Is The U.S. Government The Last Great Source Of Middle Class American Jobs?

From The Business Insider:


Once upon a time, private industry was the engine of the great American economic machine.  From coast to coast, expanding industries spawned massive cities filled with optimistic Americans who were able to achieve middle class lifestyles on the good jobs that American companies were providing for them.  The largest middle class in the history of the world had been created and it seemed possible for just about everyone to live the American Dream.  But today all of that has changed.  The private sector is being dominated by gigantic global corporations that have shown absolutely no hesitation to ship jobs overseas.  Millions upon millions of good jobs have been sent to China, India and the third world and they are never coming back.  Pay and benefits for middle class Americans working in private industry have been slowly eroding and are now at dangerously low levels.  Meanwhile, working as a "government servant" has never been more rewarding.  Today, the average government worker makes far more than the average worker in the private sector does.
How much more?
Well, according to a new study from the Heritage Foundation, U.S. government workers earn 30 to 40 percent more money than their private sector counterparts on average.
So, in essence, the "servants" make substantially more money than the taxpayers who employ them.
Isn't the system great?
In fact, according to the study, if you add in retirement and health care benefits, the average federal employee now earns nearly twice as much as the average private sector employee.
Ouch.
Just check out this excerpt from the study....

Including non-cash benefits adds to this disparity. The average private-sector employer pays $9,882 per employee in annual benefits, while the federal government pays an average of $32,115 per employee.

Yes, it is very good to be a U.S. government employee in 2010.
Meanwhile, the private sector continues to bleed jobs.  The U.S. economy lost 131,000 more jobs during the month of July.  Needless to say, the vast majority of those job losses came from private industry.
The truth is that it is becoming very, very difficult to live a middle class lifestyle if you do not work for the government.
A reader of this column named Tim recently shared the difficult experiences he has been going through as an employee in the private sector....

Been with my current company over 12 years. Last pay raise I got was six years ago. The last two years we’ve had our salaries actually reduced. 401K matching, vacation time, company stock purchase plans, actual pay, all gone or reduced. Me and buddies figure it to be about ~14% overall reduction. At my level I was averaging a 10% annual bonus (which are now a vague memory).

All in all, I am NOW working longer hours, at a much less satisfying job (it actually sucks), for about 20-25% less than I was making just 3 years ago.

My company was once a very highly respected company for the way it treated employees and the loyalty that created. We were long term focused, made great products. but now? ha! Upper management pushes harder and harder so they get their *quarterly* bonuses. Below VP level, people, and I mean a LOT of people are now pushing 55-60+ hour weeks for fear of losing their jobs.

With all this said – I still consider myself LUCKY. Even with the ~20% pay reduction, I still make very good money. But one thing has drastically changed. I no longer circulate my money. It all goes into savings. Every spare penny. And while this is good for me, we all understand it is at the expense of the local economy.

The saddest thing is to see my kids now graduating from college (two in the last four years!). They are entering a dismal job market with no hope of “true” recovery in the foreseeable future.

Of course the U.S. government cannot keep paying their workers above market wages forever.
But for now, if you need a good job and can stand to do it, working for the U.S. government pays really, really well.
Might as well jump on the gravy train for as long as it lasts.
So is this a good system?
Of course not.
The true wealth of a nation is produced by the private sector.  But unfortunately, the private sector is providing fewer and fewer good jobs in the United States.
The truth is that the U.S. government has become the last great source of middle class American jobs.  This will not be able to last indefinitely, but for now those seeking the safety and security of a job ("just over broke") should be looking to the government because the chances of getting a great job in the private sector are getting slimmer by the day.


Now check out 22 statistics that prove the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America -->


Join the conversation about this story »

The “humanitarian” campaign for the war in Afghanistan

By Patrick Martin

August 10, 2010 - The US media has launched a full-scale effort to suppress growing popular opposition to the war in Afghanistan, using one-sided propaganda about Taliban atrocities to conceal the murderous character of the American intervention...It is fair to ask a different question, however. Why didn’t the Time editor publish a photograph on the magazine’s front cover of any of the thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children killed by US air strikes, missiles, artillery and mortar shells? He might have chosen the scene at Kunduz, where 140 people were incinerated in a single air strike that detonated a gasoline tanker. Or the wedding party in the eastern province of Nangarhar, where 47 were blown to fragments by bombs and missiles, including the young bride. Or the 90 people machine-gunned by US helicopter gunships during a funeral ceremony in Herat province. Or any of the hundreds of individual, small-scale killings of civilians detailed in the recent release of documents by WikiLeaks. There are enough such victims of imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan to fill the covers of American news magazines for decades to come... Read all

‘John Doe’ Who Fought FBI Spying Freed From Gag Order After 6 Years

By Kim Setter | Wired | Aug. 10, 2010

The owner of an internet service provider who mounted a high-profile court challenge to a secret FBI records demand has finally been partially released from a 6-year-old gag order that forced him to keep his role in the case a secret from even his closest friends and family. He can now identify himself and discuss the case, although he still can’t reveal what information the FBI sought.

Nicholas Merrill, 37, was president of New York-based Calyx Internet Access when he received a so-called “national security letter” from the FBI in February 2004 demanding records of one of his customers and filed a lawsuit to challenge it. His company was a combination ISP and security consultancy business that was launched in the mid-90s and had about 200 customers, Merrill said, many of them advertising agencies and non-profit groups.

Despite the fact that the FBI later dropped its demand for the records, Merrill was prohibited from telling his fiancée, friends or family members that he had received the letter or that he was embroiled in a lawsuit challenging its legitimacy. He occasionally showed up for court hearings about the case, but sat silently in the audience with other court observers. In 2007, he was prevented from publicly accepting an award for his courage from the American Civil Liberties Union, because he was not allowed to identify himself as the plaintiff in the case.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York finally released Merrill partially from the gag order (.pdf) on July 30, which Merrill revealed publicly only on Monday.

“After six long years of not being able to tell anyone at all what happened to me – not even my family – I’m grateful to finally be able to talk about my experience of being served with a national security letter,” Merrill said in a statement. “Internet users do not give up their privacy rights when they log on, and the FBI should not have the power to secretly demand that ISPs turn over constitutionally protected information about their users without a court order. I hope my successful challenge to the FBI’s NSL gag power will empower others who may have received NSLs to speak out.”

A national security letter is an informal administrative letter the FBI can use to secretly demand customer records from ISPs, financial institutions, libraries, insurance companies, travel agencies, stockbrokers, car dealerships and others. NSLs have been used since the 1980s, but the Patriot Act, passed after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and a subsequent revision in 2003 expanded the kinds of records that could be obtained with an NSL.

With an NSL, the FBI does not need to seek a court order to obtain such records, nor does it need to prove just cause. An FBI field agent simply needs to draft an NSL stating the information being sought is “relevant” to a national security investigation.

The letters come with a life-long gag order, so businesses that receive such letters are prohibited from revealing to anyone, including customers who may be under investigation, that the government has requested records of transactions. Violation of a gag order can be punishable by up to five years in prison.

The gag orders raise the possibility for extensive abuse of NSLs, under the cover of secrecy. Indeed, in 2007, a Justice Department Inspector General audit found that the FBI, which issued almost 200,000 NSLs between 2003 and 2006, had abused its authority and misused NSLs.

In Merrill’s case, although the letter’s gag order “was totally clear that they were saying that I couldn’t speak to a lawyer” about it, he immediately contacted his personal attorney, and together they went to the ACLU in New York, which agreed to represent him.

“My gut feeling is I’m an American,” Merrill said, in an interview with Threat Level on Tuesday. “I always have a right to an attorney. There’s no such thing as you can’t talk to your attorney.

“I kind of felt at the beginning, so few people challenge this thing, I couldn’t just stand by and see, in my opinion, the basic underpinnings of our government undermined,” he continued. “I was taught about how sophisticated our system of checks and balances is . . . and if you really believe in that, then the idea of one branch of government just demanding records without being checked and balanced by the judicial just is so obviously wrong on the surface.”

Merrill and the ACLU filed the lawsuit under the name “John Doe,” challenging the legality of the letter and asserting that customer records were constitutionally protected information. Merrill said the NSL, which listed 16 categories of records, including e-mail and billing records, was “very broad.”

“It was kind of open ended,” he said. “It went through a list of things and then said ‘and anything else.’ The implication was just send us everything and the kitchen sink.”

Merrill wouldn’t say how many records he had that were relevant to the request but said in general, “In the most broad understanding of what is electronic communication transaction records, I probably had like thousands and thousands of records on each client, if you consider that you host things and you’re using software that creates log files. . . . ISPs have a lot of records on every client typically. They may have records of every time you posted something, of every web site you visited.”

Over the years the case progressed, Merrill was careful not to disclose his identity. At one point he attended a packed hearing — filled with law school students and media — but he was careful not to speak with anyone.

Friends began to question whether he was John Doe when he was publicly identified with a second case involving a grand jury subpoena from the Secret Service for customer records related to the news site IndyMedia. In that case, no gag order was imposed. Merrill said he was forced to lie when asked about John Doe or simply refused to answer.

“It put me in a very difficult position,” he said.

In 2007, the ACLU granted “John Doe” a liberty award, along with four Connecticut librarians who also filed a legal challenge over NSLs. Because of the gag order against Merrill, the ACLU had to present his award to an empty chair.

In December 2008, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that some of the NSL gag provisions were unconstitutional, in part because they limited judicial review of the gag orders and forced courts to defer to the government’s assertions about the necessity of a gag order and also thwarted the ability of recipients to challenge a gag order. The case was sent back to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, forcing the government to justify the constitutionality of the gag order imposed on Merrill.

In June 2009, the government introduced secret evidence to the court to justify continuing the gag order, claiming that if information were revealed about the letter it would harm an ongoing investigation. Merrill and his attorneys were prevented from learning the specifics of the evidence in order to refute it. The government was then ordered by the court to produce an unclassified summary of its evidence.

The ACLU worked hard to negotiate a partial gag-lift with the government that allowed Merrill to finally identify himself, while still keeping the details of the letter secret. In return, Merrill and the ACLU agreed to drop their appeal of the case.

Although the case helped expose the secrecy around NSLs and resulted in some First Amendment progress for entities receiving such requests — Congress amended the law to allow recipients to challenge NSLs and gag orders, and the FBI must now also prove in court that disclosure of an NSL would harm a national security case — the fight over NSLs is not over. The Obama administration has been seeking to expand the FBI’s power to demand internet activity records of customers without court approval or suspicion of wrongdoing. If granted, the data sought without a court order could expand to include web browser and search history, and Facebook friend requests.

“Even though this case has resulted in significant improvements to NSL procedures, innocent Americans’ private records remain too vulnerable to secret and warrantless data collection by the FBI,” said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project in a statement. “At a minimum, the FBI should have to show individual suspicion before it issues an NSL for an individual’s personal information and invades Americans’ right to privacy and free speech on the Internet.”

The FBI’s use of national security letters to get information on Americans without a court order increased from 16,804 in 2007 to 24,744 in 2008. The 2008 requests targeted 7,225 U.S. people.

In the 2007 inspector general’s report, investigators found that the FBI had failed to adequately justify some letters, had evaded limits on (and sometimes illegally issued) NSLs to obtain phone, e-mail and financial information on American citizens, and had under-reported the use of NSLs to Congress.

About 60 percent of a sample of the FBI’s NSLs did not conform to Justice Department rules, and another 22 percent possibly violated the statute because they made improper requests of businesses or involved unauthorized collections of information.

Subsequently, the number of NSLs issued in 2007 dramatically dropped from 49,000 to 16,000, but has rebounded in recent years.

Merrill’s experience with the case has prompted him to launch a non-profit, the Calyx Institute, aimed at educating the technology and telecommunications industry and developing best practices and tools for safeguarding the privacy of customers.

“I feel there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. “The case has made me realize that just one or two people standing up can have a great effect. I either want to inspire others to follow the example . . . or develop technology that makes it more difficult for people to be snooped on.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/#ixzz0wJPJDeoV

The Council on Foreign Relations, the Fed and Us Beasts of Burden

From Goon Squad:

Meet a founding member of the planet's eminent war mongers and profiteers, Walter Lippmann (23 September 1889 – 14 December 1974) was an American intellectual, writer, reporter, and political commentator and a founding member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Lippmann advocated in the early 20th Century for us serfs to be governed by "a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality." This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. The experts, who often are referred to as "elites," were to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the "omnicompetent citizen."

Herr Lippmann was concerned that us plebes might be too stupid to govern ourselves, so he and his brethren set about making plans to keep us cattle penned up and happy.

To his mind, democratic ideals had deteriorated, voters were largely ignorant about issues and policies, they lacked the competence to participate in public life and cared little for participating in the political process. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann noted that the stability the government achieved during the patronage era of the 1800s was threatened by modern realities. He wrote that a “governing class” must rise to face the new challenges. He saw the public as Plato did, a great beast or a bewildered herd – floundering in the “chaos of local opinions."
He compared the political savvy of an average man to a theater-goer walking into a play in the middle of the third act and leaving before the last curtain.

Should we expect anything less from that bunch who think that war, any war is "Good, Double Good," theCouncil of Foreign Relations, and one of its 'Daddy's'? 

The Council on Foreign Relations was founded by a group of American and British imperialists and racists intent on ruling the world. Many of the American members were American intelligence officers that belonged to the first American Intelligence Agency -- THE INQUIRY. Many of the British members were British Intelligence Agents. THE INQUIRY and its members, who included such notable Americans as Col. Edward Mandel House, Walter Lippmann, Isaiah Bowman, and James Shotwell, wrote most of Woodrow Wilson's 14 points.

The CFR/RIIA method of operation is simple -- they control public opinion. They keep the identity of their group secret. They learn the likes and dislikes of influential people. They surround and manipulate them into acting in the best interest of the CFR/RIIA.
The Council on Foreign Relations, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs are adept at using the media to create massive psycho-political operations used to manipulate public opinion. The psycho-political operations are often designed to create tensions between different groups of people. The object is to keep the world in a state of perpetual tension and warfare to maximize profits from CFR/RIIA munition, medicine, media, energy, and food businesses.

Another founding member of the CFR was Colonel Edward House, was a key player in the formation of the Federal Reserve. 

In 1913, CFR founding father Colonel House helped pick the charter members of the original Federal Reserve Board. Among those chosen were Paul Warburg [ House Warburg and House of Khun-Lobe & Co. ] and Benjamin Strong [ House of Morgan and House of Khun-Lobe & Co. ]. House, Warburg, and Strong were American Round Table group members. According to Round Table Group historian, Carroll Quigley, the aim of the dynastic banking houses was,
"...nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank , in the hands of men like Montague Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmer Schact of the Reichs bank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."

The Video that started it all - written about in the WALL STREET JOURNAL and the subject of an NBC DATELINE. This is a 2:40 hour ... all » documentary investigating the little known IRON MOUNTAIN REPORT, leaked to the press in 1967. Purports to be a top-secret government plan to bring in the New World Order and the ultimate plans for American citizens. Declared a hoax, it was later verified by a top Pentagon official as real. The agenda is being carried out right under the noses of the American people. It is all about people control via deception and manipulation. Deep into Eugenics, birth control and hideous plans for a tyrannical slave state. It is all coming true after OKC and 9-11 with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security and the military police operating in America. Airports first, railroads, then highways, and finally a complete LOCKDOWN under the pretense of "security".

Separa

Separa

Any of this sound familiar?

Obama's nominees to the Federal Reserve board ALL JEWISH

Just another coincidence, of course:


Peter Diamond - jewish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._Diamond 
Janet Yeller - jewish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Yellen 
Sarah Bloom Raskin - jewish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Bloom_Raskin 
_____________________-


Related: 

Terrifying New Central Bankers - By The Mogambo Guru, 09 Aug '10

US Government in Massive New Global Warming Scandal – NOAA Disgraced

From Connecting the Dots in the New World Order:

Global warming data apparently cooked by U.S. government-funded body shows astounding temperature fraud with increases averaging 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

The tax-payer funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has become mired in fresh global warming data scandal involving numbers for the Great Lakes region that substantially ramp up averages.


A beleaguered federal agency appears to be implicated in the most blatant and extreme case of climate data fraud yet seen. Official records have been confirmed as evidence that a handful of temperature records for the Great Lakes region have been hiked up by literally hundreds of degrees to substantially inflate the average temperature range for the northeastern United States.


The web pages at the center of this latest climate storm were created by NOAA in partnership with Michigan State University.'


Read more...
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Related:  Business Facing a Wave of Green Taxes

15 Economic Statistics That Just Keep Getting Worse

From the Economic Collapse Blog:


A little over a week ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner penned an article for the New York Times entitled "Welcome To The Recovery" in which he touted the great strides that the U.S. economy was making.  But with unemployment still dangerously high and with foreclosures and personal bankruptcies continuing to set all-time records, should we really be talking about a "recovery"?  The truth is that the numbers don't lie, and statistic after statistic shows that the economic fundamentals continue to get progressively worse.  The U.S. government can continue to try to pump up with economy with more debt, but the reality is that there is not going to be a legitimate "recovery" until consumer spending rebounds.  Consumer spending makes up the vast majority of U.S. GDP.  But without good jobs, consumers are not going to be able to spend money.  Unfortunately, our jobs base continues to be erode as millions upon millions of middle class jobs are shipped over to China, India and dozens of third world nations by the global predator corporations that now dominate the world economy.


The U.S. government cannot create real wealth out of thin air.  It can borrow even more money and flood the economy with even more paper currency, but the short-term "buzz" that creates does absolutely nothing to solve our long-term economic problems.
It is the private sector that actually creates wealth.  But unfortunately, over the last several decades we have allowed that wealth to become highly concentrated.  Now the giant global predator corporations have decided that American workers aren't really that desirable after all.  They are slowly taking away their factories and their offices and they are moving them to where people are willing to work for one-tenth the pay. 
So where does that leave middle class American "consumers"?
Well, it leaves us in a world of hurt.


The following are 15 key economic statistics that just keep getting worse and which reveal the horrific economic plight in which we now find ourselves.... 


1 - The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a new all-time record of 40.8 million in May.  The number of Americans receiving food stamps has set a new all-time record for 18 months in a row.  But there is every indication that things are going to get even worse.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that the number of Americans on food stamps will increase to 43 million in 2011. 
2 - The U.S. economy lost 131,000 more jobs during the month of July.  But the truth is that the U.S. economy has been bleeding jobs for a long time.  According to one analysis, the United States has lost 10.5 million jobs since 2007.  Meanwhile, immigrants (both legal and illegal) continue to pour into this nation in unprecedented numbers.
3 - Americans who are out of work are finding it incredibly difficult to get back into the workforce.  In the United States today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to an all-time record of 35.2 weeks.
4 - The U.S. government keeps trying to pump up the economy with debt, and in the process things are getting wildly out of control.  According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
5 - The interest on all of this debt is becoming increasingly oppressive.  As of July 1st, the U.S. government had spent $355 billion so far in 2010 on interest payments to the holders of the national debt.  The total for 2010 should be somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 billion.  According to Erskine Bowles, one of the heads of Barack Obama's national debt commission, the U.S. government will be spending $2 trillion just on interest on the national debt by 2020.  Keep in mind that the entire U.S. government budget is less than $4 trillion for the entire year of 2010.
6 - If the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the annual U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 trillion to $5 trillion.
7 - Social Security will pay out more in benefits in 2010 than it receives in payroll taxes.  This was not supposed to happen until at least 2015.  In the years ahead, these new "Social Security deficits" are projected to be absolutely catastrophic. 
8 - There are simply far too many retirees and not nearly enough workers to support them.  Back in 1950 each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers.  Today, each retiree's Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers.  By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
9 - Wealth continues to become highly concentrated at the top.  Since 1973, the average CEO’s salary has increased from 26 times the median income to over 300 times the median income.
10 - According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck.  That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
11 - The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10% of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one mortgage payment during the January to March time period.  That was a new all-time record and represented an increase from 9.1 percent a year ago.
12 - A recent survey of last year's college graduates found that 80 percent moved right back home with their parents after graduation.  That was up substantially from 63 percent in 2006.
13 - During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.
14 - The total number of U.S. bank failures passed the 100 mark in July of this year.  In 2009, the total number of U.S. bank failures did not pass the century barrier until October.
15 - The U.S. dollar continues to rapidly decline in value.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1970 would cost you $112.35 today.  An item that cost $20.00 in 1913 would cost you $440.33 today.
Any rational observer (and clearly U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner does not qualify) can see that the foundations of the U.S. economy are coming apart.  The rapidly accumulating mountain of debt that has fueled our "prosperity" is impossible to repay and is going to progressively choke the life out of our economic system.  The good jobs that we have allowed to be shipped out of our country are never coming back.  Every single day, more wealth flows out of this country than flows into it.


Anyone who claims that things are getting "better" is either ignorant, completely deluded or is purposely lying. 
The U.S. economy is not getting "better".
The U.S. economy is dying.
You should adjust your plans accordingly.
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Related: US Prosperity Meme Comes Undone
"Four Deformations of the Apocalypse"

On funny money and what is coming down the line

by Bob Chapman - International Forecaster

Global Research, August 11, 2010

Well, it's just the same old, same old, business as usual in America.  The Fed creates money out of thin air, uses it to keep the economy from teetering over the edge of destruction as ludicrous salaries and bonuses are collected by Wall Street Illuminists and as US consumers are deceptively informed that we have green shoots sprouting up and that recovery is just around the corner.  So go out and borrow, borrow, borrow, and spend, spend, spend, so US Illuminist transnational conglomerates can continue to generate their off-shore, untaxed profits to pay Illuminist salaries and bonuses for their henchmen in Corporate America.  Then you have the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (aka the Plunge Protection Team, aka the PPT for short), rigging markets around the world 24/7 with the money created out of thin air by the Fed via the repo pool.

            Meanwhile, the Illuminist banks that have borrowed money created out of thin air from the Fed through its myriad of borrowing facilities at little or no interest use some of their money to join the speculation party with all the inside information that has been provided to them courtesy of the PPT as the public gets taken to the cleaners because that don't have any illegal, front-running algorithms designed by their government like the players on Wall Street, who have few if any losing days in their proprietary trading offices.  And lest we forget that whatever money is not used by the Illuminist banks that they have borrowed from the Fed at near zero interest to speculate with is parked with the Fed at 2.5% risk-free, a gift of the US taxpayer because we just love to get hosed by our criminal syndicates aka "too-big-to-fail" Illuminist banks.  And never mind the fact that there are no longer enough idiots left in the world to buy our Treasury paper anymore, because, well, if you don't have enough buyers, then you just make them up out of thin air, like our Federal Reserve Notes.   

            But first, we ignore things like monthly hundred billion plus mathematical discrepancies between the amount of the government's deficits and the amount of treasury bonds being sold.  Then we give the proceeds from the bogus excess treasury sales to foreign countries, foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds as well as Cayman Island hedge funds so they can do what with it?  Why, so they can buy US treasury paper and agency paper, among other things.  Yep, we set up the straw men, fund them with counterfeit money illegally created out of thin air beyond what is needed to fund the ever-increasing deficit being created by the drunken sailors running the US government, and we then magically create categories of new mega-buyers in our financial reports to show everyone how our treasury paper is just as "beloved" as in the old days.  Why, even the totally bankrupt UK has magically created $180 billion for the express purpose of buying up those treasuries to keep the whole rip-off party going.  We'll let our subscribers decide where the totally bankrupt UK came up with that amount of money for US treasury paper of all things.  Ah, life in the US of A.  You just can't make stuff like this up!

            Well, as we predicted, the Fed has been talking about suspending the payment of interest on bank reserves parked at the Fed to force banks to lend.  Remember, these reserves were lent by the Fed to its member Illuminist banks at near zero interest rates ostensibly to keep them afloat, but also to help fund speculative investments based on no-lose inside information from the PPT, among numerous other reasons.  These reserves now constitute over a trillion dollars and can be run through a fractional reserve banking system at anywhere from ten to one, up to forty to one, leverage. Hence, even using the traditional ten to one fractional banking leverage, you would only need $500 billion to produce the necessary 5 trillion of counterfeit money, that would be generated out of thin air through the banking system, to keep the country afloat through the next Presidential election.  This massive reserve was planned in advance to keep the system going so they could milk it a while longer through the end of Obama's term of office after they blood-sucked the public for all the bailout money that the US taxpayers could tolerate without revolting.  The remainder of this massive reserve will be used to buy the assets of failed banks and non-bank financial companies for pennies on the dollar, as the Fed, now with a financial monopoly over the entire financial system, complete with their own information-collecting Gestapo, destroys all the small fry in the next round of competition elimination which will make the bank failures so far look like a trifling matter.  They will get the goods on all the small fry, force them into liquidation, and then let the big Illuminist legacy banks pick them over like a group of vultures.  And if any of the small fry owe big money to any Illuminist legacy banks, they will be overvalued by the FDIC, and the US Treasury, via the Fed, will pay the Illuminist claimants based on the so-called "fair value," which in that case will be bogus mark-to-fantasy asset values, and then taxpayers will get taken to the cleaners when the overvalued assets are sold for their much smaller real value later on.  That's right, its heads we win, tails you lose, the continual mantra of the Illuminati.

            The manipulations of markets by the PPT around the world are now so blatant that only a total dolt could not see it.  Witness the takedown of the gold and silver prices by JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and/or Deutsche Bank just like clockwork every option expiration day.  And heaven forbid that gold should exceed $1,200 per ounce, or silver $18.50 per ounce, lest the entire universe come to an end.  Well, we have some news for the Illuminati.  The universe of the would-be lords of the universe is going to come to an end, and much sooner than they think.  They are well on their way to losing control of world financial systems.

            We have to wonder when the class action lawsuits will kick in to get some justice for people burned by these arrogant manipulations against long side gold and silver option holders that have occurred month after month, ad infinitum while regulators continue to look the other way, as instructed.  Will these suits end up stifled and whitewashed like recent SEC suits against Illuminist firms like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Berkshire Hathaway, with fines that are a dinky percentage of the losses they have caused, or the money they have absconded with, with no jail time, ever? We wonder what must be going on in the minds of attorneys who are handling theses cases.  We wonder if they know what they are up against.  They probably do know, and shudder at the thought of trying to pursue these cases aggressively.  Bad things can happen to those who oppose the Eastern Establishment, another name for the US branch of the Illuminati.  They just shut up and do as they are told, or else.  Instead of digging into their investigations, they occupy their time by watching porn.  We suppose that burying your head in the sand is preferable to losing your job since finding an honest job is no longer possible with almost one in four working adults now out of work.
            While wanton criminality pervades US commodity markets, the CFTC stands idly by telling us that they will be considering position limits for gold, and especially for silver, without saying anything about the potential for exemptions from these limits. Any such exemptions imposed would only operate against the long side because the commercial short side, backed by our US Treasury Department and the Fed, will of course get whatever exemptions they want.  And if the new financial reform law (so-called) does not happen to authorize the implementation of such exemptions, we're sure the CFTC will find a way to implement them anyway under some sort of regulatory power granted in the thousands of pages of legislation that no one has fully read yet.  No one has talked about this exemption issue, which seems to have been conveniently avoided in most of the recent articles concerning this subject.  Another subject they avoid is how they intend to unwind the ludicrously concentrated positions. Rest assured that it will be done very gradually, so you can expect a gradual price increase when this occurs, if ever.  A sudden moon-shot is possible, but not probable.
            Yellow fever stock market hits are likely on the way, so be prepared with your un-leveraged, long-term, in-the-money stock market short positions to protect your long metals positions if you're a professional trader, and everyone else should go long and stay long.  Professionals, do not use short-term puts, or you can expect some big-time short-covering events each expiration day to shake you loose before they orchestrate their yellow fever hit.  Any leverage is deadly.  Consider yourself warned. Avoid all paper gold and silver, and take delivery of physical metals only.  Virtually all paper gold and silver assets are scams at this point with few exceptions.   You can ignore all the elitist tripe about gold, because long term, gold is going one way, and one way only -- up, up and away!  Quantitative Easing, Round Two (aka QE2), here we come!

            There may be a quick yellow fever hit in the near future, followed by a miraculous pre-election recovery rally to establish a new shot-term high for stocks to benefit the Jackasses in November.  The purpose of such a hit, if it occurs, would be for the sole purpose of disrupting the precious metals markets during the beginning of their usual fall rally while simultaneously providing support for the dollar as idiots rush for treasuries in a panic.  US Treasuries, however, are now losing their battle with gold for the status of being the ultimate safe-haven.  Oil may also suffer to gain the "euro effect" in support of the dollar, since rich oil sheiks, who prefer to shop in Europe, have fewer dollars to spend when oil goes down, and thus fewer euros are purchased with those oil dollars.  The dollar could have a brief rally to 84, as nothing goes straight down, before once again testing 74, which it will do in the not-to-distant future.            We also believe that a large stock market correction might be used in order to provide the excuse for the implementation of QE2.  Could the excuse for such a large correction be a false-flag event or the outbreak of a major war?  We'll see.  While timing is always difficult to tell, rest assured that if it does happen, it most likely will occur after elections at a time when gold and silver are in a major rally, as always. You have now already witnessed the PPT "puff the fluff" into the stock market over the past five weeks, adding 1000 points to the Dow, taking it from about 9,600 to 10,600 as word about QE2 spreads on the QT through the ranks of the elitists via the PPT. They are now telling the public that it's safe to get back into the water, using the bogus rally like a carrot stick, knowing full well there will be a takedown later.  After using their illegal insider trading tips to get in early on the current rally for fun and profits via their unregulated dark pools of liquidity to keep their moves hidden from regulators (who would do nothing in any case), they will then make a mint on the shorts they have placed in the dark pools like the OTC as the takedown occurs and as the public piles in like suckers ripe for the picking.  Thus, the initiated will sell into the strength provided by the uninitiated, as always, and the regulators will be out of the picture since they have no control over dark pools.  Once again, it's heads we win, tails you lose.  We get the gold mine, you get the shaft.

            Once QE2's implementation becomes common knowledge, gold and silver are going to enter into another dimension, a much larger dimension, if you get our drift.
            Note how everything would tie nicely together.  You get a major war, or false-flag event, or both, either before or after elections.  The stock market takes a hit, temporarily disrupting precious metals markets, which will quickly recover as everyone turns to gold in a war/false-flag situation.  During this disruption, the elitists will then attempt to cover their precious metals shorts, and go long for the first time in decades. Oil will promptly skyrocket, sending the stock markets into a huge funk.  Our non-citizen President will then become a war-time President, to increase his chances for re-election.  QE2 will then be used to both fund the war and to help stock markets recover from their large initial decline, as oil prices are brought back under control by Big Oil using our military as cannon-fodder, making the Jackasses look good for the next Presidential election as they become war-time incumbents, with the focus off the economy and onto the battlefield.  Also, since the war will then be two years in its duration, it will be used as a scapegoat for the ultimate takedown of the world economic system that the elitists have planned in order to implement world government.  Obviously, you cannot just start a war and then turn around immediately and blame the world's financial problems on that war.  The war has to first be appropriately "aged."  And if "The Joker" somehow gets reelected as a result, you can expect all hell to break loose as the war seemingly spirals out of control, and world financial systems are intentionally collapsed to implement world government.  The impact of the war will be blamed for all the ensuing woes, martial law may even be implemented as a result, and our peerless Islamo-fascist leader's epithet, "The Joker," will seem most appropriate.

            And think of all the volatility that all these events would bring to world financial markets, and the fabulous wealth that could be accumulated by anyone having insider information on when these events would be orchestrated to occur.  However, as for the those of you who have not been anointed by the New World Order, only those who own gold, silver and their related assets will survive.
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Related: Martin Armstrong: "Staring into the Abyss" (.pdf)
Fed to Buy More of Its Own Debt

U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know: Laurence Kotlikoff

Baby Boomers of Mass Destruction

The Fed Has Admitted That It Has Totally Lost Control of the Crisis

August 11, 2010 • 7:07AM

In its Aug. 10th meeting, where it escalated the hyperinflationary bailout, the Federal Reserve basically admitted that it has totally lost control of the financial crisis. With Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig dissenting, the Fed vowed at the meeting to continue buying securities — reportedly, U.S. government debt — and reneged on its pledge to reduce it $1.4 trillion securities holdings—much of it mortgage-related toxic waste. The Fed will pour billions (up to $200 billion) of new non-existent money into buying new assets, because there is no recovery. Or, in their language, "the pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed."

Hoenig, who had been the first of the Fed regional presidents to support reinstating Glass Steagall, opposed the Fed's reversal of its stated policy that it would bring down the $1.4 trillion in assets holdings by $200 billion. Another big bailout—with no need to ask the Congress or the American people—and another massive jump in hyperinflation.