03.10.14- Can We Afford Ukraine?
Ron Paul

Officially, US debt stands at more than $17 trillion. In reality, it is many times more. The cost of the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq may be more than six trillion dollars. President Obama's illegal invasion of Libya cost at least a billion dollars and left that country devastated. The costs of US regime change efforts in Syria are likely thus far enormous, both in dollars and lives. That's still a secret.

So who in his right mind would think it is a good time to start a war with Russia over Ukraine? And worse, who would commit the United States to bail out a Ukraine that will need at least $35 billion to survive the year?

Who? The president and Congress, backed by the neocons and the so-called humanitarian interventionists! Read More

03.08.14- Obama Comes Out Against Self-Determination
Paul Craig Roberts

The White House Fool has repeatedly declared erroneously and foolishly that it is "against international law" for Crimea to exercise self-determination. Self-determination, as used by Washington, is a propaganda term that serves Washington's empire but is not permissible for real people to exercise. On March 6 Obama telephoned Putin to tell the Russian President again that only Washington has the right to interfere in Ukraine and to insist against all logic that only the "government" in Kiev installed by the Washington-organized coup is "legitimate" and "democratic." Read More

03.07.14- Ukraine is the Waterloo Event for the U.S. Dollar
Jim Willie

History repeats itself from the Kremlin phone calls made during the Syrian conflict just a few months ago, when the UKGovt withdrew its support and left the US isolated, looking very weak. Already, Putin has threatened to dump USTreasury Bonds. Putin aptly calls the Anglo-Americans as Mutants. Imagine the lunacy of trying to cut off the only Russian warm water military naval port in the Crimea. Just as stupid as the Trans Pacific Partnership faux pas, trying to cut off China from its Asian neighbors and partners in trade. The intelligence level of the USGovt has never been more stupid, destructive, and in full view. The lost ground for the United States is obvious and glaring in the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Caucasus region. Read More

03.06.14- Ukraine Crisis: Just Another Globalist-Engineered Powder Keg
Brandon Smith

When one studies history, all events seem to revolve around the applications and degenerations of war. Great feats of human understanding, realization and enlightenment barely register in the mental footnotes of the average person. War is what we remember, idealize and aggrandize, which is why war is the tool most often exploited by oligarchy to distract the masses while it centralizes power.

With the exception of a few revolutions, most wars are instigated and controlled by financial elites, manipulating governments on both sides of the game to produce a preconceived result. The rise of National Socialism in Germany, for instance, was largely funded by corporate entities based in the U.S. Read More

03.05.04- Putin Adviser Urges Dumping US Bonds In Reaction to Sanctions
RIA Novosti

An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that authorities would issue general advice to dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine.

Sergei Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime.

“The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia,” Glazyev said. “Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don’t depend on them in any way.” Read More

03.04.14- Russia And China Stand In Agreement On Ukraine – And That Is Very Bad News For The United States
Michael Snyder

If China and the rest of the world abandoned Russia over Ukraine, that would be one thing.  But that is not happening at all.  In fact, China has chosen to publicly stand with Russia on this issue.  The following is from a Sky News article entitled "Russia And China 'In Agreement' Over Ukraine"

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov discussed Ukraine by telephone with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Monday, and claimed they had "broadly coinciding points of view" on the situation there, according to a ministry statement.

And Chinese state news agency Xinhua is publicly rebuking the West for their handling of the Ukrainian crisis...Read More

03.03.14- Precious Metals Manipulators: Who Are They In 2014?
Charles Savoie

What organizations do highly placed men belong to who are suppressing precious metals?

Broad absence of coverage of these organizations on the part of metals sites and commentators indicates lack of awareness—there is a large gap in their information; or for some reasons, they choose to not make an issue out of it.

There is the dread of opening Pandora's Box!

When prominent metals commentators never mention these organizations, you should realize that while this is apparently not an issue of importance to them, it certainly is important to the members of these groups, that they are members of these groups! Read More

03.01.14- Bombshell: Saudi Royal Gold Ransacked in London to Prevent Default
Jim Willie

Betrayals occur in high places, even the highest offices of the land. Furthermore, betrayals occur with some of the most important allies for the nation. See the official German gold account thefts, called euphemistically the repatriation demand. See the shredding of the Constitution, by virtue of the Patriot Act which could easily pass for a comprehensive Fascist Manifesto. See the renege on the Chinese gold lease, on the back end of the Most Favored Nation status granted in 1999. See the permitted security agency narcotics centered in Afghanistan, with its vertically integrated business operation, the clearing house function in Iraq, and money laundering among New York banks, whose product fills American streets. Read More

02.28.14- Lincoln Set About On The Most Murderous War In American History
Judge Napolitano

Read More

02.27.14- The Coming Eastern Bailout & What Tensions In The Ukraine Mean For You
Jeff Berwick

The geo-political stakes in the Ukraine have brought us to a quasi Cold War redux, as western powers the European Union and the United States have made it clear their intention to "support" (read: meddle in) the Ukraine. In the meantime, Russia has sent troops to the border of the Ukraine in what are being called exercises. 

Turkey is experiencing protests and violence due to corruption by the government, and Venezuela is also experiencing protests and violence. The "global political awakening" has gone hot on multiple continents. 

Although one week ago mainstream press worldwide spoke about the Ukraine as if it were in the midst of a popular uprising, a different picture has become clearer, as communist and fascist sympathizers seem poised to gain the most out of the chaos. Read More

02.26.14- How to Beat Coming Killer Food Shortages
Holly Deyo

50% of America's fruits and veggies are grown in California and the Feds are destroying their crops. What this means for you

PREFACE: Only a small space is required to grow most fruits and veggies for a family. So Stan and I will scamper over to our local garden center this week and for additional organic compost to augment our Super Soil and get those growies growing! By the end of Summer our own compost piles should be ready to sustain the gardens hereafter. It just takes a little while to get there.

Sunday, we planned out this year's garden – including more than usual. Definitely making time for canning this year. Had the equipment, not the time. Since warmth – and dry (drat!) – are coming early this year to the West, Southwest and Southeast, it's important to get our garden ready in February and seedlings sprouted and sunk in the ground by late March instead of late April – a full month ahead of normal. The most time-consuming aspect will getting the Super Soil pre-warmed as described in Garden Gold, which will only require a couple hours, so plants get a head start and beat this Summer's killing heat. Read More

02.24.14- The Rising Global Unrest – Collapse in Marxism & Republics
Martin Armstrong

For months now, protesters have been gathering in many capital cities of developing nations such as Turkey, Ukraine, Thailand, Venezuela, Malaysia, and Cambodia, among others. These demonstrations are part of the rise in tension that our model warns will spread. This is the collapse of “socialism” as I put it for there is a declining living standard and much lower economic growth because of the rising cost of government. The “socialist” ideas of helping people are just propaganda. Politicians have been lining their pockets all over the place and corruption has emerged in a new institutional form..

There are critics who like to say this is capitalism collapsing but capitalism is freedom to be what you want and to do with your money what you desire. Even in Russia, the “official” communist state collapsed and private ownership now exists. However, you still do not see entrepreneurship for enterprise is owned by the various Oligarchic organizations. Read More

02.22.14- Weekend Rant: Smoking cigars by a mountain of napalm
Simon Black

I need to caveat this missive and highlight that I am not a pessimistic person. I’ve traveled to so many places over the years– well over 100 countries. And I typically visit 30-40 each year.

So I’ve seen first hand the tremendous opportunity that exists in the world, and the incredible way that human beings innovate to overcome challenges.

But the reality is that the world is on fire right now. In some places, like Ukraine or Thailand, quite literally.

In many others (like Japan, China, and much of southern Europe), there are heaps of smoldering embers beneath a continent-wide funeral pyre. Read More

02.21.14- Obama; Let Them Eat Food Stamps
Wendy McElroy

Early immigrants fled Europe to America because the New World offered a glistening promise: the classless society. It was not a society without rich and poor because freedom always produces an inequality of results. It was a society in which people were equal under fair laws and they could move fluidly from one class to another. The North American dream said people could rise by merit and hard work into economic independence and become the rulers of their own lives.

My ancestors are among the 50% of Irish immigrants who did not die in journeying to the 19^th century's brave new world. Immigrants knew the risk and accepted it because they hungered for their children to stand on both feet as the equal of any man. For most of my life, I did. Or it was close enough. Read More

02.20.14- The Wreck of the Old 1792
Ol' Remus

We don't have an economy, we have the wreckage of an economy. It's studied as a coroner studies a corpse, to determine when and how it died. And because we believe in equal opportunity idiocy, medicine men dance around the deceased shaking their rattles and chanting their chants even as the indelicate aroma argues for a distant venue. Politicians take the modern view, they understand the bad news is off the charts, so they draw new charts. Economists busy themselves with describing how it came to be and what may be next. As with any fatality, the decisive event is long over and what comes next is as ugly as it is certain.

The wreckage has been piling up for a very long time. Cities for one. They're sunk costs peopled with net consumers, an unjustifiable burden, as are their inhabitants, largely. There are no convincing arguments for the cities we have today. Even aside from wartime targeting, residents are less safe inside the cities than outside of them. When considering catastrophic collapse, who plans to bug out to Chicago? There's a reason cities are deteriorating, they cost far more to maintain than they're worth. Read More

02.19.14- The Twisted Motives Behind Political Correctness
Brandon Smith

As I have confessed in the past, in my early years I found myself active in the Democratic Party and the general liberal methodology. I had no understanding of the concept of the false left/right paradigm. I had no inkling of the dangers of globalism and central banking. I had no concept of decentralization or non-participation. I had never even heard of libertarianism. I knew only that George W. Bush was a criminal (and I was right), but the problem went far deeper than the GOP. I was astoundingly ignorant of the bigger picture.

However, what I did have going for me was an almost violent sense of nonconformity. I hated collectivists, yet I found myself surrounded by them while working within the leftist culture. It was the insanity of self-proclaimed "liberals" that taught me the true nature of the facade of politics. When I realized that the Democrats were essentially the same corrupt entity as the neoconservatives, everything in my life changed. Read More

02.18.14- Forward Guidance
James Howard Kunstler

"Guidance" is the new organizing credo of US financial life with Janet Yellen officially installed as the new Wizard of Oz at the Federal Reserve. Guidance refers to periodic cryptic utterances made by the Wizard in staged appearances before congress or in the "minutes" (i.e. transcribed notes) from meetings of the Fed's Open Market Committee. The cryptic utterances don't necessarily have any bearing on reality, but are issued with the hope that they will be mistaken for it, especially by managers in the financial markets where assets are priced and traded.  

One such infamous moment of guidance was Ben Bernanke's May 2007 statement saying that percolating sub-prime mortgage problems were "contained." Read More

02.17.14- Kill The Middle Class,
Kill The Nation
Raúl Ilargi Meijer

A pretty simple and straight continuation from yesterday’s Inequality Leads to War and Crisis , if only to hammer into everyone’s head that inequality is a very damaging development, and a very easy one to solve. America as it was in its heyday was built by the middle class, and that America is no more.

Still, if you didn’t know better, you’d get the impression that America was built by the rich. Why otherwise would its wealth have been allowed to be shifted away from the middle class, and to the rich, to the extent that it has over the past 3 or 4 decades? Read More

02.15.14- Exposing what lies beneath the bodies of dead bankers
and what lies ahead for us
Douglas J. Hagmann

I feel that this is one of the most important investigations I’ve ever done. If my findings are correct, each of us might soon experience a severe, if not crippling blow to our personal finances, the confiscation of any wealth some of us have been able to accumulate over our lifetimes, and the end of the financial world as we once knew it.  The evidence to support my findings exists in the trail of dead bodies of financial executives across the globe and a missing Wall Street Journal Reporter who was working at the Dow Jones news room at the time of his disappearance. Read More

02.14.14- Trends Forecaster: Proof the Markets are Rigged
Alex Jones

At least twenty top level bankers have “fallen” to their deaths from high-rises in just the last two weeks. Are the worlds Stock Markets, Currency Exchanges and Interest Rates all rigged? Gerald Celente brings the facts from the news to the table.

The government keeps coming out with one lie after another- and the public keeps buying in! Take for example, the recent "off microphone" statement by Obama. Have we really been so dumbed down that we are totally shortsighted? Or is it something more than that? Gerald and Alex discuss these topics here. Read More

02.13.14- The Five Criminals
In America, the Gestapo Has Replaced the Rule of Law
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

RT is the best English language news source available to Americans. On January 29, RT published a photo of 5 presidential appointees lying through their teeth to Congress.

All five of these Gestapo wannabes are in violation of their oath of office to protect the Constitution of the United States. They have relentlessly violated the Constitution, which makes these five, who are in charge of US intelligence and black operations, traitors to the United States. Yet, they have not been arrested and put on trial. Congress is content to sit there and listen to their ongoing lies time after time after time, despite the fact that these 5 have committed more and worse crimes against our country than the "terrorists" that serve as an excuse for the crimes committed by the intelligence agencies. Read More

02.12.14- A Report from Middle America
Paul Rosenberg

I was recently involved in a day of meetings with small business owners in the American Midwest. It was both encouraging and sad at the same time.

Overall, I found a large room full of productive human beings. It was uplifting. Most of these people were between thirty and seventy years old, more men than women, and they were all productive people, the kind who get up early every day, make sure that complex systems are producing properly, fix anything that is broken or near breaking, plan for the future, cooperate with large numbers of other people, and then go home at the end of the day and love their families.

If all the world lived like these people, we’d be halfway to a paradise by now. And that was a thought that made me sad. Read More

02.11.14- The Trigger: If This Ever Happens
You Know You're Days Away From Nuclear War
Mac Slavo

It’s no secret that the world is on the brink of a significant paradigm shift. With the economy in shambles and the United States, Europe, China and Russia vying for hegemony over global affairs, it is only a matter of time before the powder keg goes critical.

As was the case with World Wars I and II, the chess pieces are being positioned well in advance. It’s happening on all levels – monetary, financial, economic, geo-political. Lines are being drawn. Alliances are being cemented. Read More

02.10.14- The Smog of Fraud
James Howard Kunstler

Team Obama pulled a cute one last week nominating Blythe Masters, JP Morgan's commodity chief, to an advisory committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which supposedly regulates activities on the paper trades in corn, pork bellies, cocoa, coffee, wheat, corn - oh, and gold, too, by the way, in which JP Morgan has been suspected of massive gold (and silver) market manipulations and other misconduct lately. That would include the 2011 MF Global Fiasco in which nearly a billion dollars from "segregated" customer accounts somehow ended up parked over at JP Morgan as a result of bad derivative bets on tanking Eurozone bonds. MF Global, primarily a commodities trading brokerage, was liquidated in 2011. The CFTC never issued referrals for prosecution to the Department of Justice in the matter and, of course, MF Global's notorious CEO, Jon Corzine remains at large, enjoying caramel flan lattes in the Hamptons to this day. Such are the Teflon transactions of the Obama years: nothing sticks. Read More

02.08.14- Weekend Rant: Gold And Silver – NWO "Problem-Reaction" Ploy Stronger Than Fundamentals
Michael Noonan

The fundamentals for gold and silver worsen with each passing week, it seems, yet the price for gold and silver still languish in down trends.   If everything is as precarious as is depicted in so many other articles citing how PMs are in dire straights, for the same deteriorating reasons presented with pinpoint numbers, as in reduced stocks of deliverable metals, increased transfers from West to East, why are gold and silver still near recent lows for the past two years?

No one has offered answers to such a glaring fundamental discrepancy of excessively low supply, exceptionally strong demand and totally manipulated price. Read More

02.07.14- SDRs and the New Bretton Woods, Part 4 - Archaic America and Oil Wars
JC Collins

"This is really an old lesson for a new era. At such a momentous time as this, we need to choose the ethos of 1944 over 1914. We need to rekindle the Bretton Woods spirit that has served us so well." - Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the I.M.F. Feb 3, 2014.

As young boys my brother and I delivered newspapers in our neighborhood.  There was one house in particular that always stood out to us.  In this home lived a man with no legs.  The house was your standard suburban build of the 1970's and had a ramp running up the width of the front. The man in his wheelchair would often be parked at the small area at the top of the ramp.  It was a short landing from which he could enter the house. Read More

02.06.14- When George Clooney starts pitching government bonds…
Simon Black

Last week in his State of the Union address, the President of the United States laid the groundwork for a new government program he calls “MyRA”.

As he explained to the American people, this program will allow US taxpayers the ability to loan their retirement savings to the federal government (which, according to POTUS, carries ZERO risk).

Given that US Treasury yields fall far below the rate of inflation, this is a big win for the government, and a big loser for the poor suckers who loan them the money. Read More

02.05.14- The Final Swindle Of Private American Wealth Has Begun
Brandon Smith

I began writing analysis on the macro-economic situation of the American financial structure back in 2006, and in the eight years since, I have seen an undeniably steady trend of fiscal decline.

I have never had any doubt that the U.S. economy as we know it was headed for total and catastrophic collapse, the only question was when, exactly, the final trigger event would occur. As I have pointed out in the past, economic implosion is a process. It grows over time, like the ice shelf on a mountain developing into a potential avalanche. It is easy to shrug off the danger because the visible destruction is not immediate, it is latent; but when the avalanche finally begins, it is far too late for most people to escape… Read More

02.04.14- Shake me, wake me!
James Howard Kunstler

The rot moves from the margins to the center, but the disease moves from the center to the margins. That is what has happened in the realm of money in recent weeks due to the sustained mispricing of the cost of credit by central banks, led by the US Federal Reserve. Along the way, that outfit has managed to misprice just about everything else  - stocks, houses, exotic securities, food commodities, precious metals, fine art. Oil is mispriced as well, on the low side, since oil production only gets more expensive and complex these days while it depends more on mispriced borrowed money. That situation will be corrected by scarcity, as oil companies discover that real capital is unavailable. And then the oil will become scarce. The "capital" circulating around the globe now is a squishy, gelatinous substance called "liquidity." All it does is gum up markets. But eventually things do get unstuck. Read More

02.03.14- Laundromat Banks Too Big To Fail
Richard (Rick) Mills

Money laundering is the process by which illegally obtained cash is made to appear as if it has been obtained by legal means.

The following snippet is from Robert Mazur’s article ‘How to Halt the Terrorist Money Train’ article that appeared in The New York Times:

“The House Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management issued a shocking report documenting the collaboration between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels and Hezbollah in narcotics and human trafficking, smuggling and financial crimes in the United States and Latin America — a partnership that, in just the border region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, produces an estimated $12 billion in cash each year. Read More

02.01.14- Weekend Rant: What Would You Do For "Truth"?
Paul Rosenberg

I closed a recent post by saying this:

If you’re not willing to suffer for your beliefs, you’re not much of a believer.

To that I will add that the statement remains true, no matter what types of beliefs we’re talking about. Either we have the guts to stand by our beliefs or we don’t. (Which is why a lot of people avoid them – they haven’t the guts to choose.) Holding to our beliefs under fire is the crucial test – not of our beliefs, but of ourselves.

Anytime you move the world forward in some way, you will receive a backlash. In a world like ours – a world neurotically devoted to stasis – that is almost unavoidable. Read More

01.31.14- Enough Is Enough: Fraud-ridden Banks Are Not L.A.'s Only Option
Ellen Brown

"Epic in scale, unprecedented in world history."That is how William K. Black, professor of law and economics and former bank fraud investigator, describes the frauds in which JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has now been implicated. They involve more than a dozen felonies, including bid-rigging on municipal bond debt; colluding to rig interest rates on hundreds of trillions of dollars in mortgages, derivatives and other contracts; exposing investors to excessive risk; failing to disclose known risks, including those in the Bernie Madoff scandal; and engaging in multiple forms of mortgage fraud.

So why, asks Chicago Alderwoman Leslie Hairston, are we still doing business with them? She plans to introduce a city council ordinance deleting JPM from the city's list of designated municipal depositories. As quoted in the January 14^th Chicago Sun-Times: Read More

01.30.14- Converting 401k and IRA Funds Into "Steady Payment Streams"
George Washington

Last May, I wrote about the rumor that the Obama administration might seize funds from American's 401k and IRA accounts

Last week, Bloomberg pointed out

The Obama administration is weighing how the government can encourage workers to turn their savings into guaranteed income streams.

The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort... Read More

01.29.14- Why Are Banking Executives In London Killing Themselves?
Michael Snyder

Bankers committing suicide by jumping from the rooftops of their own banks is something that we think of when we think of the Great Depression.  Well, it just happened in London, England.  A vice president at JPMorgan's European headquarters in London plunged to his death after jumping from the top of the 33rd floor.  He fell more than 500 feet, and it is being reported by an eyewitness that "there was quite a lot of blood".  This comes on the heels of news that a former Deutsche Bank executive was found hanged in his home in London on Sunday.  So why is this happening?  Yes, the markets have gone down a little bit recently but they certainly have not crashed yet.  Could there be more to these deaths than meets the eye?  You never know.  And as I will discuss below, there have been a lot of other really strange things happening around the world lately as well. Read More

01.28.14- The REAL State of the Union in just 889 words…
Simon Black

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens:

This summer we will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.

This senseless, destructive war was started and championed by politicians who cared nothing for the 9 million people who lost their lives.

And in doing so, they began a century of warfare which continues to this day.

Our military industrial complex is larger than ever. We have nearly 2 million troops and national guardsmen, plus 3.5 million civilians employed in the defense sector. Read More

01.27.14- Peace Is the Only Answer in China-Japan Island Dispute
Zachary Fillingham

(Editor's Note: Having just finished a commentary on this very subject, I am bolstered by the author's affirmation that the situation in the South China Sea could be a pivotal point when considering the overall state of geopolitical tensions. I would amend Mr. Fillingham's title, however, by adding one word: Peace Is the Only Sane Answer in China-Japan Island Dispute. Given my lack of faith or trust in any politicians anywhere, I harbor serious doubt as to whether the application of sanity portends greatly in the lustful quest for wealth and power. - JSB)

The East China Sea territorial dispute between China and Japan figured prominently in various geopolitical risk forecasts for 2014, and with good reason. Neither side shows any sign of standing down, and with every new military deployment near the contested area comes an increased risk of a small-scale military incident spiraling into war. Read More

01.25.14- Event Phases : Understanding The Progression to Collapse
Dan W.

This article has been graciously contributed by TheSurvivalistBlog.net. It has been authored by Dan W. as an entry in The Survivalist Blog non-fiction writing contest.

My proof reader, harshest critic, and prepping partner (my bride of 45 years) read my first cut of this article and told me that it was interesting... but boring! She may be right, but I still think it's worthy of a few minutes of your time to read. The points I make may be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer but, even if that's the case, they just might offer some guidance to help us better understand the timeline of how things might shake out ... and how that will affect our actions. If we understand the structure of an Event cycle it might help us to prepare more effectively. In this post I have used the word "Event" to describe anything we would otherwise refer to as "SHTF" or "TEOTWAWKI". The term "Phase" describes distinct (although variable) blocks of time before, during, and after an "Event". Read More

01.24.14- Lipstick on a Pig
Greg Hunter

Syria is the top story.  Before the second round of Geneva peace talks even started, Iran was uninvited to the talks by the U.N.  It was because Iran would not agree that the President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, should be removed as part of any peace plan.  The Syrian peace talks have turned into a name calling event with both sides posturing.  This is why the headlines say things like peace talks get off to "Belligerent Start."

The Syrian Foreign Minister says, "The West claims to fight terrorism publically while they feed it privately."  Secretary of State John Kerry says there "is no way possible in the imagination" that Syrian president Assad should be allowed to stay in power.  Kerry said Assad is ". . . a one-man super-magnet for terrorism.”  Kerry and the Obama White House have long said Assad should go.  Russian President Vladimir Putin cut a deal last year to remove Syria's chemical weapons, and war was averted. Read More

01.23.14- CME Group Liquidation for Lawsuit Damages
Charles Savoie

It is a matter of record that companies engaged in gold and silver mining have been ravaged as to operating income due to the price suppression in gold and silver sponsored by the CME Group through its wholly owned subsidiary, the Commodity Exchange, "COMEX." This in fact has gone on for several decades, not a mere matter of a couple of years. When the conspirators can no longer suppress gold and silver prices and a monumental upside surge occurs, this is another proof of price suppression, because a normal market won't suddenly spike (weather affected agriculturals aside).Read More

01.22.14- Signs of Weimar
Appearing in the US?
Graham Summers

History is often written to benefit certain groups over others.

Indeed, you will often find the blame for some of the worst events in history placed on the wrong individuals or factors. Most Americans today continue to argue over liberal vs. conservative beliefs, unaware that the vast majority of economy ills plaguing the country originate in neither party but in the Federal Reserve, which has debased the US Dollar by over 95% in the 20^th century alone.

With that in mind, I want to consider what actually caused the hyperinflationary period in Weimar Germany. Please consider the quote from Niall Ferguson's book, "The Ascent of Money" regarding what really happened there: Read More

01.21.14- Washington: The Illusion of Government
Fred Reed

In a paroxysm of patriotic musing, I reflected that Washington is an insular, incestuous, inward-looking city, chiefly interested in itself, so politically inbred as to be in danger of hemophilia, out of touch with reality, having remarkably little understanding of or interest in the rest of the country or the world. Isnl't this wonderful?

Inbreeding? By comparison with the Yankee Capital, West Virginians are on the outer limits of hybrid vigor.  We had Bush I, a mediocrity but no worse, and later Bush II, in whom mediocrity would have been a welcome astonishment. We had Clinton the First, Bill, who was at least intelligent, then almost had Clinton II, who instead became Secretary of State, for which her only qualification was having been First Basilisk. Read More

01.20.14- The Retail Death Rattle
Jim Quinn

"I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don’t want, to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like." — Emile Gauvreau

If ever a chart provided unequivocal proof the economic recovery storyline is a fraud, the one below is the smoking gun. November and December retail sales account for 20% to 40% of annual retail sales for most retailers. The number of visits to retail stores has plummeted by 50% since 2010. Please note this was during a supposed economic recovery. Also note consumer spending accounts for 70% of GDP. Also note credit card debt outstanding is 7% lower than its level in 2010 and 16% below its peak in 2008. Retailers like J.C. Penney, Best Buy, Sears, Radio Shack and Barnes & Noble continue to report appalling sales and profit results, along with listings of store closings. Read More

01.18.14- The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation
Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler

The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them "too big to fail." Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks' balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis. Read More

01.17.14- Who Has the Time and Motivation to Comprehend the Mess We're In?
Almost Nobody
Charles Hugh Smith

If we don't understand the problem or the dynamics that are generating the problem, it is impossible to reach a solution or practical plan of action.

When it comes time to assess our grasp of the dynamics of this unprecedented era, how do you reckon historians will grade our collective political "leadership," intelligentsia, central state, corporate leadership and the "common man/woman" citizen? Did we rise to the occasion or did we falter, not in acting to counter the dissolution of the Status Quo, but in simply making a concerted effort to understand the tangled web of lies, corruption, perverse incentives, unintended consequences, simplistic (and utterly misguided) ideologies, not to mention the real-world limits of a supposedly limitless world, that have become the key dynamics of this era? Read More

01.16.14- The're Not Gods...The're Not Even That Smart
Paul Rosenberg

I hear people making all sorts of predictions of what the powers that be (TPTB) will allow or not allow. Honestly, they treat this group as though they are omnipotent.

Just to be clear, the term, "powers that be" generally refers to the partnership between central banking cartels, mega-corps, and governments (including military, spy agencies, and secret police). I will use it in that way also.

And while these groups have tremendous power in certain areas, they are not gods. In fact, they are, as individuals, not much more capable than the average person. Many of them, particularly at the higher levels, hold their positions by birth and not necessarily (or usually) for any meritocratic reason. Read More

01.15.14- Senate Negotiatiors prepare $1.1 trillion spending; Could top 1,000 pages…
Andrew Taylor

Do you get any benefit from our government? They’re getting ready to spend another $1.1 trillion, you know, to keep things going for awhile longer. There’s a lot of free shit that needs to be given out, and a lot of military hardware and union government drone pensions that need to be paid (for people that retired at 50). But not for Obamacare, since they opted out of Obamacare. But you will be paying for their major medical insurance.

Remember all the turmoil when the government “shut down”? No? Because there wasn’t any turmoil, other than tyranny and punishment ordered by Obama, who hates America and Americans. People will blindly stare at their phones, their T.V., and their computers while the government pisses away all their money, and borrows another trillion to fill in the gaps. Our government is so far out of control and divorced from reality that it cannot be saved, in it’s present form. Read More

01.14.14- Extending Unemployment
'Killing Economy'
WND

'Spending money is not the only way to show you care about people'

The Obama administration has wasted little time in 2014 demanding an emergency extension of federal unemployment benefits with no spending cuts attached and questioning the compassion of those who don’t want to continue aid to struggling families, but a former chief economist for the Joint Economic Committee says it’s not the smart or compassionate thing to do.

Brian Wesbury has been an economist for 32 years, worked on Capitol Hill and is now chief economist at First Trust Advisors in Chicago. He told WND the economic history of the U.S. and the world is clear and stands in contrast to Obama’s contention that extending the benefits boosts the economy. Read More

01.13.14- The Wolf of Wall Street
(or How to Shear the Sheeple)
Larry LaBorde

The lovely Miss Puddy and myself traipsed off to the theatre again on movie night to see Martin Scorsese's new film. The film starred Leonardo DiCaprio who played the amoral Wall Street broker, Jordan Belford.

Aside from the sex / drugs / language that was just over the top, the undercurrent theme of broker theft from clients and total disregard for the welfare of their customers was quite disturbing. Greed, self-indulgence and self-destruction, not to mention stupidity, were also common themes. Read More

01.11.14- Weekend Rant: Predictable Rise of Populism
Staff Report

One reason we fought so hard against the Occupy Wall Street movement was because we clearly grasped it was populism.

Populism is a horrible political perversion and always leads to a worse "ism," eventually. All around the world, banking elites have installed the building blocks of internationalism. Country after country has emplaced a central bank that allows a handful of technocrats to fix the price and value of money.

This combined with corporate personhood has created the recipe for what we see today: a merger of industrial might with government controlled behind the scenes by the globalist banking set.

When the fascism – corporatism – eventually steals enough of the wealth of the middle class, populism can be ignited. The populism – social and economic – is also created by top elites to defuse the anger generated by the corporatism that they have already inflicted. Read More

01.10.14- FDR's Response to the Plot to Overthrow Him
Alan Nasser

Perhaps the most alarming slice of twentieth-century U.S. political history is virtually unknown to the general public, including most scholars of American history.

In 1934 a special Congressional committee was appointed to conduct an investigation of a possible planned coup intended to topple the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and replace it with a government modelled on the policies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The shocking results of the investigation were promptly scotched and stashed in the National Archives. While the coup attempt was reported at the time in a few newspapers, including The New York Times, the story disappeared from public memory shortly after the Congressional findings were made available to president Roosevelt. Read More

01.09.14- Dr. Paul Craig Roberts-U.S. Markets Rigged by its Own Authorities–
It Blows the Mind
Greg Hunter

Economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says, "We have a situation where all the markets are rigged. All the markets are manipulated." As an example, Dr. Roberts points to the stock market. Dr. Roberts contends, "We have a stock market at all-time highs, and where is the economy? There's not one. There's no recovery." Dr. Roberts goes on to say, "53% of Americans earn less than $30,000 per year. Well, the poverty rate for a family of four is something like $24,000. . . . If there is no income to drive the economy and there is no credit expansion to drive the economy, then how does it go anywhere? You can't possibly have a recovery." Read More

01.08.14- Six Reasons Why The Government Is Destroying The Dollar
Daniel R. Amerman, CFA

The United States government has six interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:

1. Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels potentially rivaling those seen in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

2. It is the most effective way to not just pay down current crushing debt levels using devalued dollars, but also to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.

3. It creates a lucratively profitable $500 billion a year hidden tax for the benefit of the US government — a tax which is not understood by voters or debated in elections. Read More