California will not accept its own IOU's (lol)

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors' federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.Lead plaintiff Nancy Baird filled her contract with California to provide embroidered polo shirts to a youth camp run by the National Guard, but never was paid the $27,000 she was owed. She says California "paid" her with an IOU that two banks refused to accept - yet she had to pay California sales tax on the so-called "sale" of the uniforms.The class consists mostly of small business owners, many of whom rely on income from government contracts to keep afloat. They say California has used them as "suckers" as it looks for a way to bankroll its operations while avoiding its own financial obligations."Instead of seeking funds through proper channels, the State has created a nightmare," the class says. "Many of these businesses will not survive if they are required to wait until October 2009 to have these forced IOUs redeemed by the State."The class claims the state is violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It demands that California be ordered to honor its own IOUs, plus interest. They are represented by William Audet. Source

we are on the massive downslope of Depression II

From NickelRant.com - August 5, 2009

Yes, I still am on sabbatical, but I just had to interrupt my sojourn with the following observations, which simply cannot wait. Allow me to skip my normal sarcasm and vitriol and simply cut to the chase:
There may still be some side drafts and brief upticks, but I suspect that, finally, we are on the massive downslope of Depression II. Just like Depression I, which began in 1929, but seemed to peter out just before really heading down in 1931/1932, we now are on schedule for part two of what began in 2007 – this is the main event, folks.
The normally unflappable WhirlyBen Bernanke (Fed Chairman) was visibly sweating and stammering during Congressional testimony earlier this week.
Yesterday, little Timmie Geithner (US Treasury Secretary) very nearly had a total meltdown in front of news cameras.
The Chinese had a delegation here a couple of days ago, delivering the usual threats. This, following recent public statements piled upon still others by the official “unofficial” Chinese outlets: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aJc0HvimMNRE .
Congressmen, home on August vacations, are facing unexpectedly-angry throngs of voters, who are being painted by the controlled media as part of a Republican-organized protest (the Republicans couldn’t organize a high-school prom right now, so pathetic are they).
The dollar is breaking down and US bond sales are very weak and very obviously (to everybody in the world now) being underwritten by the Fed with freshly-printed dollars, usually through third-person “straw men,” often foreign-based.
Banks are paying out record bonuses to execs from bailout money, appearances be damned, with income statements massaged to show profits when already-recorded losses really are the order of the day (despite those bailouts). Unrecorded losses from real estate and credit cards, if recognized, would bankrupt upwards of 90% of all banks in America.
Goldman Sachs is a special case, as they make money the old-fashioned way: They cheat (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.pkFKwMQPWw ). You and I pay, of course, since it all is done with false dollars.
The FDIC is out of money (http://www.safehaven.com/article-14106.htm ) - of course, the feds will just create more false dollars out of thin air. As much as is needed, of course.
The only real manufacturing base left in America – automobiles – is being propped up, despite massive bailouts and BK relief from creditors, only by “cash for clunkers,” which is robbing demand from the next few years and will add hundreds of billions to the deficit. This only makes more inevitable the total crash of the auto industry and rolls it off into the future by a few months, is all.
This year’s deficit now is conceded to be two trillion, which means it may well approach three. Future deficits as far as the eye can see. Obama seems not to have a clue, economically. When the dollar fails, as fail it must (http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124931281428701713.html?mod=BOLFeed ), then we no longer will be able to export any of our economic troubles to other countries and the pace of bad economic news will quicken markedly. http://www.personalliberty.com/government/obama-to-abandon-the-dollar/ .
ShadowStats.com shows unemployment now to be above Depression I levels. In fact, a review of the data at ShadowStats clearly shows us to be well into Depression II (http://www.shadowstats.com/ ).
Commercial real estate suddenly is going into the crapper even faster than did residential (which also still is spiraling downward) – destination: ten cents on the dollar, adjusted for inflation. Some Florida condos are there right now, even unadjusted for inflation.
We have massive asset deflation (just look at real estate) being masked by false-dollar-driven inflation (else the stock market would be 25% of its current value and wages would be down 40%). At some point, not too far away now, deflation will reach its floor (can’t go below zero, after all), then inflation really will take off (infinity is the ceiling, donchaknow). This is, perhaps, best illustrated by the manipulation of precious metal prices through massive false-dollar intervention in the futures “markets.”
Regarding precious metals: now it is a very poorly-kept secret that the ETFs don’t have the metal they claim and are really fractional-reserve “metal” brokers (after all, the ETFs are brought to you by the same banks who have destroyed all of us with their fractional-reserve banking). When the first one goes belly up, all of them will fall down at once and the game will be over in dramatic fashion, with PM prices quite literally going to the Moon. Yes, everybody holding ETF shares gets paid off on that day, at the pre-Moon prices and with even more freshly-minted false dollars.
The federal market manipulators are having more and more difficulty with holding the spot prices of gold beneath $1,000 per ounce and silver under $15 per ounce, both critical inflection points on almost everybody’s charts.
The rumors increasingly point to something really big afoot within the next 60 days.
I expect WWIII to accompany our deepening economic depression, just like always.
Also, expect a massive flu pandemic in America this Fall, with everybody forced to get those vaccinations.
-ed