indians see things. The white man has more words to tell you how they look to him, but it does not require many words to speak the truth.

Chief Joseph

Real Name: Hinmaton Yalatkit

Profile: Hinmaton Yalatkit (pronounced: Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht) “Thunder Rolling in the Heights”, (1840? - 1904), Cheif of the Nez Percé Indians. He was a peace-minded, eloquent political leader and acclaimed military genius. His humane conduct won the admiration of many.

In 1877 the U.S. attempted to force the Nez Percé to move to a reservation in Idaho. Chief Joseph at first agreed but later decided instead to lead 750 of his followers on a trek to Canada. During the three-month, 1,300-mile journey, he brilliantly outmaneuvered and outfought federal troops. He defeated the U.S. Army in 7 major battles before being surrounded and surrendering within 40 miles of sanctuary, the Canadian border. Subsequently the Nez Percé were moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In 1885 they were relocated to the Colville Reservation in Washington state where Cheif Joseph lived for the remainder of his life.

“We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets; that hereafter he will give every man a spirit-home according to his deserts. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.” - Joseph Hinmaton Yalatkit, Nez Perce’ Chief

Suppose a white man should come to me and say, “Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them.” I say to him, “No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them.” Then he goes to my neighbor and says to him, “Joseph has some good horses, I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell.” My neighbor answers, “Pay me the money and I will sell Joseph’s horses. The white man returns to me as says, “Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them.”

If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.

Source: https://people.tribe.net/dancepanther/blog/93a51179-7ff3-4089-9818-8a2a47f81b45

Filed Under: America, Civil Liberties, Corruption, Democracy, Earth, Environment, Family, Genocide, Money, Native American Indians, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Revolution, Rights, Self-Sustainability, Spirituality, Truth, War

Worldwide $1 Trillion Spending Spree On Nuclear Weapons Amidst Economic Crises

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

US to spend £700bn in next decade while Russia and Pakistan among those assigning roles to weapons beyond deterrence

The world’s nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of pounds modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report published on Monday.

Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous “era of nuclear weapons”, the report for the British American Security Information Council (Basic) warns. It says the US will spend $700bn (£434bn) on the nuclear weapons industry over the next decade, while Russia will spend at least $70bn on delivery systems alone. Other countries including China, India, Israel, France and Pakistan are expected to devote formidable sums on tactical and strategic missile systems.

For several countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Israel and France, nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence, says the report. In Russia and Pakistan, it warns, nuclear weapons are assigned “war-fighting roles in military planning”.

The report is the first in a series of papers for the Trident Commission, an independent cross-party initiative set up by Basic. Its leading members include former Conservative defence secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Liberal Democrat leader and defence spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell and former Labour defence secretary Lord Browne.

There is a strong case, they say, for a fundamental review of UK nuclear weapons policy. The Conservatives in Britain’s coalition government say they want to maintain a Trident-based nuclear weapons system. However, they have agreed to a “value for money” audit into a Trident replacement as four new nuclear missiles submarines are alone estimated to cost £25bn at the latest official estimate. The Lib Dems want to look at other options. The paper, by security analyst Ian Kearns, is entitled Beyond the United Kingdom: Trends in the Other Nuclear Armed States.

Pakistan and India, it warns, appear to be seeking smaller, lighter nuclear warheads so they have a greater range or can be deployed over shorter distances for tactical or “non-strategic” roles. “In the case of Israel, the size of its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet is being increased and the country seems to be on course, on the back of its satellite launch rocket programme, for future development of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM),” the report notes.

A common justification for the new nuclear weapons programmes is perceived vulnerability in the face of nuclear and conventional force development elsewhere. For example, Russia has expressed concern over the US missile defence and Conventional Prompt Global Strike programmes. China has expressed similar concerns about the US as well as India, while India’s programmes are driven by fear of China and Pakistan.

Pakistan justifies its nuclear weapons programme by referring to India’s conventional force superiority, the report observes.

In a country-by-country analysis, the report says:

• The US is planning to spend $700bn on nuclear weapons over the next decade. A further $92bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads and the US also plans to build 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, air-launched nuclear cruise missiles and bombs.

• Russia plans to spend $70bn on improving its strategic nuclear triad (land, sea and air delivery systems) by 2020. It is introducing mobile ICBMs with multiple warheads, and a new generation of nuclear weapons submarines to carry cruise as well as ballistic missiles. There are reports that Russia is also planning a nuclear-capable short-range missile for 10 army brigades over the next decade.

• China is rapidly building up its medium and long-range “road mobile” missile arsenal equipped with multiple warheads. Up to five submarines are under construction capable of launching 36-60 sea-launched ballistic missiles, which could provide a continuous at-sea capability.

• France has just completed deployment of four new submarines equipped with longer-range missiles with a “more robust warhead”. It is also modernising its nuclear bomber fleet.

• Pakistan is extending the range of its Shaheen II missiles, developing nuclear cruise missiles, improving its nuclear weapons design as well as smaller, lighter, warheads. It is also building new plutonium production reactors.

• India is developing new versions of its Agni land-based missiles sufficient to target the whole of Pakistan and large parts of China, including Beijing. It has developed a nuclear ship-launched cruise missile and plans to build five submarines carrying ballistic nuclear missiles.

• Israel is extending its Jericho III missile’s range, and is developing an ICBM capability, expanding its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet.

• North Korea unveiled a new Musudan missile in 2010 with a range of up to 2,500 miles and capable of reaching targets in Japan. It successfully tested the Taepodong-2 with a possible range of more than 6,000 miles sufficient to hit half the US mainland. However, the report, says, “it is unclear whether North Korea has yet developed the capability to manufacture nuclear warheads small enough to sit on top of these missiles”.

Iran’s nuclear aspirations are not covered by the report.

Source: https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/30/nuclear-powers-weapons-spending-report

Filed Under: America, Banks, Civil Liberties, Corporations, Corruption, Earth, Economy, Environment, Health, Income Inequality, Lobbying, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, New World Order, Nuclear, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Protests, Radiation, Revolution, Rights, Science, The Hidden Empire, United Kingdom, War, Wealthy Elite, Weaponry

Who Is Waging The War On Terra?

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

This is about as creepy as it gets.

Our planet is clearly under attack. Anyone even half awake can see the world today is careening towards disaster when there is no reason for it. Our resources are plentiful, and the vast majority of people on earth are loving, ethical and well meaning individuals.

However, those in places of authority and economic power appear to be maniacal psychopaths constantly scheming for new ways to use and abuse humanity and its beautiful home called Earth, or Terra.

You name it. Politically, economically, socially, environmentally. It appears we’ve been literally invaded by something foreign to our world and are being systematically abused, dismantled and destroyed.

Just Look at the Nuclear Nightmare No One Notices

Nuclear radiation is showing up everywhere! Never mind the constant death-dealing spray of radiation from Fukus-up-shima, humanity’s being dosed from every which way on this insane planet.

Leftover radiation from decades of nuclear bomb tests, Fukushima showers, cell phones, TSA checkpoints, medical offices, irradiated food, depleted uranium used in the war forum and elsewhere, leaking nuclear reactors…it’s pathetic. And that’s all we know about.

And that doesn’t include the chemtrails and other insane geoengineering “experiments”, managed mega oil disasters and the toxification of our water table via gas fracking and other means, never mind the mad wars being waged worldwide, etc.

Why Are They Doing It?

To reduce the population? Alter our genetic make up? Produce a morphed human race only capable of subservient tasks to please a master race immune or protected from these mutative influences on a deliberately morphed planet?

I know, pretty freaky. But all actually plausible.

Know Your Enemy.

David Icke’s recent interview on InfoWars was just terrific. Follow along when you get a moment as he outlines the potential for just such a scenario. It spurred me to finish this essay which I started over a year ago, but now is clearly the time for it.

How CAN it be!

Personally I like to think how can things like this be true, and not how they’re NOT possible. When it comes to strangeness we need not look beyond our current world.

We just need to look deeper at what’s right before our eyes.

The Terraforming and Depopulation Agenda

Fundamentally this is at the core of much of what we’re witnessing in today’s world. This transformation has been afoot for centuries, drugging and altering and culling the herd to keep it manageable while the would be Controllers attempt to create their perfect, illuminated utopian world…with us as their slaves.

And we’re witnessing a whole new beyond-Orwellian stage now in their war to change and control humanity.

If you’re following the trends and social memes that have surfaced over the past few years, an accelerating pattern unfolds. While our skies are sprayed with chemicals creating a consistent metallic haze worldwide, blocking the sun and poisoning our population, plants, animals, water and soil for future generations, our food chain is also being genetically modified with such reckless state-sponsored abandon it makes your head spin.

On top of that, while more and more chemical toxins are added to our food and water, our population is given vaccines and pharmaceuticals to further alter our natural make up and behavior. The media and science promote our ‘embracing” of new exponentially increasing technological changes and to eventually literally accept chips in our bodies for social and economic control. If you watch closely you’ll see an onslaught of propaganda encouraging us to become “transhuman”, a concept heavily promoted in the music industry and Hollywood.

Why Are They Doing This?

This battle for Earth and the seeming preparation by covert powers for these esoteric plans and purposes has been unfolding for millennia. Let’s look at a few aspects of this struggle for dominion by generations of power mongers a little deeper.

The Front Men Set the Stage

Following is perhaps the most ominous speech in recent history. If you can stomach it, George W. Bush lays down the boundless terms for an international assault on…an emotion. This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where the world is continually fighting far away wars with constantly shifting evil-doing fictitious enemies.

At just before 4 minutes in you’ll hear the ultimate false choice of our age, that sets the stage for the coming war to fully control humanity and usher in the New World Order they’re hoping this will lead to:

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

Not a lot of wiggle room there. And since then that’s exactly what we’ve gotten-less freedoms, more restrictions imposed by the metastasized US State and its internationalist minions. And if you buck it or dare to criticize the State of ‘US’, from the invasive TSA to our Gestapo Homeland Security, you’re gonna see consequences become ‘grave’.

“W” Spells Out the War on “Terra”

One last thing before the script for world domination is dutifully read by Aleister Crowley’s retarded inbred grandson George Jr. Listen carefully to the very beginning of this speech, and tell me if W doesn’t seem to deliberately over Texan-ize the first use of the majorly important word terror to sound eerily like Terra, as in Earth.

Deliberate? Wouldn’t put it past them…one bit. As he goes on he pronounces the word just fine.

Oh how they love to flaunt their program to the “initiated brethren”. (Fine to just listen to the beginning, the rest is nauseating..)

War On Terra? Yup. Worldwide Dominion Is Their Goal

The Illuminati elite and their minions clearly seek to subdue all peoples of the earth in a great culmination of thousands of years of planning, manipulation and wicked social engineering. As we know, true history has been buried, twisted and rewritten by not just the victors, but the Controllers who play both sides.

However, there is a growing awakening sweeping our planet, and as a result essential facts have been coming to light for some time now. Their once secret (or occult) plans and methods are being exposed and brought to light for all to see.

As evidence to the above, I came across this in my research on the War on Terra by passionate researcher and Truth activist Ian Crane..perfect.

This is a DVD where….

“Ian R. Crane links the trauma of contrived oil and food shortages with the plan to introduce GM foods, not only to maximize the profitability of a mature oil & gas industry but also to provide a source of additional taxation for the primary purpose of funding an increasing number of illegal preemptive wars.

As the British Government signs legislation legalizing “scientific research” into far-reaching aspects of Genetic Engineering and Trans-Genetics, the author presents the ever increasing evidence to support his hypothesis that Humanity is under attack by those who believe that they are the rightful rulers of a global dominion.”

Psycho-Social Control - The Illuminati Hegelian Dialectic

First, it’s important to understand how they can subjugate whole nations and populations. This is obviously a huge subject as they use many methods including fear, intimidation, outright fabrications, phony suppositions and even witchcraft and literal mind control techniques in addition to their drugging and food altering technologies.

We watch helplessly as governments rise and fall, markets are manipulated to benefit the same greedy Illuminati robber barons, and society gets shredded with an incessant bombardment of mind-numbing hedonist media confusion.

Push Me, Pull Me: The constant stress of continual cognitive dissonance.

Violence, sex, and rebellion are condemned while being fiercely promoted and popularized at the same time.
In the name of so-called freedom, restraints from political correctness and phony “security” concerns shackle whole populations, which they accept gladly in the face of threats of phony external threats such as “terrorism”.
Supposedly representative politicians make sweeping promises and habitually proceed to do the opposite.
Religions clearly manipulate and easily sway huge masses of fabricatedly insecure people, subjected to an authoritarian hierarchy and told to love a god who will send them to hell if they get out of line.
Child abuse is condemned while it’s known to be rampant and unprosecuted amongst the elite and religious orders.
etc!…

Wecome to dystopia.

Anyone paying attention can see they’re hitting us from all sides. And that’s on purpose…it drives us to a desired place through the use of what’s called the Hegelian Dialectic. In simple practical terms David Icke explains the Hegelian Dialectic as Problem-Reaction-Solution.

Another Example: The environment is under deliberate attack, while they pretend to champion its preservation.

Just observe the deliberate poisoning of our atmosphere with chemtrails and pollutants and unnecessary fossil fuel use, while the Sierra Club condemns us for driving cars or exhaling CO2. Tell me that’s not madness. Then there’s the medicating of our drinking water through fluoride, chlorine, metals and other additives while we’re excoriated for challenging the government’s divine wisdom in doing so. Look at the restrictions imposed on natural medicines and supplements while they peddle dangerous drugs to the tune of multi-billions of dollars. And most horridly perhaps, the genetic modification of the very food we ingest for sustenance-while they outlaw home gardening, seeds and small farms!! Hard to consciously digest, so to speak….

The Truth of the Matter

The world doesn’t have to be the way it is-it’s the mess it’s in because that’s how the manipulators want it.

If Earth’s rightful inhabitants were left to natural and conscious laws of Universal design, we’d have plenty of food, free energy, rational and loving public discourse and happy interaction, and great intuitive conscious awareness where we would naturally align with the energy enhancing laws of the Universe…much like iron filings align and get charged by naturally occurring magnetic energy.

But worst of all for the Controllers or “powers that be”, we’d be empowered, and they’d be out of a job- and no longer able to literally suck our energy and life forces like the vampires that they are.

But Who’s Behind the Illuminati? What’s the Plan?

Researchers have been digging, tracing, connecting dots, speculating and formulating for a long time. Truth has intrinsic power and value, much more powerful than the opposing sorcery that tries to usurp everything for itself.

And the Truth is coming out!

That they could be an alien race of trans-dimensionals, or demon-possessed wicked Satanists out to do their master’s bidding is up for grabs. It could be both. But rather than give you a false choice in the matter, why don’t you figure it out?

Serious Questions Here

Is there a conspiracy and hidden agenda by powerful entities, or is it all just a coincidence and convergence of essentially accidental and random evolution of influences and events? Would powerful people actually meet together and plan or “conspire” for a self-serving elitist agenda toward their idea of utopia that may not be to the liking of the world’s inhabitants? Could they be influenced or controlled to a large degree by powerful alien, trans-dimensional or spiritual entities attempting to execute some esoteric plan?

Hey, who knows for sure. But ancient history from several cultures repeatedly tells the same story of a primordial invasion of earth by another species who interbred with early hominids to create what is now known as homo sapiens. How you gonna deal with that? With religious myths again to keep it at arms length through hierarchical rigmarole?

Time to get conscious. If we really believe we are all consciousness and essentially parts of an infinite Universe, maybe we better start listening to our hearts, challenging the party line and doing some serious research.

Because we are under attack.

Conclusion

The earth and humanity are clearly being transformed, and it’s not by accident and definitely not with our consent, except through our ignorance. If indeed we know the rulers of this world are up to a plan, which you’d be crazy not to believe, then our task is to see what that plan is and do our part to expose and stop it.

The earth is not slowly, but quickly being converted into something other than what it is naturally. The design apparently is that those who survive these manipulated changes will be the support team for these wicked trans-dimensional controllers who can survive just fine in the atmosphere they’re creating. In fact, it will probably support their life form better than the current natural earth does.

A very sci-fi sounding plot?

Actually it’s not that far from many religious teachings. The problem there is manipulated religions keep the masses transfixed on a very narrow, detached narrative, wholly dependent on a self-appointed hierarchy as they wait for the cavalry to save them. While there’s clearly truth mixed in with religious teachings, the paradigms are usually limiting and disempowering.

Meanwhile the Controllers literally get away with murder.

Any way you look at it, humanity is under attack, and they’re pulling out the stops. The more people who wake up to this heinous plot, however you see it, and take conscious action accordingly, the less power they have to execute it.

And as this vibrational change toward greater and greater conscious awareness dawns, like the sun rising after a dark night, the shadows of darkness will surely flee away.

Until then we need to light as many torches as we can!

Source: https://beforeitsnews.com/story/1364/801/Who_Is_Waging_The_War_On_Terra.html?currentSplittedPage=0

Filed Under: Agenda 21, Big Pharma, Biometric, Biotechnology, Campaigning, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, CYBER WARFARE, Earth, Food, Health, Income Inequality, Internet, Law, Media, Military Industrial Complex, Money, Monsanto, New World Order, Police, Politics, Poverty, Propaganda, Psychology, Revolution, Rights, Surveillance, The Hidden Empire

“Experts” Push For Lithium To Be Added To Our Drinking Water

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly 2 Comments

Apparently there are not enough chemicals already added to our drinking water, as there is now a call by “experts” to further poison our water supplies by adding Lithium.

Their main reason is to decrease suicide and violent crime rates.

So it this how we wish to function as a society? Instead of dealing with our issues at hand, let’s drug ourselves so that we don’t have to deal with personal subjects that may be perceived as hard, negative or scary. This is not a time for putting our heads in the sand and pretending or even hoping that an issue will just resolve itself. Where is the personal growth in that? Don’t you feel elated when you resolve a personal issue that no longer hangs over your head or weights on your mind? It is more important than ever to clear ourselves of past issues that we have held onto and allow more room for the new energies coming to earth to take its place within our being.

What is Lithium usually prescribed for?

Bi polar disorder
Agitation not associated with bipolar disorder
Depression and to boost the effect of antidepressants
As a mood stabiliser
Sever Migraine Headaches

“Much like fluoride, lithium alters the brain’s normal production of serotonin and norepinephrine, which in turn artificially alters the way an individual thinks and how he or she feels about a given situation. Lithium is literally a mind-altering, antidepressant chemical substance that those promoting it openly admit modifies brain function. And yet they purport that forcibly inducing these chemical changes on the unwitting populations of the world is a good and acceptable idea.”

“Lithium has been heralded by some experts as the next potential flouride, after scientists found suicide rates were lower in areas where the drinking water had higher concentrations of the element, reports the Daily Mail”

“Time to supplement? Some scientists believe lithium could reduce suicide rates if traces were added to drinking water. The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, analysed a sample of 6,460 lithium measurements and then compared suicide rates across 99 districts.”

If anyone still believes that adding fluoride into our drinking water is a good idea.

What are some side effects of Lithium?

weakness, fever, feeling restless or confused, eye pain and vision problems;
restless muscle movements in your eyes, tongue, jaw, or neck;
pain, cold feeling, or discolorations in your fingers or toes;
feeling light-headed, fainting, slow heart rate;
hallucinations, seizure (blackout or convulsions);
fever with muscle stiffness, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats; or
early signs of lithium toxicity, such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, drowsiness, muscle weakness, tremor, lack of coordination, blurred vision, or ringing in your ears.

Less serious side effects may include:

mild tremor of the hands;
weakness, lack of coordination;
mild nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, stomach pain or upset;
thinning or drying of the hair; or
itching skin.

Adding Lithium appears to be yet another way that our population can be “dumbed down”.

Why would governments want to turn our drinking water into a chemical cocktail?

Perhaps this way society we will be more malleable and less people will be concerned about what is really going on in this world.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/experts-push-for-lithium-to-be-added-to.html

Filed Under: America, Big Pharma, Campaigning, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Democracy, Environment, Family, Health, Law, Lobbying, Money, New World Order, Politics, Population, Propaganda, Protests, Psychology, Rights, Surveillance, Water

US Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obama Health Care

November 14, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up cases challenging the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform.

The court’s decision will likely come in 2012, in the thick of the US presidential campaign in which Obama is seeking re-election, with his health care reform under attack from rival Republicans.

The court said they would consider a request by the Obama administration to declare the measure constitutional, as well as two cases challenging the law, including one case presented by 26 US states.

Opponents say that the most controversial element of the law — mandating that people buy health insurance or face a tax — violates individual rights as set out under the US Constitution.

But the White House said it was satisfied that the issue was being taken up by the nation’s top nine justices.

“We are pleased the court has agreed to hear this case,” said a White House spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, of the law which extended coverage to an extra 32 million people and was a long-held dream of Democrats.

“We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

Republican presidential hopefuls have derided the sweeping reforms as “Obamacare” and have vowed to repeal them if elected to office.

The justices are expected to rule by the end of their term in June 2012, in a judgment likely to reverberate before the November 2012 general election.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/us-supreme-court-to-hear-challenges-to.html

Filed Under: America, Banks, Big Pharma, Campaigning, Capitalism, Civil Liberties, Consumer, Corporations, Corruption, Family, Health, Income Inequality, Law, Lobbying, Media, Medical Industry, Money, New World Order, Politics, Poverty, Privacy, Propaganda, Protests, Rights, Wealthy Elite

Iceland’s New Bank Disaster

Naked Capitalism

How to Survive the Second Depression

22 SIGNS THAT THE THIN VENEER OF CIVILIZATION THAT WE ALL TAKE FOR GRANTED IS STARTING TO DISAPPEAR

60 MINUTES: ARE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TRADING STOCKS ON INSIDE INFORMATION?

The following is a script of “Insiders” which aired on Nov. 13, 2011:

Fracking: Gas Industry Pours $747 Million Into Lobbying And Congress

It Does Not Require Many Words To Speak The Truth.

Worldwide $1 Trillion Spending Spree On Nuclear Weapons Amidst Economic Crises

Who Is Waging The War On Terra?

Just Look at the Nuclear Nightmare No One Notices

Why Are They Doing It?

How CAN it be!

The Terraforming and Depopulation Agenda

Why Are They Doing This?

The Front Men Set the Stage

“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

“W” Spells Out the War on “Terra”

War On Terra? Yup. Worldwide Dominion Is Their Goal

Another Example: The environment is under deliberate attack, while they pretend to champion its preservation.

The Truth of the Matter

But Who’s Behind the Illuminati? What’s the Plan?

Serious Questions Here

Conclusion

“Experts” Push For Lithium To Be Added To Our Drinking Water

US Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obama Health Care

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