Gold Price
Gold Price

06.19.13- When You Need to Disappear
Mark Nestmann

Whistleblower Edward Snowden needs to disappear if he is to avoid kidnapping, assassination, extradition, or deportation to the United States. If you're ever faced by a situation in which you need to disappear, right away, what would you do?

Perhaps someone is bent on revenge and has threatened to kill you. Perhaps you're caught in an impossible personal or financial situation and you feel that "going underground" is the only way out. Or perhaps like Snowden, you find yourself an enemy of the state.

If you're in such a situation, privacy may be a matter of life or death. You need to be prepared to act quickly, and when the time comes, not to hesitate. Read More

06.18.13- Have Financial Markets
Gone Post-Human?

John Aziz.

(Editor's Note: More than any other single factor, computer trading has tilted the playing field and distorted the markets. worldwide. There is no doubt, whatsoever, that the markets are, not only rigged but, exploited by algorithmic front runners. Unless you are in a position utilize these high-tech computer models that enable you to steal from the majority of participants then, if you participate, you will be stolen from. Unfortunately, there is no regulation and therefor no remedy. - JSB)

So, Thomson-Reuters pays the University of Michigan a million dollars a year to provide selected clients with the results of the latest survey of consumer sentiment 5 minutes before the rest of the world sees them — and to provide higher-paying clients with this information in a machine-readable format ready for algorithmic trading 2 seconds before the rest. Read More

06.17.13- Free Markets, Central Planning and the Family Budget
Szandor Blestman

Recently a Facebook friend of mine commented on a story about austerity not working and made a statement to the effect that therefore Hayek was wrong and Keynes was right. I was quick to race to the defense of Hayek and free markets. I pointed out that we haven't had a truly free market ever and that Keynesian policies had been in place since before Keynes even became a famous economist. I told him that if he was going to give Keynesianism credit for all the good that's come from economic policy, he needed to blame it for all the bad repercussions also. We haven't been vacillating between Keynesianism and free markets, we've been steadily but incrementally becoming more and more a Keynesian economy since at least the inception of the Federal Reserve and the institutionalizing of a fiat fractional reserve central banking system. Read More

06.15.13- Weekend Rant:
3,000 Year Old Logic: Don't Sell Your Gold

Byron King

Recently, the London auction house Christie’s offered for sale what it described as a “stunning piece of jewelry.” Christie’s advertised a solid gold bracelet that’s about 3,000 years old. It dates to the Iron Age, and was unearthed — yes, dug out of the ground — in Portugal, or old pre-Roman Lusitania.

Per the Christie’s fact sheet, the bracelet contains 599 grams (over 21 ounces) of gold. Also, according to Christie’s write-up, this item “clearly demonstrates the technological advancements of the Iron Age,” including the use of high-temperature furnaces and intricate tools specialized for metalworking. Read More

06.14.13- Solari Stories – Location-Based Transparency
Catherine Austin Fitts

This week's Solari Story from Catherine Austin Fitts is titled "Location-Based Transparency." Here's a bit of the transcript:

When I left the Bush Administration I said, "We don't need the government to provide us with annual financial statements. The government is required by law to make much of the data it collects publicly available. All we need to do is take all the databases available in the federal government and make the information accessible in a way that's friendly and interesting." View Video

06.13.13- What use can we really be after capital controls or a currency crisis?
Simon Black

It’s one of the hardest habits to break.

We begin pledging our allegiance to the state before we even know what that means. We learn to sing bombastic, patriotic songs of praise at an age when we don’t understand the vocabulary of the lyrics.

And after years of repetition and social reinforcement, the idealistic devotion to country becomes profoundly ingrained in our personalities.

It’s a lifelong indoctrination underpinned by a deep instinct to belong to something greater than ourselves. Read More

06.12.13- Crushing the Middle Class
John Browne

Like a carefully memorized religious incantation, politicians and central bankers continually stress how their stimulus policies are designed to promote the interests and prosperity of the middle class. Cynical observers may note that this brave political stance may have something to do with gaining the support of the vast majority of voters who identify themselves as "middle class." However, the cumulative effect of their economic programs has achieved the opposite. The middle class is being crushed under increased taxes, negative real interest rates, debased currencies and increasingly intrusive regulations.

A large and healthy middle class is the single most important bastion of democracy and freedom in the modern world. Individuals who identify with the middle class exhibit strong support of their nation and economic system. A small, weak middle class opens the political door to dictatorial control and tyranny. Read More

06.11.13- Why The Surveillance State Must Be Erased
Brandon Smith

In America today there is a great rushing storm, a swirling hurricane of clashing opinions and ideologies that defy coherent organization and classification.  This social tempest has been triggered by certain revelations among the general public on issues which we in the Liberty Movement have long been aware.  The fact that our government is bought and paid for by international corporate interests, the fact that our government has positioned itself to spy on ALL Americans without warrant and without probable cause, the fact that our government is instituting policy initiatives that target common citizens as enemy combatants, the fact that every one of our Constitutional rights is being deliberately torn away; these things are not news to us, but to many once ignorant people, they are a shock to the system. Read More

06.10.13- Unprecedented Wealth, Debt Slavery and Conditioned Consciousness
David DeGraw

Introduction

Seventeen years ago, I read a book called The Evolving Self. Though I didn't realize it at the time, it profoundly affected the direction of my life. Here's the section of the book that became a splinter in my mind and resonated the most with me:

"In order to gain control of consciousness, we must learn how to moderate the biases built into the machinery of the brain. We allow a whole series of illusions to stand between ourselves and reality…. These distortions are comforting, yet they need to be seen through for the self to be truly liberated… to come ever closer to getting a glimpse of the universal order, and of our part in it." Read More

06.08.13- Thinking an Unthinkable:
No Voting Right for Those Living at the Taxpayer's Expense

Dr. Richard Ebeling

(Editor's Note: The following observation, by Dr. Ebeling, strikes a note with me which is both refreshing and gratifying, The consideration that those on the Federal teat should be restricted from participating in an election is a notion that I explored in my November, 2004 essay, The Great Silver Heist. Although, at the time, I was unaware that John Stuart Mill had espoused the idea in 1859, the logic of the idea is irrefutable. Those who champion the welfare state do so either as parasites, or economic predators. Our current crop of so-called representatives falls squarely in the latter category. As I concluded in my here-to-for mentioned essay, the right to vote must be limited to those who do not receive Federal subsidy. I took that concept to its extreme by including anyone that recieved money from the government for any reason. Until that, and other changes, I brought up in "Silver Heist", are implemented, we (those of us who, through the forced extraction of our wealth through taxation) will suffer the throes of a Facist collective. It is always nice to have ones opinions shared by such an esteemed academic. - JSB) Read More

06.07.13- The unspoken qualifications for president of the United States
Jon Rappoport

An announcement: This is satire.

After writing about 150 million Americans going to Mexico, swimming back across the Rio Grande, applying for benefits as immigrants, and becoming instant millionaires…some people believed I was reporting (or misreporting) a fact.

But satire can be more real than reality. (Many things, as it turns out, are more real than reality.)

Television, for example.

Anyway, the period between the election of a president and his inauguration is a fascinating one, because that’s when the shiny new commander-in-chief learns the score. Read More

06.06.13- What if Laws Applied to Everyone?
Andrew P. Napolitano

What if government officials have written laws that apply only to us and not to them? What if we gave them the power to protect our freedoms and our safety and they used that power to trick and trap some of us? What if government officials broke the laws we hired them to enforce? What if they prosecuted others for breaking the same laws they broke?

What if the government enacted a law making it a crime to provide material assistance to terrorist organizations? What if that law was intended to stop people from giving cash and weapons to organizations that bomb and maim and kill? What if the government looked at that law and claimed it applied to a dentist or a shopkeeper who sold services or goods to a terrorist organization, and not just to financiers and bomb makers? Read More

06.05.13- A Political Problem-Not an Economic Problem
Catherine Austin Fitts

Investment banker Catherine Austin Fitts sums up the historic global financial problems by saying, "We have a group of people who have the power to act with impunity.  They are above the law.  They are centralizing and consolidating economic and political power.  We have a political problem.  We don't have an economic problem."  Fitts' analysis shows, "We've been on a debt model, and now we've got to get the planet on an equity model. . . .You are going to do everything you can do to get people into equities.  Slamming precious metals down helps do that."  But Fitts says that won't stop the gold bull because China and the rest of the world are buying the yellow metal.  Fitts contends, "What that means is there is going to be a much more broad-based bull market in gold. . . I think it's going to more of a sound money system, and gold is going to be a part of that." Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, founder of The Solari Report. View Video

06.04.13- Get Ready to be "Cyprused" at a Bank Near You
Christopher Quigley

The banking situation in Europe continues to deteriorate rapidly. As a measure of the ongoing crisis the " Bail In" option used in Cyprus is actually being made European Commission policy. The following is a recent report from the much respected Irish Times:

"Proposals under Irish presidency to deal with European bank collapses likely to 'bail-in' large depositors.

Deposits of over €100,000 are likely to be hit in the event of future European bank collapses, according to a proposal put forward by the Irish presidency of the European Council ahead of a key meeting of finance ministers next week. Read More

06.03.13- Thomas DiLorenzo: More on the Myth of Lincoln, and the 'Civil War'
With Anthony Wile

Daily Bell: Who was Lincoln really and why have you spent so much of your career trying to return Lincoln's academic profile to reality?

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln mythology is the ideological cornerstone of American statism. He was in reality the most hated of all American presidents during his lifetime according to an excellent book by historian Larry Tagg entitled The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln: America's Most Reviled President. He was so hated in the North that the New York Times editorialized a wish that he would be assassinated. This is perfectly understandable: He illegally suspended Habeas Corpus and imprisoned tens of thousands of Northern political critics without due process; shut down over 300 opposition newspapers; committed treason by invading the Southern states (Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution defines treason as "only levying war upon the states" or "giving aid and comfort to their enemies," which of course is exactly what Lincoln did). He enforced military conscription with the murder of hundreds of New York City draft protesters in 1863 and with the mass execution of deserters from his army. Read More

What's the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many—poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc—but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It's hunger, plain and simple. If there's a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it's food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense.

In a 2011 paper, researchers at the Complex Systems Institute unveiled a model that accurately explained why the waves of unrest that swept the world in 2008 and 2011 crashed when they did. The number one determinant was soaring food prices. Their model identified a precise threshold for global food prices that, if breached, would lead to worldwide unrest. Read More

It is becoming a foregone conclusion that Cyprus was just the beginning of the new bail-in plan taking root in the world of finance. The mentality of the banking industry is that they will continue with their machinations as long as people are dumb enough to go along. The majority of Americans still live under the assumption that their bank accounts are safe and any loss will be covered by FDIC. Like a thief in the night the banking industry has changed the rules allowing the theft of bank deposits in such a way that FDIC insurance will not kick in to reimburse depositors. Many banks have sent their customers revised banking agreements in the last several months knowing that most never read these statements and throw them away. These new policies will not become known to most people until it is too late for them to protect themselves. Read More

05.29.13- It's Not About Obama...
Brandon Smith

In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution gained general victory against the empire's sovereign, Czar Nicholas Romanov II, a monarchal ruler widely considered despotic and inhumane in his treatment of the Russian citizenry.  After the dethroned Romanov family was summarily executed by former members of the military, the Bolshevik rampage continued against the remnants of the "White Russians", culminating in a bloody civil war.  In the minds of the common populace, the communist propaganda was legitimate.  The people had been terribly oppressed, and the world war in Europe was draining any hope of prosperity they had left.  The Russians were ready for an abrupt and even violent change in their political leadership. 

However, unbeknownst to them, a great upheaval was about to be supplied for them.  Their anger and rage, their revolutionary spirit, was about to be exploited to produce vast gains for international interests and create a massive experiment in collectivist tyranny that would span decades and claim millions of innocent lives.  Read More

05.28.13- The Attempt to Destroy the Individual
Jon Rappoport

"What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It’s the individual that’s finished. It’s the single, solitary human being that’s finished. It’s every single one of you out there that’s finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It’s a nation of some two hundred odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings and as replaceable as piston rods." — Howard Beale, in Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 film, Network

But that was only a movie. Who cares about that? You go into a theater, sit there in the dark for a couple of hours, walk out, and think about something else. Read More

05.27.13- Fuzzy Treasury Math and Its Consequences
Nomi Prins

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably false. Especially if it involves math, the Treasury Department, and two disparate political camps championing two different economic doctrines.

Yet, so goes the current telling of the deficit story. When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) proclaimed that its projected deficit for 2013 had dropped to $642 billion, there was nary a question asked about how that number was conceivable. Read More

05.25.13- Weekend Rant: The individual vs. the collective in the Matrix
Jon Rappoport

In the 1950s, before television had numbed minds and turned them into jelly, there was a growing sense of: the Individual versus the Corporate State.

Something needed to be done. People were fitting into slots. They were surrendering their lives in increasing numbers. They were carving away their own idiosyncrasies and their independent ideas.

Collectivism wasn’t merely a Soviet paradigm. It was spreading like a fungus at every level of American life. It might fly a political banner here and there, but on the whole it was a social phenomenon and nightmare.

Television then added fuel to the fire. Under the control of psyops experts, it became, as the 1950s droned on, the facile barrel of a weapon:Read More

05.22.13- A Real Life Thelma and Louise:
the US and the EU

Jeff Thomas

Thelma and Louise was an interesting film, released 1991, about two women who merely sought to escape their respective unpleasant home situations and went for a drive down the highway.

However, in their pursuit of a bit of relief, happenstance and bad judgement led them into ever more serious difficulties. As each new problematic event presented itself, it seemed that Thelma and Louise chose the most immediate solution, which only served to deepen their dilemma. At the film's end, they found that they had arrived at a dire ultimatum: a choice between prison and a drive off a cliff.

Today, we can see a parallel between this film and the current economic situation. Read More

05.21.13- Hungary Destroys All Monsanto GMO Corn Fields
Anthony Gucciardi

(Editor's Note: Longtime readers will appreciate the fact that my stance on Monsanto and other agri-multinationals of a similar ilk, that make up a group, owned, controlled and promoted by elite eugenicists, is wrought with disdain, because I believe that they are attempting to depopulate the world. This puts them in the company of "Public Enemies", a group that I address everyday. But then, don't get me started... - JSB)

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods. Read More

05.20.13- The Talk is that the Internet Tax Will Become a Law
David Schectman

Dow Jones Industrial Avg Graph

Every one dollar in three is spent on the economy comes from the U.S. Government.  The Government borrows 43% of every dollar it spends.  This is clearly not sustainable.

The dollar is rising against everything!  Yen, Euro, Yuan and all other currencies.  Talk about the "best of a bad lot!"  We are in real trouble – could the rest of the world be in even more trouble?

If you go by the strength of the dollar, the answer is yes, because they are not coming over here to buy virtually zero percent bonds.

Last night Susan and I had dinner with our friends Terry and Sharon.  They are also long-time Miles Franklin clients.  Terry asked me how many people complain to us about the drop in prices.  I told him very, very few.  He was surprised.  But, when you think about it, it is not at all that surprising. Read More

05.18.13- Biggest Bubble About to Burst
Deepcaster

"Nothing is normal: not the economy, not the financial system, not the financial markets and not the political system.  The system remains still in the throes and aftershocks of the 2008 panic and the near-systemic collapse, and from the ongoing responses to same by the Federal Reserve and federal government.  Further panic is possible and hyperinflation is inevitable. 

"The economic and systemic solvency crises of the last eight years continue.  There never was an actual recovery following the economic downturn that began in 2006 and collapsed into 2008 and 2009.  What followed was a protracted period of business stagnation that began to turn down anew in second- and third-quarter 2012.  The official recovery seen in GDP has been a statistical illusion generated by the use of understated inflation in calculating key economic series (see Public Comment on Inflation).  Nonetheless, given the nature of official reporting, the renewed downturn likely will gain recognition as the second-dip in a double- or multiple-dip recession. - John Williams, Shadowstats.com, 05/03/2012 Read More

05.17.13- FDR: Sowing the Seeds of Chaos
David Stockman

When FDR Got the Gold

The long-lasting imprint from FDR's famous "Hundred Days" did not stem from the bank holiday, national industrial recovery act, the farm adjustment act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or the public works administration.

Instead, it is lodged in the footnotes of standard histories; namely, FDR's April 1933 order confiscating every ounce of gold held by private citizens and businesses throughout the United States. Shortly thereafter he also embraced the Thomas Amendment, giving him open-ended authority to drastically reduce the gold content of the dollar; that is, to trash the nation's currency. Read More

05.16.13- Flashback: Watergate, Nazis, Nixon, Rockefeller
Jon Rappoport

Watergate eventually became the story of two young rookie reporters who exposed and took down a president.

Try to think of another major story in your lifetime where the reporters themselves took center stage, and in the process nearly eclipsed their own work. Odd.

One of them, Bob Woodward, expanded his fame. The powers-that-be permitted him to go on and, with extraordinary access, write books criticizing future presidents. Woodward became the in-house attack dog. Mr. Limited Hangout.

The other reporter, Carl Bernstein, faded into relative obscurity. Well, he began connecting journalists to the CIA. That wasn’t a smart career move. That was, perhaps, a case of biting the hand that had fed him. Read More

05.15.13- Welcome to the official beginning of the digital age!
Jeff Berwick

When I first heard that the Internet had finally come to fruition in 1994, I could hardly contain my excitement as I'd been waiting for it since I got my first computer in 1981. When I heard about the Internet 13 years later I didn't even know what anarchism really was or had heard the word libertarian, but I instinctively knew that most problems in the world could be solved if people would just have more of an ability to communicate and to get access to real information. Having grown up in Canada, I was certain that the government's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was not giving me the full and truthful picture of the world!

However, by around 2002, eight years later I was becoming a bit sad. Everything I hoped that would come from the Internet hadn't yet happened. Heck, most of the things I had hoped hadn't happened. Many people were just starting to use email and the world wide web regularly at that point. YouTube was still three years from being created as the bandwidth simply wasn't yet there to host and play millions of videos per day. Even mySpace hadn't even been launched until a year after that. And, it's already a distant memory. Read More

05.14.13- Gangster State America
Paul Craig Roberts

There are many signs of gangster state America. One is the collusion between federal authorities and banksters in a criminal conspiracy to rig the markets for gold and silver.

My explanation that the sudden appearance of an unprecedented 400 ton short sale of gold on the COMEX in April was a manipulation designed to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy has found acceptance among gold investors and hedge fund managers.

The sale was a naked short. The seller had no gold to sell. COMEX reported having gold only equal to about half of the short sale in its vaults, and not all of that was available for delivery. No one but the Federal Reserve could have placed such an order, and the order came from one of the Fed’s bullion banks, one of the entities “too big to fail.” Read More

05.13.13- What if television news disappeared and we invented ourselves?
Jon Rappoport

NBC News is in the process of appointing a new chief. The purpose? To rearrange what is already false reality, to make it more interesting and dramatic.

The desperate networks are grasping at straws. Their ratings reflect a continuing audience exodus.

I once wrote that, if tomorrow the top news anchors admitted they were drag queens, the whole country would immediately collapse. That’s how fragile America actually is.

I’ve updated that comment, because the USA is now so tolerant the top anchors could come out as collies or toasters and everyone would feel compelled to consider the revelation with warm regard.

So here is the new formulation: If tomorrow, television news disappeared completely, the human mind would lose its mirror and chaos would ensue.Read More

05.11.13- Weekend Rant: On Benghazi and 'Expendable Faggots'
Ann Barnhardt

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, along with the rest of the regime players, murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens. It was a hit. It wasn't incompetence. It wasn't deer-in-the-headlights collective inaction. It wasn't a kidnapping plot gone wrong. It was a hit.

The whole incompetence argument is simply the domain of moral and intellectual cowards who insist upon seeing the world through rose colored glasses and deny objective reality. My contempt for these people knows no bounds. It's one thing to be stupid. It is quite another to be a coward. Cowardice is a pure moral choice. This is why courage is the fruit of the Third Sorrowful Mystery (the crowning with thorns). If courage was a genetic phenotype, as baseline intelligence largely is (as opposed to willful ignorance), then Our Lord would not desire that we pray for the grace of courage every day. Show me someone arguing that the Obama regime is incompetent and I'll show you a quivering little coward. Read More

05.10.13- One no-brainer reason to set up a foreign company
Simon Black

The worldwide movement to tax, confiscate, and regulate everything imaginable turned a new page earlier this week when the “Marketplace Fairness Act” passed in the US Senate.

The bill still needs to clear the House of Representatives. But its fundamental purpose, enforcing state sales tax for online transactions, is almost guaranteed.

Even if they don’t manage to successfully push the bill through this time, they’ll just re-propose a new version of it in a few months’ time until it finally passes and destroys the digital economy.

First, there’s the obvious consequence of the end-user consumers having to give governments more of their hard earned savings to pay for bombs, drones, and body scanners. Read More

05.09.13- 'They Make a Desert, and Call It Peace'
Jesse's Café Américain

"When in any country the small-farmer class is being squeezed off the land; when its labourers are slaves or serfs; when huge tracts are kept waste to minister to pleasure; when the shibboleth of art is on every man's lips, but ideas of true beauty in very few men's souls; when the business-sharper is the greatest man in the city, and lords it even in the law courts; when class-magistrates, bidding for high office, deal out justice according to the rank of the criminal; when exchanges are turned into great gambling-houses, and senators and men of title are the chief gamblers; when, in short, 'corruption is universal, when there is increasing audacity, increasing greed, increasing fraud, increasing impurity, and these are fed by increasing indulgence and ostentation -when such is the tone of society, and such the idols before which it bends, a nation must be fast going down hill. Read More

05.08.13- Crisis
Ol' Remus

Yes, there was a crisis-free America within living memory, roughly the Eisenhower years of 1953 to 1961, when we were the last man standing after two decades of unexampled global mayhem. It was a weird era, serene and twitchy at the same time. For instance,we were warned the economy would capsize if first class postage went up a penny, that rock'n roll music would fatally compromise the youth, and so forth. Nobody actually worried overmuch about such things. What was happening was the adult generation, battered and weary from the Depression and the Second World War, wanted only to be left alone. Uninteresting times were hard to come by so leave the stamps alone, leave the music alone, leave everything alone, cantcha? Read More

05.06.13- The Financial Press:
A Disinformation Machine

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Dear Readers: If you have not read "You Are The Hope" (the second item below) please do so now and make a donation. Due to readers' inquiries about last Friday's job numbers, I have had to shorten the time between the quarterly appeal and a new posting. Also, those who have asked if there would be a second printing of How The Economy Was Lost, that book is now available on the CounterPunch website in electronic form. For those readers who have asked for a print version of The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism, one might soon be appearing.

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) says both the jobs report and unemployment rate are "nonsense." Read More

05.04.13- Weekend Rant: Why didn't the US just attack Afghanistan with Monsanto GMOs?
Jon Rappoport

It would have been so simple. Flood Afghanistan with Monsanto GMOs. Truckloads of seeds. Tanks full of Roundup herbicide. Result? Nutritionally deficient food crops, chronic disease, poisoning with Roundup. Perfect.

And we know how to do it, because we’ve been doing it to ourselves for almost 20 years. We’ve got it down.

GMO ballot labeling initiatives in Afghanistan? Are you kidding?

Plus…and this is a big winner, Monsanto scientists could have developed a GMO poppy seed. Throw those babies in the growing fields and you’d have gotten some Franken-opium variety. Wildly unpredictable effects. And sprayed with Roundup? Junkies all over the world would rather go cold turkey than shoot that stuff. Read More

05.03.13- Ron Paul + Jim Rogers on the government: "They'll use force and they'll use intimidation…"
Simon Black

The world is truly an enormous place… and, despite the dearth of good news and positive trends out there, I still see a lot of amazing opportunities in my travels.

But it’s really important to remain grounded about the challenges that face us. As I pen this letter to you, in fact,

- The NSA’s Utah data center, which will intercept every phone call, email, and tweet sent across the Internet, is nearing completion.

- The Marketplace Fairness Act, which will create additional sales taxes on US-based Internet transactions, is set to pass the Senate next week.

- The government of Cyprus just passed the final bail-in measures, officially authorizing the direct confiscation of people’s savings in that country’s banking system. Read More

05.02.13- Coming Clean Beyond the Fiscal Cliff
Catherine Austin Fitts

Washington's negotiations to address the fiscal cliff of automatic tax increases and spending cuts legislatively triggered at the close of 2012 are the latest in an ongoing effort to address increasing U.S. federal government deficits and debt levels. Enormous monetary and fiscal stimulus has failed to produce an economic recovery. In short, the U.S. government and central banks have failed to dig out. Instead, they are now dug in deeper. What to do now?

What is missing from this and other debates on the reengineering of the U.S. federal finances is an understanding or discussion of the structural problems in the federal finances that have been accumulating since WWII, when the United States - with 6% of the world’s population - found itself the master of 50% of the world’s resources. Read More

05.01.13- Financial Treachery & Harsh Consequences
Jim Willie CB

The Fascist Business Model came into vogue in 2001. The merger of state with the largest of corporations, primarily the big banks, the big defense contractors, the big news media networks, and the big pharmaceuticals, has created a chokehold around the neck of the nation, without 5% recognizing the function of the model during the strangulation in progress. The merger with the deeply corrupted corporations in power became standard fixtures following the 911 attacks, an elaborate self-destruction of the fundamental structure of the nation and its priorities by the syndicate. Think a massive elaborate bank heist of gold bars, bearer bonds, and diamonds, but such discussion belongs in other venues. Let it be said that the events of September 2001 were the syndicate coming out party and the Patriot Act their Nazi Manifesto, with painfully little recognition of events by the sheeple masses or the subservient press talking heads. Read More

04.30.13- Connecticut Begins Gold Dealer Shutdown
Jeff Berwick

If you don't own gold yet, you might really want to hurry up and get some. We keep saying it, but this time it's not just because physical precious metals are getting incredibly scarce. Purchasing gold may become outright illegal if what's going on in Connecticut is any indication. Even if Connecticut's plan to track all gold sales isn't a harbinger for a modern day Roosevelt-like ban on gold ownership, it will at the very least drive gold bullion dealers out of business with the cost of complying with the new regulation. That will create artificial scarcity in Connecticut and could set a precident for other US States. Read More

04.29.13- The Worldwide Church of the Evening News
Jon Rappoport

The march of idiots is an interesting subject for investigation.

The collectivized mind is wired to other minds, and they exchange gibberish to feel whole.

People are addicted to crap. They like it. That’s why they watch the news. That’s why they believe the news.

It’s time for a worldwide Church of the News, with its own priests, its own symbols, and its own prophets. In other words, go to the extreme. Why fiddle around? Bring things out in the open.

Brian Williams would be a saint some day. The great ancestors, like Ed Murrow, Cronkite, and Chet Huntley would be celebrated figures in testaments. Read More

04.27.13- Weekend Rant: Fed Frauds
Don Stott

We are daily surrounded by lies, theft, and fraud, perpetrated by the D.C. Gang, who thinks nothing about it and as far as I know, has not a smidgen of guilt or remorse about the continual flow of exaggerations, and scams which originate in the environs of Washington D.C.  Examples are not difficult to identify.  The following are but a few.

(1) 9/11.  There is no possible way that four Arabs could have commandeered planes and flown two of them in the World Trade Centers.  Those buildings did NOT come down because a couple of planes flew into them!  No experienced pilot could have flown a giant jumbo jet into the Pentagon, using the flight path described by the government.  There was no wreckage of a plane outside the Pentagon!  There are hundreds of other facts which totally prove that 9/11 was no where near what the D.C. Gang would have you believe.  Lots of books and DVD's prove it too.  Google 9/11 facts and buy a couple to convince yourself. Read More

04.26.13- Obama Begins Push for New National Retirement System
National Seniors Council

It may be time to take the tax hit and withdraw funds from private retirement accounts before they are forced into long term T-bonds.
The Obama administration is reportedly quickly moving on plans to nationalize private 401k and IRA retirement accounts, and replace them with government sponsored annuities(aka Treasury bonds that the Treasury currently can't sell to anyone but the Fed).

National Seniors Council Director Robert Crone warns: "This whole issue is moving forward very quickly. Already there is a bill requiring all businesses to automatically enroll their employees in IRA plans in which part of every employee's paycheck would be automatically deducted and deposited into this account. If this passes, the government will be just one step away from being able to confiscate all these retirement accounts." Read More

04.25.13- "The Battlefield is the United States of America"
Simon Black

When you’ve got a guy like Senator John McCain who says “The battlefield is the United States of America,” it tells you that almost nothing is safe in the Land of the Free.

Whatever remains of civil liberties is going to feel the full brunt of the state’s boot heel.

They’re already regulating some of the most fundamental aspects of life, from how we are allowed to educate our children to what we can / cannot put in our bodies to the very nature of money.

People are forced to hold their savings in insolvent banks backed by insolvent insurance funds backed by insolvent governments. And those insolvent governments have demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to directly confiscate accounts. Read More

04.24.13- Aftershocks
James Howard Kunstler

If the FBI can track down two homicidal Chechen nobodies inside of forty-eight hours of their Boston bombing caper, you kind of wonder how come the Bureau can't detect the odor of racketeering, insider trading, and wire fraud in this month's orchestrated smackdown of the gold futures markets, including the parts played by the Federal reserve, one or more too-big-to-fail banks, self-interested big money players such as George Soros, slumbering regulators at the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and tractable editors at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times

Of course, US Attorney General Eric Holder, who oversees the FBI, has done a fair imitation of a Brooks Brothers store window mannequin for four years, but surely somewhere in the trackless labyrinth of American law enforcement there exists some dogged rogue investigator with a filament of nagging curiosity who might piece together the clunky train of events that may amount to the financial crime of the century. Read More

04.23.13- Why Libertarianism Is So Dangerous
School Sucks Podcast

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04.22.13- Correlation & Causation of Gold Price with Paul Craig Roberts
Max Keiser

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04.20.13- When Gold Has No Friends
Andy Sutton

There are likely, at minimum, half a dozen reasons for the swift correction in precious metals over the past week. The real reason might be one, two, or even all of what I'm going to lay out below.

I'm going to go way out on a limb here. Right now gold has no friends. Even some of its biggest proponents are declaring the bull market to be over. The deflationists are loving this as it gives them ammo. I have gone on the record several times as stating there is no way we can have hyperinflation given what currently exists as a monetary reality. And I've also explained why, while readily admitting that could certainly change. That said; I am not a deflationist either. I recognize that regardless of how the dollar standard ends, the banksters will arrange the chess pieces so that they win. And in the arrangement of those chess pieces is the accumulation of vast amounts of gold, and to a lesser extent, silver. That is a fact that cannot be denied. Read More

04.19.13- The Fate of Fiat
Peter Souleles

I have come across the above item on eBay. It is selling at $60 for a 2 pound bag. It is not an illegal drug and it would not be much good for smoking either. It is simply shredded US currency and this lot is advertised as containing approximately $10,000 of US shredded currency.

That is correct, with shredding, 94% of the original value is gone and that is based on the presumption that these packets are keenly sought after at $60, which I somehow doubt. And then I thought about gold and silver. You can cut them into little pieces, ground them to dust, beat them to the thinness of a leaf, stretch them, melt them and soak them and yet they are still worth the same. Read More

03.18.13- Felons in Charge of Our Largest Financial Institutions-Professor William Black
Greg Hunter

Former bank regulator and Professor William Black says, "Apparently, regulators are much more sophisticated than we were because we had never thought of leaving felons in charge of our largest financial institutions."  Dr. Black contends, "This started with the first lie of the virgin crisis–that the banks are pure and had stopped violating the law.  The second lie is that we can't prosecute . . . because if we did, we would cause the financial system to collapse.  This is ludicrous."

Dr. Black predicts, "The U.S. banking system is absolutely primed for the next meltdown.  Dr. Black and others think, "There is pervasive fraud at the most reputable banks. . . . The U.S. financial system is sick, and we still have the fundamental dynamic of a regulatory race to the bottom."  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with UMKC Professor William K. Black.  Read More

Editor's Note: I started "The Bear" to explore, on a daily basis, how current events will affect your pocketbook.

Over the last twelve years, it has become apparent to me that a rogue government has more affect on your pocketbook than any other thing.

Consequently, because a rogue government does not represent the people but rather it enriches itself through the selling of favors to the banksters, the effect tends to be terribly negative.

People are finally waking up and learning the truth . . . after hundreds of documented examples. This clip from early 2010 is worth replaying in light of the Boston Marathon Bombing. - JSB) Read More

04.16.13- Down in the psyche of the individual, there still burns a flame
Jon Rappoport

I’ve been working as a reporter for 30 years, and during that time, I’ve spoken with numerous mainstream reporters and editors, off the record, who’ve confirmed that:

They are absolutely not permitted to take down a major government institution for any reason. No matter how many horrendous crimes that institution or department commits, it will never disappear. It will never vanish in the night. It will never turn to dust.

That may seem quite obvious, but it’s only because we’ve become conditioned to believe that government can never shrink in size.

Off the top of my head, there are three agencies of the federal government that should be stripped of all their power, de-certified, and disbanded. Once that’s done, wholesale reorganization could take place—if there were honest people to do it. MORE

One of my favorite pundits, John Mauldin, released a recent missive, The Theology of Inflation. His newsletter, Thoughts from the Frontline, has been enlightening subscribers for the past thirteen years. In a recent installment he features the insights of another exemplary thinker, Anatole Kaletsky, who, in his missive, Trying to Fix Broken Economics, explores the faux science of economics. I say faux, because, as he points out, fully half of the field is made up of Keynesians, who I hold in the same regard as eugenicists.

Given that our country's leading (most popular) economist is Paul Krugman, whose accolades include a Nobel Prize, and given that Mr. Krugman is a Keynesian, we can confidently surmise that, generally speaking, the current state of the practice of economics in our country (and the world, for that matter) is dismal. It was comforting to have Mr. Kaletsky provide the basic questions of economics distilled into a single paragraph: MORE

04.13.13- Weekend Rant:
The New "American Way"

Bill Fox

Recently, our friend Michael (a local realtor) shared his experience with an "Obama supporter" he encountered while showing homes to a low income, working family in Pontiac, MI.. We asked him to please write it down so we could share it. Michael says:

As a Realtor for the past 28 years I thought I'd seen or heard it all. Until now. I was showing homes in Pontiac, MI. one afternoon recently and showed up at a home at the 4:00 pm time my appointment was scheduled for. After I woke up the homeowner, she let us in and then proceeded to tell my buyers and I that she has already entered into a contract to sell the home on a short-sale. (A short-sale is a sale where the banks accepts less money than is owed on the home). After some chit-chat, she proceeded to tell us that she and her sister (who also lived in the area) were buying each other's homes via the short-sale process. I mentioned to her that I thought relatives could not be involved in those transactions. She smiled and said "We have two different last names so no one knows the difference". Read More

04.12.13- Cyprus Misses Chance at Starting Bitchcoin
Peter Souleles

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

Cyprus has over the centuries been bought, sold and conquered numerous times. Its people have however managed to endure all trials and tribulations. This morning however I awoke to confirmation that the confiscation of bank deposits in March was nothing more than the first instalment of a process whereby its people, its sovereignty and its sovereign assets are to be sold in quick succession. Yes, the Cypriots have been sold out by their own leaders who history will judge to be either stupid or traitorous and perhaps both.

The latest is that the probe that had been announced seeking details about large transfers out of Cyprus prior to the confiscation news, has been suspended. Read More

04.11.13- Outlook 2013 - The Irreversible Trends Driving Gold to $10,000
Nick Barisheff

The long-term “irreversible” trends I’ve discussed in detail in my upcoming book, $10,000 Gold, continue to develop. Many of the trends, such as debt creation and the movement away from the U.S. dollar, are accelerating and their consequences are appearing globally. Today we will interpret how these developments will likely affect the price of gold over the coming year and beyond.

Perhaps the most prevalent indication that something is amiss with the world’s economy is a sense of malaise that many have been experiencing—a distrust in the financial system and the government. A U.S. Gallup poll, completed at the end of November 2012, found politicians to be the second least trusted individuals in society next to car salespeople. Sharing bottom marks were bankers, journalists, business executives, state governors and insurance salespeople. By contrast, nurses were the most trusted. Read More

04.10.13- Wake Up, Before The Finale Takes All You Have
Roxanne Lewis

SOCIAL SECURITY funds were moved to the general budget and spent in 1998 when Clinton claimed this $69 billion surplus. That year the government spent $30 billion more than its revenue stream. Social Security has been run like an illegal Ponzi scheme. I guarantee that the new “Entitlement Benefit” will become a means tested welfare program with benefits available only to the very poor. If you have a 401k or pension or home, guess what? You won’t get it.

Now our government has now proposed that because it is unfair that some people own 401K plans, ROTH’s or pensions and rationalize that because these products have performed so poorly in the past decade (was that our fault too?) that our government is much better suited to insure their stability by taking over their control and investing them in government bonds. Nobody wants our bonds but you are going to be forced to hold them for our retirement security. Read More

04.09.13- The next domino: Australia doubles tax on retirement savings
Simon Black

Though Australia’s national balance sheet is comparatively quite strong, the government has been running at a net deficit for years… and they’re under intense pressure to balance the budget.

The good news is that Australia now has a goodly number of investor-friendly immigration programs designed to bring productive foreigners into the country, similar to the trend we’re seeing across Europe.

On the flip side, though, the Australian government has just announced new rules which penalize citizens who have responsibly set aside savings for their own retirement. Read More

04.08.13- US Government to Decide How Much is Enough for Your Retirement
Jeff Berwick

Welcome to the new US.  Socialism always has the same predictable process.  Once the government collectivizes a sector then the politicos and bureaucrats get to work on "improving the system".  In a private enterprise, that'd mean offering more to your customers for a cheaper price.  In government, it is always the opposite, finding ways to reduce benefits for their "customers".

This is why Obamacare is and will be a disaster to anyone interested in having quality medical care and choice in the US.  Once the government uses its force to gain a monopoly on a sector like medical care then all of a sudden it now becomes everyone else's business what you do with your own body.  You smoke?  You should be stopped!  Don't wear a seatbelt?  You should be fined.  Why?  Because we are all paying for each other's medical care and so it now becomes everyone else's business what you do with your health because it could potentially cost them more money. Read More

04.06.13- I Suspect They'll Take The Pension Plans Next
Tekoa Da Silva

"I Suspect They'll Take The Pension Plans Next; I For One Am Worried, And I'm Taking Preparations" - Jim Rogers

I was able to reconnect for an interview with legendary Quantum Fund manager and commodities bull, Jim Rogers. This was an especially groundbreaking interview, as Jim shared thoughts on what governments around the world will be taking next, and what he’s doing right now to protect his personal bank accounts following the Cyprus collapse. Read More

04.05.13- Leaked offshore data shows who the real criminals are
Simon Black

Secret. Dirty. Sham. Shadowy. Illicit. Fake. Covert. Questionable. These are typically the words used to describe the world of offshore asset protection in mainstream media.

The classic presumption is that if you go offshore– foreign bank account, overseas safety deposit box, foreign trust, foreign corporation, etc.– then you MUST be doing something wrong.

This is an absurd conclusion and only highlights how brainwashed most people have become.

The world has become a gigantic financial nudist colony, full of government agents who pry ever more deeper into our nether regions looking for loose change betwixt the sofa cushions. Yet people are all too willing to comply. And anyone who shows up with a bath towel is branded a criminal or financial terrorist. Read More

04.04.13- The Cruel Game
David Stockman

Even the tepid post-2008 recovery has not been what it was cracked up to be, especially with respect to the Wall Street presumption that the American consumer would once again function as the engine of GDP growth. It goes without saying, in fact, that the precarious plight of the Main Street consumer has been obfuscated by the manner in which the state’s unprecedented fiscal and monetary medications have distorted the incoming data and economic narrative.

These distortions implicate all rungs of the economic ladder, but are especially egregious with respect to the prosperous classes. In fact, a wealth-effects driven mini-boom in upper-end consumption has contributed immensely to the impression that average consumers are clawing their way back to pre-crisis spending habits. This is not remotely true.Read More

04.03.13- Chemical warfare against the nation right under our noses
Jon Rappoport

Thirty years ago, Nancy Reagan launched her version of the war on drugs: "just say no." p

She campaigned on that slogan all over America.

She was lampooned as an idiot.

Now, some researchers estimate that 60% of the Mexican economy would crash if the drug business disappeared there. We have US street gangs operating as retailers for Mexican cartels. We have Mexican cartel soldiers living in suburban homes outside American cities, guarding rooms piled to the ceiling with cash.

US banks are laundering drug money. In Mexico, battling cartels have murdered 50,000 people over the past several years. Read More

04.02.13- You May Be A Dangerous, Paranoid Doomsday Prepper If…
Tom Chatham

Commentators are always quick to link guns and emergency stores to dangerous and paranoid actions that they consider to be tell tale signs someone is going to commit a crime. They always focus on these areas because it is a trait mostly seen in conservatives that know enough to question the governments' ability to take care of every problem that emerges. In short, if you are not a Liberal that needs the government to make all of your decisions for you and care for you on a daily basis then there must be something wrong with you.

Any deviation from the norm of unpreparedness is a danger sign to these people that you are out of control and need to be stopped, detained and heavily medicated to assure compliance. Only when you are obedient to the state are you normal and safe. So what signs do you look for in a person or group that should make you suspicious? Read More

04.01.13- A Message to the Bottom 90%
Peter Souleles

Has anyone ever wondered why no insurance company is game enough to insure bank deposits and nuclear power plants?

The answer is simple, no premium (as Chernobyl, Fukushima and Cyprus have proven) would be great enough to make it a profitable policy for the insurer. And even if there could be a profitable policy, it would not be affordable to either the industry or the consumer.

This implies that both banks and nuclear power plants are inherently dangerous because they both suffer from design and component weaknesses. In the case of banks they centre around the issues of fractional reserve banking, leveraging, borrowing short and lending long, greed and fraud. In the case of greed and fraud it is my observation that they morph into stupidity in their final phases. Read More

03.30.13- The Black Budget
Katherine Austin-Fitts

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03.29.13- Video: An American Recovery: Police Restrain Hundreds of People Begging For Food As Officials Opt To Throw It In the Trash Rather Than Help
Mac Slavo

When SunTrust Bank bank foreclosed on the Laney Supermarket grocery store, managers were left with thousands of pounds of food and nowhere to put it. So, they decided to move non-perishable items to the parking lot for those who might need it. As news of the give-away spread throughout the neighborhood, a crowd numbering in the hundreds quickly swooped in. Read More

03.23.13- Weekend Rant: Freedom and Private Property Versus Criminal Government and Banks
Szandor Blestman

There's a meme in the world of debate that once you start to compare the politics of today to the politics of Germany during Hitler's reign the debate is over and you've lost. So, I'm going to start this article by comparing modern American politics to Hitler's Germany and other 20th century collectivist political schemes. The point of this beginning is to do so. If you don't want to read further, than don't. You see, I don't buy the meme. Such a meme is developed, in my humble opinion, simply because some people don't want to face the growing evil and choose instead to remain willfully ignorant as to what has been happening in the land that was supposed to be a beacon of individual freedom shining to the world. Read More

03.22.13- Time To Plan For The Worst Rather Than Hope For The Best
Brandon Smith

Preparation for disaster, whether natural or man-made, should be as vital as any ideal found in the various practices of religion and spiritualism. Preparedness should be treated with reverence, discipline and duty. The drive for preparation should be seated in the very heart of humanity. As individuals and as a society, we should hold preparedness dear, for it is an expression of the desire for survival and the key to maintaining our inherent freedoms. Without self-sufficiency, we set ourselves up for endless failure and enslavement.

Preparedness must be approached with passionate resolve; otherwise, there is no point. Halfhearted survivalists are just as likely, if not more likely, to get themselves killed as the average oblivious urbanite and suburbanite. Unfortunately, even in the liberty movement, I have come across many halfhearted and lazy survivalists who would rather hope for the best than prepare for the worst. Read More

03.21.13- The Sales Tax Price-Fixing Conspiracy Act of 2013
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

One of the main lessons of microeconomics is that price-fixing cartels among businesses always collapse eventually because of cheating by one or more members of the conspiracy. Once one conspirator is revealed to have given secret discounts, the rest know that they'd better follow suit or they will become bankrupt – the price cutter will capture the entire market if they don't.

A second lesson is historical: Having failed over and over to increase profits with price-fixing conspiracies, many industries have historically recruited the heavy hand of government to enforce the price-fixing conspiracy. The Interstate Commerce Commission enforced a railroad and trucking industry cartel; the Civil Aeronautics Board enforced the airline cartel for more than half a century; and state and local regulatory commissions have enforced cartel pricing in the "public utilities" industries for generations. Read More

03.20.13- After The Banksters Steal Money From Bank Accounts In Cyprus They Will Start Doing It EVERYWHERE
Michael Snyder

Cyprus is a beta test.  The banksters are trying to commit bank robbery in broad daylight, and they are eager to see if the rest of the world will let them get away with it.  Cyprus was probably chosen because it is very small (therefore nobody will care too much about it) and because there is a lot of foreign (i.e. Russian) money parked there.

The IMF and the EU could have easily bailed out Cyprus without any trouble whatsoever, but they purposely decided not to do that.  Instead, they decided that this would be a great time to test the idea of a "wealth tax".  Read More

03.19.13- A Fiscal Lesson in Cyprus for Americans
Jacob G. Hornberger

Once again, the European Union is teaching Americans what lies at the end of the road of out-of-control federal spending and debt. Cyprus is the latest country that has required a bailout. But this time, the authorities have crossed the Rubicon in how they have addressed the problem.

The basic approach to overextended EU countries is to grant them immediate bailout money to enable them to make payments on their debts and other expenses, including their massive welfare doles to their citizenry. As a condition to receiving the bailout money, the EU requires the government to slash expenses, especially by reducing payments to the dole recipients, and to raise taxes. Additionally, bondholders have been required to take a loss on their investments. Read More

03.18.13- An Orwellian America
Gordon T Long

As a young man, I voraciously read George Orwell's "1984",  Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Alvin Toffler's trilogy which included "Future Shock"', "The Third Wave" and "Power Shift".

During the era of the Vietnam War, I wondered seriously about the future and how it was destined to unfold.

Now being considerably older, I have the vantage point to reflect back on my early ruminations and expectations. Read More

03.16.13- When Truth Is Suppressed Countries Die
Paul Craig Roberts

Over a decade during which the US economy was decimated by jobs offshoring, economists and other PR shills for offshoring corporations said that the US did not need the millions of lost manufacturing jobs and should be glad that the "dirty fingernail" jobs were gone.

America, we were told, was moving upscale. Our new role in the world economy was to innovate and develop the new products that the dirty fingernail economies would produce. The money was in the innovation, they said, not in the simple task of production. Read More

03.15.13- The Real Story
Martin Armstrong

Often what is reported in the press is the synthetic-homogenized version of facts it is hard to say who they are really trying to fool, the people or government regulators who as Madoff said are stupid. I have no time for such nonsense.

Wild stories of grand conspiracies that claim there are people pulling the strings in a giant well thought out plan attributes way too much expertise that does not exist. They are flying by the seat of the pants trying to make immediate profits with no vision as to three steps ahead.

Look at Goldman Sachs. Yes they sold the day of the high in 2007 in line with our model. But clearly not enough. These people are like dogs running the race track in Florida chasing the fake rabbit without a clue where they are going. Read More

03.14.13- Federal Finances and Law
Katherine Austin-Fitts

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03.13.13- Let's Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can't Afford the Future
Adam Taggart

Unemployment, Taxes and Unfunded Retirement are Squeezing Each Generation

The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled, through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality.

But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.

It became assumed that the future would be more prosperous than today, irrespective of the actual steps being taken in the here and now. Read More

03.12.13- The Hard Road Ahead
John Michael Greer

The latest round of political theater in Washington DC over the automatic budget cuts enacted in the 2011 debt ceiling compromise —the so-called “sequester”—couldn’t have been better timed, at least as far as this blog is concerned. It’s hard to imagine better evidence, after all, that the American political process has finally lost its last fingernail grip on reality.

Let’s start with the basics. Despite all the bellowing on the part of politicians, pressure groups, and the media, the cuts in question total only 2.3% of the US federal budget.  They thus amount to a relatively modest fraction of the huge increases in federal spending that have taken place over the last decade or so. Read More

03.11.13- The International War on Cash
Joseph Salerno

The relentless  waged by governments worldwide has perhaps gone furthest in Scandinavia. The ostensible reason given by our rulers for suppressing cash is to keep society safe from terrorists, tax evaders, money launderers, drug cartels and sundry other villains, real or imagined.

But the actual aim of the recent flood of laws rendering cash transactions less convenient or limiting or even prohibiting them is to force the public at large to make payments through the financial system in order to prop up the unstable fractional-reserve banks and, more importantly, to expand the ability of governments to spy on and keep track of their citizens’ most private financial dealings. One ingenious friend from Norway has fought to protect his right to use cash by invoking his government’s own legal tender laws against it. Here is his story in his own words: Read More

03.09.13- Mark Levin: Government Is "Simulating the Collapse of Our Financial System, the Collapse of Our Society and the Potential for Widespread Violence"
Mac Slavo

Along with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, leading conservative radio host Mark Levin reaches tens of millions of listeners weekly, and what he talked about recently on his nationally syndicated show has sent shivers down the spines of many of them.

A few years ago this was fringe theory, restricted only to the sphere of alternative (conspiracy) news. Read More

03.08.13- The US Economy is Doomed
Xtranormal

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03.07.13- Our Disintegrating Government
Karl Denninger

There's only way to look at this folks.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder's stunning admission that it was difficult to prosecute large banks because of the potential economic impact may be a turning point of the drive to break them up.

It's not stunning at all. It is, however, an admission of what we have known for years.

Now the pants of "Nobody committed any crimes" have in fact been artfully dropped to the floor and what's in our face is the ugly anatomical truth that crimes were committed and intentionally ignored. That is something that Congress and the Administration had better fix -- right now. Read More

03.06.13- The Disaster of Central Planners and Other Simpletons
Bill Bonner

The Dow is still rising...gold is dawdling.

And we're still thinking about how so many smart people came to believe things that aren't true. Krugman, Stiglitz, Friedman, Bernanke - all seem to have a simpleton's view of how the world works. They believe they can manipulate the future...and make it better. Not just for themselves, but for everyone. Where did such a silly idea come from?

Aristotelian logic came to dominate Western thought after the Renaissance. It is essentially a forerunner of 'positivism', which is supposedly based on objective conditions and scientific reasoning. 'Give me the facts,' says the positivist, confidently. 'Let me apply my rational brain to them. I will come up with a solution!' Read More

03.05.13- And Now, for Something Entirely Different: Miracle: no one shot by strawberry tart shaped like a gun
Jon Rappoport

Josh Welch. Seven years old. Park Elementary School, Baltimore. Bit off pieces of strawberry tart, trying to make shape of mountain. Tart ended up looking like gun. Josh suspended for two days. No bullet wounds reported.

On top of all that, the students at Park Elementary were sent home with a letter stating there had been a disruption at the school.

So far, no federal troops have been deployed to guarantee the security of the students.

I can think of a solution to this problem. Every pupil at Park Elementary should make a gun out of his/her next strawberry tart. All at once. An armed rebellion. Read More

03.04.13- The Obvious Hypocrisy of Tyranny
Szandor Blestman

If tyranny was a living being, it would be a strange and marvelous creature. By that I don't mean it would be a good thing, I mean it would be something to gaze upon and marvel at, much like a dangerous or poisonous animal. One could appreciate its qualities, but one wouldn't want to get too close for fear of being attacked or bitten.

In many ways, tyranny engrosses the human mind, hypnotizing the observer with its brilliance and power. At the same time the observer knows he should back off and carefully put some distance between himself and the creature, yet he is enticed to creep just a little closer, to see just how close he can get to test his mettle. This is a dangerous practice which we know can end up in disaster. Read More

03.02.13- The Missing Recovery
Paul Craig Roberts

Officially, since June 2009 the US economy has been undergoing an economic recovery from the December 2007 recession. But where is this recovery? I cannot find it, and neither can millions of unemployed Americans.

The recovery exists only in the official measure of real GDP, which is deflated by an understated measure of inflation, and in the U.3 measure of the unemployment rate, which is declining because it does not count discouraged job seekers who have given up looking for a job.

No other data series indicates an economic recovery. Neither real retail sales nor housing starts, consumer confidence, payroll employment, or average weekly earnings indicate economic recovery. Read More

03.01.13- The Fiscal Cliff and Gun Control
Catherine Austin-Fitts

Read More

03.28.13- Gritty Questions on the Historic Collapse
Jim Willie CB

The typical articles over the last many years have featured a particular theme. In the last few months, the central theme in Jackass articles has been the isolation and demise of the USDollar, how it is happening, why it must happen, and its importance in the restoration of the global financial structure. But this week, a sudden urge has come to address an overwhelming list of critical gritty questions. They crop up with clients, colleagues, and friends.

More than a crisis, it is more accurately described as a collapse of a corrupt inequitable monetary system, and a desperate defense by the major Western bankers to preserve their power over nations and their governments, alongside a vile vicious violent attempt by the United States to maintain its privilege as owner of the vast USDollar counterfeit machinery. Read More

02.27.13- LIBOR: Viewing the Biggest Financial Crime in History
Darwin Bond-Graham

It’s been five years since a few academics and journalists began to dig up evidence that something was wrong with the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate, or LIBOR (pronounced appropriately as “lie-bore.”) The data that curious researchers were compiling couldn’t be explained using the prevailing definition of what LIBOR supposedly was: a trustworthy interest rate that accurately gauged the market price of borrowed US dollars held overseas by the world’s biggest banks. Instead, their findings pointed toward something other than an idealized neoliberal market, influenced only by impersonal supply and demand forces. Many began to realize that the data could easily be explained if the banks were rigging the LIBOR rate in their favor. Strange discrepancies in LIBOR’s correlation to other rates, and to the economic fundamentals of the bank companies responsible for formulating the rate, showed something seriously amiss, but it made sense if the banks were cheating. Read More

02.26.13- It's Always the
Best Time to Buy

Jim Quinn

"The continuing shortages of housing inventory are driving the price gains. There is no evidence of bubbles popping." - David Lereah, NAR mouthpiece - August 2005

“The steady improvement in home sales will support price appreciation despite all the wild projections by academics, Wall Street analysts, and others in the media.” - David Lereah, NAR mouthpiece/economist - January 10, 2007 Read More

02.25.13- Don't be Afraid to Take a Big Step;You Can't Cross a Chasm in Two Hops.
Johnny Silver Bear

We are getting very close, economically speaking, to catastrophic collapse. I know I've been saying this for years, but back then, I thought it was years off. Now I think it might be months, or even weeks. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the collapse will be the result of a willful conspiracy by "those who would be kings" or the result of the actions of out of control morons. As stated by Mark Twain , oh so many years ago: "I often wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who put us on, or imbeciles who really mean it." I have been predicting the day when the general population will wake up as a result of a swift kick in the butt and a slap in the face. This, unfortunately, will not be a cathartic awakening, as those slapped will have no clue as to where the blow comes from, or who did it, or why. Read More

02.23.13- The Trigger has been pulled, the Crash has begun. How are things going to play out? My take…
InvestmentWatch

We have obviously crossed the threshold folks, things are falling apart by the day and the game of Kick the Can has at long last gone as far as it can. The rest of the World no longer has a choice, the United States is no longer the big bully on the playground who won WWII and their fingers are no longer so firmly around the throat of the planet. The long lunatic nightmare of Bernanke monetary ponzi schemes cannot continue.

It will be interesting to see what their plan is to try and switch the U.S. (and possibly the World) to a new currency system. My take? Read More

02.22.13- Tyrant v Statesman
Martin Armstrong

Why do cycles work? Because indeed history repeats since the passions of man never change regardless of the centuries. The majority are always wrong for, like Marx, they ignore HOW things function and prefer to believe only WHAT pleases their expectations. It is not that someone need be clairvoyant, all they need do is read history for it is both the script for how to create and destroy civilization, as well as the solution if we dare to truly learn HOW things function instead of merely pleasing our expectations. Read More

02.21.13- Axiom 4: A Blueprint To Restore The Articles of Confederation
Ron Holland

The restoration of America's first and legitimate government will not be a quick or easy task but it is necessary if we are to survive as a free people and nation. While the US should, of course, retain both the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we must return to a decentralized confederation structure of government like Switzerland or Canada and add in the right of Swiss style referendums so citizens can terminate or initiate legislation when Congress fails to follow the will of the people. Read More

02.20.13- The Moral Decoding of 9-11: Beyond the U.S. Criminal State, The Grand Plan for a New World Order
Prof. John McMurtry

(Editor's Note: We bring to the consideration of our readers this incisive and carefully formulated analysis by Canada’s renowned philosopher Professor John McMurtry. - JSB)

I was sceptical of the 9-11 event from the first time I saw it on television. It was on every major network within minutes. All the guilty partieswere declared before any evidence was shown.The first questions of any criminal investigation were erased.  Who had the most compelling motives for the event? Who had the means to turn two central iconic buildings in New York into a pile of steel and a cloud of dust in seconds?[i] Read More

02.19.13- But Don't Rule Out Malice
Ryan Scott Welch

There is an adage that reads "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity... but don't rule out malice." This is known as Heinlein's or Hanlon's Razor (there is only a slight difference between the two). Unfortunately many people only go by the first part of Heinlein's Razor, leaving out the "but don't rule out malice" part.

People using this heuristic decision-making shortcut often think that even though some things that people do seem very suspect, and even though mental red flags are going up and instinctive alarms are sounding, that there must be some explanation, other than malice, to explain the actions of people. Read More

02.18.13- A Universal Truth
Richard Mills

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information

Fascism is a totalitarian system of government that bases its economy on capitalism, it’s a marriage of government authority and military/police power managed by corporate influence.

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Consider the following, all are characteristics of fascism: Read More

02.16.13- Who Tells Us What To Think?
Does The Mainstream Media = The Matrix?

Michael Snyder

Do you believe that you really think for yourself?  Did you come up with your attitudes, opinions and beliefs on your own, or are they continually being shaped and molded by someone else?  Could it be possible that you and everyone around you is actually hooked into a real life version of "the matrix" that is constantly defining your reality for you?  Sadly, the truth is that almost all of us have willingly hooked ourselves into a colossal media system that literally tells us what to think. Read More

02.15.13- Gun Rights: Are There Any Peaceful Solutions Left?
Brandon Smith

Throughout history, citizen disarmament generally leads to one of two inevitable outcomes:  Government tyranny and genocide, or, revolution and civil war.  Anti-gun statists would, of course, argue that countries like the UK and Australia have not suffered such a result.  My response would be - just give them time.   You may believe that gun control efforts are part and parcel of a totalitarian agenda (as they usually are), or, you may believe that gun registration and confiscation are a natural extension of the government's concern for our "safety and well-being".  Either way, the temptation of power that comes after a populous is made defenseless is almost always too great for any political entity to dismiss. Read More

02.14.13- Economy Haunted by 'Ghost of Inflation Past'
John Skerencack

A good way to work a scam is to put a microscope on a short-term trend and pretend it is a reversal of the main trend. "Global Warming," for example. About 15,000 years ago there was a sheet of ice 5,000 feet thick over New England. As the ice age ended it melted away, and as a result sea levels rose about 390 feet. So you can say with confidence, the long-term trend is melting ice, and rising sea levels. All this happened without any human input at all — a mile of ice melts, sea levels rise 390 feet. Now, in the past 140 years, more ice has melted, and sea levels have risen about a foot. Read More

02.13.13- The ruthless State of the Union: the current crime boss speaks
Jon Rappoport

Perhaps it’s presidents running down the whole laundry list of issues, but it seems to me the last dozen or so State of the Union speeches by presidents could put a galaxy of insomniacs to sleep.

Originally, the State of the Union was the president talking to Congress. Now we all know no one from the Senate or the House is going to move a new inch by anything the president says in his speech. Read More

02.12.13- Revitalization of the State Militias: Review of Edwin Vieira's 'The Sword and Sovereignty'
Nelson Hultberg

On April 19, 1775, the battles of Lexington and Concord on the outskirts of Boston ignited the conflict that led to the most momentous political event of man's history - the Declaration of Independence and the birth of America. In the early morning hours of that day, a command of British troops was dispatched from Boston to search out and confiscate stores of militia weapons and supplies at Concord. On the way they confronted a small and unimposing band of armed American militia at Lexington. The British Major John Pitcairn shouted out, "Ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse; damn you, disperse! Lay down your arms!" Read More

02.11.13- The Real New World Order. Bankers Taking over the World
John Kozy

Europe at the beginning of 1914 consisted of six major empires and an assortment of minor states that the major empires didn’t care much about. The six major empires, (the Austro-Hungarian, French, German, British, Ottoman, and Russian) were ensnared in military alliances (much like the US is today) which were formed to keep the peace. The diplomats, like those today, believed that forming alliances that balanced the powers of different groups would keep them from attacking each other. Read More

02.09.13- Weekend Rant:
The Road To Collapse and Tyranny

Tom Chatham

The western world as we know it will not last much longer in its' present form. The architects of this collapse will extract as much of the wealth as they can before they finally pull the plug and watch as the nations tear themselves apart from within. Make no mistake, this is a designed collapse and has been planned for decades. Keep in mind that real wealth is made up of hard assets like precious metals, land, production equipment, mineral resources and businesses that produce a physical product. These are the assets that the engineers will take possession of just prior to the total collapse of the affected nations. Read More

02.08.13- Watch The Financial Markets In Europe
Michael Snyder

Is the financial system of Europe on the verge of a meltdown?  I have always maintained that the next wave of the economic crisis would begin in Europe, and right now the situation in Europe is unraveling at a frightening pace.  On Monday, European stocks had their worst day in over six months, and over the past four days we have seen the EUR/USD decline by the most that it has in nearly seven months.  Meanwhile, scandals are erupting all over the continent.  A political scandal in Spain, a derivatives scandal in Italy and banking scandals all over the eurozone are seriously shaking confidence in the system. Read More

02.07.13- Legislating Morality
Don Stott

(Editor's Note: There is no such thing as a "victimless crime". The morons that pass such legislation are only trying to line their pockets. The same holds true for "debts to society". Criminals should be held responsible for repaying their victims for damages, both actual and punitive. As Don points out at the end of this missive, Standard and Poor was fined $5 billion. Why was it paid to the Federal Treasury, instead of all the pension funds that took the hit? Criminals all. - JSB)

Every law ever passed, which attempts to control people's actions, in the name of religion, honesty, health, bad habits, or what have you, has failed miserably, and without exception.  Be it gambling, prostitution, drugs, abortion, alcohol, or for that matter driving, all such laws were utter failures.  Let's examine a few of them. Read More

02.07.13- Compromised
Ol' Ramus

In addition to trashing habeas corpus and posse comitatus, in addition to authorizing warrantless searches and mandatory health insurance, Congress is considering another outrageous gun law. This one not only disregards the Second and Fifth Amendments at least, it relies heavily on ex-post facto provisions. They're crossing the line, again. The central government is charged with defending the people's rights and civil liberties, not to diminish them and demand the people show cause why they shouldn't.

A right requires no justification, no demonstration of need, it merely is. The people do and should have the right to keep and bear arms of their own choosing, the same small arms police officers or light infantry have, if they wish, including fully automatic weapons. There's no such thing as common sense infringement, or reasonable infringement. Infringement is infringement. It's specifically forbidden. Read More

02.06.13- Sheeple: Another Look At A Sad Breed
Brandon Smith

Some phrases are endowed with immediately recognizable symbolism.  When we hear them, we instantly know who and what the phrases are referring to, and can even gain a greater depth of understanding to a particular situation just by applying them.  They cause us to step outside our environment and look at it in an entirely different way.  They might make us laugh, they might make us cry, but we are not indifferent to these affecting words.

Throughout history there have always been people who were right, and usually a "majority" that were wrong, on any single issue.  Defenders of institutionalized ignorance argue constantly that truth is "relative", and that they should not be criticized for having their own "opinions".  They use this relativism as a cover for their unwillingness to admit a lack of knowledge. Read More

02.05.13- Revolving Zombies
Bill Bonner

The defining characteristic of a zombified system is the way it hands out its rewards. In an honest economy, people do their best. They work hard. They take their chances. Some prevail because they are productive. Others are just lucky. The chips fall where they may.

But as the system is taken over by zombies, the chips fall where they are told to fall. Rather than to honest and efficient producers, the rewards go to those who curry favors.

Elizabeth Fowler knows how it works. She labored at the left hand of senator Max Baucus, drafting the collection of crimes and punishments that came to be known as 'Obamacare.' Senator Baucus admitted that he had better things to do than actually read it. But he didn't have to. Read More

03.04.13- How To Restore the West
Ron Holland

By any political, cultural or economic measure the nations of the West are in total decline. The historic virtues of hard work, free-market thinking and a common cultural integrity as well as religious and historical principles are gone. They have been subverted and replaced by an emphasis on rampant materialism and a consumer driven society that exceeds 70 percent of GNP in addition to private and public debt. Furthermore, a kind of parasitism has laid claim to Western culture by which sports stars, politicians, media darlings and financial scam artists get recognition and exorbitant incomes while real workers find their incomes falling and promised benefits curtailed. Read More

Seventy-five Percent of US Citizens Don't Trust Government
Daily Bell

A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds the nation is increasingly distrustful of the federal government: 73 percent don't have faith that lawmakers - members of Congress in particular - will do the right thing. Judy Woodruff asks Andy Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, for more details and historical context. - PBS Newshour

Dominant Social Theme:

This has been going on for a long time and is nothing new. When the economy improves, people will feel better. Read More

02.01.13- The Linchpin Lie: How Global Collapse Will Be Sold To The Masses
Brandon Smith

In our modern world there exist certain institutions of power.  Not government committees, alphabet agencies, corporate lobbies, or even standard military organizations; no, these are the mere "middle-men" of power.  The errand boys.  The well paid hitmen of the global mafia.  They are not the strategists or the decision makers. 

Instead, I speak of institutions which introduce the newest paradigms. I speak of the hubs of elitism which have initiated nearly every policy mechanism of our government for the past several decades.  I am talking about the Council On Foreign Relations, the Tavistock Institute, the Heritage Foundation (a socialist organization posing as conservative), the Bilderberg Group, as well as the corporate foils that they use to enact globalization, such as Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Carlyle Group, etc.
Read More

01.31.13- The Politics of Debt in America
Steve Fraser

From debtor's prison to debtor nation

Shakespeare’s Polonius offered this classic advice to his son: “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”  Many of our nation’s Founding Fathers emphatically saw it otherwise.  They often lived by the maxim: always a borrower, never a lender be.  As tobacco and rice planters, slave traders, and merchants, as well as land and currency speculators, they depended upon long lines of credit to finance their livelihoods and splendid ways of life.  So, too, in those days, did shopkeepers, tradesmen, artisans, and farmers, as well as casual laborers and sailors.  Without debt, the seedlings of a commercial economy could never have grown to maturity. Read More

01.30.13- 'Better Than Cash Alliance' Backed by Bill Gates to Usher in Cashless Society
Brandon Turbeville

It appears that while Bill Gates was content to play the role of Microsoft innovator and billionaire philanthropist early on, he has decided that the second half of his life deserves a more open and slightly more honest twist.

Indeed, in recent years Bill Gates and his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have funded a variety of initiatives aimed at reducing population, promoting toxic vaccinations, and now hyping and funding the development of the cashless society. Read More

01.29.13- Prosecutorial Misconduct is Killing the Economy
Martin Armstrong

The view of the American Justice System is so bad outside the United States that young lawyers take these jobs to make a name for themselves so they can get those big paying jobs. The bad ones get hired like lobbyists at law firms to try to have inside contacts because they have been there so long. But the problems economically with not prosecuting the bankers making them the “Untouchables” who keep blowing us up is not just destroying New York City, but it is causing capital to shift and is one component behind the shift to China as the Financial Capital of the World. The MF Global scandal shows how judges refuse to enforce laws and took investor funds rather than make the bankers return stolen money. That was like a bank robber gets to keep what he stole and the other depositors suffer the loss. Read More

01.28.13- The Club of Liberals, Transhumanism, Depopulation
Jon Rappoport

By liberals, I simply mean those people who accept big government as a given, regardless of their political affiliation.

And yes, at certain key levels, they are a club. They come from major media, large corporations, banks, the military, well-funded foundations, investment houses, do-good non-profits, legal and medical societies, academic factories, think tanks, and of course the huge pool of government employees.

For them, big, bigger, and biggest government is a rock-bottom assumption that requires no thought. The sun comes up every morning, and there is big government. Read More

01.26.13- Weekend Rant: Nature's Capital Is The Limiting Resource
Paul Craig Roberts

Only in science fiction can humans escape the consequences of destroying their own habitat. In Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough For Love, the "Great Diaspora of the Human Race" began "more than two millennia ago" and has spread to more than "two thousand colonized planets." The once "lovely green planet" Earth is a slum planet barely able to support life where only the poorest live, Earth's natural capital having been consumed over two thousand years ago. Humans have found the ability to rejuvenate themselves and to live almost endless lives, but they are unable to rejuvenate the planets whose natural capital they devour. Humans have not encountered "one race as mean, as nasty, as deadly as our own." As homo sapiens use up the environments of colonized planets, "human intergalactic colony ships are already headed out into the Endless Deeps," leaving their ruins behind them. Read More

01.25.13- The Untouchables
PBS

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01.24.13- Apparitions in the Fog
Jim Quinn

After digesting the opinions of the shills, shysters and scam artists, I am ready to predict that I have no clue what will happen during 2013. The weekend weather last week was a perfect analogy for attempting to forecast the future. The professional highly educated meteorologists predicted sunny warm weather, just as the PhD Wall Street paid economist mouthpieces assure the multitudes 2013 will be the year when zero interest rates and $1.2 trillion deficits will finally lead to sunny economic skies. Instead, the weekend was overcast and damp. As I was writing this article and watching the miraculous Baltimore Ravens comeback against Denver, I received a two minute warning from my wife. I had to pick up my son and his buddies at the Montgomery Mall. As I pulled the car out of the garage, I backed out into fog that was thicker than pea soup. I've driven the roads to the Montgomery Mall hundreds of times, but the fog was so thick I couldn't see ten feet ahead. Read More

01.23.13- Does China Plan To Establish 'China Cities' And 'Special Economic Zones' All Over America?
Michael Snyder

What in the world is China up to? Over the past several years, the Chinese government and large Chinese corporations (which are often at least partially owned by the government) have been systematically buying up businesses, homes, farmland, real estate, infrastructure and natural resources all over America. In some cases, China appears to be attempting to purchase entire communities in one fell swoop. So why is this happening?  Is this some form of "economic colonization" that is taking place? Read More

01.22.13- Tim Geithner, the King of Cloud Cuckoo Land
Raul Ilargi Meijer

On January 25, Timothy Geithner will step down as US Treasury Secretary. A lot of people will say and write a lot of things about him at that point, and it sounds like a good idea to be ahead of the game and provide some perspective.

There are voices claiming (there will be many more, promise) that Geithner pulled us out of the recession and the crisis, and saved the economy. That seems presumptuous. It may just as well be true that Geithner has fooled us into thinking that. Just because the stock markets are pulling through so far doesn't mean, let alone prove, that the economy has recovered or been saved. You would need something better, more substantial than that. Read More

01.21.13- Why collectivism is doomed
Mike Adams

There is a very good reason why people who live in cities tend to be liberal while those who live in rural areas tend to be conservative. In a city, the existence of nearby neighbors, the shared dependence on infrastructure and the close proximity of police stations automatically lends itself to a socialist mindset. On issues like guns, city people seem to be unable to imagine why anyone would "need" a rifle, for example, and because all guns scare them, they would prefer to force everyone across the country to turn them all in.

People who live in rural areas, in great contrast, have every reason to be more conservative and independent. Their local sheriff might be 30 minutes away in an emergency, meaning that self protection is truly up to you and can't simply be delegated to someone else.
Read More

01.19.13- Weekend Rant: Anonymous
Ol' Remus

This is one of those anonymous emails forwarded a bazillion times, ending with a plea to forward it to everyone in the solar system. Unlike so many others, this one is actually worth reading.

You know you live in a country run by idiots if you can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally, if you have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion, if an 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched, if your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money, if a seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, if the Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments. Read More

01.18.13- Do You Support "Individual Freedoms"?...
Dan Norcini

Then guess what - according to a study done by a West Point "Think Tank" funded by none else than your own taxpayer money, America needs to be warned against you and those like you! Think I am making this idiocy up? Read the following link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Yes, instead of studying the tactics of Islamic terrorists or digging deeper into the brilliant strategies of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, etc., what apparently is the now pressing need of US military officers is how to deal with all those folks who actually subscribe to something called "A Bill of Rights"! Read More

01.17.13- In Counterfeiting We Trust
Barbarous Relic

If there is one central myth supporting the folly that passes for monetary policy and by extension fiscal policy, it would have to be the unchallenged assumption that money should be defined and controlled by government.  Given the role of money in the economy - that it is one-half of virtually every transaction - nothing has been more destructive to the well-being of most people than the government’s usurpation of money from the market.

Money was once the most marketable commodity (Ludwig von Mises, 1912).  Today, money is whatever the government says it is, and since 1933 in the U.S. it has been pieces of paper or their digital substitutes issued by the central bank and its members, the commercial banks. 
Read More

01.16.13- A Message To The 'Left' From A 'Right Wing Extremist'
Brandon Smith

Some discoveries are exciting, joyful, and exhilarating, while others can be quite painful.  Stumbling upon the fact that you do not necessarily have a competent grasp of reality, that you have in fact been duped for most of your life, is not a pleasant experience.  While it may be a living nightmare to realize that part of one's life was, perhaps, wasted on the false ideas of others, enlightenment often requires that the worldview that we were indoctrinated with be completely destroyed before we can finally resurrect a tangible identity and belief system.  To have rebirth, something must first die…

In 2004, I found myself at such a crossroads.  At that time I was a dedicated Democrat, and I thought I had it all figured out.  The Republican Party was to me a perfect sort of monster.  They had everything!  Corporate puppet masters.  Warmongering zealots.  Fake Christians.  Orwellian social policies.  The Bush years were a special kind of horror.  It was cinematic.  Shakespearean. Read More

01.15.13- Awash in Hypocrisy and Hubris, Obama and His Party Push Toward Despotism
Alex Newman

Remember the president’s “touching“, tear-filled statement after the shootings? Weeping crocodile tears over the deaths of those 20 youngsters, Obama played his scene with actor-like skill and sincerity. Indeed, he almost made you forget that he leads a party that has protected a “right” of American women - and their profiteering executioners at the American Medical Association - that has yielded the murder of more than 50 million other American youngsters since 1973. The deaths of those Connecticut youngsters were nothing short of a human calamity; that said, the death of those 50 million other youngsters is a human holocaust that makes Hitler look like an amateur murderer and puts Obama, Clinton, Carter, and their party in the running with Stalin and Mao for the top spot on history’s list of all-time mass murderers. Read More

01.14.13- Guns Protect Honest People
Catherine Austin Fitts

Financial expert, Catherine Austin Fitts, says the sudden turn to gun control in the face of mounting financial problems is no accident.  Fitts contends, "Guns protect honest people.  It's a little scary, the timing of this, and I think a little bit obvious.  Gun control is a way to take away the financial assets of the honest hard working people."  She goes on to say, "I think there is a real risk here that they're going to awake the sleeping giant."  Fitts says we are not necessarily going to get a "new" currency, but it is definitely going digital.  Fitts warns, "Once we are in a spot where the currency can be entirely digital, then we're in a new state of very invasive control. . . One of the reasons I love gold and silver is that it allows me not to be digital"  Read More

01.12.13- Weekend Rant: A Thousand Mile Journey - Reflections on Being the Alternative
Guy Evans

"A thousand mile journey begins with a single step" - Ancient Chinese Proverb

It may be a New Year, but age-old problems and issues still plague our Western societies. While there are many that gravitate to fire-and-brimstone negativity, rejoicing in the idea that a total planetary collapse is imminent and that they may get to observe it, what cannot be denied is the gradual and radical shift in consciousness that is happening all around us.

On a fundamental level, the same struggle has always existed: freedom vs. control.  In this 21st century however, we find ourselves at an extremely important moment in human history. Read More

01.11.13- This what I want to hear Obama say about guns
Jon Rappoport

The first thing I want to hear Obama say about guns is what I’d expect from any rational person:

"Here is where gun murders are occurring in the United States. Look at this map."

Yes, let’s start there. I mean, if we were heading up a campaign to stop gun murders and gun maiming, wouldn’t we do that?

Let’s see where all this gun violence is happening. Is it on Western ranches? Is it in the desert? Is it in the Everglades? On Mt. Whitney? In Scarsdale? Shaker Heights? Read More

01.10.13- Where Does The Hatred Of Constitutionalism Come From?
Brandon Smith

The Constitution of the United States is an undeniably powerful document.  So powerful in fact, that it took establishment elitists with aspirations of globalized governance over a century to diminish the American people's connection to it.  It's been a long time coming, but in the new millennium, there is now indeed a subsection of the masses that not only have no relationship to our founding roots, they actually despise those of us who do!

There are a number of reasons for this dangerous development in our culture:  A public school system that rarely if ever teaches children about the revolution, the founders, constitutional liberty, or the virtues of individualism in general. Read More

01.09.13- Inertia
Simon Black

In 1687, English mathematician and natural philosopher Isaac Newton published a groundbreaking scientific work about the three basic axioms which govern the mechanics of the world around us. Today we call them the Laws of Motion.

Colloquially, the first Law of Motion states that an object at rest (or in motion) will stay at rest (or in motion) unless acted upon by an external force.

In physics, this is known as inertia. It’s a physical property that exists in all matter- rocks, trees, air molecules, etc. will all maintain their current states of being until something else comes along to force a change. Read More

01.08.13- Barter and Alternative Currencies Growing in Greece
Daily Bell

Euros discarded as impoverished Greeks resort to bartering ... Communities set up local currencies and exchange networks in attempt to beat the economic crisis ... It's been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies. But not a single euro has changed hands - none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered carrying money at all. For many, browsing through the racks of second-hand clothes, electrical appliances and homemade jams, the need to survive means money has been usurped. Read More

01.07.12- Taxes versus Revenues: Leslie Stahl's Malpractice
Tibor Machan

As I reach old age I shield myself from unpleasant television as much as I can. Of course, in order to stay apprised of events I cannot afford to skip all of what is irritating but given all the repetition, I have managed to reduce exposure to much that's bad for my nerves.

One show I used to watch regularly was CBS-TV's "60 Minutes." It was a kind of ritual. But no longer, other than accidentally. Which is why I managed to catch one of the "60 Minutes" follow-ups the other Sunday evening. In it Leslie Stahl commented on Grover Norquist's fight against the spendthrifts in Washington. Read More

01.05.13- Sheepdogs and Wolves
Tom Chatham

Anyone in this country that has been watching events unfold the last few years and has a realistic view of the world knows that a big fight is brewing in this country. It may not necessarily be a shooting war but it will be a battle of ideas and lifestyles.

When the people of a nation become so diverse that they no longer hold the same values in life, it is only a matter of time before a conflict arises. Diversity can work only as long as the idea of live and let live is practiced by everyone, but once a segment of that population attempts to force its ideas on everyone else, the peace and tranquility of the nation will be destroyed. Read More

01.04.12- The New Year's First Heist
Douglas French

The high priests of the civic religion are very worried that people no longer seem to trust government. The law stands discredited. Once-hallowed institutions are under fire and losing status. People are openly loathing public officials. Movies, television, and best-selling books urge revolt. Most people don’t bother to vote.

And these priests wonder why.

Here’s an example of why. As the year opened, the House, Senate, and president all collaborated to enact the largest tax increase in human history — under the cover of night on the first day of the year, on the 100-year anniversary of the income tax. They did it in the name of saving us from some mythical beast called the “fiscal cliff.” Read More

01.03.12- Mother, Should I Trust the Government?
James Quinn

The lyrics to Mother had both a literal and figurative meaning for Roger Waters. He was literally describing his overprotective single mother (his father was killed in World War II) building walls to protect him from the outside world. The figurative meaning is Big Mother sending its boys off to war and using fear to control and manipulate the masses. At the time he wrote this song in 1979, the Soviet Union was thought to be at its peak of power and the Berlin Wall represented a boundary between good and evil. Nuclear war was still a looming fear. Waters has always had a dim view of totalitarian states and institutions (English schools). Having seen his Wall Tour performance this past summer at Citizens Bank Park with a diverse crowd of 40,000, ranging in age from senior citizens to teenagers, it seems this song has gained new meaning. Read More

01.02.13- How To Win The War For Your Mind
Brandon Smith

All battles, all wars, all fistfights and bar brawls, all conflicts in every place and in every time (except those conflicts in which both sides answer to the same puppeteer) begin and end as battles of the mind. No struggle is determined on strength of arms alone.  In fact, the technologically advanced adversary with all his fancy firepower is often more vulnerable than his low-tech counterparts. This fact is, of course, counterintuitive to our Western manner of thinking, which teaches us to believe that the man with the bigger gun (or the bigger predator drone) always wins. Sadly, we have had to suffer through multiple defeats and overdrawn occupations in Asia to learn otherwise. One of the great unspoken truths of our era is the reality that the modernization of warfare has changed little the manner in which wars are won. Read More

01.01.13- Javert's Religion of Statism
Jeffrey Tucker

Those who take prosperity for granted — and all of us do whether we admit it or not — would do well to make their way to the film Les Misérables, which features Russell Crowe playing the role of the relentless French cop Javert (not to mention an astonishingly effective presentation of “I Dreamed the Dream” by Anne Hathaway).

This film brilliantly pictures a level of poverty that none of us has ever known. We do well to reflect on it and the reasons that we do experience such poverty now (hint: it’s not because of Congress.) Read More

12.31.12- How To Restore the West
Ron Holland

By any political, cultural or economic measure the nations of the West are in total decline. The historic virtues of hard work, free-market thinking and a common cultural integrity as well as religious and historical principles are gone. They have been subverted and replaced by an emphasis on rampant materialism and a consumer driven society that exceeds 70 percent of GNP in addition to private and public debt and parasitism where sports stars, politicians, media darlings and financial scam artists get recognition and exorbitant incomes while real workers find their incomes falling and promised benefits curtailed.

Western society has lost its way. The main reason is the former political leadership of individual European nations and America, as imperfect as they were, have been co-opted and taken over by a corrupt power elite that uses its control over mob rule democracy and massive financial contributions to buy controlling influence over the "representative" governments of most Western nations. Read More

12.29.12- Weekend Rant:
The Fifth Branch of Government

Tom Chatham

With all of the discontent with the establishment in Washington, this should be a time to reflect on the type of government we have and why it works the way it does. We should also reflect on the reasons our government is set up the way it is. Far too many people have abdicated their power and let the government run free of the constraints initially placed on it and we are now paying the price for that lapse of judgment. A young child may not understand or care about the repercussions of health and tooth decay and when allowed to run free in a candy store can do a great deal of damage to himself if it is allowed to continue every day for years. These repercussions will be felt by the child over time but will also exact a price from the parent in medical costs and disrespect to authority over time. Read More

12.28.12- It's Not a "Fiscal Cliff" … It's the Descent Into Lawlessness
George Washington

The “fiscal cliff” is a myth.

Instead, what we are facing is a descent into lawlessness.

Wikipedia notes:

In many situations, austerity programs are imposed on countries that were previously under dictatorial regimes, leading to criticism that populations are forced to repay the debts of their oppressors.

Indeed, the IMF has already performed a complete audit of the whole US financial system, something which they have only previously done to broke third world nations. Read More

12.27.12- Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States
Michael Snyder

America is rapidly becoming a nation of takers.  An increasing number of Americans expect the government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, and they expect the government to dig into the pockets of others in order to pay for it all.  This philosophy can be very seductive, but what happens when the number of takers eventually outnumbers the number of producers?

In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector workers.  This list of states includes some of the biggest states in the country: California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico and Hawaii. Read More

12.26.12- Arsonist Gunman ambushes, kills two firefighters at New York blaze
Johnny Silver Bear

WEBSTER, NY - An ex-con arsonist, William Spengler, set six of his neighbor's houses ablaze in his lakeside neighborhood and then set his own house on fire to lure firefighters.

Upon hearing the news, Senator Harry Reid (Dem, Nev) called for an all out ban on fire. He later tempered his comments by calling, instead, for a ban on matches and Bic lighters. Senator Barbara Boxer (Dem, CA) agreed and was heard to comment:

"Matches are a "gateway weapon. Lighting things like pilot lights can lead to bigger things like lighting houses, fuses and crosses." Read More

12.24.12- The "glue" that makes us all average, normal, and clueless
Jon Rappoport

Tragic events, crises, threats are designed to capture our minds and hold us in a state of emergency, whether or not such a state is officially declared by our august leaders.

This "glue" is one aspect of the Matrix.

And of course, when events seem to threaten our very existence, these leaders are all too eager to enact responses and solutions that make the original crises pale by comparison.

We couldn’t be blamed for defining "solution" as "whatever is worse than the problem." Read More

12.21.12- If Obama Is Opposed To Guns, Why Did His Administration Just Purchase 1.6 Billion Rounds of Ammunition and Sniper Rounds?
Mike Adams

"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." - Adolf Hitler, 1922.

In the aftermath of the recent Sandy Hook shooting, Obama and his cohorts are screaming about how they all despise guns and ammo. Guns are the problem in America today, we've been told from every corner of the media, and so the only solution is to get rid of all the guns. Read More

12.20.12- Empty People Not Loaded Guns
Linda Schrock Taylor

If guns were the underlying cause of mass shootings, in schools or in other places, what conclusion should be drawn from the mass school knifings that took place in China on the very same day as the Sandy Hook killings? "BEIJING (Reuters) - A knife-wielding man slashed 22 children and an adult at an elementary school in central China on Friday, state media reported, the latest in a series of attacks on schoolchildren in the country."

Actually, few people will wonder about the underlying cause of knife-wielding assailants because most media sources have buried that story while setting their sights; while aiming their weapons at gun control. Read More

12.19.12- The Worst Inflation in My Lifetime
Martin D. Weiss Ph.D.

Shortly after we took this family photo in 1951, Dad decided to buy a second home in Brazil, where we experienced the worst inflation of the 20th Century.

And as I'll show you in a moment, the forces that created Brazil's inflation were actually less powerful than those that are incubating globally in the 21st century.

In Brazil, we lived near a small town on the central highlands.

A few miles to the north, a distant tributary of the Amazon tumbled into a pristine waterfall from multiple directions, like a miniature Niagara. And beyond was a mostly uninhabited plateau, which would later be transformed into the new capital, Brasília. Read More

12.18.12- Three women teachers with guns shot Adam Lanza in a classroom
Jon Rappoport

At a presidential debate, Obama was asked about achieving gun control. He said, "Enforce the laws we've already got. Make sure we are keeping the guns out of the hands of criminals...[and] those who are mentally ill."

In case you've been sleeping in a cave for the past few years, the US government is doing everything it can to create more categories of crimes, and the psychiatrists are expanding the list of (fictional but enforceable) mental disorders, as they also relentlessly promote "more diagnosis and treatment." Read More

12.17.12- How Water Is Being Used to Enslave the People
Dave Hodges

Much has been written about the past wars that have been fought over oil (e.g. Gulf War 1), the wars that are presently being fought over oil (e.g. Arab Spring) and the wars which will be fought over oil (e.g. Syria and Iran). What is missing from most conversations is that the wars of the future will be fought over water, leaving oil as a secondary consideration. According to the United Nations research and scientific studies, nearly two-thirds of the entire population inhabiting the planet will face severe, life-threatening water shortages by the year 2025. Read More

12.15.12- 'World War Z' Seems to Be a Good Example of Elite Dominant Social Themes
Anthony Wile

Recently, I wrote about elite dominant social themes and economics but for a change of pace we'll take a look at a blockbuster movie set for release next summer ... "World War Z," starring the major movie star, Brad Pitt.

Over at Infowars, Alex Jones has recently provided us with a video analyzing "World War Z" and apparently did a follow-on TV program. Jones, who has focused directly on the imminence of global governance, believes the film is a warning of what is to come.

But I'm not so sure. I think there is another reason the elites distribute these sorts of movies. Read More

12.14.12- An Economic Fairy Tale
Brandon Smith

Once upon a time there lived an independent and industrious people in a land called Ameristan deep in the realm of Middle Income.  Their kingdom was unlike any other recorded in the ancient histories, primarily because they had no "king".  Instead, the Ameristanians had decided long ago that kings were much more trouble than they were worth, and, using cost/benefit ratio analysis, came to the conclusion that it was better to hang such ambitious power mongers by their necks and govern themselves instead.  Unfortunately, many generations had passed, and the revolutionary fire of Ameristan had grown tired and dormant.  Eventually, many of the people began to forget where they had come from… Read More

12.13.12- Elite Neo-Nazis ... Is Russia Today (RT) Part of the Controlled Media Matrix and the Imposition of Global Government?
Anthony Wile

This is perhaps the biggest Trojan Horse-oriented story I may ever write.

I use the term "I" advisedly because much of what goes on here at The Daily Bell is a team effort. But it's my mug that goes on these editorials. And I stand behind them.

It is THE story The Daily Bell was created to write.

There is a storm coming. It is not hyperinflation I'm speaking of. It's not even global government. Read More

12.12.12- Why Bob Costas should stick to adoring Mickey Mantle
Jon Rappoport

Critics of gun ownership like to play with comparisons between crimes prevented and crimes caused by people with guns. But this is specious reasoning. The people with weapons who prevent a crime upon themselves are doing something good. The people who commit a crime using a gun are committing a crime. Those are two different worlds, as anyone with a few working brain cells will recognize.

And of course, the people who use a gun to commit a crime would be able to obtain a weapon even if guns were outlawed. I thought we had firmly established this by now. I guess not. Read More

12.11.12- USDA Secretary Validates Agenda 21, Says Rural America "Less and Less Relevant"
Susanne Posel

Last week Tom Vilsack, secretary of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), speaking at a forum sponsored by Farm Journal, claimed that rural America has become "less and less relevant." Vilsack went on to say that "It’s time for us to have an adult conversation with folks in rural America. It’s time for a different thought process here, in my view."

Vilsack asserts that with more and more Americans moving into urbanized city-centers, the farming communities in rural areas are not necessary in order to supply the US with food and other necessities. He believes that these areas of land would be better served without having to direct energy and resources to them. He is an advocate for Monsanto and genetically modified foods which would explain why Vilsack is against rural America and farming communities. Read More

12.10.12- More Phony Employment Numbers
Paul Craig Roberts

Statistician John Williams calls the government's latest jobs and unemployment reports "nonsense numbers."

There are a number of ongoing problems with the released numbers. For example, the concurrent-seasonal factor adjustments are unstable. The birth-death model adds non-existent jobs each month that are then taken out in the annual downward benchmark revisions. Williams calculates that the job overstatement through November averages 45,000 monthly. In other words, employment gains during 2012 have been overstated by about 500,000 jobs. Another problem is that each month's jobs number is boosted by downside revision of the previous month's jobs number. Williams reports that the 146,000 new jobs reported for November "was after a significant downside revision to October's reporting.
Read More

12.08.12- Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson

View Video

12.07.12- Call the Bluff
Bruce Krasting

I damn near fell of my chair (laughing) yesterday watching Timmy Geithner on CNBC.  When asked if the President was willing to go over the fiscal cliff if the tax RATE on the top 2% were not increased, the Treasury Secretary snapped back, "Absolutely".

Maria Bartiromo was also floored by this; she spent the next hour telling the world she thought Geithner's position was clear evidence that the US would be going over the cliff. Read More

 
     
 

12.06.12- Be Patriotic: Become a Secessionst
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Abraham Lincoln, his administration, and members of the U.S. Congress committed treason when they levied war against the Southern states in 1861-1865. This fact is clearly proven by the plain words of Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution that defines treason as follows:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them , or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" (emphasis added). Read More

12.05.12- Dear John...
Jeff Clark

This Explains Everything

For years, historians have argued about the reasons for America's decline. What could have caused the U.S. - which held so much promise when it was born in 1776 - to become the desolate, barren wasteland we now have 280 years later? 

We finally know the answer...

Last week, a janitor was clearing out an abandoned locker at the public storage warehouse at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He was making space for The Exalted Leader of All that is Good and Right in the Universe Mei-Ling Obama's childhood unicorn collection, when he stumbled across a box labeled "Useless Documents." Read More

12.04.12- All I Want for Christmas is the Truth
Jim Quinn

"Eyes blinded by the fog of things
cannot see truth.
Ears deafened by the din of things
cannot hear truth.
Brains bewildered by the whirl of things
cannot think truth.
Hearts deadened by the weight of things
cannot feel truth.
Throats choked by the dust of things
cannot speak truth."

Read More

12.03.12- Black 9/11: Money, Motive, Technology, and Plausible Deniability
Alien Scientist

View Video

12.01.12- Weekend Rant: The Working Class and the Government Class
Daniel Greenfield

Forget all the talk about whether we will or won’t go over the fiscal cliff. We ourselves are the fiscal cliff and have been for some time now. The real fiscal cliff is not the point at which we run out of money, our credit rating sinks lower than Enron and everyone is fighting over jars of cat food at Wal-Mart. The real fiscal cliff is when even the dumbest person in the country is no longer able to deny what the packs of robbers and thieves he appointed to steal for him have perpetrated for their own benefit in his name. And that fiscal cliff may never come. Read More

11.30.12- Spielberg’s Upside-Down History: The Myth of Lincoln and the Thirteenth Amendment
Thomas J. DiLorenzo

Steven Spielberg’s new movie, Lincoln, is said to be based on several chapters of the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns-Goodwin, who was a consultant to Spielberg. The main theme of the movie is how clever, manipulative, conniving, scheming, lying, and underhanded Lincoln supposedly was in using his "political skills" to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery through the U.S. House of Representatives in the last months of his life. This entire story is what Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, calls a "pleasant fiction." It never happened. Read More

11.29.12- The way out of ObamaNation is the collapse of Agenda 21
Judi McLeod

As dominant as he is in our worries and thoughts,  the man they call Barack Hussein Obama is not the most important Agent of Change in daily life.  Deliberately flamboyant by design, he's only the most noticeable one.

Obama is the handpicked decoy for this particular point in time; the one who draws attention away from One Worlders who work to capture America by stealth; the seemingly impossible to remove Candy Man, enabled by 50 percent of the U.S. voting population.

As prime decoy, Obama is the main player on the current politician populated World stage.  While their antics keep all eyes trained their way, the real Agent of Change works 24-7 in the background laying the groundwork to enslave you. Read More

11.28.12- Chuck Woolery:
"The Real Assault Weapon is the Liberal Media"

Mac Slavo

Legendary game show host Chuck Woolery has a message for Americans, and he delivers it with an AR-15 in hand.

There is no doubt that it’s a tragedy when anyone takes the life of another without cause.

But to blame assault weapons for this tragedy would be like, well, blaming airplanes for the 9-11 attacks.

The problem lies with the perpetrator, not the tool used to commit the crime.

As of right now, the Constitution is still the law of the land. And since we are a nation of laws and not men, we need to follow it carefully. Read More

11.27.12- Obama's Soviet Mistake
Xavier Lerma

Putin in 2009 outlined his strategy for economic success. Alas, poor Obama did the opposite but nevertheless was re-elected. Bye, bye Miss American Pie. The Communists have won in America with Obama but failed miserably in Russia with Zyuganov who only received 17% of the vote. Vladimir Putin was re-elected as President keeping the NWO order out of Russia while America continues to repeat the Soviet mistake.

After Obama was elected in his first term as president the then Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January of 2009. Ignored by the West as usual, Putin gave insightful and helpful advice to help the world economy and saying the world should avoid the Soviet mistake. Read More

11.26.12- Secession's Warning This Time
The Daily Bell

The hurricane of hatred that greeted Obama's election and the tsunami of slander since that has questioned his religion, his birthplace and his legitimacy show that, 150 years after the Civil War's end, many Americans fail to live up to Lincoln's noble aspirations. The scale of sublimated race hatred that underpins the birther movement and the numbers who consider the president to be alien or foreign betray widespread racial prejudice. Conservatives have demonized all successful liberal leaders, starting with Franklin Roosevelt and reaching fever pitch with Bill Clinton. But the visceral venom and dog-whistle racism directed toward Obama is even more intense. And directed toward a wider group of Americans. Not many are offended when FDR is attacked for being a traitor to his class. Clinton may have been half-jokingly dubbed the first black president, but conservatives didn't hate him for his skin tint. But when Obama is attacked for being black it is an offense against American ideals and an assault upon all blacks. - Reuters  Read More

11.24.12- 10 Freest States For Homeschooling
Eric Blair

What could be more natural than educating our own children? Everyone can agree on that. Where people differ is who has the responsibility to educate our children?

Unfortunately, because of mis-education many believe the State is responsible for educating our children. This is not the same thing as the State being responsible for providing an option for education. Rather many presume that the State has the authority to force their version of education on parents and their children.

If your answer is that parents have the responsibility to provide education, then we can safely assume that we have the right to homeschool our own children, yes? Several industrialized nations where homeschooling is outlawed say no. Read More

11.22.12- GMOs plus Obamacare: Your ticket to slavery
Jon Rappoport

At this late date, there are still people who don’t see the consequences of Obamacare. They cling to the notion that it’s simply a wonderful system that will allow more people to get vital medical care. That’s all they see or want to see.

They agree that medical treatment has an alarming toxic track record. But they don’t want to admit that Obamacare will spread that toxicity even further.

Why are these people blind? Because they think of themselves as caring humanitarians, and they fit Obamacare right into that self-serving picture. It’s part of their "religion."  Read More

11.21.12- Statist Thugs And The Rocks They Crawl Out From Under
Brandon Smith

A mass exodus from ignorance and organized opposition to tyranny is the dream of every freedom loving person within the Liberty Movement today.  We would like nothing better than to put an end to the expanding establishment police state in the most peaceful manner possible.  We dream of a day when a transition back to the Constitutional values that once made America brilliantly unique in the world is possible, and can be accomplished without incredible pain or terrible bloodshed.  We long for that once-in-a-century uprising, that great march, that spontaneous eruption of the citizenry demanding a more truthful government.  At the same time, though, we realize that such events are rare, and few if any great changes in the history of man are made without sacrifice, and without direct confrontation. Read More

11.20.12- The Looters Are in Control
Wayne Siggard

[And now it's time for Mr. Obama to start paying for all those votes by reaching deep into our pockets. If you intend to avoid paying your "fair share," however, please take note: There will be  few places to hide. For a gimlet-eyed view of what may lie in store for taxpayers and citizens of all political persuasions during the next four years, ponder the guest commentary below, from Wayne Siggard, a regular in the Rick's Picks forum. RA]

The election was all about new math:  47 = 51. The foresight and genius of the Founders knew no bounds.  Ben Franklin said, "Once the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."  The trumpets have sounded.  The heralds have announced the awakening of the masses to that reality.  The greatest and most free nation the world has ever known has just sold its birthright for a mess of pottage; or, at least, the promise of an Obama phone. The takers have voted to take control over the producers. Read More

11.19.12- IRA/401k Confiscation Coming?
Dave in Denver

To start, I would like to report that my MBA alma mater, the University of Chicago (class of '91, Dean's list 1990), just received the #1 business school ranking by Businessweek. Unfortunately, the professor I had for a high level "forensic" accounting course is no longer there. His course was the best course in any MBA program anywhere and made the 2 years there worthwhile.

An article about Obama starting the process of nationalizing the private retirement fund system went viral in the blog community yesterday.  The truth is that the these "genius" bloggers are about 4 years behind the curve on this.  Here's the report:  Read More

11.17.12- A Change Is Coming -
2013 & Onwards (Part I)

Julian D.W. Phillips

As we get closer to the end of 2012 we start to look forward to 2013 and beyond. Hopes and dreams must always be tempered by the stark spotlight of today's realities. Nothing can happen unless it is based on today's present world structures, events and leaders in politics, and money. The first major point we have to recognize is the structures we see around us, within which everything is bound together, together with the current leaders and their will for the future -these things will shape the years ahead.

Much as we might hunger for reform in so many areas, we must be pragmatic in looking forward. The world is not pure -far from it- so it is realistic to look at what is here today that will shape tomorrow. Looking at the future through these leader's eyes gives us a clear perspective. Read More

11.16.12- Wicked Times Are Here
Wide Awake News

View Video

 
     
 

11.15.12- Gold and the Cold War
Darryl Robert Schoon

There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans... Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.-Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville, 1835

De Toqueville's amazing prediction in 1835 about the destinies of Russia and the Anglo-Americans was every bit the equal to those made by his illustrious French predecessor, Michel de Nostradame. Read More

11.14.12- American Immorality Is At A Peak
Paul Craig Roberts

When Chris Floyd is at his best, as he is below, he puts things in perspective for readers that they otherwise never confront. Obama has won reelection, and his supporters think that somehow things are going to be different. Fat chance.

While evil continues to envelop America, the public is focused on CIA director General Petraeus' resignation. The FBI spied on him and found that he was having an affair with his biographer, a woman 20 years younger than his 60 years. Read More

11.13.12- General Petraeus and “the spy who loved him”
Jon Rappoport

It’s absurd to think the FBI just found out about CIA Director Petraeus’ affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. The timing is too convenient.

The FBI knew about the affair some time ago and, under strict orders, kept their mouths shut until just after Election Day. If they hadn’t, the scandal would have blown up during Obama’s campaign run.

Read More

11.12.12- Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedoms
Andrew P. Napolitano

The Beginning of the End of American Liberty: New Book From Judge Andrew P. Napolitano Reveals How Two U.S. Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedoms and Paved the Way for Today’s Assault on Liberty

Release date: November 16, 2012 - They are two of America’s most celebrated presidents. One, a Republican who had a storied military career, created the American conservation movement and once gave a speech after being shot by a would-be assassin; the other, a Democrat who overcame dyslexia as a child only to lead America to victory in World War I and formulate the idea of an international body of nations dedicated to the preservation of peace. These are the tales all American schoolchildren are taught about Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Read More

11.10.12- Yeah, Though I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
Catherine Austin Fitts

"We all live in the South Bronx because that neighborhood is the unavoidable proof that American civilization can stop. It can stop literally right around the corner, and if it does nobody can do a thing about it. . . . " ~ Michael Ventura

It's the look that grabs you: that moment when a person first realizes that civilization can stop and what that means. There is no law that they can count on; community comes as luck may have it. Sometimes there is no luck at all. The machinery can and will turn against them - and hit hard. Read More

11.09.12- What to do when you've hit your breaking point
Simon Black

At some point or another, anyone who is even remotely paying attention to reality will likely reach two critical moments of awakening in their lives.

The first is what I call the “Aha! moment”. This is the point at which people realize that there is something terribly, terribly wrong with the system… and that almost everything they’ve been brought up to believe about their government and society is total BS.

The ‘Aha! moment’ is usually brought about by something you learn or read… for example, finding out that your national government is deeply, hopelessly in debt. Or that it is mathematically impossible for you to receive the pension benefits you’ve been promised. Or that your currency is being printed into degeneracy by a single individual. Read More

11.08.12- The Special Interests Won Again
Paul Craig Roberts

The Special Interests Won Again. The election that was supposed to be too close to call turned out not to be so close after all. In my opinion, Obama won for two reasons: (1) Obama is non-threatening and inclusive, whereas Romney exuded a "us vs. them" impression that many found threatening, and (2) the election was not close enough for the electronic voting machines to steal.

As readers know, I don't think that either candidate is a good choice or that either offers a choice. Washington is controlled by powerful interest groups, not by elections. What the two parties fight over is not alternative political visions and different legislative agendas, but which party gets to be the whore for Wall Street, the military-security complex, Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and energy, mining, and timber interests. Read More

11.07.12- The Lull Before the Social Storm
Jack D. Douglas

Vast social revolutions and wars are often preceded by periods of giving up on reforms, despairing withdrawal from public life by the best and brightest, and even peacefulness which seems to have become the normal condition in spite of deep conflicts and growing crises beneath the surfaces of public life. Often, earlier periods of intense conflicts and crises have been overcome and resolved, so it comes to look like that is the normal in life. This lulls most people into assuming their worse fears cannot happen, but this leads them to lowering their guards against growing conflicts and crises, so small ones can more easily cascade down into massive ones. If people expected they could become vast wars or revolutions or implosions, they would take more precautions to prevent that. But when lulled in expecting the worst cannot happen, the worst than they could ever imagine often explodes suddenly. Read More

11.06.12- Land of the (Less) Free
Robert Bauman

James Madison of Virginia, the fourth US President, one the Founding Fathers and the leading proponent of the Bill of Rights, may have anticipated better than anyone the processes that destroy liberty when he said:

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

The 2012 Economic Freedom of the World report was released recently by the Cato Institute and Canada's Fraser Institute. In just a few years, the US ranking has plummeted from No. 2 in 2000 (behind the city-states of Hong Kong and Singapore) to 18th place, trailing such countries as Estonia, Taiwan, and Qatar. Read More

11.05.12- A Surrender of Sorts
Fred Reed

We are doomed, saith the preacher, and should accommodate ourselves to it. In times of growing governmental power, protestation at some point becomes futile. Little is served by standing in front of a charging Mongol army and shouting, “No! You should reconsider! Perhaps some other course would be advisable. Let’s parley….”

Complaint is useless. It is too late. It booteth not. We are done. The Mongols ride. America comes apart at the seams. The country turns into something altogether new, new for America. Read More

11.03.12- Agenda 21 Mega-Cities Will Require Vertical Farming to Maximize Urban Space
Susanne Posel

In 2050, the UN Population Division says that, after 80% of the population of America has been moved into the Agenda 21 mega-cities, there will be a need to construct vertical farms in order to feed the urbanized residents.

Yale researchers assert that in America "78 percent of the population already lives in urban or suburban areas, urban land cover is expected to double by 2030" and with infrastructure investments, current urbanization rates are unsustainable. Read More

11.02.12- Ruger Blows Away Expectations: Gun Sales Surge Ahead of Presidential Election
Mac Slavo

You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass. - Attributed to Isoroku Yamamoto
Fleet Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Amid abysmal earnings reports from some of the world’s top companies in recent weeks, Americans may be spending less on things like consumer electronics and dining out, but one trend remains seemingly unstoppable.

We’ve got an insatiable demand for weaponry, with more guns being purchased last year in America than there are active duty military members in the world’s fourteen largest militaries. Read More

11.01.12- Golden Haarp & Allocated Gold Exposure
Jim Willie CB

A nasty Golden Harp could soon have its cords plucked, with the resonance working to shake loose the bankster cover of improper illicit duplicitous and probably highly illegal usage of Allocated Gold Accounts. When diverse scattered accounts are pilfered and depleted without authorization in Switzerland, resulting in several multi-$billion class action lawsuits in Zurich, all kept dutifully out of the news, that is one thing. But when a few key official government gold accounts are ransacked in systematic fashion from established trusted locations, defying and betraying the trust of the German Govt and other national governments, that is quite another. To be sure, the system can tolerate ransacking and replacing with scurried harried efforts the Venezuelan gold account like in 2011. Read More

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