The Problem of War on Terror
Just like all the other modern "wars" we run in the USA, the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't working. Here is why:
Terrorists are smart and adaptive people... just like we are. Only, we use war against these people which is like building a gun that you can only fire at a solid wall. It looks impressive but is completely useless. "Terrorists" use this system against us because it's not flexible. When you start a war in Iraq, that's where it stays. They've moved on. We have not.
This is why you cannot fight terror with violence. They don't have the rules that nations do and we can't let them exploit that. They are using it, and we are falling for it.
We should end both these wars. They are illegal anyway, but that is apparently no problem for people. They should be ended because terrorists moved on. The got us stuck there, almost, as they intended. We are emptying our reserves on something so expensive that it costs $400 per gallon of gas and $1,000,000 per year to keep one troop on the ground there. This is insane.
All the while, the Chinese have Universal Health Care. They have a hard time covering all the people yes but their economy is stronger for it. How many decades of double digit growth have they had? Really, the profits on the insurance industry could be kept in the actual businesses that provide value in order to hire more people, make more investments, and grow faster. In the USA we have leeches on the economy. The more they leech, the stronger they get and the harder it is to reform. They have a HUGE lobby branch which they have shown are willing to spend a LOT of money upon.
China doesn't need to go to the moon to make real advancements. They just built the 'world's fastest train link'. In the wealthiest nation in the world, why aren't we doing stuff like that? Ah, it's because we buy nearly everything from China.
We have become a depleted country. A part of that is from the hugely expensive wars we inflict upon the world and a part of it is that we don't save money or produce much any more. The only thing we seem to be really good at is printing money. Even that is starting to look like a destitute adventure.
Fractional Reserve, Banks, and Foreclosures
I've been thinking a lot recently about the banking system in the USA and how banks create money out of thin air (if they have the reserves).
Under the fractional reserve system, banks are allowed to create money through a multiple of their reserves. When they create the money, it becomes the reserves for the next bank and so on and so forth. The reason why this is corrupt is because the banks don't create value. They only create money. They only create money through loans, meaning they own the real value until you pay them back with their fake, newly minted, money
As this crisis continues they have stopped lending.... This has an important side effect. When a bank lends, they create new money. This is the only way a bank will lend because it's virtually risk free for them. They now see money creation as too risky.
The problem we are running into now is that the banks aren't creating new money, ahem, they aren't lending. This can be seen here in the recreated M3:
As banks continue to go bankrupt, their creation of new money dwindles. The effects of which can be seen in the decreasing M3 over the last few months.
This is why the banks continue to get preferential treatment over average citizens. They create the money. New money is ESSENTIAL to the functioning of our economy.
The reason is quite simple actually. When the bank system loans new money, they don't lend out the interest payment. Meaning, a new loan must be taken out by the economy in general to pay the interest of that person (or company). Thus, new money is essential to keeping the race going.
Without new money, more and more people won't be able to pay back their loans. We are already seeing this happen with the never ending "foreclosure crisis."
Until new money is being created by the banks then there is less and less money to be able to pay the banks their interest.
What's really cool about this is that the government has been doing EVERYTHING they can to buoy the balance sheets of banks and they still aren't creating new money. In fact, the banks don't want government money because they can't give themselves billions in bonuses.
The decreasing M3 is due to people paying off their loans. This has an amazing effect of causing less money to be in the system. In essence, if all loans were paid off, there would be no money anywhere.
So in the mean time, more foreclosures will occur both in residential and now commercial real estate. The banks will continue to be in bad shape regardless of how much they legally or illegally manipulate their books. This will cause no new money to be issued thus making the problems worse.
All those people talking about a "recovery" have no idea what's really going on. A company's balance sheet may look good but until the banks start issuing new money, the public will stay in a world of hurt. Foreclosures will remain high and jobless numbers will keep being massaged downwards.
So what are we to do? Well, the government has been trying to fund projects to inject money into the system. The problem here is that the government is getting the money... from the banks! Our government must pay back the interest on that... meaning.... you, me, our children, grandchildren, and, well, generations will be paying back that money.
If the government actual did the constitutional thing, and took the money creation powers back from the banks and reinstalled it with Congress, we may actually have a chance to make it. As it is, I am very pessimistic about the economy due to the fraudulent ponzi scheme run by the Federal Reserve.
Last note, the Federal Reserve has a mission to have a stable currency and try to maintain high employment. They have failed on both account horribly. They have debased the dollar by 95% over the last century, and unemployment is now 20%+ using actual numbers and not the fudged ones produced by the government. A stable currency would mean 0% inflation/deflation over 100 years. A target of 2% inflation per year is NOT stable. It's exponential growth.
Morning Meeting: Nailing the Loopholes in Derivative Reform
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Detroit, Criminalizing Poverty, and our Sad State of Affairs
If you thought this was bad:
SLUMS OF DETROIT: A LOOK AT THE HEART OF AMERICA’S 2ND MOST DESERTED CITY
Then check out this:
Criminalizing Poverty For Profit: Local Government's New Debtors Prisons
In other words, we are starting to lock away by criminalizing their situation. The Nazi's locked away Jewish people. This time it's going to be the poor. I'm not saying that being in poverty means you can do anything against the law but many of the laws we have here in the United States are aimed at a thriving economy with a solid middle class. This balance is starting to change. Our society is starting to reduce away from such standard. We don't have the money to criminalize petty actions any more. Locking these people away is costing much more than the value they add to the society by being free, abet irresponsible.
The banks and government are making us poor through inflation (and bail-outs). They continue to suck out our wealth to fund impossible ideals whether through taxes or inflation, they are the same. We need to stop this idea that both parties have of big government whether for the people or the corporations. Big is just not possible right now. Not with the Federal Reserve and Banking system stealing the wealth of the citizens by inflation and bailouts. We cannot afford to keep this up. Not with us, nor on the international scene.
This is some serious shit people. Every day America is looking more like Collapsing Fascist State: from the corporate control that we can CLEARLY see in the Health System Reform Bill changes, to criminalizing the poor, to perpetual war started on false pretenses, to the over-funding of the military industrial complex, to collapsing states, the commitment and preferential treatment for corporation and especially banks.
This whole system stinks. It smells to high hell of control, rigging, "cronyism," trickle up economics, and, well, fascism. Even the markets seem (in a few cases, are known) to be rigged.
The banking crisis: Till debt us do part
Some governments are borrowing so much that markets are becoming wary and may stop lending to them. Could this be the next leg of the crisis?
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The big fear is that, if economies such as America and Britain were downgraded by the agencies and their borrowing costs rose, the effect would be felt throughout the credit markets, making it more expensive for businesses and emerging-market economies to borrow. It could set back the global economic recovery.It is not all one-way traffic. Some economies in Asia and Latin America have received upgrades or are about to get them. So far, however, they are outnumbered by countries facing downgrades.
If we get down graded, will the Chinese stop taking our fake dollars? What will happen to 95% of all products in Walmart?
Is Sovereign Debt the New Subprime?
To varying degrees, Greece, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Latvia, Mexico are just a handful of the nations viewed at risk of defaulting. Meanwhile, Dubai only just avoided a similar fate thanks to a $10 billion bailout from their oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi.
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Few investors seriously worry about an imminent default by the U.S. or the U.K. But with worries about Dubai's ability to pay its debts shaking markets across the globe in recent weeks, investors are on guard about which other countries might be in dire financial straights.
Who ever wrote this article was a moron. What happens in the future when the U.S or U.K. are imminently going to default? It may not be soon but we have $50-$60 Trillion in obligations coming due and that money isn't going to be from taxes or foreign governments or banks. The U.S. is too big to fail... This time we don't have anyone to bail us out.
Blackwater (Xe) is headed by CIA Asset
Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy
Erik Prince, recently outed as a participant in a C.I.A. assassination program, has gained notoriety as head of the military-contracting juggernaut Blackwater, a company dogged by a grand-jury investigation, bribery accusations, and the voluntary-manslaughter trial of five ex-employees, set for next month. Lashing back at his critics, the wealthy former navy seal takes the author inside his operation in the U.S. and Afghanistan, revealing the role he’s been playing in America’s war on terror.
Is this enough evidence that the government is the corporation and the corporation is the government? This is fascism. Thank you Vanity Fair for exposing this monstrosity of anti-capitalism.
Recent World Events Indicate Impending Market Chaos
Recent World Events Indicate Impending Market Chaos
For the past couple years we have been covering every nuance of the economic collapse and in almost every instance we have come to the conclusion that 2010 would be the year that the U.S. would see an incredible downturn, possibly resulting in the inflationary disintegration of the Dollar, and a major stock market revolt which would destroy any remaining illusion Americans still have that a recovery is in progress:
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=74
http://neithercorp.us/npress/?p=167
We are now on the edge of winter 2009, and recent events across the globe indicate more and more that our predictions for 2010 were correct. Let’s examine some of those events and their implications now…
Dubai: Why Should We Care?
Chinese Banks Frantically Try To Raise Capital?
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Either way, as soon as the Chinese begin pulling capital out of U.S. markets (in which they are heavily invested) we can expect to see the DOW falter drastically.
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Trouble Brewing In Japan
Gold Buying Bonanza By Foreign Central Banks
Bad Signs On The Homefront
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REAL unemployment... is around 18%.
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Real Estate continues to be incredibly weak, and mortgage payment delinquencies and bankruptcy have grown unabated
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Over 125 banks across the country have been closed in 2009.
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The FDIC has announced that it has officially run out of funds
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A climactic economic event is on the horizon, and the train is already in motion.
This article has some good info in it. For more information, go deeper.
The Quiet Coup
The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.
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Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks.
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As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.
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The downward spiral that follows is remarkably steep. Enormous companies teeter on the brink of default, and the local banks that have lent to them collapse. Yesterday’s “public-private partnerships” are relabeled “crony capitalism.” With credit unavailable, economic paralysis ensues, and conditions just get worse and worse. The government is forced to draw down its foreign-currency reserves to pay for imports, service debt, and cover private losses. But these reserves will eventually run out. If the country cannot right itself before that happens, it will default on its sovereign debt and become an economic pariah. The government, in its race to stop the bleeding, will typically need to wipe out some of the national champions—now hemorrhaging cash—and usually restructure a banking system that’s gone badly out of balance. It will, in other words, need to squeeze at least some of its oligarchs.
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In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending. And in each case, that fear became self-fulfilling, as banks that couldn’t roll over their debt did, in fact, become unable to pay. This is precisely what drove Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy on September 15, causing all sources of funding to the U.S. financial sector to dry up overnight. Just as in emerging-market crises, the weakness in the banking system has quickly rippled out into the rest of the economy, causing a severe economic contraction and hardship for millions of people.But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.
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Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world’s most advanced economy, military, and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.
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A whole generation of policy makers has been mesmerized by Wall Street, always and utterly convinced that whatever the banks said was true. Alan Greenspan’s pronouncements in favor of unregulated financial markets are well known. Yet Greenspan was hardly alone. This is what Ben Bernanke, the man who succeeded him, said in 2006: “The management of market risk and credit risk has become increasingly sophisticated. … Banking organizations of all sizes have made substantial strides over the past two decades in their ability to measure and manage risks.”Of course, this was mostly an illusion. Regulators, legislators, and academics almost all assumed that the managers of these banks knew what they were doing. In retrospect, they didn’t.
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In the summer of 2007, signs of strain started appearing. The boom had produced so much debt that even a small economic stumble could cause major problems, and rising delinquencies in subprime mortgages proved the stumbling block. Ever since, the financial sector and the federal government have been behaving exactly the way one would expect them to, in light of past emerging-market crises.By now, the princes of the financial world have of course been stripped naked as leaders and strategists—at least in the eyes of most Americans. But as the months have rolled by, financial elites have continued to assume that their position as the economy’s favored children is safe, despite the wreckage they have caused.
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Even leaving aside fairness to taxpayers, the government’s velvet-glove approach with the banks is deeply troubling, for one simple reason: it is inadequate to change the behavior of a financial sector accustomed to doing business on its own terms, at a time when that behavior must change. As an unnamed senior bank official said to The New York Times last fall, “It doesn’t matter how much Hank Paulson gives us, no one is going to lend a nickel until the economy turns.” But there’s the rub: the economy can’t recover until the banks are healthy and willing to lend.
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The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary.
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At the root of the banks’ problems are the large losses they have undoubtedly taken on their securities and loan portfolios. But they don’t want to recognize the full extent of their losses, because that would likely expose them as insolvent.
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Cleaning up the megabanks will be complex. And it will be expensive for the taxpayer; according to the latest IMF numbers, the cleanup of the banking system would probably cost close to $1.5 trillion (or 10 percent of our GDP) in the long term. But only decisive government action—exposing the full extent of the financial rot and restoring some set of banks to publicly verifiable health—can cure the financial sector as a whole.
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This may seem like strong medicine. But in fact, while necessary, it is insufficient. The second problem the U.S. faces—the power of the oligarchy—is just as important as the immediate crisis of lending. And the advice from the IMF on this front would again be simple: break the oligarchy.
Can we now start by auditing the Federal Reserve?
9/11 Pentagon Attack Videos?
There have got to be tens if not hundreds of video tapes of the 9/11 Pentagon attack.
Why are they not releasing these tapes unless they have something to hide?
Given that it was so long ago, it's no longer really a national security issue... unless there was no plane that hit the Pentagon.
When you look at the building, there is no destruction where the engines of the plane would have hit the building.
I call for the US government to release ALL tapes without edits from the 9/11 Pentagon Attack.
How about these apples?
Markets are starting to see the dark of night
Dollar Fear Trumps Greed in Prices to Protect Against a Rebound
Traders in the $3.2-trillion-a-day foreign exchange market are paying the highest prices in more than a year to protect against a sudden rebound in the dollar after its worst annual performance since 2003.
That possibility may be less remote, according to Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, who says a prolonged period of record-low interest rates may foster the “systemic risk” of new asset bubbles. Dubai’s effort to delay debt repayments reminded traders how the U.S. Dollar Index surged 16 percent in the two months after the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. when investors sought a haven from the turmoil and poured money into U.S. assets.
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The Dollar Index had its biggest two-day gain in a month on Nov. 26-27, rising 1 percent, as Dubai’s proposal to delay debt payments shook investor confidence by risking the biggest sovereign default since Argentina’s in 2001.
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The IMF said in September that banks, which have taken $1.72 trillion in losses and writedowns as measured by Bloomberg since the start of 2007, may have $1.5 trillion in toxic debt on their books.“When viewed from 30,000 feet, there is even a systemic risk that new asset bubbles are in the formative stage,” Gross, the co-chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., wrote in his December investment outlook posted on the Newport Beach, California-based company’s Web site Nov. 19.
It’s not only currency traders that are concerned about a reversal in markets.
Forecasts for the fastest U.S. earnings growth in 15 years are failing to convince equity traders that the S&P 500 will extend its rally. S&P 500 options to protect against declines in stocks over the next year cost 40 percent more than one-month contracts, the biggest premium since 1999, data compiled by Barclays Plc and Bloomberg show.
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The dollar has depreciated 7.4 percent against the euro this year, 24 percent versus Australia’s currency and 21 percent versus the New Zealand dollar.
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JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s G7 Volatility Index rose to 14.43 last month from the low this year of 12.32 in September. The 10- year average before the 2008 credit crunch was 9.9 percent.
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Strategists are cutting their forecasts for the greenback. The dollar will depreciate to $1.55 against the euro by March from $1.49 last week, and to $1.62 by June, according to JPMorgan. Since September, the median June 2010 estimate for Australia’s dollar has risen to 94 U.S. cents from 85, and jumped to 74 U.S. cents from 67 for New Zealand’s currency.
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Any flight to the dollar may prove short-lived, with the Federal Reserve signaling it will keep rates at a range of zero to 0.25 percent for an extended period, according to Axel Merk, president of Palo Alto, California-based Merk Investments LLC.
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“If Dubai signals one thing, it’s that the odds of the central bank policy makers around the world mopping up all the liquidity they’ve provided anytime soon may be rather low,” said Merk, who manages more than $550 million in mutual funds that specialize in currencies.Dollar bears also say the U.S. government shows little concern about the currency’s decline, paving the way for further depreciation. That’s because a weaker greenback has helped to bolster exporter earnings. U.S. exports increased for the last five months, the Commerce Department said Nov. 13.
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The depreciating dollar is proving no deterrent to demand for U.S. financial assets. For every $1 of debt sold by the Treasury this year, investors put in bids for $2.59, up from $2.19 at this point in 2008.
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Traders pushed up the cost to protect against a rise in the dollar after Fed policy makers said last month that their decision to cut rates to zero may be fueling undue financial- market speculation.Its policy of keeping rates low might cause “excessive risk-taking” or an “unanchoring of inflation expectations,” according to minutes of the Nov. 3-4 Federal Open Market Committee meeting. The committee members also said the dollar’s decline has been “orderly.”
In other words, the future is not exactly looking bright. People in the market are starting to act like it. Before it manifests, might i suggest you look at your own state of being and how you relate to the market. You may want to make a few changes before something devastating happens. Maybe something like this:
Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year
Feds ‘Pinged’ Sprint GPS Data 8 Million Times Over a Year
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager who disclosed the statistic at a non-public interception and wiretapping conference in October.
The manager also revealed the existence of a previously undisclosed web portal that Sprint provides law enforcement to conduct automated “pings” to track users. Through the website, authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone.
The revelations, uncovered by blogger and privacy activist Christopher Soghoian, have spawned questions about the number of Sprint customers who have been under surveillance, as well as the legal process agents followed to obtain such data.
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But he said that a single surveillance order against a lone target could generate thousands of GPS “pings” to the cell phone, as the police track the subject’s movements over the course of days or weeks.
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He cites a telecom attorney named Al Gidari who claimed at a talk last year that each of the major wireless carriers received about 100 requests a week for customer-location data. At 100 requests a week for each of the top four wireless carriers, the total should be around 20,000 requests a year.
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There are four circumstances under which law enforcement agents can use the Sprint website and obtain GPS data: 1) under the authority of a court order; 2) to track the location of a customer who has made a 911 call; 3) in an emergency situation, such as tracking someone lost in the wilderness or trying to locate an abducted child or hostage; 4) with a customer’s consent.
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In the case of court orders, Taylor said agents are required to provide Sprint with the order, after which the company provisions the law enforcement account to allow an agency to track the targeted phone number. Court orders cover a 60-day period, and agents can do automated pings to obtain real-time GPS data every three minutes throughout that 60-day period
You should note that 8m divided by 20k is 400 pings per request. There are 1440 minutes each regular day so 480 pings per day per request are allowed. This means that law enforcement is capturing almost a days worth of GPS data per request.
Do you want to bet that AT&T and all the other wireless operators have a similar system? While this is a shocking headline, the numbers aren't horrible. This is what is shocking, "authorized agents can type in a mobile phone number and obtain global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the phone";
What is amazing is the potential for abuse. The phone companies, I'm sure, don't just allow access to your present location right now but have a historical record of where you were. What kind of access do law enforment agents have to that data as well?