Thursday, June 17, 2010

The Fed's Purchase of US Sovereign Debt: "The US Treasury is under the Control of the Fed’s Owners".

US, UK and European financial systems are on the way to collapse

Were it not for the Federal Reserves purchase of Treasury and Agency bonds the US would already be unable to raise funds to service debt and issue new debt, and it would already have descended into national bankruptcy. It is no wonder the Fed does not want to be audited. Through various artifices the Fed has been purchasing US treasury paper. No one knows how much, because when asked the Fed says it is a state secret. That is what all Americans love. A country run in secrecy. A privately owned corporation operating under the cover of secrecy, and protected by a Treasury Department, that is under the control of the Fed’s owners. How is that for an incestuous relationship?

Government is desperately searching for more revenue to cover its massive deficit spending and to service existing mandatory programs. Taxes are being increased; some 19 new taxes, in the recently passed medical reform legislation. Unfortunately this isn’t enough. Of course, there is never enough.

As a result, as we pointed out recently, government has been eying retirement plans as a source of funding. The arm-twisting has been going on for some six months to make managers of retirement funds to purchase US Treasuries and Agency bonds. This is to provide a delaying action as the dollar begins to play second fiddle to gold as the only real currency. In addition, foreign central governments, which own well over $3 trillion of these debt instruments, hope that the US is serious about protecting the functioning of government. Accessing retirement plans will be an integral part of extending solvency to buy more time for Wall Street, banking and government. Of course there is nothing our purchased Congress won’t pass to stay in office.

Thus it has been decided behind the scenes to eventually confiscate the $15 trillion in private retirement funds. The only thing those who control government haven’t quite figured out yet is exactly how to confiscate what little wealth you have left. These plans were in construction in the early 1990s with funding from the Rockefellers. In 1991, plans were presented to create a mandatory pension system to be funded by a one-time 15% tax on retirement assets and a continuing tax of 15% on retirement income. Those plans had to be put on the shelf, because they were not politically acceptable at the time and passage was not possible. Today there are more aggressive plans in the works and if we do not unseat most of the incumbents in November’s election you will see passage of such legislation over the next two years.

Tax revenues are plunging due to high unemployment and the justification is there to present such legislation, as government spending reaches unbelievable levels. New methods, no matter how unpalatable have to be found to feed this devouring money monster.

In 2007 ideas were submitted to a congressional subcommittee by Thresa Ghilarducci who was director for the far, far, left at the New School for Social Research. Her idea, of course, was to make sure retirement would be available for millions who never bothered to save a cent and her solution was to confiscate the assets of those who did save. A program that would have made Marx and Lenin very happy. Her plan was to tax workers of 5% of their gross income. The eventual payout would be based on government’s bogus CPI, which has been screwing retirees under COLA for the past 30 years. As any intelligent person knows the government is already broke and can never pay off its debt, thus the funds would be used to pay down existing debt. That would go for any plan the government puts together. Since then we have seen other approaches, such as mandatory plans, voluntary plans, but they all end up stealing your retirement. As we said last week now is the time to start phasing out of these plans, such as IRAs. In order to overcome the tax and possible penalties you might phase out over 2 or 3 years. If you have any questions contact us and we will try to be of assistance.

There could be legislation to end further tax deductions in effect ending all plans for the future in order to being in immediate tax revenues, or a voluntary plan where a percentage of your plan could be traded for a government annuity, which would not be worth the paper it is written on. It is coming no matter what form it takes. The people who control government know this has to be done to keep the economy afloat. This is just another form of fascist nationalization. It may be sold to Americans’ as bonds lose their AAA status, or an attack on the Fed or the Treasury, or another war, or a complete economic collapse. It could be a false flag event, or World War III. Take your pick, but it is coming. The brainwashed public in worry and fear can be convenienced of anything. These events could spark a move to add taxes or penalties justified by such events. Those in plans they cannot exit are just plain screwed, unless they quit their jobs, take the funds and buy gold and silver related assets.

Discussions are in progress to relieve you of your wealth. They have already destroyed the real estate market. The stock market will be next to fall followed by bonds. You have to begin exiting now before the rules become more onerous. In fact, such events will force workers to jump at the chance for a worthless government program. Fortunately you will already be out and into gold and silver assets. If you do not begin your exit now you will be plundered by government. We might add that in the process of the stock and bond market falling there will be a consolidation and nationalization of banks, so immediately exit CDs. Those lower values in stocks and bonds will lower the value of cash value life insurance policies and annuities, which also should be terminated while you still have time to do so. Whether we like it or not, this is to be a total takedown. If you think moving assets offshore, forget it, unless you are willing to live in that new country and become a citizen. The US has agreements with many countries already to access the assets of US citizens. Why do you think the number of Americans renouncing citizenship is growing in leaps and bounds? There are some savvy people who are able to escape and are doing so. Now is the time to act. He who hesitates is lost.

The foregoing events lead us to other manifestations of trouble, real trouble. For the past four years all currencies have fallen versus gold and silver. The US dollar has been falling for 11 years versus gold and silver. What gold is telling you is that the US, UK and European financial systems are on the way to collapse. The cover-up cannot go on and all the players know that. They are all living in the theater of the absurd. What politicians in all these countries are doing is what they are being told to do. If they do not do what they are told they will never hold public office or be a bureaucrat again. If what they do is serious enough they will be liquidated. What is happening financially, fiscally and monetarily is unnatural. There is absolutely no way the system can be fixed. If these politicians and their handlers believe this they are doomed. They have pulled this hundreds of times and each time they have been unsuccessful. This time will be a disaster for the Illuminists due to the Internet and talk radio. This time they will escape nothing. We live in a decadent, immoral financial system that has to fall. In this sort of environment only gold and silver can protect your assets.


Defamation: True Stories

I will tell you the secret. Some Jewish people spread their hatred of peoples all over the world by playing the Victim.
The scare tactic known as "Antisemitism" is born from ancient cultures.
Tactics they use like this manifests itself mainly through the controlled news media, TV commercials, and through all kinds of entertainment, all through the industry they own.
It manifests itself though our cultural, spiritual, and government leaders they control.
They are disingenuous, misinformed, they lie through omission and out right lie, for their own gain.
They use the technique when pushing any agenda, even huge agendas like the discredited man-made global warming fraud, starting profitable wars for arms manufacturers and bankers, or pushing Wall Street bailouts, and they call you an anti-Semite or other names if you disagree with what they are doing.
They try to sell you protection to keep you safe, even though you already have 700 US military bases in 130 countries, and a trillion dollar arsenal of military weapons. Yet they tell you, you need more of it like naked body scanners at airports, even though your chances of being harmed by another passenger are 1 in 100 million.

My friends in the Jewish community recently documented a major part of the control freak mechanism they use, on film.
My friends in the Jewish community just want to break free of this insidious control freak mechanism in place. They want to be free to express themselves in the manner they deem fit without being told what to do, or how to act, or what to say. Their tired if it . They want to prove themselves on their own merits, succeed or fail. They just want to be treated like normal people. Not looked upon as different. WW2 is long gone, and they know it will be remembered but want to forget it as being a part of who they are today.
The film is called "Defamation: True Stories", produced and directed by an Israeli Film maker, Yoav Shamir.

The brainwashed Zionists and many Zionist brainwasher’s have what I call, "Zionist Anti-Semitic Paranoia Psychosis Disorder", and it’s Exposed by Israelis themselves. Many of those Zionists without the disease know exactly what they are doing like Abe Foxman.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion outline the game plan.
The biggest Mind F*ck in history.

This documentary exposes the Zionist scam just like Climategate exposed the man-made global warming scam. This psychosis, which I believe can be clinically documented, is a form of insanity and is on a parallel plane with AGW beliefs.

For those of you who don't know what the word Zionist means, Zionism is a movement to establish a Jewish homeland. They already did that, the country is called Israel, what more do they want?

Fed dodges bullet as House drops audit idea

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve scored a political victory on Wednesday as Democrats mulling financial reform backed off measures that would expose monetary policy to audits and make the head of the New York Fed a political appointee.

The U.S. House of Representatives had approved a bill in December that included a provision, championed by Texas Representative Ron Paul, that would have opened the Fed's interest rate policy to congressional audits.

But in a statement on Tuesday, House Democrats participating in negotiations over a final financial reform bill signaled a willingness to live with a narrower Senate audit provision that does not cover monetary policy.

"Many politicians wanted to extract a pound of flesh from the Fed," said Eric Lascelles, chief economics and rates strategist at TD Securities. "That seems to be cooling off now."

The Fed, which has admitted it was too complacent about regulatory oversight in the run-up to the global financial crisis, has come under heavy fire for being too close to the banks it regulates.

The House Democrats also said they would try to defeat a plan contained in the Senate bill under debate that would allow the U.S. president to name the head of the New York Fed, a step that Fed officials have argued would undercut the central bank's political independence.

"It is disappointing to see both the removal of the provision about the president picking the New York Fed president and also the prohibition of bank employees serving as Fed presidents," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "This would have been a big change toward taking away the banks' control over the Fed."

The U.S. central bank appears to be emerging largely unscathed by the regulatory reform efforts. It successfully fought off a Senate push last month that would have stripped it of its oversight of smaller banks, and is poised to emerge as the most powerful financial regulator when reforms are complete.

In the wake of the worst financial meltdown in generations, the U.S. Congress is seeking to put in place reforms to ward off future crises. House and Senate negotiators are set to take up provisions on Fed governance and audits on Wednesday.

The shift by House Democrats was not an unequivocal win for the Fed. Their counteroffer looks to broaden a proposal for a one-time Fed audit contained in the Senate bill that would focus narrowly on the Fed's emergency lending during the financial crisis.

House Democrats want to widen the audit to cover regular discount window lending and open market transactions, and require the Fed to publicly disclose details on these operations on an ongoing basis, albeit with a three-year lag.

Still, the push points to successful lobbying efforts by both the Fed and the financial sector, which firmly backs the U.S. central bank. Influential industry groups wrote to the Senate Banking Committee in March pleading for the Fed to retain its supervisory responsibilities.

In place of the Senate measure that would allow the president to appoint the head of the New York Fed, House Democratic negotiators said they favor a provision that would prevent the regional Fed bank directors who come from the financial sector from having a say on who will head their regional Fed bank.

That move is an attempt to ensure conflicts of interest do not arise with bankers essentially picking their regulator. The Fed had been quietly pushing for a compromise along these lines.

The dissolution of Paul's wider Fed audit provision comforted investors who had worried that greater political influence could weaken the central bank's resolve to fight inflation in the future.

"Anything that makes the Federal Reserve more political or subject to political review is I think a step backwards," said Charles Lieberman, chief investment officer for money management firm Advisors Capital Management and a former New York Fed official.

Both the Fed's Washington-based Board of Governors and the New York Fed declined to comment on the latest congressional maneuvering.

Waking America From the BP Nightmare

57 days ago, in the dead of night, the worst environmental nightmare in U.S. history began.

The spill cam, requested by Congress, has brought the horror into homes across the country, as we watch tens of thousands of barrels of oil billowing into the Gulf every day.

For years, the oil industry swore this could never happen. We were told that technology had advanced, that offshore drilling was safe.

BP said they didn't think the rig would sink. It did.

They said they could handle an Exxon Valdez-sized spill every day. They couldn't.

BP said the spill was 1,000 barrels per day. It wasn't. And they knew it.

Now the other big oil companies, testifying in Congress today, contend that this was an isolated incident. They say a similar disaster could never happen to them.

And yet it is this kind of Blind Faith -- which is ironically the name of an actual rig in the Gulf -- that has led to this kind of disaster.

In preparation for this hearing, Congress reviewed the oil spill safety response plans for all the top five oil companies.

What we found was that Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP have response plans that are virtually identical. The plans cite identical response capabilities and tout identical ineffective equipment. In some cases, they use the exact same words and made the exact same assurances.

The covers of the five response plans are different colors, but the content is ninety percent identical.

2010-06-15-OilCoPlanCovers.jpg

Like BP, three other companies include references to protecting walruses, which have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years.

Two other plans are such dead ringers for BP's that they list a phone number for the same expert - a man who has been dead since 2005.

The American people deserve oil safety plans that are ironclad and not boilerplate.

We now know the oil industry, and the government agency tasked with regulating them, determined that there was a zero chance that this kind of undersea disaster could ever happen.

When you believe that there is zero chance of a disaster happening, you do zero disaster planning. And the oil industry has invested nearly zero time and money into developing safety and response efforts.

The oil companies amassed nearly $289 billion dollars in profits over the last three years. They spent $39 billion to explore for new oil and gas.

Yet the average investment in research and development for safety, accident prevention, and spill response was a paltry $20 million per year, less than one-tenth of one percent of their profits.

2010-06-15-oilCompanyProfitsV1.jpg

The oil companies may think its fine to produce carbon copies of their safety plans, but the American people expect and deserve more. It is time to expect more from the oil industry. And that needs to start today.

First, Congress must ensure that there is unlimited liability for oil spills by oil companies. While we try to cap this well, we must lift the cap on oil industry liability.

Second, Congress must also enact wide-ranging safety reforms for offshore drilling. If oil companies are going to pursue ultra-deep drilling, we must ensure that it is ultra-safe and that companies can respond ultra-fast.

Third, the free ride is over. Oil companies need to pay their fair share to drill on public land. Right now every single one of the companies here today and dozens of others are drilling for free in the Gulf of Mexico on leases that will cost American taxpayers more than $50 billion dollars in lost royalties.

Fourth, we must ensure that new technologies are developed for capping wells, boosting safety and cleaning up spills. I will soon introduce the Oil SOS Act to go along with the SURF fund to ensure that we have 21st century technologies in place for 21st century drilling risks.

And finally, America must move to a safer clean energy future so that we don't have to rely as much on oil to power our cars and our economy. The House has acted, passing the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy & Security Act. Every day we delay action, Chinese moves ahead in wind technology. The Germans create more solar jobs. Worst of all, American consumers send half a billion dollars a day to OPEC and countries that wish us harm.

In overwhelming numbers, the American people are ready to start working our way to a clean energy future. They want to wake up from BP's oil spill nightmare to a future powered by clean, safe energy solutions.

Allegations of credit card fraud by county employees referred to prosecutors [Updated]

The head of Los Angeles County’s beleaguered Probation Department said late Tuesday that he has referred allegations of credit card fraud by his employees -- who county auditors said made numerous unauthorized purchases with store credit cards issued in the department’s name -- to the district attorney’s office.

[Updated at 8:06 a.m.: An earlier version of this post misidentified County Auditor-Controller Wendy Watanabe as Wendy Greuel.]

Probation Chief Donald H. Blevins said he was notified Monday about the preliminary audit findings, first made public by Times columnist Steve Lopez. Blevins said the audit covered late 2007 to 2009 under the administration of his predecessor, Robert Taylor, who retired earlier this year.

Blevins said he believed the audit findings could amount to “criminal activity” and immediately referred them to the prosecutors.

“Essentially, you’ve got staff that ordered things that disappeared,” he said. “There appears to be very little oversight in this department when it comes to these things and kind of a lackadaisical attitude about, ‘Hey, it’s county money -- we can do with it what we want.’”

The latest news of alleged misspending by probation employees comes as department officials are still struggling to account for $79.5 million in county funding intended to improve juvenile halls, camps and management under a 2004 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

An e-mail summary of the audit, reviewed by The Times, includes numerous findings by Los Angeles County Auditor-Controller Wendy Watanabe's office, including:

* Probation employees obtained store credit cards in the department’s name from Best Buy, Home Depot, Sears and other stores, then used the cards to make non-emergency purchases -- lawn mowers, barbecues, LCD televisions, Sony PlayStations, DVD players and video games. Some of the purchases were not approved by supervisors, could not be located or were never used. Of nine PlayStations, six were missing, as well as 90% of the video games, according to the summary. After auditors notified the county, the cards were canceled.

* Probation staff failed to get required price quotes and approval for purchases, failed to justify sole-source suppliers and split purchases.

* Staff failed to track purchases by matching requisitions, invoices and packing slips before making payments. Out of a sample of invoices, 25% were not paid within a month.

* Staff kept such poor records and inventory control of food at some of the county’s 18 juvenile probation camps, that at one camp monthly food costs reached $210 per youth, more than double the cost at other camps.

Blevins said the final audit will probably be released to the County Board of Supervisors within a few weeks.

He said he asked an internal affairs investigator to look into the allegations and report back in a month. Based on that report, department officials will decide whether to discipline staff, he said.

The auditors' findings came a week after the Office of Independent Review, acting at the behest of county supervisors, issued a scathing report on the failure of probation’s internal investigations.

Blevins said he has assigned a top investigator from his department to spend the next month exclusively looking into the audit findings of financial impropriety.

Already, Blevins said he has centralized procurement and, under the new practice, has one official at headquarters who now approves purchases made only by designated staff at each of the 21 juvenile probation camps and halls.

Blevins said he made those changes, as well as additional inventory controls, “so these things don’t disappear out the back door.”

County Chief Executive William T Fujioka said his staff was reviewing the allegations in the audit. He said, “if necessary” he may bring in investigators from the district attorney’s office or the Sheriff’s Department.

“If it’s true,” Fujioka said of the initial findings, “it’s absolutely unacceptable and we’re going to get to the bottom of it.”

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Death Rain? Blackberry Plants Dying In Panama City, FL

The rose bush from last night after the rain...
Here are more pics of the yard today...
My 11 year old is devastated. She has been growing wild blackberrys since she was 5 or 6. This patch started as a few plants allowed to grow wild which now covers most of our land and allows for many snacks and pancakes and muffins. This years crop is destroyed!
The berries have turned BROWN...the same as the rest of the plants ....
I took this close up so you can see the 'stain' spreading along the veins in the leaves. This doesn't show how the plants are dying internally as they process the rain....
And, lastly, poor Mr Rosebush by light of day. He is definitely dying...
______________________
I have black berries here at my home.
Let me go out there and see if the same thing is happening...
Here are some shots of my blackberries...
Yet a fig tree nearby looks perfect...so far....

Two Consequences of the Stimulus Programs Washington Wants You to Ignore!

Over the past two years, we’ve seen the largest stimulus policies the world has ever produced.

As a result, sovereign debt and central banks’ balance sheet holdings have gone through the roof!

A glance at the monetary base chart below shows how extraordinary these policy measures have been in the U.S.

Board of Governers Chart

When a government and its central bank throw hundreds of billions in taxpayers’ dollars at the financial markets and the economy you’ll definitely see …

Desired and Undesired Consequences …

The official desired short-term consequences include the huge stock market rally off the March 2009 lows and the economic rebound since mid-2009.

On the other hand, the undesired, longer-term consequences will often be swept under the rug by short-sighted politicians and central banks.

So today I want to focus on two of those undesired consequences, ones Washington wants you to ignore:

Undesired Consequence #1— The Unstable Economy

The stock market rally since March 2009 has indeed been impressive. But according to many measures the economic rebound has been extremely weak …

The easiest way to understand how weak this recovery has been is to look at the work of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Founded in 1920, the NBER is the nation’s leading nonprofit, economic research organization dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. And it is the official arbiter of recessions in the U.S. — giving notice when their researchers determine a recession has begun and when it has finally ended.

The number of jobs in the U.S. hasn't increased in 10 years.
The number of jobs in the U.S. hasn’t increased in 10 years.

And as recently as yesterday, the NBER has NOT declared an end to the recession that started in December 2007.

Especially troubling is the labor market …

According to the Federal Reserve, the number of working Americans isn’t any higher today than it was 10 years ago! Since Census figures show the U.S. population is growing by 2 to 3 million every year, this stagnation in job growth is a giant roadblock for an economy struggling to dig out of a recession.

Undesired Consequence #2— Weakening Financial Indicators

At the same time some important leading economic indicators have begun to roll over again. The most obvious is the stock market, which has declined more than what is considered a normal 10 percent correction since its April high.

This has to be rated as an ominous sign.

Then the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) started to turn down in April. The year-over-year percentage change declined to 10.2 percent from 11.5 percent.

This reading is still far from a recession warning. But it may very well be the turning point for this cycle. And history shows the LEI can decline very quickly after the turnaround is in.

Finally, there is the Economic Cycle Research Institute’s (ECRI) Weekly Leading Index, another major leading indicator. It has just fallen to minus 3.5 percent — the lowest level in the last 10 months.

I’ve marked this level with a red horizontal line in the following chart. If it keeps falling, even by a little bit in the coming weeks, its message will be loud and clear: Double dip recession ahead!

Index GPOChart

As the Stimulus Fades the Economy Loses Steam

I’ve just given you some of the early, but usually reliable, signs of a deteriorating economy. But you shouldn’t be surprised about this sad development. The fact is, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem, the economy isn’t getting any traction. Nor has it entered a self-sustaining recovery.

The economic rebound we’ve seen in the past months is just the short-term reaction to the unprecedented stimulus programs. And as the stimulus money fades away, so does the economic recovery — and so does the stock market rally.

Best wishes,

Claus

Fannie Mae Proposes Bulldozing U.S. Homes

As the collapse of the U.S. housing sector worsened in 2008, and the precise nature of this supply-driven bubble became apparent, I laid out a very specific “blueprint” for putting a genuine “bottom” in this market.


The U.S. government needed to commit $1 - $2 trillion paying-down the mortgage balances of U.S. homeowners, in order to restore some badly-needed equity for these homeowners, which in turn, would provide some stability to the U.S. housing market – by eliminating most/all “underwater” mortgages, and thus ending the incentive to “walk away” from these mortgages.


By 2009, with the U.S. government having done nothing to mitigate this collapse and U.S. homeowners having lost much more equity, I raised the necessary government ante to $3 trillion: enough to pay-down mortgage balances by roughly 20% (only a small fraction of the $10 trillion used to bail-out Wall Street). But there was a second structural problem in the U.S. housing market which I identified: a supply-glut which could only be “fixed” by bulldozing vast numbers of homes.


Not only was there a gross excess of total housing inventory, but the bubble-driven insanity had resulted in the construction of vast numbers of homes in totally impractical locations: the “exurbs”. These were new housing (and population) enclaves which were springing up so far from major population (and employment) centers that they couldn't even be classified as “suburbs”.


In February of 2009, I wrote a piece which I referred to as a “case study” of the U.S. housing collapse: the town of Merced, California. Merced was located 110 miles southeast of San Francisco, the nearest employment center, and thus the average length of commute facing Merced residents. If such housing developments were ever viable, it would only be in a world of cheap oil. That world no longer exists.


Given this reality, I reiterated my position that the U.S. government would have to demand that at least 1million of these homes be bulldozed. This would solve two problems. It would eliminate housing units which would likely never be sold and remedy the problem of overall excess supply, where there are currently somewhere around 20 million empty homes in the U.S. (and an even greater number of “underwater” mortgages).


The problem with this solution is that the U.S. banks holding these mortgages – and holding trillions of dollars of leveraged housing-derivatives would have to take virtually 100% write-downs on these units. While the U.S.'s “mark to fantasy” accounting rules allow U.S. banks to maintain totally fictitious valuations on U.S. housing units (and their derivatives) as long as the homes are still intact, that would not be the case once they were razed to the ground.


In the efforts by U.S. banks to maintain fictitious valuations on U.S. homes, and to create the artificial appearance of a “bottom” in the U.S. housing market, U.S. banks have been holding vast numbers of “REO” homes off of the market. Part of this game is being played by U.S. banks dragging their heels on foreclosure proceedings – which has been aided by the sheer quantity of defaulting mortgages: enough to totally clog-up the court systems of many U.S. states. In Florida alone, there is a backlog of more than 500,000 foreclosures, with only a trickle of those homes actually reaching the market.


Even after U.S. banks take possession of homes, they frequently simply hold those homes off the market – to allow the propaganda-machine to distribute fictitious numbers for U.S. “housing inventories”. This is especially true with high-end homes, where for the first time in U.S. housing history, mortgage-defaults of expensive U.S. homes are comparable with the rates of defaults for lower-end homes. The difference being that buyers are more likely for those low-price homes.


With this “shadow inventory” of unsold/unlisted U.S. homes totaling somewhere between 5 million and 10 million units, another wave of foreclosures/defaults is about to explode upon this market – as millions of the infamous “option-ARM” mortgages will be resetting over the next 2 years, with a large chunk of those millions of units representing certain defaults.


For those still not familiar with this terminology, an “option-ARM” is an “adjustable rate mortgage” which also allowed reckless borrowers to not only pay no principle during the “teaser period” before these mortgages reset, but they even allowed borrowers to pay less than 100% of interest with that unpaid interest being added to the principal. Thus, for many borrowers, when these mortgages reset they will face a triple-shock to their budgets: first the interest rates will rise on most of these mortgages, secondly all that additional principal would now be factored-into their new payments, and lastly they would now have to make full payments on these mortgages.


For some homeowners, they will now be forced to make payments of up to three to five times their current, partial-payments. What makes this upcoming crisis truly horrifying to anyone foolish enough to venture into the U.S. housing market is that over 40% of these option-holders have been making minimum payments (or less) on these mortgages, and virtually 100% of those mortgages are certain to default.


The combination of the massive “shadow inventory” of U.S. homes and the new tidal wave of defaults about to hit the U.S. market means that the U.S. housing market is about to suffer a second, worse collapse. With U.S. housing valuations still grossly inflated in relation to income/wealth levels, and with the total “equity” held by U.S. homeowners continuing to shrink, the next collapse in the U.S. housing sector will either be even steeper than the first collapse (which was three times as bad as the worst year of the Great Depression), or this next collapse will simply grind on much, much longer (a more likely scenario).


As regular readers already know, this next collapse in the U.S. housing market will also be severely aggravated by two, other factors. First, in an effort to create a
second U.S. housing-bubble, most of the new mortgages written-up by government fraud-factories in 2009 had zero down-payments. This means that none of these homeowners has any equity in these homes and (with U.S. house prices now falling again) these homeowners are virtually all “underwater” on their new mortgages.


With these new 'homeowners' (who actually “own” nothing) having no equity in these homes, and having just started making payments, these new buyers will be even more likely to default, or simply walk away than the U.S. homeowners who already were defaulting/walking-away in the largest numbers in history.


Secondly, with the pensions of spendthrift baby-boomers grossly underfunded (by as much as $3 trillion), there is zero possibility of these retirees collecting full pensions. This will necessitate that baby-boomers dump trillions of dollars more real estate onto this grossly over-supplied market, or they will have to drastically reduce their standards of living (and consumer-spending) – or some combination of the two. Both of these developments will have a severe (negative)impact on the U.S. housing market – with the only difference being that one will impact the market directly (dumping real estate) and one will impact the market indirectly (reducing spending, which reduces employment).


With the U.S. government and the U.S. propaganda-machine no longer able to pretend that there is a “bottom” in this market, we are finally seeing glimmers of reality seep into the reporting of this upcoming crisis.


Recently, the “chief economist” for Fannie Mae bluntly stated the obvious: some of these absurd developments “might have to be torn down”. The reality is that most of these “exurb” housing units will have to be torn down – along with some of the worst areas of “urban blight” in the U.S. In many of the most economically devastated U.S. cities, the combinations of waves of foreclosures, crime, and a lack of city funding for basic maintenance have left vast tracts of U.S. cities looking like Baghdad – during the worst of the U.S.'s Iraq-invasion.


The Fannie Mae executive offered no specifics or ideas of any kind on how many units would have to be destroyed, and (naturally) left open who would absorb the massive bank-losses on these demolitions. Obviously, as a fellow-bankster the Fannie Mae official didn't think that Wall Street would or should absorb any of its own losses (isn't that what the Federal Reserve's printing-press is for?).


In the real world, as I have mentioned in previous commentaries, this demolition process has already begun. Some new housing developments have already been quietly bulldozed, while at least one U.S. city is already deeply into planning mass-demolitions of entire neighbourhoods. These were realities which totally contradicted the mythical “U.S. economic recovery”, and so were ignored by media propagandists and politicians alike.


Sadly, what Americans are about to discover is that instead of being more than one year into a “U.S. economic recovery” that (as a product of massive manipulation) they have merely been poised in the “eye” of an economic hurricane. This period of false-stability is over.


The pretend-bottom in the housing market is gone. The feeble wave of census-hiring is over. The flood of “stimulus dollars” has slowed to a trickle and bankrupt state and local governments will now either have to formally default – or radically slash spending and raise taxes to prevent such bankruptcies. When the government GSE's who bankroll 95% of U.S. mortgages start talking about demolishing homes, you know that “the party is over”.

Bad Economic News

It seems like almost everywhere you turn these days there is bad economic news. Foreclosures are setting records, unemployment remains depressingly high, poverty is exploding, U.S. government debt is wildly out of control and Europe is on the verge of an economic collapse that could send the entire globe into a devastating financial panic. If all that wasn't enough, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has destroyed the seafood and tourism industries along the Gulf coast and threatens to push that entire region into a depression for years to come. The truth is that the more you look at the economic statistics coming in from around the globe the more it becomes obvious that we are headed for a complete and total economic nightmare. (Read More....)

Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool Read more at the Washington Examiner:

As BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was sinking on April 22, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was on the phone with allies in his push for climate legislation, telling them he would soon roll out the Senate climate bill with the support of the utility industry and three oil companies — including BP, according to the Washington Post.

Kerry never got to have his photo op with BP chief executive Tony Hayward and other regulation-friendly corporate chieftains. Within days, Republican co-sponsor Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., repudiated the bill following a spat about immigration, and Democrats went back to the drawing board.

But the Kerry-BP alliance for an energy bill that included a cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases pokes a hole in a favorite claim of President Obama and his allies in the media — that BP’s lobbyists have fought fiercely to be left alone. Lobbying records show that BP is no free-market crusader, but instead a close friend of big government whenever it serves the company’s bottom line.

While BP has resisted some government interventions, it has lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.

Now that BP’s oil rig has caused the biggest environmental disaster in American history, the Left is pulling the same bogus trick it did with Enron and AIG: Whenever a company earns universal ire, declare it the poster boy for the free market.

As Democrats fight to advance climate change policies, they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance efforts: posing as the scourges of the special interests and tarring “reform” opponents as the stooges of big business.

Expect BP to be public enemy No. 1 in the climate debate.

There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.

In February, BP quit USCAP without giving much of a reason beyond saying the company could lobby more effectively on its own than in a coalition that is increasingly dominated by power companies. Theymade out particularly well in the House’s climate bill, while natural gas producers suffered.

But two months later, BP signed off on Kerry’s Senate climate bill, which was hardly a capitalist concoction. One provision BP explicitly backed, according to Congressional Quarterly and other media reports: a higher gas tax. The money would be earmarked for building more highways, thus inducing more driving and more gasoline consumption.

Elsewhere in the green arena, BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels and solar energy, two products that cannot break even without government support. Lobbying records show the company backing solar subsidies including federal funding for solar research. The U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency, is currently financing a BP solar energy project in Argentina.

Ex-Im has also put up taxpayer cash to finance construction of the 1,094-mile Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying oil from the Caspian Sea to Ceyhan, Turkey—again, profiting BP.

Lobbying records also show BP lobbying on Obama’s stimulus bill and Bush’s Wall Street bailout. You can guess the oil giant wasn’t in league with the Cato Institute or Ron Paul on those.

BP has more Democratic lobbyists than Republicans. It employs the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director and confidant. Other BP troops on K Street include Michael Berman, a former top aide to Vice President Walter Mondale; Steven Champlin, former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus; and Matthew LaRocco, who worked in Bill Clinton’s Interior Department and whose father was a Democratic congressman. Former Republican staffers, such as Reagan alumnus Ken Duberstein, also lobby for BP, but there’s no truth to Democratic portrayals of the oil company as
an arm of the GOP.

Two patterns have emerged during Obama’s presidency: 1) Big business increasingly seeks profits through more government, and 2) Obama nonetheless paints opponents of his intervention as industry shills. BP is just the latest example of this tawdry sleight of hand.

Once a government pet, BP now a capitalist tool.

Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's lobbying editor. His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.

Bank Run in Spain and Its Destabilizing Ramifications for the Entire EU

Spanish banks are borrowing record amounts from the European Central Bank.

According to FT, Spanish banks borrowed €85.6bn ($105.7bn) from the ECB last month. This was double the amount lent to them before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and 16.5 per cent of net eurozone loans offered by the central bank.

“If the suspicion that funding markets are being closed down to Spanish banks and corporations is correct, then you can reasonably expect the share of ECB liquidity accounted for by the country to have risen further this month,” said Nick Matthews, European economist at RBS.

Bottom line: This is nothing but a sign of a run on Spanish banks. They can't get funding in the markets and there is a steady withdrawal of funds from the banks. For all practical purposes, the ECB is supporting the Spanish banking system with life support measures. This means that the ECB will have to drain funds from elsewhere in the system to sterilize this rescue operation. Without sterilization the effort becomes very inflationary, with sterilization the effort distorts the entire EU economy. It's all destabilizing.

The only reasonable alternative is to allow the Spanish banks to go into bankruptcy and restructure.

8 House members investigated over fundraisers held near financial reform vote

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating eight lawmakers who held fundraisers within 48 hours of a major House vote on a Wall Street reform bill or received substantial donations from business people with a financial stake in the bill, according to congressional sources and letters.

This Story

The probe is focused on whether the timing of accepting the campaign checks created an unacceptable appearance of a conflict, according to sources familiar with the investigation and letters sent by the OCE to lobbyists requesting information. The OCE's spokesman declined to comment for this article, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.

The office is scrutinizing five Republicans and three Democrats, a diverse group that includes a conservative, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), and a liberal member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.).

Seven of the eight members held fundraisers for their reelection campaigns on Dec. 9 or Dec. 10 -- just before the House voted Dec. 11 in favor of a bill to make broad changes in how Wall Street and financial firms are regulated, according to a Washington Post analysis. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) held a "Finance Services luncheon" at the Capitol Hill Club on Dec. 10. On the same day, a lobby firm with financial clients, Davis & Harman, hosted a fundraising breakfast for Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) at its Pennsylvania Avenue offices.

Watt held a Dec. 9 fundraiser and soon after withdrew a proposal he had introduced to subject auto dealers to tougher regulations, according to congressional records. The fundraiser generated checks largely from finance groups, including Goldman Sachs and the Investment Company Institute. In an interview, Watt said he will answer the OCE's questions and declined to comment on the investigation.

The House ethics manual instructs members to steer away from accepting campaign donations if the timing creates an unacceptable appearance of a conflict of interest.

The other members under review are Republicans John Campbell of California, Frank D. Lucas of Oklahoma and Christopher Lee of New York and Democrat Joseph Crowley of New York.

Jamey Delaplane, partner at Davis & Harman and a former Pomeroy staff member, said his event for Pomeroy was planned seven weeks prior, when the timing of the House vote was not known. "Clearly, we had no sense this would coordinate in any way with the House financial services vote," he said.

Hensarling, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, did not have a formal fundraiser. But, according to letters, OCE investigators are asking about the 10-day period before the vote, when he raised at least $30,000 in cash from financial firms and their advocates for his leadership political action committee and campaign. "Congressman Hensarling categorically denies any implication of influence and looks forward to clearing up this false charge," spokesman George Rasley said.

Lucas and Price could not be reached for comment. Spokesmen for Campbell, Crowley and Pomeroy said the lawmakers complied with ethics rules and looked forward to a resolution of the OCE review. Lee's office declined to comment. The financial reform legislation is being worked out this week in a House-Senate conference.

Staff writer Paul Kane and research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

"Lure People Into That Calm and Then Just Totally F--k 'Em": How All of Us Pay for the Derivatives Market

For the Wall Street reform package currently making its way through Congress to work, it has to accomplish two broad goals: It must take a huge bite out of banking profits and end the too-big-to-fail oligopoly that encourages megabanks to take megarisks and stick taxpayers with the tab. Neither of these goals can be accomplished without taking on derivatives -- the wild, unregulated market that brought down AIG. Right now, the U.S. government pays big banks for operating derivatives casinos. If we're going to clean up the derivatives mess, we have to move taxpayer money out of the market.

"The dirty little secret here is that the American government has been subsidizing the derivatives market through the Fed and other avenues since its inception," says Adam White, director of research for White Knight Research and Trading. "That's crazy."

What kind of business is the American taxpayer subsidizing? One with a history of deception and abuse that dates back to its earliest years. Back in 1993 when derivatives casino was first getting off the ground, a Wall Street titan called Bankers Trust Co. sold a derivatives package to drug and chemical giant Procter & Gamble. At the time, Bankers Trust was a powerful, well-respected financial player, which was how it scored big-time clients like P&G. But P&G ultimately took a huge loss on the deal with Bankers Trust, and took the bank to court, where it obtained more than 6,500 tape recordings of horrific derivatives strategizing.

The public release of those tapes was not enough to compel Congress to actually do anything as a matter of public policy, but it was more than sufficient to utterly ruin Bankers Trust. One quote from the tapes, in particular, has become infamous among the nation's financial establishment, but remains obscure to the general public. It's a Bankers Trust salesman, describing the Procter & Gamble deal:

"Funny business you know? Lure people into that calm and then just totally fuck 'em."

To this day, such techniques remain a central part of the derivatives business, as the SEC's recent fraud suit against Goldman Sachs has made clear. These operations are ugly enough as purely private-sector enterprises. But the real disgrace is that ordinary taxpayers are actually helping to fund it. That taxpayer payout, in turn, creates market distortions that encourage fraud, abuse and bailouts.

"In the fall of 2008, when the derivatives market-making of the five big banks lead to a systemic catastrophe, the banks all proudly walked back to the Fed window to get assistance to prop up their derivatives market-making," says Michael Greenberger, who served as the chief deputy to Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Brooksley Born during her unsuccessful attempt to rein in the derivatives market in 1998. "The central question is whether we want this to be part of the basic business of derivatives. That seems insane."

As the Wall Street reform bill moves into its final stage of negotiations, the only proposal still on the table that would actually move taxpayer money out of the derivatives sinkhole comes from the unlikely source of Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., a career corporatist who has never shown much interest in regulating anything. But it's a whopper of a proposal, one that comes free of any loopholes and goes straight to the heart of Wall Street's bubble machine.

Fannie, Freddie to scrap NYSE stock listings

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - In another sign of the firms' financial disintegration, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the giant mortgage finance companies operating in government conservatorship, said Wednesday they are delisting their common and preferred stocks from the New York Stock Exchange.

Freddie /quotes/comstock/13*!fre/quotes/nls/fre (FRE 0.75, -0.47, -38.28%) said in a press release that, "this notice was made pursuant to a directive by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Freddie Mac's conservator, requiring Freddie Mac to delist its common and preferred securities from the NYSE."

According to a press release by FHFA, the agency issued similar directives to both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae /quotes/comstock/13*!fnm/quotes/nls/fnm (FNM 0.56, -0.36, -39.15%) .

Freddie said it expects its shares to trade in the over-the-counter bulletin board market after the delisting. The delisting should occur around July 8, the firm said.

Shortly after Freddie's announcement, Fannie Mae said that it too is delisting its common and preferred shares from the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Stock Exchange after being told to take the move by its regulator.

Shares of both firms fell about 40% Wednesday.

The U.S. government established Fannie Mae in 1938 to make mortgages more available to low income families. In 1979, the government created Freddie Mac, to expand the market for mortgages in the country.

Both firms were put into government conservatorship in September 2008, after the U.S. housing market collapsed, triggering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Greg Morcroft is MarketWatch's financial editor in New York.

Controversial energy economist: BP disaster could last for "years and years"

From The Market Oracle:

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe.

Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that...

Read full article...

Gulf Oil Spill Crisis: When Will It Be the Time to Bug Out?

Click this link ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lye-AYsIMZ4

Obama’s Oval Office speech: A cowardly cover-up of BP’s crimes

President Obama’s Oval Office speech Tuesday night on the Gulf oil disaster was a cowardly exercise in evasion and cover-up that could have been written by the publicity department of BP.

The 18-minute speech, coming on the 57th day of the worst environmental catastrophe in US history, provided no concrete assessment of the causes of the oil spill or the dimensions of the crisis—in terms of damage either to the ecosystem or the economy.

The speech represented a complete capitulation to BP and corporate power. Anyone who expected that Obama would use the occasion to provide the American people with an honest accounting of the disaster and the culpability of BP had to be sorely disappointed.

Given only hours before a scheduled White House meeting with top BP executives, the speech made absolutely clear that the Obama administration takes its marching orders from the corporate-financial oligarchy. In his response to the Gulf disaster, Obama has adopted the same approach as he did to the criminal actions of Wall Street that threw the US and the world into the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. No one is to be held accountable and nothing is to be done that challenges the basic interests of the financial aristocracy.

In his speech, Obama made no clear condemnation of BP’s actions, either before or after the April 20 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that took the lives of 11 workers and sent millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

He made no mention of the latest shocking revelations of BP’s systematic violations of safety procedures in the run-up to the explosion that sank the rig—violations that were part of the company’s policy of cutting corners in order to save time and money and boost profits.

He did not even note the new estimates released that day by government scientists placing the oil flow rate at 35,000 to 60,000 gallons a day—the latest evidence of BP’s consistent policy of lying about the crisis.

Nor was there any mention of a criminal investigation into BP—something that was floated two weeks ago by the administration and has since been dropped.

Obama devoted exactly four short sentences and less than a minute to the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, omitting anything that could be damaging to BP. For example, he failed to note that the company’s blowout preventer, supposedly the failsafe barrier against an oil gusher, failed to operate.

“Because there has never been a leak this size at this depth,” he continued, “stopping it has tested the limits of human technology.”

This is a miserable and dishonest attempt to place the disaster outside of any direct responsibility on the part of BP. The issue is not the supposed limits of human technology, but the fact that BP had no plan in place to deal with a blowout.

Obama proceeded to tout his desultory and incompetent response to the spill, stating, “As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology. And in the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that’s expected to stop the leak completely.”

Where did the figure of 90 percent containment come from? From BP!

Obama presented the claims of the company, including full stoppage of the leak by late summer, as though they were to be trusted. This is after BP has given incorrect and false information from day one of the disaster—information which Obama and his subordinates have uncritically accepted and passed on to the public.

Obama was silent on BP’s record of deceit—beginning with its claim after April 20 that there was no oil leak, followed by its fraudulent estimates of 1,000 barrels a day and then 5,000 barrels. Nor did he mention the company’s defiance of the Environmental Protection Agency’s call for it to stop pumping the toxic oil dispersant Corexit into the Gulf. Or its policy of blocking the media from gaining access to polluted beaches and marshlands.

As his speech made clear, the administration will continue to disseminate BP’s lies.

“But make no mistake,” Obama said, “We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got and for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.”

These are generalities that one could drive a truck through. This is a disaster whose total costs in economic and environmental destruction rise to the hundreds of billions and even trillions of dollars. But Obama was careful to give no figures for the cost of the oil blowout to date, the projected losses to the tourism and fishing industries, the hundreds of thousands of jobs wiped out—rendering his pledge to “make BP pay” and “do whatever’s necessary” empty and without any credibility.

“Because of our efforts,” Obama boasted, “millions of gallons of oil have already been removed from the water through burning, skimming and other collection methods. Over five-and-a-half million feet of boom has been laid across the water to block and absorb the approaching oil.”

This hyping of what is universally seen as an incompetent, disorganized and wholly inadequate response by the government and BP is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. The very morning of Obama’s speech, the New York Times published a lengthy front-page article under the headline: “Efforts to Repel Gulf Spill Are Described as Chaotic.”

Obama went on to assure the victims of the Gulf spill, “As the cleanup continues, we will offer whatever additional resources and assistance our coastal states may need… But we have to recognize that despite our best efforts, oil has already caused damage to our coastline and its wildlife. And sadly, no matter how effective our response is, there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done. That’s why the second thing we’re focused on is the recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast.”

Again, the vaguest of generalities, which are belied by the refusal of the government to allocate to date anything near the needed resources or take any action that challenges BP’s property and profits. To seriously approach the “recovery and restoration” of the Gulf Coast would require the seizure of BP’s assets and the nationalization of the oil industry under the democratic control of the working population.

“Tomorrow,” Obama declared, “I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of the company’s recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent third party.”

Again—no numbers! “Whatever resources are required” is a generality that can be twisted to suit the needs of whoever is calling the shots, and despite Obama’s talk of an “independent third party” to administer a compensation fund, those setting policy will be BP, the oil industry as a whole, and Wall Street.

Likewise the phrase “all legitimate claims.” Who is to determine which claims are legitimate? This is a formula for denying adequate compensation to tens of thousands of workers whose jobs are being wiped out by the Gulf disaster.

“The third part of our response plan,” Obama continued, “is the steps we’re taking to ensure that a disaster like this does not happen again. A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe—that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions taken.

“That obviously was not the case in the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why… And so I’ve established a National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place.”

Obama’s promise to “ensure that a disaster like this does not happen again” lacks any credibility. As does his pose of bewilderment as to the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

By now a mountain of facts have emerged proving that the cause of the explosion was the company’s disregard for safety, driven by its drive for profit. And it is well established that the government, including under Obama, facilitated this by allowing the company to regulate itself.

Given the servile defense of corporate profiteering by the administration, both political parties and all branches and levels of the government, there is no doubt that the conditions for further disasters in the future will continue to prevail.

Indeed, the real mandate of the National Commission (which is co-chaired by a board member of Conoco-Phillips), as indicated previously by Obama himself is to quickly come up with a proposal for token safety improvements so as to resume deep-water drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere.

Obama repeated his mantra of “coming together” as a nation—“workers and entrepreneurs, scientists and citizens, the public and private sectors.” In other words, mounting no popular opposition to the corporate criminals and holding none of them accountable for their crimes.

In a final insult to the intelligence of the American people, he dragged in God at the end of his remarks, declaring that “we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day.”

Obama’s performance was the speech of an individual and a government that are under the thumb of BP and the corporate-financial elite as a whole. It reeked of servility and cowardice before big business and contempt for the public.

It made clear that nothing will be done to compensate the vast majority of workers and small businessmen whose jobs and livelihoods are being wiped out by the Gulf spill.

The speech was part of a three-day public relations campaign, including a two-day tour of the Gulf and Wednesday’s White House meeting with BP’s chairman and CEO, designed to cover up the preparations for a filthy deal with BP. That deal will likely include a temporary delay by BP in paying out billions in shareholder dividends and the setting up of an escrow fund that will limit the company’s liabilities to a small fraction of the real cost of the disaster for which it is responsible.

THE SHORT FILM BP DOESN'T WANT YOU TO SEE.

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRl6-o8CpXA

Simmons Says Nuclear Device Only Option to Stop Oil Leak: Video

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2u4_QSblo

Simmons Says Nuclear Device Only Option to Stop Oil Flow

Click this link ..... http://tinyurl.com/2f654h3

Pres Obama Oval Office Speech On Gulf Oil Catastrophe pt.1

Click this link ....... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfbt_zLYzp8&feature=player_embedded

Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill 1/9

Click this link ..... http://tinyurl.com/2dntdfl