The Purpose Behind Engineered Economic Collapse
“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.” — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913
Everyone loves money. Even people like myself who abhor the abuse of money and commerce, who understand the fraudulent nature of the system we live in, still work hard and save so that we might attain a sense of stability within that system. Many people see money as a focal point to their existence. But is it really money that they are after, or is it something else entirely? In truth, money represents ‘security’ in the minds of the masses. Money affords us the ability to survive, and the more of it we have, the safer we all feel. Because we subconsciously associate the extension of our very life with the variable health of the economic structure in which we live, we tend to become unwitting devotees to its continued existence, even if it is corrupt and condemned to failure. We gullibly deny the system or the currency that supports it is doomed to the contrary of all evidence because, even though it has beaten us bloody, we have never known anything else.
In light of this entrenched way of perceiving things, especially in the U.S., it is difficult enough to convince some people that the economy is in fact not providing the security they desire, but is actually destroying their future completely. To explain to them that this is deliberate, that the economy is designed to self-destruct, that is another prospect altogether.
Unemployment: How is this “Recovery” measuring up?
Last week the monthly first time unemployment claims number rose “unexpectedly” to a seasonally adjusted 484,000 new recipients. There are many things wrong with this number other than the fact that establishment economists can never seem to anticipate what is obvious. The first problem with the 484,000 new claims number is that it was seasonally adjusted, the real number is higher. Seasonal adjustments came into being as a means to show stable employment figures around holidays such as Christmas and the vacation season. In the summer months the government has historically used the seasonal adjustment to account for periods in the production cycle of the auto industry where American manufacturers have shut down and not produced any vehicles and laid off huge numbers of workers. To adjust, the government takes out a certain number of people counted among the unemployed to account for the typical seasonal fluctuations. There is a major problem in using a seasonal adjustment this year, the car companies have not shut down this summer and there is no typical fluctuation. It is a knowing manipulation of the headline labor statistics (since the BLS did this as well for the U-3 statistic). This is nothing new of course. When including discouraged workers the broadest U-6 employment metric has unemployment figures north of 16% for some time now. When actually looking at people who never fall into an employment category, independent contractors, the unemployment number is around 22% (John William’s Shadow Statistics). Since contractors such as independent real estate agents, stock brokers, carpenters, etcetera, do not lose a job, they just lose income, they are not employed in the first place to BLS statisticians and are not counted in the ranks of the jobless when they stop getting contracts. Not getting paid and being unemployed is the same thing of course to real people who live outside the calculators of government pencil pushers.
The Ecstasy of Empire
The United States is running out of time to get its budget and trade deficits under control. Despite the urgency of the situation, 2010 has been wasted in hype about a non-existent recovery. As recently as August 2 Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner penned a New York Times column, “Welcome to the Recovery.”
As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear on many occasions, an appearance of recovery was created by over-counting employment and undercounting inflation. Warnings by Williams, Gerald Celente, and myself have gone unheeded, but our warnings recently had echoes from Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and from David Stockman, who excoriated the Republican Party for becoming big-spending Democrats.
DID BUSH AND BLAIR ORDER SCIENTIST’S MURDER?
Dr David Kelly was on a hitlist, says UN weapons expert as calls grow for full inquestBy Miles Goslett and Arthur Martin
A leading UN weapons inspector last night added his voice to the growing clamour for a full inquest into the death of Dr David Kelly.
Dr Richard Spertzel claimed Dr Kelly was on a ‘hitlist’ in the final years of his life.
The former head of the UN Biological Section, who worked closely with Dr Kelly in Iraq in the 1990s, has written to Attorney General Dominic Grieve about the ‘mysterious circumstances’ surrounding the death.
The weapons inspector’s body was found after he was unmasked as the source of a damaging BBC news report questioning the grounds for the Iraq war.
Officially, he took his own life.
Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food
S 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the US. It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money.
“If accepted [S 510] would preclude the public’s right to grow, own, trade, transport, share, feed and eat each and every food that nature makes. It will become the most offensive authority against the cultivation, trade and consumption of food and agricultural products of one’s choice. It will be unconstitutional and contrary to natural law or, if you like, the will of God.” ~Dr. Shiv Chopra, Canada Health whistleblower
Obama closes curtain on transparency
President Obama has abolished the position in his White House dedicated to transparency and shunted those duties into the portfolio of a partisan ex-lobbyist who is openly antagonistic to the notion of disclosure by government and politicians.
Obama transferred “ethics czar” Norm Eisen to the Czech Republic to serve as U.S. ambassador. Some of Eisen’s duties will be handed to Domestic Policy Council member Steven Croley, but most of them, it appears, will shift over to the already-full docket of White House Counsel Bob Bauer.
Bauer is renowned as a “lawyer’s lawyer” and a legal expert. His resume, however, reads more “partisan advocate” than “good-government crusader.” Bauer came to the White House from the law firm Perkins Coie, where he represented John Kerry in 2004 and Obama during his campaign.
Financial Reform or Federal Reserve Power Grab?
Financial Reform or Federal Reserve Power Grab?
Another behemoth 2,000 page liberty eating monster is making its way to the President’s desk. Like other monstrosities before it, the Dodd-Frank bill is birthed by the same blood sucking vampires in government who nearly killed the host in the housing bubbles and subsequent crashes of the CDO markets in 2008. Chris Dodd will be exiting stage right this year, but not before he gives the people of America one more kick in the groin on the way out. Barney Frank, whose escapades and bumbling are so well known that they need not even be discussed here has clearly and definitively proven himself not only incompetent when it comes to regulation or even basic economic understanding but also incredibly corrupt and connected to the people he is supposedly watching. Is this what is really needed to “fix” the markets, more intervention by the very people who engineered them to the brink of total collapse?
Prepare For Another Federal Reserve Whitewash and Power Grab
American citizens who are concerned about the lack of transparency in the nation’s monetary and fiscal policy should prepare themselves for another central banker whitewash. The current financial reform package making its way through Congress is set to expand the powers of the very entity directly responsible for the creation of huge moral hazards which are at the heart of the current financial crisis. This is the same central bank that is involved in the current market distortions gripping the globe. They were directly involved in the creation of asset bubbles, such as housing, that inevitably burst causing great economic pain for everyday people. The current language of the financial reform bill (which some have noted creates a permanent bailout authority) excludes the Paul-Grayson Amendment that would ensure a full audit of the Federal Reserve.
Congressman Ron Paul, sponsor of H.R. 1207 or the “Audit the Fed” bill had the following to say about the potential exclusion of his amendment from the reform bill:
“This Financial Reform bill is set to grant sweeping new powers to the Federal Reserve, which has made a mess of our economy. If my colleagues insist on expanding the power of the Fed, the very least they can do is require the Fed to be transparent rather than secretive in its actions. Luckily, many of the conferees already have demonstrated their concern about transparency by cosponsoring HR 1207, and hopefully those conferees will insist on full transparency in the conference report.”
The Rainbows and Unicorns of the Federal Reserve or The Falling Dominos?
Observation is not a talent or capability of any member of the Federal Reserve.
June 11 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said the U.S. economic recovery is broadening and that the central bank could begin to sell assets from its balance sheet “sooner rather than later.”
Back in the real world, the dominoes continue to fall.
“Greece will eventually default on its debt because the country is highly indebted, Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said on CNBC this morning.”
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/analyst-to-money-managers-take-your.html
When he was Japan’s finance minister, Naoto Kan advocated loose monetary policy to end two decades of deflation.
But since his sudden promotion to prime minister, Kan has been crying out about public debt levels. Today, he even used the signal word for austerity: Greece.
The Phantom Recovery
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/schiff/2010/0607.html
by Peter Schiff, Euro Pacific Capital | June 7, 2010
In recent months, GDP numbers have rebounded – primarily as a result of record low interest rates reliquifying the credit market and government stimulus jolting consumer spending. Although the “positive growth” has delighted Obama’s economic brain trust, it has done little to boost the fortunes of Main Street. As I have said many times, GDP largely measures spending, and spending is not growth.
Last Friday we received the latest indication that the real economy is not recovering in the slightest. The Labor Department reported that non-farm payrolls increased by 431,000 jobs in May. In a press statement, the President himself crowed at the news, noting that the official employment rate fell to 9.7% from 9.9%. However, just inches below the headline, red flags were everywhere. Only 41,000 of those jobs were generated in the private sector – far below the median forecast of 180,000. Even more troubling was the fact that the Census Bureau alone accounted for 411,000 new jobs, which were almost exclusively temporary positions.
